Redstate

As I've followed this "Saddam-was-no-threat-because-he-didn't-have-nukes-after-all" argument (whine?) in the media, I've wondered why no one seemed concerned about the chemical weapons threat Saddam posed.  

Even if Team Blix had been allowed to "scour" the Iraqi desert for months, and been as thorough as he'd ever dreamed, we still would have been left with these realities once Blix was finished:

• Iraq--what Christopher Hitchens called a "cornerstone" state in the Middle East--in the hands of a psycopath who'd used chemical weapons several times in the past.
  
• A scientific infrastructure that could build chemical weapons with the know-how and materials they had on hand.
  
• Delivery systems that could reach Israel and key American allies/interests in the Middle East.  Namely, his SCUDs, some of which he fired at ARCENT HQ during Operation Iraqi Freedom (H/T Block II Patriot).

And, we were supposed to be OK with that?

Rather than simply gripe, let me propose a solution.

Most any veteran remembers the "rabbit" movies we had to watch during chemical defense training.  A rabbit had ONE DROP of chemical agent put on its skin.  Then, we all sat there and watched it die.  A very horrible death.  From ONE DROP.

Actually, there was a practical reason for making us watch such a video.  The Army didn't make it to tweak PETA.  (At least I don't think so).  The chemical agent antidote our soldiers were given was painful to administer.  It used big, painful needles.  The Army was concerned that troop, fearing the needle pain, might hesitate at the wrong time.

Rabbit video = End of hesitation problem.

Perhaps we should show the rabbit video, on TV and the Internet.  And then, ask who'd want THAT kind of threat living next door, or within missile range.

They were made in the late 80s and were buried over 10 years ago.  

This came out two years ago and no one cared then.  Of course, the public perception of the war was a bit different then as well:

The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR200606210
1837.html

Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

from the same WaPo article.

...with anything Crank wrote, then.

Big improvement?

if you had bothered to read the story, at all, you could have saved yourself the embarassment of posting what is in the lede.

with the fact that these weapons are evidence of an ongoing weapons program during the 90s in Iraq.  These are weapons made in the 80s and forgotten about in the early 90s.  The press conference seems like policial maneuvering.

..."nothing to see here, move along."  Or maybe just yawning past the graveyard.

I wouldn't believe that any government could perfectly pull off the elimination of weapons on the scale that Saddam was supposed to have. Governments are just too incompetant - and I bet Iraq was worst than most.

We were told by Chenney that there were 400 tons of mustard gas just waiting to be used. We find a few scaps of stuff that is useless and old & people want to claim this proves Chenney's claims?

Silly.

no one has said that this was evidence of ongoing production. To the contrary, everyone -- except you -- has said the opposite.

What they are evidence of is Saddam's refusal to cooperate with the disarmament regime established under the 1991 cease fire.

What they are evidence of is the fact that Saddam would not even give up obsolete or obsolescent weapons therefore his claims to not have functional weapons is called into question.

But facts are stubborn things. One can yet hope that historians, given the time to pull together the whole story and not just each day's drip-drip of news, will recognize that (1) pre-existing, if scattered, stocks of chemical weapons, (2) ongoing or ready-to-revive biological weapons programs and (3) long-range schemes to reactivate Saddam's nuclear weapons programs were a part of the multifaceted threat to the U.S. and its allies presented by the Saddam regime.

Just because we found some buried munitions from an old war does not mean we will find evidence of an ongoing or ready to revive weapons program.

These are two different disciplines.

Ponder that.

I suggest that at the next White Flag Party convention that they open them on the main floor and prove how "useless" they are. Every time some one says these are old and harmless, we should ask, "Really, would you like a disenfranchised, islamic fundamentalist lighting one up in your building?" 1 down and only 499 to go.

So, remind me again, how many years in the 1990s were there weapons inspectors in Iraq?

If they couldn't even find the crappy old weapons that we've now shown were there the whole time, what chance do you think they ever had of finding anything recent and valuable?

This is now rock-solid proof (as if we needed more solid proof) that the whole weapons inspection scheme of the 1990s was a colossal waste of time.

I wouldn't want to be in a place where one of these nuts jobs has a gas can and a bic lighter....

What does that prove?

If this is the best anyone can come up with in 3+ years, it just proves the incomptetance.

all of that was covered in the diary.

You seem to have an overwhelming urge to tell us what we found out when we read the diary and what you would have found out if you had taken the few minutes to read it prior to posting.

If you can't or won't read, don't post. I don't know how to make myself any clearer on this.

I don't have the link handy, but there have been past reports indicating that Saddam was keeping usable things on the bioweapons side.

you are going to accuse anyone of incompetence take the time to spell it correctly.

Secondly, your low level trolling has really become tiresome. Find some other place to do it.

One of the justifications the President gave for invading Iraq was that Saddam could have given WMD's (including chemical weapons) to terrorists.

Even if these chemical-weapons shells were old, and may not have functioned if shot from a distance by artillery, a terrorist who stole one could cause havoc by rigging an IED under it to release toxic gas in a confined area, such as a subway station. After a recent report that Al Qaeda terrorists planned to release chemical weapons in a New York subway station, this discovery shows that the threat of terrorists using Iraqi chemical weapons was real.

American weapons inspectors found about 500 shells--what about the ones they DIDN'T find? After all, Saddam managed to bury warplanes in the desert--could there be other buried chemical weapons that no one has told the Coalition about?

And the CIA's and France's and the UK's and Russia and Germany and the UN's....

Silly

Further I see no claim that this justifies anything about the threat Saddam proposed. In fact, if you had bothered to read, Crank said those claims were wrong. What it does show is Saddam's lack of compliance with the treaties he signed to destroy stockpiles after Gulf War I.

Silly

this is an interesting and valuable point. It isn't that we finally located some old, possibly useless, chemical weapons, but that there were decades of inspectors roaming all over the d*mn place and didn't find these; why should we assume they could find their own backsides in a darkened room with either hand.

---------

It is also worth noting that to this day they find unexploded ordnance from WW I around Verdun. And to this day every once in a while one of these old, possibly useless rounds goes off and kills someone.

If Team Blix had come forth in January of 2003 and said that they'd confirmed that Saddam had ONLY 500 chemical artillery shells--and old ones at that--THAT would have compelled us to wear chemical protective gear(acronym: MOPP) while attacking.

If you found 500 shells, of a variety that Saddam was supposed to have destroyed long long ago, you must responsibly presume that (in a country the size of California, with LOTS and LOTS of open spaces) there are more shells out there.  And, if you attack that  country, you have to presume there's a strong likelihood that some of those shells will be fired AT you.  Hence, you need to wear MOPP gear.

Wearing MOPP gear in the Iraqi summer heat is per se risky.  So, a general (and President) that really cared for his troops would try to have as much of the fighting done before the real heat arrived. He didn't have the luxury of letting Team Blix wander the desert until it felt better.

I'm waiting for Howard Dean to explain that old chemical rounds aren't really much of a threat.  At which time we should show the rabbit video.

The libs are going to down play and dismiss this as much as they can. Including the all out assault on Senator Santorum accusing him of using this as a campaign stunt.  

He believes anything CNN tells him.

To the point where it was useless for anyone.

Very good to get it out of the ground and destroyed though.

Army person, I had the 'wonderful' opportunity to see that video, and another where they actually gave a goat the antidote.  There was a clock in the corner of the screen (to show how quickly one could be affected, and how slow one's recovery time would be).  It definitely made you focus on taking care of yourself in that situation, big needles or no (and i HATE needles!).

I'm assuming we know (or suspect) where more of this stuff is, but we're not saying for now.

1. We don't want al-Qaeda to know where they can find the stuff.
   
2. We need to protect the informants.  Not only do dead informants tell no tales, but when people find out you can't protect informants, they don't cooperate.

After twenty years in the ground, these are not "weapons of mass destruction," nor "weapons" of anything. They're just toxic waste in really bad packaging.

Homemade sarin was still lethal enough to kill 12 people and injure hundreds in Tokyo in 1995.

Not to be a thought of as a troll but I question this.

What greater way to prove to the American people that Saddam was a threat than to unearth a stash of chemical weapons that could have been used against us during the invasion. This would be a very good use of intelligence.

Your point of not wanting "al-Qaeda to know where they can find the stuff" seems moot as it would seem logical that we would destroy and/or remove the weapons in question.

Your informant point is reasonable but any information on buried weapons is probably 3+ years old and in the chaos of the invasion and considering insurgents don't having access to WMD records it would be difficult for our enemies to identify who knew this information and could have disclosed it. In any case we could put out a cover story of a routine patrol noticing something or that a drone had seen insurgent activity in the area and that led to our investigation

I'm sorry to say but this information most likely will not convince anyone who is not already convinced that Saddam had WMDs. Might help motivate the base to vote in the mid terms though.

was that sarin? His point is that the chemical weapons had aged to a point as no longer be effective not that the chemicals weren't at one point deadly.

If this is true I'll leave to the weapons experts here.

It does beg the question though. If these weapons were useless why wouldn't Saddam have handed them over as a show of compliance.

They might not be as effective as when they were first poured in, but they are still dangerous.  In an incident from 2004, two on our troops still suffered some of the effects.

but a dangerous bet.

You can still get blisters from mustard gas fired during the Verdun battlefield. That was in 1916.

With mustard there is a better chance that it had corroded the shell casings and leaked than having been degraded if it was stored in a munitions bunker.

...MSM not being zinged and Reagan/Founding Father cites not apropos.

--furious

...Saddam flew his Air Force to sanctuary in Iran during ODS, he could have trucked his Canisters to safety in Syria in advance of OIF.

--furious

Was a Bonus.

From what I can tell, the things were buried during the Iraq-Iran war in the 80s, and then lost-- paperwork missing, they forgot where they buried it, whatever. Saddam "had" these shells in the same way I "have" a matching pair of black socks-- it's all technically within the territory, but you can't... quite... FIND the things.

because there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Chuck Norris lives in Oklahoma.

<warning: Spoilers for anyone who didn't!>

Think about those chemical attacks.  Then think about those attacks being repeated 500 times, in shopping malls, airports, subway stations, office buildings, or who knows where else.  Will you seriously tell me that's not a threat?

They would have seen 24.  They know we've got Jack Bauer.

I always love that joke! It never gets old!  ;)