May 17, 2004
He's got two eye-popping posts already:
Syrians and equipment involved in North Korea train wreck, which puts me in mind of the $10 million Saddam spent via Syrian intermediaries for SCUD missiles,
and something we should be hearing a lot more about in Roadside bomb in Iraq contained Sarin (but don't hold your breath - CNN is still leading with prisoner abuse stories.) Here is the DoD press release on the subject.
Paul makes reference to sending a dead crow to Hans Blix, which went right over my head ...
(Cut me some slack - I'm still waking up. There are downsides to working the graveyard shift, but one of them has got to be switching and being at work tomorrow at 6 a.m. I can't help wondering if I'd improve my chances by just staying awake all night - I could do that sort of thing a couple of decades ago ...)
May 18 - 13:40: Ozguru expresses his welcome back and then some!
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April 24, 2004
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March 19, 2004
Mar. 2 - Multiple attacks on Shiite commemoration of Ashura in Iraq.
Mar. 4 - Abdul Raouf Naseeb captured in Yemen.
Mar. 4 - Abdurahaman Khadr admits family closely connected to al Qaeda
Mar. 4 - Sunni and Shiite clerics march together in Iraq to protest terrorism.
Mar. 4 - Insurrection in Iran. more...
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March 09, 2004
U.S. insistence that North Korea "completely, verifiably and irreversibly" begin dismantling its nuclear programs before receiving concessions was a key sticking point in last month's six-nation talks aimed at brokering a deal.Indeed, as the last deal brokered went so well with both sides honouring the pact.
The talks bogged down over differences about what nuclear projects would be subject to being dismantled and how that would be verified. They ended without a major breakthrough.Thank you, Sen. Kerry, for giving N. Korea reason to dither and delay in hopes of a better attitude achieving a more lucrative settlement for them.North Korea blamed the outcome on an "unrealistic old assertion that the DPRK should scrap its nuclear program first," adding that a change in "U.S. attitude is a prerequisite to the settlement."
Nothing to see here, folks, at least until after November.
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February 03, 2004
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December 24, 2003
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took the decision to renounce all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on Friday night, but while at first it was thought this only had implications for Libya it is now clear that his decision has scuppered a secret partnership between Libya, Iran and North Korea formed with the intention of developing an independent nuclear weapon.If the claims in the report are true, this alliance raises a number of unsettling questions.New documents revealed yesterday show that the three were working on the nuclear weapons programme at a top-secret underground site near the Kufra Oasis of the Sahara in southeastern Libya. The team was made up of North Korean scientists, engineers and technicians, as well as some Iranian and Libyan nuclear scientists.
North Korea and Iran, originally dubbed by Bush as the axis of evil along with Iraq, avoided detection by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) inspectors by each member farming out vital sections of its projects to its fellow members.
Iran, which is now in the final stages of uranium enrichment for its program, is badly hit, having counted on fitting into place key parts of its WMD project made in Libya. North Korea may also be forced to scale back the production of nuclear devices as well as counting the loss of a lucrative source of income for its Scuds and nuclear technology.
There are a couple of loose threads from past news reports. For example, a North Korean ship with 15 hidden Scud missiles aboard was intercepted by the Spanish Navy. Yemen claimed ownership of those Scuds, the ship was released, and the media dropped coverage, but I have to think that it raised several red flags in intelligence circles despite Yemen's promise not to purchase any more weapons from North Korea.
There is also this report on the $10 million Saddam paid to North Korea for missiles which were never delivered.
The biggest loose thread remains the failure to find WMD in Iraq, and although the debate has focused on whether they ever existed, the possibility remains that they were shipped out of Iraq (or, less frightening, are well-hidden and still there.)
The fact that Iraq was not included in this conspiracy could mean a lot or nothing, including the possibility that they were part of it but Khaddafi purposefully ommitted them (and that in turn could have been because British and US officials didn't want him to.)
Although it is exhilarating to live in interesting times, it is also frustrating because too many questions won't be answered for several years.
(Via Instapundit.)
UPDATE: ESR has a post on a report that Al Qaeda was targeting Gaddafi (aka Khaddafi) as another strong incentive for him to try to better relations with the US and UK.
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December 01, 2003
For two years before the American invasion of Iraq, Mr. Hussein's sons, generals and front companies were engaged in lengthy negotiations with North Korea, according to computer files discovered by international inspectors and the accounts of Bush administration officials.So where did he get the $10 million? And why are North Koreans starving to death when Dear Leader is making lucrative deals that he isn't even honouring?The officials now say they believe that those negotiations - mostly conducted in neighboring Syria, apparently with the knowledge of the Syrian government -were not merely to buy a few North Korean missiles.
Instead, the goal was to obtain a full production line to manufacture, under an Iraqi flag, the North Korean missile system, which would be capable of hitting American allies and bases around the region, according to the Bush administration officials.
As war with the United States approached, though, the Iraqi files show that Mr. Hussein discovered what American officials say they have known for nearly a decade now: that Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, is less than a fully reliable negotiating partner.
In return for a $10 million down payment, Mr. Hussein appears to have gotten nothing.
The trail that investigators have uncovered, partly from reading computer hard drives found in Baghdad and partly from interviews with captured members of Mr. Hussein's inner circle, shows that a month before the American invasion, Iraqi officials traveled to Syria to demand that North Korea refund $1.9 million because it had failed to meet deadlines for delivering its first shipment of goods.Every time I think of US forces shutting down that illegal oil pipeline into Syria, I smile, but it isn't enough. Not by far.North Korea deflected the request, telling Mr. Hussein's representatives, in the words of one investigator, that "things were too hot" to begin delivering missile technology through Syria.
[...]
It also establishes that Syria was a major arms-trading bazaar for the Hussein government, in this case hiding an Iraqi effort to obtain missiles, they say. Investigators say Syria had probably offered its ports and territory as the surreptitious transit route for the North Korea-Iraq missile deal, although it remains unclear what demands the government in Damascus might have made in return. Further, according to United States government officials and international investigators, the Iraqi official who brokered the deal, Munir Awad, is now in Syria, apparently living under government protection.
If it served as a middleman in this deal, as the documents suggest, Syria was acting in violation of Security Council resolutions even as it served on the Council and voted with the United States on the most important resolution before the war.
Read the whole thing.
(Link via Instapundit.)
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