On Friday the Foreign Military Studies Office released several new translations of audio and video tapes. These tapes contain Saddam and his ministers in secret talks. I recognized several of these tapes as the ones released by Bill Tierney at the recent Intelligence Summit.

These tapes were translated and reported on by ABC News and several government intelligence analysts reviewed them. The consensus was that the tapes had no value and revealed nothing new. I disputed that in The American Thinker because I had worked with these tapes while with the Iraq Survey Group.

After the ABC News report Bill Tierney disputed their interpretations and claimed the translations that he made revealed a discussion about plasma technology used for military applications. The safe assumption is that a secret military plasma program would be for nuclear weapons development.  

What was needed was a third translation to verify if Bill Tierney was correct or if ABC News was correct. We got that on Friday.

My conclusion is that Bill Tierney was correct. The tapes reveal military scientists discussing the academic and industrial use of plasma. Right when the scientist discusses the transfer of the technology to another program, the microphone is cut off. There is only one reason for this and it is obvious. This program was so secret they didn't want it on their own tapes.

Other startling revelations are in the new translations:

Saddam admits to using chemical weapons on Iran. This is new evidence that could even affect his trial. Of course, we knew this, but Saddam apologists deny it.

Saddam admits that because they used those weapons and denied the use, it was impossible to account for the missing weapons under U.N. inspections. This is clear evidence that Saddam did not come clean and that is why the U.S. could not accept the accounting for the weapons that Saddam made. Saddam brought the weight of the U.S. actions on himself by denying his attacks and covering that up.

The tapes prove that the Russians were paid off to assist the Iraqis to convince the U.N. to lift the sanctions.

A revelation that in 2001—2002, Saddam and his ministers where concerned about what three German scientists arrested in Germany would reveal about Iraq's nuclear program. This is more evidence that Iraq did not come clean about their nuclear activities and had something to hide just prior to the invasion.

See my website for the details.

Ray Robison   3 18 06