Multiple Tests Confirming Iraq WMD Send Media Into Deep Spin

NewsMax ^ | 1/4/04 | Limbacher

[Lazamataz]

Every time the media pulls something underhanded like this, I'm furious, but not surprised. There's literally nothing they won't do to deny a Bush victory. Just heard Fox TV who should know better, say, well, we found the blister agent shells, but are we any closer to finding WMD? The guest is calling them tactical weapons, probably not fit to put on scuds, so splitting hairs here. Nuts.

Before this year is out, I fully expect a liberal to go on TV and say -- straight-faced, mind you -- "Well, yes we found a tactical nuclear weapon from Russia in Saddam's basement, but where are the WMD's????"

[Pubbie]

[sourcery]

A great rhetorical riddle comes to mind: "When is a bombshell not a bombshell?" The answer, of course, is whenever it explodes the illusions of the liberal media.

[PokeyJoe]

Liberal news reporters don't trust any other sources except other liberal news reporters.

Said another way, Michael Moore wouldn't print it unless Barbara Streisand independently confirmed it even though Newt Gingrich is a first hand witness.

[Vinnie]

These are 15 year old mootar shells found buried on a river bank.

And the point?

We expected to find them in unusual places and I don't see how finding them buried on a riverbank has any bearing on the fact that the mortar shells do in fact contain a WMD. After all, Saddam had several yrs to decide where to hide them.

Mustard gas is a particularly nasty agent. Thousands of WWI vets came back home suffering burns, internal and external only to die in agony.

[John H K]

Fifteen years old? Where do you get YOUR news? DU?
The reports all say ten or eleven years old.
So you signed up here today to tell lies?

No, the various paraphrases of the reports on FR have claimed they were exactly 10 years old. Here's the original report:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Danish and Icelandic troops have uncovered a cache of 36 shells buried in the Iraqi desert, and preliminary tests showed they contained a liquid blister agent, the Danish military said Saturday.

The 120mm mortar shells were thought to be leftovers from the eight-year war between Iraq and neighboring Iran, which ended in 1988, said U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.

The shells were found by Danish engineering troops and Icelandic de-miners near Al Quarnah, north of the city of Basra where Denmark's 410 troops are based, the Danish Army Operational Command said in a written statement.

The shells were wrapped in plastic but had been damaged, and they appeared to have been buried for at least 10 years, the statement said.

[firewalk]

bttt

[SandRat]

The stuff is beginning to surface despite Ritter's and Blix's denials. It will continue to surface albeit slowly until this summer possibly late July when the big story will break with major finds in Iraq, and Syria out of fear that they are next turns over all that Saddam sent them to include the three locations in Syria and the location in the Bakka Vally of Lebanon currently encircled by two full strength Armored Brigades that only do that.

Just wait, that's the way I see this story unfolding. Of course most of the media types and the entire DNC may have to put on 24 suicide watch.

What's that?

What about a suicide watch for Ed Asner, Babs, Sean Penn, .....

who cares.

[Billthedrill]

Well, the "15-year" date is chosen carefully to imply that these were buried prior to the first Gulf War, which, for some reason, seems to reflect less well on Bush. But I am a little curious as to why you think these weren't buried with an eye to future use. They can't be used now, to be sure (they're pretty much empty anyhow) but it's been "at least" ten years since they were buried - if not for re-use, then why bother?

The facts of the matter are fairly plain - Saddam did have chemical weapons (ask the Iranians) and he did play games with the UN inspectors. My point is the inevitability of an endless series of "this isn't enough" responses. At some point (say, December 2004?) they'll cease because they will no longer be useful and they'll already patently untrue.

[SandRat]

See reply #48.

[Bedford Forrest]

Blister agents are chemical agents - they had them and we (and every other intelligence agency on the planet) knew perfectly well they had them because they'd used them in the past.

Who started using the term "blister agent", which sounds about as lethal as sunscreen? Why didn't our military people begin by referring to these WMDs as "mustard gas", which term has been around a long time, is more widely understood and has far more powerful connotations. And if the media scum persist in treating the discovery of these mustard gas munitions like a church social, then we should take a dozen or so of them, strip them down to their skivvies and give them a light misting with the stuff. After a week they will be singing a different tune about "blister agent", aka mustard gas.

[John H K]

Well, the "15-year" date is chosen carefully to imply that these were buried prior to the first Gulf War,

Well, on every thread on this on various FR posters twisted the "at least 10 years old" into "10 years old exactly" because that would make them POST GW I.

So everyone is spinning to suit their own ends.

And as to why they were buried, how about burying them to simply dispose of them?

[John H K]

Who started using the term "blister agent", which sounds about as lethal as sunscreen?

Well, it's less lethal than high explosives or bullets.

Despite being used in a huge % of shells and in vast quantities in WWI, the percentage of deaths caused by chemicals in WWI was remarkably trivial compared to good ol' high explosive, and simply getting shot.

[Arrowhead1952]

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."

If there were armaments at bases two years ago, wonder where those are buried. Even if the shell are 10 years old, think how bad the condition of the metal shell is. Those shells are an accident waiting to happen.

Artillery shells 10+ years old are still all over Iraq and waiting for the housing to rot away and spill their contents, not good.

[Quilla]

Sometime over the hectic holidays (I can't recall specifically when) an article was posted that insinuated a tie between Saddam and 9-11. Supposedly, in a handwritten letter to Saddam from his head of intelligence, details were outlined on Mohammed Atta's training in Iraq, their agreement on specific targets, and a shipment of uranium from Niger. Many freepers commented that it was just too good to be true.

In trying to find which media outlets even covered the story, I did a Google search (News) for - letter Saddam Atta. Try it, you'll be shocked at the anti-American garbage that comes up at the top of the results. Our traitorous media makes derogatory editorials out to be news and the islam/jihad/whatever press uses these quotes scathingly against us. It is an abomination. BTW, never did find mention of the above-referenced article in the news search.

[Republican Wildcat]

Mayor Theresa Isaac must have been playing with the computer again.

[mtbopfuyn]

Lies! All lies! That liquid is just the grape syrup for snow cones sold from those mobile ice cream trucks they found abandoned in the desert.

[mercy]

I have never been able to tell just when they shift from constant heavy spin to deep spin. I will add this data to my future calculations.

[John H K]

One thing to keep in mind is that chemical agents (though this can vary) usually are not stored in warheads, but they are loaded in just prior to use.

One plausible scenario is that at the end of the Iran-Iraq War, some Iraqi company or battalion commander had some mortar shells he'd just loaded but didn't get to use.

Rather than go through the potentially dangerous and time consuming process of taking the chemicals out of the shells, he simply buried them. Quite possibly without telling any superiors or Baghdad (who likely wouldn't have cared that much what happened to them.)

Now, of course, the above scenario will be flamed viciously by people who don't want that to be a possibility, but it's a thousand times more realistic than the idea these shells are part of a grand plan to hide WMDs for use later.

[Billthedrill]

Mostly because it's a pretty inefficient way of disposing of ostensibly empty chemical shells. No, that one isn't, I think, particularly credible - burial in such a way that they can be recovered after a time (as they have been, 10 years hence at least) isn't just a case of throwing them in a hole and covering it.

But I'll wait happily for more information (and not count on the mainstream media to provide it). There is usually some form of lot identifier on ammo this large (and 120 mm is pretty big) if not an outright date of manufacture. And we have lots of old records by now.