The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Vol: 37 Issue: 28 - Thursday, October 28, 2004

al Qaqaa Depot 'Looted' -- by the Russians!
by Jack Kinsella

In March, 2003, President Bush made a phone call to Russian President
Vladimir Putin to express U.S. concerns "involving prohibited hardware
that has been transferred from Russian companies to Iraq," White House
Press Spokesman Ari Fleischer told journalists during the March 24 White
House press briefing.

"We are very concerned that there are reports of ongoing cooperation and
support to Iraqi military forces being provided by a Russian company that
produces GPS [global positioning system] jamming equipment," Fleischer
said in response to a journalist's question. "There are other causes of
concern, as well, involving night-vision goggles and anti-tank guided
missiles."

At the time, President Putin assured President Bush that he had his facts
wrong. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov gave a statement that day
saying Russia had observed all UN sanctions against Iraq and had not
supplied any military equipment to Saddam Hussein.

Of course, it was nonsense. Prior to the regime change in Baghdad in April
2003, French and Russian oil companies possessed oil contracts with Saddam
Hussein's regime that covered roughly 40 percent of the Iraq's oil wealth.

Political and military ties between Moscow and Baghdad were extensive.
Documents found in the bombed-out headquarters of the former Iraqi
intelligence service (Mukhabarat) in Baghdad reveal the full extent of
intelligence cooperation between the Russian and Iraqi governments.

According to reports in the London Sunday Telegraph, "Russia provided
Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading
up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations between
Tony Blair and other Western leaders."

The Russians are also believed to have illegally sold arms to Iraq right
up until the outbreak of war with the United States in March 2003. The
Bush Administration accused Russian arms dealers of selling thousands of
night-vision goggles, as well as anti-tank guided missiles and electronic
jamming equipment, to the Iraqis in open violation of UN sanctions.

During the course of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, Russia reportedly
provided him with $14 billion worth of arms shipments.

Assessment:

Senator Kerry continues to hammer away at the Bush administration for
allegedly 'losing' 350 tons of high explosives from the al Qaqaa weapons
depot.

Mohammed el Baradei, head of the IAEA, told reporters on Monday that the
IAEA had 350 tons of high explosives -- some suitable for nuclear
weapons -- under IAEA seal and that looters made off with them because the
US failed to secure them properly after the fall of Baghdad.

Kerry continues to repeat the story even after both ABC and Fox have
reported that IAEA documents indicate there were less than three tons of
explosives under IAEA seal at the facility in the first place.

NBC reporters embedded with the 101st Airborne reported that when they
arrived at al-Qaqaa the day after Baghdad fell, the allegedly 'looted'
high explosives were already gone.

And Bill Gertz reported today in the Washington Times that they were
removed by the Russians in the days leading up to the war.

The Russians sent special forces into Iraq in the weeks leading up to the
war to shred evidence of Moscow's collusion with Saddam Hussein, including
removing some high tech weaponry before invading US forces could discover
them.

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international
technology security, said it would have been impossible for the facility
to have been looted after the war. The al-Qaqaa site was closely monitored
before, during and after the war, since it was known to contain huge
stockpiles.

A Pentagon statement pointed out; "The movement of 377 tons of heavy
ordnance would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving
along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for
weeks prior to and subsequent to the 3rd Infantry Division's arrival at
the facility."

Shaw said foreign intelligence officials believe the Russians worked with
Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service to separate out special weapons,
including high explosives and other arms and related technology, from
standard conventional arms spread out in some 200 arms depots.

The Russian weapons were then sent out of the country to Syria, and
possibly Lebanon in Russian trucks, according to Shaw.

Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and
explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a "redoubt" in
Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency
operations in Iraq.

The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March
had destroyed hundreds of pages of documents on Russian arms supplies to
Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, according to Gertz' report.

A 26-page Iraqi document was discovered by US intelligence that detailed
the extent of Russia's involvement with Saddam's military. It was written
by Abdul Tawab Mullah al Huwaysh, Saddam's minister of military
industrialization, who was captured by U.S. forces May 2, 2003.

It says Russian Special Forces organized large commercial convoys of
weapons that were then trucked out of the country to Syria.

The document included itineraries of military units involved in the truck
shipments to Syria. The materials outlined in the documents included
missile components, MiG jet parts, tank parts and chemicals used to make
chemical weapons.

John Kerry was hoping that the 'looter' story would be the much-prized
'October Surprise' that would turn the election in his favor.  And if the
story, as he tells it, were true, it would be the October Surprise
presidential challengers' dream of.

It appears to be backfiring. But the information that is emerging
continues to dovetail with events prophesied by Scripture for the last
days.  Despite its pretense that there is a 'new' Russia, the old Russian
bear is still very much alive and well.

It is almost as if Russia can't help it. There was a brief period of hope,
a period when it looked as if Russia and the US might truly bury the
hatchet and work together for peace.

Working together, Russia and the United States could easily settle the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Had the Russians worked with the US, instead of
re-arming the Arab world, the North Koreans wouldn't be nuclear, the
Iranians wouldn't be a nuclear threat, Pakistan and India wouldn't be
nuclear powers, A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network wouldn't have
existed and Yasser Arafat wouldn't have been able to sabotage the Oslo
Accords.

But Ezekiel said of Russia that, after a brief period of 'visitation', (I
vividly recall the day the newly-freed Russian Duma suspended a session
because lawmakers were rushing out to the hall to get one of the free
Bibles being handed out in the hallway), the Russian bear would 'think an
evil thought'.

This qualifies.