No kidding?
Mood shifting is because Americans aren't stupid! If it looks like a WMD, contents are analyzed as a chemical weapon, and it is discovered on Iraqi soil, it's a WMD!
If they asked the question where Americans think the majority of Iraq's other WMDs are, most would say "in the safe keeping of Syria and Lebanon."
Heaven help the civilian Lebanese if one of Israel's bunker busting bombs hits an area where some of Saddam's WMDs are being stored!
Yep. Smart people, stupid pollsters. Thanks to FR et el. people are reading translations of the actualy Iraqi documents rather than the MSM propaganda.
Additionally, Iraqi-prepared ricin in London etc. is stuff the MSM conveniently likes to forget.
This is what hezballoo is hoping for. They will then accusse Israel of using gas on civilians.
The 500+ artillery shells containing a variety of chemical weapons agents found in Iraq apparently are enough to convince the American public that the regime did in fact possess WMD. Of course the NYT would never let inconvenient facts like those get in the way of their agenda.
Surely there can be no question that Iraq had, at some point, utilized, stockpiled and deployed WMD. The only real, serious questions are "what happened to 'em?" and "where are they?"
A few waterboard lessons for said Saddam would probably tell all. But the West does not work like that.
Alas, the world may never know... unless one of those Israeli rockets gets lucky.
These people, in a position to know, also think Saddam's WMD were moved to Syria:
Last month Moshe Yaalon, who was Israel's top general at the time, said Iraq transported WMD to Syria six weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
Last March, John A. Shaw, a former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said Russian Spetsnaz units moved WMD to Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
"While in Iraq I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives," Mr. Shaw told NewsMax reporter Charles Smith.
Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong was deputy commander of Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In September 2004, he told WABC radio that "I do know for a fact that some of those weapons went into Syria, Lebanon and Iran."
In January 2004, David Kay, the first head of the Iraq Survey Group which conducted the search for Saddam's WMD, told a British newspaper there was evidence unspecified materials had been moved to Syria from Iraq shortly before the war.
"We know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program," Mr. Kay told the Sunday Telegraph.
Also that month, Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who defected to an undisclosed European country, told a Dutch newspaper he knew of three sites where Iraq's WMD was being kept. They were the town of al Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria; the Syrian air force base near the village of Tal Snan, and the city of Sjinsar on the border with Lebanon.
In an addendum to his final report last April, Charles Duelfer, who succeeded David Kay as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said he couldn't rule out a transfer of WMD from Iraq to Syria.
"There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation," Mr. Duelfer said.
In a briefing for reporters in October 2003, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper Jr., who was head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency when the Iraq war began, said satellite imagery showed a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasion.
"I think the people below Saddam Hussein and his sons' level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," Lt. Gen. Clapper said.
Note the press accurately identifies the issue as being based on a "mood" rather than knowledge of the evidence.
No kidding?
The scary thing is that 50% believe there never where WMD (even after they where found). That says alot about those who only get their news from the network newscasts.
Lol. This news will drive the dems crazy after all they've done to poison the well.
I was so impressed by Duncan Hunter at the Congressional Hearing on WMD's last month. Especially his questioning of Kay and getting him to say that politicians saying there were no WMD's was Not accurate.....
REP. HUNTER: I understand. And so, when we have people who -- when we have descriptions on the House floor -- and I want to quote a couple to you, because you're a fair gentleman. "There were no," and I'm quoting, "there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." That's not accurate, is it?
MR. KAY: It's not accurate by my personal knowledge.
REP. HUNTER: Okay. "We are spending billions of dollars to occupy a country that did not have weapons of mass destruction." That's not accurate, is it?
MR. KAY: That's certainly not how I would phrase it, let me say that.
REP. HUNTER: "There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but there are WMDs in D.C. Lies are weapons of mass destruction." That's not accurate, is it?
MR. KAY: D.C.'s a dangerous place, but not in that sense.
REP. HUNTER: Okay. "We know that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We know that to be the case." That's not accurate, is it?
MR. KAY: I think -- look, I don't want to get into criticizing your colleagues. We all knew that in Iraq we were going to find chemical weapons produced prior to 1991.
***. HUNTER: But Dr. Kay, you say we all knew. I don't agree with that. I think that most American people -- that's one reason we're having the hearing -- you say I kind of expected to find these. I think after the massive number of volume of statements to the effect of what I just read to you that have been going on in town hall meetings, coming out of the radio, the television, the newspaper -- if you ask the average American today if any weapons of mass destruction, even today before this hearing is aired, if there are any weapons of mass destruction, any chemical weapons found in Iraq, I think 99.9 percent of them are going to tell you no. I've been listening to television and radio. They're going to say no, there aren't. That's been asserted.
I've seen -- this has been the order of the day. The statements that I just quoted to you aren't radical statements that were made by a few people. Those are statements that have been made thousands and thousands of times in thousands of forums. And that's why I think it's good, now that we've found 500 of them -- albeit they're not brand new rounds, they're not full-up -- they probably aren't the end of our discovery. It's important for people to know that, is it not? Facts are good to get out.
MR. KAY: Facts are always good to get out
"It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq," Santorum said during the news conference last month.
But many skeptics remain, including retired Air Force Lt. Col. Paul Lawrence Vann, who insisted that the American public is being "misled."
This jerk made it to Lt. Colonel??
WHy do they have to 'think' about it? It's a fact...they were (are) there! Why is the media saying they aren't. Didn't the military just find canisters about a month ago that contained saran gas remnants and some got sick? Why is that not on the news?
Gee, I guess as more time goes on, and hearing thousands of times "Bush lied, Americans died"! The real truth will come out. I suspect by the time Israel finish's with Iran which it is the one its actually fighting by taking on Hezbollah. There may be even more who believe that actual truth.
Kudo's to Freepers who had kept translating those Sadaam docs as well.Follow the paper trail!
Did a Google on the Lt. Col who's quoted. He spent his time in USAF as a briefing officer, legis assistant and college speaker. He is now a motivational speaker and his own website states no specific quals as to how he is an expert on WMD.
Back in 2005 I met a young woman who was medically discharged from the Army. I saw her medical papers that were signed off by 3 military doctors. She is suffering from decreased lung capacity, skin ailments and has had a heart attack. This young woman is only 23 years old. The medical documents that were signed off by the miliary doctors listed exposure to Sarin as the single cause of her illnesses. She told me that there are others like her. She said that she believes she was exposed when she and others in her unit were ordered to destroy munitions that were confiscated after the invasion. I have never doubted that there were WMD in Iraq.
On June 9th [2004], the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council about the export of Iraqi WMD, missile and nuclear components shipped out of Iraq before, during and after the invasion. As reported by MENL news service, UNMOVIC acting executive chairman Demetrius Perricos told the Council, "The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks," and said inspectors found Iraqi WMD and missile components shipped abroad that still contained UN inspection tags.
The World Tribune reported on Perricos's briefing. "He said the Iraqi facilities were dismantled and sent both to Europe and around the Middle East at the rate of about 1,000 tons of metal a month... The Baghdad missile site contained a range of WMD and dual-use components, UN officials said. They included missile components, reactor vessel and fermenters ... required for the production of chemical and biological warheads. 'It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for,' Perricos's spokesman, said. 'You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter. You can also use it to breed anthrax.'"
Shouldn't the NEWS HEADLINE be "WMD in FACT have been found in IRAQ and still 45% of Americans do NOT believe it!!!
Scary...to think that people who poll on a question, insist that there is one correct answer to that question.