Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq (no WMD, huh?)

FNC ^ | 5-17-04

[jmstein7]

A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent (search) recently exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday.

Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas (search) was also recently discovered.

Two people were treated for "minor exposure" after the sarin incident but no serious injuries were reported. Soldiers transporting the shell for inspection suffered symptoms consistent with low-level chemical exposure, which is what led to the discovery, a U.S. official told Fox News.

"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy."

[Dr. Frank fan]

Someone please tell me why is the burden of proof on George W Bush?

Because there is an (R) after his name.

[cwb]

"We went to war because we were 45 minutes away from a chemical attack, nuclear attack,"

Hmm...and these people call Foxnews viewers misinformed. This specific claim was made from the other side of the pond as Bush never even intimated such a threat.

"...and Saddam was supposedly giving arms to terrorists."

This is intersting since I have now seen reports that the weapons caches being found in Iraq are more than twice the size of our own militaries. Considering Saddam doesn't even have a military this size, or that many people whom he could trust, it is logical to conclude that these "arms" were being given to terrorists. Heck, with people like Nidal (and his ANO group) and Abbas (his PLO group) calling Iraq home, the conclusion is pretty obvious. Throw in Zarqawi with Ansar Al Islam and the Egytpian Islamic Jihad...and you have the trifecta of terrorist groups training in Iraq. Hello...are these people brain-dead?

"That has all turned out to be a lie."

No...it hasn't

"We have created more terrorists in the last year than we could have ever imagined existing prior to this mess."

No...we just happen to have them in one location from where we can now kill them. Saddam's Iraq has always been a safe haven for terrorits long before the WOT. Abu Nidal arrived in Iraq around 1999...while Abbas had been offered personal sanctuary by Saddam since around 1994. With the war in Afghanistan (which many Dems supported) it was obvious that Iraq would become more of a haven for these people as they fled Afghanistan looking for a new base.

We saw this as Zarqawi's first stop after Iran, was to help in establishing the newly formed Ansar Al Islam in N. Iraq. While this training camp may have techinically been out of Saddam's "region," the fact that Zarqawi spent up to two months in Baghdad indicates some collusion may be involved. Heck, it was Saddam who offered santuary to UBL in 1999...as reported by the MEDIA. To ignore these facts, would be worse than what they claimed Bush ignored prior to the 9/11 attacks. It is simply amazing the blinders both liberals and the media have when it comes to these threats.

[Dr. Frank fan]

Here is the bottom line. There are no WMDs in Iraq and there never will be. That is a foregone conclusion by the enemies of the United States, including much of our media. It does not matter what we find. There are no WMDs in Iraq.

Gotta agree with you.

By the criteria we have seen in effect, there is literally no possible way information or evidence can surface which would make the "conventional wisdom" flip to "yes there were WMDs". None. All possible future developments will be explained away by one means or another. All of them.

[b4its2late]

Kennedy is a good swimmer too don't forget. He's simply NOT a good lifeguard.

[B Knotts]

Ah HA!

[b4its2late]

Ok, maybe they'll be sweating bullets when it finally sinks in.....

[Warrior Nurse]

Damn! how could I have overlooked that. Phooey on me for thinking the media and the demoncRATS would have a modicum of common sense. Thanks for pointing that out.

[blanknoone]

The presstitute wing of the DemonRat party will keep the goalposts steadily moving. No matter what is found, it won't be WMD. This will be disregarded as 'only one' and there for not a 'stockpile' or serious threat.

[Dr. Frank fan]

[45 minutes] Hmm...and these people call Foxnews viewers misinformed. This specific claim was made from the other side of the pond as Bush never even intimated such a threat.

Tell me about it. I get a chuckle out of how lefties seemingly can't tell the difference between the UK and the US. Blair said to Brits, Bush said to Americans, what's the diff!

For that matter I'm not even sure the DU's statement is correct about Blair. As I recall, Blair (or whatever Blair admin. official made the "45 minutes" claim) merely had said that the CW could be "deployed" within 45 minutes. As in, on a battlefield. The claim was never that those CW could be delivered to the UK territory by missile in 45 minutes! (correct me if I'm wrong.)

Not that Bush's case for war rests on something Tony Blair did or did not say to his subjects, in the first place....

["...and Saddam was supposedly giving arms to terrorists."] Considering Saddam doesn't even have a military this size, or that many people whom he could trust, it is logical to conclude that these "arms" were being given to terrorists.

Seeing as how Saddam is known to have welcomed Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq to fight alongside Iraq forces prior to the US invasion, this talking-point should have been retired about 10 train stations back. (But it won't be, of course.)

Throw in Zarqawi

Talking point here is: "he's not really Al Qaeda", aren't you paying attention? ;-)

with Ansar Al Islam

Talking point here: "they were in the no fly zone which Saddam didn't control".

(Why not being able to FLY in a zone would prevent Saddam from arming/aiding a bunch of terrorists on the ground in that zone, has never been explained to me.)

It is simply amazing the blinders both liberals and the media have when it comes to these threats.

I've long since ceased being amazed by it ;-)

[1Old Pro]

Shhhhhhh...........don't tell the media.

Doesn't matter, they wouldn't report it anyway.

[Dr. Frank fan]

This will be disregarded as 'only one' and there for not a 'stockpile' or serious threat.

Right.

And the great thing about that, from the (D) point of view, is that ALL "stockpiles" can be divided into a sequence of "only ones". If there was a warehouse of CW shells, and each shell was handed out to a different unit for safekeeping, then each unit has "only one". Whether they're hiding it, or sold it, or it fell into the hands of terrorists, it's now "only one" and thus cannot be used to debunk Bush's Lies About WMD. We have to find a "stockpile" which is, a warehouse full of clearly-labeled "WMDs". And there must be proof that they were INTENDED for use as "WMDs" because even some of the nastiest "WMDs" could be INTENDED for use as some kind of pesticide or something...

If all that doesn't work, if need be the bar can be moved to "yes Saddam had all these chemical weapons and stuff but he had no means of delivering them to the continental US". Move those goalposts.

There really is no possible way that we will score a "WMDs found!" goal at this point. The goalposts move at will, at light speed.

[KrispyKringle]

Are you saying that Bush never said that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, or that the burden of proof for *not* having weapons of mass destruction is on Iraq, because they used them in the past and claimed to have them in the past?

If the former, I'd like to point out that this is just plain wrong (``The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. '' --http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4518337-110878,00.html, ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.'' --http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html, etc).

If the latter, I don't fully see the point you are trying to make. Iraq did indeed posses weapons of mass destruction, used chemical weapons against Iranians and Iraqi insurgents (coincidentally, the first use of such weapons was December 1983, about the same time (the 19th and 20th of December) when Donald Rumsfeld was in Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein and initiate a new, friendlier foreign policy towards Iraq (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A52241-2002Dec29&notFound=true)). The point here is that Iraq did indeed have weapons of mass destruction, and that the claim made by Iraq prior to the attack on Iraq *now*, the Iraq War, that is, is that all of those weapons were indeed disposed of under U.N. supervision following the successful Gulf War by George Bush the elder.

So the fact that Iraq did indeed possess such weapons at one time does not, to my perception, make it a logical given that they still have them, nor does it seem to convince a number of analysts, including present and former U.N. weapons inspectors. The use of sarin is indeed compelling, but given that we found no weapons of mass destruction--remember, now, Powell outlined specific points on a satellite photo where we knew for a fact that there were WMDs--up until now, I'm inclined to suspect this as originating from outside of Iraq. The reason for my doubt here is that according to intelligence reports, Iraq never developed the technology necessary for storage and transport of sarin, and instead developed mobile weapons labs that would produce sarin on-the-spot and load it immediately into warheads (http://www.solohq.com/Articles/Reed/After_the_Iraq_War.shtml). Since those labs are almost certainly destroyed or out of commission now, it seems unlikely that any sarin was kept around for so long by the Iraqis, who never had the necessary technology.

[Warrior Nurse]

I was being sarcastic Krispy making lite of the clowns that keep saying there were no WMD's in Iraq when SH himself reported he had them and the UN said that he had the capability to make them. Yet the burden of proof is on the President instead of being place where it should be on Saddam Hussein.

[sully777]

Ted Kennedy: Err aw I NEED A STEEFF DRINK. Chivas straight baaa-keep, and bring the bottle.

Bobby Grand Dragon Byrd: Let me tell you the story of Cain, whom my wife, my dog, and I knew personally...

Hillary to aide: Change my schedule, Have me appear at some military facility reveiwing troops, then give me CNN and the rest. I'll talk about how Bush hasn't helped troops cope with danger, blah blah blah.

Gorelick: Thank God people are forgetting the 9-11 commission.

Bill Clinton: thank God this happened before my book debut.

Tim Russert: Mr. Secratary, I still want an extra 20 minutes...what about WMDs? Why didn't you warn those soldiers?

[firewalk]

Thanks for the ping

[Christian4Bush]

"But the real question is...
Who will say it 1st?
a.Kennedy
b.Hillary
c. Kerry"


D. All of the above, and a few more that aren't listed.

[KrispyKringle]

It seems you're arguing the ``imminent threat'' point, claiming that those words were never Bush's?

For just a few quotes--Google can find you more--on May 7, 2003, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleisher was asked, at a press conference, if Iraq was an ``imminent threat.'' His reply was ``absolutely'' (http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=24970 ).

In a June 27, 2003 interview on National Public Radio (leftist voice that it is), Colin Powell said, "The imminent threat is that suddenly, this biological warfare lab, for example, could have been put to use." This was in reference to alleged mobile weapons laboratories ``that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded . . . were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons'' (http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/ ).

On November 20, 2002, George Bush referred to ``the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq'', ``despite the fact that the U.S. intelligence community had deep divisions and divergent points of view regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. As Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet noted in February 2004, "Let me be clear: analysts differed on several important aspects of these programs and those debates were spelled out in the Estimate. They never said there was an 'imminent' threat''(http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/ ).

[KrispyKringle]

Repeating your previous post does nothing to help your case. I understand your sarcasm, but your point is apparently that since Iraq had--and, indeed, admitted to having--WMDs at one time, it is a logical given that they still had them at the point of invasion. My post was merely in answer to your question of why some people doubt that, and why the burden of proof should be on our President (whether it should or shouldn't be is not something I am weighing in on, personally, but hopefully you can understand why some people think it should be).

As for the sarin shell, it seems that it was indeed Iraqi, but quite old. Whether it was produced before or after Iraq claimed to have no more production taking place I have no idea. While it does lend credence to the administration's claim that not all WMDs were destroyed, it does little to show that Iraq was a danger (as I said before, proper storage of sarin was not something Iraq was capable of; after such a period of time, this shell was no longer particularly dangerous, from the reports I've read). Of course, time will tell.

[atomicpossum]

Our soliders could keep finding shell after shell filled with the most potent and deadlist chemicals and they too will just be set aside by the liberal media, just like the set aside the death of Nick Berg.

And the confessed Jordan/Al Quaida/Syrian Gas Bombing Plot.

[atomicpossum]

The presstitute wing of the DemonRat party will keep the goalposts steadily moving. No matter what is found, it won't be WMD. This will be disregarded as 'only one' and there for not a 'stockpile' or serious threat.

There's still ground to be gained-- Now they can't deny Saddam had them. The question NOW is, how much, and where did they go?

If the GOP talking heads can pin this to the bulletin board, it changes the dimension of the debate. The question to Dems now can be "Okay, how MANY WMDs do you think it was okay for Saddam to have?"