Pay No Attention To The WMDs Behind That Curtain
Well, despite the fact that an unnamed senior Defense Department official is saying, well, 'sure we found these, but they weren't the ones we were looking for', the fact is it appears to be quite true that WMDs were found in Iraq. Whether they were in usable condition may be a legitimate point of contention. Whether some people thought there were other, different things to look for is immaterial.
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.
"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."
The official said the findings did raise questions about the years of weapons inspections that had not resulted in locating the fairly sizeable stash of chemical weapons. And he noted that it may say something about Hussein's intent and desire. The report does suggest that some of the weapons were likely put on the black market and may have been used outside Iraq.
He also said that the Defense Department statement shortly after the March 2003 invasion saying that "we had all known weapons facilities secured," has proven itself to be untrue.
"It turned out the whole country was an ammo dump," he said, adding that on more than one occasion, a conventional weapons site has been uncovered and chemical weapons have been discovered mixed within them.
These 500 or so chemical artillery rounds existed and were found.
The left is trying like all get out to spin this and the major media is studiously ignoring it, but it's a fact. It also dismantles the "No WMDs" meme completely. Frankly, trying to spin this one makes the spinner look desperate. And silly.
Blogosphere, Media, War | Gaius June 22, 2006
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By Jim O'Hara, June 22, 2006 @ 6:58 am
> trying to spin this one makes the spinner look desperate
Totally agree. Is this the “smoking gun that could be a mushroom cloud / capable of killing millions” that the administration kept repeating over and over, to scare people into supporting the invasion of Iraq? These shells are why we invaded? You even acknowledge that the military admits this isn’t serious, yet you’re trying to spin into a “See! There were WMDs! Vindication!” Silly indeed.
As I said in a previous post, do you think Saddam had these shells stashed in a secret environmentally controlled lair (to keep the sarin stable) with the full intent of using them someday? Or are these random shells found in the thousands of munitions bunkers scattered around Iraq?
Jim
By Gaius, June 22, 2006 @ 7:58 am
I’m not spinning anything. They were there. Period. We had complete justification to go to war on the basis of cease-fire violations and did not need any other justification whatsoever.
By Roland Hesz, June 23, 2006 @ 1:31 am
LMAO…
Yes, what justification does the US need? Apart from being the US?
Saddam: We don’t have WMDs!
Rumsfeld: Yes you have! We kept the receipts you know!
Trying so hard… Not that it matters anymore, that suddenly, oh looky, we found it after spending several years, oh my, we got it right here, see?
By Black Jack, June 23, 2006 @ 11:41 am
Most are degraded, but some are in pristine condition. All are apparently from the Iran War period. Saddam said such munitions were all destroyed, no one believed him of course, and although the inspectors looked, they couldn’t find them.
Now, while these are chemical weapons, and can be legitimately identified as WMD, they are for the most part, artillery rounds intended for battlefield use against Saddam’s neighbors and indigenous populations.
I’ll wait for more of the report to be declassified before I call them WMDs in the same general category as atomic weapons. It may well turn out accounts of these munitions are of little real consequence, but on the other hand, they may only be the least alarming few sentences in a much more detailed report. Time will tell.