• Tag Archives WMDs
  • NYT: CIA bought, destroyed undeclared Iraqi chemical weapons demanded by UN

    The topic of WMD in Iraq has been a hot potato for more than two decades, ever since the end of the first Gulf War and the procession of 17 UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Saddam Hussein verifiably destroy them. Hussein ignored those demands and committed numerous violations of the 1991 cease-fire agreement that suspended the war. In 2003, the US went back to war in part over the issue of WMD, deposing Hussein but coming up empty on the accusations of chemical and biological weapons, which prompted the “Bush lied” arguments that have echoed ever since. Occasionally, caches of chemical weapons have been found in Iraq, reviving the debate, but they have been weapons that had already been declared and transferred to UN control before the 2003 invasion.

    If the WMD existed in Iraq, what happened to it? Many suspected that it got transferred to Syria prior to the 2003 invasion, but the New York Times reports today that the CIA actually did find at least some of the suspected and undeclared caches of chemical weapons — and destroyed them:

    The Central Intelligence Agency, working with American troops during the occupation of Iraq, repeatedly purchased nerve-agent rockets from a secretive Iraqi seller, part of a previously undisclosed effort to ensure that old chemical weapons remaining in Iraq did not fall into the hands of terrorists or militant groups, according to current and former American officials.

    The extraordinary arms purchase plan, known as Operation Avarice, began in 2005 and continued into 2006, and the American military deemed it a nonproliferation success. It led to the United States’ acquiring and destroying at least 400 Borak rockets, one of the internationally condemned chemical weapons that Saddam Hussein’s Baathist government manufactured in the 1980s but that were not accounted for by United Nations inspections mandated after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

    via NYT: CIA bought, destroyed undeclared Iraqi chemical weapons demanded by UN


  • Dzhokhar Tsarnaev charged with using weapon of mass destruction

    Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, was charged at his hospital bed on Monday with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, a count that carries a possible death penalty.

    The charges were announced a week after two devices exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 180.

    A magistrate judge read the charges to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the younger of two brothers suspected in the bombing, in a special session as he lay seriously injured in Beth Israel Deaconess hospital in Boston. According to the criminal complaint, he has gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs and hand.

    A transcript of the extraordinary bedside court hearing shows that Tsarnaev was read his Miranda rights – the process in US law where a suspect is informed of his right not to incriminate himself. It appears that despite his injuries, Tsarnaev managed to speak one word: answering “no” to a question about whether he could afford a lawyer.

    Tsarnaev had escaped police on Thursday night after a frenzied shootout in the Boston suburb of Watertown in which his elder brother, Tamerlan, 26, was killed. He was eventually captured on Friday evening, bloody and wounded, hiding in a boat in a suburban backyard after a day in which Boston and surrounding areas were virtually locked down.

    “Although our investigation is ongoing, today’s charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston, and for our country,” said the US attorney general, Eric Holder. The US attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Oritz, said the impact of the crimes had been “far-reaching, affecting a worldwide community that is looking for peace and justice”.

    Rick DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston division, said the events of the week had moved at “breakneck speed” and praised the “collective effort of our law enforcement and intelligence partners”.

    The charges include one count of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction – an improvised explosive device or IED – against persons and property within the United States resulting in death, and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device, resulting in death. US prosecutors did not announce whether they would seek the death penalty.

    Full article: http://www.guardian. … har-tsarnaev-charged