Saddam WMD tapes, continued

The first 12 hours of Saddam audiotapes having been translated and released, President Bush's case for war against Iraq appears to have been much more solid than the anti-war media has led us to believe.

With hundreds more hours of tapes still awaiting translation, some bombshells have already been produced. Recorded in "Saddam's version of the Oval Office," the tapes contain Saddam speaking "openly of programs involving biological, chemical and...nuclear weapons."

In a tape from April 1995, Saddam and his aides "discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq's biological weapons program." On the tape, Saddam's son-in-law and head of his WMD program, Hussein Kamel, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors. "We did not reveal all that we have," he says. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct."

As late as 2000, Saddam can be heard talking with Iraqi scientists in his office about his attempts to build a nuclear weapon. At one point, he "discusses Iraq's plasma uranium program — something that was missed entirely by U.N. weapons inspectors combing Iraq for WMD." This last part is "particularly troubling, since it indicates an active, ongoing attempt by Saddam to build an Iraqi nuclear bomb."

"What was most disturbing," said John Tierney, the ex- FBI agent who translated the tapes, "was the fact that the individuals briefing Saddam were totally unknown to the U.N. Special Commission (or UNSCOM, the group set up to look into Iraq's WMD programs)."

"Perhaps most chillingly, the tapes record Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz talking about how easy it would be to set off a WMD in Washington. The comments come shortly after Saddam muses about using "proxies" in a terror attack"--reminiscent of 9/11 itself.

If nothing else, this demonstrates that President Bush was right about the timing--we had to invade Iraq to disarm Saddam; otherwise, he would have completely reconstituted hisWMD programs when inspectors left.

Saddam "probably knew better than to use them himself against the U.S. But it's likely he wouldn't have hesitated giving one or more to terror groups with which he had routine contact."

Besides just the tapes, other evidence is mounting up daily to support these conclusions. Georges Sada, the former No. 2 in Iraq's air force, has written a book called Saddam's Secrets that details how the Iraqi dictator used trucks, commercial jets and ships to remove his WMD from the country. At the time, the move went largely undetected, because Iraq pretended the massive movement of materiel was to help Syrian flood victims. Ali Ibrahim, another of Saddam's former commanders, has largely corroborated Sada's story, as well.

So how was Saddam able to get away with this? "The short answer to the question of where the WMD Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon," said John Shaw, former deputy undersecretary of defense, at an intelligence summit held in February in Arlington, Va. "They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special operations) units out of uniform that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence," he said.

We agree with the Investors Business Daily on this one: "These are extraordinary developments. They deserve a full airing in the media, since they essentially validate part of Bush's casus belli for invading Iraq and deposing the murderous Saddam."