WMD Found in Iraq, However...

[PanzerJaeger]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

Some interesting quotes...

The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows that years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.

"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."

... certainly not a slam dunk by any means, but it is significant. I have long held that the Republicans should not have rolled over on the WMD debate. To a lot of Americans, the headline "WMDs Found!" would be enough to put their minds at ease over justification of the war, regardless of the level of operativeness of the weapons. The propaganda machine dropped the ball on this one, and it will cost the right in 2006.

[Byzantine Prince]

There is no WMD that can reach America from Iraq, and there is no indication that Hussein would sell it terrorists, nor that terrorists would somehow be able to use it against the US. Iran has more terrorists than Iraq, and N.Korea has more missiles, and may I add, balls than both Iran and Iraq put together. So who cares?

The right has made a booboo in its pants by focussing on the more emotional and worthless sides of consevativism, such as incompetent adventures in the middle-east, and gay-marriage(which affects nearly no one in a real way). All the while neglecting the economic debt, screwing around immigration, and erroding civil liberties. So now they will pay dearly for that, deservantly.

[Pannonian]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...965231,00.html
Wednesday May 28, 2003

The good news for the Pentagon yesterday was that its investigators had finally unearthed evidence of weapons of mass destruction, including 100 vials of anthrax and other dangerous bacteria.

The bad news was that the stash was found, not in Iraq, but fewer than 50 miles from Washington, near Fort Detrick in the Maryland countryside.

Bureaucracies lose track of all sorts of stuff. Compare the US, a wealthy, peaceful, stable country with Iraq, a rather poorer country under sanctions and with a disintegrating civil infrastructure. If the ideal conditions enjoyed by bureaucracy in the US can lose track of bio-chemical weapons, how much more so for Iraq, whose bureaucracy was notoriously falling apart? Incidentally, there was another WMD find in the US in 2004 or 2005 which caused some embarrassment to the government which knew nothing of its existence.

[Devastatin Dave]

**jumps out of way before Saddam/terrorist apologists stampede into the thread**

[makkyo]

The fact that such a large weapons cache missed the eye of the weapons inspectors sugests a lot more about Saddam's capabilities and intent. I understand how it is possible to Saddam to simply loose track of them, but it is very unlikely considering that his power came from his military. And it is obvious that he uses them. For a peaceful country like the US, when the last time they even used WMD's in a military action was in WWII, I would think that the loss of these things would be more likely.

[Pannonian]

The fact that such a large weapons cache missed the eye of the weapons inspectors sugests a lot more about Saddam's capabilities and intent. I understand how it is possible to Saddam to simply loose track of them, but it is very unlikely considering that his power came from his military. And it is obvious that he uses them. For a peaceful country like the US, when the last time they even used WMD's in a military action was in WWII, I would think that the loss of these things would be more likely.

There were entire research programmes that didn't exist except on paper, as scientists lied to Saddam to get funding. The Iraqi bureaucracy was in a dreadful state, with departments not knowing what each other did due to centralised control from Saddam, and centralised control not being possible due to non-existent information gathering from the outlying departments.

For the reality of Saddam's military, read accounts from the commanders of his Republican Guard, supposedly his most trusted troops, kept in the dark as much as anyone else. Saddam the military mastermind? Hitler in his bunker would be a better comparison.

It's nice to see more objective reporting from the Guardian- Yep, anthrax vaccine is no different from weaponized anthrax loaded into artillery shells.

Yet another editorial passed off as a news story.

Are you deliberately missing the point? The point is that bureacracies throughout history haven't been able to keep track of every single piece of information they were supposed to keep track of. Not even the mighty US administration.

The reason why the US military haven't made much of WMD finds is probably because they didn't suppose the Iraqi government knew about them. There was one IED attack that involved a chemical shell, dated to the Iran-Iraq war. When pressed about this as a justification for the war, the spokesman replied that it was probably looted from a long-forgotten arms dump somewhere, and the design of the IED meant the insurgent himself probably didn't know it was a WMD.

[Aurelian]

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist." - From Fox News, emphasis mine.

The key thing to notice here is that the US has only found degraded munitions in Iraq. That is to say "ex"-WMDs.

The Defense Department knew that Iraq's chemical and biological weapons stockpiles were degraded well before 2003, and that regardless of the continued existence of the shells, they were useless as weapons. Hence, they knew that Saddam didn't possess weapons of mass destruction, but that he might still possess some ex-weapons of mass destruction. Ex-WMDs are not particularly threatening to US security, and were unlikely to scare US citizens into supporting the invasion of Iraq. That is why they talked about unaccounted for stockpiles, but failed to mention that they knew that those stockpiles were useless as weapons.

See how honest they were being in the run-up to war?

According to the Defense Department's own experts, Iraq used crude production techniques for its sarin and tabun nerve agents. They had a shelf life of five years. When shells were found during the first Gulf War, many of them were already leaking. Saddam's anthrax stockpiles would have degraded within three years. Thus, the DoD knew that any Iraqi stockpiles that had survived the inspectors (and the reported destruction of stockpiles overseen by Saddam's defecting son-in-law) were completely useless and non-threatening.

That's why this Republican talk of having "found" WMDs is just more silliness. After a massive effort, all they've found is a few degraded ex-WMDs from the pre-Gulf War period. Not a threat or a rational rationale for war.

Check out:
The Militarily Critical Technologies List Part II: Weapons of Mass Destruction Technologies (ADA 330102), "Chemical Weapons Technology" - U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, February 1998 (updated in 2002).

Do a PDF search for "Iraq" to read the details on the honest assessment of their weapons program by the DoD in '98 and '02.

[Ser Clegane]

**jumps out of way before Saddam/terrorist apologists stampede into the thread**

Well, according to the report that PJ quoted, there now seems to be an actual risk that terrorists have access to WMDs.

Good job...

[Devastatin Dave]

Good job...

on what?

[Ser Clegane]

On potentially giving the terrorist groups that are now in Iraq access to WMDs.

[Xiahou]

It's nice to see more objective reporting from the Guardian- Yep, anthrax vaccine is no different from weaponized anthrax loaded into artillery shells.

Yet another editorial passed off as a news story.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I have long held that the Republicans should not have rolled over on the WMD debate. To a lot of Americans, the headline "WMDs Found!" would be enough to put their minds at ease over justification of the war, regardless of the level of operativeness of the weapons. The propaganda machine dropped the ball on this one, and it will cost the right in 2006.

Gah. Yes Saddam did posses WMD's at one point, he used them on his own people and against Iran. And yes he lied and obstructed the inspections. He was however not a threat to anyone in 2003 anymore, not by a long shot, which is the relevant issue. Technicalities about tiny amounts of leftovers of pre-1991 chemical weapons are not.

What should've been done, was sell this war on any grounds BUT WMD's. Sooner or later the obvious would become clear: that Saddam didn't pose any threat whatsoever.

That WMD's rubbish has undermined the legitimacy of the invasion, creating all sorts of legitimacy problems in Iraq, undermining America's prestige in the world, and will hopefully backfire at the Republicans.

What Bush and Powell should've said, was 'we're going after some unfinished bussiness, we'll get Saddam, we'll shoot anybody who get's in our way and we don't care what nobody says.

Oh, and we'll pull out on october 1st, 2005, so Iraq better be ready.'

That would've worked so much better than this constant stream of lies, half-thruts, propaganda and half-hearted statements by an administration that has lost control of events after week six. This is, what will cost the right in 2006.

[makkyo]

What Bush and Powell should've said, was 'we're going after some unfinished bussiness, we'll get Saddam, we'll shoot anybody who get's in our way and we don't care what nobody says.

Agreed, however, since when was any war fought like that? WWI was kicked off with the invasion of Franz Ferdinand, though he really had nothing to do with the real reasons of it. In Vietnam is was the Gulf of Tonkin that really kicked off the US intervention, but in reality is was to contain communism. In the Spanish-American war, it was the USS Maine that started the war, though the real reason was so that we can kick off the last of the European colonies and expand our over-seas economy. These reasons would have worked just fine, but doesn't seem to cut it in Congress. Aparently American blood needs to be spilled before Congress could get enough balls to do anything about war.
That's probably why Bush used the WMD thing in the first place. (but even though his WMD's didn't pose a direct threat to the US, it would still be a big destabilization factor in the region. Keep in mind that we had people in Afghanistan whilel this was going on.)

[makkyo]

What Bush and Powell should've said, was 'we're going after some unfinished bussiness, we'll get Saddam, we'll shoot anybody who get's in our way and we don't care what nobody says.

Agreed, however, since when was any war fought like that? WWI was kicked off with the invasion of Franz Ferdinand, though he really had nothing to do with the real reasons of it. In Vietnam is was the Gulf of Tonkin that really kicked off the US intervention, but in reality is was to contain communism. In the Spanish-American war, it was the USS Maine that started the war, though the real reason was so that we can kick off the last of the European colonies and expand our over-seas economy. These reasons would have worked just fine, but doesn't seem to cut it in Congress. Aparently American blood needs to be spilled before Congress could get enough balls to do anything about war.
That's probably why Bush used the WMD thing in the first place. (but even though his WMD's didn't pose a direct threat to the US, it would still be a big destabilization factor in the region. Keep in mind that we had people in Afghanistan while this was going on.)