Posted on 10/17/2014 8:22:13 AM PDT by lasereye
What a difference a decade makes! When it was first reported in May 2004 that Saddam-era chemical weapons shells had injured U.S. troops, the editors of the New York Times dismissed that, Finding some residual weapons that had escaped a large-scale destruction program would be no great surprise and if the chemicals had degraded, no major threat. Now, a major New York Times report on the issue has been followed by an editorial warning of A Deadly Legacy in Iraq: some 5,000 chemical shells have been discovered over the years in Iraq by U.S. or U.S.-trained Iraqi forces. Many more such munitions litter the wreckage of an old Iraqi weapons facility northwest of Baghdad, which the Islamic State captured in June.
It is widely believed that Saddam Hussein maintained no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) after the 1991 Gulf War. That was the conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which issued its final report on the subject a decade agoin September 2004. The ISG claimed that already in the summer of 1991, just months after the war, Iraq unilaterally destroyed its prohibited WMD. The new Times report suggests that is false.
Indeed, those who had long followed the issue knew that the ISGs conclusion couldnt possibly be truebecause the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) destroyed tons of proscribed Iraqi material in the years after the war. UNSCOM was the first U.N. weapons inspection body and worked in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. Saddam ended UNSCOMs troublesome presence by engineering a series of crises, which culminated in its departure shortly before the start of Operation Desert Fox, Bill Clintons four-day December 1998 bombing campaign. (UNSCOM was later replaced by a much weaker body that did not even enter Iraq until late 2002.)
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
The next Republican Prez (whenever that is) cannot repeat this silence in the face of continual attacks aspect of the Bush administration. It was ridiculous.
I don’t think it was ridiculous!! I look upon it as another in a long list of validations of my FR tagline.
It really bothers me when THEY make me look good.
Even so, yesterday I saw a big poster ad from RT (Russia Today) website on my street corner crowing about how false those WMD claims were. Trying to get new viewers based on an assertion that has been proved wrong.
So Bush was right all along.
I was really irritated by Bush’s lack of defense. Also, what was the point of the military covering up and not collaborating the real WMD story? Trying to hurt some agency, political leader or Collin Powell?
The article and my lefty associates now try to say it was “new production” now old stock piles. Dead is dead, and these things definitely could do that.
The Bush lied thing is almost a religion to a lot of these pigeons. That is want made the NYT article so fascinating to me. Why did they bother with it? What is their game?
of course he was right!
The left just politicized the war for political advantage, like the traitors they are!
I remember when this same news papers were excoriating GW because of this same WMD. Our troops did find these WMD, and left it up to the Iraqis to destroy them. Ooops! Just goes to show you, that if you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself.
NYT crosses the line.
The left begins demonizing the NYT...3...2...1!
Do people still read the NYT?
No. They didn’t.
Pity we didn’t have a real POSTUS back then (Reagan). He never would have taken us into that nightmare on trumped up BS.
I was in a discussion last week with someone here about Iraqi WMD’s and I recall he (maybe she) continued the usual line that they were not there and that the Bush administration either lied or were themselves misled into using their existence as a justification for the 2003 invasion. I can see mistrusting the CIA on things but when Mossad, MI6, and both the French and German intelligence services concur on something it’s probably a safe bet. I am still waiting on the press to acknowledge the well documented effort by the Russians to move the bulk of Saddam’s arsenal out of Iraq to, again reportedly, Syria during the 14 months of haggling at the UN and in Congress. IIRC, that came out of an interview with a retired Russian intelligence chief.
Hillary voted for the Iraq War resolution.
NYT is trying to innoculate Hillary for this.
One would think the left would tire of eating crow.
One would think the left would tire of eating crow.Kinda hard to eat when "The Architect" blocks the waiter from serving the main course.
What is their game? Obama must now go in and fix Bush’s screw ups.
Why did Bush not report it? Maybe they were concerned with how was president when Saddam purchased the weapons? Could have been Daddy Bush?
True
Do you seriously believe that the MSM would not have pushed back against ANYTHING the Bush admin said about WMD’s? If they found a cache of atomic bombs, the media would still would have found an excuse to say it didn’t matter, i.e., the Bush admin had not claimed that Iraq possessed atomic bombs in the first place.
Rush has a big commentary going on right now about this. He is on fire and doing good.
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