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Title: ‘I found Saddam’s WMD bunkers’
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URL Source: http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/
Published: Apr 19, 2007
Author: melanie phillips
Post Date: 2007-04-19 23:09:11 by BeAChooser
Keywords: None
Views: 457
Comments: 63
‘I found Saddam’s WMD bunkers’ Spectator, 20 April 2007 It’s a fair bet that you have never heard of a guy called Dave Gaubatz. It’s also a fair bet that you think the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found absolutely nothing, nada, zilch; and that therefore there never were any WMD programmes in Saddam’s Iraq to justify the war ostensibly waged to protect the world from Saddam’s use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Dave Gaubatz, however, says you could not be more wrong. Saddam’s WMD did exist. He should know because he found the sites where he is certain they were stored. And the reason you don’t know about this is that the American administration failed to act on his information, ‘lost’ his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam’s WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war. You may be tempted to dismiss this as yet another dodgy claim from a warmongering lackey of the world Zionist neocon conspiracy giving credence to yet another crank pushing US propaganda. If so, perhaps you might pause before throwing this article at the cat. Mr Gaubatz is not some marginal figure. He’s pretty well as near to the horse’s mouth as you can get. Having served for 12 years as an agent in the US Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations Mr Gaubatz, a trained Arabic-speaker, was hand-picked for postings in 2003, first in Saudi Arabia and then in Nasariyah in Iraq. His mission was to locate suspect WMD sites, discover threats against US forces in the area and find Saddam loyalists, and then send such intelligence to the Iraq Survey Group and other agencies. Between March and July 2003, he says, he was taken to four sites in southern Iraq— two within Nasariyah, one 20 miles south and one near Basra — which, he was told by numerous Iraqi sources, contained biological and chemical weapons, material for a nuclear programme and UN-proscribed missiles. He was, he says, in no doubt whatever that this was true. This was in the first place because of the massive size of these sites and the extreme lengths to which the Iraqis had gone to conceal them. Three of them were bunkers buried 20-30 feet beneath the Euphrates. They had been constructed through building dams which were removed after the huge subterranean vaults had been excavated so that these were concealed beneath the river bed. The bunker walls were made of reinforced concrete five feet thick. ‘There was no doubt, with so much effort having gone into hiding these constructions, that something very important was buried there’, says Mr Gaubatz. By speaking to a wide range of Iraqis, some of whom risked their lives by talking to him and whose accounts were provided in ignorance of each other, he built up a picture of the nuclear, chemical and biological materials they said were buried underground. ‘They explained in detail why WMDs were in these areas and asked the US to remove them’, says Mr Gaubatz. ‘Much of this material had been buried in the concrete bunkers and in the sewage pipe system. There were also missile imprints in the area and signs of chemical activity —gas masks, decontamination kits, atropine needles. The Iraqis and my team had no doubt at all that WMDs were hidden there’. There was yet another significant piece of circumstantial corroboration. The medical records of Mr Gaubatz and his team showed that at these sites they had been exposed to high levels of radiation. Mr Gaubatz verbally told the ISG of his findings, and asked them to come with heavy equipment to breach the concrete of the bunkers and uncover their sealed contents. But to his consternation, the ISG told him they didn’t have the manpower or equipment to do it and that it would be ‘unsafe’ to try. ‘The problem was that the ISG were concentrating their efforts in looking for WMD in northern Iraq and this was in the south’, says Mr Gaubatz. ‘They were just swept up by reports of WMD in so many different locations. But we told them if they didn’t excavate these sites, others would’. That, he says, is precisely what happened. He subsequently learned from Iraqi, CIA and British intelligence that the WMD buried in the four sites were excavated by Iraqis and Syrians, with help from the Russians, and moved to Syria. The location in Syria of this material, he says, is also known to these intelligence agencies. The worst-case scenario has now come about. Saddam’s nuclear, biological and chemical material is in the hands of a rogue terrorist state — and one with close links to Iran. When Mr Gaubatz returned to the US, he tried to bring all this to light. Two congressmen, Peter Hoekstra, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Curt Weldon, were keen to follow up his account. To his horror, however, when they tried to access his classified intelligence reports they were told that all 60 of them —which, in the routine way, he had sent in 2003 to the computer clearing-house at a US air base in Saudi Arabia —had mysteriously gone missing. These written reports had never even been seen by the ISG. One theory is that they were inadvertently destroyed when the computer’s data base was accidentally erased in the subsequent US evacuation of the air base. Mr Gaubatz, however, suspects dirty work at the crossroads. It is unlikely, he says, that no copies were made of his intelligence. And he says that all attempts by Messrs Hoekstra and Weldon to extract information from the Defence Department and CIA have been relentlessly stonewalled. In 2005, the CIA held a belated inquiry into the disappearance of this intelligence. Only then did its agents visit the sites — to report that they had indeed been looted. Mr Gaubatz’s claims remain largely unpublicised. Last year, the New York Times dismissed him as one of a group of WMD diehard obsessives. The New York Sun produced a more balanced report, but after that the coverage died. According to Mr Gaubatz, the reason is a concerted effort by the US intelligence and political world to stifle such an explosive revelation of their own lethal incompetence. After he and an Iraqi colleague spoke at last month’s Florida meeting of the Intelligence Summit, an annual conference of the intelligence world, they were interviewed for two hours by a US TV show — only for the interview to be junked after the FBI repeatedly rang Mr Gaubatz and his colleague to say they would stop the interview from being broadcast. The problem the US authorities have is that they can’t dismiss Mr Gaubatz as a rogue agent — because they have repeatedly decorated him for his work in the field. In 2003, he received awards for his ‘courage and resolve in saving lives and being critical for information flow’. In 2001, he was decorated for being the ‘lead agent in a classified investigation, arguably the most sensitive counter-intelligence investigation currently in the entire Department of Defence’ and because his ‘reports were such high quality, many were published in the Air Force’s daily threat product for senior USAF leaders or re-transmitted at the national level to all security agencies in US government’. The organiser of the Intelligence Summit, John Loftus — himself a formidably well-informed former attorney to the intelligence world —has now sent a memorandum to Congress asking it to investigate Mr Gaubatz’s claims. He has also hit a brick wall. The reason is not hard to grasp. The Republicans won’t touch this because it would reveal the incompetence of the Bush administration in failing to neutralise the danger of Iraqi WMD . The Democrats won’t touch it because it would show President Bush was right to invade Iraq in the first place. It is an axis of embarrassment. Mr Loftus goes further. Saddam’s nuclear research, scientists and equipment, he says, have all been relocated to Syria, where US satellite intelligence confirms that uranium centrifuges are now operating — in a country which is not supposed to have any nuclear programme. There is now a nuclear axis, he says, between Iran, Syria and North Korea — with Russia and China helping build an Islamic bomb against the west. And of course, with assistance from American negligence. ‘Apparently Saddam had the last laugh and donated his secret stockpile to benefit Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. With a little technical advice from Beijing, Syria is now enriching the uranium, Iran is making the missiles, North Korea is testing the warheads, and the White House is hiding its head in the sand.’ Of course we don’t know whether any of this is true. But given Dave Gaubatz’s testimony, shouldn’t someone be trying to find out? Or will we still be intoning ’there were no WMD in Iraq’ when the Islamic bomb goes off?
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#12. To: Dakmar (#4)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_cheese History It has been made since at least 1170: a pipe roll of King Henry II from that year records the purchase of 10,420 pounds at a farthing per pound (£3 per tonne). Central to the modernisation and standardisation of cheddar cheese was Joseph Harding in the nineteenth century. For his development and propagation of modern cheese-making techniques he has been described as the father of cheddar cheese Production Cheddar-style cheeses are produced in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Canada, the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia (where it is sometimes called Tasty cheese) and Sweden. Much of this cheese is mass-produced and quality varies enormously. The strong flavour develops over time, with a taste diverse enough that food packaging will usually indicate a strength ("mild" to "strong/sharp/mature/vintage"), or the maturation period. Cheddaring refers to an additional step in the production of cheddar-style cheese where, after heating, the curd is cut into cubes to drain the whey, then stacked and turned. Strong, mature Cheddar, sometimes called vintage, needs to be matured for up to 15 months. The cheese is kept at a constant temperature often requiring special facilities. However, as with cheese production in France, some Cheddar cheese produced in the UK is matured in the caves at Cheddar and Wookey Hole. Status Cheddar cheese has become too widely produced to have a protected designated origin (PDO). However, the European Union recognises 'West Country Farmhouse Cheddar' as a protected designation of origin. To meet this standard the cheese must be made in the traditional manner using local ingredients in four designated counties of south-west England: Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Cornwall. However, the Slow Food Movement, encouraged and advised by Neal's Yard Dairy, has recently created a 'Cheddar presidia', claiming that only three cheeses should be called 'Cheddar'. Their specifications, which go well beyond the West Country Farmhouse Cheddar PDO, require that Cheddar be made in Somerset, and with traditional methods, such as using raw milk, traditional animal rennet, and a cloth wrapping. A number of large commercial food companies have in recent years established well known brands in the UK for their Cheddar cheese (Pilgrim's Choice, Cathedral City, Davidstow etc.). This move is considered by some to be a safeguard against the possibility of Cheddar cheese receiving 'protected designated origin' status in the future. Some companies have also considered the possibility of relocating to Cheddar, Somerset if this occurs. Character Cheddar is the most popular cheese in the UK, accounting for just over 50% of the country's £1.9 billion annual cheese market. Cheddar cheese is quintessentially English, but has been widely adopted and changed in new world countries such as Australia and the USA. Like many cheeses, the colour of Cheddar is often modified by the use of food colourings. In the United States and Canada, Annatto, extracted from the tropical achiote tree, is traditionally used to give Cheddar a deep orange colour. The origins of this practice have been long since forgotten, but the three leading theories appear to be: Cheddar was traditionally packaged sometimes in black wax, but commonly in larded cloth, impermeable to contaminants but still allowing the cheese to breathe, though this practice is now limited to Europe and to artisan cheese makers. In the United States, Cheddar cheese comes in several varieties, including mild, medium, sharp, New York Style, Colby/Longhorn, white, and Vermont. New York style Cheddar cheese is a particularly sharp Cheddar cheese, sometimes with a hint of smoke. It is usually slightly softer than milder Cheddar cheese. Colby/Longhorn Cheddar cheese has a mild to medium flavour. The curds are still distinct, often marbled in colour, varying from cream to yellow. Cheddar that has not been coloured is frequently labelled as "white Cheddar" or "Vermont Cheddar", regardless of whether it was produced in the state of Vermont. Cheddar is one of several products used by the United States Department of Agriculture to track the dairy industry; reports are issued weekly detailing prices and production quantities. The state of Wisconsin produces the most Cheddar in the United States; other centres of production include upstate New York, Vermont, and Tillamook, Oregon. Cheddar is also a good source of vitamin B12 and therefore recommendable for vegetarians. A slice of vegetarian Cheddar cheese (40g) contains about 0.5 µg of vitamin B12 (required daily intake for an adult is 2.4 µg). Famous Cheddars from Somerset include Keen's, with a strong tang, and Montgomery's, with an apple after taste and the unpasteurised Cheddar made by the Gorge Cheese Company in Cheddar itself. Record sized Cheddar cheeses White House historians assert that U.S. president Andrew Jackson held an open house party where a 1,400 pound (635 kg) block of Cheddar cheese was served as refreshment; this block of cheese would later serve as direct inspiration for two episodes of the Emmy-award winning television series The West Wing. A cheese of 7,000 pounds (3,175 kg) was produced in Ingersoll, Ontario in 1866 and exhibited in New York and Britain; it was immortalised in the famous poem "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds" by James McIntyre, a Canadian poet. In 1893 farmers from the town of Perth, Ontario produced The Mammoth Cheese, at a weight of 22,000 pounds (10,000 kg) for that year's World's Fair in Chicago. When placed on exhibit with the Canadian display, The Mammoth Cheese promptly crashed through the floor and had to be placed on reinforced concrete in the Agricultural Building. It was more written about than any other single exhibit at the fair, and received the bronze medal. A still larger Wisconsin Cheddar cheese of 34,951 pounds (15,853 kg) was produced for the 1964 New York World's Fair. It required the equivalent of the daily milk production of 16,000 cows.
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#13. To: Critter (#6)
we can't get Cabot. you don't like cheesecake? i make a delicious cheesecake. mine has some sour cream for just the right bite. i make a great chocolate one too. the other day i had some yummy cheese blintzes at Village Inn that i think had both cottage and cream cheese inside with strawberry sauce on top. mmmmmmm....
#14. To: Esso (#8)
mmmmmm..that sounds so good. isn't it swiss they use for patty melts?
#15. To: ... (#9)
what kinda cheese you think Ron Brown liked?
#16. To: christine (#13)
Smoked string cheese is really good and fun to eat too. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever had a smoked cheese that I didn't like.
#17. To: christine (#15)
Swiss, with only one hole in it.
what kinda cheese you think Ron Brown liked?
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#18. To: honway (#11)
Cheese is just downright nasty shit, ain't it? lol
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#19. To: christine (#15)
There is a kind goat cheese they make with radio active goats in the secret city under Baghdad. Chooser knows the details.
what kinda cheese you think Ron Brown liked?
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#20. To: christine (#15)
Don't you think that you should change the title of this thread so people know that it's about cheese?
#21. To: robin (#10)
I wouldn't mind nibbling on those cheese "balls".
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#22. To: BeAChooser (#0)
shalom fish breath. have you heard about the atomic mole people? they travel here from the mole planet and use mind control to make republicans do stupid things. they are probably behind a lot of this stuff. you should check into it.
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#23. To: christine (#15)
A rare look at the only known natural enemy of a cheese: 
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#24. To: Esso, Christine (#20)
yes, change the title to 'the secrets of cheese'.
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#25. To: Morgana le Fay (#22)
Will you PUHLEEEEEZ stay on topic lady! This is a thread about cheese!
have you heard about the atomic mole people?
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#26. To: Morgana le Fay, Esso, Christine (#24)
Make it "I Found Sadam's Cheese Balls!"
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#27. To: Critter (#23)
Ooooooooooooh, a GMD. (Grater of mass destruction)
#28. To: Critter (#23)
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#29. To: Esso (#27)
LMFAO!
(Grater of mass destruction)
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#30. To: Critter (#26)
cheesey balls?
Make it "I Found Sadam's Cheese Balls!"
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#31. To: BeAChooser (#0)
"Dave Gaubatz was the 1st U.S. Civilian Federal Agent sent into Iraq at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003." And he's selling "training" from his website. http://www.davegaubatz.com/ I like farmer's cheese. My grandmom made it from whole milk. Delicious.
I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace. — George W. Bush, June 18, 2002, 10:30 A.M. EDT
#32. To: Morgana le Fay (#30)
After all those months in that hole in the ground, probably, a bit, yeah.
cheesey balls?
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#33. To: rack42 (#31)
lol
I like farmer's cheese. My grandmom made it from whole milk. Delicious.
#34. To: BeAChooser (#0)
#35. To: ALL, angle (#34)
What was that motto that angle liked to post? "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
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Aren't you lucky. You get to receive one of the 15 posts I'm allowed each day.
#36. To: BeAChooser (#35)
i don't think it applies to idiots like you.
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#37. To: BeAChooser (#35)
when are you going to grow some social skills fish breath?
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#38. To: BeAChooser (#35)
But in this case, it was: First they fight you, then they ridicule you, then they ignore you, then you lose, then they ridicule you even more, and even cheese up your threads to add insult to injury.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#39. To: Morgana le Fay (#37)
He will just grow more sullen and isolated and angry. I suspect he is Korean.
when are you going to grow some social skills fish breath?
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#40. To: Minerva (#39)
today bush said we should report suspicious kooks on the internet. there is a thread on it over at liberty post.
He will just grow more sullen and isolated and angry. I suspect he is Korean.
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#41. To: BeAChooser (#35)
do you have a lot of guns and slanty eyes?
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#42. To: Minerva (#39)
Bush: Be Wary of 'Abnormal Behavior'
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#43. To: Morgana le Fay (#42)
What if it is just some idiot like fish breath doing strange things on the internet? Should we still tell him we are concerned with what we are seeing?
"If you are a parent and your child is, you know, doing strange things on the Internet, pay attention to it and not be afraid to ask for help and not be afraid to say 'I am concerned about what I am seeing," Bush said.
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#44. To: Minerva (#43)
probably
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#45. To: BeAChooser (#35)
Fish Breath, I am concerned about what I am seeing.
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#46. To: Minerva (#45)
who would i call to report fish breath?
"Aren't you lucky. You get to hear me whine about the 10 posts I'm allowed each day." -- BeAChooser
#47. To: beachooser, Christine, nolu_chan, Robin, Minerva, Honway, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#0)
Is this "Curveball" again? Now, all we need is an explanation as to why Boy George would willingly face War Crime charges, since his boys made the WMDs disappear. {Bullshit!} More fucked up (wannabe) information from BAC. No mystery! The dog ate the homework? Is that what this is saying?
#48. To: SKYDRIFTER (#47)
Please stay on topic sir. This thread is about cheese. It can can swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, port wine cheese, but please limit comments to cheese. thanks.
Now, all we need is an explanation as to why Boy George would willingly face War Crime charges, since his boys made the WMDs disappear.
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#49. To: Robin, Christine, Honway, Aristeides, Diana, All (#10)
A guy runs into the Patent office all excited presenting a 12 inch board, with a set of arrows going from one end of the board to the other end, which had a razor blade, and a piece of Swiss Cheese on the far side of the blade. He explained that it was a mouse trap. A mouse would run up to the board, follow the arrows to the end, and when he went for the cheese, his throat would be cut. The Patent Office clerk explained that he couldn't have the patent, because there was no motion to make it a mechanical device. The guy left in tears. A week later, he was back with the board, minus the cheese, explaining that he had solved the motion problem. A mouse would run up to the board, follow the arrows to the end, and he would look for the cheese, swinging his head from side to side, as he asked, "Where's the cheese? Where's the cheese;" and his throat would be cut.
#50. To: Critter, All (#48)
See #49 - how'd I do?? Please stay on topic sir. This thread is about cheese. It can can swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, port wine cheese, but please limit comments to cheese.
#51. To: SKYDRIFTER (#50)
Much better. Thanks. :)
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#52. To: Critter, All (#21)
There's the Cheese! There's the cheese!
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