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Wait a Minute! Chemical Weapons Were Found in Iraq?

SDBoiler1

SDBoiler1

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Based on this article, chemical weapons were found in large quantities in Iraq. Some of them were old. There have been reports that Assad in Syria received truckloads of chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein and has used them on his population at different times, most recently as 2013.

Will the left still maintain the narrative that NO chemical weapons were found in Iraq and that the war against Saddam was therefore unjustified. Saddam gassed the Kurds for years, and in a few cases some Shia, too.

Interesting Twist
 
Originally posted by SDBoiler1:
Based on this article, chemical weapons were found in large quantities in Iraq. Some of them were old. There have been reports that Assad in Syria received truckloads of chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein and has used them on his population at different times, most recently as 2013.

Will the left still maintain the narrative that NO chemical weapons were found in Iraq and that the war against Saddam was therefore unjustified. Saddam gassed the Kurds for years, and in a few cases some Shia, too.
Click to expand...
My favorite tactic by moronic conservatives (not all conservatives) is, when confronted by their stance changes on certain issues from Bush to Obama, say, "Why are you still blaming Bush? Why do you bring Bush into it? Bush isn't relevant, anymore!"

And yet, those same people make posts like this one . . . . bringing Bush up six years later.
flush.r191677.gif
 
from the very article you cited


"Among the reasons for the
secrecy? "The discoveries of these chemical weapons did not support the
government's invasion rationale," Chivers writes. "After the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, [President George W.] Bush insisted that
[Iraqi leader Saddam] 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."









The discovery of pre-Gulf War chemical weapons - most of them "filthy, rusty or corroded" - did not fit the narrative.

"They
needed something to say that after Sept. 11 Saddam used chemical
rounds," Lampier said. "And all of this was from the pre-1991 era."
 
Re: from the very article you cited

UN weapons inspectors were in Iraq 2 days before the war, they had been there for more than 3 months and found nothing. They said they couldn't find anything and to give them more time. Bush stated they had 2 days to get out before bombing began. They left and the war started.

Complete disregard for human life on so many levels.
 
My favorite political past-time is to watch people who criticized Bush for something praise Obama for the same thing, and vice-versa. It's entertaining to witness the convoluted "logic"... entertaining and kind of depressing at the same time. I'm an equal opportunity critic - I think they both suck (for many of the same reasons).
 
so the little i read suggested that these weapons were purchased in the 80s, American-made and european produced and were for use in the event of an iranian invasion back then. Is that correct?
 
It would seem so for the ones that were found intact or found spent.

Still, there's the nagging question about what happened to the rest of Saddam's stockpile, the part that was newer at the time? It has been posited that he sent them to Syria by the truckload prior to our invasion.
 
Re: from the very article you cited

What about the newer weapons that Saddam supposedly sent to Syria prior to the US invasion?
 
Originally posted by SDBoiler1:
Based on this article, chemical weapons were found in large quantities in Iraq. Some of them were old. There have been reports that Assad in Syria received truckloads of chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein and has used them on his population at different times, most recently as 2013.

Will the left still maintain the narrative that NO chemical weapons were found in Iraq and that the war against Saddam was therefore unjustified. Saddam gassed the Kurds for years, and in a few cases some Shia, too.
Click to expand...
"Still, to be extremely clear on this: at no point does today's New York
Times story go anywhere near, nor claim to go anywhere near, even a
little bit vindicating Bush's justification for the Iraq War. Anyone who
tells you otherwise is distorting not just today's story but the
well-recorded history of the war itself."

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/15/6981493/iraq-wmd-saddam-chemical-weapons-new-york-times
 
Great spin job by Max Fisher to support the left's narrative. Well-recorded history? The history of WMD in Iraq is one of the least-understood parts of the Iraq wars. The media has taken great pains to make sure certain events are either underreported or completely unreported.

Again, what about the chemical weapons trucked from Iraq to Syria and the Assad regime prior to the US invasion? You, like Max Fisher, conveniently omit this part of the story. US troops saw this being done. To my knowledge only one NY Post writer reported anything about this. Now that's a cover up.
 
what about the never found

no evidence that they existed weapons? Ya got me, I can't prove a negative.
 
this has nothing to do with Obama

zero. It's simply continually trying to justify one of the most deadly, costly and stupid foreign policy decisions ever made by an American President.

The idea that rotting chemical weapons from the 80s somehow posed a threat to America is laughably ridiculous.
 
Re: this has nothing to do with Obama

Weapons in Iraq do have almost nothing to do with Obama. However, my comment was more in response to the statement regarding changes in stances of conservatives. I agree with that supposition, and noted my "entertainment/sadness" of both liberals and conservatives arguing from alternating sides of an issue at various times depending on the political environment of that time. It reminds me that the Democrats and Republicans agree on the vast majority of issues (to my dislike, in many cases :D), but the differences, where they exist, are amplified for effect.
 
You Choose Not to Believe the Reports...

because it doesn't fit your narrative and the left's narrative.

Never existed? Why do you have former Iraqi officials and Israeli intelligence people saying otherwise?

Oh Really?
 
no I choose not to believe

because there's no evidence. The only reason folks started to talk about Syria was when they found absolutely nothing in Iraq. Syria was literally the ONLY place they could have gone. If they could have gone somewhere else, then they would have said, well they must be there.

the alternative, that they didn't have usable WMDs is obviously not in the wheelhouse for them or apparently you.

You are right though, I mean it's not like we ever had any Iraqi folks telling us what we want to here, and we all know Israel never overstates threats in the region. Who needs actual proof with ironclad evidence like that?
 
cant remotely agree

that Dems and Reps agree on the vast majority of issues.

It's one thing to say, both sides rationalize or are hypocritical or inconsistently apply logic or have blind spots because you've just described every human being ever.

It's another thing to gloss over a ton of real difference as meaningless.

Economic policy, social policy, the role of religion, the nexus between freedom and responsibility. There are fundamental differences all over the place. Now, some of them can be easier patched than the current hyper-partisan environment will allow. But the role of corporations, regulation, where to spend our money, how to tax, where to invest, abortion, gay rights, education, foreign policy, well I'm hard-pressed to find an area where Dems and Reps agree much less a vast majority of issues.
 
Originally posted by SDBoiler1:
Great spin job by Max Fisher to support the left's narrative. Well-recorded history? The history of WMD in Iraq is one of the least-understood parts of the Iraq wars. The media has taken great pains to make sure certain events are either underreported or completely unreported.

Again, what about the chemical weapons trucked from Iraq to Syria and the Assad regime prior to the US invasion? You, like Max Fisher, conveniently omit this part of the story. US troops saw this being done. To my knowledge only one NY Post writer reported anything about this. Now that's a cover up.
Click to expand...
Interview of the author & video from PBS

I'm skeptical about the claim about Syria for a few reasons:

1) The logistics of "trucking" an entire chemical, biological or nuclear program into Syria is not feasible. Could a few individual weapons have been smuggled via truck into Syria? It's possible, but when you start adding together the labs, storage facilities, expertise, and other supporting infrastructure for such an operation, it becomes increasingly difficult to accomplish.

2) Syria has possessed a wmd, specifically chemical, program since the early 1970s. There would have been little need for Iraqi assistance on WMD programs due to their close relationship with both Iran and Russia.

3) Perhaps most importantly, the Assad regime was no friend of Saddam Hussein due in part to their close ties with Iran. It would require a suspension of reason to believe Hussein suddenly "trucked" the entire program into Syria, the same Syria closely aligned with Iraq's biggest competitor in the region (Iran).

From the link:



"They needed to come together to
fight their common rival, Saddam Hussein of Iraq. They also allied in
order to check Israeli advances into Lebanon and to prevent any American
attempts to enter the Middle East.
"Each provided support to the Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah and to the Palestinian armed groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
"Syria
has consistently provided Iran with an element of strategic depth. It
gives Iran access to the Mediterranean and a supply line to Iran's Shia
Muslim supporters in southern Lebanon next to the border with Israel."



 [/QUOTE]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/08/28/216385513/who-are-syrias-friends-and-why-are-they-supporting-assadhttp://
 
Re: no I choose not to believe

Where do I start? So I provide you with an article with numerous links to independent sources of information, yet you are so blinded that you will not even allow for the fact that you could be wrong and that the article has some validity. What will be "good enough" proof for you?

Why would a former Iraqi Air Force General under Saddam lie about having he himself seeing chemical weapons in Iraq and vouching for the fact that they were used by Saddam against Shia and Kurds? Why would he lie when he says they were transported to Syria? Why would some Russians lie about having seen and transported Iraqi chemical weapons to Syria? Why would files leaked via wikileaks have some corroborating evidence? You are accusing Israel of lying, too?

You have nothing to base your stance on, but you are so cocksure you are right. Again, this information doesn't fit you naartive, so you choose to dismiss it outright.
 
no

what you provided was a link to inquistr.com. Take a moment and look at some of the other "fine" articles that website puts out.

But let's ignore the source issues for just a moment. Here's the evidence in the article you linked:

1. Unnamed Russian spies. Well, I don't know about you, but that's all I ever need.

2. A link to the fact that small batches of chemical weapons were found by Soldiers (which is the very thing listed in the NYT article--there were small batches found, all of them decrepit and useless as actual weapons at the time they were found). No one is suggesting that not one drop of any possible chemical weapon existed in Iraq. A country that large is likely going to have some barrel here or there of leftover whatever that someone forgot to incinerate or account for. None of it was actually usable. Chemical weapons have an expiration date, at least the ones Iraq had did.

3. One named Iraqi general's claims. Why would he lie? Why would an Iraqi general during the occupation of his country tell the occupiers what they so desperately wanted to hear? Gosh, that's a tough one. I mean it's not like he published a book he was trying to sell in 2006. Oh wait, he totally did. It's not like he went on Fox News repeatedly to hype the boo...oh wait, never mind. 30-second Google search, that's all I'm saying.

4. The argument (not evidence, not facts, just a plain old assertion) by the conservative Washington Times that Syria's chemical weapons program is actually just Iraq's chemical weapons.

Couple of problems there. Syria has had a chemical weapons program for a longgggg time (as Beez linked above). The fact that both were "baathists" does not mean they were bosom buddies. Syria was friends with Iran, Saddam fought a bloody war with Iran. Syria sided with the coalition against Iraq for cripes sake. But even there they hedge, knowing the weakness of it by saying. "Still, they believe there is 'ample circumstantial evidence to take another look at the Iraqi-Syrian connection.'"

Not actual direct evidence mind you, not even actual circumstantial proof, just enough to "take another look."

That's it. That's all of the "links" to independent sources. You're kidding right?

The article does something else mildly clever. It mixes something that possibly is true (although not necessarily so) that some Iraqi SCUD missiles made it to Syria. Of course, the SCUD is not Iraqi produced, it was a Soviet weapon. And who was a client for Soviet weapons? Why Syria of course. Doesn't mean they couldn't have had some cross over the porous border though.
 
great points

if it were an actual weapons program, you are talking about a TON of stuff that would have to move, in certain types of trucks/vehicles. We aren't talking about throwing some barrels in the back of a pickup truck. You have to take insane precautions to make sure you don't end up gassing a passing village/city/town.

Just to do it on the eve of attack, to a country who has literally joined the coalition against you, without anyone seeing it or noticing it would be pretty amazing.
 
yes

our whole world collapses if we admit that Iraq had decrepit, unusable bits of chemical weapons.
 
Regardless a majority (too include many high level Democrats) voted yes. Even with active reports from various intel agencies that Sadam had no viable program at the time. So like many other political events, hard data coming out of the field is neglected and political agenda tops them all. Both the Clinton and Bush administration seemed to dismiss what the CIA were feeding them back then. Just goes to show that politicians will vote yes without really fact checking.
 
ummm

the whole world knows that Iraq had decrepit, unusable bits of chemical weapons.

Pretty sure that doesn't remotely change whether or not it supports a rationale of invasion.

My world remains un-collapsed. Sorry.
 
I'll agree there

way too many Dems were afraid of the polls or of looking "weak" including Hillary and went along with this thing without so much as an are you sure?
 
Re: I'll agree there

It is for this very reason that I have a hard time listening to the Left's complaints/objections to that war given the fact that the vast, vast majority voted in favor of it. Of course, once it became politically unpopular, they came out in droves against it. The Right has done this in other times, I'm quite certain... but it's a very frustrating part of politics and one that makes me more and more cynical by the day.
 
Re: I'll agree there

Originally posted by gr8indoorsman:
It is for this very reason that I have a hard time listening to the Left's complaints/objections to that war given the fact that the vast, vast majority voted in favor of it. Of course, once it became politically unpopular, they came out in droves against it. The Right has done this in other times, I'm quite certain... but it's a very frustrating part of politics and one that makes me more and more cynical by the day.
Click to expand...
Agree, but this thread wasn't as much about politics as it was about the justifications for invading Iraq. Claiming that this report from the NYTimes somehow justifies the claims made by the administration is a great example of confirmation bias. Both liberals & conservatives can be guilty of this phenomenon, and some conservatives snatched this one up by hook, line, and sinker.

I might also add something irrelevant to this discussion, but I'm still not sure we made a mistake by invading Iraq. I might argue that the powder keg of tribal & religious conflict was inevitable, and we simply lit the fuse on such conflict by invading (and leaving).
 
Re: I'll agree there

"I might also add something irrelevant to this discussion, but I'm still not sure we made a mistake by invading Iraq. I might argue that the powder keg of tribal & religious conflict was inevitable, and we simply lit the fuse on such conflict by invading (and leaving)."

On this, we totally agree. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a Sunni-dominated minority that ran roughshod over the Shia, Kurds, Yazidi's, etc. The Shia especially were primed to revolt against the Sunni minority. We did light the fuse that has caused the powderkeg to explode.

The problem we have now is once the US decided to go into Iraq originally it really couldn't do what Obama did when he did - pull up the stakes and take the US out, leaving almost no presence in the country. Iraq was not close to being ready to govern itself, let alone defend itself. The previous regime under Maliki was Shia-dominated and literally thought only about payback to the Sunni's, because of years of Saddam's Baathist excesses against the Shia (and the Kurds).

Obama's premature pull-out left a huge vaccuum in Iraq, allowing jagoffs like ISIS to roll into northern Iraq and the Kurdish areas. Sometimes I think the best answer in Iraq is to partition the country into three areas - autonomous Kurdistan, Sunni-area, and a Shia-area. The Shia area will likely want to join or be affiliated with Iran. Iraq was formed by the British and has generally been unstable since its forced creation, unless it had a brutal dictator like Saddam.
 
Re: I'll agree there


Originally posted by SDBoiler1:
"I might also add something irrelevant to this discussion, but I'm still not sure we made a mistake by invading Iraq. I might argue that the powder keg of tribal & religious conflict was inevitable, and we simply lit the fuse on such conflict by invading (and leaving)."

On this, we totally agree. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a Sunni-dominated minority that ran roughshod over the Shia, Kurds, Yazidi's, etc. The Shia especially were primed to revolt against the Sunni minority. We did light the fuse that has caused the powderkeg to explode.

The problem we have now is once the US decided to go into Iraq originally it really couldn't do what Obama did when he did - pull up the stakes and take the US out, leaving almost no presence in the country. Iraq was not close to being ready to govern itself, let alone defend itself. The previous regime under Maliki was Shia-dominated and literally thought only about payback to the Sunni's, because of years of Saddam's Baathist excesses against the Shia (and the Kurds).

Obama's premature pull-out left a huge vaccuum in Iraq, allowing jagoffs like ISIS to roll into northern Iraq and the Kurdish areas. Sometimes I think the best answer in Iraq is to partition the country into three areas - autonomous Kurdistan, Sunni-area, and a Shia-area. The Shia area will likely want to join or be affiliated with Iran. Iraq was formed by the British and has generally been unstable since its forced creation, unless it had a brutal dictator like Saddam.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the British royally screwed up the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, they drew up most of the present day borders in that region. Those that have never been to the Middle East cannot really grasp how loyal people in that part of the world are to their tribe/religious group. National pride is actually a distant second. If we really wanted to help Afghanistan out, we would force Pakistan to give back the land that was once Afghanistan's that gave them sea access. Just something I learned while I was over there. But what do I know? That is what Afghan officers told me what Afghanistan really needed, sea access. By cutting the country off from the ocean, Pakistan and Iran really control the nation's economy. So why the US is still pouring in millions and millions into Afghanistan, a lot of the money is ending up in the hands of Iran and Pakistan. US policy in the Middle East has been really frustrating.
 
whoa now

Democrat politicians does not equal "the Left"

"the Left" was pretty universally against the war from the start, but everyone else either said shut up, America...or said nothing because of fear.
 
so you're saying

we spent over a trillion dollars and a whole lotta lives for something that was going to happen soon anyways, and you still aren't sure it was a mistake??

I mean I don't think I agree with your premise, but assuming arguendo that it's true, then what a waste of time, lives and a whole lot of money.
 
yeah

I can't believe Obama prematurely pulled o...oh wait, I'm being told that the deal signed to pull out was done by President Bush.

Ah I remember now, we didn't leave 10K Soldiers behind, and that's Obama's fault, because somehow 10K Soldiers was going to make ALL the difference.

So how long exactly and how many troops were we supposed to leave in Iraq until it was "ready to govern itself?"
 
Can I ask you a couple simple questions?

If indeed these were the weapons we went to war over, don't you find it odd that the Bush administration did not make this information public at the time of their discovery? Per the NYT report, these first started showing up in 2004 and that would have been a perfect time for the administration to start answering their critics. Instead, they sat on this information over the next several years (as even more discoveries were being made) and at the same time those who were injured during these discoveries were marginalized at best in their medical treatment. The Pentagon denied that these men were even hurt by these weapons. Why?
 
Re: yeah

Originally posted by qazplm:
I can't believe Obama prematurely pulled o...oh wait, I'm being told that the deal signed to pull out was done by President Bush.

Ah I remember now, we didn't leave 10K Soldiers behind, and that's Obama's fault, because somehow 10K Soldiers was going to make ALL the difference.

So how long exactly and how many troops were we supposed to leave in Iraq until it was "ready to govern itself?"
Click to expand...
Does the USA still have troops in 1) Germany, 2) Japan, 3) South Korea? Duh, that would be 69 years, 69 years, and 61 years.

And these countries have been able to govern themselves for many, many years.

You're such an Obama ball licker it's not even funny. Your Messiah can never do wrong, no matter how idiotic his policies and schemes.
 
These are good questions - ones I cannot answer because I am not George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, etc., etc.
 
Re: so you're saying


So leaving an absolute tyrant who massacres, tortures, and gasses his religious, ethnic, and tribal enemies is a good, humanitarian thing to do?
 
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