Thursday, June 22, 2006

WMD Found in Iraq

"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." ~ Herbert Agar

I was driving last night, listening to the radio news (WABC, out of New York City...it comes in pretty good in this area at night) and heard what seems to be an earth shattering story.

U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, has announced the discovery of WMD in Iraq.

I was listening to ABC at the time, and it was ABC's lead story, so I figured this was a pretty important story. I didn't think the other major news media would, or could ignore it, but to my surprise, when I awoke this morning, there was little about it on AOL news, or Yahoo news.

Nothing, in fact.

I remember the last time I mentioned some important breakthrough news on my blog that the major news outlets didn't cover. Some of my Liberal readers hadn't even heard about it.

Anyway,I did a quick search and found it, one of the lead stories on the Drudge report web site., which linked me to, you guessed it, FOX News:

The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."


I think this is pretty important news, whether one is a Republican or a Democrat, Liberal or Conservative.

It proves that President Bush was right all along. It proves the President didn't lie, as the Bush haters and America haters have alleged.

Could it be this is why the major news networks and outlets haven't covered it? It would seem that they have the same agenda that the Bush haters and America haters have. After the continual mantra, "Bush lied people died", has been trumpeted throughout the universe and carried on American media airwaves, they are now strangely silent about this groundbreaking news.

I wonder why?

17 comments:

Dan Trabue said...

According to the FOX news report, the BUSH people pooh-poohed the idea that these are the weapons we were looking for.

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."


"NOT the WMDs for which this country went to war."

Senior Defense Department official.

NOT the WMDs.

You know what this means, don't you? That Bush must be part of the vast LW/MSM conspiracy!! egad!

Old Soldier said...

Even if these were not the WMDs over which we took out Saddam, they still blow a big hole in the "theory" that Saddam had complied with UN resolutions to disarm and destroy his stock piles of WMD. It also de-legitimizes the comments of the UN arms inspectors who claimed Iraq had no WMD predicated upon their "findings".

"Iraq has no WMDs"

"Saddam complied with the UN resolutions."

"We found no WMDs."

You know what this means, don't you? That the UN arms inspectors must have been part of Saddam's coverup. Egad!

Timothy said...

A WMD by any other name, is still a WMD...

Also in the Fox Report...
The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows that years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.

The report also said other WMDs have been found there... while it may not have been the ones they were looking for, which the report also says were probably sold on the black market, it seems Saddam did have WMDs...

Mark,
The left would never believe it even if we found a plant still in operation by Saddam loyalists... It's a hatred thing... anything to hate Bush. Don't let facts get in the way of a good hatred.
Blessings

Lone Ranger said...

Of course, the liberals are pooh poohing this. "They aren't the WMD's we went to war for. Well, if you're hit by a car, what difference does it make whether it's a 1990 model or a 2001 model? You're still dead! You think terrorists care whether their nerve gas bombs have a new weapon smell? It also proves that Saddam lied. He said he'd gotten rid of all his WMDs.

Next, the libs are saying that these weapons are old and degraded. Fine. Let's make a list of the top five most annoying liberals and bury one of these in each back yard. I'm thinking under the swing set or the kiddy pool would be a good spot. Or for those who (thankfully) haven't reproduced, in the garage or under the bed.

What idiots.

The Liberal Lie The Conservative Truth said...

The reason for the "pooh-poohed, " Dan is because the President looks foward and not back and this debate has been so falsified by the left and MSM that the truth in this report will be down played by the left and the MSM because doing otherwise will reveal their lie and their true nature which they will never do. The American people see them for who they are and know the truth despite the lies by the left and MSM and that is why left is in and will remain in the minority. Good post Mark !



Ken Taylor

Mark said...

Dan would apparently have us believe that since the WMD reported, in so far de-classified documents, found thus far in Iraq, are not exactly the very same WMD that the UN weapons inspectors had pictured in their minds when they were conducting their search for them, that somehow they don't count.

What kind of moonbat lunacy is this? Because they aren't the same WMD, they are not WMD?

Dan is so blinded by his irrational hatred for President Bush, he won't believe facts that are right in his face!!!

Unbelievable.

I will paraphrase Mark Levin here, Dan:

Get off my blog, you big dope!

Dan Trabue said...

"Of course, the liberals are pooh poohing this."

It's BUSH's people that are pooh-poohing it! That was a Senior Defense Dept official! Not a "liberal." I haven't expressed an opinion, ya big dopes! Read what I've written, not what you want to think I've written!

Mark, are you telling me you want me to quit visiting here?

Are you really saying that you can make up facts (I'm not calling you a liar, just that you've made still unsubstantiated claims), make up straw man arguments for me and others you disagree with, bash us as America-haters and all manner of mean, nasty names and then blast me/ask me to go away for quoting Bush's people??!!

Lone Ranger said...

A "senior defense department official?" What's his name? How senior is he? Is he one of the liberal bureaucrats who will do anything to undermine the Bush administration? Is he one of the liberals who loves his country only when there's a democrat in the White House? Facts, please.

As for whether or not this is one of the WMD's we went to war for, let me remind you that bombs from WWII, Korea and Vietnam are still blowing people up. A weapon is a weapon is a weapon. In Afghanistan, stadiums are being used to play soccer again, rather than to execute women who learned to read. In Iraq, prisons have been emptied of children and rape rooms are no longer being used. Isn't that enough of a reason to go to war? Amazing how liberals can turn a blind eye to suffering when it's brown people half -ay around the world who are doing the suffering. Cowardice! Selfishness! Appalling heartlessness!

The WordSmith from Nantucket said...

The topic of WMDs hasn’t been that important to me, so this news- other than the potential for a talking point- isn't that exciting to me.

There have been reports of wmds for the past few years for those of us paying attention, if not exactly the stockpiles we thought Saddam probably had at his disposal. At this point, though, it’s a moot point.

Saddam WAS a danger, we had all the legal and moral authority we needed, and we’re there now, so deal with it.

It seems leftwingers are pointing out that the 500 chemical weapons are pre-1991. oookay....

UN SCR 687 required the destruction of ALL WMDs.

Dan's against war on ANY grounds. I'd really like to know on what legal grounds he deems the war in Iraq, illegal, as I've heard him state in the past. I'd say it was illegal for Saddam to be in violation of one UN Resolution after another, as well as the terms of the cease-fire agreements- different from a peace treaty. Can you separate your anti-war feelings from your understanding of what is legal?

the Iraqi War Resolution from 2002 specified nothing on the production dates of those wmds, btw.

JOINT RESOLUTION 114

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.

Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq’s war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;…

…Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;…

…Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;…

…Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);

…Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and

Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled

Old Soldier said...

Dan, so where is the honest broker in the liberal MSM that is discussing the legitimacy of the UN weapons inspectors’ claims that Saddam was complying with the resolutions – that Saddam had no WMD? There has been more than enough documentation surface that links Saddam to al-Qaeda, Saddam to terrorism, Saddam as a declared enemy of the US and Saddam having plans to reconstitute a nuclear program as soon as the UN sanctions lifted and watchdogs gone. Saddam aligned with the enemies of his enemy. Espousing Saddam as harmless to the US is naiveté extraordinaire. The same people singing the song of a harmless Saddam are the very ones espousing him as a world menace and threat to the USA pre 2000. The only thing that changed was the president and his party.

Jim said...

Bush's war in Iraq: No plan, no end, same slogan.

Dan Trabue said...

"Dan's against war on ANY grounds. I'd really like to know on what legal grounds he deems the war in Iraq, illegal"

Yes, I am a pacifist and can't see myself taking part in a war as a combatant.

I don't deny a gov't's right to defend her people though.

So what makes a war legal is having a just cause. One cannot invade another country unprovoked, it's against treaties that we have signed which means it's against our law.

And we were unprovoked/not threatened by Iraq. Ergo, illegal invasion. The fact that an irresponsible Congress may or may not approve of an illegal invasion does not make it legal.

"The U.S. Constitution also compels the need for a Security Council vote [approving an invasion], since our nation is a signatory of the UN Charter, thus giving the Charter the status of a treaty guaranteed by the Constitution itself."

In short, we have created laws that say we will not invade another country unprovoked and without the due process that we've agreed to within the UN. That process hasn't happened.

The fact that you don't like the UN does not change the status of the legal obligation the US has. That you and I have to hold our country accountable to uphold our Constitution.

For more info on this, feel free to review:

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept04/
Jayne-Kramer0920.htm

Dan Trabue said...

LR asked:

" A "senior defense department official?" What's his name? How senior is he?"

I don't know, you'd have to ask FOX News, they're the ones who reported it and we know how whacked out FOX can be.

The WordSmith from Nantucket said...

So what makes a war legal is having a just cause. One cannot invade another country unprovoked, it's against treaties that we have signed which means it's against our law.

We never signed a peace treaty. We had cease-fire agreements with Saddam. He broke the conditions of those agreements repeatedly over a period of 12 years, and about 14 or 17 UN Resolutions. How many more Resolutions need to be made before you finally enforce "the law" established by "the international community"? After a while, it becomes nothing more than a running gag, not to be taken seriously.

And we were unprovoked/not threatened by Iraq.

Saddam continually threatened the U.S. He made no secrets to his desire to acquire the weapons we could not find. He never came clean. He could have avoided war, but after 12 years of "getting away with it", he only grew emboldened.

From the Duelfer Report in 2004:

"as UN sanctions eroded there was a concomitant expansion of activities that could support full WMD reactivation."

In addition, "the steps the Regime took to erode sanctions are obvious in the analysis of how revenues, particularly those derived from the Oil-for-Food program, were used. Over time, sanctions had steadily weakened to the point where Iraq, in 2000-2001, was confidently designing missiles around components that could only be obtained outside sanctions . . . . ISG's investigation also makes quite clear how Baghdad exploited the mechanism for executing the Oil-for-Food program to give individuals and countries an economic stake in ending sanctions."

From the Saddam tapes, compliments of Flopping Aces:

War foes have long asserted that Saddam halted his WMD programs in the wake of his defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991. Saddam’s abandonment of WMD programs was confirmed by subsequent U.N. inspections.

Again, not true. In a tape dating to April 1995, Saddam and several aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq’s biological weapons program. On the tape, Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors.

“We did not reveal all that we have,” he says. “Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct.”


Ergo, illegal invasion. The fact that an irresponsible Congress may or may not approve of an illegal invasion does not make it legal.

The Iraqi War Resolution from 2002 gave us Congressional approval. Violations on the part of Saddam to cease-fire agreements gave us legal authority. UN Resolution 1441 (hope I got that right) gave us the authority. And America doesn't need a permission slip from an organization that were ineffectual in enforcement and who are moral cowards and who had vested oil contracts with Saddam, their hands dipped in the oil for food scandal, and who actively worked against us, every step of the way.

The French interest in maintaining Saddam in power had a price tag close to $100 billion in oil contracts for the 1st 7 years of the contracts.

Goat said...

This is well known among those that actually pay attention, from a couple years back it was leaked to the milblogs. I was commenting on it before I started blogging while at O'Reilly's site still.

Dan Trabue said...

I'll repeat:

"The U.S. Constitution also compels the need for a Security Council vote [approving an invasion], since our nation is a signatory of the UN Charter, thus giving the Charter the status of a treaty guaranteed by the Constitution itself."

The Security Council vote approving an invasion that is required by our Constitution never happened. ERGO, Illegal Invasion.

"And America doesn't need a permission slip from an organization that were ineffectual in enforcement"

Actually, yes we do if we're going to follow our own laws. Are you in favor of us following our laws or not?

The WordSmith from Nantucket said...

Dan,

Legal scholars debate over whether or not UN Resolution 1441 was enough to justify finally enforcing it and the 16 other Resolutions that came before. When France says it will veto any war resolution under ANY circumstance...why on earth would we go back to the UN? What's the point?!

Based on what we thought we knew then- and it wasn't the belief of just the Bush Administration cherry-picking, we felt Saddam was a threat to us and to the rest of the world.

Even if it turned out that the world's intelligence got it right, you'd still be opposed, Dan. Wmds or no wmds.

The US had the authority to remove Saddam by virtue of the original U.N. Resolution in 1990 authorizing the use of force. The subsequent cease-fire agreement makes it possible to act independant of the UN Security Council. Our mistake was in initially seeking their blessings, making it appear necessary to get their approval, even on Resolution 1441.