From: David@notgoingtosay.com   
      
   Iraqi Colonel: WMD Could've Been Launched in 45 Minutes   
      
   Sunday, December 07, 2003   
      
   Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and his army was   
      
   capable of firing them off in less than 45 minutes, according to an Iraqi   
      
   colonel's statements in the London Telegraph.   
      
      
      
   According to Lt. Col. al-Dabbagh, cases of WMD warheads were   
      
   shipped under cover of darkness to front-line units, including his own,   
      
   near the end 2002, the Telegraph reported Sunday.   
      
   In September of 2002 the British government published a controversial   
      
   intelligence report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, claiming   
      
   WMD could be launched within 45 minutes. Al-Dabbagh said he   
      
   believed he was the source of the claim, which was widely criticized as   
      
   being a ploy by British Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) to gain   
      
   support for military action in Iraq (search).   
      
   "I am the one responsible for providing this information," al-Dabbagh,   
      
   40, told the Telegraph when shown the dossier. "It is 100 percent   
      
   accurate."   
      
   "Forget 45 minutes, we could have fired these within half-an-hour," he   
      
   was quoted as saying.   
      
   Al-Dabbagh told the paper that the weapons were Iraqi-manufactured   
      
   and were designed to be launched from hand-held rocket-propelled   
      
   grenades. Whether the weapons contained biological or chemical   
      
   agents was not made clear by al-Dabbagh, the report said.   
      
   Iraqi military commanders could use the weapons only on the personal   
      
   orders of Saddam, al-Dabbagh told the paper, adding: "We were told   
      
   that when the war came we would only have a short time to use   
      
   everything we had to defend ourselves, including the secret weapon."   
      
   So why weren't the weapons launched against the allied forces   
      
   encroaching on Iraq? Al-Dabbagh said the majority of the Iraqi army did   
      
   not want to fight for Saddam.   
      
   "The West should thank God that the Iraqi army decided not to fight,"   
      
   he told the paper. "If the army had fought for Saddam Hussein and   
      
   used these weapons there would have been terrible consequences."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)