| Seattle Times | 0 | |
| Fresno Bee | [CA] Field Poll: Campbell leads GOP Senate field; Boxer fades |
0 |
| WSJ | 0 | |
| CNN | 0 | |
| WaPo | 0 |
Audacity of Truth
Rahmbo:
"Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive."
-Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) on Obama's COS, 3/7/10
Velvet Lair- Legends March 18, 2010
- Some things are just not cute March 18, 2010
- The adventures of the lady spider killer continue March 11, 2010
- Intermission February 19, 2010
- People who allow their dogs to poop in other people’s yards February 16, 2010
DOD: Munitions Found in Iraq Meet WMD Criteria
The 500 munitions that were found throughout Iraq after the 2003 invasion really WERE dangerous and DO meet the criteria to be considered a WMD, contrary to the beliefs of liberals who still cling to the belief that “Bush lied!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! about WMD:
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center’s commander said here today.
“These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes … they do constitute weapons of mass destruction,” Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.
The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. Sarin attacks the neurological system and is potentially lethal.
“Mustard is a blister agent (that) actually produces burning of any area (where) an individual may come in contact with the agent,” he said. It also is potentially fatal if it gets into a person’s lungs.
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.
While that’s reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. “We’re talking chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and have a great effect,” he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.
This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred, Chu said. It’s not known exactly how sarin breaks down, but no matter how degraded the agent is, it’s still toxic.
“Regardless of (how much material in the weapon is actually chemical agent), any remaining agent is toxic,” he said. “Anything above zero (percent agent) would prove to be toxic, and if you were exposed to it long enough, lethal.”
This won’t matter in the eyes of liberals – they’ll still think Santorum and Hoekstra’s announcement about these WMD was ‘comical’ while at the same time continuing to proclaim at the top of their lungs that Bush “lied!!!!”
Hat tip: John B. Dwyer at The American Thinker
Prior:
- Hoekstra and Santorum to intelligence community: Declassify more WMD-related documents, and quit downplaying them
- Even more documents show Saddam targeted US interests
- Documents show more collaboration between AQ and Iraq
- Saddam’s Philippines terror connection
- Batch of pre-war Afghanistan and Iraq documents are released
- Prepare to learn more about Saddam’s WMD intentions
- House Permanent Select Committee to review Saddam recordings
- The Syria/Iraq WMD connection
- Saddam’s #2 air force official: WMDs were moved to Syria
- Confirmed: Iraq was a terrorist training center
- Pentagon briefing docs on Iraq/AQ connection from 2002
- Where did the WMDs go?
- Pre-war Iraq and Syria: closer than we thought
- AQ/SH connections: Must read
- More evidence of OBL/Hussein connections
- Iraq and Al Qaeda: More connections
- No terrorism in Iraq before the war?
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Trackbacks
20 Responses to “DOD: Munitions Found in Iraq Meet WMD Criteria”
Comments
Blogads
Disclaimer: The views expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of ST's advertisers, nor do their opinions necessarily reflect ST's. Stats
Oh, but those don’t count! They were made in the 80’s!!! Like it matters. R-i-g-h-t…
Considering Saddam was to account for all of his weapons, this is more proof he was playing games. That they weren’t in perfect condition is hardly the point, but then, we wouldn’t want to prove Bush was right, would we? I read a column by some smart ass in the June 27 Chgo Sun-Times (it came from the Huffington Post). This dude was trying his best to be clever comparing these weapons effectiveness to the weed wacker in his garage. My first thought was to suggest he try drinking some of the “degraded” chemicals and gettin back to us.
ST wrote, “contrary to the beliefs of liberals who still cling to the belief that “Bush lied!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! about WMD”
If you put one more exclamation point you would’ve convinced liberals. You almost had them. And it should’ve been 1,000 not 500. One less 0 made it not a stockpile.
It’s amazing isn’t it? Liberals will hold the administration to the most ludicrous standards of nit pickiness over the slightest thing, like the “16 words” over and over and over again, despite the fact that the 16 words about Niger and uranium have been shown to be true despite Wilson’s lies. And they will twist things to “Bush lied” when the most that could be said was that the intel he relied upon was incorrect (hint, there’s a difference between being mistaken and lying). But, show them definitive proof that WMDs have been found and then they whine “those aren’t WMDs!” They steadfastly refuse to acknowledge anything that dosen’t fit in with their preconceived world view, like children who refuse to see what they don’t want to see. It’s not bedtime! I don’t wanna take a bath I’m not dirty! (said while covered with playground dirt). Children, who unfortunately can vote.
In addition to the above, I believe that some of the munitions found were of the binary class, which makes them not subject to the same type of degradation as unitary munitions.
But of course, these don’t count, they say again and again, as they stick their fingers in their ears and cover their eyes and scream “la la la la” as loudly as they can to block out the facts.
I think I can sum up the opposition’s response to this finding:
“LA LA LA LA LA, I’m not listening, LA LA LA LA LA, I’m not listening”
…or something to that affect.
Brent Bozell asks Where’s the weapons story?
The Washington Post admits grudgingly but downplays with LOTS of Democrat quotes the significance of the finding.
The FORMER weapons found are around 20 years old, are less lethal than common household chemicals, and were probably not even known to the Iraqi military, much like remnants of weapons from WW2 vintage show up periodically.
To say locating these weapons is worth $1 trillion and tens of thousands of American and Iraqi lives reveals a deep level of denial and inability to admit error. These have no relation to the mushroom cloud we were warned about.
If Iraq did have WMD’s why were they not used? What was Sadddam Hussein waiting for, a more appropriate time to use them than a US invasion?
Please educate yourselves.
LINK
June 30, 2006 | WASHINGTON — House Republicans convened a high-powered panel of experts Thursday to give them the straight story on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. “Just the facts,” demanded California’s Duncan Hunter, who chairs the Armed Services Committee. “The facts are the facts,” seconded Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania. A tourist passing through the Rayburn House Office Building might have mistaken all the blunt rhetoric for a sincere search for the truth.
But then David Kay, the CIA’s former chief weapons hunter in Iraq, took a seat before the committee. He had been called to explain the importance of a recently unclassified report on about 500 chemical warheads dating from the 1980s that the military had found in Iraq. Republicans had released the report with much fanfare last week. “This is critically important information that the world community needs to know,” Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had blared. “We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
Kay calmly explained why Santorum’s enthusiasm was misplaced. As far back as September 2004, the CIA had disclosed the discovery of the old chemical munitions from Iraq’s war with Iran. The CIA also explained that these weapons were not the ones the Bush administration had used to justify the invasion of Iraq. What’s more, Kay said, the decades-old sarin nerve gas was probably no more dangerous than household pesticides — and far more likely to degrade at room temperature. “In terms of toxicity, sir,” Kay told Weldon at one point, “I suspect in your house, and I know in my house, I have things that are more toxic than sarin produced from 1984 to 1988.”
These were not the facts Weldon wanted to hear. The House member quickly lost his cool. “There is nothing under my sink that could be classified as a weapon of mass destruction or violate the Chemical Weapons Convention,” he thundered. “I think that is the kind of irresponsible statement that causes these kind of misperceptions out there. It’s the kind of generalization that, in my opinion, is just plain stupid.”
The third Erich wrote, “The FORMER weapons found are around 20 years old, are less lethal than common household chemicals,
Are you calling the military officer who testified to Congress a liar? He stated otherwise. What are your credentials?
Kay used the word “probably”. The Iraqi’s will be free. Do you have a problem with that in your world Mr. Third Erich?
Fight against the freedom of Iraqi’s all you want. But you’ll LOSE elections that way.
Bak….They’ll already lost the elections. Some of them know that and they’re starting to act even more stuipdly from a low level panic. The others are just too deranged to know the time of day, let alone that the Left has sunk its own swift boat with the majority of Americans. They seem to be like rabid dogs. No amount of rejection teaches them a thing.
- Course, for my money they can go right on doing what they’re doing. At some point the moderate Democrats are going to be forced to cut them free. They’ve become more of a liability than anything good they might bring for the party. They still havn’t learned the hard lesson that extremism scares the hell out of people. Probably never will.
- Bang
I love it, 1 news article and we are the ones that need an education. Pulease!!! Please learn something Erich the news media is not your friend and will down play any story that makes GW look good. I am not talking about just this story. Personally, I want to know how Hans Blix missed these 500 shells or which ever UN “weapons specialist” that was suppose to be running around Iraq. We say, NOW, that these shells are nothing, but 10 years ago when weapons inspectors were to be finding these items and Billy Bob was standing on a podium telling America that we needed to take out Sadamn these weapons were viable. I bet they were viable 3 years ago when they were passed out to the military to be used against our troops. If time is the only thing that makes these weapons non-lethal, then 3, 5, 8 years ago these weapons were lethal, and Sadamn was breaking his surrender agreement from 1991. It still backs up the fact that GW was right, Sadamn needed to go. – Lorica
Oh my ignorant friend Lorica! You are under the impression these decayed, inept weapons were passed out to Iraqi troops to use against Americans? That is so far beyond what is being claimed even by the White House. Edited – insult. –ST
Do you have an explanation for why the Iraqi troops were given these lethal weapons, and then did not use them?
I would expect these remnants were missed for the same reason WWII landmines are still found in modern Europe today – because people lose track of things. Which also explains why nuclear power is such a bad idea, as the waste will never survive thousands of years in safe storage.
Why do the folks here talk about freeing Iraqis? The reason we went to war was not to help an innocent population, if that were our cause we would be in Sudan instead. I am confident the average Democrat would gladly spend more on humanitarian aid than the average Republican. The reason we went to war is because George Bush lied and said the country had WMDs. I certainly believe David Kay over Karl Rove as to the lethality of the remants which have been found.
Cheers my friends!
Erich, my uneducated friend, do you have an explanation why the 500+ WMDs which were reported as destroyed are still in existence? Right now good ‘ol David Kay, Hans Blix and Co. are engaged in a little thing called damage control after they screwed up. Personally, I think that your mind-bending “WMDs are not WMDs” argument reminds me of The Emperor’s New Clothes in reverse.
And as for the Sudan (I assume you mean the genocide in Darfur), if you thought Iraq was tough, wait until you step into this hornet’s nest. An on-again/off-again civil war between Northern and Southern Sudan and a simmering conflict with Chad and Libya thrown in to boot. Yep – a piece of cake. Just like Somalia and Rwanda and other success stories the “humanitarians” started but failed to finish.
“Because people lose track of things”
Oh that’s beautiful. So Saddam didn’t realize that he had illegal weapons in his country. Yeah, right. Kind of like “Damn, where did I put those illegal chemical weapons???”
Here’s something for you to check out, there Heinrich:
Just in case you have “trouble” with the link, the article talks about a recording on which Saddam talks about hiding weapons and deceiving weapons inspectors. The same inspectors who are now trying to cover their collecetive a**es.
But maybe Saddam lied! He was lying on tape just in case his country was invaded and he needed to setup GW who was still governor of Texas! Brilliant!
It’s amazing how people like you want to wait until the threat is “imminent” and then have no clue on how to deal with the situation. We waited with North Korea, you know, the country that has a nuclear missle ready to go that can reach the U.S. So now what do we do? Do we wait until the missle has been launched? Then is it an imminent threat?
Why don’t you leave foreign policy to the grown ups, if we need someone to hug a tree, we’ll give you a call.
LINK
To the Blind fool we call Erich. (tit for tat on the ignorant comment) Like so many liberals out there your memory is highly selective. The reason these WMDs were not used is due to the Sand Storm that came out of the south and we had an opportunity to blow the crap out of artilery positions using our aircraft whilst the ground forces were stuck. DUH!!! Over 75 percent of the Republican Guard was wiped out by airstikes. Sarin Gas just doesn’t work on a jet that is passing by you at 600MPH.
Also Erich, WHY DIDN’T HANS BLIX FIND THESE??? Before you try to use that superior intellect, try to answer this question. Since he was in that country in 2002, these weapons probably had not decayed to an useable state. As far as the rest of your post it is more of the blah blah blah off tangent comments that libs make all the time.
As far as Sudan goes, I have written emails to US Senators, congressman and A US President (Billy Bob), advocating a need to do something. I have prayed for this situation for over 15 years, so you just finding out about it last week, and then throwing it in my face means little to nothing to me. Just like Hollywood, why is it Rwanda was only known to be a problem after a movie was made, but Pat Robertson, the man you libs love to hate, was there from virtually the start of the genocide. Even your hero Billy Bob didn’t mention Rwanda for over 2 months, then he said something in passing. You people are pathetic with your hypocracy, and it is growing old.
As far as the Iraqi people, we are there to help them. Over 250 Mass Graves have been identified by the US Military. The pictures are horrendous, bodies just thrown in a pit and buried with a bull dozer. The estimate number of bodies is above 500,000 according to the Army. Again your selective memory makes your argument pathetic. – Lorica