Iraq had weapons of mass destruction

In 2003, American soldiers stepped into a bunker in Iraq that was filled with drums, each of which was labeled with a chemical warning in Arabic, along with the international chemical-warning symbol. In May 2004, American soldiers in Iraq, as publicly reported by multiple news agencies, including NBC, were attacked using an improvised explosive device that contained the nerve agent sarin. Artillery shells containing a mustard agent were also found in Iraq in 2004. These are easily discoverable facts, not fantasy.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both define the sarin nerve agent as an organophosphate, a family of chemicals that happens to include Malathion, a chemical commonly used to control garden and lawn pests. In 2003 and 2004, it was noted throughout the news community that equipment used to produce “insecticide” was widely found in Iraq; in fact, I have photographs of some of that very equipment. I also have a photograph taken in July 2003 of soldiers sitting on an Al Samoud II missile, which was “not there” by order of the United Nations.

“These munitions meet the technical definition of weapons of mass destruction,” according to the commander of the National Ground Intelligence Center. “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 in June 2006.

I don’t care who clings to the lie that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but I find that using the lie that there weren’t any as an excuse to validate contemporary political lying regarding Benghazi, Libya, by the Obama left to be morally disgraceful.

So, ‘xactly what cost did you pay?

Many of us who were there saw, watched and handled some really neat stuff that wasn’t really there.

As far as the war’s overall value? In my exspereince and to my knowledge, both first ahnd and through open source data, is that about 3 US brigades worth of foreign fighters won’t be bothering our shores. They are being entertained by their reward of virgins.....

As to the cost in blood and treasure, sure, no war that is not in your own backyard is ever worth it. But on the other hand, Iraqis now have the opportunity to figure it out on their own, how they do that is up to them. They now produce over 3 million bbls of crude per day, selling much for revenues and supplying their own internal needs. We but some of that oil too.

I hope they do well in memory of our fallen.... If not, that’s on them.

best;

One clue that something was up is that the Dems started insisting there were none at a point at which the ISG teams had not yet completed their survey- something they would not have done unless they were absolutely certain none were going to pop up that the administration would admit to, a certainty that would be impossible to have at that stage UNLESS they knew the Bush admin had decided US policy would be to claim there were none to be found, and would dismiss any that might be found.

Why would the US have such a policy? Most likely in the hopes that if the administration took heat "for there not being any," terrorists would be convinced not to continue to search for any weapons or any equipment used in their manufacture that we may have been unable to recover, which is a good deal easier than trying to find every bit of a program that had been dispersed all over the place and often was buried or submerged in flooded structures below the water table. weapons stashes that were described by the Bush admin as like trying to find the contents of a two car garage dispersed in a space the size of California. [Just trying to find them in a space the size of al Tuwaitha would be a daunting task.] That Iraq had dispersed its programs internally and abroad was known years before Bush was elected. That Iraq had massive underground research facilities that they flooded is a fact, not fiction.

It is my belief much was recovered, and the "no WMD's thing ensures that what wasn't, if any, remains unsearched for, at least by hostiles. At the time of the ISG the US and the Russians were destroying their own stockpiles and it is worth noting that both the US and the Russian destruction programs fell behind schedule in that period for unexplained reasons.

That this denial was a determined policy explains the Democrat's smug assertions and in fact their antics helped solidify the myth to ensure the no-wmds scheme would be accepted as fact by those terrorists interested in finding such stuff. They would not have been so secure if the US policy was to keep looking, because there would be no way of knowing if something may turn up and be paraded around as evidence. They would ALSO not be so secure and smug if they didn't have Bush's word on the policy because if they were in the same position as Bush THEY WOULD HAVE PLANTED WMD to cover their rears... as we can see by their current behavior on Benghazi.

The Russians played along with the scheme and got most of their stuff back out of Iraq and also put out the stories that the US would fake finds to justify the war, and when the Bush admin didn't, it was then easier to believe there really wasn't anything if the Bush admin wouldn't ever TRY to fake it. Even when occasional reports said some things were found, press-established "facts" were so strong enough that people could accept the idea that Iraq may just have bought one chem shell, or that it was old, or that the initial positive tests were always wrong, etc.

One of the scientists used to play up the "no weapons program" story by the press was Obeidi, who the press tends to forget had a prototype centrifuge buried [against UN protocols & US cease fire agreement of course] in his rose garden. The only reason to keep such a prototype hid, instead of present it to the UN to get off the hook, would be if Iraq intended to reconstitute its program once sanctions were lifted, which is what the administration said all along was their justification. If Saddam just wanted to keep Iran bluffed as many claim presenting it to the UN would have at least scared Iran whereas keeping it buried kept Iran from knowing about it. The press cited Obeidi as saying Iraq had no nuke programs. Well, Iraq had the prototype in his yard for what they needed for a program they WOULD have if left off the hook.

The press always left of the fact that Obeidi worked on Iraq's off-shore nuke program - in LIBYA. Libya's program was very real, if smaller. Libya's materials for the most part were brought back to the US for destruction at Oak Ridge, etc. Also, the press or Obama NEVER speaks of Qadeer Khan and the unnamed states in the list of states he made deals with; mustn't upset the Pakis. We are supposed to believe Qadeer Khan dealt with every muslim nation from Libya, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, and so on but never with Iraq.

Go ahead, look it up- the US BCW weapons destruction program fell behind schedule at the time we invaded Iraq. So did Russia's.

There is no way to know what the ultimate effects of our operations in Iraq will be, but the change is profound.

The Nazi-inspired totalitarian Ba’ath Prty is gone. The party-line North Korean-like state media has been replaced by hundreds of newspapers and pervasive cell phones and satellite TV dishes. There are all kinds of groups shouting at each other in public and in the press - in Arabic. Not much of such debate could go in front of most Arabs before. Now folks in other countries can follow the arguments over the Internet.

I remember one TV show that was popular for a while in Iraq after the liberation. Some convicted terrorist would be strolled in front of the cameras in handcuffs to be confronted/berated/assaulted by the widows and orphans of his victims. Attitudes changed measurably on how cool it was to be a jihadi terrorist targeting civilians “sticking it to the man”.

Many don’t want to admit it, because their pride is offended by having their Army’s ass kicked twice by us, but they saw first hand a lot of principle in the American system and decency in our people.

We kicked the door open and gave them a chance and a glimpse of freedom. Its on them now.

Remember, the Israelis flew in to Baghdad and blew up the breeder reactor they bought from the French.

1981? That's not evidence of what the Iraq were doing in 2003.

Also, the IAEA refused to let the U.S. remove 500 tons of Uranium we found.

It looks like that was eventually sent to Canada. The argument is that it wasn't "weapons grade." I don't know how to assess that.

If possible weapon-making material is there but isn't processed and there's no ongoing project of making weapons, then are there WMDs? Is preemptive war necessary or advisable, given what the costs would be?

The yellowcake is uranium ore. It is to weapons grade uranium as iron ore is to weapons grade steel - it needs to be precisely refined and specially treated. A big pile of yellowcake yields a little pile of highly enriched uranium.

As folks above have mentioned, at least one centrifuge (specially designed only to enrich uranium) was recovered buried in the rose garden of of a top guy in the Iraqi weapons program.

One of the biggest effects of the invasion of Iraq, was disrupting the nuclear proliferation ring of AQ Khan, father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. As a result, the Libyan program was dismantled and destroyed.

The gist of the AQ Khan ring was that a few countries would split up the programs and then share the results - one would focus on enriching uranium, another would work on design, another on missiles for delivery and so on. That is why you have Iranians in North Korea today, and North Koreans at Iranian enrichment sites like Fordo.

After Iraq had their Osiriak reactor destroyed, they continued to import and stockpile yellowcake. They had no industrial use for it, they were just trying to build up the materials ahead of time to enable a fast breakout, in case sanctions or embargoes were put on them when they started large scale enrichment

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