3-Star General reveals additional details of former regime’s ties to terror
cross posted at www.regimeofterror.com
Lt. General Michael DeLong discusses intelligence behind U.S. concern over Ansar al-Islam terror/poison camp in Northern Iraq
A recent conversation Lt. General Michael DeLong revealed new information on prewar intelligence on Iraq that has received little, if any, public attention thus far. General DeLong was the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and was directly involved with the pre-invasion preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom. He offered the observation that Bush administration officials appear to have been reluctant thus far in explaining the prewar intelligence and evidence tying members of Saddam Hussein’s regime to the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al Islam terrorist group.
One of the reasons cited in justifying the Iraq invasion was concern over an Ansar al Islam camp in Northern Iraq and its role chemical weapons production. While the camp was often cited by political leaders, the camp was also of specific concern to U.S. military strategists and leaders. What was particularly worrisome to military planners was the reports of possible links between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Ansar al Islam. What was (and continues to be) debatable is how high up Iraqi knowledge of and contact with the camp had been, if at all. According to Gen. DeLong, the United States had credible intelligence reports of Senior Iraqi leaders and Ministry Officials not only being aware of the camp, but meeting with terrorist leaders involved with the camp.
These comments are nearly identical to what Gen. DeLong told PBS Frontline during their interviews for their special “The Dark Side.”
“When are you first aware that Iraq and Saddam Hussein are on somebody's gun sights somewhere and that it may be job two?”“We also knew we had thoroughly good intelligence that there was an Al Qaeda base on the Iraq-Iran border, that the Al Qaeda were coming through Iran into Iraq. We'll call it a dual-use base; in other words, chemicals that could be used for putting on your crops or chemicals that you could mix together and make a chemical weapon out of. We had on the ground intelligence that they were coming through there, and then some of them were meeting with some of the senior people in the Saddam administration, not with Saddam himself. We knew there was a tie to Saddam, to Iraq. And nothing happens in Iraq without Saddam knowing about it, so we knew that was true.”
Were you aware that by the 21st of September, say, Tenet and the CIA had already delivered to the president and to others that there was no Al Qaeda-Saddam connection? (Regimeofterror.com note: Tenet's 2002 testimony to Congress was actually quite supportive of an al Qaeda-Saddam connection)
Yeah, we didn't agree. Now, the only place we saw it was this one compound on the Iraq-Iran border, which was so troubling to us. We almost took them out three months before the Iraq war started. We almost took that thing, but we were so concerned that the chemical cloud from there could devastate the region that we chose to take them by land rather than by smart weapons. ...
DeLong, who briefly mentions the intelligence on the camp in his book "Inside Centcom" (new paperback "A General Speaks Out"), says that the camp on the Iran-Iraq border had been in existence for a "long time" and the intelligence indicated that it was indeed a dual use chemical factory intended for AG (agricultural) and warfare. Some background on what AG warfare might look like has been detailed by Mark Wheelis of the University of California.
DeLong also said that there were enough concerns about the amount of chemicals in the area( bombing could produce a lethal chemical cloud large enough to affect numerous civilians in the region), that ground troops were used to check the place for chemical weapons early in 2003 . By the time the troops got there "most" of the chemicals had been removed and the site was more or less sanitized.
“A General Speaks Out”, by Zenith Publishing, can be ordered through Amazon.com.
Of course, this terrorist group was in the northern no-fly zone which was not under Sadaam's control.
Tom
December 5, 2006 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gen. Michael Delong, who was deputy commander of Centcom on September 11, 2001, and hasn't mentioned any intelligence failures within his command?
General Michael Delong, who was tasked with keeping a "special focus" on Afghanistan in the buildup to the Iraq War and after?
Gen. Michael Delong, who defended Rumsfeld as late as this last September?
Gen. Michael Delong who describes the ongoing warfare in both Afghanistan and Iraq as "keeping the peace"?
December 5, 2006 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Give me a break. As Tom points out, this was in the Kurdish part of Iraq, which had not been controlled by Saddam's regime since 1991. Blaming Ansar-al Islam's presence there on Saddam is like blaming Lincoln for misgovernance by the state of Texas in 1861 after it seceded from the Union.
December 6, 2006 3:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. I gave you a 4 but the site can't register it from Explorer today for some reason.
Tom
December 6, 2006 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me throw an additional BS flag on the field. If this is DeLong's point of view on chem warfare during OIF, then he wasn't in the same room as the CENTCOM chemical officer.
First of all, yes, there was some concern that terrorists in Ansar were developing chemical and biological hazards (thank you, Colin Powell) - but it was homegrown stuff, ricin and cyanide, not the weapons-grade stuff that Saddam could have had, IF he had a BW program in place (which he didn't). Kinda shoots a hole in the whole "regime supports terrorist WMD effort" story.
Second, no one in CENTCOM was worrying about "a lethal chemical cloud" killing nearby civilians because (1) it wasn't a chemical production site, it was a terrorist camp with some lab equipment, and (2) it's really hard to make "lethal chemical clouds" when you're home-growing small batches of wet biological material in the bathtub. Besides, it was in a really remote area, and it's not like our troops were nearby.
Last, the reason the place was pretty bare when the SF troops and the team from the 75th Exploitation Task Force showed up was because CENTCOM hit the site with Tomahawks and air strikes prior to the ground troops' arrival. So yeah, the place was kind of empty, but not "sanitized," which suggests that the terrorists leisurely cleaned up before they split town. The troops didn't find much other than documents and lab equipment (I really doubt the MSNBC journalists' tests discussed in the first link of the blog).
Also see my post here.
December 6, 2006 7:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
The MSNBC article linked above cites the Chemicals that tested for positive as Ricin and Botulism, which cuts to the lame chase of the whole Chem Weapons capability argument.
Ricin is a byproduct of refining castor oil from the castor bean. The castor bean plant grows exceedingly well in hot, as well as hot and arid climates, and is common in the south and southwest parts of the USA as a ornamental. Castor oil has been refined for a very very long time. It ain't rocket science. (from Cornell Univ. and the CDC)
Botulism is even lamer, especially given that MSNBC tested at an abandoned camp, as it is often foodborne:
The good General wouldn't engage in fearmongering to sell books, and to pitch his political ideology now, would he?
December 6, 2006 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's really amusing to see the spin clinic from you guys.
I understand that you oppose the invasion, that the postwar handling and explanation has been dreadful but to go from that point to saying that everything supporting the invasion is "a lie" is part of the intellectual dishonesty that keeps me from fully agreeing with you antiwar types. You make some good points and then you just wind up going off the deep end.
Don't believe what DeLong had to say? He's a liar?
I guess Linda Robinson of US News and World report is too and Barham Salim of the Kurdish region.
Saddam didn't have control of the North? Noone said he did, he certainly had the same enemies as Ansar al Islam, the pro Western Kurds, whom they both slaughtered. You guys are just so partisan and so enslaved to your antiwar positions that it really insulates you from some inconvenient facts about the threat Hussein posed. Kinda messes up your judgment.
My other blog on intelligence/security matters
www.securitywatchtower.com
January 2, 2007 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've got me convinced. It's all our fault:)
Tom
January 2, 2007 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why didn't substantiate with citations your disagreement with the responses, instead of a dismissive wave of the hand response, the substance of which is an obvious ad hominem attack on the antiwar perspective held by many members of this site.
One: The base was found on the Iran border with Northern Iraq, which at the time of the invasion in 2003 had been protected by the northern overfly zone for many years. Your claim of a tie between Saddam and Ansar al Islam is based only upon one shared enemy, the northern Kurds, yet fails to account for the significant fact that Ansar al Islam considered secular dictators of Arab regimes to be their enemy also. According to our GW Bush's stated rationale, we also shared enemies, that existed in Northern Iraq, with Ansar al Islam, the Kurdish terorist group, PKK, and they were using the protected flyzone as defensive cover from which to stage their attacks from into Turkey and Iran.
The prewar intelligence also claimed a connection between Sadaam and Ansar al Islam was fact, because its leader, Zargawi, a one-legged former Afghan freedom fighter, who lost a leg fighting there, had received treatment in a Baghdad hospital.
Two, you conflate the importance of the ability to produce ricin and botulism, which is tech an American HS biology class could accomplish in their school lab, as I posted above. Traces of botulism found by a MSNBC news crew at an abandoned Ansar al Islam base proves nothing because, the news crew did not have experience in analyzing botulism positives, and it is a found often in foodstuffs, as a naturally occurring organism. The wheres and whats regarding the sample that tested positive need to be clearly delineated.
Three, I assume your muse: "Don't believe what DeLong had to say? He's a liar?", is directed at my first post. Please inform me what parts of it were dishonest, as I am curious:
Finally, one who plugs his own blog in a post, that identifies its authors as being part of the "Coalition of the Willing", is amusingly hypocritical, when accusing others of 'spin'.
January 2, 2007 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink