It would be a temporary move to make sure he and his family are safe until it's over. It's not like there's a Hilton in An Nasiriyah they can check them into. If the Iraqis found out it was him he and his family would be dead in a second. So it would be temporary. I am sure the troops or contact will take care of him,. or they should. If we didn't then I'd be pissed.
SARGAT, Iraq, April 4 — MSNBC.com tests reveal evidence of the deadly toxins ricin and botulinum at a laboratory in a remote mountain region of northern Iraq allegedly used as a terrorist training camp by Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is conducting its own tests at the same area, but has not yet released the results, according to officials in northern Iraq.
MSNBC.COM’S TESTS were conducted over a two-day period at Sargat, an alleged terrorist training camp a mile from the Iraq-Iran border. The camp, set back in an isolated valley and surrounded by snowcapped peaks, was home to the radical Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which counts among its some 700 followers scores of al-Qaida fighters.        In a Feb. 5 speech to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a satellite photo of the Sargat camp and described Ansar al-Islam as “teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons.” U.S. officials have repeated the allegations in recent weeks.        In an operation timed to coincide with the war on Iraq, U.S. special operations forces have targeted Ansar al-Islam’s militants in northern Iraq. Hundreds of Islamists, including al-Qaida fighters who took refuge in northern Iraq after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, have been killed.        Although U.S. officials for months have leveled charges that the Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaida militants were producing poisons in northern Iraq, it wasn’t until this week that specialist American teams were able to gain access to the Sargat camp to test for traces of biological and chemical weapons.        Experts believe the Islamic group was producing the substances in the camp as both toxins can be created from everyday products and simple procedures.
Car Explodes in Iraq, Killing Three Coalition Soldiers, Pregnant Woman
DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- A car bomb attack at a coalition checkpoint in western Iraq killed at least five people -- including three coalition troops -- U.S. Central Command said on Friday.
Two other coalition troops were injured in the Thursday night attack, the Central Command in Doha, Qatar, said.
A woman, who appeared to be pregnant, got out of the car and began "screaming in fear" at the checkpoint, about 11 miles (18 km) southwest of the Hadithah Dam in Iraq, a Central Command statement said.
Three coalition troops walked toward the car and it blew up, U.S. Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said, citing initial reports.
Three coalition members were killed, along with the woman and the driver of the car.
"She was killed by an explosion from the vehicle," Brooks said.
Whether the woman was a knowing participant in the attack remains unknown, but Brooks said Iraqis have used civilians in terror attacks in the past.
"We have seen a number of examples that provide us clear evidence that this regime will take civilians and will take women, will take children and use them to lead an attack," Brooks told reporters.
"Whether this one was coerced or not, it's now impossible to say. She clearly exited the vehicle in distress and she clearly showed signs of being pregnant," he said.
See above story and then this one. There's the difference.
NEAR BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Army's 7th Cavalry was in a standing position a few miles from Baghdad's main airport Friday, and continued to encounter determined pockets of resistance.
Traveling with the 7th Cavalry, CNN correspondent Walter Rodgers and his crew discovered that an Iraqi soldier thought to be killed in a skirmish was actually alive.
CNN crew members helped to treat the soldier as the Army summoned a medic. Rodgers spoke to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.
COOPER: It is remarkable just to observe this, Walter, and to know that even under fire they would send people out to try to aid a wounded Iraqi solider.
RODGERS: Well, that's standard operating procedure. That wouldn't come as a surprise to any of these U.S. soldiers. This is what the U.S. military has been noted for doing.
Our crew is working on him. One of our crew members, Paul Jordan, an Australian former SAS [Special Air Service] soldier, is very good with first aid. He appears to be administering first aid.
I can't leave the tether of the microphone to find out how badly injured that soldier is, but he has been lying beside the road wounded for some five hours.
As we passed by most of those soldiers, we could see a number of them dead, lying beside the road, [or] maimed and disfigured, but apparently one of the Iraqis was able to get out of the burning armored personnel carrier and crawl into a low depression off on a side road and seek shelter there. And he's been alive ...
We've got incoming fire, we've got to get down.
(Several minutes later)
RODGERS: We do have a little good news for you about that wounded Iraqi soldier. My cameraman, Charles Miller, was up there and said his leg appears in pretty bad shape, but it appears as though he will live.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Marines found cyanide and mustard agents in high concentrations in the Euphrates River near Nassiriya in Iraq, television network MSNBC has reported, citing a briefing from Marine officials.
The agents were found during routine tests conducted to ensure the water being used is safe, MSNBC said on Friday.
Contacted by Reuters, neither Centcom officials in Qatar nor U.S. military officials in Iraq could confirm the MSNBC report.
I think the earlier story might have been confused.
The guy who helped us find Jessica Lynch was given refugee status. Meaning he can come here. The reposrt said he and his family were taken to a secure location. Here's some excerpts.
>An Iraqi man who helped U.S. Marines plan the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch has been granted refugee status and has been described by the Marines as a "hero."
"He told me there was a woman American soldier there," Mohammad said.
After the doctor showed Mohammad where Lynch was being held, Mohammad said he saw an Iraqi colonel slap Lynch twice.
"My heart stopped," he said. "I knew then I must help her be saved. I decided I must go to tell the Americans."
That day, Mohammad walked 10 kilometers [about six miles] to a Marine checkpoint. He approached with his hands in the air and told them he had "important information about Jessica."
The Marines asked him to return to the hospital to gather information about the building and about Lynch's location inside.
"I went to see the security," he said. "I watched where they stood, where they sat, where they ate and when they slept."
As Mohammad observed Lynch's captors, Iraqi paramilitary forces stormed his home in Nasiriya and seized many of his belongings, including his car. His wife and 6-year-old daughter fled to a neighbor's home.
"I am not worried for myself," he said. "Security in Iraq loyal to Saddam will kill my wife. They will kill my [child]."
Brave guy !
Describing the scene at the hospital, Mohammad said Lynch was covered up to her chin by a white blanket, with her head bandaged and a serious wound on her right leg.
He said the doctors had planned to amputate her leg, but Mohammad and a friend, who had helped him get past the heavy security surrounding Lynch, created diversions to delay the surgery.
"She would have died if they tried it," Mohammad said.
For two days, he walked through battles in the streets of Nasiriya to get to the hospital. In addition to watching the guards' movements, each morning he attempted to keep Lynch's spirits strong with a "good morning" in English.
Mohammad said Lynch acted bravely throughout the ordeal.
When reporting back to the Marines on March 30, Mohammad brought five maps he and his wife had made. He was able to point to the room where Lynch was being held. He also handed over the security layout, reaction plan and times that shift changes occurred.
He had counted 41 Iraqi forces, and determined that a helicopter could land on the hospital's roof.
That information helped U.S. forces plan and carry out a successful nighttime raid April 1.
:)
Mohammad praised the Marines and the U.S.-led war to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and said that he and his family hope to meet Lynch in the future.
I hope they get to meet. This guy is one brave fellow.
Thought you all (well some of you) would appreciate this.
If you missed Dennis Miller on Leno last night you missed a good one.
Denouncing anti-war protesters, Miller described how he puts them into four categories, the second one made up of those who call everyone but Hussein a Hitler: “The second type you have at these parades seems to be the people who want to mislabel Hitler. Everybody in the world is Hitler. Bush is Hitler, Ashcroft is Hitler, Rumsfeld is Hitler. The only guy who isn't Hitler is the foreign guy with a mustache dropping people who disagree with him into the wood chipper. He's not Hitler.”
LOL I love that analogy, and right on it is.
On the up side of war protesters:
“I'll say this about the war protesters: At least most of them are only putting duct tape across their mouths so I can still tell the rest of them to blow it out their ass.”
Pride in conduct of the war:
“I cannot tell you how proud watching that war coverage makes me. I know a lot of people are saying that they think that it's, that you know what we're doing is imperialistic. I watch the way we handle ourselves over there and I've never felt more patriotic in my life.”
On the Dixie Chicks:
“Surprisingly, making fun of the President on foreign land in a time of war doesn't seem to play with the NASCAR crowd!”
On Peter Arnett:
“How am I supposed to trust the honesty of a reporter that has that bad of a comb-over on top of his head? He's got four hairs left and he's swirling them around...This guy is dangerously close to pulling hair over from another guy's head. Hey guess what Pete? We know you're bald, okay? The outside of your skull is as empty as the inside.”
One of my favorites last night.
On Michael Moore:
“He's going to wake up every day for the rest of his life, and he's going to tell us how he hates everything about this country except his right to hate it. And then we say that we love it and he's going to tell us what naive sheep we are and that he's the true patriot because he hates it and he sees all the problems in it. Yeah, right, Mike. You know something, if my yawn got any bigger they'd have to assign it a hurricane name, okay? “Michael Moore simultaneously represents everything I detest in a human being and everything I feel obligated to defend in an American. Quite simply, it is that stupid moron's right to be that utterly, completely wrong.” The crowd booed when he mentioned Moore's name and when Miller got done frying him they applauded loudly.  Â
On those whining about the length of the war:
“And now we've got people whining about how long the war is taking. For God's sakes it's been two weeks. You know, it took Joe Millionaire eight weeks to pick Zora (sp?)
On justification for the war:
“It is stupid for anybody in the world to say they're for war. But I am for this war because, you know, we've got to protect ourselves now. And we've got to remind the world that there is a point that we will not be pushed past before the [bleep]hammer comes down. Now, the simple fact is, do I think Saddam Hussein can bury the nuclear jumper from the top of the key? No, I don't. He's a putz. But I do think he can distribute the ball going down the lane and I think we've got to smack him around. It's time to circle the SUVs! “The simple fact is, you've got to view this war like we've been on a long family car ride. Bush is the father and he's been screaming [gestures with arm as if a driver scolding kids in back seat] 'don't make me come back there!' for around 200 miles now and it just reached the point where we had to pull the car over and the bad kid is going to get the spanking of his life.”
Praising the troops:
“God knows that we've got things we've got to perfect in this country. But there's enough people downplaying it right now. I want to go so far against that. I want to thank the President. I want to thank the troops and say God bless you for doing the tough job which allows us to sit here and do the easy jobs, like be on the Tonight Show.”
I didn't see this, but someone sent it to me in an e-mail:
Martin Savidge of CNN, embedded with a battalion of the 1st Marine Division, was talking with four young Marines near his foxhole one recent morning live on CNN.
He had been telling of how well the Marines had been looking out for and taking care of him since the war started. He went on to tell about the many hardships the Marines had endured and how they all look after one another. He turned to the four and said he had cleared it with their commanders and they could use his video phone to call home.
The 19 year old Marine next to him asked Martin if he would allow his platoon sergeant to use his call to call his pregnant wife back home whom he had not been able to talk to in three months. A stunned Savidge, who was visibly moved by the request, nodded his head and the young Marine ran off to get the sergeant. Savidge recovered after a few seconds and turned back to the three young Marines still sitting with him and asked which one of them would like to call home first. The Marine closest to him responded without a moment's hesitation: " Sir, if it's all the same to you we would like to call the parents of a buddy of ours, Lance Corporal Brian Buesing of Cedar Key, Florida, who was killed 23 March near Nasiriya to see how they are doing".
At that Martin Savidge totally broke down and was unable to speak. All he could get out before signing off was, "Where do they get young men like this?"
It's what you do for eachother. It sounds corny but it's a brotherhood. In fact you're closer than brothers, it's one of the strongest bond you'll ever feel towards someone and it really is amazing what guys will do for eachother.
The media is definately shaping perceptions. And if the Middle East is taking what what it's seeing from homegrown media as gospel, changing hearts and minds after the war is going to be a challenge.
The Wall Street Journal today analyzed the coverage of 24 hours of the war between CNN and Al Jazeera.
I won't write much, but one paragraph encapsulates some of the hight points:
CNN offers human interest features with the families of US POWs: Al Jazeera keeps updating the war's death tolls.
CNN refers to Coalition Forces: Al Jazeera to "invading Americans."
CNN viewers expect the latest technology, such as lipstick cameras and nightvsion and the get it: Al Jazeera has had unusual access in places such as Baghdad and Basra so it could offer a street level view of the war's impact on Iraqis.
On CNN, American paratroopers jump from a plane to open up the northern front in Iraq: On Al Jazeera a little Iraqi girl in a pink sweater stares out from her Baghdad hospital bed.
Day 17 of Iraq War: Battle for Saddam’s Underground Regime Centers
While the images of American tanks rumbling through the streets of Baghdad Saturday, April 5, made stunning footage – certainly meant to impress on the Iraqi people and army that further resistance is useless, notwithstanding Saddam Hussein’s walkabout the day before – DEBKAfile’s military sources report that their mission is not to conquer the city. Baghdad’s general population, thousands of whom are fleeing the city, will be left to its own devices. The invading US troops were given orders to focus on capturing Saddam Hussein’s control, command and communications centers, the nerve centers of his regime, which are buried in four vast underground palace complexes under Baghdad and its environs. The fighting against mostly jumbled tag-ends of Special Republican Guards divisions centered Saturday, Day 17 of the Iraq War, on gaining control of these hubs of government and is likely to go on for another day at least.
This is what US Central Command deputy operations officer Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks meant by his terse statement that special troops are seizing key points in Baghdad.
The war commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, is quoted by aides as remarking on the two appearances Friday by Saddam Hussein or a double that regardless of whether the Iraqi ruler is in Baghdad or not, alive or dead, the important thing now is to take over his command and control centers of government and military with all speed. Once this is accomplished, the war will have been won.
Therefore, the scenes in Baghdad depicted Saturday did not represent the battle for the capital but for Saddam’s underground regime centers. And indeed, in the early afternoon of Saturday, correspondents reported that US forces had suddenly disappeared from the streets.
The first of these underground cities was reached when the US forces took over Baghdad International Airport Thursday, April 3, and plunged into a vast underground labyrinth accessed at the tip of the outer runway. Another such facility is located to the north, known as the “Northern Palace.
More like self-contained underground cities, these compounds take up areas of between 7 and 10 sq.km, with their own internal systems of up to 7 km of road. The two airport palaces are linked by an underground expressway.
Regarding the “non-conventional” threat Iraqi information minister Muhammad al-Saeef issued Friday, April 14, DEBKAfile’s military correspondents interpret it as referring to a plan for Iraqi troops to leap out of these underground labyrinths and overwhelm the American units. A day later, on Saturday, the Iraqi minister claimed the plan had come off and Iraqi forces had pushed the American units out and retaken the international airfield. Whether or not this is true, American and Iraqi troops were undoubtedly locked in combat at the airfield Saturday
The other two palace-cities have been tunneled under the streets of Baghdad – one under the upscale Karah neighborhood with Saddam’s own private airstrip attached; the second running under the Dora district south of the Tigris and Baghdad University. Some intelligence sources are sure that the two are also linked by a highway running under the river. The US 3rd Infantry and 101st Airborne Divisions tanks thundering through the streets of Baghdad Saturday morning were on their way to the Karah Palace. So too were the Special Republic Guards forces, ordered to defend Karah with their lives.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that a fifth buried palace - this one situated outside Baghdad, southeast of Saddam’s home town of Tikrit - was also being fought over Saturday.
This regime center was placed under siege Thursday night, April 3, when elements of the 101st Airborne Division seized control of the northbound Tikrit-Mosul highway while troops of the 82nd Airborne Division came up from the west and cut the Baghdad-Tikrit highway. Saturday morning, the two American forces moved in to tighten the noose around Saddam’s underground center near Tikrit.
It looks as though Tommy Franks, amid the hype and misdirection, is forging ahead with his preconceived war plan, step by step.
A story by R.W. Apple of the New York Times shows that the Iraqis have seen it all before:
"The British commander who seized Baghdad from the Ottoman Turks in March, 1917, Gen. Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, told the local citizenry, "'Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.'"
'The British dominated Baghdad and what became Iraq for decades."
"Although the American stay is likely to be shorter, it could generate the same kind of resentment if not handled with a deftness rare in the annals of triumphant armies."
Retailers in Burlingame, Calif., who put yellow ribbons on lampposts through town to show support for the troops in Iraq are being told that the ribbons are offensive and should be taken down, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The complaints come from Palo Alto, Calif., resident Seth Yatovitz, who says the war is illegal and the troops over there are criminals.
"I find the yellow ribbons on city property offensive to my senses, as they are posted in support of violators of international law. I do support our troops that are not involved in illegal activity," Yatovitz wrote to the Burlingame City Council in an e-mail.
Yatovitz said if they are not removed he will begin a "Boycott Burlingame" campaign and consider a lawsuit.
Flabbergasted city officials have not decided how to respond just yet.
Well heck, if he tells the truth he will probably get fired from his position in the worst way possible. What I would love to see though is have him giving an interview outside the Palestine Hotel to all the reporters, saying that they had slaughtered the Americans, drove them out of the city, they are dying at the gates, etc. Then have a few American tanks or Humvees come pull up behind him. See what he has to say about that.
BASRA, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqis showed journalists a white stone jail where they claim Saddam Hussein's secret police for decades tortured inmates with beatings, mutilations, electric shocks and chemical baths.
The jail, known as the "White Lion," was charred and half-demolished Tuesday after two days of bombing by British forces fighting for control of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.
People taken behind the jail's sandstone facade usually did not come out, residents said.
Hundreds of Iraqis came to see the now-empty jail, according to British press reports. Relatives of missing inmates checked fingerprinted files and lists of names found amid the fallen bricks.
"It was a place of evil," resident Hamed Fattil said.
Hamed told British reporters that Iraqi police locked him and his two brothers in a jail dungeon in 1991, and that he was freed after eight months but his brothers were still missing.
"They used to strap a leather cord around our head, hands and shoulders and hoist us two feet off the ground. Then they would beat us as we hung there," Hamed said.
"They did unthinkable things -- electrocution, immersion in a bath of chemicals and ripping off people's finger and toenails."
The jail basement was a warren of cells, chambers and cages where the ground was strewn with an insect-eaten gas mask and bottles, according to Associated Press Television News footage.
Hundreds of Iraqis came to see the charred building that locals say Saddam Hussein's secret police used as a jail. For the cameras, two men re-enacted how jailers allegedly tortured prisoners.
One man, hands tied behind his back with a rope attached to a hook on the ceiling, bent over while another man pantomimed hitting him on the back and the face with his hands and a long, white rod.
One man shuddered while the other gave him a pretend electric shock.
Outside the jail, a man showed APTN his mangled ears.
Hamed took British reporters into a yard behind the jail into a set of white boxy cells, surrounded by red wire mesh with a low, wire roof.
He said some of the cells, which had red doors with large bolts, were used to hold women and children. He also said hundreds of men were kept in a single cell about the size of a living room, which had one rusted grate window.
Between the men's and women's cells was a long mesh cage. Hamed said here, jailers pressed prisoners against the mesh and squeezed hot irons against their backs or threw scalding water on them in front of other inmates.
I just got up and turned on the tv. I think they said that they haven't seen the Information Minister today. Maybe he called in and took a sick day? Some vacation time?
By Carl Prine TRIBUNE-REVIEW Wednesday, April 9, 2003
SOUTH OF BAGHDAD — In a valley sculpted by man, between the palms and roses, lies a vast marble and steel city known as Al-Tuwaitha.
In the suburbs about 18 miles south of the capital's suburbs, this city comprises nearly 100 buildings — workshops, laboratories, cooling towers, nuclear reactors, libraries and barracks — that belong to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.
Investigators Tuesday discovered that Al-Tuwaitha hides another city. This underground nexus of labs, warehouses, and bomb-proof offices was hidden from the public and, perhaps, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who combed the site just two months ago, until the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Engineers discovered it three days ago.
Today, the Marines hold it against enemy counter-attacks.
So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have discovered 14 buildings that betray high levels of radiation. Some of the readings show nuclear residue too deadly for human occupation.
A few hundred meters outside the complex, where peasants say the "missile water" is stored in mammoth caverns, the Marine radiation detectors go "off the charts."
"It's amazing," said Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist. "I went to the off-site storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly radioactive material."
To nuclear experts in the United States, the discovery of a subterranean complex is highly interesting, perhaps the atomic "smoking gun" intelligence agencies have been searching for as Operation Iraqi Freedom unfolds.
Last fall, they say, the Central Intelligence Agency prodded international inspectors to probe Al-Tuwaitha for weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors came away with nothing.
"They went through that site multiple times, but did they go underground? I never heard anything about that," said physicist David Albright, a former IAEA Action Team inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1997. Officials at the IAEA could not be reached for comment.
"The Marines should be particularly careful because of those high readings. Three hours at levels like that and people begin to vomit. That leads me to wonder, if the readings are accurate, whether radioactive material was deliberately left there to expose people to dangerous levels.
"You couldn't do scientific work in levels like that. You would die."
Albright hopes the Marines safeguard any documents they find and preserve the site for analysis. That, say the Combat Engineers, is their mission.
Nestled in a bend in the Tigris River, Al-Tuwaitha was built in the early 1960s. Nuclear experts believe the government began Iraq's nuclear weapons program there between 1972 and 1976. Satellite imagery shows dramatic expansion at the site in the '70s, '80s and '90s, according to the Institute for Science and International Security.
Mindful of nuclear weapons inspectors, ISIS said the Iraqis developed methods to thwart them when they visited Al-Tuwaitha.
"Iraq developed procedures to limit access to these buildings by IAEA inspectors who had a right to inspect the fuel fabrication facility. On days when the inspectors were scheduled to visit, only the fuel fabrication rooms were open to them. Usually, employees were told to take their rooms so that the inspectors did not see an unusually large number of people," according to a 1999 report Albright wrote with Corey Gay and Khidhir Hamza for ISIS.
Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear engineer who defected from Iraq in 1994, testified before Congress last August that Iraq could have had nuclear weapons by 2005.
Yesterday, Hamza expressed great surprise that the underground site could even exist. The ground there is muddy and composed of clay, he said. The water table is barely a foot and a half below the surface of the ground. During construction of one of the former nuclear reactors there, French engineers spent a fortune pumping water from the foundation area, only to see buildings crumble when the water was removed.
Hamza said the French built a reactor at Al-Tuwaitha that Israel destroyed in 1981. The Russians built a reactor that was destroyed during the Gulf War. Both had the muddy ground to contend with.
So the Marine's discovery makes the former atomic inspector wonder if the Iraqis went to the colossal expense of pumping enough water to build the underground city because no reasonable inspector would think anything might be built underground there.
Nobody would expect it,” Hamza said. “Nobody would think twice about going back there.”
Despite being destroyed twice by bombings, Al-Tuwaitha nevertheless grew to become headquarters of the Iraqi nuclear program, with several research reactors, plutonium processors and uranium enrichment facilities bustling, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
"The plutonium processing was dispersed on-site by the bombing in 1991," said Michael Levi, the Federation's director. "But the Iraqis started to rebuild it. And they continued building there after 1998, when the Iraqis ended the inspections.
"I do not believe the latest round of inspections included anything underground, so anything you find underground would be very suspicious. It sounds absolutely amazing."
Outside the gates yesterday, children on donkeys dragged air conditioners from the area, part of the ongoing looting of government offices, Iraqi army forts and Baathist Party headquarters.
The nuclear scientists, engineers and technicians, housed in a plush neighborhood near the campus, have run away, along with Baathist party loyalists.
Farmers in rags drive the scientists' Mercedes and Land Rovers across Highway Six, filled with looted color televisions, silk rugs and Burberry suits.
That's where the Marines see the grand irony.
Amidst grinding poverty, where peasants eke an existence out of dust and river water, the Saddam Hussein regime built a lavish atomic weapons program. In a nation with some of the world's largest petroleum reserves, Saddam saw the need for nuclear energy.
"It's going to take some very smart people a very long time to sift through everything here," said Flick. "All this machinery. All this technology. They could do a lot of very bad things with all of this."
The mayor of this high-tech city is, for now, Capt. John Seegar, a combat engineer commander from Houston, Tx. He trudges up the 10-story hillocks hiding the campus from the surrounding villages and, crossing near a demolished mud bunker, it all opens up, gleaming and swaddled in roses.
"I've never seen anything like it, ever," said Seegar, who leads a company of combat engineers turned into combat grunts. "How did the world miss all of this? Why couldn't they see what was happening here?"
Seegar's biggest headache: Peasant looters, who keep cutting through the miles of barbed wire, no longer electrified because the war killed the power. He cradles in his arms blueprints in Arabic, showing recent construction, and maps in English, detailing which buildings test radioactive. Next to each, Seegar's placed an asterisk.
"Three weeks ago, the scientists seemed to have abandoned the complex," said Seegar. "That's what the villagers say. The place was protected by the Special Republic Guard, but they deserted it, too. Four days ago, everyone was gone. Then we came."
For him, Al-Tuwaitha is like a crime scene, and the next detectives on the atomic beat will be Army specialists.
Seegar promises to hold the nuclear site until international authorities can take over. His men hunker down in sandbag bunkers, sleepless, gripping machine guns.
Last night, they followed running gun and artillery battles on both sides of the complex, fought by U.S. Marines and soldiers against Iraqi Republican Guards and Fedayeen terrorists.
In the deserted edifices of Iraqi science, there is the omnipresent Saddam. Paintings show Saddam with scientists; Saddam with farmers; Saddam with soldiers. On the walls, Saddam's face. In the scrub surrounding the guard bunkers, murals of Saddam. There are books of Saddam sayings. Scientists' offices glitter with medals, from Saddam.
The offices underground, under unlit signs warning of "Gas/Gaz," are stuffed with videos and pictures, all showing how this complex was built, largely over the last four years after formal international inspections ended. The Marines haven't even mapped all the subterranean tunnels veining the site.
In an above-ground library built like a fortress with a beautiful alabaster marble now washed in dust and mud, the clocks stopped at ten minutes until one. The stacks, cool because of the marble, hold the scientific manuals, textbooks and published papers for the Iraqi intelligentsia.
In the commanding general's study, goldfish still swim in a long tank, glittering like the medals on his desk from Saddam.
"Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy for Scientific and Economic Development," a bulky green tome published in 1975, leans against the general's wall, under a picture of Saddam, whose Baathist Party came to power four years later in a bloody coup.
On a mantle, folded under documents, a Christmas card never sent. On the front is a dove, its wings the ellipses of the atom, tinged in orange, yellow and green. Under it, a tiger, facing backward, its body a swirl of Arabic letters. Inside the card: "Rights of Third World Peoples To Alternate Energy Sources For the Future Development of Their Environment and Culture."
The next page: "Let Us Hope This New Year Will Be a Year of Peace and Justice and With All Good Wishes for Christmas and the New Year." Signed, Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. Baghdad.
Chirac strongly opposed a U.S-led military attack on Iraq, preferring to work through the U.N. Security Council in supporting longer weapons inspections.
Flip
But he said in a statement released by the Elysee Palace Thursday: "France, like every democracy, is rejoicing over the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and hopes for a quick and effective end to the battle."
Flop
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who opposed the war, was reported as saying he welcomed the sights from Baghdad as it was a sign that the conflict would be over soon.
Flip
CNN's Stephanie Halasz in Berlin said: "The overwhelming feeling among Germans was one of skepticism.
Flop
Chirac, Schroeder and Russia's President Vladimir Putin are to meet this weekend to discuss a post-war Iraq, with the likely emphasis on pushing for an increased U.N. role.
And what does all this posturing on the part of France, Germany, & Russia mean?
Flip
Italy's La Repubblica criticized the anti-war grouping, saying in an editorial: "The battle lines are drawn and this time the countries that opposed the coalition war are ready to muscle in and demand a piece of the Iraqi pie."
They want the rewards without the risk.
Flop
Bush should tell Chirac, Schroeder and Putin "We're coming for you next".
Bush should bend over and say "Kiss it!" I like what I have been hearing from congressmen and Senators. If they, meaning France, Germany, and Russia really want to help Iraq they will forgive the billions of dollars owed to them. All I know is I want to see these countries told F you. You had your chance to help. You will not profit for yourselves what American and its coallition soldiers have bled and died for.
What is this piece activist doing with a loaded 9 mm Glock handgun inside his car and an unloaded .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver in the trunk in Downtown Berkeley? Doesn't he know that guns only promote violence?
I believe it was an error, but I have to kind of chuckle. You wrote "piece activist". I'm pretty sure you meant "peace activist", but being that it concerns guns you could read it as "piece activist".
"Yo, I'm carrying my piece so back off before I bust a cap in yo' ass."
JT,
It would be a temporary move to make sure he and his family are safe until it's over. It's not like there's a Hilton in An Nasiriyah they can check them into. If the Iraqis found out it was him he and his family would be dead in a second. So it would be temporary. I am sure the troops or contact will take care of him,. or they should. If we didn't then I'd be pissed.
It would be a temporary move to make sure he and his family are safe until it's over.
I'm hoping that's the case.
SARGAT, Iraq, April 4 — MSNBC.com tests reveal evidence of the deadly toxins ricin and botulinum at a laboratory in a remote mountain region of northern Iraq allegedly used as a terrorist training camp by Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is conducting its own tests at the same area, but has not yet released the results, according to officials in northern Iraq.
MSNBC.COM’S TESTS were conducted over a two-day period at Sargat, an alleged terrorist training camp a mile from the Iraq-Iran border. The camp, set back in an isolated valley and surrounded by snowcapped peaks, was home to the radical Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which counts among its some 700 followers scores of al-Qaida fighters.
       In a Feb. 5 speech to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a satellite photo of the Sargat camp and described Ansar al-Islam as “teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons.” U.S. officials have repeated the allegations in recent weeks.
       In an operation timed to coincide with the war on Iraq, U.S. special operations forces have targeted Ansar al-Islam’s militants in northern Iraq. Hundreds of Islamists, including al-Qaida fighters who took refuge in northern Iraq after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, have been killed.
       Although U.S. officials for months have leveled charges that the Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaida militants were producing poisons in northern Iraq, it wasn’t until this week that specialist American teams were able to gain access to the Sargat camp to test for traces of biological and chemical weapons.
       Experts believe the Islamic group was producing the substances in the camp as both toxins can be created from everyday products and simple procedures.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/895185.asp
Car Explodes in Iraq, Killing Three Coalition Soldiers, Pregnant Woman
DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- A car bomb attack at a coalition checkpoint in western Iraq killed at least five people -- including three coalition troops -- U.S. Central Command said on Friday.
Two other coalition troops were injured in the Thursday night attack, the Central Command in Doha, Qatar, said.
A woman, who appeared to be pregnant, got out of the car and began "screaming in fear" at the checkpoint, about 11 miles (18 km) southwest of the Hadithah Dam in Iraq, a Central Command statement said.
Three coalition troops walked toward the car and it blew up, U.S. Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said, citing initial reports.
Three coalition members were killed, along with the woman and the driver of the car.
"She was killed by an explosion from the vehicle," Brooks said.
Whether the woman was a knowing participant in the attack remains unknown, but Brooks said Iraqis have used civilians in terror attacks in the past.
"We have seen a number of examples that provide us clear evidence that this regime will take civilians and will take women, will take children and use them to lead an attack," Brooks told reporters.
"Whether this one was coerced or not, it's now impossible to say. She clearly exited the vehicle in distress and she clearly showed signs of being pregnant," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/04/sprj.irq.car.bomb/index.html
See above story and then this one. There's the difference.
NEAR BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Army's 7th Cavalry was in a standing position a few miles from Baghdad's main airport Friday, and continued to encounter determined pockets of resistance.
Traveling with the 7th Cavalry, CNN correspondent Walter Rodgers and his crew discovered that an Iraqi soldier thought to be killed in a skirmish was actually alive.
CNN crew members helped to treat the soldier as the Army summoned a medic. Rodgers spoke to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.
COOPER: It is remarkable just to observe this, Walter, and to know that even under fire they would send people out to try to aid a wounded Iraqi solider.
RODGERS: Well, that's standard operating procedure. That wouldn't come as a surprise to any of these U.S. soldiers. This is what the U.S. military has been noted for doing.
Our crew is working on him. One of our crew members, Paul Jordan, an Australian former SAS [Special Air Service] soldier, is very good with first aid. He appears to be administering first aid.
I can't leave the tether of the microphone to find out how badly injured that soldier is, but he has been lying beside the road wounded for some five hours.
As we passed by most of those soldiers, we could see a number of them dead, lying beside the road, [or] maimed and disfigured, but apparently one of the Iraqis was able to get out of the burning armored personnel carrier and crawl into a low depression off on a side road and seek shelter there. And he's been alive ...
We've got incoming fire, we've got to get down.
(Several minutes later)
RODGERS: We do have a little good news for you about that wounded Iraqi soldier. My cameraman, Charles Miller, was up there and said his leg appears in pretty bad shape, but it appears as though he will live.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/04/otsc.irq.rodgers/index.html
"The Americans are no where near Bagdhad"
Now arriving at gate 5 at Bagdhahd international. The U.S Marines.
"We have no chemical wepaons"
"Their are no ties to Alquieda or terrorist organizations"
Hmmm, must have been Kool-aid they found.
More chemical and protective equipment and documents were found yesterday in southern Iraq. It's the same sight the U.N had been 9 times. Thanks Hans.
I'm sure we planted it there.
One good thing about having embedded reporters.
Here's some more stuff I'm sure we planted too.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030404/80/dx0w1.html
Mustard gas produces painful, long-lasting blisters and often leads to blindness, while cyanide kills by preventing blood from transporting oxygen.
It's unconfirmed sofar but would it suprise anyone ? Well other than those that will be convinced we're planting this stuff.
THX,
Good point about reporters being embedded. Do you think it will matter to the black helicopter look how evil we are crowd ?
Do you think it will matter to the black helicopter look how evil we are crowd?
Probably not.
Oh well.
JT,
I think the earlier story might have been confused.
The guy who helped us find Jessica Lynch was given refugee status. Meaning he can come here. The reposrt said he and his family were taken to a secure location. Here's some excerpts.
>An Iraqi man who helped U.S. Marines plan the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch has been granted refugee status and has been described by the Marines as a "hero."
Brave guy !
:)
I hope they get to meet. This guy is one brave fellow.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/04/sprj.irq.pow.informer/index.html
Thought you all (well some of you) would appreciate this.
If you missed Dennis Miller on Leno last night you missed a good one.
LOL I love that analogy, and right on it is.
On the up side of war protesters:
Pride in conduct of the war:
On the Dixie Chicks:
On Peter Arnett:
One of my favorites last night.
On Michael Moore:
On those whining about the length of the war:
On justification for the war:
Praising the troops:
I didn't see this, but someone sent it to me in an e-mail:
Martin Savidge of CNN, embedded with a battalion of the 1st Marine
Division, was talking with four young Marines near his foxhole one recent morning live on CNN.
He had been telling of how well the Marines had been looking out for and taking care of him since the war started. He went on to tell about the many hardships the Marines had endured and how they all look after one another. He turned to the four and said he had cleared it with their commanders and they could use his video phone to call home.
The 19 year old Marine next to him asked Martin if he would allow his
platoon sergeant to use his call to call his pregnant wife back home
whom he had not been able to talk to in three months. A stunned Savidge, who was visibly moved by the request, nodded his head and the young Marine ran off to get the sergeant. Savidge recovered after a few seconds and turned back to the three young Marines still sitting with him and asked which one of them would like to call home first. The Marine closest to him responded without a moment's hesitation: " Sir, if it's all the same to you we would like to call the parents of a buddy of ours, Lance Corporal Brian Buesing of Cedar Key, Florida, who was killed 23 March near Nasiriya to see how they are doing".
At that Martin Savidge totally broke down and was unable to speak. All he could get out before signing off was, "Where do they get young men like this?"
'Bill - Fold' 4/4/03 12:40pm
So someone can't change politically ? He admitted he did. He stated some of the reasons his policis changed and has talked about it in interviews.
Muskwa,
Thanks for posting that. I was loking for that yesterday on CNN you had to pay to download the video.
I really appreciate you posting that. Thanks :)
And Bill, I agree, it is cool. I think it's another advantage of embedded reporters to show what and how our soilders do.
Muskwa 4/4/03 12:57pm
Those are some thoughtful young men.
Almost brings a tear to my eye.
It's what you do for eachother. It sounds corny but it's a brotherhood. In fact you're closer than brothers, it's one of the strongest bond you'll ever feel towards someone and it really is amazing what guys will do for eachother.
Have a good weekend all :)
The media is definately shaping perceptions. And if the Middle East is taking what what it's seeing from homegrown media as gospel, changing hearts and minds after the war is going to be a challenge.
The Wall Street Journal today analyzed the coverage of 24 hours of the war between CNN and Al Jazeera.
I won't write much, but one paragraph encapsulates some of the hight points:
CNN offers human interest features with the families of US POWs: Al Jazeera keeps updating the war's death tolls.
CNN refers to Coalition Forces: Al Jazeera to "invading Americans."
CNN viewers expect the latest technology, such as lipstick cameras and nightvsion and the get it: Al Jazeera has had unusual access in places such as Baghdad and Basra so it could offer a street level view of the war's impact on Iraqis.
On CNN, American paratroopers jump from a plane to open up the northern front in Iraq: On Al Jazeera a little Iraqi girl in a pink sweater stares out from her Baghdad hospital bed.
Day 17 of Iraq War: Battle for Saddam’s Underground Regime Centers
While the images of American tanks rumbling through the streets of Baghdad Saturday, April 5, made stunning footage – certainly meant to impress on the Iraqi people and army that further resistance is useless, notwithstanding Saddam Hussein’s walkabout the day before – DEBKAfile’s military sources report that their mission is not to conquer the city. Baghdad’s general population, thousands of whom are fleeing the city, will be left to its own devices. The invading US troops were given orders to focus on capturing Saddam Hussein’s control, command and communications centers, the nerve centers of his regime, which are buried in four vast underground palace complexes under Baghdad and its environs. The fighting against mostly jumbled tag-ends of Special Republican Guards divisions centered Saturday, Day 17 of the Iraq War, on gaining control of these hubs of government and is likely to go on for another day at least.
This is what US Central Command deputy operations officer Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks meant by his terse statement that special troops are seizing key points in Baghdad.
The war commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, is quoted by aides as remarking on the two appearances Friday by Saddam Hussein or a double that regardless of whether the Iraqi ruler is in Baghdad or not, alive or dead, the important thing now is to take over his command and control centers of government and military with all speed. Once this is accomplished, the war will have been won.
Therefore, the scenes in Baghdad depicted Saturday did not represent the battle for the capital but for Saddam’s underground regime centers. And indeed, in the early afternoon of Saturday, correspondents reported that US forces had suddenly disappeared from the streets.
The first of these underground cities was reached when the US forces took over Baghdad International Airport Thursday, April 3, and plunged into a vast underground labyrinth accessed at the tip of the outer runway. Another such facility is located to the north, known as the “Northern Palace.
More like self-contained underground cities, these compounds take up areas of between 7 and 10 sq.km, with their own internal systems of up to 7 km of road. The two airport palaces are linked by an underground expressway.
Regarding the “non-conventional” threat Iraqi information minister Muhammad al-Saeef issued Friday, April 14, DEBKAfile’s military correspondents interpret it as referring to a plan for Iraqi troops to leap out of these underground labyrinths and overwhelm the American units. A day later, on Saturday, the Iraqi minister claimed the plan had come off and Iraqi forces had pushed the American units out and retaken the international airfield. Whether or not this is true, American and Iraqi troops were undoubtedly locked in combat at the airfield Saturday
The other two palace-cities have been tunneled under the streets of Baghdad – one under the upscale Karah neighborhood with Saddam’s own private airstrip attached; the second running under the Dora district south of the Tigris and Baghdad University. Some intelligence sources are sure that the two are also linked by a highway running under the river. The US 3rd Infantry and 101st Airborne Divisions tanks thundering through the streets of Baghdad Saturday morning were on their way to the Karah Palace. So too were the Special Republic Guards forces, ordered to defend Karah with their lives.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that a fifth buried palace - this one situated outside Baghdad, southeast of Saddam’s home town of Tikrit - was also being fought over Saturday.
This regime center was placed under siege Thursday night, April 3, when elements of the 101st Airborne Division seized control of the northbound Tikrit-Mosul highway while troops of the 82nd Airborne Division came up from the west and cut the Baghdad-Tikrit highway. Saturday morning, the two American forces moved in to tighten the noose around Saddam’s underground center near Tikrit.
It looks as though Tommy Franks, amid the hype and misdirection, is forging ahead with his preconceived war plan, step by step.
A story by R.W. Apple of the New York Times shows that the Iraqis have seen it all before:
"The British commander who seized Baghdad from the Ottoman Turks in March, 1917, Gen. Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, told the local citizenry, "'Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.'"
'The British dominated Baghdad and what became Iraq for decades."
"Although the American stay is likely to be shorter, it could generate the same kind of resentment if not handled with a deftness rare in the annals of triumphant armies."
Retailers in Burlingame, Calif., who put yellow ribbons on lampposts through town to show support for the troops in Iraq are being told that the ribbons are offensive and should be taken down, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The complaints come from Palo Alto, Calif., resident Seth Yatovitz, who says the war is illegal and the troops over there are criminals.
"I find the yellow ribbons on city property offensive to my senses, as they are posted in support of violators of international law. I do support our troops that are not involved in illegal activity," Yatovitz wrote to the Burlingame City Council in an e-mail.
Yatovitz said if they are not removed he will begin a "Boycott Burlingame" campaign and consider a lawsuit.
Flabbergasted city officials have not decided how to respond just yet.
Flabbergasted city officials have not decided how to respond just yet.
I'd tell him to piss off.
Hi Jethro, hope you had a good weekend.
hee hee! ;)
I would like to see their "Dis-Information Minister" get a similar...
That guy cracks me up.
Talk about denial.
That guy cracks me up.
Talk about denial.
Kind of like a 2 year old caught with there hand in the cookie jar (I don't have any cookies)
Well heck, if he tells the truth he will probably get fired from his position in the worst way possible. What I would love to see though is have him giving an interview outside the Palestine Hotel to all the reporters, saying that they had slaughtered the Americans, drove them out of the city, they are dying at the gates, etc. Then have a few American tanks or Humvees come pull up behind him. See what he has to say about that.
Cookies? What cookies?
::wipes cookie crumbs off of face::
Bill Fold lead me to this.
and he ran off the screen faster than a jack(off)-rabbit
No shit? I wish I would have seen that.
No shit? I wish I would have seen that.
Your wish is my command...
The U.S. is losing the war. They are nowhere near Baghdad.
DUCK AND COVER!!!
.
.
.
.
LOL!
BASRA, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqis showed journalists a white stone jail where they claim Saddam Hussein's secret police for decades tortured inmates with beatings, mutilations, electric shocks and chemical baths.
The jail, known as the "White Lion," was charred and half-demolished Tuesday after two days of bombing by British forces fighting for control of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.
People taken behind the jail's sandstone facade usually did not come out, residents said.
Hundreds of Iraqis came to see the now-empty jail, according to British press reports. Relatives of missing inmates checked fingerprinted files and lists of names found amid the fallen bricks.
"It was a place of evil," resident Hamed Fattil said.
Hamed told British reporters that Iraqi police locked him and his two brothers in a jail dungeon in 1991, and that he was freed after eight months but his brothers were still missing.
"They used to strap a leather cord around our head, hands and shoulders and hoist us two feet off the ground. Then they would beat us as we hung there," Hamed said.
"They did unthinkable things -- electrocution, immersion in a bath of chemicals and ripping off people's finger and toenails."
The jail basement was a warren of cells, chambers and cages where the ground was strewn with an insect-eaten gas mask and bottles, according to Associated Press Television News footage.
Hundreds of Iraqis came to see the charred building that locals say Saddam Hussein's secret police used as a jail.
For the cameras, two men re-enacted how jailers allegedly tortured prisoners.
One man, hands tied behind his back with a rope attached to a hook on the ceiling, bent over while another man pantomimed hitting him on the back and the face with his hands and a long, white rod.
One man shuddered while the other gave him a pretend electric shock.
Outside the jail, a man showed APTN his mangled ears.
Hamed took British reporters into a yard behind the jail into a set of white boxy cells, surrounded by red wire mesh with a low, wire roof.
He said some of the cells, which had red doors with large bolts, were used to hold women and children. He also said hundreds of men were kept in a single cell about the size of a living room, which had one rusted grate window.
Between the men's and women's cells was a long mesh cage. Hamed said here, jailers pressed prisoners against the mesh and squeezed hot irons against their backs or threw scalding water on them in front of other inmates.
I just got up and turned on the tv. I think they said that they haven't seen the Information Minister today. Maybe he called in and took a sick day? Some vacation time?
Center of Baghdad taken! I can honestly say I have never seen anything like this before.
Looks like this thread will be headed to the "old folks home" soon.
Looks like this thread will be headed to the "old folks home" soon.
Why, did the French surrender to the Republican Guard?
</humor>
I miss Baghdad Bob.
There was a Sharp Rise in Unemployment in Iraq Today...
All the Freak’n Baath Party Members are out of a Job...
I miss Baghdad Bob.
If nothing else, he was good for some comic relief.
Nice avatar, Kurt!
.
Marines hold nuclear site
By Carl Prine
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
SOUTH OF BAGHDAD — In a valley sculpted by man, between the palms and roses, lies a vast marble and steel city known as Al-Tuwaitha.
In the suburbs about 18 miles south of the capital's suburbs, this city comprises nearly 100 buildings — workshops, laboratories, cooling towers, nuclear reactors, libraries and barracks — that belong to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.
Investigators Tuesday discovered that Al-Tuwaitha hides another city. This underground nexus of labs, warehouses, and bomb-proof offices was hidden from the public and, perhaps, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who combed the site just two months ago, until the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Engineers discovered it three days ago.
Today, the Marines hold it against enemy counter-attacks.
So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have discovered 14 buildings that betray high levels of radiation. Some of the readings show nuclear residue too deadly for human occupation.
A few hundred meters outside the complex, where peasants say the "missile water" is stored in mammoth caverns, the Marine radiation detectors go "off the charts."
"It's amazing," said Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist. "I went to the off-site storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly radioactive material."
To nuclear experts in the United States, the discovery of a subterranean complex is highly interesting, perhaps the atomic "smoking gun" intelligence agencies have been searching for as Operation Iraqi Freedom unfolds.
Last fall, they say, the Central Intelligence Agency prodded international inspectors to probe Al-Tuwaitha for weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors came away with nothing.
"They went through that site multiple times, but did they go underground? I never heard anything about that," said physicist David Albright, a former IAEA Action Team inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1997. Officials at the IAEA could not be reached for comment.
"The Marines should be particularly careful because of those high readings. Three hours at levels like that and people begin to vomit. That leads me to wonder, if the readings are accurate, whether radioactive material was deliberately left there to expose people to dangerous levels.
"You couldn't do scientific work in levels like that. You would die."
Albright hopes the Marines safeguard any documents they find and preserve the site for analysis. That, say the Combat Engineers, is their mission.
Nestled in a bend in the Tigris River, Al-Tuwaitha was built in the early 1960s. Nuclear experts believe the government began Iraq's nuclear weapons program there between 1972 and 1976. Satellite imagery shows dramatic expansion at the site in the '70s, '80s and '90s, according to the Institute for Science and International Security.
Mindful of nuclear weapons inspectors, ISIS said the Iraqis developed methods to thwart them when they visited Al-Tuwaitha.
"Iraq developed procedures to limit access to these buildings by IAEA inspectors who had a right to inspect the fuel fabrication facility. On days when the inspectors were scheduled to visit, only the fuel fabrication rooms were open to them. Usually, employees were told to take their rooms so that the inspectors did not see an unusually large number of people," according to a 1999 report Albright wrote with Corey Gay and Khidhir Hamza for ISIS.
Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear engineer who defected from Iraq in 1994, testified before Congress last August that Iraq could have had nuclear weapons by 2005.
Yesterday, Hamza expressed great surprise that the underground site could even exist. The ground there is muddy and composed of clay, he said. The water table is barely a foot and a half below the surface of the ground. During construction of one of the former nuclear reactors there, French engineers spent a fortune pumping water from the foundation area, only to see buildings crumble when the water was removed.
Hamza said the French built a reactor at Al-Tuwaitha that Israel destroyed in 1981. The Russians built a reactor that was destroyed during the Gulf War. Both had the muddy ground to contend with.
So the Marine's discovery makes the former atomic inspector wonder if the Iraqis went to the colossal expense of pumping enough water to build the underground city because no reasonable inspector would think anything might be built underground there.
Nobody would expect it,” Hamza said. “Nobody would think twice about going back there.”
Despite being destroyed twice by bombings, Al-Tuwaitha nevertheless grew to become headquarters of the Iraqi nuclear program, with several research reactors, plutonium processors and uranium enrichment facilities bustling, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
"The plutonium processing was dispersed on-site by the bombing in 1991," said Michael Levi, the Federation's director. "But the Iraqis started to rebuild it. And they continued building there after 1998, when the Iraqis ended the inspections.
"I do not believe the latest round of inspections included anything underground, so anything you find underground would be very suspicious. It sounds absolutely amazing."
Outside the gates yesterday, children on donkeys dragged air conditioners from the area, part of the ongoing looting of government offices, Iraqi army forts and Baathist Party headquarters.
The nuclear scientists, engineers and technicians, housed in a plush neighborhood near the campus, have run away, along with Baathist party loyalists.
Farmers in rags drive the scientists' Mercedes and Land Rovers across Highway Six, filled with looted color televisions, silk rugs and Burberry suits.
That's where the Marines see the grand irony.
Amidst grinding poverty, where peasants eke an existence out of dust and river water, the Saddam Hussein regime built a lavish atomic weapons program. In a nation with some of the world's largest petroleum reserves, Saddam saw the need for nuclear energy.
"It's going to take some very smart people a very long time to sift through everything here," said Flick. "All this machinery. All this technology. They could do a lot of very bad things with all of this."
The mayor of this high-tech city is, for now, Capt. John Seegar, a combat engineer commander from Houston, Tx. He trudges up the 10-story hillocks hiding the campus from the surrounding villages and, crossing near a demolished mud bunker, it all opens up, gleaming and swaddled in roses.
"I've never seen anything like it, ever," said Seegar, who leads a company of combat engineers turned into combat grunts. "How did the world miss all of this? Why couldn't they see what was happening here?"
Seegar's biggest headache: Peasant looters, who keep cutting through the miles of barbed wire, no longer electrified because the war killed the power. He cradles in his arms blueprints in Arabic, showing recent construction, and maps in English, detailing which buildings test radioactive. Next to each, Seegar's placed an asterisk.
"Three weeks ago, the scientists seemed to have abandoned the complex," said Seegar. "That's what the villagers say. The place was protected by the Special Republic Guard, but they deserted it, too. Four days ago, everyone was gone. Then we came."
For him, Al-Tuwaitha is like a crime scene, and the next detectives on the atomic beat will be Army specialists.
Seegar promises to hold the nuclear site until international authorities can take over. His men hunker down in sandbag bunkers, sleepless, gripping machine guns.
Last night, they followed running gun and artillery battles on both sides of the complex, fought by U.S. Marines and soldiers against Iraqi Republican Guards and Fedayeen terrorists.
In the deserted edifices of Iraqi science, there is the omnipresent Saddam. Paintings show Saddam with scientists; Saddam with farmers; Saddam with soldiers. On the walls, Saddam's face. In the scrub surrounding the guard bunkers, murals of Saddam. There are books of Saddam sayings. Scientists' offices glitter with medals, from Saddam.
The offices underground, under unlit signs warning of "Gas/Gaz," are stuffed with videos and pictures, all showing how this complex was built, largely over the last four years after formal international inspections ended. The Marines haven't even mapped all the subterranean tunnels veining the site.
In an above-ground library built like a fortress with a beautiful alabaster marble now washed in dust and mud, the clocks stopped at ten minutes until one. The stacks, cool because of the marble, hold the scientific manuals, textbooks and published papers for the Iraqi intelligentsia.
In the commanding general's study, goldfish still swim in a long tank, glittering like the medals on his desk from Saddam.
"Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy for Scientific and Economic Development," a bulky green tome published in 1975, leans against the general's wall, under a picture of Saddam, whose Baathist Party came to power four years later in a bloody coup.
On a mantle, folded under documents, a Christmas card never sent. On the front is a dove, its wings the ellipses of the atom, tinged in orange, yellow and green. Under it, a tiger, facing backward, its body a swirl of Arabic letters. Inside the card: "Rights of Third World Peoples To Alternate Energy Sources For the Future Development of Their Environment and Culture."
The next page: "Let Us Hope This New Year Will Be a Year of Peace and Justice and With All Good Wishes for Christmas and the New Year." Signed, Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. Baghdad.
Very interesting. I'll bet it's not the last place like that either. I especially liked the following observation.
Farmers in rags drive the scientists' Mercedes and Land Rovers across Highway Six, filled with looted color televisions, silk rugs and Burberry suits.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/10/sprj.irq.europe.reaction/index.html
Chirac 'rejoices' as Saddam falls
Chirac strongly opposed a U.S-led military attack on Iraq, preferring to work through the U.N. Security Council in supporting longer weapons inspections.
But he said in a statement released by the Elysee Palace Thursday: "France, like every democracy, is rejoicing over the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and hopes for a quick and effective end to the battle."
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who opposed the war, was reported as saying he welcomed the sights from Baghdad as it was a sign that the conflict would be over soon.
CNN's Stephanie Halasz in Berlin said: "The overwhelming feeling among Germans was one of skepticism.
Chirac, Schroeder and Russia's President Vladimir Putin are to meet this weekend to discuss a post-war Iraq, with the likely emphasis on pushing for an increased U.N. role.
And what does all this posturing on the part of France, Germany, & Russia mean?
Italy's La Repubblica criticized the anti-war grouping, saying in an editorial: "The battle lines are drawn and this time the countries that opposed the coalition war are ready to muscle in and demand a piece of the Iraqi pie."
They want the rewards without the risk.
Bush should tell Chirac, Schroeder and Putin "We're coming for you next".
:-)
Bush should bend over and say "Kiss it!" I like what I have been hearing from congressmen and Senators. If they, meaning France, Germany, and Russia really want to help Iraq they will forgive the billions of dollars owed to them. All I know is I want to see these countries told F you. You had your chance to help. You will not profit for yourselves what American and its coallition soldiers have bled and died for.
THX's pick for post of the day:
"You will not profit for yourselves what American and its coallition soldiers have bled and died for."
The ones who will profit from this will be the free Iraqi people, no one else.
Sean Penn’s Downtown Lunch Marred by Car, Gun Theft
What is this piece activist doing with a loaded 9 mm Glock handgun inside his car and an unloaded .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver in the trunk in Downtown Berkeley? Doesn't he know that guns only promote violence?
I believe it was an error, but I have to kind of chuckle. You wrote "piece activist". I'm pretty sure you meant "peace activist", but being that it concerns guns you could read it as "piece activist".
"Yo, I'm carrying my piece so back off before I bust a cap in yo' ass."