<p>This declassified U.S. Government document appears to indicate chemical weapons have been found in Iraq by Coalition forces since May 2004: <a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf[/url]”>http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf</a></p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Did you bring your flak vest? ;)</p>
<p>They love to shoot down this article claiming that material doesn’t count. Even if it’s “older” materials, the reading I’ve done says it wouldn’t take long to get them ready to use.</p>
<p>Ain’t nothing outdated about these weapons. </p>
<p>Any persons suspecting chemical weapons become inert after a few years…well, the French Government has a job for you recovering 91 year old mustard gas munitions from the Western Front of WWI. </p>
<p>I hear the pay is pretty good. :)</p>
<p>That depends on the definition of WMD.</p>
<p>WMDs = Chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>*Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)</p>
<p>Weapons of mass destruction are weapons capable of inflicting massive destruction to property and/or population, using chemical, biological or radioactive material. Weapons of Mass Destruction are also known by the abbreviation WMD.*</p>
<p>[Weapons</a> of Mass Destruction (WMD) definition - Army Technology](<a href=“http://www.army-technology.com/glossary/weapons-of-mass-destruction.html]Weapons”>http://www.army-technology.com/glossary/weapons-of-mass-destruction.html)</p>
<p>Old news. Everyone knows there were pre-Gulf War chemical weapons - the result of the Rumsfeld Handshake was the fact that they were used.</p>
<p>But - post Gulf War, under both Clinton and Bush, there was not one shred of evidence - not one - that there was production of a single WMD, a program to produce WMD, a plan to produce WMD, or a plan to use WMD. Not one. The Clinton/Tenet Big Lie of 1998 was constructed to cover up the Clinton genocide, and make the case for war, culminating in the illegal Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. and the furious bombing of 1998, the largest bombing mission conducted by the largest terrorist nation, intended to strike fear into an entire population, since Viet Nam. </p>
<p>There was still no evidence of any of the four under Bush, but since Tenet had already sold the Big Lie to the experienced Democrats in 1998, reselling it was just a “slam-dunk”. </p>
<p>Between 1998-2002, all intelligence reports related to WMD emanated from a single source - “Curveball”, which foreign intelligence dismissed as spurious.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War: Bob Drogin: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Curveball-Spies-Lies-Con-Caused/dp/1400065836/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212335064&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Curveball-Spies-Lies-Con-Caused/dp/1400065836/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212335064&sr=8-1)</p>
<p>Well, Mini pretty much nailed it. Of course, there were some old caches of chemicals found. This was pretty clear when it happened since the Administration pumped it up.</p>
<p>Parent2Noles you have trotted out a desparate and frankly silly justification for the strategic blunder that is the Iraq War. Where are the WMDs that portend “the mushroom clouds” statements used to sell the war to the American people?</p>
<p>Why don’t you have any shame?</p>
<p>The question was were any WMDs found. They were.</p>
<p>As to your leap otherwise, I justify nothing. I just like the messy truth.</p>
<p>No persons or political parties hands are clean in this war.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Ah, you fall back on the last refuge of justification. “They voted with us. They are just as much at fault.”</p>
<p>If that’s where you’ve arrived – and indeed there is enough blame to go around – then stop trying to justify the war. There’s a huge difference between what was found and what was trumped up to justify the war. You’re being silly or craven if you don’t admit this to yourself and others.</p>
<p>Bottom line questions: </p>
<p>How are the people of the U.S., Iraq, the Middle East, and the world better off for our having invaded Iraq? Has the death and destruction of a country been worth finding these old chemicals? </p>
<p>parent2noles, is that your point, that the answer is yes?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Gee… good to see that he violated the United Nations sanctions imposed after the Gulf War. I believe that justifies plenty right there. Too bad the other countries of the Un Needed are too chicken to do anything about it.</p>
<p>“No persons or political parties hands are clean in this war.”</p>
<p>How about those of us who were marching against it? I think my hands are pretty clean.</p>
<p>Thoughts, FF? My thoughts are the same as they were the first two times you trotted out this silly story. I’m embarrassed for you. No rational adult would consider this exercise in desperation (instigated by Rick Santorum, IIRC) as anything other than the weakest of the dwindling number of Bush adherents’ efforts to throw something - anything - at the wall with the vain hope that it might stick. Or at least leave an ugly smear as it slips to the ground.</p>
<p>Sad, FF, just sad. This isn’t right-wing-blog-world, where sycophantic bobbleheads congratulate each other on the brilliance of their tinfoil hat conspiracy theories. It’s the real world. The entirely predictable “discovery” of discarded munitions from the 1980s in Iraq is non-news of the purest sort. That you feel moved to trot it out on CC (again - as best I recall you first posted this link several months ago) is the only interesting thing about it.</p>
<p>What drove you to repost the link, FF?</p>
<p>Hanna, by the authority invested in me as a conservative, if you opposed this venture from the start you are considered “not guilty”. </p>
<p>Go forth and do productive things.</p>
<p>I’m still marveling at the ability of some to minimize WMDs - “Oh, no…those don’t count. They aren’t fresh-big-dangerous-whatever enough” to surmount retrospective political commentary.</p>
<p>
The appropriate “retrospective political commentary” is that the existence of not-properly disposed of 25-year old artillery shells in Iraq was neither surprising nor a matter of any “political significance.” The only thing that’s interesting is why you feel that it is. What brought this to your attention (again) to the point that you felt it important enough to post twice in 24 hours in different threads now, after first posting it some months ago?</p>
<p>I like truth. It’s like a great old movie.</p>
<p>From time to time it should be revisited to reinforce basic values and perspectives.</p>
<p>“Gee… good to see that he violated the United Nations sanctions imposed after the Gulf War. I believe that justifies plenty right there. Too bad the other countries of the Un Needed are too chicken to do anything about it.”</p>
<p>Nope. In fact, he was busy destroying them, as the U.N. inspectors proved. No, he didn’t get 'em all. But he didn’t hide 'em, either.</p>
<p>The case for war (both by Clinton and Bush) was that there were weapons being produced, that there was a weapons program, and there was an imminent threat. Wrong on all counts.</p>
<p>Except not wrong on all counts. LIES on all counts, and they knew it.</p>
<p>^So why do think we went to war? Oil?</p>
<p>“I like truth.”</p>
<p>We believe what we want to believe about “not-properly disposed of 25-year old artillery shells.”</p>
<p>Bush Jr. wanted to show Bush Sr. that the latter was wrong about not invading Baghdad in the gulf war. Bush Jr. is a cowboy with a cowboy mentality.</p>