Posted on 01/11/2004 11:56:36 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Mulitple tests conducted in Iraq by Danish and British experts indicate that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction have finally been discovered, but mainstream news editors either ignored the story Sunday morning or are furiously spinning the news as inconsequential. More than 12 hours after the Fox News Channel, Reuters and the Associated Press carried reports that preliminary tests showed Iraqi mortar shells discovered near Basra contain a deadly liquid blister agent, the New York Times had yet to report the bombshell find on the main page of its Web site or anywhere in its Sunday morning print edition. The Washington Post's Web site also chose not to cover the blockbuster news, which ABC News military analyst Tony Cordesman said Saturday would be "the first real confirmation that Iraq actually had deployed chemical weapons and was prepared to use them" if tests confirmed the find. Saturday night the Fox News Channel revealed that initial tests had indeed confirmed the blockbuster discovery. "Danish troops are in charge of that area around the village of Al Quarnah, and they have found what they believe are, according to this official, two hundred shells," reported FNC's Greg Palkrow. Palkrow said the Danish official told him: "They've run four different tests on that liquid inside those shells. And all those tests do indicate that there is blister gas that's a deadly chemical weapon - inside of those shells." The AP said that a statement released by Danish officials cited British experts, who had also confirmed that the shells contained "blister gas." Before the war the Bush administration had alleged that Baghdad was stockpiling blister gas in liquid form. Both reports noted that the find had yet to be confirmed by the U.S. team in Iraq assigned to search for weapons of mass destruction. But according to the London Sunday Telegraph, Ali Nimir, a former colonel in an Iraqi Republican Guard artillery unit, had also confirmed the find. "I remember seeing boxes of these kinds of armaments in our base two years ago," Nimir said. "We were told that they were chemical weapons." "They were removed from our bases and distributed to secret hiding places about a year before the war," he explained. "I never saw them again." Still, despite the staggering political consequences of the bombshell discovery news that could mean total vindication for President Bush against Democrat charges that he "lied" about Iraq's WMDs mainstream reports consistently downplayed the story. The New York Daily News, for instance, covered the news on page 24 of its Sunday edition, and then only under a headline that obscured the potential impact of the story: "Old Iraqi Gas Shells." New York's Newsday echoed the same theme with its page 20 headline, "Weapons Found, but Likely Old" as if the vintage of Saddam's WMDs somehow mitigated genuine proof of their existence after months of media claims to the contrary. The only news outlet to refer to weapons of mass destruction in its headline was the New York Post, which labeled its page 2 report: "WMD Gas Shells Dug Up in Iraq." News of the WMD find was not discussed on the Sunday morning news shows.
Right. It is much more of a political problem for Blair than Bush. All the American people needed to know was that Saddam had a terrorist training camp complete with 707; knowing this, we knew that after 9/11, you don't play no fly zone games any more. I have no idea what more they will find because war is unpredictable.
If so, the "conspiracy" predates the Bush administration as evidenced by this speech given by Bill Clinton in 1998:
excerpt:
"And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal. . . . In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now--a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers, or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.
"If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program."
WMD is WMD RATS say there is none and there never was any. The UN didn't find it, Saddam didn't report it and it is bad stuff and will kill.
This is EXACTLY the reason we went into Iraq, we knew that they had WMD at one time and suspected that they had it now. As to quantity, quality and age of the WMD no one had a clear idea before the war or even now. We COULDN'T take the chance and continue reliance on the UN.
The Washington Post's Web site also chose not to cover the blockbuster news, which ABC News military analyst Tony Cordesman said Saturday would be "the first real confirmation that Iraq actually had deployed chemical weapons and was prepared to use them" if tests confirmed the find.
More proof (as if we needed it) that the New York Times and the Washington Post have completely, brazenly, and outrightly abandoned their roles as reporters of news.
If this was the 1970's or 1980's, you never would have heard of this story.
Ever.
Kind of a shame, because I'd like to have seen his/her response to my post. Oh well....
The age is very unclear, and none of the stories I've seen have it as EXACTLY 10 years old.
I believe the general thrust was that they were at LEAST 10 years old.
Anyway, anyone who believes 120mm mortar shells buried in this small a quantity for that long in the condition they are in was part of a grand devious plan to evade inspectors and then use them later is seriously delusional.
They are still into the inspections mentality. Under the old inspections regime, Saddam WAS ALLOWED POISON GAS so long as it was inventoried, tagged, and "controlled" for eventual destruction. If anyone can remember back that far, two years ago there were no inspectors in Iraq to do this "controlling" because Saddam had thrown them out. The only reason they were allowed back was because Bush threatened invasion. If we would have backed down from the threats, while Saddam continued to shoot at our planes, the Saddamites would have seen us for spineless inconstant weaklings and brought back full production.
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