- TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency)
- Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in Karbala and the
ideological disputes that delayed the signing of Iraq's interim constitution,
there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of
parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq.
-
- A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking
on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces,
with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive
efforts to conceal their actions.
-
- He added that the cargo was unloaded during the night
as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the deadly bombings
in Karbala and the signing of Iraq's interim constitution.
-
- The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary
cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons
produced in the 1980s and 1990s.
-
- He mentioned the fact that the United States had facilitated
Iraq's WMD program during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq and said that some of
the weapons being downloaded are similar to those weapons, although international
inspectors had announced Saddam Hussein's Baath regime had destroyed all
its WMD.
-
- The source went on to say that the rest of the weapons
were probably transferred in vans to an unknown location somewhere in the
vicinity of Basra overnight.
-
- "Most of these weapons are of Eastern European origin
and some parts are from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. The
U.S. obtained them through confiscations during sales of banned arms over
the past two decades," he said.
-
- This action comes as certain U.S. and Western officials
have been pointing out the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have
been discovered in Iraq and the issue of Saddam's trial begins to take
center stage.
-
- In addition, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix
has emphasized that the U.S. and British intelligence agencies issued false
reports on Iraq leading to the U.S. attack.
-
- Meanwhile, the suspicious death of weapons inspector
David Kelly is also an unresolved issue in Britain.
-
- ------Occupation Forces Official Claims to Have No Information
About Transfer of WMD to Iraq -------
-
- A security official for the coalition forces in Iraq
said that he has not received any information about the unloading of weapons
of mass destruction in ports in southern Iraq.
-
- Shane Wolf told the Mehr News Agency that the occupation
forces have received no reports on such events, but said he hoped that
the coalition forces would find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction one
day.
-
- Coalition forces and inspectors have so far been unable
to find any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. invaded Iraq under
the pretext that Iraq possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
-
- http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=3/13/2004&Cat=4&Num=011
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