Americans in Iraq Attacked W Bomb Containing Nerve Gas (WMD)

No disrespect, I usually find myself in a tag-team match with you guys.

It was on the news this afternoon that they originally thought the bomb had only traces of Sarin. Now the latest report says 4 to 6 liters which, if properly distributed, could kill many thousands of people. They're still working to determine how old it is though.

Perhaps. I believe that the planting has already been uncovered, or should I say...been there done that. :wink:

New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq
BASRA, April 12 (MNA) -- Fifty days after the first reports that the U.S. forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq, new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed.

Sources in Iraq speculate that occupation forces are using the recent unrest in Iraq to divert attention from their surreptitious shipments of WMD into the country.

An Iraqi source close to the Basra Governor's Office told the MNA that new information shows that a large part of the WMD, which was secretly brought to southern and western Iraq over the past month, are in containers falsely labeled as containers of the Maeresk shipping company and some consignments bearing the labels of organizations such as the Red Cross or the USAID in order to disguise them as relief shipments.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Iraqi officials including forces loyal to the Iraqi Governing Council stationed in southern Iraq have been forbidden from inspecting or supervising the transportation of these consignments. He went on to say that the occupation forces have ordered Iraqi officials to forward any questions on the issue to the coalition forces. Even the officials of the international relief organizations have informed the Iraqi officials that they would only accept responsibility for relief shipments which have been registered and managed by their organizations.

The Iraqi source also confirmed the report about suspicious trucks with fake Saudi and Jordanian license plates entering Iraq at night last week, stressing that the Saudi and Jordanian border guards did not attempt to inspect the trucks but simply delivered them to the U.S. and British forces stationed on Iraq's borders.

However, the source expressed ignorance whether the governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan were aware of such movements.

A professor of physics at Baghdad University also told the MNA correspondent that a group of his colleagues who are highly specialized in military, chemical and biological fields have been either bribed or threatened during the last weeks to provide written information on what they know about various programs and research centers and the possible storage of WMD equipment.

The professor also said these people have been openly asked to confirm or deny the existence of research or related WMD equipment. A large number of these scientists, who are believed to be under the surveillance of U.S. intelligence operatives, have claimed that if they refuse to comply with this request, they may be killed or arrested on charges of concealing the truth if these weapons are found by the Bush administration in the future.

He said that the Iraqi scientists believe their lives would be in danger if they decline to cooperate with the occupation forces, especially when they recall that senior U.S. officer Michael Peterson once said, "Iraqi scientists are at any case a threat to the U.S. administration, whether they talk or not."

A source close to the Iraqi Governing Council said, "In the meantime, many suspect containers disguised as fuel supplies have been moved about by some units of the U.S. special forces. The move has been carried out under heavy security measures. Also, there are unofficial reports that the containers held biological and bacteriological toxins in liquid form. It is possible that the news about the discovery of the WMDs would be announced later."

He also said that such mixtures had been used by the Saddam regime in the 1990s.

The source added that some provocative actions such as the closure of Al-Hawza periodical by U.S. administrator Paul Bremer, the secret meetings between his envoys with some extremist groups who have no relations with the Iraqi Governing Council, the sudden upsurge in violence in central and southern Iraq, a number of activities which have stoked up the wrath of the prominent Shia clerics, and finally, the spate of kidnappings and the baseless charges against the Iranian charge d'affaires in Baghdad are providing the necessary smokescreen for the transportation of the WMD to their intended locations.

He said they are quite aware that the White House in cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has directly tasked the Defense Department to hide these weapons. Given the recent scandals to the effect that the U.S. president was privy to the 9/11 plot, they might try to immediately announce the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to overshadow the scandals and prevent a further decline of Bush's public opinion rating as the election approaches.

http://www.mehrnews.com/wfNewsDetails_en.aspx?NewsID=70071&t=Political

panzade asks, "Didn't we already know they had quantities of sarin?"

Of course we knew.

In fact, the Reagan administration looked the other way when Saddam used Sarin not only against the Kurds, but the Iranians.

But that was before Saddam fell out of favor with the right.

Yep, Fox posted it online a minute after my post.

I bet it will be dated at around 1988.

BTW David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, said: "It doesn't strike me as a big deal."

Uh, I posted it here earlier...

OK Info, that was sort of my point.

My plan to read each and every one of your posts was being shelved today McG and I didn't see that.

In any case, Fox (the news outlet, not the member) did, in fact, post it online immediately after I posted.

panzade:

Back in the late 70's and especially, the early 80's, the US military industrial complex couldn't sell weapons fast enough to Saddam.

Saddam was like Michael Jackson walking into an art gallery -- the owner drooled at the thought of the potential sales. Ka-ching!

But relations began to seriously sour between the USA and Saddam when he refused to turn back on the Mosul to Haifa oil pipeline. Things went downhill from there, and here we are today.

There is a lot of semantic dispute over what WMD means. The phrase originated in 1937 to describe the use of strategic bombers by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War. However, during the Cold War, WMD exclusively meant nuclear weapons. Today's nuclear weapons are vastly more destructive than either biological or chemical weapons. This prompted Gert Haigel, a chemical weapons expert, to state that only nuclear weapons could be called WMD. I'm afraid the terminology has been tossed around helter skelter with little meaning or effect. Just how many does a weapon have to kill to be called a WMD? Some would say our cluster bombs are WMD. It's really a clouded and open ended debate. By the consensus of defintions I've ever found, the bomb found with sarin gas could not be called a WMD (especially as it is nearly comfirmed it was an out-of-date and likely not recently tested delivery system). Not even a stockpile could be called WMD. There would have to be a working delivery system (missles, bombers, etc.)

You should read this.

Also, this.

Lightwizard:

That's a really interesting post and very informative. Thanks for the work you did researching the definition of WMD.

I wrote a 3 paragraph reply on this thread the other day cautioning the right-wingers about not breaking out the bubbly just yet. I tried to direct their memories back to the embarrassing aluminum tube claims that turned out to be just that, aluminum tubes. But many of them are off and running on a WMD tangent.

Your reply also forced me to recall earlier efforts by some on the right to categorize Scud missles as WMDs. This effort failed too.

I should trust something coming from the White House? First you'll have to put someone trustworthy in there.

Many thanks for the clarification Wizard

So an Iranian website is accusing the US of doing something bad? What a shock. And yes, that's definitely an ad hominem attack, or in other words, "consider the source."


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2) That this was the threat referenced in our motives to invade. For this to even qualify it would have to have been owned by the Iraqi government and even then it would be laughable to try to portray this as a threat worthy of a casus beli.

WMD was not the only reason to go to war with Iraq, but it was a reason. Apparently we're looking for lots and lots of WMD, too. I don't know how much biological agent would be needed to count as WMD. How many atomic bombs would satisfy the lefties? Hard to tell.

I think it was the British who thought Saddam could deploy his WMD against the Coalition within 45 minutes in a war. Someone in this thread has reduced that time to 10 minutes in a mad scramble to discredit the bomb. I'm still taking a "wait and see" attitude about things, but the wait is definitely going to be amusing.[/quote]

Just keep in mind that the LW's definition is wrong when referring to WMD's.

The problem with this story is that we don't HAVE any more chemical weapons of this type. They were all destroyed or rendered inert many years ago. The United States decided a long time back that the only WMD that we choose to have are nuclear ones and that all supplies of the other two sides of the WMD Triad (Chemical and biological) were to be eliminated from our arsenal.

The writers of this story need to do a little fact checking before writing stories of this type.

I would be like someone writing:
'During operation Desert Storm, Navy blimps and dirigibles dropped bombs on Sadam Hussien's army' when a little fact checking would reveal that the Navy stoped using and destroyed all their blimps and dirigibles many years ago.

I just hate when reporters aren't called on the lies they print. They hold everyone around them to some 'standard of perfection' that they refuse to live up to themselves. (Think of the last time you saw a reporter step forward with any sort of Mea Culpa)

Yeah, it is. And thanks for the work you did researching the definition of WMD. :wink:

I didn't offer a defintion. I offered what semantic alternatives there have been over the years. The defintion you offered is still vague as to what extent the damage is and how many people are killed. The truth is the politicians don't want it exactly defined as it makes it easier to use as a fear factor.

semantic alternatives?