STARTED! Baghdad Being bombed - Post made by Mr. OverclockerBloke, War Fanatic

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I believe Kirkuk was under Saddam's control, it is town on the border of the Kurd-controlled Northern Iraq

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/kirkuk.htm

However, the weapons stored could have been these,

"As of early 1988, Iraqi artillery shells, bombs, and rockets loaded with chemical warfare (CW) materials were stored either at Samarra or in a large ammunition dump near the town of Muhammadiyat. This facility was located outside of Baghdad. Additionally, 122-mm rockets temporarily were stored at the airbase in Kirkuk for further transport to Sulaymaniyah. Mention of CW storage at "the airbase in Kirkuk" in the 1988 report further strengthened the US intelligence community's focus on S-shaped bunkers and the assessment that they would be used for forward deployment of chemical munitions, but were not intended for long-term storage. "

Also on the BBC Site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2942521.stm

"Kurdish forces say they will withdraw from the city of Kirkuk in the oil-rich north by the end of Saturday, a day after it fell to Kurdish troops backed by US special forces"

It only fell recently to the Kurdish forces, so I presume it was under Saddams control previously :)
 
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Re: Re: Re: Smokin Gun - Possible nerve agents found

Originally posted by dirtydog
Correct me if I'm wrong but Kirkuk is in northern Iraq / Kurdistan, which has not been under Saddam's control since 1991, is that right?

If so, then even if there are WMD there, they can hardly be called Saddam's by my reckoning.
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Wait and see mate. Every other smoking gun from Scuds, massive underground factory, mobile bio weopons labs, insecticides, mustard gas exposure to the BM21 tipped rockets ready TO FIRE!!!! have......dropped into the ether never to be mentioned again.
This may be the one, or, just another whatever you want to call it.

Haven't seen many (any?) terrorist scares since the war began either. Wonder what happened to the plot to shoot down planes at Heathrow;).
I'm just a cynic though.

Oh Stiff-Cookie I hope you saw the Rumsfled comments on executed POWs BTW?
 
World Tribune
LONDON — The United States has halted the flow of Iraqi oil to Syria.

Western intelligence sources said U.S.-led coalition forces shut off the oil pump outside the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday. The Kirkuk facility was pumping about 250,000 barrels of oil via a pipeline to the Syrian port of Banyas, Middle East Newsline reported. "It's a major move by the United States and will have a significant affect on Syria," a senior intelligence source said. "The Syrians are very upset."
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Line has changed from Iraq has executed US POWs, to Iraq has executed POWs, "I didn't say it has executed US POWs, check back on what I said"
Keep an eye on it as I know you were particually incensed at the time. If you find out different post it. The remains of many personnel are being returned as hospital morgues are being secured. I was struck at the time by what I perceived as a change in tack, as I was listening to it live about 1 week ago now. We shall see if any evidence turns up in the future.

Whether thats good or bad m8, it 'may' help some people closely related to know that their son/daughter died on their feet rather than being executed after being captured.
 
Originally posted by Custor
Line has changed from Iraq has executed US POWs, to Iraq has executed POWs, "I didn't say it has executed US POWs, check back on what I said"
Keep an eye on it as I know you were particually incensed at the time. If you find out different post it. The remains of many personnel are being returned as hospital morgues are being secured. I was struck at the time by what I perceived as a change in tack, as I was listening to it live about 1 week ago now. We shall see if any evidence turns up in the future.

Whether thats good or bad m8, it 'may' help some people closely related to know that their son/daughter died on their feet rather than being executed after being captured.
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I agree that families would probably rather hear that they died in a battle than in some ***** prison cell crying thier eyes out with a gun to their head.

But whose POW's are they killing?:confused:
 
Free to do bad things

War leaders are trying to damp down bad news coming out of post-invasion Iraq, writes Brian Whitaker

The Guardian: Saturday April 12, 2003

On one of the bleakest days since the invasion began, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday shrugged off turmoil and looting in Iraq as signs of the people's freedom.

"It's untidy, and freedom's untidy," he said, jabbing his hand in the air. "Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things."

Mr Rumsfeld insisted that words such as anarchy and lawlessness were unrepresentative of the situation in Iraq and "absolutely" ill-chosen.

"I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it," he said. "I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny - 'The sky is falling'. I've never seen anything like it! And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed we had shot - one thing after another. It's just unbelievable ..."

In an extraordinary performance reminiscent of the Iraqi information minister who assured the world that all was well even as battles raged visibly around him, Mr Rumsfeld quipped:

"The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?' "

In what appeared to be a concerted effort to damp down media coverage of the chaos, the British government simultaneously laid into the BBC and its defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, accusing them of "trying to make the news" rather than reporting it.

A spokesman for prime minister Tony Blair claimed that "in the main the anarchy and disorder is being directed against symbols of the regime". Mr Gilligan hit back: "The reality is half the shopping district [in Baghdad] is now being looted. Downing Street may be saying it's only regime targets that are being attacked. I'm afraid it isn't."


In a move that further undermines the United Nations' role in Iraq, the US has secretly and unilaterally resumed weapons inspections, according to a report in the Guardian today.

This will also annoy the British government, which still officially supports the UN's Unmovic team.

The American inspection team, nicknamed "USmovic", which was set up in Kuwait a week before the war began, has already started work. It includes inspectors recruited from the previous Unscom team and is led by Charles Duelfer, former deputy head of Unscom.

The US has a pressing need to find evidence of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, since this was the pretext for the invasion in the first place. But the American-controlled inspection team has no international recognition and will also have to struggle to establish its credibility. The work of Unscom during the 1990s was partly discredited by allegations of espionage which were later, to some extent, admitted. Whatever "USmovic" finds, it is liable to be accused of planting evidence, even if that is not actually the case.
 
And from the same article this shocking tale...

There is also some embarrassment over Sheikh Muzahim Tamimi, the tribal leader appointed by Britain to take charge of Basra province. It has emerged that he is a former brigadier-general in Saddam Hussein's army and was once a member of the Ba'ath party. Several hundred protesters threw stones at his house earlier this week.

One theory circulating in London is that the sheikh was appointed accidentally because British intelligence confused him with his anti-Saddam brother (who turns out to have been shot dead by the secret police in 1994).
 
US marines have advanced into the vicinity of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, American officials say.
Journalists who entered the town in northern Iraq saw no sign of organised defence - but then pulled out after they came under heavy fire.

Tikrit is believed to be a possible remaining stronghold of Saddam Hussein's regime and marines have been ordered to attack and destroy forces loyal to the deposed leader.

In cities which have already fallen to coalition forces, the US military has promised to take steps to restore law and order after the collapse of the regime led to widespread looting and violence.

On Saturday, two men shot dead a US marine who was manning a checkpoint near a hospital in Baghdad.

Fellow marines opened fire and killed one man who was found to be carrying Syrian papers. The other escaped.

Now, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, has said "free Iraqi forces" will go to Baghdad to help US forces restore order.

Both Mosul in the north and Basra in the south are reported to be calmer on Sunday.
 
Marines Find Six U.S. Prisoners of War

Reuters

Sun April 13, 2003 06:50 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces pushing north from Baghdad have found six U.S. prisoners of war who are now safe with a Marine unit, CNN reported on Sunday.The television network quoted a reported traveling with the U.S. forces, James Kitfield of the National Journal, as saying information was still sketchy. "Word just got through... They are alive and I don't have more information than that," Kitfield said in a telephone interview on CNN. A spokesman for U.S. Central Command said there was no immediate confirmation of the report. "Right now we don't have any information on that. We hope it's true," said spokesman Captain Stewart Upton.
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Good news if confirmed

Edit UPDATE : CENTCOM press release states 7 US service members found.
 
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Originally posted by Over Clocker
US marines have advanced into the vicinity of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, American officials say.
Journalists who entered the town in northern Iraq saw no sign of organised defence - but then pulled out after they came under heavy fire.
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CNN's Brent Sadler is in a non-embedded 7 car convoy driving around the outskirts of Tikrit and it looks mighty empty and the commentators are talking about the remarkable disappearance of the Iraqi army. I just tuned in so I don't know what I've missed, but he's passing empty and shattered Baath party complexes, a handful of unarmed pedestrians, and a deserted checkpoint in the north of Tikrit.

Update: Now he's driving around inside of an abandoned military base on the outskirts of Tikrit... (many updates in the extended entry and comments - also some good discussion in the comments).
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Sadler, one of the few Western journalists to travel to the immediate outskirts of Tikrit, said the town looked abandoned -- with no military movement and only a few civilians on the road. Highway signs bearing the deposed Iraqi leader's image were still intact.
Destroyed bunkers and abandoned artillery pieces indicated recent air attacks, he said. Sadler described an abandoned military base as "disordered, disrepaired and collapsed."

At the empty military base, guard posts were abandoned and posters of Saddam were undamaged. Sadler found a couple of older abandoned tanks, but could not tell how long they had been sitting there. He climbed on top of an Iraqi armored personnel carrier and found its machine gun loaded and ready to fire, but no one manning it. "This is just getting more and more bizarre with every passing minute," Sadler said.
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CNN's Brent Sadler decided to leave Tikrit after reaching an area of fighting. On the way out, they came to the checkpoint that had previously let them through. This time the people at the checkpoint opened fire with AK-47's in full auto. CNN's bodyguard returned full auto fire. They got away okay. As I write this they are under semi-automatic pistol fire from a nearby car. One of their vehicles took some rounds. The guard drove them off with return fire. It sounds like tthe guard has an AK-47 but I am not sure of that.
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Telegraph
Top secret documents obtained by The Telegraph in Baghdad show that Russia provided Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations between Tony Blair and other Western leaders.

Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West and details of arms deals to neighbouring countries. The two countries also signed agreements to share intelligence, help each other to "obtain" visas for agents to go to other countries and to exchange information on the activities of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader.

The documents, in Arabic, are mostly intelligence reports from anonymous agents and from the Iraqi embassy in Moscow. Tony Blair is referred to in a report dated March 5, 2002 and marked: "Subject - SECRET." In the letter, an Iraqi intelligence official explains that a Russian colleague had passed him details of a private conversation between Mr Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, at a meeting in Rome.

The document says that Mr Blair "referred to the negative things decided by the United States over Baghdad". It adds that Mr Blair refused to engage in any military action in Iraq at that time because British forces were still in Afghanistan and that nothing could be done until after the new Kabul government had been set up.
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CentCom Statement - POWs

April 13, 2003
Release Number: 03-04-120

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Seven servicemembers found

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar – Seven American service members were found by coalition forces today in the vicinity of Samawah, Iraq. Their identities are being withheld at this time. We are unable to confirm whether they are service members listed as prisoner of war or missing in action. Their medical condition is unknown at this time. More information will be released as it becomes available.
 
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