So now that we know this to be fact, when does the apologizing start?
I doubt we'll hear anything of the kind.
pkcRAISTLIN
how does one define 'mass destruction' though?
quote:
A Pentagon official who confirmed the findings said that all the weapons were pre-1991 vintage munitions \"in such a degraded state they couldn't be used for what they are designed for.\"
The official, who asked not to be identified, said most were 155 mm artillery projectiles with mustard gas or sarin of varying degrees of potency
i hardly see these types of chemical weapons as WMDs. not very nice by any standards of course, but hardly indicative of a strong & ongoing biological/chemical program as argued by the coalition.
hardcore trancer
lol give it up already.This whole war is a propaganda.
MisterOpus1
quote:
Originally posted by Fir3start3r
Well, they were right after all...
So shall YOU be apologizing anytime soon for not checking your sources and believing anything that Instapundit tells you, esp. when they tend to be a little loosy goosy with their facts there?:
Not that this looks like Santorum is grasping oh so desperately at straws as his poll numbers are kicking his ass right now or anything...
Yoepus
You couldn't change peoples mind even if you stumbled to find a couple nuclear weapons hidden in Iraq from some pre or post war era for that matter.
Unless you uncover some top-secret ongoing research and development labratory for wmd, you're not gonna get any apologies, from any side.
Purple
lol
Shakka
The only WMDs that count are those that are explicity approved by the Democratic party. Sorry, these simply don't count as a left-wing blog tries to circumvent their verifiable existence with more smoke-and-mirrors rationalizations.
Had this kind of stuff been found in the pre-war period, Liberals would be singing a completely different tune.
Originally posted by Shakka
The only WMDs that count are those that are explicity approved by the Democratic party. Sorry, these simply don't count as a left-wing blog tries to circumvent their verifiable existence with more smoke-and-mirrors rationalizations.
Had this kind of stuff been found in the pre-war period, Liberals would be singing a completely different tune.
Agreed.
Chemical weapons are chemicals weapons people.
The fact that they might be 'older' surely doesn't make them any less dangerous so that's not even an arguement.
If any of the naysayers actually READ the document you'd see why these findings are important.
MisterOpus1:
That document is hardly fake.
The fact that the MSM isn't splashing it all over the front page should tell you something about the MSM.
You actually believe Iraq destroyed their stockpile simple because they were simply asked?? (by a toothless U.N. AND while madhatter Saddam was in power no less)
Me thinks you expect too much.
It's funny the links one chooses for 'debunking' because the EXACT same video is looked at with a different perspective on a different blog but for a very different reason. http://hotair.com/archives/top-pick...talk-wmd-on-hc/
So how many weapons have to be found to dint the head of the Left?
Of course not enough, because of there's no threat on U.S. soil, it doesn't matter or is just discredited as meaningless.
And if something catastrophic on U.S. soil did happened, they'd just blame old GB anyways...
It's a convenient arguement that's for sure.
Renegade
quote:
Originally posted by Fir3start3r
So now that we know this to be fact, when does the apologizing start?
Haha, you are joking aren't you? There have been sporadic finds of reminants of chemical weapons in Iraq since at least 2004 (link, link, link) and the reason that nobody on either side of politics made a big fuss about them then is because they recognised the "weapons" to be old, unusable and in no way a justification for military action. They are reminants from the Iraq / Iran war and are munitions that we knew Saddam had and we knew he destroyed, so quite why Santorum is making a big deal about it now is beyond me.
In any case, I need only refer to what the Defense Department is saying:
quote:
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.
"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."
And in case you're under any delusions about the potency of these chemical weapons:
quote:
Sarin has a relatively short shelf life, and will degrade after a period of several weeks to several months. The shelf life may be greatly shortened by impurities in precursor materials. According to the CIA [1], in 1989 the Iraqis destroyed 40 or more tons of sarin that had decomposed, and that some Iraqi sarin had a shelf life of only a few weeks owing mostly to impure precursors.
Iraqi mustard gas was of very high quality and, therefore, even unstabilised, it could still have a relatively long shelf-life. Analysis undertaken by Unscom, however, showed that Iraqi mustard gas was prone to undergo polymerisation over time, thus reducing its effectiveness. Even pre-1991 Iraqi chemical munitions that were filled with mustard gas, if used against an armoured and protected force,
therefore, were likely to have proved relatively ineffective.
Rationalise it how you want guys, but these are not "weapons of mass destruction" and they certainly do not justify the invasion of Iraq.
I await your apologies with bated breath. ;)
Renegade
quote:
Originally posted by Fir3start3r
Agreed.
Chemical weapons are chemicals weapons people.
The fact that they might be 'older' surely doesn't make them any less dangerous so that's not even an arguement.
Haha, er the age of the weapons has quite a lot to do with their effectiveness, actually. All compounds break-down and decompose over time and the chemicals in chemical weapons are no different.
quote:
If any of the naysayers actually READ the document you'd see why these findings are important.
Yep, it just affirms what I (and the Defence Department) have been saying:
quote:
Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.
quote:
The fact that the MSM isn't splashing it all over the front page should tell you something about the MSM.
The reasons that the "MSM" isn't splashing it all over the front-pages of their papers is because:
1) This isn't news: we've known about these sorts of "recoveries" for over two years (see links in previous post).
2) This is just a publicity stunt orchestrated for the edification of Rick Santorum and if there's one ing idiot who doesn't need any more publicity, it's Rick Santorum.
quote:
You actually believe Iraq destroyed their stockpile simple because they were simply asked?? (by a toothless U.N. AND while madhatter Saddam was in power no less)
Me thinks you expect too much.
Jesus Christ - short memory? Forgotten the Duelfer report already?
quote:
The 1991 Persian Gulf War and subsequent U.N. inspections destroyed Iraq's illicit weapons capability and, for the most part, Saddam Hussein did not try to rebuild it, according to an extensive report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that contradicts nearly every prewar assertion made by top administration officials about Iraq.
Charles A. Duelfer, whom the Bush administration chose to complete the U.S. investigation of Iraq's weapons programs, said Hussein's ability to produce nuclear weapons had "progressively decayed" since 1991. Inspectors, he said, found no evidence of "concerted efforts to restart the program."
The findings were similar on biological and chemical weapons. While Hussein had long dreamed of developing an arsenal of biological agents, his stockpiles had been destroyed and research stopped years before the United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Duelfer said Hussein hoped someday to resume a chemical weapons effort after U.N. sanctions ended, but had no stocks and had not researched making the weapons for a dozen years.
You may laugh about the "toothlessness" of the UN and UNMOVIC but they actually did destroy the overwhelming majority of his WMD stockpiles - that is, the WMD stockpiles that he wasn't already forced to destroy himself because they were old and useless (see the wikipedia link in my last post). Read this, soak it in and then try to tell me that at the time of the war Saddam Hussein had any WMD capabilities at all, that he was a threat to any other nation on this planet and that we shouldn't be thanking the UN for their role in this:
