My first thought was, “Did someone forget to give Colin Powell this information? He was supposed to give us the lowdown.” Inquiring minds would like to know at least the ship's names and registration numbers. We have naval resources dedicated to tracking Iraqi shipping - as do other countries – as part of the sanctions regime. We police the Gulf and are supposed to be enforcing trade sanctions against Iraq along with our European partners. A porpoise doesn't fart out in the Gulf without us knowing about it. Sending his WMD into the Gulf on shipping (shipping in the Gulf can be boarded anytime for any reason given the extraordinary goings on in the region) seems unusually risky for Saddam. Given the constant presence of the US Navy in the Gulf, he would practically be guaranteeing he'd never get them back. Imports are under sanction. No Iraqi ship could return to Basra without the threat of being boarded on its way in. So, in the event of war, Hussein's WMD would be unavailable to him as a threat or actual weapon and, during an inspection period, which according to the inspectors would necessarily stretch into months and months if not years, the ships could not return. If you're not going to have them around to use during an invasion, you may as well destroy them. There's much less risk in doing that than sending them out amongst the US fifth fleet. It's not an immediate disqualifier that this is an implausible story, but they're going to have to put some meat on the bones to keep me listening. :m: Peace.
I would find unilateral US attempts at seizing these mystery ships in deep water far more justifiable than land invasion. If nasties get sent to the bottom, less bad. The US, Soviets and others have left considerable NBC materials on the bottom with little measured detriment. Seems worth the risk to me. Of course this line of reason assumes WMDs are honestly a real issue to the US.
I hope this is not like ships to Yemen part II “The vessels have called briefly at a handful of Arab countries, including Yemen, but they have been resupplied at sea with food, fuel and water by other ships. All three were chartered by a shipping agent based in Egypt and are understood to be sailing under three different flags of convenience.” http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/3453118?source=Evening :m:
One might imagine the ships would break radio silence the instant they were torpedoed. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
When forcefully ejected through the nose by unexpected laughter, Sprite leaves a curiously unpleasant burning sensation in the nostrils. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! --- Edit: add link to Sprite ---
In deed is going to get very interesting, it is beginning to look more like a chess challenge between a Chinese and a blonde. I could imagine that the incident is not getting front-page attention because if the ships turn out to have illegal emigrant taking a detour heading for Australia, Howard is going to look very suspicious in his enrolment with the US. If on the other hand it is true, it could be a bunch of suicide bomber willing to blowup the boats the moment Rambo and his pommi mates show up on deck. The evidences will be destroyed and only military would be the casualties. I guess the CIA and the FIB and the god knows who else, didn’t plan for this, …back to the drawing board for Bush and his war cabinet!!
We're keeping it quiet so in case the U.N. doesn't allow us to attack Iraq we can Puul this rabit out of the hat and try again.
Well, if these ships only contain bio/chemical supplies and not the means to deliver them, then, since General Franks is going to be the leader of Iraq in a few weeks maybe the U.S. is just waiting until that time. Then he can contact the captains of the ships: "Captain, this is your leader, the crisis is over please return to port...".
It was on the BBC2 news tonight with pics,they said the ships are going round & round in big circles in the Indian ocean.
