|
|
|
|
» WAR ON TERROR – UNFOLDING BIBLE PROPHECY Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's strong hatred for the United States since his defeat by American and allied forces during the Gulf War provides powerful motivation for Iraq's policy of attacking the United States through terrorism. Iraq is the most likely nation to have the motivation, stamina, military, and intelligence organization to order the kind of terrorist attack that occurred on September 11, 2001. President Saddam Hussein's main goals are to get revenge on America, to eliminate the United Nations' economic sanctions against Iraq, to end inspection by the UN of his weapons of mass destruction, and to stop the continuing American and United Kingdom air force missile attacks on Iraqi targets. Hussein wants to be recognized as the greatest leader in the Arab world by both the leaders of his allies as well as the “Arab street.” He dreams of restoring the power and glory of the ancient Babylonian empire and of becoming the strongest military power in the Gulf region. President George W. Bush recently appointed former CIA director James Woolsey to analyze the growing evidence from both secret intelligence sources as well as the criminal evidence that points to the government of Iraq as the source of the September 11 terror assault on America. Criminal evidence developed in the various trials of the numerous al Qaeda terrorists regarding their roles in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the simultaneous 1998 attacks on the two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole destroyer in Yemen provides compelling evidence that Iraq may have planned and ordered these terrorist attacks. James Woolsey is now reviewing all the evidence regarding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to determine the true role that Iraq played in the September 11, 2001 attack. Woolsey declared to Wolf Blitzer Reports—CNN that the evidence thus far “looks to me as if it's not something that a fellow sitting out in the middle of Afghanistan is going to be orchestrating—able to orchestrate by himself—even if he has several hundred million dollars.”2 When and if the American government determines that overwhelming evidence confirms Iraq's involvement in this decade-long war of revenge against the United States, then President Bush will order his nation's powerful military and intelligence resources to destroy the Iraqi army and Saddam Hussein. The liberation of the oppressed people of Iraq, who have suffered for three decades from the incredibly repressive regime of Saddam Hussein, will be one of the greatest events in the recent history of the Middle East. Tragically, this decade of devastating terrorist attacks against American citizens and soldiers might have been avoided if President George H. Bush had simply allowed the U.S. military to complete the military conquest of Iraq and Hussein's Republican Guard in the final days of the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq's population and thousands of Americans would have been spared from the terrorist attacks motivated by the vengeance of Saddam Hussein if the allied military forces assembled in Saudi Arabia to liberate Kuwait had only been ordered to liberate Iraq as well. Unfortunately, the president listened to the passive counsel of Russian President Gorbachev, the Arab-supporting diplomats in the U.S. State Department, and to the unenthusiastic advice of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell. Some diplomats claimed that the UN resolution that authorized the U.S.-led war in the Gulf against Iraqi forces only permitted the liberation of Kuwait but did not authorize the liberation of Iraq. However, this argument is ridiculous. If American forces had entered Baghdad, it would have allowed the United Nations to establish a peacekeeping force to oversee a temporary UN administration. This would have been followed eventually by an internationally supervised election of a true democratic regime for the first time in the history of Iraq. Hopefully, President George W. Bush will not repeat the mistake of his father. If Iraq is defeated militarily during the war against terror, there will be a genuine opportunity to liberate the long-suffering people of Iraq from a brutal and repressive dictatorship that are similar to the horrors of the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. Despite ample evidence of Iraq's involvement in a blatant terrorist attack on America's former president, President Clinton responded ineffectively by only sending cruise missiles into the Iraqi Intelligence Service's main command and control headquarters in Baghdad. Apparently, the president's attention was focused on domestic affairs at the time. First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people. . . . The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post. . . . Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the Crusader-Zionist [Christian-Jewish] alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded one million . . . despite all this, the Americans are once again trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation. So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors. . . . The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it. . . . We—with God's help—call on every Muslim who believes in God . . . to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them.4 This signed terrorist declaration of war by al Qaeda against all American citizens throughout the world states that the U.S.'s actions against Iraq in the Gulf War and subsequent actions to control Iraq's aggressive development of weapons of mass destruction are the greatest provocations to the Islamic terrorist groups. This strongly suggests that al Qaeda is working hand in glove with Iraq's leadership and intelligence agencies to further their diabolical terrorist campaign against America, Israel, and the West. The evidence that Iraq is behind Osama bin Laden's many well-planned terrorist attacks on American targets is compelling. A recent report by PBS's Frontline TV program on November 14, 2001, reported that the Iraqi ambassador to Turkey (the second highest official in Iraqi intelligence) offered Osama bin Laden a place of refuge in Iraq. Author Laurie Mylroie has been a student of Iraq and its dictator President Saddam Hussein for many years. She claims that Iraq planned and financed al Qaeda's February 26, 1993, terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center. Mylroie suggests that the U.S. should examine the evidence that Iraqi-sponsored terrorism may be the instigator of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. She believes that the criminal evidence revealed during the 1994 trial of the extremist Islamic defendants convicted of the 1993 attack proved that Iraq sponsored those al Qaeda terrorists. Mylroie warned that the actions of one of the prime suspects, Ahmed Ramzi Yousef, suggested that we will experience more terrorist attacks in the future. Significantly, Yousef used an Iraqi passport to enter the United States. However, he immediately fled America after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing using his new false identity, that of a Kuwaiti-born Pakistani national named Abdul Basit Karim. Mylroie revealed that Iraqi intelligence agents altered Basit Karim's passport file in Kuwait during their 1990 military occupation of Kuwait. She points out that Iraqi intelligence agents could have doctored hundreds of Kuwaiti Interior Ministry passport files during their occupation, allowing their intelligence agents to provide numerous false identities to Saddam Hussein's terrorists. Another terrorist, Abdul Rahman Yasin, was charged with mixing the chemicals to make the huge WTC bomb. However, Abdul Rahman immediately fled to Baghdad, Iraq, to escape being arrested. He was observed in Baghdad in the spring of 1994 according to a June 1994 report by ABC News.6 It is inconceivable that Abdul Rahman could enter and live in Iraq without the permission of Iraq's intelligence service. Mylroie suggests the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon reveal that Saddam is still engaged in his decade-long war of revenge against the United States.7 Many readers are unaware of the fact that while only six Americans died during the 1993 WTC explosion, the huge bomb sent over 1,000 injured citizens to hospital, more victims than any other peacetime terrorist incident in the U.S. to that point in time. The Islamic terrorist who led the plot, Ramzi Yousef, admitted to FBI agents that he fully intended his bomb would topple the North Tower into the South Tower with the goal of killing up to 250,000 American citizens. The terrorists laced 1,200 pounds of explosive urea nitrate with sodium cyanide in the hopes of poisoning up to 50,000 additional office workers. Providentially, the enormous heat generated by the main explosive burned the cyanide before it could vaporize and poison thousands of additional innocent office workers.8 Most U.S. citizens did not appreciate the enormous power of the 1993 terrorist bomb because the towers did not fall as the huge explosion occurred below the ground level. The bomb pulverized 15,000 square feet of concrete and steel creating a massive crater that extended six stories deep leaving a pile of burning rubble over thirty feet deep. Jim Fox, the former head of the New York City FBI office who was in charge of the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, declared in a March 5, 1993, interview with the Chicago Sun Times newspaper that overwhelming evidence points to the intelligence service of Iraq as the supporter, instigator, and planner of this terrible terrorist attack using a group of Islamic terrorists from bin Laden's al Qaeda group. This FBI conclusion regarding Iraqi responsibility was confirmed in a May 12, 1998, speech by FBI Director Louis Freeh, who declared that the Iraqi terrorist Abdul Rahman was now living in Iraq.9 Despite the overwhelming evidence from the FBI investigation, President Clinton refused to pursue the matter further. Only two days before the August 7, 1998, embassy bombings, Iraq's National Assembly issued a decree that totally rejected the continuing weapons inspection by the United Nations. Weapons inspectors had already destroyed massive amounts of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons facilities despite constant Iraqi cat-and-mouse techniques of hiding whatever weapons labs and armories they could from the UN teams. On August 5, the Iraqi government announced that they were renouncing their previous signed agreement with the United Nations following their defeat in the Gulf War that allowed the UN commission to completely inspect and destroy their weapons of mass destruction (UNSCR 687). It is significant that this massive simultaneous terror attack on two American embassies came just two days after the Iraqi government's dismissal of the UN inspections. A few hours before the bombs exploded “claims of responsibility were sent by facsimile to London, England, in the name of the 'Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places' for further distribution by co-conspirators.”10 The subsequent investigation and trial of the terrorists who committed this outrageous 1998 attack on American embassies provided compelling evidence that they belonged to bin Laden's notorious al Qaeda terrorist group. However, President Clinton carefully avoided announcing the accumulated evidence that Iraq's intelligence agency was working hand-in-glove with bin Laden's Islamic terrorists. On August 20, 1998, President Clinton authorized a militarily useless attack against several of bin Laden's al Qaeda deserted terrorist training camps in the mountains of Afghanistan by launching sixty-six Tomahawk cruise missiles (costing $1 million each) that accomplished virtually nothing. Unfortunately, intelligence sources have revealed that it is possible that, when the United States attacked bin Laden's Afghanistan bases in August 1998‚ al Qaeda acquired the unexploded missile warheads. In the raid, 70 missiles were fired, but reports from Debka, an Israeli intelligence source (http://www.debka.com/) on December 19, 2001 suggest that only 30 of the cruise missiles exploded on impact. If this report is correct, then bin Laden's al Qaeda may have acquired some very deadly additional weapons to use against the West. Then, in an even more dubious military intelligence command decision, Clinton ordered another thirteen cruise missiles to be fired at the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. Clinton claimed it was partly owned by Osama bin Laden and was a manufacturer of deadly VX nerve gas. However, the only evidence that U.S. intelligence could offer in support of Clinton's theory was their claim that a CIA investigator had discovered a chemical, EMPTA, in the soil outside the plant. EMPTA is a precursor chemical that was previously used by Iraq to manufacture VX nerve gas (according to UN weapons inspectors). Subsequent independent investigations revealed that there were no chemical traces of EMPTA in the soil around the plant or in the debris. In addition, a respected American investigation firm, Kroll Associates, completed their investigation that concluded that bin Laden was not an owner of the plant. Finally, the U.S. government relented quietly in 1999 and compensated the owners of the destroyed factory.11 Unfortunately, the Clinton administration refused to consider the implications of the evidence that Iraq was orchestrating and funding the continuing series of terrorist attacks on America by bin Laden's al Qaeda group throughout the 1990s. Apparently, the Clinton administration felt that if they publicly acknowledged the evidence of Iraq's involvement in this series of terrorist attacks against America, they would be forced by the U.S. Congress and an aroused American public to launch a decisive war against Iraq. It appears that the president decided to ignore the mounting evidence that Iraq had launched a war of revenge against America to avoid being distracted from his domestic political agenda. In 1996, Osama bin Laden, whose family comes from Yemen, released his now famous “Declaration of War,” (see appendix A) that emphasized the importance of south Yemen in the radical Islamic struggle of al Qaeda against both the West and Israel. Bin Laden declared, “The presence of a population of fighters in the south of Yemen, fighting in the cause of Allah, is a strategic threat to the Zionist-Crusaders alliance in the area.” A report in the New York Times in October 20, 2000, revealed that an intelligence warning was received in mid-September 2000 that referred to a possible terrorist attack against an American warship without any details about timing or location. The October 23, 2000, issue of Newsweek claimed that since 1998 U.S. intelligence has thwarted at least two additional terrorist plots aimed at U.S. ships that were visiting seaports in the Arabian Peninsula. The former head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's counterterrorism operations, Vincent Cannistraro, is an expert on the Middle East and Islamic terrorism. Mr. Cannistraro declared that the location, the precise timing, and the chosen method of attack on the U.S.S. Cole strongly suggested that al Qaeda is the group responsible for this atrocity. Cannistraro pointed to the sophistication of the huge terrorist bomb, which consisted of six hundred pounds of high explosives and thereby caused enormous damage, including a thirty-eight-foot-wide hole in the side of the ship and the death of seventeen U.S. naval personnel. The terrorist bomb was specially shaped in a concave mold inside a strong metal container to direct the resulting blast to penetrate the heavily armored hull of the American destroyer. He suggested that the design certainly pointed toward a professional intelligence and military involvement by a state such as Iraq. Mr. Cannistraro declared, “The Iraqis have wanted to be able to carry out terrorism for some time now. . . . Their military people have had liaison with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and could well have supplied the training.”12 Yemen is a vital refueling Persian Gulf port for both military and civilian ships. However, the well-known Islamic terrorist support for bin Laden in Yemen and the several intelligence warnings received by American intelligence agencies made this port an exceedingly dangerous place for the U.S. navy to refuel their ships. However, the navy had no choice but to refuel their ships in this dangerous port because of a disastrous decision by President Bill Clinton in the early 1990s. Until the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. navy had a fleet of thirty-two huge refueling tanker ships to safely refuel their naval vessels in the deep oceans, far from any threat. Tragically, in his contempt for the military needs of the nation, the president ordered a massive 75 percent cutback in this vital refueling fleet. Today there are only eight remaining tankers. A report by FreeRepublic.com by Col. David Hackworth, an expert on the U.S. military, reported that this reduction in refueling capability forced the U.S.S. Cole to enter the dangerous waters of the Yemeni port where al Qaeda's terrorists were waiting to attack her with a small fishing vessel containing a huge suicide bomb.13 Mohammed Atta, the leader of the nineteen Islamic terrorist hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, met secretly in Prague, the Czech Republic, with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim al Ani, a senior Iraqi intelligence officer who posed as an Iraqi diplomat until he was expelled from the republic for “engaging in activities beyond his diplomatic duties.” Since the September 11 attack, there have been numerous meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and al Qaeda terrorists. On September 20, Mohammed Nouri, a colonel in Iraqi intelligence, traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, to meet with a terrorist associated with bin Laden's network. Four days later, Iraqi brigadier Abdul Khader Majid traveled to Bangladesh with several other senior Iraqi intelligence agents to meet al Qaeda representatives.15 During the UN weapons inspections of Iraq in the summer of 1996, a team led by Scott Ritter found evidence of a vast terrorist training program under the direction of Directorate M-21 of Iraqi intelligence. “Document after document outlined an international program of terror.”17 It is important to recognize that anthrax is a very difficult biological agent to utilize as an effective weapon by a terrorist group. The Japanese terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo tried and failed almost a dozen times to utilize anthrax as a terrorist weapon and could not make anyone sick.19 Only a nation state like Iraq with sophisticated biological labs with expensive milling equipment, professional chemical experts, experience with anti-clumping chemicals, and an efficient distribution device could actually produce an effective anthrax weapon that would kill significant numbers of people. Most anthrax infections are cutaneous (through skin cuts or abrasions) and are treatable through penicillin or Cipro with a great expectation of recovery. However, airborne anthrax attacks are extremely deadly. By the time a victim of airborne anthrax begins to manifest symptoms, in most cases it is too late to begin effective antibiotic treatment because the anthrax spores have already produced their deadly toxins within the lungs of the victim. Less than 10 percent of the infected patients are expected to survive if they do not receive antibiotics prior to the appearance of flu-like symptoms that follow exposure to airborne anthrax. Biological weapons experts such as Richard Spertzel, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, report that the anthrax used in these attacks since September 11, 2001 is not homegrown or produced in a basement lab by a domestic terrorist. Spertzel told the Sunday Telegraph on October 27, 2001, “It has to be someone with an existing biological program. These are Russia, Syria, Iran, and Libya. Top of my list, though, is Iraq. There are known associations with intelligence personnel and al Qaeda. Also they have the capability, and the know-how.” Normally, anthrax spores clump together, making them heavier than air and preventing them from becoming airborne. In order to make airborne anthrax, it is necessary to mill it with sophisticated milling equipment to separate the spores as well as the addition of an anti-clumping chemical to prevent spores from sticking together. Iraq has developed anthrax that is airborne or “weapons grade” according to the weapons inspectors of the United Nations. In 1973, President Hussein developed the Al Hassan Ibn Al Haithem Institute in Iraq that was responsible for the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, poison gases, and toxins such as anthrax. Since then, the Military Industrialization organization has taken over the development of weapons of mass destruction. Compelling evidence of Iraq's part in supplying this airborne anthrax was discovered by American laboratories that tested the anthrax that was recently sent by letter to Senator Tom Daschle, the U.S. Senate Majority leader. The crime lab discovered the presence of microscopic amounts of the chemical betonite. Iraq is the only nation that has ever used betonite in the manufacture of its weapons-grade airborne anthrax. Timothy Trevan, a UN weapons inspector, said, “It means to me that Iraq becomes the prime suspect as the source of the anthrax used in these letters.” (ABC News.com, October 29, 2001) An article in the January 9, 2002, issue of the magazine Vanity Fair included an interview with Abu Zeinab al-Qurairy, an Iraqi defector who was formerly a brigadier general in Hussein's dreaded Mukhabarat intelligence service. Abu Zeinab al-Qurairy was a close aide to Uday Hussein, President Saddam's son. He claimed that Uday was the head of a top secret 1200-strong terrorist force called The Strikers. Uday ordered him to hand-pick a team of 30 of these Iraqi terrorists and give them false identities provided by a corrupt official in the United Arab Emirates. Al-Qurairy warned that this elite terrorist group was trained in ”sabotage, urban warfare, hijacking, and murder.” However, they have now vanished and could be underground anywhere in the West. Al-Qurairy said that Iraq was definitely involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks using their undercover Iraqi teams in the West. A web site produced by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defense (http://special.fco.gov.uk/) reveals the latest news updates on Iraq and the United Nations (UNSCOM) weapons inspections. According to UNSCOM reports, prior to the Gulf War, Iraq produced enough chemical and biological weapons material to kill the world's population several times over. It is still trying to acquire deadly nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons technology. UNSCOM has destroyed more Iraqi weapons than were destroyed by American bombs during the whole of the Gulf War. Its work is vital to the security of the entire Middle East. Time magazine reported in April 1977 about the incredible dangers from the unlimited development of DNA genetic manipulation of biological weapons: Appearing before a Senate subcommittee. . . . HEW Secretary Joseph Califano asked Congress to impose federal restrictions on recombinant DNA research, a new form of genetic inquiry involving E. coli . . . DNA with the DNA of plants, animals, and other bacteria. By this process, they may well be creating forms of life different from any that exist on earth. . . . What would happen, they ask, if by accident or design, one variety of re-engineered E. coli proved dangerous? By escaping from the lab and multiplying . . . it could find its way into human intestines and cause baffling diseases . . . Caltech's biology chairman, Robert Sinsheimer, concludes: 'Biologists have become, without wanting it, the custodians of great and terrible power. It is idle to pretend otherwise.'20 Overwhelming evidence in the hands of UNSCOM and western intelligence agencies suggests that Iraq is still engaged in the production of illegal and forbidden weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear bombs as well as biological and chemical programs to produce deadly anthrax and small pox infections. Jeff Stein, a special correspondent on terrorism for the San Francisco Chronicle, coauthored the book Saddam's Bombmaker with Khidhir Hamza, the father of Iraq's nuclear program who defected from Iraq. Stein reported that Iraq is the only Arab regime that has already repeatedly used chemical and biological weapons against its enemies, both civilian and military, on the battlefield during the eight-year war with Iran. In 1984, Iraqi intelligence sent one hundred Muslim Shiite prisoners to a pesticide factory in the city of Samara. The prisoners were subjected to various chemical weapons, which killed all subjects. A year later, another fifty prisoners were subjected to lethal biological experiments at a weapons facility at Salmon Pak. Other prisoners were injected with biological weapons in a vaccine. In the months that followed, they became sick with flu-like symptoms and later died. Iraq aircraft tested the lethality of chemical weapons by dropping chemical canisters on Shiite prisoners in trenches. Saddam Hussein ordered the massive use of chemical weapons against the huge Iranian human-wave assaults in the final months of the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq used nerve gas to kill five thousand Kurdish civilians living in the village of Halabjah in northern Iraq in March 1988. Therefore, Iraq is the only nation on earth that has not only produced enormous quantities of biological and chemical weapons, but has proven willing and able to use these diabolical weapons of mass destruction against their enemies.21 A February 1998 article by the Near East Report revealed that the Washington Post and the New York Times confirmed that UNSCOM weapons inspectors had discovered a 1995 bilateral agreement between Russia and Iraq in which Russia promised to provide Saddam Hussein with sophisticated biological and chemical manufacturing facilities to allow Iraq to produce enormous quantities of biological and chemical weapons including anthrax and nerve gas. In addition, UN inspectors found documentary evidence that the required Russian machinery was delivered.22 The CIA recently reported that Iraq has developed an unmanned air vehicle that is capable of launching chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. intelligence agency said that Hussein had acquired and modified the unmanned air vehicle, the L-29, originally built as a jet trainer aircraft. “It is believed that Iraq has conducted flights of the L-29, possibly to test system improvements or to train new pilots. These refurbished trainer aircraft are believed to have been modified for delivery of chemical or, more likely, biological warfare agents.”23 Since the UN was forced by Iraq to suspend weapons inspections in 1998, Saddam Hussein has acquired dual-use [civilian-military] equipment from western companies. This has allowed him to restore his missile factories and secret underground installations manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, including work on developing an Iraqi nuclear bomb. The CIA report warned that Iraq is close to completing the manufacture of a liquid propellant–driven, short-range ballistic missile named Al Samoud to deliver its chemical or biological warheads.24 The UN weapons inspection teams discovered that Iraq had developed sophisticated aerial spray tanks that could be attached to either manned or pilotless planes that would disseminate deadly biological or chemical weapons over the territory of its enemies. The UN teams issued a report that declared this weapons system to be “the most efficient means for the delivery of biological warfare agents produced by Iraq.”25 In August 1989, an enormous explosion occurred at a secret underground weapons lab at Al-Quaqua, Iraq. The Iraqis were developing high-melting-point explosives and rapid-detonation explosives. These particular explosives are used solely for the production of nuclear implosion devices. In the early 1980s, Iraq purchased three hundred tons of yellow cake, a basic raw material used only in the production of nuclear weapons. This yellow cake produces gaseous uranium hexafluoride, which can be utilized in a series of cascading gas centrifuges to separate out the essential three percent uranium 235 from the militarily useless 97 percent of uranium 238 to produce weapons-grade uranium. American satellite photos detected a new uranium mine in northern Iraq that will allow them to produce as much yellow cake as they need for the future. Iraq's attempt to import forty nuclear high-capacity bomb triggers in the spring of 1990, combined with the importation of gas centrifuges from Switzerland for refining the uranium 235, provides overwhelming evidence that Iraq is working constantly on their own “Manhattan Project.” We are moving closer to the moment when Iraq will have weapons of mass destruction in their arsenal to use against Israel and the West. Whether the world wants to admit it or not, we are now two minutes until midnight on the doomsday clock for Armageddon in the Middle East. Israel's June 7, 1981, attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor facility at Osirak set back Saddam Hussein's nuclear warhead project for several years. Many nations publicly condemned Israel at the time for its preemptive action. However, many of the West's leaders were secretly grateful for Israel's action in significantly delaying Hussein's development of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, his French-built reactor had already produced enough plutonium to create one or two very primitive weapons. If Israel had not bombed the Osirak reactor, the U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia would have been vulnerable to an Iraqi nuclear attack during the War in the Gulf. In March 1990, British and American authorities announced that they had seized forty nuclear triggers known as high-speed capacitors that were on the way to Iraq. Two months later, a smiling Saddam Hussein held one of these sophisticated nuclear trigger devices and displayed it to TV cameras. He revealed that Iraq had already imported a number of these highly secret devices that are needed to control the sophisticated electronic triggering sequence to detonate a nuclear bomb. Iraqi scientists have developed the Tammuz I and II missiles, which have a current range of 1,200 miles. If such a missile were fired from Iraq's missile test range in Mauritania in North Africa it could deliver a warhead on Paris or London. Iraq will soon have intercontinental-range missiles. Unfortunately, western intelligence agencies have consistently underestimated by many years the length of time it would take nations such as Iraq to develop advanced weapons technology. Another very unpleasant scenario involves the Iraqi creation of a primitive radiological weapon, a conventional warhead that can be filled with radioactive waste products (such as strontium 90 and thorium) from their nuclear reactor program. Such a “dirty atomic weapon“ could be fired at an enemy target with a modified Scud-B missile. When such a warhead explodes in the air, a huge amount of deadly radiation will float down on the target city or oil field, making the area uninhabitable for up to a hundred years until the radioactivity finally decays. During World War II, U.S. and British nuclear scientists in the Manhattan Project suggested that bombs composed of radioactive material might be dropped on Germany and Japan, poisoning their cities for decades. The idea was rejected in favor of the more selective targeting of cities and bases with the powerful nuclear fission bombs. When we consider the devastating destructive power that our western technology has placed in the hands of Third World nations, we should realize that we are approaching the last days described in the Bible as the time leading to the battle of Armageddon. The Lord declared in the book of Revelation He would, “destroy them which destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18). The world is quickly approaching the time when only the coming of the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, will save mankind from destruction. Iraq is a very real threat to the West because of President Saddam Hussein's implacable hatred of America, the United Kingdom, and Israel. Saddam Hussein has devoted an enormous amount of effort and money toward the development of weapons of mass destruction. His previous thirty-nine SCUD missile attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia in 1991, his numerous chemical and biological attacks on civilians as well as Iranian soldiers, and his support of terrorist attacks on America provide powerful evidence that he is willing to use any of his weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, biological, or chemical. While the coalition against terror has wisely chosen to first deal with the Taliban government of Afghanistan that hid and supported bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorists, it will soon arrive at the point where the West must deal with Saddam Hussein and his army. A war to destroy President Hussein and his elite Republican Guard to the point where American and allied military units can travel throughout Iraq and destroy his weapons programs will not be easy. Such a war against Iraq will potentially cost the lives of many American and allied soldiers. But we have no choice. If we wait, Iraq will eventually develop weapons of mass destruction, and Hussein will use them against Israel and the West. We can deal with Iraq either now or later. But if we delay our military response until Iraq first launches devastating weapons of mass destruction, the massive casualties that occurred on September 11, 2001, will be only a footnote to the coming Third World War, a devastating war of global proportions. 2. CNN, Wolf Blitzer Reports, 21 Sept. 2001. http://www.dgss.com/aoa/cnn/met_with_Iraq.html. 3. Presidential Address to Congress, 26 June 1993, web site: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1993/930626i.htm. 4. Declaration of War: See Appendix. 5. Arutz 7, 20 Sept. 2001. 6. Laurie Mylroie, Study of Revenge, Washington: The AEI Press, 2000. 7. http://www.rferl.org/welcome/english/releases/2001/09/55-280901.html. 8. The New York Times, 23 Oct. 1997. 9. Laurie Mylroie, Study of Revenge, Washington: The AEI Press, 2000, p. 112. 10. Indictment of Usama bin Ladin et al., S 6 98 CR. 1023 LBS, p. 37. 11. Washington Post, 7 May 1999. 12. Julian Borger, The Guardian, 19 Oct. 2000. 13. http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39e8d3cd31bb.htm. 14. Sunday Telegraph, 28 Oct. 2001. 15. Sunday Telegraph, 28 Oct. 2001. 16. Sunday Telegraph, 28 Oct. 2001. 17. Scott Ritter. Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem—Once and for All. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999, p. 121. 18. “Anthrax Is Preferred Biological Warfare Agent,” United States Information Service, 20 Feb. 1998. 19. W. Seth Carus. “Biohazard: Assessing the Bioterrorism Threat.” New Republic, 2 Aug. 1999. 20. Time, 1 April 1977. 21. Jeff Stein. 'The Iraq Factor.” http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/. 26 Sept. 2001. 22. Near East Report, 4 Feb. 1998. 23. Middle East News Line. www.bridgesforpeace.com. 11 Sept. 2001. 24. Middle East News Line, www.bridgesforpeace.com. 11 Sept. 2001. 25. UNSCOM Report to the UN Security Council, 3 June 1998. 26. Sunday Telegraph, 28 Oct. 2001. |