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DOD confirms Santorum’s characterization of WMD found in Iraq
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| Fir3start3r |
I don't post this to vindicate Santorum either...
(I really could care less about him...)
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Munitions Found in Iraq Meet WMD Criteria, Official Says
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today.
"These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.
The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.
The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. Sarin attacks the neurological system and is potentially lethal.
"Mustard is a blister agent (that) actually produces burning of any area (where) an individual may come in contact with the agent," he said. It also is potentially fatal if it gets into a person's lungs.
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.
While that's reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. "We're talking chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and have a great effect," he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.
This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred, Chu said. It's not known exactly how sarin breaks down, but no matter how degraded the agent is, it's still toxic.
"Regardless of (how much material in the weapon is actually chemical agent), any remaining agent is toxic," he said. "Anything above zero (percent agent) would prove to be toxic, and if you were exposed to it long enough, lethal."
Though about 500 chemical weapons - the exact number has not been released publicly - have been found, Maples said he doesn't believe Iraq is a "WMD-free zone."
"I do believe the former regime did a very poor job of accountability of munitions, and certainly did not document the destruction of munitions," he said. "The recovery program goes on, and I do not believe we have found all the weapons."
The Defense Intelligence Agency director said locating and disposing of chemical weapons in Iraq is one of the most important tasks servicemembers in the country perform.
Maples added searches are ongoing for chemical weapons beyond those being conducted solely for force protection.
There has been a call for a complete declassification of the National Ground Intelligence Center's report on WMD in Iraq. Maples said he believes the director of national intelligence is still considering this option, and has asked Maples to look into producing an unclassified paper addressing the subject matter in the center's report.
Much of the classified matter was slated for discussion in a closed forum after the open hearings this morning.
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>>Source<<
Wow...some of that sounds vaugely familiar? It should...
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Originally posted by Fir3start3r
"Degraded" doesn't mean "useless" either so let's not split hairs on definitions just to confuse the issue.
The danger is/was that these could have easily been sold or found by terrorist groups to use; 'degraded' or not.
Lest we forget:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_...he_Tokyo_subway
The only reason more people weren't killed is because that stunt was barely pulled off by a bunch of amateurs.
The possiblity of this happening again is very real.
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>>Source<<
now gimmie my cookie damnit... :p |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
:rolleyes:
honestly, give the up. these are NOT the weapons the coalition went to war over.
saddam had these weapons for what? 20 odd years? and how many terror attacks occured in that 20 years using these particular weapons?
on that kind of argument i say we attack the nation who produces the most castor beans, just in case someone *might* wanna make some ricin.
its taken the US all this time, with all their resources & energy, to locate a few vintage chemical shells with questionable potency.
which to my knoweldge werent used by any terror network during saddam's reign. so what, the regime/terrorists were biding their time?
from a purely mathematical standpoint, how many lives do you think were saved by removing these aging/useless weapons? more or less than the number of civilians that have been killed in iraq since 2003? |
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| stevieboy32808 |
| quote: | Originally Posted by Fir3start3r
I don't post this to vindicate Santorum either...
(I really could care less about him...)
| quote: |
Munitions Found in Iraq Meet WMD Criteria, Official Says
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today.
"These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.
The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.
The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. Sarin attacks the neurological system and is potentially lethal.
"Mustard is a blister agent (that) actually produces burning of any area (where) an individual may come in contact with the agent," he said. It also is potentially fatal if it gets into a person's lungs.
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added. |
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You can argue the strength of the weapons all you want but that is not the argument. It's whether or not the weapons were recently produced by the Iraqis during the Bush administration. In other words the relative age the weapons were made. The weapons found in 2003 were produced in the 80's and not now. We need weapons that were recently produced now in order for the Bush Adminstration to be off the hook. To this day we have not found any WMD's that Bush claims were being assembled in today's time. Do you get it now? |
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| hardcore trancer |
| Holy give it up already and stop looking for excuses to justify this war.:o |
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| Purple |
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
Holy give it up already and stop looking for excuses to justify this war.:o |
+1 |
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| BigManwithaPlan |
Here's an interesting line and quote from the Washington Post
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In his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address, President Bush said that U.S. intelligence indicated "Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them -- despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them." |
So we found 500 rusty old shells from the 80's. FANTASTIC! That means there's still 29,484 shells left to be found but the White House has given no evidence they ever existed.
We spent hundreds of billions of $, lost 2540+ soldiers, and seriously wounded 11,000+ troops, this is all we got? There are so many Iraqis being blown up in the street on a daily basis they can't fit the bodies into Bagdad's morgues. And the oil markets are so screwed up by the fighting and instability in the region.
I'm just AMAZED how anyone can seriously look at 500 rusty shells and say this was a justified and necessary foreign policy move. |
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| hardcore trancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by BigManwithaPlan
Here's an interesting line and quote from the Washington Post
So we found 500 rusty old shells from the 80's. FANTASTIC! That means there's still 29,484 shells left to be found but the White House has given no evidence they ever existed.
We spent hundreds of billions of $, lost 2540+ soldiers, and seriously wounded 11,000+ troops, this is all we got? There are so many Iraqis being blown up in the street on a daily basis they can't fit the bodies into Bagdad's morgues. And the oil markets are so screwed up by the fighting and instability in the region.
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well this is all ok and normal according to this admin,this is all part of the road the so called democracy.:rolleyes: |
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