This looks as if it might be interesting, in the Far Oriental sense I mean.
Three giant cargo ships are being tracked by US and British intelligence on suspicion that they might be carrying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Each with a deadweight of 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes, the ships have been sailing around the world’s oceans for the past three months while maintaining radio silence in clear violation of international maritime law, say authoritative shipping industry sources.
The vessels left port in late November, just a few days after UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix began their search for the alleged Iraqi arsenal on their return to the country.
Uncovering such a deadly cargo on board would give George Bush and Tony Blair the much sought-after “smoking gun” needed to justify an attack on Saddam Hussein’s regime, in the face of massive public opposition to war.
The suspicious ones amongst us will no doubt be saying: how convenient! If it’s just what they wanted to happen, then who’s to say they didn’t make it happen?
Well, either way it is interesting. If it’s a real threat, then … well if that isn’t interesting to you then you are now having a near death experience, and the usual follow-up to that will be with you very soon. And if the Axis of Bush contrived it, then that just shows you that these guys are serious, and serious right about now (what with now being when they broke the story, the timing of which is interesting either way), which in my opinion is all to the good, but which I can understand others not liking so much. We may never know.
Here at Samizdata.net we have our own somewhat wordy house style, and we like to spell the stories out for the time when Samizdata.net roams the earth unchallenged, but paltry things like independent.co.uk have collapsed into oblivion. If this had been Instapundit (to whom, by the way, personal and Samizdata thanks for this link, which made quite a difference here yesterday), this would just have said something like: I don’t know what this is about, but it sure looks like something.
Indeed.
How long can they stay out w/o refeuling?
They’re going to have to be dead in the water in the next couple of months, wouldn’t they?
If these are bin Laden’s ships, I commented on them some months back. He owns 5 freighters. They have been difficult to track because they do things like change their name and flag in the middle of the ocean and then show up somewhere unexpected.
I imagine a great deal of effort has recently gone into tracking them. But who knows if it is just 5?
I’ve got some really hair raising scenarios for the use of these ships I refuse to write about until after the war…
I think it’s more likely those ships are staying out of the way because they’re suspicious in some other way. Maybe Dale’s theory is right, or maybe their current owners acquired them from a source that won’t stand up to scrutiny, or something like that.
It seems pretty unlikely to me that Saddam would hide weapons on those ships. That would be a pretty stupid place to hide things from the country with the biggest navy, and nobody’s accused Saddam of being bad at hiding things.
On the other hand, I don’t think the US government made the story up either–it just doesn’t fit in with their other “warnings” and PR efforts. More likely, some bored clerk who thinks he’s Jack Ryan noticed something a little strange, got together with a reporter, and made up the rest of the story.
Incidentally, 35 to 40 thousand tons is not “giant.” It’s not even particularly large, as modern cargo ships go.
“…chartered by a shipping agent based in Egypt and are flying under the flags of three different countries…”
“…while maintaining radio silence in clear violation of international maritime law, say authoritative shipping industry sources…”
If international law is clearly being violated, then who will board the ships and inspect their cargos? I am unaware of any international body empowered to do so. If I’m not mistaken, it is left up to individual nations or groups of nations to enforce the laws of the sea. Therefore, the timing of the press “leak” makes me think some critical days are upon us in the very near future.
If the leak is a US/UK ploy, with the memory of the recent “Yemeni” Scuds, it means the intelligence communities have information damning to the Iraqi’s. If it is an Iraqi ploy, then the ships hold no WMD and they are a stalking horse to force the US/UK into a hostile act gaining Iraq a PR victory. If neither of the above, then all bets are off. We could have UBL maybe, another actor with unknown motivations maybe, or old ships with bad radios maybe, or … whatever. As the “mystery ships” move to the front pages over the next few days, the tension will surely rise and it seems that somebody badly wants that to happen.
Maybe frankenreichs’ bills of lading.
So, wonder where 1 or 2 of our subs are?
OH, I just had a dreadful thought. Maybe some of that cargo isn’t just materiel, maybe it’s human, like scientists and/or families of scientists.
Looks like there’s nothing in the story. See:
this
So why was the “three mystery cargo ships” story immediately squashed in the United States?
It surfaced through Reuters initially. Does the immediate disappearance of this story in the USA point to an example of disinformation planted by a government for some purpose, or is it the intentional suppression of truthful reporting?
Or maybe there’s some other reason information regarding this story could soon only be found in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia?
I would sure like to know.
Jim Woodgate, USA
Jim.Woodgate@midmichigan.org
Does it seem to anyone else that the US administration and others involved in the “liberation” war in Iraq seemed just a little too sure that they had nothing to fear from Sadam and his sons? Wasnt the opening night activity, and a so called “target of convenience” just too clean…and now they sling reports around that Sadam was killed at that outing and his one son died at the hands of an Iraqi general…etc.
What if Sadam, Usay and Qusay each got their own ship….and… as the reports now of truckloads of cash and goods being looted by the ruling family…filled those ships with treasures, etc. and plan to live there in exile….and what if our government knows it and staged this war for appearances?
Im not a conspiracy theorist generally, but the report yesterday of Qusay’s three truckloads of cash made me consider…where would he take that to and where would he store it?
Does it seem to anyone else that the US administration and others involved in the “liberation” war in Iraq seemed just a little too sure that they had nothing to fear from Sadam and his sons? Wasnt the opening night activity, and a so called “target of convenience” just too clean…and now they sling reports around that Sadam was killed at that outing and his one son died at the hands of an Iraqi general…etc.
What if Sadam, Usay and Qusay each got their own ship….and… as the reports now of truckloads of cash and goods being looted by the ruling family…filled those ships with treasures, etc. and plan to live there in exile….and what if our government knows it and staged this war for appearances?
Im not a conspiracy theorist generally, but the report yesterday of Qusay’s three truckloads of cash made me consider…where would he take that to and where would he store it?
Does it seem to anyone else that the US administration and others involved in the “liberation” war in Iraq seemed just a little too sure that they had nothing to fear from Sadam and his sons? Wasnt the opening night activity, and a so called “target of convenience” just too clean…and now they sling reports around that Sadam was killed at that outing and his one son died at the hands of an Iraqi general…etc.
What if Sadam, Usay and Qusay each got their own ship….and… as the reports now of truckloads of cash and goods being looted by the ruling family…filled those ships with treasures, etc. and plan to live there in exile….and what if our government knows it and staged this war for appearances?
Im not a conspiracy theorist generally, but the report yesterday of Qusay’s three truckloads of cash made me consider…where would he take that to and where would he store it?
What if there ARE WMD that were planted by the “Coalition of the Willing” that could be “FOUND” after a period of time when NO WMD were found in Iraq, thereby justifying “BUSH’S WAR”?
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM…………..
Where are these ships now? Where is the story? I wonder if these are stealthy cargo freighters that are carrying a diabolical mass amnesia device or possibly a mass distraction generator …………….
What was the name of that preganant woman in SF Bay? I forget………