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| Iraq |
| Iraqi directs U.S. to hidden missiles |
| 2003-04-15 |
| EFL Led by a retired Iraqi air force engineer who walked in off the street, U.S. paratroopers inspected several sites south of Kirkuk on Monday and found about a dozen 20-foot-long missiles, more than two dozen large green tanks full of an unknown substance and crates of suits and masks designed to protect troops from chemical attack. Much of the material was covered with camouflage netting, and there were some fake fiberglass missiles nearby that seemed design to fool aerial observation. Local Kurds said the farmland was owned by Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein who is known as ``Chemical Ali'' for his role in ordering chemical attacks in 1988 that killed 5,000 Kurdish civilians. Now known as "Compost Ali". Some of the missiles, which had booster tanks attached, were mounted on mobile launchers. The military later identified them as Soviet-made S-2 surface-to-air missiles. The missiles and the tanks had English inscriptions on their surfaces but no indication of their country of origin. English inscriptions on Russian SAMs? Export model, perhaps? ``Remove carefully. Handle with care,'' read a label on many of the green tanks. It wasn't known whether any of the missiles or tanks contained chemical or biological agents or whether their ranges made them prohibited under U.N. resolutions that regulated Iraq's weaponry. Could be fuel. Wonder if these are some of those SAMs that had been modified into surface-to-surface missiles. Tahir Kareem, who walked into the municipal government building in Kirkuk to tell U.S. troops about the sites, said he was a Kurd who had retired in 1996 from the Iraqi air force. ``There are many things buried out here,'' he said, after leading a convoy of Humvees in his car to the location about 12 miles southwest of Kirkuk. I'm sure there are. The U.S. paratroopers marked the locations, which were to be examined by experts. ``The weapons inspectors never would have found this stuff,'' said Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo, the battalion commander who led the team to the sites. ``It would have taken 40 years.'' Even then they wouldn't have found anything. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 ``The weapons inspectors never would have found this stuff,'' said Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo, the battalion commander who led the team to the sites. ``It would have taken 40 years.'' The assumption being that Blix and his cronies actually wanted to find something. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-04-15 11:47:29 |