Saddam Hussein's Iraq Had Weapons of Mass Death

HUMAN EVENTS ^ | Jul 13, 2006 | Deroy Murdock

[neverdem]

New York -- Like chanting Buddhist monks, the president’s critics repeat 100 times daily: “Bush Lied -- People Died.” The “lie,” of course, is that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Death. “There were none,” Senator Jack Reed (D.-R. I.) told his colleagues June 21. “They were not there.” Absent such munitions, the argument goes, U.S. involvement in Iraq is nothing but a blood-soaked misadventure unfolding on a collapsed façade of falsehoods.

Nevertheless, while the liberal press gently sleeps, evidence continues to mount that Hussein had WMDs, though perhaps not in quantities that would bulge warehouses.

“Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent,” states a June 21 declassified summary of a report from the National Ground Intelligence Center. “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.”

Are these weapons old and inert? The Pentagon unit warns, “While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.”

“Iraq was not a WMD-free zone,” said House Intelligence chairman Peter Hoekstra (R.-Mich.). “Weapons have been discovered. More weapons exist.” Hoekstra and Senator Rick Santorum (R.- Pa.) have pressured the administration to detail its WMD findings.

What if terrorists acquired a few of these shells? “You’re not talking about transferring hundreds to make an impact in New York, in a subway, or anything like that,” Hoekstra told reporters June 21. “One or two of these shells, the materials inside of these, transferred outside of the country can be very, very deadly.”

Here and there, other potentially deadly things have emerged from Iraq’s sands.

• Former weapons inspector David Kay declared on October 2, 2003 that U.S. personnel discovered “a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced.” This was, Kay said, “hidden in the home” of an Iraqi biological weapons researcher.

• In January 2004, according to a New York Sun editorial published that June 1, a 7-pound block of cyanide salt popped up in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Baghdad safe house.

• On May 2, 2004, U.S. forces in Iraq found a mustard-gas shell, rigged as an Improvised Explosive Device. The ISG dismissed this as “ineffective” due to improper storage. Of course, the effectiveness of Hussein’s weapons was not the issue. He was supposed to prove they had been destroyed or open his facilities for inspection. Instead, Hussein failed to account for 550 mustard-gas projectiles. This may have been among them.

• “The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found,” also reworked as an IED, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters that May 15. Two soldiers exposed to the device “displayed ‘classic’ symptoms of sarin exposure, most notably dilated pupils and nausea,” Fox News reported. Officials also told the network that the shell contained three to four liters of sarin, roughly three-quarters of a gallon.

• Weapons sleuth Charles Duelfer told Fox News June 24, 2004: “We found, you know, 10 or 12 sarin and mustard rounds.”

• That July 6, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that a joint effort with the Pentagon removed 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium from Iraq “that could potentially be used in a radiological dispersal device or diverted to support a nuclear weapons program,” said a DOE statement. Those 3,894 pounds of uranium were in “powdered form, which is easily dispersed,” DOE spokesman Bryan Wilkes told Hudson Institute adjunct fellow Richard Miniter, author of “Disinformation: 22 Media Myths that Undermine the War on Terror.” As Miniter concludes: “The materal would have been ideal for a radioactive dirty bomb.”

So, Americans in Iraq have found 500 sarin- and mustard-gas-filled artillery shells, live botulinum toxin, cyanide salt, and nearly two tons of uranium. Yet, no, Virginia, there were no WMDs in Iraq.

Without threatening intelligence contacts and techniques, the ever-bashful Bush Administration owes it to American taxpayers and our Coalition allies to unveil everything it safely can about what we really have found in Iraq. Hiding evidence of Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Death serves no one. For all the talk of “lies,” the truth will set President Bush free.

[Waco]

Today's news makes Bush a Genius for entering Iraq and Ganistan.

[Rameumptom]

Nothing to see here... move along.. (/sarc)

[Frank_2001]

Ol' Saddam must be kicking a hole in the wall of his prison cell tonight;))
(three guesses what he'd be doing if we hadn't invaded Iraq...)

[Names Ash Housewares]

Training islamo facists terrorists to me is enough alone.
We all know they can make an airliner a WMD in a few minutes.

[umbagi]

Today's news makes Bush a Genius for entering Iraq and Ganistan.

Even if -- no, especially if -- this mess goes away in a week, that will be so. We're there in force, and the President has two years to go -- and neither Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, nor Iran can make a decision without considering that simple but brutal truth.

[blake6900]

Yeah, but those weren't the WMD's we were looking for. [/sarcasm off]. Forget Sadam saying he didn't have them, these or otherwise. Forget Tariq Aziz saying he didn't have them, these or otherwise. Forget Hans Blix saying he didn't have them, these or otherwise. Forget David Kay saying he didn't have them, these or otherwise. Forget Scott Ritter saying he didn't have them, these or otherwise. Forget everyone that said he didn't have them because these weren't the one's we were looking for.

The fact that the liberals had to rely on such a pathetic position and now flatly refuse to discuss the matter anymore speaks volumes.

He did in fact have them and, frankly, he had to have them. Otherwise Iran would have come across the border and taken him, his regime, the Bathe Party and the entire Sunni population backing him completely out. There is simply no other explanation for Iran not doing so. And if the liberals would spend less time attacking Bush and more time thinking about the reality of the Middle Eastern region they'd know this. Or perhaps they do and it's just more politically expedient to play dumb.

[Christian4Bush]

Deroy Murdock BUMP.

[neverdem]

We all know they can make an airliner a WMD in a few minutes.

IMHO, hijacking passenger airplanes for that purpose are a one trick pony.

Possible plane attack thwarted

I think searching all passengers like they do now is a waist of resources. I would worry about private and cargo aircraft.

[tcrlaf]

bump

[rawcatslyentist]

>"Or perhaps they do and it's just more politically expedient to play dumb."

It's what they do best!

Democratic Underground Poster Uses Rabbit Cage in WTC Experiment (Link) [MOONBAT ALERT]

[BlackVeil]

Former weapons inspector David Kay declared on October 2, 2003 that U.S. personnel discovered “a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced.” This was, Kay said, “hidden in the home” of an Iraqi biological weapons researcher.

That is not a strong point of argument. Vials of those bacteria are in many laboratories. It is true that they are a substance from which a biological agent can be produced but so are many other things. As the agent had not been produced, then there was no weapon.

[CyberAnt]

This made news almost a week ago .. I think .. Rush had it on his website .. and he told us then that it would be ignored by the drive-by and it would be up to us to get the news out. Glad to see it's starting to happen.

[neverdem]

Small Pennsylvania city bans illegal immigrants

Biased Reporting (Thomas Sowell)

William F. Buckley Jr. on Lieberman Senate Race: Debating Over a Corpse? Buckley's last sentence: "But if the correlation is a dramatic shrinkage in the Democratic vote nationwide—a million Democrats unable to squeeze into the narrower tent—then that would be a strategic result that would imperil the two party system."

I'll not so happily suffer spendthrift pubbies and RINOs until we have a loyal opposition with some grasp of foreign affairs and national security. But the last thing I need is more of the White Guilt and the Western Past.

From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

[beachn4fun]

Of course, the effectiveness of Hussein’s weapons was not the issue. He was supposed to prove they had been destroyed or open his facilities for inspection. Instead, Hussein failed to account for 550 mustard-gas projectiles.

This is the central most important thing that needs to be remembered. The US does not have to "prove" that the WMD exist.

[Allegra]

Ol' Saddam must be kicking a hole in the wall of his prison cell tonight;))
(three guesses what he'd be doing if we hadn't invaded Iraq...)

And now he's on a hunger strike.

Again.

Iraq is so five minutes ago. ;-)

[Calusa]

Ping.

[RandallFlagg]

Reference point: Saddam's WMDs.

Thanks, neverdem.

[lepton]

That is not a strong point of argument. Vials of those bacteria are in many laboratories. It is true that they are a substance from which a biological agent can be produced but so are many other things. As the agent had not been produced, then there was no weapon.

No, but it is a critical component - and one Iraq was prohibited from having and required to declare. They also had large quantities of the culture materials.

Really, the biggest reason to go to war was that Hussein was a symbol that we wouldn't follow through on threats and were too weak-willed to actually enforce the ceasefire agreement. His continued ability to thumb his nose (or buy off) at the world in general and the West in particular was part of a pattern along with Mogodishu and several other attacks upon us that created a picture that we were too decadent to defend ourselves and would collapse if pushed. THIS perception was what caused 9/11 (per Osama bin Laden himself).

[metmom]

Sounds good. Please put me on.

metmmom