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No WMDs found in Iraq

mobmucmobmuc Member Posts: 17
in Off-Topic Discussion
Link

Excerpt:

As Media Matters for America documented, nearly every June 21 Fox News program between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m.
ET touted Santorum and Hoekstra's disclosure. Santorum and
Hoekstra's claims, however, had been quickly dismissed by Pentagon
officials and the intelligence community. As CNN national security
correspondent David Ensor reported on CNN's
The Situation Room shortly after
the announcement, "Charles Duelfer, the CIA's weapons inspector, tells us the weapons
are all pre-Gulf War vintage shells, no longer effective weapons. Not evidence,
he says, of an ongoing WMD program under Saddam Hussein." The Washington Post also reported June 22 that
"[n]either 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."


Comments

  • lardmouthlardmouth Member Posts: 701
    Degraded or not, mustard and sarin are WMD's.  No, they're not evidence of ongoing programs.  However, one has to ask why they weren't declared and handed over to the UN as required.  The actual evidence of ongoing programs (not production), research, undisclosed labs/equipment is found in the Kay/Duefler reports.
  • mobmucmobmuc Member Posts: 17

    The Duelfer report
    concluded that "old, abandoned chemical munitions" found in Iraq
    -- such as the ones hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra -- are not part of a
    "chemical weapons stockpile." According to the report [emphasis in
    original]:


    While a small number of old, abandoned
    chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its
    undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991.     There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production
    of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad's desire
    to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against
    it should WMD be discovered.

    • The scale of the Iraqi conventional munitions
      stockpile, among other factors, precluded an examination of the entire stockpile;
      however, ISG inspected sites judged most likely associated with possible
      storage or deployment of chemical weapons.

    Duelfer
    also appeared on the June 22 broadcast of National
    Public Radio's Talk of the Nation,
    where he stated that these munitions are not weapons of mass
    destruction:


    NEAL
    CONAN (host): The report says hundreds of WMDs were found in Iraq. Does this change any of the
    findings in your report?

    DEULFER:
    No, the report -- the findings of the report were basically to describe the
    relationship of the regime with weapons of mass destruction generally. You
    know, at two different times, Saddam elected to have and then not to have
    weapons of mass destruction. We found, when we were investigating, some
    residual chemical munitions. And we said in the report that such chemical
    munitions would probably still be found. But
    the ones which have been found are left over from the Iran-Iraq war. They are
    almost 20 years old, and they are in a decayed fashion. It is very interesting
    that there are so many that were unaccounted for, but they do not constitute a
    weapon of mass destruction, although they could be a local hazard.

    CONAN:
    Mm-hmm. So these -- were these the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush
    administration said that it was going into Iraq to find before the war?

    DEULFER:
    No, these do not indicate an ongoing weapons
    of mass destruction program as had been thought to exist before the war.
    These are leftover rounds, which Iraq probably did not even know
    that it had. Certainly, the leadership was unaware of their existence, because
    they made very clear that they had gotten rid of their programs as a prelude to
    getting out of sanctions.

    [...]

    DEULFER:
    Sarin agent decays, you know, at a certain rate, as does mustard agent. What we
    found, both as U.N. and later when I was with the Iraq Survey Group, is that
    some of these rounds would have highly degraded agent, but it is still
    dangerous. You know, it can be a local hazard. If an insurgent got it and
    wanted to create a local hazard, it could be exploded. When I was running the
    ISG -- the Iraq Survey Group -- we had a couple of them that had been turned in
    to these IEDs, the improvised explosive devices. But they are local hazards. They are not a major, you know, weapon of
    mass destruction.

  • lardmouthlardmouth Member Posts: 701
    I'm not talking about stockpiles.
  • mobmucmobmuc Member Posts: 17

    Originally posted by mobmuc
    DEULFER:
    No, these do not indicate an ongoing weapons
    of mass destruction program as had been thought to exist before the war.
    These are leftover rounds, which Iraq probably did not even know
    that it had. Certainly, the leadership was unaware of their existence, because
    they made very clear that they had gotten rid of their programs as a prelude to
    getting out of sanctions.



    [...]



    DEULFER:
    Sarin agent decays, you know, at a certain rate, as does mustard agent. What we
    found, both as U.N. and later when I was with the Iraq Survey Group, is that
    some of these rounds would have highly degraded agent, but it is still
    dangerous. You know, it can be a local hazard. If an insurgent got it and
    wanted to create a local hazard, it could be exploded. When I was running the
    ISG -- the Iraq Survey Group -- we had a couple of them that had been turned in
    to these IEDs, the improvised explosive devices. But they are local hazards. They are not a major, you know, weapon of
    mass destruction.

    Two highlighted points for easier reading.
  • lardmouthlardmouth Member Posts: 701

    Originally posted by mobmuc

    Originally posted by mobmuc
    DEULFER: No, these do not indicate an ongoing weapons of mass destruction program as had been thought to exist before the war. These are leftover rounds, which Iraq probably did not even know that it had. Certainly, the leadership was unaware of their existence, because they made very clear that they had gotten rid of their programs as a prelude to getting out of sanctions.
    [...]
    DEULFER: Sarin agent decays, you know, at a certain rate, as does mustard agent. What we found, both as U.N. and later when I was with the Iraq Survey Group, is that some of these rounds would have highly degraded agent, but it is still dangerous. You know, it can be a local hazard. If an insurgent got it and wanted to create a local hazard, it could be exploded. When I was running the ISG -- the Iraq Survey Group -- we had a couple of them that had been turned in to these IEDs, the improvised explosive devices. But they are local hazards. They are not a major, you know, weapon of mass destruction.
    Two highlighted points for easier reading.

    not a major weapon of mass distruction.
  • lardmouthlardmouth Member Posts: 701
    And I never claimed the shells as proof of ongoing production.
  • SnaKeySnaKey Member Posts: 3,386

    Lets just look at it this way.

    Say you're growing pot in your house and the cops flat out told you for 2yrs that they were going to raid your house.

    What would you do?

    Nuff Said. This is an moronic thread. Proof was found that they were producing them.

    myspace.com/angryblogr
    A Work in Progress.
    Add Me
  • baffbaff Member Posts: 9,457

     Proof was also found that they stopped producing them the when cops told them to.

    Only the cops weren't the cops they were a couple of big bad wolfs in fake cop uniforms trying to rob them, and the pot wasn't pot it was home defence gear. And after the cops had thoroughly searched the place and found no trace of anything that could be used to stop them, they drew their guns and kicked naughty Saddam out of his own house and took it for themselves.

  • lardmouthlardmouth Member Posts: 701

    No, proof was not found they were producing at the time.  What was found was intent to protect WMD research and productivity once the sanctions were lifted.

    http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap1.html#sect7

  • baffbaff Member Posts: 9,457

    The CIA didn't find anything. They weren't there.

    The searches were conducted by the U.N. who concluded that there was no evidence.

  • porgieporgie Member Posts: 1,516
    These "WMD's" are not even close to what the Bush administration presented to us to try to sell us on beginning this war. 

    If you feel this war and the innocent Iraqi's and servicemen dying is justified because of some outdated munitions then the old saying of "keep your eye on the ball" would be some good advice for you.


    -----------------------
    </OBAMA>

  • lardmouthlardmouth Member Posts: 701
    Wasn't just this administration, political party, or our intelligence community that concluded Saddam had further produced and hidden stockpiles.
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