And in bizarre news, the NYT reveals that THERE ACTUALLY WERE WMD's IN IRAQ!!!

[sperbonzo]

So I don't know what to make of this, or why the administration, in the face of everyone saying that they were lying about WMD's, covered it up.... except for the fact that Europe and the US gave them the means to make them..... Just really frickin' weird story that is not getting a lot of circulation so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...w-nytimes&_r=0

"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."





WTF???






.

[MaDalton]

they are in the safe hands of the IS now...

[EddyTheDog]

Originally Posted by sperbonzo

So I don't know what to make of this, or why the administration, in the face of everyone saying that they were lying about WMD's, covered it up.... except for the fact that Europe and the US gave them the means to make them..... Just really frickin' weird story that is not getting a lot of circulation so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...w-nytimes&_r=0

"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."







WTF???






.

I was surprised there were none - He had already used them against the Kurds on a number of occasions - The Kurds where still there so it made sense - This story does raise a few questions...

[Juicy D. Links]

I got a WMD in my pants

[theking]

If my memory serves me well...I recall multiple reports of finding old chemical weapons...in artillery shells and some rocket warheads...during different time periods of the occupation...so this is not really news. What was not found were any active programs to produce WMD of any type.

[Markul]

Of course there were....

[MrTrollkien]

Nowhere in Bush 43's speeches leading up to the Iraq war was he specifying that Saddam had an "active WMD program". I urge all readers to go back to his speeches to the UN on 9/12/02, his Axis of Evil speech and also his speech to the nation on 3/17/03. He never said his aim was to take out an "active WMD program"; rather, as Bush repeatedly told the world audience, Saddam possessed old WMD, desired to evade inspections so as to keep them, hoped to restart his weapons program in the future and pass weapons to terrorist groups with intention to harm the West.

[Captain Kawaii]

From the article

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.

[directfiesta]

Originally Posted by Captain Kawaii

From the article

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.

stop reading .... you are sinking the fun ship ....

[Ferus]

Originally Posted by sperbonzo

So I don't know what to make of this, or why the administration, in the face of everyone saying that they were lying about WMD's, covered it up.... except for the fact that Europe and the US gave them the means to make them..... Just really frickin' weird story that is not getting a lot of circulation so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...w-nytimes&_r=0

"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."





WTF???






.

You belive anything you read?

[madm1k3]

Originally Posted by MrTrollkien

Nowhere in Bush 43's speeches leading up to the Iraq war was he specifying that Saddam had an "active WMD program".

Septmeber 12, 2002, President Bush making the case for the 2003 Iraq invasion: ?Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.?

?The regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.?

?We have been more than patient. We have tried sanctions. We have tried the carrot of ?oil for food? and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction.?

Sure seems like they were selling an active program to me

[sperbonzo]

Originally Posted by Captain Kawaii

From the article

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.

Right. I read that. But it still begs the question. Why cover it up and not trumpet it to the rooftops?

Was it simply because of Europe and the US's involvement?


.

[PAR]

I would assume that they didn't want to push this info to hard due to the Iran Iraq War issues of the past where the US was selling/giving weapons/WMD's and helping in the development of WNDs to both sides... That all came out with the Iran–Contra affair...

[Tom_PM]

All the talk was about yellow cake uranium and aluminum tubes they wanted us to think were going to be used to enrich uranium. Rice KNEW at the time from her own teams report that those tubes were not suited for that task and were actually going to be used to make mortar shells, yet she went on live TV with the administrations BS line about fear of mushroom clouds and WMD's. She was confronted on live TV about it years later and stuttered her way through an answer that amounted to "I stand by what I said at the time".

You must remember that at the time the Nigerian yellow cake uranium story and the aluminum tube story were the ONLY things that had ANY traction towards justifying the war and they were debunked.


There was no covering up of finding these old WMD's. Stories came out regularly about finding old stockpiles of weapons and there was always a BUT because these are not the WMD's we're looking for.

[HookUPcom]

Boy, we didn't here much about that shanti town when Saddam was running that pile of desert...

.

[_Richard_]

it's back to the future:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...vows-santorum/

Defense Department Disavows Santorum’s WMD Claims
BY JUDD LEGUM POSTED ON JUNE 21, 2006 AT 10:42 PM UPDATED: JUNE 22, 2006 AT 6:53 AM

Today, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) held a press conference and announced “we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Santorum and Hoekstra are hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions that were already acknowledged by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group and dismissed.

Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”

[theking]

Originally Posted by sperbonzo

Right. I read that. But it still begs the question. Why cover it up and not trumpet it to the rooftops?

Was it simply because of Europe and the US's involvement?


.

It was not covered up and was reported multiple times at different times during the occupation.

[dyna mo]

i'd figure there were multiple reasons the pentagon sat on the info, one big one could have been the public opinion might have turned against the war if we all knew then that our guys were coming up against chemical weapons.

but the weird part of this story is it's old news.

[theking]

Originally Posted by Tom_PM

All the talk was about yellow cake uranium and aluminum tubes they wanted us to think were going to be used to enrich uranium. Rice KNEW at the time from her own teams report that those tubes were not suited for that task and were actually going to be used to make mortar shells, yet she went on live TV with the administrations BS line about fear of mushroom clouds and WMD's. She was confronted on live TV about it years later and stuttered her way through an answer that amounted to "I stand by what I said at the time".

You must remember that at the time the Nigerian yellow cake uranium story and the aluminum tube story were the ONLY things that had ANY traction towards justifying the war and they were debunked.


There was no covering up of finding these old WMD's. Stories came out regularly about finding old stockpiles of weapons and there was always a BUT because these are not the WMD's we're looking for.

Give this man a cigar.

[Captain Kawaii]

Originally Posted by directfiesta

stop reading .... you are sinking the fun ship ....

My bad... damn sneaky Arabs

[directfiesta]

Originally Posted by sperbonzo

Right. I read that. But it still begs the question. Why cover it up and not trumpet it to the rooftops?

Was it simply because of Europe and the US's involvement?


.

[Barry-xlovecam]

It is likely, and we will never be told the truth, that the source of many of Assad's Syrian chemical weapons were moved there from Iraq by Saddam Hussein.

Iraq did not have an active chemical weapons program but did have a history of using chemical weapons and possibly some stockpiled weapons.

The NYTimes story is that of unproven allegations by soldiers that claim harm from Iraqi chemical weapons much the same as the Agent Orange harm claims alleged from the Vietnam war.

[OldJeff]

Seriously, did anyone NOT know there were WMDs in Iraq ? For fucks sake, we had the sales receipts

[_Richard_]

Originally Posted by OldJeff

Seriously, did anyone NOT know there were WMDs in Iraq ? For fucks sake, we had the sales receipts

looks like this is 'going viral'.. apparently not.

[Rochard]

There was no doubt in my mind Iraq had such weapons. I wasn't sure if they had a current program, but I knew they had left overs. You just knew they were buried in the sand some place.

It's stunning that our military would try to cover this up and deny people benefits on this.

But the last two paragraphs are chilling:

When three journalists from The Times visited Al Muthanna in 2013, a knot of Iraqi police officers and soldiers guarded the entrance. Two contaminated bunkers ? one containing cyanide precursors and old sarin rockets ? loomed behind. The area where Marines had found mustard shells in 2008 was out of sight, shielded by scrub and shimmering heat.

The Iraqi troops who stood at that entrance are no longer there. The compound, never entombed, is now controlled by the Islamic State.

[crockett]

Originally Posted by sperbonzo

So I don't know what to make of this, or why the administration, in the face of everyone saying that they were lying about WMD's, covered it up.... except for the fact that Europe and the US gave them the means to make them..... Just really frickin' weird story that is not getting a lot of circulation so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...w-nytimes&_r=0

"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."





WTF???






.

I think you are misunderstanding what was said when we went to war vs what was reality.

The reality was the US and other Western powers did provide Saddam with Chemical weapons. This is a known fact, we gave him the weapons, therefore we knew he had them.

After Desert Storm, one of the conditions put in place, was Saddam was supposed to destroy these WMDs which we provided him with. Destroy is a tricky issue if they don't have the ability to do so. What Saddam did and the US knew he had done was to disable the rounds and burry them. This was accepted as destruction for many of the rounds, by the UN mandate.

Now move on the George Bush's claims.. bush claimed that Saddam had the capability to manufacture "new" WMDs which Saddam never had the ability to do. Hence nothing new here.

[Mutt]

I read the whole long piece, it's not new news that there were stores of chemical weapons in Iraq - what's new is that the information was kept from American troops who would come into contact with them AND the doctors who would treat them both in Iraq and at home in the United States.

And while some of the materials for the weapons were bought from American and Western European companies they were not American made.

The weapons were made to kill Iranians during the Iraq-Iran war.

[_Richard_]

how possibly could the informatino have been kept from US troops, if they are walking around with:

'chemical detection paper'

my god.

[kane]

Originally Posted by MrTrollkien

Nowhere in Bush 43's speeches leading up to the Iraq war was he specifying that Saddam had an "active WMD program". I urge all readers to go back to his speeches to the UN on 9/12/02, his Axis of Evil speech and also his speech to the nation on 3/17/03. He never said his aim was to take out an "active WMD program"; rather, as Bush repeatedly told the world audience, Saddam possessed old WMD, desired to evade inspections so as to keep them, hoped to restart his weapons program in the future and pass weapons to terrorist groups with intention to harm the West.

You should watch Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council where he not only says they have an active program, but he points out buildings and locations we believed at the time were actively producing chemical and biological weapons.

[Major (Tom)]

Originally Posted by sperbonzo

So I don't know what to make of this, or why the administration, in the face of everyone saying that they were lying about WMD's, covered it up.... except for the fact that Europe and the US gave them the means to make them..... Just really frickin' weird story that is not getting a lot of circulation so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...w-nytimes&_r=0

"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."





WTF???






.

Thats because at that they were doing their best to make it seem like war was a video game and not serious like during the golf war where you could tune and watch it on the news. Then, obviously, there is money in war, and the more folks become educated to war, the less profitable it will become.
ds

[crockett]

Originally Posted by MrTrollkien

Nowhere in Bush 43's speeches leading up to the Iraq war was he specifying that Saddam had an "active WMD program". I urge all readers to go back to his speeches to the UN on 9/12/02, his Axis of Evil speech and also his speech to the nation on 3/17/03. He never said his aim was to take out an "active WMD program"; rather, as Bush repeatedly told the world audience, Saddam possessed old WMD, desired to evade inspections so as to keep them, hoped to restart his weapons program in the future and pass weapons to terrorist groups with intention to harm the West.

It took me less than 30 seconds to find a video of Bush saying Saddam had a WMD program..

[420]

Originally Posted by Juicy D. Links

I got a WMD in my pants

how big is your White Man Dick?

[Robbie]

The problem is...the Bush Administration was really pushing NUCLEAR weapons as the reasoning for attacking Iraq.
Remember? Hussein refused to let the atomic commission people in and was trying to make the world think he had nuclear weapons.

I guess he was bluffing and it didn't turn out good for him (or us apparently).

But THOSE were WMD's that Colin Powell went to the U.N. with his presentation about "yellow cake" and other ingredients that Iraq supposedly had and was building nuclear weapons.

So they can find chemical weapons all day long. But that is NOT a "Weapon Of Mass DESTRUCTION". It's just a chemical weapon. Doesn't "destroy" anything and certainly not in a "mass" way like the U.S. dropping atom bombs on 2 cities in Japan killing hundreds of thousands of men, women, and CHILDREN in a split second.

Nope, turns out there were no "WMD's" in Iraq.
And crude "mustard gas" and other poison gas delivery systems are not "WMD's". And I'm pretty sure that every country in the world has a secret supply of them anyway.

[Mutt]

Originally Posted by _Richard_

how possibly could the informatino have been kept from US troops, if they are walking around with:

'chemical detection paper'

my god.

You're such an annoying nitwit. Soldiers are equipped with many things to deal with things they might encounter. They were not told that they were likely to come upon large stores of chemical weapons. And when they did they were told to shut their mouths about it.


This was the secret world Sergeant Duling and his soldiers entered in August 2008 as they stood above the leaking chemical shell. The sergeant spoke into a radio, warning everyone back.

“This is mustard agent,” he said, announcing the beginning of a journey of inadequate medical care and honors denied. “We’ve all been exposed.”

[crockett]

Originally Posted by Robbie

The problem is...the Bush Administration was really pushing NUCLEAR weapons as the reasoning for attacking Iraq.
Remember? Hussein refused to let the atomic commission people in and was trying to make the world think he had nuclear weapons.

I guess he was bluffing and it didn't turn out good for him (or us apparently).

But THOSE were WMD's that Colin Powell went to the U.N. with his presentation about "yellow cake" and other ingredients that Iraq supposedly had and was building nuclear weapons.

So they can find chemical weapons all day long. But that is NOT a "Weapon Of Mass DESTRUCTION". It's just a chemical weapon. Doesn't "destroy" anything and certainly not in a "mass" way like the U.S. dropping atom bombs on 2 cities in Japan killing hundreds of thousands of men, women, and CHILDREN in a split second.

Nope, turns out there were no "WMD's" in Iraq.
And crude "mustard gas" and other poison gas delivery systems are not "WMD's". And I'm pretty sure that every country in the world has a secret supply of them anyway.

Robbie, one of the keynotes of Colin Powell's speech was the aluminum tubes, and using them as example of Saddam's quest to build nukes. However it had already been published prior to his speech and the Bush admin knew that these tubes were not for the purpose of making a nuclear bomb.

In fact this was where Valerie Plame came into play and was outed by the Bush admin causing Plame Gate, where they allegedly outed a CIA agent whom would play ball.

I remember the speech well, because that was when I lost the respect I had for Colin Powell. Prior to that speech he was the one guy you could trust inside the Bush admin. Hell I likely would have voted for the guy had he ran for president.. Up until that speech.

[Robbie]

I agree crockett (mark it down on the calendar).

I think that the Bush administration was looking to feed the defense industry and knew that a war would do the trick.

But I don't just keep it on the Republicans. Every democrat voted for it too. And Pres. Clinton during his administration also said in many speeches that Iraq had nuclear capability.

Fucking politicians. They don't seem to care how many people die. It's all about money and getting it to your cronies.
Makes me sick.

[nico-t]

Originally Posted by Captain Kawaii

From the article

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.

LOL... another great situation created by the west themselves. And then they need to clean up their own mess. Which is exactly what is happening now as well with 'al queda' a.k.a. 'IS'. Nice vicious cycle of constantly wreaking havoc across the globe.

'Merica!! Fuck yeah!!!

[nico-t]

Originally Posted by Robbie

I agree crockett (mark it down on the calendar).

I think that the Bush administration was looking to feed the defense industry and knew that a war would do the trick.

But I don't just keep it on the Republicans. Every democrat voted for it too. And Pres. Clinton during his administration also said in many speeches that Iraq had nuclear capability.

Fucking politicians. They don't seem to care how many people die. It's all about money and getting it to your cronies.
Makes me sick.

the political parties are only as a side show for the people, to give them the illusion of choice. It doesn't matter who's president. Big corporations and financial institutions decide the course.

Everything people and businesses do is money motivated, so i am always surprised at people who somehow think the world leaders are exceptions to this. They are actually the worst money hungry sick institutions without mercy. Sending soldiers to die, and letting civilians die, all just for money.
And these people are what civilians cheer for during elections - cheering for people that kill you for money. Great world we live in

[seeandsee]

trolololooooooooooo

who would they attack with it

[suesheboy]

Originally Posted by theking

If my memory serves me well...I recall multiple reports of finding old chemical weapons...in artillery shells and some rocket warheads...during different time periods of the occupation...so this is not really news. What was not found were any active programs to produce WMD of any type.

Who sold them the weapons?

Oh yeah. That's right

[Joshua G]

we are we re-hashing one of the worst adiminstrations in american history? everything about the Iraq war was a giant clusterfuck, so bad it has made the current POTUS scared to death to put troops back in Iraq to deal with a much more viable threat than saddam ever was.

[slapass]

Originally Posted by sperbonzo

So I don't know what to make of this, or why the administration, in the face of everyone saying that they were lying about WMD's, covered it up.... except for the fact that Europe and the US gave them the means to make them..... Just really frickin' weird story that is not getting a lot of circulation so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...w-nytimes&_r=0

"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."





WTF???






.

Did you read the article?

"American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West."

There is your answer.

[MaDalton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)

In a February 2011 interview with the Guardian he "admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

you have been duped by one Iraqi guy and when the Germans said that he's not reliable, no one listened anymore


when you have an hour to spare

[slapass]

Originally Posted by Robbie

I agree crockett (mark it down on the calendar).

I think that the Bush administration was looking to feed the defense industry and knew that a war would do the trick.

But I don't just keep it on the Republicans. Every democrat voted for it too. And Pres. Clinton during his administration also said in many speeches that Iraq had nuclear capability.

Fucking politicians. They don't seem to care how many people die. It's all about money and getting it to your cronies.
Makes me sick.

Paul Wellstone voted against it.

" In 2002, he was the only Senator facing reelection to vote against the congressional authorization for the war in Iraq.[1]"

So not the only one I guess.

"It tends to be remembered as a more overwhelming and bipartisan vote than it was. Although almost every congressional Republican voted aye, the majority of House Democrats (126-81) vote against it and a substantial minority of Senate Dems (22 out of 51) also voted no."

[pimpmaster9000]

Originally Posted by sperbonzo

So I don't know what to make of this, or why the administration, in the face of everyone saying that they were lying about WMD's, covered it up.... except for the fact that Europe and the US gave them the means to make them..... Just really frickin' weird story that is not getting a lot of circulation so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...w-nytimes&_r=0

"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."

this story is bullshit for 3 reasons:

1) if saddam had WMD he would have used it against the US army...so would have anybody else...I mean americans use cluster bombs against civilians why the fuck should anybody not follow suit?

2) the US army does not have the balls to attack anybody who could hurt them and bring lots and lots of body bags to the USA, proof: north korea ...the moment I saw US troops invading iraq over WMD I was 100% sure there were no WMD because the US army needs to find its balls with an electron microscope first...

and last but not least:

3) the story is bullshit because the US would have paraded the WMD left and right

[sperbonzo]

Originally Posted by crucifissio

this story is bullshit for 3 reasons:

1) if saddam had WMD he would have used it against the US army...so would have anybody else...I mean americans use cluster bombs against civilians why the fuck should anybody not follow suit?

2) the US army does not have the balls to attack anybody who could hurt them and bring lots and lots of body bags to the USA, proof: north korea ...the moment I saw US troops invading iraq over WMD I was 100% sure there were no WMD because the US army needs to find its balls with an electron microscope first...

and last but not least:

3) the story is bullshit because the US would have paraded the WMD left and right

EXACTLY MY POINT!!!! Especially #3. "the story is bullshit because the US would have paraded the WMD left and right"



That is what I'm trying to say with this post. I'm NOT saying, "Ooooh! Look!, there is the justification for the invasion of Iraq." I'm saying, "If this is real, then it makes no sense, since the administration would have been trumpeting this, not trying to hide it."





.


.

[$5 submissions]

It was embarrassing. The WMDs existed but they were supplied by the 'good guys' So the admin at the time HID the news.