That photo was taken by a military satellite as Iraq moved the WMDs to Syria.
Let's go back to Oct 17 2014,
Rove’s Incredible WMD Miscalculation
"... So in the midst of it we now learn there were weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons and so forth that were found, military people are coming out of the woodwork now admitting it. They were told to put a lid on it back then because the Bush administration didn’t want to go back in time. They had a philosophy in the White House: Never respond to criticism. Never defend yourself against any criticism no matter what happens because that’ll just prolong the story. They had a belief, just let it go because the news cycle will take care of it. “Okay, they’re calling us chumps today, but there will be a new story tomorrow and everybody will forget about it.”
That’s not what happened. All of these charges and all of these allegations just piled on, one on top of another, and it became a full-fledged indictment and an allegation against the entire premise of the Iraq war. And over half of this country was talked into literal hatred for the administration, for the military, for the war, and even to a certain extent the War on Terror. And it was unnecessary. And Rove has even admitted now that one of the big mistakes he made strategically while he was chief of staff of the White House was letting some of these allegations day to day, whatever they were, not just about the Iraq war, but let ’em all go by and not comment on it. And he’s absolutely right about that.
But this one is particularly damaging because those five years of pounding, the five years of never-ending charges that Bush lied, people died, you got the books and the movies on how to assassinate Bush. The disrespect that was foisted upon the US military. The illegitimacy of their existence. The illegitimacy of the mission. The illegitimacy of the Bush administration, and all of that was allowed to happen because somebody decided to not report that they had indeed found weapons of mass destruction. Man, what a miscalculation. And I know the strategy. I mean, I know the theory. Sometimes I employ it myself here. Somebody will tell me about a newspaper story or a website story on me in some penny saver type publication. “You better respond to that!”
And then there's this from Feb 2, 2006 :
Saddam Sent WMD to Syria, Former General Alleges
"... "[Saddam] said 'Okay, Iraq is going to do an air bridge to help Syria," Sada recounted. Two commercial jets, a 747 and 727, were converted to cargo jets, in order to carry raw materials and equipment related to WMD projects, Sada said. The passenger seats, galleys, toilets and storage compartments were removed and new flooring was installed, he claimed. Hundreds of tons of chemicals were reportedly included in the cargo shipments.
"They used to do two sorties a day," said Sada. "Fifty-six sorties were done between Baghdad and Damascus."
Sada said he obtained the information from two Iraq Airways captains who were reportedly flying the sorties. "They came immediately and they told me," said Sada.
This is not the first time that the possibility of a transfer of WMDs from Iraq to Syria has been raised. Two years ago, U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, (R-Kan), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence acknowledged that "there is some concern that shipments of WMD went to Syria." No details were forthcoming. The claims have also been made by the U.S.-based Reform Party of Syria.
Sada told Cybercast News Service that he has not been debriefed by U.S. officials regarding his allegations that Saddam smuggled WMDs to Syria. He anticipates, now that his book has been released, that he will be meeting with U.S. officials regarding the information.
U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, plans to meet with Sada to discuss the allegations. "The chairman has read General Sada's book and talked to Retired Col. (David) Eberly," said Jamal Ware, communications director for the committee. "He will meet with General Sada to hear first-hand him laying out the case that this transferal may have happened."
There is "no doubt" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, according to Eberly. He adds that Sada's book is "evidence" of that. Eberly's F-15E jet was shot down on Jan. 19, 1991, the third day of the first Persian Gulf War. He credits Sada with saving his life after the Iraqi general refused an order from one of Saddam's sons to execute Eberly and 23 other pilots who had been taken as prisoners of war.
"[Saddam] said 'Okay, Iraq is going to do an air bridge to help Syria," Sada recounted. Two commercial jets, a 747 and 727, were converted to cargo jets, in order to carry raw materials and equipment related to WMD projects, Sada said. The passenger seats, galleys, toilets and storage compartments were removed and new flooring was installed, he claimed. Hundreds of tons of chemicals were reportedly included in the cargo shipments.
"They used to do two sorties a day," said Sada. "Fifty-six sorties were done between Baghdad and Damascus."
Sada said he obtained the information from two Iraq Airways captains who were reportedly flying the sorties. "They came immediately and they told me," said Sada.
This is not the first time that the possibility of a transfer of WMDs from Iraq to Syria has been raised. Two years ago, U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, (R-Kan), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence acknowledged that "there is some concern that shipments of WMD went to Syria." No details were forthcoming. The claims have also been made by the U.S.-based Reform Party of Syria.
Sada told Cybercast News Service that he has not been debriefed by U.S. officials regarding his allegations that Saddam smuggled WMDs to Syria. He anticipates, now that his book has been released, that he will be meeting with U.S. officials regarding the information.
U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, plans to meet with Sada to discuss the allegations. "The chairman has read General Sada's book and talked to Retired Col. (David) Eberly," said Jamal Ware, communications director for the committee. "He will meet with General Sada to hear first-hand him laying out the case that this transferal may have happened."
There is "no doubt" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, according to Eberly. He adds that Sada's book is "evidence" of that. Eberly's F-15E jet was shot down on Jan. 19, 1991, the third day of the first Persian Gulf War. He credits Sada with saving his life after the Iraqi general refused an order from one of Saddam's sons to execute Eberly and 23 other pilots who had been taken as prisoners of war. ..."
Oh, don't forget our 17 American Service Member injured with WMDs in Iraq:
- The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons
" ... From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi 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, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
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 government’s 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 harm’s way and from military doctors. The government’s secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the war’s most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds.
“I felt more like a guinea pig than a wounded soldier,” said a former Army sergeant who suffered mustard burns in 2007 and was denied hospital treatment and medical evacuation to the United States despite requests from his commander.
Congress, too, was only partly informed, while troops and officers were instructed to be silent or give deceptive accounts of what they had found. “ 'Nothing of significance’ is what I was ordered to say,” said Jarrod Lampier, a recently retired Army major who was present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war: more than 2,400 nerve-agent rockets unearthed in 2006 at a former Republican Guard compound.
Jarrod L. Taylor, a former Army sergeant on hand for the destruction of mustard shells that burned two soldiers in his infantry company, joked of “wounds that never happened” from “that stuff that didn’t exist.” The public, he said, was misled for a decade. “I love it when I hear, ‘Oh there weren’t any chemical weapons in Iraq,’ ” he said. “There were plenty.”
Rear Adm. John Kirby, spokesman for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, declined to address specific incidents detailed in the Times investigation, or to discuss the medical care and denial of medals for troops who were exposed. But he said that the military’s health care system and awards practices were under review, and that Mr. Hagel expected the services to address any shortcomings.
“The secretary believes all service members deserve the best medical and administrative support possible,” he said. “He is, of course, concerned by any indication or allegation they have not received such support. His expectation is that leaders at all levels will strive to correct errors made, when and where they are made.”
The discoveries of these chemical weapons did not support the government’s invasion rationale. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush insisted that Mr. Hussein was hiding an active weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of international will and at the world’s risk. United Nations inspectors said they could not find evidence for these claims. ..."