are brewing up to spin this story
Posted on 06/29/2006 7:48:35 PM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today.
"These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.
The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.
The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. Sarin attacks the neurological system and is potentially lethal.
"Mustard is a blister agent (that) actually produces burning of any area (where) an individual may come in contact with the agent," he said. It also is potentially fatal if it gets into a person's lungs.
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.
While that's reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. "We're talking chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and have a great effect," he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.
This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred, Chu said. It's not known exactly how sarin breaks down, but no matter how degraded the agent is, it's still toxic.
"Regardless of (how much material in the weapon is actually chemical agent), any remaining agent is toxic," he said. "Anything above zero (percent agent) would prove to be toxic, and if you were exposed to it long enough, lethal."
Though about 500 chemical weapons - the exact number has not been released publicly - have been found, Maples said he doesn't believe Iraq is a "WMD-free zone."
"I do believe the former regime did a very poor job of accountability of munitions, and certainly did not document the destruction of munitions," he said. "The recovery program goes on, and I do not believe we have found all the weapons."
The Defense Intelligence Agency director said locating and disposing of chemical weapons in Iraq is one of the most important tasks servicemembers in the country perform.
Maples added searches are ongoing for chemical weapons beyond those being conducted solely for force protection.
There has been a call for a complete declassification of the National Ground Intelligence Center's report on WMD in Iraq. Maples said he believes the director of national intelligence is still considering this option, and has asked Maples to look into producing an unclassified paper addressing the subject matter in the center's report.
Much of the classified matter was slated for discussion in a closed forum after the open hearings this morning.
are brewing up to spin this story
For those of you that do not know, they are still finging mustard gas munitions in France and other places in Europe that are almost now 100 years old. They will still blister and/or kill you.
So none of the Lies told by the Leftist in the Junk Media about the Iraqi WMDs were true. Guess we will have another Leftist Emily Latellia moment now.. "Never Mind".
Anyone know Army Col. John Chu?
"How many people could that stuff have killed?"
"What if they had activated all of it in the New York City subway system?"
That's what hits home with most people.
Who is he? COl's and SGM's look like young little boys to me now. (I am getting old)
There is far more evidence of WMD in Iraq than there is for man-made "global warming".
Will you listen to a Lt Gen?
The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. Sarin attacks the neurological system and is potentially lethal.
"Mustard is a blister agent (that) actually produces burning of any area (where) an individual may come in contact with the agent," he said. It also is potentially fatal if it gets into a person's lungs.
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.
While that's reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. "We're talking chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and have a great effect," he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.
This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred, Chu said. It's not known exactly how sarin breaks down, but no matter how degraded the agent is, it's still toxic.
"Regardless of (how much material in the weapon is actually chemical agent), any remaining agent is toxic," he said. "Anything above zero (percent agent) would prove to be toxic, and if you were exposed to it long enough, lethal."
Though about 500 chemical weapons - the exact number has not been released publicly - have been found, Maples said he doesn't believe Iraq is a "WMD-free zone."
"I do believe the former regime did a very poor job of accountability of munitions, and certainly did not document the destruction of munitions," he said. "The recovery program goes on, and I do not believe we have found all the weapons."
The Defense Intelligence Agency director said locating and disposing of chemical weapons in Iraq is one of the most important tasks servicemembers in the country perform.
Maples added searches are ongoing for chemical weapons beyond those being conducted solely for force protection.
There has been a call for a complete declassification of the National Ground Intelligence Center's report on WMD in Iraq. Maples said he believes the director of national intelligence is still considering this option, and has asked Maples to look into producing an unclassified paper addressing the subject matter in the center's report.
Much of the classified matter was slated for discussion in a closed forum after the open hearings this morning.
http://www.dia.mil/history/histories/Directors/index.html
They don't have to because it won't be reported.
If all else fails they can make the argument that going to WAR IN IRAQ for 500 artillary shells that contained decades old and degraded chemicals and could not even be DELIVERED, was just not worth it.
Something else that needs to be pointed out is that because of their inability to make quality chemical weapons Iraq adopted a policy of produce to use. You will notice that there was tons of WMD creation ability, but not a lot of stockpiles. That is because as soon as they made them they used them on somebody
I watched a little of this on C-Span2. There are a few dem talking points.
"These were not the weapons Bush was talking about when he was talking about WMD's."
"General, if you had these weapons and were being attacked, would you use them, or would you prefer to use conventional high-explosive weapons?"
"Weren't these weapons all pre-Gulf War I?"
"Isn't it possible, due to poor accounting, that Saddam didn't even know he still had these old weapons?"
In other words, these weren't, in quantity and quality, THE WMD's to which Bush referred. And, since they are somewhat degraded and difficult to use, aren't regular weapons actually more lethal? And, isn't it possible that, since these weapons are so old, that poor little confused Saddam maybe just lost track of them?
It makes me want to crawl inside the television and strangle these lying, spinning SOB's.
Bottom line--the libs have said, for years, that there are no WMD's, and therefore, Bush lied. However, these chemical weapons, which were found in Iraq, meet all the criteria to be called WMD's. Therefore, the libs lied, and not Bush.
QED, as they say in mathematics, or, as they say in New York, "Case f**king closed."
This will never make the MSM. They cannot have anything that goes against the template of no WMD found and "Bush lied, troops died."
Quite likely this article misspelled his name. Google turns up COL John Chiu in his position at NGIC.
One Google hit shows that he was succeeded in command of the 205th MI BN by LTC Chrisopher Winnie in July '01. http://starbulletin.com/2001/07/01/news/story10.html
http://www.ecbc.army.mil/about/news.htm#news2
Another Google hit (6/26/06): "On Wednesday, COL John Chiu, Commander of the National Ground Intelligence Center visited ECBC to become more familiar with ECBC infrastructure and capabilities. Non traditional threats and countermeasures were discussed. "
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