For years now I've been arguing against this gospel of deceptive lies about Saddam Hussein's WMD programs and the presence of chemical/biological weapons in Iraq.
With the news today, it seems I'm vindicated at last by this piece by The Telegraph:
Isis jihadists have seized a chemical weapons facility built by Saddam Hussein which contains a stockpile of old weapons, State Department officials have told the Wall Street Journal:
"U.S. officials don't believe the Sunni militants will be able to create a functional chemical weapon from the material. The weapons stockpiled at the Al Muthanna complex are old, contaminated and hard to move, officials said.
Nonetheless, the capture of the chemical-weapon stockpile by the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS or ISIL, the militant group that is seizing territory in the country, has grabbed the attention of the U.S.
"We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL," Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a written statement. "We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials."
The remaining chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein's regime are stored in two sealed bunkers, both located at the Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex, a large site in the western desert some 80km north west of Baghdad.
This was the principal manufacturing plant for both chemical agents and munitions during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons were produced, stored and deployed by the Saddam Hussein regime. Iraq used these weapons during the Iran - Iraq War (1980 to 1988) and against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.
... Chemical weapons produced at the Al Muthanna facility, which Isis today seized, are believed to have included mustard gas, Sarin, Tabun, and VX.
Here is the CIA's file on the complex.
"Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored there. The most dangerous ones have been declared to the UN and are sealed in bunkers.
Although declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be confirmed.
These areas of the compound pose a hazard to civilians and potential blackmarketers.
Numerous bunkers, including eleven cruciform shaped bunkers were exploited. Some of the bunkers were empty. Some of the bunkers contained large quantities of unfilled chemical munitions, conventional munitions, one-ton shipping containers, old disabled production equipment (presumed disabled under UNSCOM supervision), and other hazardous industrial chemicals.
The Chemical Weapons Convention, which Iraq joined in 2009, requires it to dispose of the material at Al Muthanna, even though it was declared unusable and "does not pose a significant security risk"
Read the complete report by The Telegraph
I guess these weapons and materials in the hands of terrorists killing, raping, beheading and burning their way across Iraq are just imaginary, right?
I have long made the argument that The Bush Administration carried out the mandate made by President Bill Clinton in 1998, based upon nearly universally accepted intelligence(s) from several nations.
From The Text of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
SEC. 6. WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL FOR IRAQ.
Consistent with section 301 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993 (Public Law 102-138), House Concurrent Resolution 137, 105th Congress (approved by the House of Representatives on November 13, 1997), and Senate Concurrent Resolution 78, 105th Congress (approved by the Senate on March 13, 1998), the Congress urges the President to call upon the United Nations to establish an international criminal tribunal for the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide, and other criminal violations of international law.
SEC. 7. ASSISTANCE FOR IRAQ UPON REPLACEMENT OF SADDAM HUSSEIN REGIME.
It is the sense of the Congress that once the Saddam Hussein regime is removed from power in Iraq, the United States should support Iraq’s transition to democracy by providing immediate and substantial humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, by providing democracy transition assistance to Iraqi parties and movements with democratic goals, and by convening Iraq’s foreign creditors to develop a multilateral response to Iraq’s foreign debt incurred by Saddam Hussein’s regime.
SEC. 8. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and
President of the Senate.
Let's bat this around some more shall we? The presence of these materials has been reported and authenticated widely, but not as widely as the deliberate lies and cover-ups and political football since about the 2003 - 4 time frame. The British Government Ministry of Defense (MOD) acknowledge the Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex and were providing training and assistance in disposing of these materials as late as 2012.
Scientists from the Ministry of Defence are to provide training which will support the Iraqi Government's efforts to dispose of remnants of the chemical weapons amassed during Saddam Hussein's regime.
Under an agreement signed in Baghdad, experts from the MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) will provide training to Iraqi personnel which will help them to safely dispose of partially destroyed chemical munitions and agents, along with other contaminated materials.
The materials are contained in two sealed bunkers at the old Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex, a large site in the western desert some 80km north west of Baghdad, which was the principal manufacturing plant for both chemical agents and munitions during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons were produced, stored and deployed by the Saddam Hussein regime. Iraq used these weapons during the Iran - Iraq War (1980 to 1988) and against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.
Not enough for you? OK, I can go on for days with this.
Former Iraqi military officers have described a highly secret terrorist training facility at Salman Pak, where both Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabs receive training on hijacking planes and trains, planting explosives in cities, sabotage, and assassinations.
The Salman Pak biological warfare facility was located on a peninsula caused by a bend in the Tigris river, approximately five kilometers (km) from the arch located in the town of Salman Pak. The facility area comprised more than 20 square km, and might have been known as a farmers (or agricultural) experimentation center. The peninsula was fenced off and patrolled by a large guard force. Immediately inside and to the east of the fence line were two opulent villas: the larger built for Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the other for his half-brother, Barazan al-Tikriti. A main paved road ran through the center of the Salman Pak facility/peninsula.
Plans were made in the mid-1980's to develop the Salman Pak site into a secure biological warfare research facility. Dr Rihab Taha, head of a small biological weapons research team, continued to work with her team at al-Muthanna until 1987 when it moved to Salman Pak, which was under the control of the Directorate of General Intelligence.
Located at the facility are several buildings. The probable main research building at the site is a modern building, composed of twenty four rooms, housing a major BW research facility. Using current technology the research area alone had sufficient floor space to accommodate several continuous-flow or batch fermenters that could produce daily sufficient anthrax bacteria to lethally assault hundreds of square kilometers. Adjacent to the research building is a storage area which contains four munitions type storage bunkers with lightning arrestors. Two of these bunkers have facilities for storage of temperature sensitive biological material. Approximately a mile down the road from the research area is a complex US intelligence believed to be an engineering area. One building in this complex was thought to contain a fermentation pilot plant capable of scale up production of BW agents. A construction project comprising several buildings was begun in early 1989 adjacent to the engineering area, and was near completion in 1990. This new complex was assessed as a pharmaceutical production plant. As such, this facility would have an extensive capability for biological agent production.
Read the rest of the piece by Global Security here:
The notorious WikiLeaks uncovered many documents and files which clearly indicate Iraq did indeed have many such weapons, materials, facilities.
Now we don’t have to take the Times‘, and the military’s, word for it. The addictive Iraqslogger blog has pictures of the American evidence that the Iranian government is supplying Iraq’s superbombs, and other weapons. Here’s a photo of a Lieutenant Captain [sorry, late-night blogging foul] with the copper disks that form the heart of these "explosively formed projectiles." The military asserts that the disks are so " smooth and flawless" that they must be "manufactured in Iran." DANGER ROOM‘s David Hambling isn’t so sure.
Long ignored too is the proxy war with Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now we are to believe that we need Iran's assistance with ISIS/ISIL. The source of these devices may not yet be entirely clear. Wired ran several articles on all of this and the documents released on WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2012, and The UK Guardian ran this piece Iraq war logs: Allegations of chemical weapons smuggling.
Never fear, President Obama in on top of it, still weighing his options, asserting that he doesn't need the permission of the US Congress to act ... I'm sure we'll be just fine ...
Or have I been eating paint chips again?
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