British troops with chemical warfare kits head to Syrian doorstep

British troops with chemical warfare kits head to Syrian doorstep

www.mirror.co.uk

On Friday 130 members of 42 Commando will leave for Jordan to participate in war games codenamed Eager Lion 13 Royal Marines with chemical warfare kits are heading to Syria’s doorstep this week as civil war intensifies, the Sunday People can reveal.
On Friday 130 members of 42 Commando, based in Plymouth, will leave for Syria neighbour Jordan to join 5,000 US marines and 15 other nations for war games codenamed Eager Lion 13.
But with 800 British troops already in the desert kingdom awaiting dep.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Its on methinks...

I have been on a few of these "exercises"... They usually are beat up training and aclimatization before we go in.. Or a show of force.. But the rhetoric from politcos suggests we are going in...

If chemical attacks are indeed proved then this will get dirty very quickly and may bring in China and Russia.. Add a nuclear tipped Israel next door and we have ourselves a few awkward moments that could end up ruining someones day...

www.mirror.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by EvanB


My God - why can't we all just stay out? This is just going to be a massacre of everyone there - women, children, NATO troops - everyone.

Better just to refugee everyone out of there, no matter what it costs.

.......and the final pieces for Revelation fall into place. I've been waiting to see two before feeling certain this is the time period and that is a timeline to give serious notice. Two. Now, shortly, I'll only be waiting for 1.

This is getting very serious very quickly and could spiral beyond anyone's ability to stop before the world knows how far it's even gone.

Recall, Saddam's stockpile went to Sryia just before the inspection by the UN for WMDs...that was no secret operation.
Very serious situation...

Originally posted by Happy1
reply to post by EvanB

 

My God - why can't we all just stay out? This is just going to be a massacre of everyone there - women, children, NATO troops - everyone.

Better just to refugee everyone out of there, no matter what it costs.

The elites seem to be pushing this... What they want they usually get and the poor civvies have to take the brunt.. Not to mention the soldiers who, by personal experience, will not enjoy fighting in the middle of idistingushable sides wearing NBC suits..

reply to post by EvanB


There isn’t much worse (physically) than spending weeks on end stomping around the desert in MOPP gear. I played that game in 2003 when we were still under the assumption Saddam was going to use chemical weapons. There were times when I literally thought my heart was going to explode….I feel for these guys (and it reaffirms my decision to get out).

I think we’re on the verge of a flare-up in Syria and Iran. Anybody notice how quiet Iran has been lately? Now we have the supposed use of chemical weapons by Syria. All the signs are there….

reply to post by Granite


that's actually a load of bullplop.
Saddam never had weapons, they didn't go to Syria.
Syria had/has a stockpile, one of the largest in the world.

reply to post by Agit8dChop


Umm….yes, he had chemical weapons….and he used them.

That is common knowledge.

Saddam Hussein was internationally known for his use of chemical weapons in the 1980s against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War. It is also known that in the 1980s he pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built.

After the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials throughout the early 1990s, with varying degrees of Iraqi cooperation and obstruction.

en.wikipedia.org...

In violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Iraqi Army initiated two failed (1970–1974, 1974–1978) and one successful (1978–1991) offensive chemical weapons (CW) programs.[1] President Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) pursued the most extensive chemical program during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), when he waged chemical warfare against his foe. He also used chemicals in 1988 in the Al-Anfal Campaign against his civilian Kurdish population and during a popular uprising in the south in 1991.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by Granite
Recall, Saddam's stockpile went to Sryia just before the inspection by the UN for WMDs...that was no secret operation.
Very serious situation...

I remember that, there were pictures of convoys of trucks going across the boarder. Who knows how much chemical weapons they have. There wasn't much left in Iraq when the war started.

reply to post by rickymouse


Whether or not Saddam’s chemical weapons ended up in Syria is up for debate but there are some people “in the know” (even within the current administration) who believe it.

As director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Clapper said in 2003 that satellite images showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq to Syria "unquestionably" show that illicit weapons were moved out of Iraq. Another frequently cited believer in a Saddam smuggling effort is former Iraqi general George Sada, an adviser to the late dictator. "They were moved by air and by ground, 56 sorties by jumbo, 747, and 27 were moved, after they were converted to cargo aircraft, they were moved to Syria," he told Fox News in 2006. That account differed from Clapper's who said the smuggling occurred in March of 2003, not 2002, as Sada claimed. While Sada's story perhaps just adds more confusion to the theory, one thing is definitely clear: There was a large buildup of traffic between Syria and Iraq in March 2003.

www.theatlanticwire.com...

Originally posted by Granite
Recall, Saddam's stockpile went to Sryia just before the inspection by the UN for WMDs...that was no secret operation.
Very serious situation...

And Gaddafi's stockpile of weapons went to the FSA. Serious indeed.

Ironic how the operation is called Eager Lion 13, we just can't wait to get in there.

reply to post by seabag


yes, had them... over a decade before the gulf war 2. We know he had them, we gave them to him. Everyone knows he used them against an Iranian outpost at Hallabja..

But, he did not have them when Bush invaded, he did not have the means to create them. (Bush even admitted this to us). This is why we found nothing and everyone captured said we have nothing.
AKA Bush and Cheney Lied...

He did not ship them to Syria.. why? ... because the only intel the US had was dodgy phone calls and sat photos of tubes in a stock yard. If Saddam had of shipped his munitions to Syria there would have been satellite photos all over the hoopla! Also, again, he didn't have the means to make them after the UN Destroyed the infrastructure.

Syria doesn't need anyone to supply them, they have one of the largest stockpiles.
Also, this stuff has a SHELF LIFE! as in, it degrades over time.

All valid points against the nonsense concept that Saddam had 20yr old chemical weapons magically ship to Syria to be shelved for another 10yrs only to be used in 2013... when he has stockpiles of new stuff there and ready to go!

logic..

This isn't breaking news, the article is from 16 June 2013,just saying.

reply to post by EvanB


This just popped up as in this evening so this report is
breaking news....... U.S agents (commandos) Isreali, Jordanian.....CIA moving in

According to our information, the regime's opponents, supervised by Jordanian, Israeli and American commandos moving towards Damascus since mid-August. This attack could explain the possible use of the Syrian president to chemical weapons.

Translated -

google translate

reply to post by Agit8dChop

yes, had them... over a decade before the gulf war 2. We know he had them, we gave them to him.

I am so sick and tired of this falsehood being perpetuated on ATS hear it everytime some one mentions WMD's.

The TRUTH:

Wikipedia's article on Iraq's WMDs gives a good rundown of the international contributions:

All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin.
Around 21% of Iraq’s international chemical weapon equipment was French.
About 100 tons of mustard gas also came from Brazil.
The United Kingdom paid for a chlorine factory that was intended to be used for manufacturing mustard gas
An Austrian company gave Iraq calutrons for enriching uranium. The nation also provided heat exchangers, tanks, condensers, and columns for the Iraqi chemical weapons infrastructure, 16% of the international sales.
Singapore gave 4,515 tons of precursors for VX, sarin, tabun, and mustard gasses to Iraq.
The Dutch gave 4,261 tons of precursors for sarin, tabun, mustard, and tear gasses to Iraq.
Egypt gave 2,400 tons of tabun and sarin precursors to Iraq and 28,500 tons of weapons designed for carrying chemical munitions.
India gave 2,343 tons of precursors to VX, tabun, Sarin, and mustard gasses.
Luxemburg gave Iraq 650 tons of mustard gas precursors.
Spain gave Iraq 57,500 munitions designed for carrying chemical weapons. In addition, they provided reactors, condensers, columns and tanks for Iraq’s chemical warfare program, 4.4% of the international sales.
China provided 45,000 munitions designed for chemical warfare.

Saddams WMD

Iraq'a WMD Sourced.

And Yes there were reports that Saddam's WMD's were moved to Syria early on during the Iraq war that was largely ignored for political reasons.

WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results

Anyone trying to lay 'Saddam's WMD's were given to them by the US' is pushing intellectual dishonesty.

True the Us did have a part in that BUT people can't lay that ALL on the US.

On Topic:

MOPPS suits?

Either an over reaction or credible threat time will tell.

reply to post by neo96


I'd just add to this a note about how Saddam's own Generals believed he DID have Chem weapons in some secret stock they didn't have access to directly until after the US invaded. The reports were that some damn near went into shock to realize far far too late their ultimate hold card had been a big bluff by that point in time.

So... it's a fair thing to say, when his own high command thought they existed from the old days forward, how the heck could the world have known for sure they didn't? He played a very very dangerous game and lost....and you're right. So much said about it 10 years later is fuzzy with the rewriting of history to multiple agendas.

reply to post by wrabbit2000

So much said about it 10 years later is fuzzy with the rewriting of history to multiple agendas.

This is true, and part of that rewriting is that we went in to Iraq for only one reason, fact is there were multiple reasons, terrorist access to wmd's was a part of that, multiple Un sanction violations, and Saddam had the technology and the will to sell or give to 'terrorists'.

Here is the speech:

Clearly list's multiple reasons for going in.

www.theguardian.com...

Rewriting history ?

LOL they rewrote it as it happened all to get the next guy in the White House.

reply to post by neo96


I can raise you a wiki leak article as well..

Chemical and biological exports Iraq purchased 8 strains of anthrax from the United States in 1985, according to British biological weapons expert David Kelly.[28] The Iraqi military settled on the American Type Culture Collection strain 14578 as the exclusive strain for use as a biological weapon, according to Charles Duelfer.[29] On February 9, 1994, Senator Riegle delivered a report -commonly known at the Riegle Report- in which it was stated that "pathogenic (meaning 'disease producing'), toxigenic (meaning 'poisonous'), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce." It added: "These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."[30] The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Bacillus anthracis) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."[31] Donald Riegle, Chairman of the Senate committee that authored the aforementioned Riegle Report, said: U.N. inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs. ... The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq 14 separate agents "with biological warfare significance," according to Riegle's investigators.[32]

or

According to Mark Phythian's 1997 book Arming Iraq: How the US and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine (Northeastern University Press), in 1983 Reagan asked Italy's Prime Minister Guilo Andreotti to channel arms to Iraq. - See more at: www.greenleft.org.au...

or

www.theinsider.org...

American exports to Iraq, with the full knowledge and approval of the US government, included regular shipments of anthrax, botulism, West Nile fever, brucella melitensis, and other materials used in germ warfare. Other routine shipments included chemical warfare agent precursors, detailed plans for chemical weapons production facilities, chemical and biological warhead filling equipment, as well as delivery systems, missile production equipment and missile guidance systems.

WMD shipments from the US to Iraq continued long after the mass gassing of Kurds in Halabja, 1988; an incident which US intelligence blamed on Iran at the time, but the story was revised to make Saddam Hussein the evil-doer not long before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

... so please... do go on about how its a myth!

reply to post by Agit8dChop


The myth that the US is the only country to give Saddam wmd's has been busted.

Yepppers.

And the myth Saddam did not have wmd's is also busted.

Yeppers.

Aliens must have abducted them.