Memo reportedly shows location of WMD

A captured document from the Saddam regime but left untranslated by the Pentagon describes the hiding of chemical-weapons materials and the location of their burial in Iraq.

Joseph Shahda, who has translated a number of key texts from among the thousands made available on the Internet by the Defense Department, posted his work on the conservative forum FreeRepublic.com.

The memo, dated Sept. 15, 2002, is from the General Relations group of one of Saddam's military-intelligence organizations.

The document, signed by Moohsen Abdel Karim Mahmood, says a team from the Military Industrialization Commission "did bury a large container" that "contains a chemical material in the village" of Al Subbayhat, part of the district of Karma in Fallujah.

The area is described as a quarry region used by the South Korean manufacturer Samsung and "close to the homes of some citizens."

The container, the memo says, was buried using a "fleet of concrete mixers."

The text notes that before "the departure of the international inspectors in 1998, a United Nations helicopter flew over the region for two hours."

It also states:

"A large number of the region residents know about this container from the large number of machines used to hide it then."

"It was noticed a non ordinary smell in the region."

"No official visited the burial site through out the years which give the impression that it is not currently known by the Military Industrialization Commission."

"Positions for the air defense were digged [sic] in the region that surrounds the quarry place without them knowing anything about the container. Also next to it are important headquarters like (Saddam factories-The warehouses of the Commerce ministry- Headquarters of Mujaheeden Khlaq)."

The weblog Powerline points out the Military Industrial Commission ran the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program before the 1991 Gulf War and continued its existence afterwards in a more covert fashion.

In November, the producer of a documentary on Saddam Hussein said there is no question the ousted Iraqi dictator possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Brad L. Maaske, who interviewed dozens of Iraqis in producing his film "Weapon of Mass Destruction: The Murderous Reign of Saddam Hussein," pointed out it does not take much to create a WMD.

"There didn't have to be massive stockpiles of chemicals," he explains. "A few 55-gallon drums of a nerve gas could kill a million people if properly dispersed, so it's not that difficult for him to get rid of what he had."