Posted on 06/19/2014 6:02:11 PM PDT by Nachum
With all eyes firmly focused on what really matters (the oil refineries), The Telegraph reports that ISIS has over-run a Saddam Hussein-era chemical weapons (CW) complex. The al-Muhanna 'mega-facility', about 60 miles south of Baghdad, gives the jihadists access to disused stores of hundreds of tonnes of potentially deadly poisons including mustard gas and sarin. The US state department is 'concerned' but "do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value." However, as a former commander of Britain's chemical weapons regiment warned, "we have seen that ISIS has used chemicals in explosions in Iraq before and has carried out experiments in Syria." This is likely great for ISIS 2014 Annual Report; but, of course, the other awkward question is: does this mean Saddam did have WMDs (and ISIS found them) after all?
As The Telegraph reports, the jihadist group bringing terror to Iraq overran a Saddam Hussein chemical weapons complex on Thursday...
Isis invaded the al-Muthanna mega-facility 60 miles north of Baghdad in a rapid takeover that the US government said was a matter of concern.
The facility was notorious in the 1980s and 1990s as the locus of Saddam’s industrial scale efforts to develop a chemical weapons development programme.
During its peak in the late 1980s to early 1990s, Iraq produced bunkers full of chemical munitions.
A CIA report on the facility said that 150 tons of mustard were produced each year at the peak from 1983 and pilot-scale production of Sarin began in 1984.
Its most recent description of al-Muthanna in 2007 paints a disturbing picture of chemicals strewn throughout the area.
“Two wars, sanctions and UN oversight reduced Iraqi’s premier production facility to a stockpile of old damaged and contaminated chemical munitions (sealed in bunkers), a wasteland full
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
I’d assume there wasn’t a lot of incentive to do so, at least not right away. Getting rid of this stuff (especially if it has degraded and leaked) is a dangerous and expensive undertaking. With the new government in place, and Bush probably not expecting Obama to pull out all the troops, there was no urgency to pay attention to a decommissioned chemical plant from the 90s, much less spend American money to clean it up.
It must have been horrible, having never worn it for more than part of a day seeing them living in that gear really bothered me, in most cases I questioned the wisdom of that.
So far I haven’t seen analysis of the cost versus the gain, of forcing the GIs to stay at that level.
The CIA learned that you cannot just blow up WMD facilities. That is what the US did during the 30 day air campaign prior to Desert Storm. And the CIA discovered it created local environmental catastrophes and killed a lot of people near the facilities. So the ole WMD components have to be disposed of properly. Not just blown up. And what was probably left was held in containers that leaked and could not be safely transported. Leaking containers holding WMD are a problem even here in the US. Research Hanford and WIPP. The old Iraqi facilities needed to be guarded and the public kept away.
A hap, hap, happy overview of good ole VX. I couldn’t find the Nic Cage movie embellishment from The Rock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jBU-8Sndj4
ISIS will use POW's to go get the stuff and test it to see if it kills.
If they broke into the facility, they did it for a reason. They seem to have a lot of The March all preplanned out. From what I have read, its been planned out for years.
What do you think they are shipping out of Syria right now, hmmm???
Thats what it sounds like. They’ve chosen their targets carefully, and the quick surrender of the Iraqi forces in Mosul wasn’t in the heat of the moment. The officers were bribed
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Anything they can to help the caliphate grow actually. Which is where its all going these days.
Who is this “they” .... Obama’s Washington or the ISIS murderers?
Bribed and threatened no doubt. From what I have read of battle field accounts, they are very tough adversaries. Willing to die in battle. Have no fear. And do not give an inch. No wonder the Iraqi’s ran from that. And they might have brought some of their chlorine gas from Syria. They did overrun one of Assad’s chlorine manufacturing plants. Surprised we have not heard of WMD used by them in Iraq up till now. Knock on wood.....
Sounds like some of the usual pro-Assad/pro-Iran/pro-PootyPoot agitprop we’ve been deluged with since the first big chemical weapons attack made by the Assad regime in its ongoing mass-murder of Syrian citizens.
Yes, there is a problem with leaky containers right here, right now in West Texas.
There is no danger, so says the government.
“If such a facility existed, why didn’t we bulldoze it? “
Perhaps because it was identified and “contained?” If you have limited resources, you must concentrate on the “search” aspect and don’t bother with things you have already “found.” Disposal is someone else’s concern for later. That those people never got around to it...
The al-Muhanna ‘mega-facility’, about 60 miles south of Baghdad...”
“the al-Muthanna mega-facility 60 miles north of Baghdad....”
Was scrolling down to see if anyone else caught that and saw you did. Good work.
Both.
ISIS forces are north of Baghdad, the first sentence (south) is probably wrong.
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