Posted on 04/07/2017 6:17:51 PM PDT by Starman417
Let’s do a quick re-cap on the past 27yrs of America’s War in Iraq (1990-2017):
1990-Iraq had the 4th largest army in the world (about the size of Spain, Italy, France, and Britain combined). They had chemical, biological, and were working on making an atomic bomb (even had the bomb ready, but not the radioactive material).
1991-Iraq was invaded by a United Nations Coalition of forces, driven from Kuwait, and forced to agree to terms of surrender; terms which included getting rid of WMD.
What’s WMD? WMD stands for Weapon of Mass Destruction. It’s a term often used to describe chemical weapons, biological weapons like weaponized bacteria, radiological weapons like dirty bombs, and atomic bombs. It’s a lot easier for people in power to just say, “WMD” than all the rest. The United Nations calls them, “proscribed weapons;” meaning weapons that are too horrific to use because they kill 100% indiscriminately, their use almost certainly causes civilian casualties, and people don’t just die when they’re used…they die extra slowly and painfully.
This is where things get tricky. Just like war-wagers like generals, and U.N. diplomats prefer the acronym “WMD” to the long list of really bad weapons, so too do politicians, mass media, and people prefer to use it too. There’s a problem with that, however. In March 2003, after 6+ months of political and military buildup, the United States invaded Iraq, and unreported/hidden WMD in Iraq was one of the many reasons given for the invasion.
Politicians debated if there was a WMD threat. That meant the mass media would debate it, and the rest of us wind up debating it too. For 14yrs the debate about Iraq and WMD has continued. Kids who were 4 when the nation was invaded are 18 now and being sent into Iraq as soldiers, and the debate continues: did Saddam have WMD/was Iraq a WMD threat?
In late 2002, half a year before the invasion, the Bush administration claimed that Saddam was a WMD threat. They said there had been no U.N. WMD inspections in Iraq for 4 years (since Saddam kicked the U.N. out in December 1998). He was right on that. What he didn’t tell the world was that in those 4yrs the U.S. didn’t have a single spy inside Iraq-not one! The last thing anyone knew about Saddam’s WMD program (according to President Clinton) was that after the December 1998 American bombing campaign on Iraq, much of their WMD threat was reduced, but it was not 100% destroyed. Moreover, the Bush Administration showed satellite pictures of the WMD facilities that had been hit in 1998, and had been rebuilt by 2002. They didn’t know what was going on in the buildings because there were no U.N. inspectors and no U.S. spies in Iraq during those 4yrs.
The Bush Administration’s WMD-threat-argument was based on very limited information. His speeches reflected this. If you go back and read them you’ll see that not until the eve of the invasion did he really start saying, ‘Iraq has this WMD and that WMD.’ Instead it was always, ‘Iraq had this sort of WMD, and they haven’t accounted for it with the U.N. Most of the Bush administration claims were of missing or unaccounted for WMD; weapons that Iraq told the U.N. it had, but had not told the U.N. if or how they were destroyed.
A lot of people didn’t trust President Bush. He had come to power in a legal coin toss. He had lost the popular vote. He came to power after a politically divisive impeachment. He lacked the charisma that President Clinton had before him. The 911 attacks divided the country even more, and vengeance for those attacks was swift, but hadn’t satisfied the American people at the time; not with Bin Laden at large. People felt that one war was enough for America. People feared getting involved in the Middle East. People feared, period, and support for holding Iraq to account for such dangerous weapons was not supported. Oh, people supported sending in U.N. inspectors, but that was it, and that wasn’t enough. There was no reason for Iraq to comply with U.N. Any refusal on Iraq’s part in the past had only met with a few airstrikes as punishment, and they expected the same (Saddam said so himself). Bush may have been threatening invasion, but the popular opposition to an invasion reassured Saddam that he was safe. Opposition to the war destroyed the “credible threat of force” (as the U.N.’s chief inspector, Hans Blix, later said).
Given the political and cultural reluctance to believe the Bush administration might invade, many dismissed his casus belli one after another. The Bush administration’s list of WMD allegations and concerns was dismissed from 2002-2017 by many people. For that reason, let’s ignore what the American government’s Iraqi/WMD accusations were, and instead focus on the United Nations’ Iraqi/WMD concerns.
On March 6, 2003 the U.N. inspectors gave a report called, “Unresolved Disarmament Issues.” It’s a 175 page list of “proscribed weapons” (what we call WMD) Iraq had openly declared it possessed. After each “WMD” item, the U.N. explained several different ways that Iraq could resolve the “WMD” issue and remove any concerns the U.S.; remove that from the list of reasons for an invasion. Each of those ‘ways to resolve’ a “WMD” issue ended with the mere request for just an explanation. Iraq could have written a paragraph for each item and met the U.N.’s declared concern. Instead, undeterred by the Bush Administrations threat to invade, confident that popular support would compel any response to mere airstrikes, the Iraqis refused to explain what had happened to the WMD they once possessed.
Forget what the Americans claimed, here’s a short, partial list of what WMD the U.N. claimed Iraq still had just before the invasion:
When Saddam’s Iraqi government fell, a statue fell. There were cheering Iraqis in many places, not in all. The world watched TV and the image of success was looting. The American people, and the world, had come to expect some sort of footage of WMD; some sort of ‘ah-ha!’ moment. Lacking that, the debate continues to the day. Many political pundits still claim NO WMD was found, but that’s not entirely true. Not all the U.N. or Bush Administration WMD claims were true, but neither is it true they were all false.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
I would not be surprised if some of these WMD made their way over to the US via Mexico. Obama left the border wide open for terrorists and WMD.
ping.
What is the shelf life on these chemical weapons?
The short answer is that I don’t know the shelf life of chemical weapons, but please read on.
According to Wikipedia, Sarin has a very short shelf-life of only a few weeks to a few months but can be extended up to five years with advanced chemistry and that the “production and stockpiling of sarin was outlawed as of April 1997 by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993”
However, this doesn’t align with other information that I have. I live near the Blue Grass Army Depot in Central Kentucky which is constructing a chemical destruction facility so that the chemical weapons stored there can be destroyed on site. This is a major construction project. “Groundbreaking for the chemical destruction facility took place on October 28, 2006. Final design of the facilities should be complete in 2010 and actual construction in 2018, after which destruction of the weapons will begin.” BTW, none of this 12 year construction project is visible from the roads that surround the Depot.
So if it’s true that Sarin was last produced in the U.S. in 1997 and has a maximum shelf life of 5 years, then the stuff should have deteriorated down to nothing by 2002. So why begin a major construction project in 2006 that won’t even be ready to operate until 2018, 16 years past the date of the end of production plus the stated shelf-life?
Something doesn’t add up but the construction project tells me that the shelf life is much longer than 5 years.
I wonder if, as another freeper described it on another thread, many of these chemicals are “binary” - that is, 2 stable compounds with a long shelf life are stored separately, then mixed when the resultant agent is desired. The images on another thread of 2-sided containers lends to that possibility.
So, the gas could have a short shelf life, but the compounds that, when mixed, create the toxic gas are more stable.
I'll bet you're exactly right. The Wikipedia article did mention agents being separately mixed, but I didn't connect it with longer shelf life.
Yes, Saddam had WMDs. He bombed the Kurds with poison gas in 1988.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-21814734
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