Posted on 06/19/2014 1:00:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sunni extremists in Iraq have occupied what was once Saddam Hussein's premier chemical-weapons production facility, a complex that still contains a stockpile of old weapons, State Department and other U.S. government officials said.
U.S. officials don't believe the Sunni militants will be able to create a functional chemical weapon from the material. The weapons stockpiled at the Al Muthanna complex are old, contaminated and hard to move, officials said.
Nonetheless, the capture of the chemical-weapon stockpile by the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS or ISIL, the militant group that is seizing territory in the country, has grabbed the attention of the U.S.
"We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL," Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a written statement. "We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials."
The takeover underscores the chaos gripping Iraq and the possibility that the growing Sunni rebellion could further destabilize the Middle East. Not lost on U.S. government and military officials is the irony that the latest chapter in a war designed to strip Iraq of chemical weapons could see radical Sunni extremists take control of that same stockpile.
The rise of ISIS has reignited the debate about the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration and the 2011 decision by the Obama administration to withdraw remaining military forces from the country. The takeover of a chemical weapons stockpile—even if the weapons are useless—seems likely to further intensify those debates.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I thought the unwashed, intelligent hippies said that Hussein (No, the other one) didn’t have any chemical weapons.
Hussein (No, the other one)has - or had - roughly 100 more IQ points than our sordid sickly POS in chief.
bumpity bump!
That was Saddam’s Chemical Facility. Whether it has any functioning Chemical WMD’s or not remains to be seen...
I guess it was safer to keep the old stuff where it was. This is the stuff from the late 80’sand early 90’s
and IIRC the UN Inspectors, before they got kicked out di report the stuff posed no danger as it was
The REAL danger is how much and how easy it is for ISIA to take control of things
“Sunni extremists in Iraq have occupied what was once Saddam Hussein’s premier chemical-weapons production facility, a complex that still contains a stockpile of old weapons, State Department and other U.S. government officials said.”
Wait, what? I thought that was all a ChimpyMcHitler lie!
Obama has been Commande in Chief for 5 years and 5 months and all that time neglected to secure that chemical weapons facility or remove components?
Disgrace.
Where’s a drone when you need one?
Is the Wall Street Journal really writing that after a war 10 years ago that there are materials -- now old -- that were 10 years younger then?
Then there's this from the UK Telgraph:
The jihadist group bringing terror to Iraq overran a Saddam Hussein chemical weapons complex on Thursday, gaining access to disused stores of hundreds of tonnes of potentially deadly poisons including mustard gas and sarin.
“It is doubtful that Isis have the expertise to use a fully functioning chemical munition but there are materials on site that could be used in an improvised explosive device,” he told the Telegraph. “We have seen that Isis has used chemicals in explosions in Iraq before and has carried out experiments in Syria.”
What the heck is that all about? I thought there were no WMDs.
And then there's this by the UK Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10913275/Isis-storms-Saddam-era-chemical-weapons-complex-in-Iraq.html
Isis storms Saddam-era chemical weapons complex in Iraq
Facility containing disused stores of sarin and mustard gas overrun by jihadist group
Tagged and numbered remnants of Iraq's chemical weapons program at the Muthanna State Establishment
Tagged and numbered remnants of Iraq's chemical weapons program at the Muthanna State Establishment in 2002 Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Damien McElroy
7:58PM BST 19 Jun 2014
Comments5 Comments
The jihadist group bringing terror to Iraq overran a Saddam Hussein chemical weapons complex on Thursday, gaining access to disused stores of hundreds of tonnes of pot
entially deadly poisons including mustard gas and sarin. Isis invaded the al-Muthanna mega-facility 60 miles north of Baghdad in a rapid takeover that the US government said was a matter of concern.
The facility was notorious in the 1980s and 1990s as the locus of Saddam’s industrial scale efforts to develop a chemical weapons development programme.
Isis has shown ambitions to seize and use chemical weapons in Syria leading experts to warn last night that the group could turn to improvised weapons to carry out a deadly attack in Iraq.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commander of Britain’s chemical weapons regiment, said that al-Muthanna has large stores of weaponized and bulk mustard gas and sarin, most of which has been put beyond ready use in concrete stores.
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“It is doubtful that Isis have the expertise to use a fully functioning chemical munition but there are materials on site that could be used in an improvised explosive device,” he told the Telegraph. “We have seen that Isis has used chemicals in explosions in Iraq before and has carried out experiments in Syria.”
US officials revealed that the group had occupied the sprawling site which has two bunkers encased in a concrete seal. Much of the sarin is believed to be redundant.
“We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the [Isis],” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said. “We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials.”
During its peak in the late 1980s to early 1990s, Iraq produced bunkers full of chemical munitions.
A CIA report on the facility said that 150 tons of mustard were produced each year at the peak from 1983 and pilot-scale production of Sarin began in 1984.
Its most recent description of al-Muthanna in 2007 paints a disturbing picture of chemicals strewn throughout the area.
“Two wars, sanctions and UN oversight reduced Iraqi’s premier production facility to a stockpile of old damaged and contaminated chemical munitions (sealed in bunkers), a wasteland full of destroyed chemical munitions, razed structures, and unusable war-ravaged facilities,” it said.
“Some of the bunkers contained large quantities of unfilled chemical munitions, conventional munitions, one-ton shipping containers, old disabled production equipment and other hazardous industrial chemicals.”
Britain has previously acknowledgeded that the nature of the material contained in the two bunkers would make the destruction process difficult and technically challenging.
Under an agreement signed in Baghdad in July 2012, experts from the MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory were due to provide training to Iraqi personnel in order to help them to dispose of the chemical munitions and agents.
Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons during the Iran – Iraq War (1980 to 1988) and against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.
One US official told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that Isis fighters could be contaminated by the chemicals at the site.
“The only people who would likely be harmed by these chemical materials would be the people who tried to use or move them,” the military officer said.
Here’s the question for Cheney and Bush — WHY DIDN’T THEY EMPHASIZE THIS WHEN ATTACKED?
The refrain we kept hearing was “They did not find any WMD’s”,
This is mind-boggling.
Does this mean there always were WMDs as many of us posted for years? Are they admitting to ISIS over-running a known site that was full of WMDs or precursors that was in a weapons facility that WE KNEW about, but that we just didn’t report?
Does this mean that EVERYONE we listened to just flat out lied....including OUR SIDE?
For the last time: SADDAM DID NOT HAVE ANY WMDS!
MSNBC told me so!
>> comment: “I thought there were no WMDs.”
The Left/MSM lied to avoid cooperating with anyone to the right of center.
Everybody lied. See #13
If they have, as the UK Telegraph just reported, HUNDREDS of TONS of WMD precursors, then WE FOUND weapons of mass destruction and even our own side lied to us.
When do you remember Bush or Cheney saying, “Yep. We found ‘em. Here, media, stick this in your pipe and smoke it!”
Never. They never said it. EVERYBODY lied to us.
Good point!
True.
I figured long ago the Bush Administration lost interest in battling the PR war, and decided to dismiss the WMD realities. Also, consider the betrayal within the Administration that led to Scooter’s prosecution. Things got ugly there.
I heard Rush talking about this today.
Can anyone explain to me how we managed to leave that stuff just lying around during all the time we were there?
That is what to me is astounding and I’m not really impressed by what Rush was saying - that this proves the WMD argument was true.
Hopefully Obama will watch the news today and find out about the stockpiles.
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