A friend of mine called me up and directed me to a thread over on the FreeRepublic.com on a Fox News Channel interview with a former U.N. weapons inspector named Bill Tierney. Tierney was a former US Army Military Intelligence Chief Warrent Officer who was recruited in 1996 as a weapons inspector. He made two highly charged accusation. First, the French were spying on the U.N. weapons inspection teams by providing the Iraqis lists of sites to be inspected. Second, he is convinced the Iraqis have operational nuclear weapons.

In the interview, Tierney detailed how the French had a spy at UN HQ in NY who was caught rifling thru a desk that held the inspection site list and how a French inspector was caught passing info to the Iraq. Tierney's inspection team went as far as feeding the French spy phony sites they planned on searching. (Now you know why the Iraqis accused Tierney of being a spy!)

This article from Newsmax excerpts the part of the Hannety and Colmes interview relating to Tierney's nuclear accusation:

Tierney told Hannity that a 1997 inspection he attempted to conduct at Saddam's Jabal Makhul presidential palace lead him to suspect that the Iraqi dictator already had the bomb.

"Certain things convinced me that they had proscribed items at this presidential site. That led to the inspection in September 1997 where we were locked out. There was something about that. The just came up and said, 'There will be no inspection. Good Day.' And they walked off."

Tierney said the rebuff was "completely different" from other inspections of sensitive sites, where some sort of compromise was always worked out.

Another sign of sinister activity: As Tierney and his team were being turned away, a U.N. helicopter attempting to overfly Jabal Makhul nearly crashed when an Iraqi official on board lunged at the controls.

"That was a distraction to keep that helicopter from going over to the other side of the mountain to see what they were doing" at the facility, said Tierney.

He described Jabal Makhul as a "gigantic" complex of warehouses and underground tunnels, before noting that last year the London Times reported Saddam was storing nuclear weapons in bunkers in and around the Hamrin Mountains.

"There is only one heavily guarded place in the Hamrin Mountains," Tierney told Hannity. "And that's where we were, Jabal Makhul."

Still, despite efforts by Iraqi officials to keep inspectors away from Jabal Makhul, U.N. officials continued to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt, he complained.

"If you had ambiguous reporting; it could mean he has the nukes, it could mean that he doesn't." he said. "Normally the call would be, 'Oh well, that doesn't confirm so therefore he's still developing. He doesn't have it,'" Tierney said he was told.

While, as mentioned previously, Bill Tierney was accused by the Iraqis of being a spy. That wasn't what got him in trouble with the Clinton Administration. No, he was removed from the inspection teamsfor the "crime of proselytizing." The following is from the Tampa Tribune Online:

At the time, Richard Butler was executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission which provides and oversees U.N. weapons inspectors. Scott Ritter was the team's chief inspector.

``The position which Mr. Tierney would fill would be in direct support of [Ritter], and is a critical position on the lead access team for any inspection, especially one which may be categorized as sensitive by Iraq,'' Butler wrote in 1998 as he sought to extend Tierney's tour with the inspectors.

Tierney says his career began unraveling after he was called on to help interrogate an Iraqi defector who was a Christian. The defector was nervous, Tierney says, so Tierney prayed with him.

Tierney drew fire for that. Critics accused him of violating a Central Command directive prohibiting religious proselytizing. Before long, Tierney says, doors always before open to him began closed, and his career fell into limbo.

He resigned, he says, mistakenly believing it would be easier that way to clear his name. He learned that wasn't so and unsuccessfully tried to win reinstatement.

The Pentagon said in rejecting him that his behavior with the defector was inappropriate and could have cost the United States a valuable intelligence source.

Tierney scoffs at that. The man already professed Christianity, he says, so he couldn't have been proselytized.

``The fact is, I established excellent rapport with the source,'' Tierney adds. ``If anything, a U.S. government official expressing compassion for his situation enhanced his willingness to cooperate.''

Given the flat out hate many senior Democrats have for Christian "bible thumpers" (and lets face it, the deference to the Saudis that Republicans pursue) it is not surprising that the senior officers in Central Command took advantage of Tierney's naivete to get rid of him. He was to dangerous to Clinton Administration Iraq policy to be "allowed to live" anywhere near the Iraqi WMD intelligence.