Weapons of Scrapped Destruction?

Whereg have Saddam Hussein’s reputed weapons of mass destruction been hiding for the past 16 months? Possibly the scrap yard.

When scrap metal export restrictions were declared in Iraq earlier this year by the Coalition Provisional Authority, it fit into a pattern of similar actions taken by other nations to protect their industrial feedstock supplies.

But media reports are suggesting that there is an additional purpose for the Iraqi ban: to stop an outflow of military and industrial contraband.

In a published article in the New York Times, reporter James Glanz took an informal inventory at scrap yards in the neighboring nation of Jordan and found considerable evidence of scrapped remnants of the former infrastructure of Iraq.

The volume has been significant, Glanz reports. “By some estimates, at least 100 semi trailers loaded with what is billed as Iraqi scrap metal are streaming each day into Jordan, just one of six countries that share a border with Iraq,” he writes.

Reports in September are suggesting that pieces of the weapons of mass destruction puzzle might also be found at Middle Eastern scrap yards.

As many as 42 engines from banned missile systems may have been uncovered by UN weapons inspectors, who have been scrutinizing outgoing Iraqi scrap shipments, according to an Associated Press report. In findings that will be presented to the UN Security Council this week, weapons inspectors say scrap exports may include demolition scrap from several former weapons manufacturing sites that have been destroyed or “cleaned out.”

Among the complexes razed and scrapped were a chemical industrial complex near Fallujah and the Al Samoud missile factory near Baghdad.

The outbound scrap takes many forms, with the Times mentioning steel piping, entire metal buildings and “sensitive military components” as being among the items streaming out of Iraq on flat-bed trucks and in closed containers.

The UN team says Jordanian scrap traders reported heavy scrap flows leaving Iraq starting in June. Some 20 missile engines have been found at Jordanian scrap yards, while another 22 missile engines reached Turkey.