Pakistan's missile program is 'emerging threat', top US official says

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pakistan-developing-missiles-eventually-could-184936385.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A senior White House official on Thursday said nuclear-armed Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that eventually could allow it to strike targets well beyond South Asia, making it an "emerging threat" to the United States.

Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer's surprise revelation underscored how far the once-close ties between Washington and Islamabad have deteriorated since the 2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

 

Are these the same WMDs Iraq had?

 

Nuclear weapons were not in Iraq. Nor ever claimed to be in Iraq.

 

Pakistan’s WMD program is well-known and not a secret. As for the chemical weapons once possessed by Iraq, some of them were reportedly destroyed by Israel in Syria last week, while others were used by Assad’s regime in the past. Given the timeframe, 4 to 6 months would have been enough for Saddam Hussein to move or hide his stockpiles in Syria.

 

While it is true that 4 to 6 months would have been enough time, you're living in a silly fantasy world if you believe that to be true. To be clear I believed Bush's lies that they were there. So, I now have to admit that I was wrong to believe his stupid lies.

quote:
The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) failed to find any of the alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that were used as an impetus for the 2003 invasion.[1] The United States effectively terminated the search effort for unconventional weaponry in 2005, and the Iraq Intelligence Commission concluded that the judgements of the U.S. intelligence community about the continued existence of weapons of mass destruction and an associated military program were wrong. The official findings by the CIA in 2004 were that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them."[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMD_conjecture_after_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq

That is very old news and many news pieces about that situation debunk Bush's lies. Including evidence that he knew they were lies when he was spreading them.

 

Bill, you are mostly correct, here os what I read in past years in Israeli media.

While there were multiple reports and rumors regarding the smuggling of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) from Iraq to Syria following the Iraq War, especially from Israeli intelligence sources, there is no conclusive, publicly available evidence proving that commercial airplanes were used for this purpose. However, there have been a few notable claims made by various sources, including:
1. Israeli Intelligence Claims (2003–2004): Some Israeli officials, including then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, suggested that Iraq had transferred WMDs to Syria just before the U.S. invasion in 2003. These claims often involved suggestions of hidden facilities and the movement of chemical or biological agents via trucks, planes, or other means. Some reports specifically mentioned the use of modified commercial aircraft, but these claims were not verified by independent sources.
2. The "Syria WMD Transfer" Allegations: In 2004, the U.S. government and certain intelligence officials alleged that there were efforts to transfer WMDs from Iraq to Syria, with some reports citing the use of modified commercial flights to do so. These assertions were largely based on intelligence intercepts and satellite imagery, though no physical evidence or confirmed reports directly supported the airplane claim. These allegations were part of broader claims about Iraq's WMDs that were never conclusively proven, despite extensive investigations.
3. The Duelfer Report (2004): The Iraq Survey Group's Duelfer Report, released in 2004, concluded that Iraq had destroyed its stockpiles of WMDs after the Gulf War in the 1990s and had no active WMD program at the time of the 2003 invasion. The report did mention that there were pre-invasion concerns about WMDs potentially being hidden or moved to Syria, but again, there was no conclusive evidence regarding the use of commercial flights for smuggling.
4. Unverified Leaks and Reports: Several media outlets and intelligence officials suggested that Syria may have been a destination for Iraq's WMD materials, but these claims often lacked verification or were based on classified intelligence that was not made public.
To find these reports, you might need to consult sources like:
The Duelfer Report and Iraq Survey Group’s findings.
Publicly available intelligence leaks and media reports from news agencies like The New York Times, The Guardian, or The Washington Post from 2003 to 2006.
Government and military declassified documents, especially those from the U.S. Department of Defense and Israeli intelligence agencies.
If you're looking for official or declassified sources, you might try searching through government databases like the CIA FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) releases, or look into archives of intelligence reports or books on Middle Eastern geopolitics published by former intelligence officers.

But recent events, such as those that may involve ongoing tensions in the Middle East, the situation is indeed complex and often shrouded in classified intelligence.

Since the early 2000s, Israeli intelligence has reportedly gathered additional evidence to support claims that Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were manufactured and transported primarily outside of Iraq, with Syria being a central hub. This information, which includes documents and files seized from Iranian and Syrian sources as recently as the 2024 Lebanon War, has bolstered claims that a hybrid operation involving the production and smuggling of chemical weapons took place. These operations allegedly involved the covert transport of chemical WMDs between Iraq and Syria, often facilitated through modified commercial flights or other clandestine methods.

 

Almost all WMDs were destroyed after the Iran/Iraq war. With most of the rest of the WMDs found a couple years later and were destroyed then, 1994. The US military found a few scattered WMDs after entering Iraq but everything found was dated prior to 1991. This information is all available in reference [2] linked in the text that I copied from Wikipedia. See below for what the [2] reference said.

quote:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes.

In fact, the long-awaited report, authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.

The Iraq Survey Group report, released Wednesday, is 1,200 to 1,500 pages long.
https://web.archive.org/web/20171107020626/http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/