WMD slam dunk never reported

By Jim Simpson

I may have linked to the following article before and have simply forgotten, but it summarizes the true story behind Saddam's WMD program and how it was hidden from U.S. inspectors.

This is old news, but I remain incredibly frustrated by it. It is worth reviewing today if only as a defiant stick in the eye to remind the Left that we weren't all fooled.

With the complicity of allies in the bureaucracy, the mass media/Leftist/Democrat alliance relentlessly promoted the myth that no weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological and chemical) existed in Iraq to justify invasion, to the point where today it is accepted as fact.

But it is a patent fraud made all the more infuriating because these same people who promoted it knew the truth. Indeed many of them publicly demanded Saddam divest himself of WMD right up to the moment we invaded, and had we not done so, would have certainly accused Bush and the Republicans of weakness.

Ken Timmerman's 2006 article, Ex Officio: Russia Moved Saddam's WMD describes how Russian Special Forces dismantled and moved the entire WMD program to Syria and Lebanon in late 2002 just before we invaded. I have independent confirmation from a highly placed source within the U.S. intelligence community that satellite photos showing this move exist, and he has seen them.

But more to the point, this entire caper is academic. The Russians have long had policies in place with all their client states regarding destruction of WMD stockpiles to avoid discovery in the event of invasion. This policy was explained in detail by Ion Pacepa, former head of Romanian intelligence, who defected to the west. You can read his description of it here.

And as Timmerman's article confirms: "this type [of] GRU operation, known as "Sarandar," or "emergency exit," has long been familiar to U.S. intelligence officials from Soviet-bloc defectors as standard GRU practice."

Why would our intelligence agencies suppress what they know to be true? Why would they ignore simple facts? That WMD existed in Iraq and that Saddam was doing everything he could to hide them was apparent to anyone who examined the situation at all. Even without prima facie evidence, any student of Soviet military tactics knows such deception activities are doctrine with Russia and its client states.

CIA Director George Tenet said the existence of WMD in Iraq was a "slam dunk." Most prominent politicians agreed with him at the time, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Frenchie John Kerry and practically the entire band of Senate knaves.

And they had many more opportunities than Bush to debunk this intelligence, had they really doubted it, having been briefed about Saddam's programs throughout the 1990s.

But suddenly Bush the Texas drawling, knuckle-dragging moron, fresh off the stagecoach from Hicksville, becomes Bush the Machiavellian genius, able to hustle brilliant Washington intellects like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton with a "Howdy Y'All!" smile and a breezy wave of his hand.

Now, yes, I agree, the Washington "intellectuals" grossly overrate their brilliance, but even Al Gore is not that stupid.

There is little doubt that the CIA and their allies in Congress, the defense establishment and the press conducted a massive campaign of disinformation to discredit the Bush administration's claims regarding WMD. In so doing they discredited the entire war effort, a legacy which gave us this despicable, despotic Congress, the current disaster of a President, a weakened defense/intelligence establishment — discredited yet again by another self-serving Democrat disinformation campaign — and a bad name throughout the world.

And they claimed to be the "loyal opposition?" That's a joke, but it's not funny. The Democrats have long since revealed themselves to be utterly self-serving and institutionally corrupt. This fact is clear to see for anyone with opened eyes.

That George W. Bush and Congressional Republicans did not soundly slap them down with the facts remains a burning mystery and an ignoble failure that utterly buries the many good things this President did.

As a writer I found myself in the baffling, frustrating position of trying to defend the eminently defensible policies of a President who stubbornly refused to defend himself.

Bush began his presidency with clear ideas and good policies, and with a Republican Congress, gave us tax and regulatory relief, regulatory and political stability, and seven years without a terrorist attack. But when the viciously jealous, unforgiving, compulsively anti-American Washington establishment turned up the heat, just like his father before him, W. Bush ultimately caved in to their psychological warfare. And like his father, doing so cost the Republican Party dearly.

That failure eclipsed all else. For we now are confronted with a Washington political leadership of pure evil — bent on destruction of this country as we know it for their own aggrandizement and enrichment. It is disgusting and disheartening to witness. I hope we are able recover from what they are doing to us. If so, perhaps someday I will be able to find it in my heart to forgive G.W. Bush and the hapless Republicans who helped him commit political suicide.

© Jim Simpson