Posted on 10/14/2014 8:07:35 PM PDT by ironman
The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.
The New York Times found 17 American service members and seven Iraqi police officers who were exposed to nerve or mustard agents after 2003. American officials said that the actual tally of exposed troops was slightly higher, but that the governments official count was classified. The secrecy fit a pattern. Since the outset of the war, the scale of the United States encounters with chemical weapons in Iraq was neither publicly shared nor widely circulated within the military. These encounters carry worrisome implications now that the Islamic State, a Qaeda splinter group, controls much of the territory where the weapons were found.
The American government withheld word about its discoveries even from troops it sent into harms way and from military doctors. The governments secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the wars most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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How many of us here on FR said WMD were in Syria back in the day?
Thanks for the clarification.
Plenty made that claim but so far there is no way to know if that’s what happened.
Depending on the type of WMD involved we should have found evidence of it remaining in Iraq. Precursors, manufacturing equipment, a lab properly configured, something like that. The only WMDs we know Saddam definitely to have possessed are chemical artillery shells.
The problem with most of the WMD claims leading up to Gulf War II is that they came from Ahmed Chalabi who turned out to be a con man.
I’m sure they were there.
Remember Hans Blix and all the theater about searching for these weapons?
Remember how the places he searched had some kind of notice a day or two prior and then voila! no WMD.
Of course they were moved.
Remember Whoraldo Rivera drawing troop movements in the sand on live teevee?
I’m still mad about that one.
Remember how the places he searched had some kind of notice a day or two prior and then voila! no WMD.
In a couple of cases with more notice, the entire facility was gone.
Bump
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