Posted on 06/30/2006 6:13:55 PM PDT by FairOpinion
U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon presided over a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday in which the commander of the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) acknowledged that the degraded chemical munitions revealed in last week’s report constitute weapons of mass destruction.
While the usefulness of the approximately 500 pre-Gulf War munitions is disputed by weapons experts, Weldon said in his opening statement their discovery over the past three years justifies the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime.
"I want to be absolutely clear about what we are talking about here. These 500 chemical munitions are weapons of mass destruction," said Weldon, R-7, of Thornbury. "Some may want to play down the significance of this report or even deny that WMD have been found in Iraq."
Weldon ... indicating that during his next trip to Iraq he would question military leaders on potential WMD sites that have yet to be searched.
Thursday’s hearing was in response to an April 2006 intelligence report that was partially declassified last week and released by U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra. The declassified section of the report said the projectiles preceded the 1991 Gulf War and contained degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.
(Excerpt) Read more at zwire.com ...
you asked:
He does?<.i>
What planet to you live on? LOL
YES, he does!
A newspaper does NOT
Thanks for the link and the translation.
Plans To Produce Prohibited Chemical Weapons Precursors
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1657480/posts
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday, the Defense Intelligence Agency head, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, said that although the Iraqi chemical weapons were in degraded condition, they were still "a danger in Iraq for those who could come in contact with them." Use "outside of Iraq could not be ruled out," he added.
The NGIC commander, Col. John Chiu, testified that "regardless of the purity . . . any remaining agent is toxic, with potential to be lethal."
The ISG's 2004 Duelfer Report documented Saddam's ability and willingness to use chemical weapons again. Among the findings:
• Saddam's government intended to resume all banned weapons programs once sanctions against Iraq were lifted.
• Saddam considered chemical warfare "a proven weapon against an enemy's superior numerical strength, a weapon that had saved the nation at least once already — during the Iran-Iraq War — and . . . deterred the coalition in 1991 from advancing to Baghdad."
• The U.N.'s oil-for-food program "sparked a flow of illicitly diverted funds that could be applied to . . . Iraq's chemical industry."
• "The way Iraq organized its chemical industry after the mid-1990s allowed it to conserve the knowledge base needed to restart a CW (chemical weapons) program."
• Hardware found by the ISG "suggests that Iraq may have prototyped experimental CW rounds."
• The head of the Iraqi paramilitary force tried to obtain chemical weapons for use during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
• The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) from 1991 to 2003 maintained "a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations." Those labs could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue R&D or small CW production.
• Saddam's IIS program used human subjects for testing.
"Yes, the President does have the authority to declassify information."
Am I mistaken, or didn't the President give that authority to VP Cheney, as well?
I seem to remember something like that.
Maybe it was all a dream. ;o)
IMHO, twelve years of VIOLATING the Articles of Surrender from Desert Storm, was MUCH MORE than enough to RESUME hostilities of the GULF WAR.
If you throw in Saddam's connection to AQ, his aid to suicide bombers, Salman Pak, WMD laying around for terrorists to take, and the 300,000 he tortured and executed, ONLY the LEFTISTS beyond redemption living in never-never land, believe we were wrong to invade.
Yes, he did. CNN covered it and Sam Pender has a link for it if you can get ahold of him.
From Media Research Center http://www.mrc.org/contactMRC/contactMRCwelcome.asp alert@mrcaction.org
I need you to see how MSNBC's Keith Olbermann mocked and
ridiculed you and Brent Bozell on his show Countdown
last night.
Click here to see the outrageous clip:
http://newsbusters.org/node/6168
Ronald, just this past Tuesday, we urged members of
our team to email key media outlets--including MSNBC,
urging them to report the truth about the Weapons of
Mass Destruction found in Iraq.
From the clip Olbermann mocks the MRC Action Team saying,
we sent him "literally dozens of impotent emails that
make everybody here laugh."
Truth is, Olbermann received 8,109 emails--not the dozens
he reported. Could it be that Olbermann's inability to
report the truth--even in this instance is the reason
why his show Countdown is all but down for the count?
++Email Keith Olbermann
In the wake of Olbermann's actions, I'm urging every member
of our team to email him once again and let him know what
you think about his dismissing of WMD, and referring to
those of us who want the truth as "sheep."
Here's his email address:
Countdown@msnbc.com
And after emailing Olbermann, I'd like you to call his
boss Steve Capus and let him know what you think about
Olbermann's arrogant and disrespectful attitude toward
viewers.
Here's his direct phone number: 212-664-3228
If you cannot get through, call MSNBC's main office:
201-583-5000
------
Email Ltr to Keith Olbermann, MSNBC
Olbermann,
In regard to your reported response to MRC - Media Research Center - and our emails, including one from me, regarding minimalization - belittling, pooh-poohing - of stories about WMDs in Iraq and other truths about the war Islamists have declared on the world, esp. the US, and been pursuing at least since the 1970s, I am about to give you a wake-up call of further useful information for those wise enough to use it.
First, only to the matter of WMDs in Iraq, Saddam had, was pursuing further and was lying about his possession of and intents for the use of WMDs. As has been said, just ask the Kurds or the thousands of Shiites - Shi'a - that he killed with chemical weapons - WMDs in Iraq. I have not heard said but urge you and other doubting naysayers, humorists to ask also the Iranians in that most horrible of wars, perhaps also the Kuwaitis, and the coalition forces of the Gulf War as well as the present battles in Iraq since March 2003, and the Israelis and Saudis attacked by SCUDs in the Gulf War. Fortunately Saddam was not foolish enough to use WMDs, chems, bios or anything other than conventional weapons in the Gulf War. He did though do all the other things I have listed, including attacking Israel who had cautiously stayed out of the war as an overt participant.
Get it, Olbermann! Arabs do not recognize Israel and want it wiped off the map, all Jews killed, which Hitler failed to do in the WWII Holocaust and quite a few before him. Many Arab spokespersons have said many of these things time after time orally or in much more violent ways.
Perhaps you and your staff, even your bosses have not been listening or hearing anyway. Perhaps you were taking a nap, out having a drink, enjoying some other of your jokes on 9/11/2001. Lots of us weren't doing those things that day, did not before and have not since on these matters.
I encourage you also to look into the train "wreck" in North Korea near the Chinese border a few years ago as reported in more reliable public news media than yours.
See if you can find out if there were Syrians on the train and NK missiles. Ask also if the missiles were to be used maybe by the Syrians to match up with WMDs they had received from Iraq prior to, leading right up to if not beyond March 2003. See if you can couple that with another public news media report about WMDs found by Syrian "security forces" in Syria at about that same time.
Also check into Migs found buried in the sand in Iraq by coalition forces, after we had believed they were destroyed on the ground, in their bunkers and in the air during the Gulf War.
Although there is more, like testimony of Iraqi officials - pooh-poohed, murder of them as messengers by ad hominem attacks on them - and reports from coalition forces during their drive to Baghdad, elsewhere in Iraq in March 2003.
In other words, connect the dots, laughing boy and your giggling staff. You have a responsibility to yourself, the US and world publics to do these things as a "journalist." Not to do so is an abrogation of your duties and responsibilities that go along inseparable from freedom of the press.
We might also deal with the truths of Saddam-Taliban/al-Qaeda/other terrorist connections and harboring long before and leading up to and since March 2003. Among these evidences as examples are terrorists connected with terror attacks in the 1970s/80s/90s and since the turn of the century.
Among them, I believe you might find, are terrorists involved in the Achille Lauro hijacking and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The latter went to Iraq at least as early as 2002 and at Saddam's invitation to organize, lead Muslim, principally Sunni, terrorists in Iraq. Take a look also at some of the background and history of that worthy Jordanian citizen and his activities since near childhood in his homeland where he was under two death warrants even before the hotel bombings in Amman recently.
Dots - dots - dots, Olbermann connect them, then tell me and the US public, the world your honest, truthful findings. That is your duty, responsibility and obligation as a journalist. If you fulfill those you might do a lot to preserve not only freedom of the press but also the MSNBC bottomline and possibly even restore some credibility in US media.
Actually it vindicates President Bush and the foreign and domestic intelligence agencies who documented these weapons that Saddam didn't account for, even though he was required to account for under 17 United Nations resolutions that he skirted around.
Though they may technically qualify as WMD, this was not the type of WMD on which the case for the war was made, and we would not have invaded if our real reason was simply these lame shells.
These weapons were part of a larger cache of weapons that, according to British and American intelligence, still exist, and have yet to be found.
These munitions were not a bona fide material threat to US. All this excitement over a few old shells just looks like desparation and detracts from the genuine reasons for the war.
That's just your opinion.
Yes, the President has the authority to declassify information at any time. Bill Keller, who is executive editor of The New York Times, does not have the authority to declassify classified military information under any circumstance.
We should also remember taht we have investigated less than one percent of the sites at which it is thought there may have been weapons of mass destruction.
One question...in a typical artillary assault with chemical munitions, how many shells would be mixed in with regular explosives during the assault?
If 500 sarin gas shells were shot at regular intervals, how much territory would be covered by gas under ideal temperature, wind, and humidity conditions?
This sounds to me like a serious threat. Like maybe if you found 500 gang members spread throughout the country, it is no threat, but if you oput them all in southern LA, it could be a problem.
I can remember that being reported on ABC radio back when the war started. There were the chemical suits found (as you mention) plus, there was some kind of mustard or sarin gas chemicals dumped in the Euphrates river. Not only that, there were reports (on ABC-radio) that ALQ militants were fighting ALONG side Saddams troops.
This was just 2 to 4 days into the war.
You're an idiot. Leave. How does it make the Republican look stupid when the Democrats have been saying "he never had them"??
So if they discover more and more? I suppose Saddam "never knew about them" either? Stop reading AP and UPI.
Good 2004 post Pickrell...Thanks! I may plagerize it some day!
The president has the authority to declassify top secret materials. The legalities are not the hinderance. it is the disclsoure of sources and methods that is the problem. For example, they could introduce the WMD as an exhibit at trial (such as a photograph, and scientific tests of the contents, etc.) but the chain of custody and original location would need to be revealed, unless the defendant stipulated that that information need not be produced.
Is there no way for the court or jury to review taht evidence in secret without having the information published as part of the trial, as long as the defense is permnitted access?
Yes, the VP does have the authority.
Need more links to these stories to convince the wife who "listens to the lame street press"....
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