Also on the news tonight is word that the US has identified and was preparing to strike a chemical warfare manufacturing and testing facility. The chemical is a deadly poison made from castor beans and was tested on animals and one human. The plant was an Al Quada associated one and the military was preparing to take it out but Bush called it off saying it was too small to worry about. Turns out it's in Northern Iraq in a part not controled by Saddam, but by the Kurds, our allies. I thought we were going to smoke um out wherever we found um. It was reported also that the information was leaked by the military in its ongoing efforts to stime the Bush's cowboy approach in Iraq. Will be interesting to see hard copy reports of this story. Don't know the sources quoted on the radio. Got a link?
Chemical warfare factory and test facility found in Iraq.
- Thread starter Moonbeam
- Start date
- W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 20 ? The CIA and the Pentagon began planning a covert operation into Northern Iraq to destroy what appeared to be a budding chemical weapons laboratory several weeks ago, but late last week, the president called it off, sources told ABCNEWS.
U.S. forces had been monitoring a small group of al Qaeda operatives for weeks as they experimented with poison gas and deadly toxins ? killing barnyard animals and at least one human, sources told ABCNEWS.
Intelligence sources say the al Qaeda operatives were under the protection of a small radical Kurdish group called Ansar al Islam. Officials say there is no evidence Saddam Hussein's government had any knowledge of their activities.
Most of the experiments, sources say, involved the poison ricin, a by-product of the widely available castor bean plant.
"It is quite toxic, probably seven times more toxic than phosgene which was a chemical weapon used in World War I," said Jonathan Tucker of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Tucker is the director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Institute.
As a potential weapon of terror, ricin is considered most deadly in a closed room or building, where nearly everyone could die.
"There is currently no treatment and no vaccine for ricin exposure," said Tucker.
Intelligence sources tell ABCNEWS there is evidence the terrorists tested ricin in water, as a powder and as an aerosol. They used it to kill donkeys and chickens, and at one point, the terrorists allegedly exposed a man to the toxin in an Iraqi market.
They then followed him home and watched him die several days later.
As U.S. surveillance intensified, officials concluded the operation was so small and crude that in the final analysis, it was not worth risking American lives to go after it ? and also not worth the outcry that might follow any U.S. operation inside Iraq.
As part of this operation, intelligence analysts discovered that al Qaeda money was again flowing, that new people had stepped in to manage and encourage far flung projects like this one ? offering glimpses of a terrorist network trying to put itself back together again.
How does this have anything to do with the topic on hand?
Moonbeam you are a real piece or work. You call Bush a cowboy when he shows some restraint and ask us for a link to a rumor you report.
What do you call somebody who has a ranch in Texas if not a cowboy, a socialite? Anyway it wasn't me calling Bush a cowboy it was what was reported on the radio and the reason I wanted a link was because i didn't have one and I figured somebody elso might have run in to the story in hard copy. I hope you can see how nice it is to read at least the main portion of the story formally. And what's this crap about restraint, hypocracy? We were going to smoke um out of their holes, remember, persue them to the ends of the earth, they will have no place to hide. Restraint my ass. There is no such thing in politics, there are only political calculations, constraint. Imagine if the Al Quada plant, making a gallon of ant poison a day was supported by Saddam. It would be nuclear war, right? 
Kadarin
Lifer
- Nov 23, 2001
- 44,296
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"Not worth risking American lives"? If it's that small, a 2000lb JDAM ought to have taken care of it quite handily. It seems to me that an Al-Quaida run chemical weapons plant is definitely NOT something you show restraint about.
1. It's within Iraq, and violates the terms of the cease-fire at the end of Desert Storm.
2. It's run by Al-Quaida, an organization with whom we're at war.
What's the problem? Take them out!
1. It's within Iraq, and violates the terms of the cease-fire at the end of Desert Storm.
2. It's run by Al-Quaida, an organization with whom we're at war.
What's the problem? Take them out!
Moonie, could be they're set to fry a few bigger fish and if they're going to spend their political pennies, this isn't worth it.
Could be jj, Maybe somebody should be asking Bush. The article I heard indicated that it was the Army trying to stop the administration, basically four people from a very bad policy idea, going to war in Iraq.
Oh who cares, it's just a little chemical weapons right?
Who's ever been hurt by chem....oh wait....
Who's ever been hurt by chem....oh wait....
I can see the Kurds wanting to take out Saddam, but Al Queda? Why the heck would Al Queda want to take out probably one of their biggest financial sources?
Saddam Hussein is not a backer, friend, ally, or even moderately tolerant of Al Qaeda. There is no evidence of that. Al Qaeda considers Saddam a heretic and would love to wipe him out. I don't know where people are getting this idea that Saddam and Al Qaeda are linked. Saddam Hussein is a ruthless, cunning dictator who wants to keep his secular regime in power in Iraq at all costs. Al Qaeda is a ruthless global organization that wants to replace secular Arab Regimes, and indeed any secular regime in an Islamic country with a religious one. The two are opposed.
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