MSNBC- American Troops Have Found A Second Chemical Plant In Iraq

MSNBC | 3/23/03

[kattracks]

Nothing follows.

[Travis McGee]

Oh sure, all countries put their innocent pesticide plants out in the desert, and then go to incredible lengths to camouflage them from the air. That's typical, all innocent pesticide plants are hidden and camouflaged.

[mikegi]

Carolyn Glick on MSNBC now.

She's backpedalling. The facility appeared to be "recently abandoned". No chemical weapons found. Soldiers captured and documents seized. Unfortunately, I don't think this is a smoking gun.

[denydenydeny]

She said the unit she was with knew what the site was, and were looking for it.

[hole_n_one]

JP reporter says that fist site was not "stumbled" upon.....it was a targeted site.

[so_real]

Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post Reporter) is on Fox right now. Unfortunately, she doesn't sound very convincing. There were military officers at the scene but she is self-admittedly unfamiliar with the various insignias and could not identify their rank. Furthermore, she states that the site looked "abandoned" ... Color me confused. I'm not believing or disbelieving anything about this until the chemical crews have made their report.

[Mark]

This is amazing! Just who won best actress?

[babygene]

Your response was too fast. What religon are you?

[kattracks]

Here's the latest on the first find. Sounds like they went to an awful lot of trouble to make sure this "fertilizer" plant wasn't discovered.

Huge Iraqi chemical arms factory found-reports

WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - U.S. forces on Sunday found what they believe to be a "huge" chemical weapons factory near the Iraqi city of Najaf, about 100 miles (160 km) south of Baghdad, U.S. networks and the Jerusalem Post reported.

Fox News and the Jerusalem Post, which had a reporter traveling with the U.S. forces, cited unidentified Pentagon officials as saying the facility was seized by the First Brigade of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division as soldiers advanced north toward Baghdad.

About 30 Iraqi troops, including their commanding general, surrendered to U.S. forces as they overtook the installation, apparently used to produce chemical weapons, the Jerusalem Post reported.

While the Iraqi troops surrendered without a fight, one U.S. soldier was lightly wounded when a booby-trap exploded as he was clearing the sheetmetal-lined facility, the report said.

The 100-acre (40 hectare) complex is adjacent to military barracks and surrounded by an electric fence, the report said.

It was not immediately clear what chemicals were being produced at the facility, but both reports said the Iraqis tried to camouflage the facility so it looked like the surrounding desert and would not be spotted from the air.

ABC News cited one unidentified official as saying of the captured Iraqi general: "He is a potential gold mine of evidence about the weapons Saddam Hussein said he does not have."

Asked to comment on the reports, a Central Command official said in an e-mail: "While media reports are premature, we are looking into sites of interest."

U.S. defense officials urged caution about the reports.

"Confirmation of any (chemical weapons) site would require a thorough investigation and take some time," said one defense official, who asked not to be named. "It may turn out to be a chemical weapons site, or it may be a site that was producing something else."

Earlier on Sunday, U.S. Lt. Gen. John Abizaid told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Qatar that there had been reports that some Iraqi units in the vicinity of Al Kut "may have some type of chemical weapons."

Abizaid refused to confirm the report in the Jerusalem Post about the Najaf discovery.

"I will not confirm that report," he said in response to a question. "We have an Iraqi general officer, two Iraqi general officers that we have taken prisoner, and they are providing us with information."

Fox News reported from the United Nations late on Sunday that U.N. weapons inspectors had been unaware of any factory in the area of Najaf that might be capable of producing chemical weapons, citing a spokesman for the inspectors.

The United States and Britain launched their war on Iraq last week to oust President Saddam Hussein because they said he had stockpiles of banned chemical and biological weapons. (Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in Washington) 03/24/03 00:40 ET

[hole_n_one]

fist s/b first

[CatOwner]

Please read the rest of the posts claiming that there is indeed backpedeling (at least on the part of the press) and let's wait a few days. Then let's come back and discuss it.

[vp_cal]

i did not ever think we would win without casualties.

I even heard Bill Gertz suggest today on the Drudge show
that perhaps we had not allocated enough troops to this war. Those kinds of comments make me uncomfortable.

For those of you who do not know about Bill Gertz,
he is a very good reporter from the Washington Times

[kcvl]

I don't think I understand what you're asking.

A HUGE explosion in Masul with very black smoke.

[ambrose]

Someone wake up Hans Blix.

[Busywhiskers]

The volume of BS coming from all the media outlets is truly astonishing. I'm not going to believe much of anything I read in the press until the administration puts its credibility on the line by announcing or confirming the reports during one of their briefings.

[concerned about politics]

I even heard Bill Gertz suggest today on the Drudge show that perhaps we had not allocated enough troops to this war.

Boston.com....33,000 troops in Texas get call for Gulf duty

[Almondjoy]

Fox was reporting at first that it was a chemical site... about an hour and a half or two hours later they changed it to say "suspected chemical weapons site". Huge difference.

[kcvl]

ABC News cited one unidentified official as saying of the captured Iraqi general: "He is a potential gold mine of evidence about the weapons Saddam Hussein said he does not have."

Asked to comment on the reports, a Central Command official said in an e-mail: "While media reports are premature, we are looking into sites of interest."

U.S. defense officials urged caution about the reports.

"Confirmation of any (chemical weapons) site would require a thorough investigation and take some time," said one defense official, who asked not to be named. "It may turn out to be a chemical weapons site, or it may be a site that was producing something else."

Earlier on Sunday, U.S. Lt. Gen. John Abizaid told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Qatar that there had been reports that some Iraqi units in the vicinity of Al Kut "may have some type of chemical weapons."

[meisterbrewer]

It was not immediately clear what chemicals were being produced at the facility, but both reports said the Iraqis tried to camouflage the facility so it looked like the surrounding desert and would not be spotted from the air.

This "camouflage" issue raises some questions in my mind. First of all, our satellite technology has progressed far beyond simple photographic analysis. We can detect deviations in surface areas to less than an inch, heat generation from heating and manufacturing equipment, gas releases, and so on. I find the whole portion about camouflage netting a red-herring.

I think we knew this was here long before we went into Iraq, but didn't release it to Blix because Iraq could then just explain it away. Better to pretend we didn't know about it, then "discover" it without giving them any warning and a chance to cover it up.

[concerned about politics]

I think we knew this was here long before we went into Iraq, but didn't release it to Blix because Iraq could then just explain it away.

Or Blix would have notified Saddam, and they'd have moved it.

[so_real]

Along the same "back-pedaling" thread ... I keep hearing the term SCUD used in the news. Last I heard, the jury was still out as to whether the missiles taken out by that patriots were indeed SCUDs or not. Has the pentagon confirmed that some of these missiles were indeed SCUDs?