Ray Robison: Pointing out the obvious to the oblivious

LTC Myers at FrontPage

LTC Myers is one of our favorites because he combines intelligent thoughtful analysis with actual common sense. Give it a read here.

“Death to America was, is, and will stay our slogan!” – Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah Secretary-General (“Hezbollah Vows Anew To Target Americans”, Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2003)

In the prosecution of the Global War against Terror (GWOT) initiated only after the horror of 9/11, an important threat to the United States fell from the public radar screen while al-Qaeda, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and the regime of Saddam Hussein became the primary targets. That important threat was the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah.

Operating out of their stronghold in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has successfully waged a war against Israel for more than two decades and has provided ample financial, training and logistical support for the Palestinian terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hezbollah’s particular expertise has been in teaching the art of suicide bombing, which it introduced to the Palestinian groups in 1993; and in constructing elaborate “mega-bombs” to inflict massive casualties.

Getting to know al Qaeda

The West Point CTC has 3 new documents from al Qaeda in Iraq. The first one I have read gives a pretty detailed account of their operations. When you read it, remember the liberals who are crying about the civil rights of "the brothers" at Gitmo and remember to aim away from your keyboard when you puke, don't want to get it all gummy in there.

 First, we backed off during the elections, they had checkpoints, using tens of his tribesmen who started checking cars, they violated our brothers many times, they even announced it, then our brothers attacked the field leader, the brain behind people revolting at al-Anbar in AlbuFahd, so the brothers raided his house in the middle of the night wearing the national guards uniform and driving similar cars, they took him and killed him thank god. The next morning his households and neighbors started talking to the tribe saying it was the national guards, they added that they heard some of them speaking English, meaning that the Americans are the ones who took Abu Dhari (Sheik Nasr al-Fahdawi), no one claimed responsibility for his killing, thank god.

 2- Around the same period, our brothers on the other side of Uphrate river, killed Jasim al-‘Awwad in al-Malahima and AlbuHazim, he’s considered as important as Abu Dhari in AlbuFahd, he’s a big spy / agent, invited Americans to his house for big dinner parties many times, regardless, our brothers didn’t claim resposibility for killing him.

 3- After our brothers killed three of the infidels in AlbuFahd, some of them claimed he’s for Jihad, at the same time, protects with his soldiers the election centers, and encourages people to volunteers in the police force and the Iraqi army, and it was the second hit for Nasr al-Fahdawi. In the morning infidels announced in their satellite channels that Nasr al-Fahdawi welcomed Ibrahim al-Ja’fari in Ramadi, then by noon, they announced his assasination, thank god. Then there was a complete change of events than is was before thank god, cousins of Sheik Nasr came to the Mujahidin begging, announcing their repentance and innocense, saying we’re with you, we’ll do whatever you want. The turmoil is over, our brothers now are roaming the streets of AlbuFahd without any checkpoints.

Confederate Yankee  has a post about Iraq being called a safe haven for al Qaeda.

Outside the Beltway on Beltway traffic jam.

Let freedom ring points out an al Qaeda brain cramp.

op-for talks about the new mid east order

Laurie Mylroie at the American Spectator

American Spectator

Laurie was kind enough to send me a heads up about her latest, very interesting, must read.

Special Report
Origins of the Iraqi Insurgency
By Laurie Mylroie, with Ayad Rahim
Published 4/28/2006 12:09:26 AM

Among the Iraqi documents released to the public, at least five deal with the construction of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). One such document (CMPC-2003-005914) is a ten-page worksheet.* The first two pages are entitled, "Annual Plan for the Mechanical Workshop, Sheen-27 -- 1999"; the last eight are entitled "First Season Report of the Sheen-27 Work Plan for 1999." The report of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group explains that "Sheen-27" was a section of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) responsible for producing explosives. It had a Chemistry Department, which "developed the explosive materials for the device," an Electronics Department, "which prepared the timers and wiring of the IED," and a Mechanical Department, which "produced the igniters and designed the IED."

Update: I would like to add to this discussion. I recently spoke to a person involved with tracking down the insurgents in Baghdad. I asked this analyst what his view was on the relationship between former Baathists and the insurgency. He told me he believed that former regime officials were still deeply involved in the insurgency and Jihadists attacks. He said that he had tried repeatedly to make this case to other experts involved but found no acceptance for his theory. Eventually, they listened and within days rounded up some note-able Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders. They did this by following the possible links between Saddam Regime leaders to the terrorists. His view is that this is indicative of a relationship between the regime and terrorists prior to the war. Unfortunately, I can not share anymore about my source. Those who deny all links between Saddam and terrorism won't care if Saddam himself admitted it, so I can only hope the people who are open to the truth find this information useful.

More Saddam betrayal

A few weeks ago Sammi provided a translation of an IIS agents notebook I subtitled "Both in one trench" after a phrase used by an Iraqi official (believed to be Saddam's VP of Iraq) meeting with a Pakistani cleric meeting to discuss a secret relationship between Iraq and the Taliban:

We already believe that there are no points of disagreement between us and the Taliban because we are both in one trench facing the world’s oppression.....For the future we think that we will arrange relations between us, as an intelligence service, and them in a SECRET (translator’s emphasis) way to establish the strong base of this relation.

One of the names mentioned in the captured notebook is Ahmad Al Kilani. This name comes up again in a new translation Sammi provides concerning Iraq assistance to Afghanistan opposition groups that ousted the Soviets and then vied for power until the Taliban took Kabul. The new document is about money transfers to Ahmad Kilani in the late 80's early 90's.

The document does demonstrate that the Iraqis were more involved with Afghani affairs than the MSM would have us believe. Oddly enough, as the U.S. was supporting Afghan resistance to defeat the Soviets, so was Saddam. The big difference is that the USSR was the United States enemy. The USSR was Saddam's benefactor. And in return, Saddam paid Afghani resistance fighters to kill Russian soldiers. With friends like Saddam.... 

Sammi:

Translator’s note:
-Document IISP-2003-00040598 contains 64 pages regarding memos and transfers of money to the Afghani opposition in 1988-89-90
- All transfer documents are in English, $500,000.00 per month.
- The interesting fact is that the Afghani opposition at this time 88-90 was fighting the Soviet Union, Saddam’s best friend.
- So Saddam was financially supporting the enemies of his best ally.
- If he has no problem back stabbing his best supporters, one should wonder how he feels about the United Nations whom he never considered as friends.

Translation of page 13/64:

Council of Revolutionary Command
Intelligence Directorate
       Top secret and private

To: Respected director
Subject: The Afghani Ahmad Hassan Al Kilani

Sir,

The President Leader (May God protect him) had previously ordered us, through Mr. the Secretary’s memo number 560/K on 2-2-1990 to provide a monthly amount of half a million dollars from the account of the Presidency to be transferred to the account of Mr. Ahmad Al Kilani in a Swiss bank, starting from 1-1-1989 and until the opposition controls the government in Afghanistan.
Since 1-1-1989 we have been continuously paying half a million dollars monthly.

Please review, with respects
11th March 1990

On page 61/64 a top secret and private memo (dated 2nd of November 1988) says that the half a million dollars transfers started in October 1988.

On page 29/64 an intelligence memo (dated 5th of January 1991) mentions that the last half a million dollar payment took place on the 9th of August 1990 (translator’s note: 7 days after he invaded Kuwait)

Translator’s note: A total of 23 months of transfers equals eleven millions and five hundred thousands US dollars.

Update: I found a reference to this payment on the National Review Online article Smoking in the Background.

“Title: Order from Saddam Hussein to present $25k to Palestinian Suicide Bombers’ Families
Short Description: Order from Saddam to give money to suicide bombers’ families, letters from al-Kilani Said Ahmed, a leader of the National Islamic Front in Afghanistan (and who used to receive payments from Saddam).
Agency: DIA
Document Date: Mar-02
Document #: ISGP-2003-00014647”

IIS Top Secret doc proves intent to hide prohibited items from UN

Ray: Proving intent. Some would believe (or at least claim to believe) that Saddam wanted to comply with UN mandates to get the sanctions removed. This document shows without a doubt (unless proven inauthentic) that this is not the case. The IIS demonstrates that not only is it procuring prohibited items but providing secret facilities to hide them from the UN. I also believe that this demonstrates proof that Iraq did hide prohibited items from the UN which were not found. I have seen nothing about these computers in UN reports. Please let me know if anyone finds a reference to this in the literature. CMPC-2003-015065.pdf

Translator’s notes:
-Document CMPC-2003-015065 is composed of 35 pages of memos between different intelligence directorates regarding the procurement of new computers.
- Page 3/35 is translated. It is dated January 1st 1999.

                    Top secret

Presidency of the Republic
Directorate of Intelligence

To: Director of the Intelligence service
Subject: Providing a secret location

In view of the upcoming execution of the computer installation project which is going to be contracted and because the mentioned computers are advanced and highly capable on the  technological level they are therefore part of the equipment which the UN has prevented its import to the country. Because we are worried that UN inspection teams might visit the Directorate’s headquarters and while searching the computers’ building they will find those advanced computers which in the future will store the data of the different directorates of Intelligence.
Therefore we propose the following:
Provide a secret house for the new computer which would be close to the headquarters….
(Translator’s notes: the remaining of the page deals with the technicalities of the operation.)

Ray: From Secretary Powell's UN briefing

"Tell me, answer me, are the inspectors to search the house of every government official, every Baath Party member and every scientist in the country to find the truth, to get the information they need, to satisfy the demands of our council?

Our sources tell us that, in some cases, the hard drives of computers at Iraqi weapons facilities were replaced. Who took the hard drives. Where did they go? What's being hidden? Why? There's only one answer to the why: to deceive, to hide, to keep from the inspectors.

Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors."

Satellite Images from the Gwynne Roberts' story

One of the essential elements of the Leone story is that a military base at Lake Rezzaza was the location of the testing preparations for the nuclear bomb. The article has an accompanying photo that it claims is the facility described by Leone. Leone said some of the buildings were blown up to conceal the evidence. That is matched by the satellite image. Using a new satellite imaging program called Goggle Earth I have been able to verify that this military facility does exist just south of Lake Rezzaza. Here is the image from the article as posted on Global Security .

Here is the image from Google Earth. Note that the Lat/Long is visible. You can easily verify this by installing Google Earth and going to this L/L.

So this essential element of Leone's story is easily verifiable. My request to you the reader is to help me look for the tunnel pictured in the article. I am not sure if the resolution of Google Earth can acquire this site (if it even exists). But I would appreciate help looking for it.

Update:
scudwatch.org editor andrew showed it to me on a map. Here is the google earth image:

   I invite you to go look at google for yourself. This appears to be a truly unique feature in the area. It seems similar to the satellite image from the story. It does look like a tunnel under the ground and the earth has settled on top to create a flat rectangle.  Of course I am no expert on imagery analysis.  Anyone out there that is want to comment?

Update: Science news article on hiding a nuclear explosion from July 2001

" Even though scientists can distinguish between the ground waves caused by earthquakes and those from explosions, it's often difficult if not impossible to tell a nuclear blast from a chemical  explosion, such as one caused by TNT. Murphy notes also that it's particularly difficult to analyze small seismic signals because the characteristics that distinguish one type of vibration source from another can be overwhelmed by background noise.      

   There are additional complications. Ground motions can appear small  to detectors because the source is far away. However, says Murphy, such  vibrations can also seem small because they come from a blast set off in a large, empty cavern. A bomb far from the walls of the cavern doesn't shatter the surrounding rock, a process that would send out distinctive seismic vibrations. The energy from the explosion is instead  transferred gradually to the walls of the cavern, which then vibrate in  ways that can mimic an earthquake. Scientists say that such explosions  have been decoupled from the cavity they're in.   

   Not only does cavity-decoupling remove a nuclear explosion's fingerprint, but it also sends out ground vibrations much smaller than  expected. For example, a cavity-decoupled nuclear explosion in a cavern  of salt would seem as small as one-seventieth its actual power. In other  words, someone conducting a clandestine nuclear test in a large enough  cavity could make a 1-kiloton nuclear bomb appear as if it were only 14  tons of a chemical explosive.      

   The size of the cavity needed to fully decouple a nuclear explosion  depends on the size of the bomb, the depth of the cavern, and the  material into which the cavity has been mined. For a small nuclear  explosion in hard rock, such as granite, a 20-meter-diameter spherical cavity would do the job, says William Leith, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va.

   A spherical cavity is more difficult to dig out than an oblong one. However, calculations say an oblong cavity of similar volume will cloak a nuclear explosion as well as a spherical cavern will, Leith says.      

Digging large oblong cavities is quite doable. To house hydroelectric turbines, engineers in Japan and Indonesia have excavated such caverns in rock with unsupported roof spans of 35 m. The Chinese have built an underground aircraft hangar in rock whose ceiling spans 42 m." 

Update: Arms control association

"Verification, of course, can never be achieved with 100-percent confidence. There will always be some level of nuclear testing below which the United States will not be able to monitor with high confidence using seismic means alone. Discovery of very small tests below the seismic threshold would depend on unquantifiable information from human or signal intelligence or photo reconnaissance. Although, the possibility of such information provides a further deterrent to the clandestine testing of low-yield nuclear devices, our ability to enforce the objectives of the treaty is measured by the efficacy of the monitoring system."

"The network is expected to detect all seismic events anywhere in the world of magnitude 4 or larger on the Richter scale, and to locate those events within a 1,000-square-kilometer error ellipse, the maximum area permitted for an on-site inspection under the terms of the treaty."

Also: FAS

"Finally, it is impossible to verify a ban that extends to very low yields. The likelihood of cheating is high. "Trust but verify" should remain our guide. Tests with yields below 1 kiloton can both go undetected and be militarily useful to the testing state. Furthermore, a significantly larger explosion can go undetected -- or mistaken for a conventional explosion used for mining or an earthquake -- if the test if "decoupled." Decoupling involves conducting the test in a large underground cavity and has been shown to dampen an explosion's seismic signature by a factor of up to 70. The United States demonstrated this capability in 1966 in two tests conducted in salt domes at Chilton, Miss"

Respectfully,

James R. Schlesinger, Richard B. Cheney, Frank C. Carlucci, Caspar W. Weinberger, Donald H. Rumsfeld and Melvin R. Laird"

More support to the claim that Saddam conducted nuclear tests

Jveritas has provided a new translation at the Free Republic under the comments to this article. My previous post describes a secret Iraqi memo. Review that first and this will be in context.

In document BIAP-2003-004555 I found this interesting secret and immediate letter dated February 24 2001 from the Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization to the Iraqi Heath Ministry asking to provide them with sample for each case of cancer in the Southern region and Baghdad so they can test the concentration of “Depleted Uranium” in the organs. It was clear that the Iraqi wanted to use this to promote a big lie that the Iraqi people were exposed to Depleted Uranium during the first Gulf war in 1991 and this was due to Coalition Forces bombing. The real fact that these people had leukemia and other type of cancer because of the nuclear waste and nuclear experimentations that Saddam regime was doing for many years.
Beginning of the translation of Page 157

Republic of Iraq

Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization

Number 15/246

Date: 24/2/2001

Secret and Immediate

Health Ministry/ Office of the Minister

Subject: Use of Depleted Uranium

Indicating to the letter of the Presidential Secretariat numbered aa’/4165 on 3/2/2001 please provide us with sample for each Cancer case that come to the hospital in the Southern Region and the capital Baghdad for the purpose of examining the concentration of Uranium in the affected organs or blood attached with information about the patient clarifying all the information for purposes of documentation and providing the statistical analysis and estimate the health risk for the pollution with Depleted Uranium, and prepare what is required from scientific facts and statistics to show the negative impacts and with what collate with the direction of the respected Presidential Secretariat to support the international campaign against the use the of Depleted Uranium

Signature…

Fadel Muslim Abed Al Janabi

Chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization

24/2/2001

Ray: What this document verifies is that at the same time of the Gwynne Roberts' article mentioned in the previous post, and the IIS document discussing mass graves to "confirm" the presence of radiation, the Ministry of health was ordered to catalog cases of cancer or death suspected to be caused by radiation exposure.

This means that Iraq fully expected and believed these people had been exposed to a high level of radiation. That is now indisputable  (I am going to modify this to highly probable).

So the question is now, could DU have caused a mass casualty event like this? The answer, despite leftist propaganda, is no way.

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/DU/finalreport.pdf

It is an IAEA on site environmental inspection of locations in Kosovo where DU was used. This is a serious scientific study. Under findings, it says:

"The corresponding radiological and chemical risks from all points of view are consequently insignificant"

The radiation in this case is not from DU.

So now you have to ask "what caused this radiation exposure". If you have made the correct conclusion that it is not from depleted uranium then it becomes clear. This is now starting to look like strong evidence that this nuclear test did in fact happen (something that frankly shocks me).

I believe that what we are seeing is the unraveling of a case in which Saddam knew that a story concerning mass graves contaminated with radiation was about to come out and decided to blame it on DU with the help of leftists. It fits.

I have had readers point out some counter arguments.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2001/0611nuc.htm

"Such an explosion he said, in an article for the London-based think tank, the Verification, Training and Information Center, would have been easily detectable by international or by regional monitoring in Iran, Israel or Jordan, which keep records of earthquakes.

None of them reported any seismic events of the magnitude necessary for a nuclear test in the region around Lake Rezazza, Wallace said."

Sounds case closed doesn't it? Until I found this:

http://www.psigate.ac.uk/spotlight/issue9/earth.html

"Wallace and his colleagues examined the global earthquake catalogues produced by the International Seismic Center and the US Geological Survey and say they reveal no seismic disturbances at all in Iraq that day. Moreover, they say there has been no seismicity within 50 km of the reported test site for the years 1980 to 1999. One problem with the assertion that no weapons testing took place, they point out, is that the detection threshold for these global catalogues was just magnitude 4.0 in 1989 so a smaller magnitude event may have not been picked up by the sensors."

Leone said it was 2.7 on the surface. 

The article also said this:

"The chief U.N. arms inspector and experts at a London think tank have concluded there was no evidence Iraq had carried out a successful nuclear test in 1989, as alleged in news reports earlier this year.
Hans Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said he reported to the U.N. Security Council last week "the information is totally wrong" that Iraq conducted a nuclear test beneath Lake Rezazza, southwest of Baghdad on Sept. 19, 1989, before the Gulf War.

He told reporters his department and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had evidence in its files, from overhead flights and previous ground inspections "there had been no nuclear tests" nor a tunnel under the lake. "

But now read this from a 2003 UK article posted just the day before yesterday on this site:

"Although Dr Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspections teams, was made aware of the discovery last week, he failed to mention it during talks with Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and Jacques Chirac the French president.

British officials are particularly concerned that Mr Blix appears to be playing down the significance of last week's breakthroughs.

He indicated that he did not feel the discovery of the chemical warheads was an issue that needed to be reported to the Security Council."

Really? The head of the inspections didn't feel that the discovery of 122mm CW rockets was important enough to report?

Another counter argument in a Duelfer report from 2002 noted that Saddam would have changed his behavior if he had a nuclear bomb. The nuclear test is claimed to have occurred in late 1989. So what was Saddam up to after the test? Oh yea, he invaded a small sovereign nation against the worlds collective judgment in 1990. Almost no nation on earth supported the invasion of Kuwait. This was not the Iran war where most nations hated Iran and preferred Iraq. This was the destruction of a small friendly Arab nation. If I remember correctly, the State Department claimed that when U.S. detected troop movement to the border State never thought Saddam was actually going to do it. They didn't think it matched his behavior to date. Yet Saddam felt pretty comfortable doing it. No change in behavior? You can be the judge.

Fitting the pieces together

In February 2001, the Sunday Times ran the article Was this Saddam’s Bomb by Gwynne Roberts. I couldn't find the original but it is also on Globalsecurity.org .

I only recently read this article and found it interesting but very hard to believe. One of the newly released documents CMPC-2003-015757  contains the Roberts article in English. This is the first time I have seen it. I did some research and found no serious academic or professional rebuttals other than people who also found it hard to believe. However, it seems that supporting evidence has been right in front of us for a few weeks now.

The article describes a conversation with a man called “Leone” who claimed to be a nuclear scientist working in Iraq. He approached Gwynne with tales of hidden nuclear programs, hidden nuclear weapons and most surprisingly a claim of a successful nuclear test performed in the Rezzaza Lake area of southern Iraq in 1989.

Leone claimed that the test was conducted underground in a massive tunnel. He said the tunnel required workers who were sacrificed for the secrecy of the project.

The tunnel and the entrance were huge and the manpower needed to block it up massive. Leone had told me that thousands of political prisoners worked on the tunnel after a presidential amnesty.
"They were well fed and lived in comfortable caravans. In return, they worked hard. But none of them came out of it alive," he said. "Many were contaminated with radioactive waste. Friends working for Iraqi security who were guarding them said they were buried in caves nearby. The Iraqi regime hoped the secret of the Rezzaza lake test would die with them.
"Hussein Kamel gave the order to kill these people . . . I was disgusted by it and  it's one of the major reasons I fled."
This grotesque story was corroborated by Imad. He said he was aware that political prisoners who worked on the Rezzaza tunnel were massacred by Iraqi security guards to conceal an unspecified secret military project. He did not know this was the nuclear test site.

I am not sure how these workers would have been contaminated if this test occurred as stated by Leone. But I don’t think it is beyond the bounds of reason that even though the tunnel was plugged deep inside, radiation could have penetrated the 50 meter concrete plug Leone described. Then when the workers went down into the tunnel to completely fill it in they were exposed to radiation.
It also seems like the deaths of hundreds of prisoners caused by radiation would certainly be hard to conceal, even in Iraq. But putting this story together with a newly released document does present an intriguing clue.

A few weeks ago a man named Joseph or screen name “Jveritas” started putting original translations on the Free Republic website. One of them was interesting but did not receive a lot of attention: ISGQ-2004-00224003

In this Iraqi document ISGQ 2004-00224003 dated February 7 2001, there was a discussion in upper echelon of the Iraqi intelligence about mass graves in Southern Iraq and how to shift the blame to the Coalition forces and make it look like these mass graves as the results massacres committed by the Coalition forces back in 1991 during Desert Storm Operation.
Beginning of the Partial Translation
The Republic of Iraq
The Intelligence Apparatus
Date: 7/2/2001
No 1687
In the Name of God the Merciful the Most Compassionate
Secret
To the respectful Mr. Director of the Fourth Directory
Your letter secret and immediate numbered B 264 on 2/4/2001
1. No information is available to us about the Mass Graves in the Southern Region.
2.We see to achieve the observation the following matters:
A. Inspect the graves to confirm the existence of Nuclear Radiations.
B. Were they buried alive or their death was by suffocation.
C. Are they military personnel or civilians.
D. Are there tombstones that carry the names of the martyrs
E. Identify accurate marks and proofs of the graves and the possibility to reach it quickly and identify it.
3. We do not agree that the declaration about it through a direct Iraqi media in the first stage at least and not to cause public and party reaction so that the subject will take as a priority an international interest, and we should work on the following direction during this stage:
A. Leak the news through reliable sources.. News agencies or Satellite stations.. and that there is confusion, and indications from the members of the Coalition forces about the existence of mass graves civilians and military personnel in the South of Iraq.
B. The attempt to search for soldiers from the Coalition forces in a serious way to mention these truth through the agencies.

This document is describing a mass grave filled with people who are suspected of suffering radiation exposure. The IIS intends to argue the bodies have been there since 1991.

So let’s put this in context. Leone tells a story in 1998 about a nuclear test in 1989. In February of 2001, the IIS is talking about a mass grave site that must have been there for many years. Why are they talking about it now (2001)? The U.N. was not in Iraq at that time. And it happens to be the same month that Gwynne Roberts takes this story public. Did the IIS find out about the article and begin planning the media manipulation to cover up a nuclear test? Or, this article may not have been the first time Roberts wrote about the graves. Perhaps there was an earlier work I couldn’t find and that’s why the IIS was concerned. Either way, the IIS seems to be reacting to his story. But it seems like the IIS is exploring ways to leak the news of the radioactive graves so it can be managed before the claim is made by another source, in other words, spin control.

In my research I could find no other triggering event for this discussion by the IIS like an actual discovery of mass graves by an external source.

The IIS seems to expect radiation to be present when they wrote in this memo “confirm” the presence of radiation.

The location matches, both describe the graves in Southern Iraq.

So the IIS document matches the story of Leone in location, radiation exposure, mass graves, and close enough for the timing as far as we can infer from the document.

And one more thing. Leone described a Group Four responsible for nuclear testing:

"They thought they had stopped the Iraqis from building the bomb, but they overlooked the military organization codenamed Group Four. This department is a comprehensive section that was involved in assembling the bomb from the beginning to the end. It was also involved in developing launching systems, missile programmes, preparing uranium, purchasing it on the black market, smuggling it back into Iraq."

Leone told me that Group Four successfully developed a gun-type device at the nuclear weaponisation centre at al-Atheer. Unscom, the UN inspectorate, was aware that the Iraqis were working on an implosion-type nuclear device there, but knew nothing about Group Four. All evidence of its existence had been removed before they arrived in Iraq, Leone said.

Now look at the IIS memo again. It is addressed to "the respectful Mr. Director of the Fourth Directory".

There is a Directorate 4 described on the FAS website :

Political Bureau The Political Bureau is probably the most important branch of the Mukhabarat. It includes a number of Directorates.
Directorate 4. Secret Service

The Secret Service Directorate is located inside the headquarters complex of the Mukhabarat. Its activities take place both in Iraq and abroad, with agents of D4 infiltrated into Iraqi Government departments, the Baath Party, associations, unions and organisations, Iraqi embassies and the opposition. In addition, the Secret Service receives intelligence from the Al Hadi Project, responsible for SIGINT. The Directorate includes a number of offices specialising in the collection against a specific country or region, including offices for Southern Asia, Turkey, Iran, America (North and South), Europe, Arab states, Africa and the former Soviet Union. D4 works in co-ordination with D3, D5, D9, D12, D14, D18. The current Director of D4 is Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Al Qurtan, and the Assistant Director of D4 is Brig. Mohammed Yasin Al Shammari, from Mosul.

So this document could be the IIS writing the Secret Service organization that would be concerned with the article, or it could be to the secret nuclear development group Leone describes or perhaps they are one and the same.

The IIS document can be viewed in two ways. Some might read it and think it is also an honest response to a potential international incident and how to deal with the rumor. I do not agree with that view. The document seems to confirm that the IIS believes the graves are there:

1. No information is available to us about the Mass Graves in the Southern Region.

One would expect that if the IIS knew the story to be false, they would quantify the statement with terms like "alleged" or "unlikely". It seems like they know the graves are there already. They might not know the exact location, but they know they exist in the area. Another possibility is that this statement means "no more information about the article concerning the mass graves is available". That would actually fit well with the rest of the document since the rest of the document sure seems to indicate the graves are known to be there.

Now look at the "observations". None of those actually say "confirm the graves exist" or something similar. If they weren't sure they existed or believed they didn't exist, that should be the first point.

And it seems kind of like putting the cart before the horse to say how the story should be leaked if they haven't confirmed the graves are there. And if they are not there, why leak the story at all? Just say it is not true. The IIS response seems like they expect graves to be found.

The statement "The attempt to search for soldiers from the Coalition forces in a serious way to mention these truth through the agencies" is a little hard to comprehend in translation. Unless you look at the document from this perspective:

The Secret Service has learned this mass grave is about to be reported. They send a request for information to the IIS to find out what is to be said in the article specific to the graves. The IIS can't find out what the article will say specifically. They come up with a cover story just in case. The mass grave is not a secret grave, but it is a known mass grave from the Gulf War. They want to ensure the bodies are a mix of civilians and military. If the atrocity was committed by the U.S. during war, there would be military killed in the fighting. If they died of suffocation, then they have a reasonable alternative to radiation exposure. If the grave site gets marked with tombstones, then it is not a secret grave but a known cemetary of martyrs of the Gulf War.

In short, this document appears to be a plan to turn a secret mass grave into a known cemetary of martyrs and provide all the necessary details to make that story work. Remove the mystery, remove the interest, old news. I believe it is a cover up, not an investigation. The last line indicates how the grave site will be revealed. Iraq will take the reporters out in a generous attempt to show compassion for its enemy the U.S. by searching for missing coalition soldiers (Spiker) and stumble upon this grave. Then when the story comes out about the secret graves, the reporters can say "no, we have seen the graves and it is not a secret, it is a cemetary from the war". It is camouflage.

Unless this document can be shown as inauthentic it may be the first physical evidence to back up Leone’s story and Gwynne Roberts' article other than the satellite images in the article.

Flashback: docs prove Saddam working on Nukes

Telegraph

United Nations weapons inspectors have uncovered evidence that proves Saddam Hussein is trying to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons, The Telegraph can reveal. The discovery was made following spot checks last week on the homes of two Iraqi nuclear physicists in Baghdad.

Acting on information provided by Western intelligence, the UN inspection teams discovered a number of documents proving that Saddam is continuing with his attempts to develop nuclear weapons, contrary to his public declarations that Iraq is no longer interested in producing weapons of mass destruction.

The revelation follows last Thursday's discovery of a number of warheads at an ammunition storage facility south of Baghdad that had been designed for carrying chemical and biological weapons.

Although UN officials say that they have no comment to make at present on the documents found at the scientists' homes, a Western diplomat closely involved with the investigation into Saddam's nuclear capability yesterday confirmed that the documents showed that Iraq was still attempting to develop its own atomic weapons.

"These are not old documents. They are new and they relate to on-going work taking place in Iraq to develop nuclear weapons," the official told The Telegraph.

"They had been hidden at the scientists' homes on Saddam's personal orders. Furthermore, no mention of this work is made in the Iraqi dossier that was submitted to the UN last December."

UN nuclear experts are this weekend continuing to examine the seized documents. Officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have also been informed of the discovery.

The revelation that Saddam is working on nuclear weapons in defiance of the United Nations is further evidence that Iraq is failing to comply with the terms of UN Resolution 1441, which requires Baghdad to make a complete disclosure of its weapons of mass destruction programme.

A false or incomplete disclosure or a failure fully to co-operate with the inspectors would constitute a material breach of the resolution and result in military action against Baghdad.

Although Dr Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspections teams, was made aware of the discovery last week, he failed to mention it during talks with Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and Jacques Chirac the French president.

British officials are particularly concerned that Mr Blix appears to be playing down the significance of last week's breakthroughs.

He indicated that he did not feel the discovery of the chemical warheads was an issue that needed to be reported to the Security Council.

The inspectors' discoveries follow a radical improvement in relations between UN officials and Western intelligence which had been reluctant to hand over sensitive information for fear that it might fall into the hands of Iraqi officials, thereby risking the lives of agents working in Iraq.

In particular intelligence officials were keen that a team of UN inspectors visit the homes of two Iraqi nuclear scientists living in the outskirts of Baghdad.

This followed information from high ranking officials at Iraq's Ministry of Military Industrialisation (MIO) that suggested Saddam had ordered that top secret nuclear documents should be hidden at the homes of scientists working on the project.

As one inspection team discovered the empty chemical warheads, nuclear weapons experts were cordoning off the street where two scientists lived in Baghdad's al-Ghazalia neighbourhood.

They searched the homes of Faleh Hassan, a specialist in laser equipment, and Dr Shaker alJibouri, a nuclear scientist. Inspectors also accompanied the scientists to sites known to have been used for nuclear research.

IIS doc lists plan to train Arab Fedayeen

Free Republic

Document: Iraqi Intelligence To Train Arab Feedayeen Terrorists In the Year 2000 (Translation)
Pentagon/FMSO Iraq Pre-war documents ^ | April 18 2006 | jveritas

Posted on 04/18/2006 7:35:16 PM PDT by jveritas

Earlier we have seen the translation of document ISGP-2003-00028868 (see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1600367/posts ) where it talks about Training Non Iraqi Foreign Arab Terrorists in February 2003 to help the Iraqis in their war against the coalition forces. Some may have dismissed this document by saying that the Iraqis wanted every possible help on the eve of the war, and thus they argued that there was no connection between Saddam and terrorists. However now comes this Iraqi Intelligence document CMPC-2003-005935 that is dated November 22 1999 and it talks about the plan for the year 2000 and that includes the Training of Arab Feedayeens which mean training non Iraqi Foreign Arab Terrorists. Who are those Feedayeen Foreign Arab Terrorists? Are they Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc…? This document is another proof of Saddam great connection to Terrorism and dated back to the year 1999-2000, a long rooted connection to terrorism. Saddam Regime is a TERRORIST REGIME and we had all the rights to remove him after 9/11/2001.

 

Beginning of the translation of page 2 of document CMPC-2003-005935

In the Name of God the Most Merciful the Most Compassionate

The Presidency of the Republic

The Intelligence Apparatus

Mr: The Respected Director

Subject: Projects of a Plan

Below are projects of the plan for the year 2000 and according to the budget suggested for it in the spending budget of the year 2000 and as follow:

1. Prepare an armored brief case to protect the VIPs 180 days.

2. Study on the Epoxy used currently in preparing the IEDs and the possibility of finding another type that will not affect the explosive.

3. Studies and researches of the materials that increase the intensity of the explosive.

4. Prepare theoretical and applied lessons on the popular explosives 120 days.

5. Training of the Arab Feedayeens- within the plan of the year 2000.

Establish tournaments specialized in the explosives 30 days

Please review and your command with regards

Signature…

Khaled Ibrahim Ismail

Senior Chemist

22/11/99

ray: they are probably talking about this State Department