US 'Shipping WMDs into Iraq'

21/03/2004| IslamWeb

US forces have been shipping parts of missiles; chemical and germ warfare agents and nuclear weapons into southern Iraq, according to an exclusive report in paper Akhbar Al Khaleej. Quoting Iraqi Transportation Ministry sources, the report said US forces offloaded this equipment from US cargo ships at the port of Umm Qasr, near Basra, during Ashoora. It said riots in the area, coupled with major explosions that killed and injured a large number of Iraqi people including a prominent religious scholar, had enabled the parts to be offloaded while the attention of the Iraqi people was elsewhere. Akhbar Al Khaleej said the US, in co-ordination with British forces stationed in large numbers in the south of Iraq, had imposed stiff security measures around the port to ensure the unloading could be done in secret in the dead of night. The deliveries were also planned to coincide with the signing of the Iraqi interim constitution which was later cancelled. The report said some of the parts were made in the US during the 1980s and 1990s for weapons that had been bought by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein - weapons which UN inspectors earlier reported had been destroyed. Other parts originated in Eastern Europe and Russia. The report added that this material had been transported to an unknown destination. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Tony Blair (L), George W. Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar (R). (AFP/Pool/Harry Page)