Posted on 10/15/2014 4:49:02 AM PDT by xzins
The New York Times...details U.S. forces in Iraq finding thousands of chemical weapons during the Iraq war. "From 2004 to 2011...troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule," "In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Politics is the art of the possible. The man has been branded (’selected not elected’) by the ‘Progressives’ in this country. No matter what he had to say, they’re against it. I’m amused that many so called conservatives engage in the same game. Do we really become like that which we loathe?
I’m not defending him. But just consider where we would be if the other half of this once great nation (who are the real enemy) had had their way with Gore or Kerry.
I do as well. The spin the article imparts is that this information was "suppressed" by the government and the Pentagon but in fact very little of it was actually classified. It was, however, ignored or dismissed by the media.
As several have already pointed out, this is not new news. It is truly amazing how the incessant pounding of the "Saddam never had WMDs" meme has resulted in that entirely erroneous conviction taking hold within the American public, especially that part of it that wants hard to believe "Bush lied, people died" because it's easier than the more complicated truth. That is the effect of successful propaganda, and is another black mark on the ledger of the MSM.
If one does buy this story one is left wondering why Bush would cover up what is clearly exculpatory evidence. Some of it falls under OPSEC, to be sure, inasmuch as you don't want to point out freshly discovered weapons caches in the middle of a hot war. But in large measure, he didn't cover it up. Media such as the NY Times did for their own political reasons, and now are attempting to blame the victim.
That's the reason this story is appearing when it is. Presence of chemical weapons in Iraq can no longer be dismissed as old, outdated, trivial, or nonexistent. But the media who spiked the stories then can still pretend that they didn't know and blame Bush for that. Never mind that the dates in the story are 2008, 2011, etc, and "the government" and "the Pentagon" who supposedly suppressed the information were firmly in the hands of the 0bama administration. People with a vested interest in believing the Big Lie will not notice that. And apparently they haven't.
I just sent this article to a very liberal friend who’s mantra has been,”Bush lied,people died”.
The response,if I get any,should be interesting.
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About where we are now, only with less total debt.
America is easy to understand. There’s them. And there’s us. Them are the wealthy and elites from both parties.
The Times article says these were very old rusted and decaying nerve gas shells from the Iranian war and were barried and inert. They were known by the inspectors in 2003. There were no WMD after 1991 that were usable. I guess the pentagon had troops digging them up and some got sick. This would be very bad “pr” for the Pentagon that these old decayed shells would be mishandled and heads would roll. The assertion by the Bush administration that Iraq had WMD manufacturing in 2003 was patently false. Collin Powell showed “Mobile Labs “ that were actually weather balloon trucks. At the end of the article they conclude that anyone that tries to fill in the blank on WMD from these old rusted shell casings gets 4 pinocchios.
And? I hadn't contested it. I said you didn't understand the portions you referenced.
Your point of Anthrax already being in Iraq is misses the point of weapons exportation from the US.
My point was that these weren't weapons exportations, they were medical and medical research register samples.
Sure, Iraq could have harvested such Bacillus, but there was no need, for We helped to supply them. And later, such ownership of Bacillus was used as a Casus belli!
And...missed the point again...and mis-stated as a "Casus belli!" It wasn't that Iraq had ever had them, it was that they were attempting to weaponize anthrax (regardless of its source), and as a result of eventually using chemical weapons and then threatening further use, at the ceasefire of a war they lost agreed to be rid of entire categories, of which anthrax cultures were an example, of weapons and weaponizable materials, and were not to engage in even research into those areas.
Our troops were sent into Iraq in Desert Storm and received either chemical, biological, or both attacks. The administration denied it despite the fact we had troops coming home medically messed up for unknown reasons that held no other explanation. Was Saddam in possession of Yellow Cake? Possibly up till months or even weeks before our second invasion. We told them we were coming. My guess is one nation knew for certain and that was Israel.
On Sept 11, 2001 we were attacked in acts of war by foreign nationals none of which IIRC were Iraqi. Yet no country of those nationalities likely received so much as a stern memo.
Cole was attack and for reasons IMO that defy any logic the ship was two days from other ships and fueling in a known bad port instead of at sea. Again Yemen suffered no stern punishment. Strength in numbers protocol was broken. Using Suez encouraged it.
Deals have been made including locating a USN shipyard in UAE. If you want to know the inter-workings of any ship the yards is the place. Subic Bay was previously used for most needed repairs.
Here's the whole thing that's the kicker IMO. War? It can only be done with success IF the ones sending troops into battle have a will to win. As big a socialist FDR was on all other issues he understood war. It can't be kind nor the hands of the troops tied or restrained. You can't say kill then turn around and Court Martial for same. War on the receiving end of the loss as such is usually a judgement. How to fight and win in war was taught in the book of Joshua. Barbaric some may say but that's the whole point. The seriousness should be fully considered before declaring it and indeed I'm a firm believer in a congressional declaration being required by congress. Once declared unleash the troops into combat with unrestrained prejudice and thank the troops when they return.
Night three of Gulf War Two it was obvious what we were doing. Our method and agenda was wrong and today we as a nation pay. Iraq's total infrastructure should have been leveled. Every power plant, bridge, factory, communications facility, runway, etc. We sent a wrong message actually several. Our congress and POTUS lacked the will of allowing a full military operation to be completed. It got worse. Our troops came under persecution by Iraqi nationals with the likes of Murtha making certain troops rotted in the Brig until Court Martial.
We brought prisoners to GITMO. OK fine. After our INTEL people were finished Military Tribunals should have been held. Those there should have been tried before the 2008 election. Saddam should have also been executed by U.S. Armed Forces. He wasn't because were were engaged in a much bigger mistake. Nation Building. Instead the new government executed him.
Nation building in a nation where it's culture has been one of ongoing wars and religious extremism behind many of the tribal fights is insanity. Now for a third time our troops face an armed Iraq we armed.
If we had leveled Iraq at Gulf War One many events that followed may have been prevented. This goes back to the Ford administration and Carter as well where they signed E.O. prohibiting the assassination of ones considered heads of state. That EO Green Lighted state sponsored terrorism. If a person goes back and looks at timelines of terrorist attacks this began that era. We included thugs like Arafat, Saddam, and others in this. Our Constitution doesn't prohibit the taking out of a foreign leader and means was written in it as an alternative to full scale war.
I hate to say it about Iraq but it quickly became a huge Payola for contractors. Bush in the Bush/Gore debate blasted Clinton/Gore for nation building yet we immediate did the same. National culture means everything. In Japan there was something there to work with. In the Middle East there will never be peace until The Lord Himself returns and brings the final conclusion.
The majority of comments in the NYT is, “these are old WMD’s left over from 1991, so Bush lied about Saddam producing new chemical weapons.
But, the truth is, all those stockpiles were supposed to have been destroyed under the UN post-war agreement after Gulf War 1. Saddam did not destroy them, he refused to allow UN inspectors verify that they were destroyed, and he obviously was determined to rebuild his WMD capability - (and don’t forget the tons of yellow cake uranium we discovered and removed).
Saddam was a threat prior to 9/11, but after 9/11, we had to take him out. We couldn’t let him do what he wanted. We had just been hit hard on our own soil. We could no longer look the other way.
He has made some public appearances. But he doesn’t like the limelight. He feels like he had his place in the sun. He also felt that he shouldn’t publicly criticize the current administration. Many people see this as being classy.
I love liberals, now claiming that Bush lied because Saddam didn’t have a working WMD program and the WMDs were old... As if getting shelled with chemical weapons built in 1991 would end up with a different result than if you got shelled with chemical weapons built in 2001.
And then there’s that little thing about those UN Sanctions where Saddam wasn’t supposed to have a single WMD.
We only heard from Ford at Convention time where he was King RINO actually Ford was "W"s mentor which may explain a a lot. Bush was not the Texan Conservative Republicans and media portrayed him to be. The Bush family is Northeast seaboard Ivy League LIBERAL.
"W" mostly told the truth but people didn't want to hear it. He said he and Gore were not that far apart on most issues and indeed they really weren't. He put a Liberal RINO in as head of the EPA for starters. A past failed Sec of Defense as well. The one who started us into the hollow Carter years. What was already a mess grew worse under Carter.
The Bush family politics is Elitist Liberal. They have little use for Conservatives except election time. They in general have more in common with Clinton & even Obama policies than Reagan.
"W" should have focused less on his trade deals likely spawned from family being tied too the US Chamber Of Commerce. I don't think he knew what he was really doing in Iraq and the advisers he had was from the Nixon/Ford years so how was there going to be a success? Thus what should have been a one year mission became bogged down by the same issues of previous post WW2 wars.
W was way too Saudi friendly when he should have been focusing all efforts on getting us away from dependence on foreign policy. With tow GOP Houses there was no excuse. There was no excuse none whatsoever for not building up our military again. That did not happen either. End Troops Strength Numbers tell the story. But this was the same issues from Poppy - Obama. Obama panders to M.E. even more so.
W does have a book out evidently I saw it at Wally World yesterday. I don't believe the Bush family has that many complaints about Obama policy. They may not like him personally but that's about the extent of it. I doubt W was drinking or drugging. He just surrounded himself in Yes Men Idiots.
I don’t think Bush covered up anything. He said in his memoir, Decision Points, that not finding WMD’s in iraq was one of his greatest regrets. He knew about the chemical weapons. We knew about the chemical weapons. The MSM knew about the chemical weapons.
The issue is not that anyone covered up the existence of chemical weapons. It’s that the Left decided that the term “WMD” could be used only when referring to nuclear stockpiles. We didn’t find any of those because they had been moved across the border into Syria and elsewhere. Now that they’re in power and need public buy-in for boots on the ground, Iraq suddenly has WMD’s.
Liberal perfidy, as usual.
One of the root causes of the strength of RINOism in America is the 1984 election.
Reagan had to pick an establishment Republican in 1980... well, at least it’s understandable that he believed he had to have one in 1980.
But he didn’t need Bush in 1984. I’m sure he knew that. Of course, he didn’t want to look disloyal, but still I wonder if he considered picking someone more conservative. Who would that have been?
Anyway, it’s a tragedy for our nation that Bush 41 was VP in 1988 and the inheritor of the Reagan mantle. A tragedy of major proportions.
One thing is certain it will take more than a wise POTUS to fix this mess. We need someone leading at least the house or senate as well that’s just as wise. The nonsense of it beings someones turn to be SML or SOH needs to stop. They need to earn and deserve it. Loyalty to their oath and this nation should determine it.
Much of this is not new. Read about these WMD finds and some related illnesses years ago.
What you did not read about were the green C/B weapons- suits my son and his squad seized on the eastern Euphrates bank area in the Hindaya city area after Operation Peach was finished on April 3, 2003 (54th Engineers Battalion with the 299th MRB Company out of Ft. Belvoir, Va).
Unfortunately my son did not have a camera with him and was too busy taking care of surrendering Iraqi Army regulars who quit after seeing the famed Republican Guard tank divisions blown to hell.
Some other chemicals were seized around Iraq, including about 50 pounds of cyanide powder (there were photos and articles on this seizure).
Saddam had chemical weapons from the Iraq-Iran war, the attacks on the Kurds, and from traditional military caches (1980s and 90s). The fact that he did not use them on our forces during OIF was due to the fact that we would have nuked him.
My father was a CWS officer during WW2 and his unit sent Poison Gas shells to Australian depots incase the Japanese used gas during the upcoming planned invasion of their country.
Just because something is not used doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We still do not know what was in the reportedly Russian escorted convoys from Iraqi weapons depots to Syria immediately before OIF began.
BT, President Bush did not make his case. I wouldn’t have cared what other said. If the troops had found even one WMD, then I’d have been telling their story.
They are playing fast and loose with the facts NYRep. I agree with you. My sense is that a loaded, weaponized old sarin gas artillery round or missile is still deadly.
Check the regional map: I’m pretty certain the idea was for us to have substantial forces, or at least friendly bases to operate from, in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
I always figured the real reasons we went into Iraq, with intent to stick around, were:
Strategic presence in the region (bracket Iran.)
Taking out Saddam AND his military meant that we did not have to try to take out Libya or (even more importantly) Iran and Pakistan. Basically, a message had to be sent, and due to Iraq’s location, and weakness, it was the best choice. You mention containing Kaddafi - but most of that was accomplished by swiftly crushing Saddam’s army and pulling Saddam out of his spider hole.
We (and most other countries) really did think Saddam’s WMD capacity was dangerous, and the only way to actually neutralize it without causing tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties was to go in and hunt it down methodically, without the interference of counter efforts by the Iraqis.
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