Your mistake is that much if not all of the WMD agents were found after Desert Storm I. If you will take the time to open and read all of these postings, you will recognize that I have shown you the good, the bad and the ugly, not a one side picture.
Wikileaks documents show WMDs found in Iraq « Hot Air
"Wikileaks documents show WMDs found in Iraq
POSTED AT 1:30 PM ON OCTOBER 24, 2010 BY ED MORRISSEY
In this case,
the surprise isn’t the data but the source. Wikileaks’ new release from purloined files of the Department of Defense may help remind people that, contrary to popular opinion and media memes, the US did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and in significant quantities. While the invasion of Iraq didn’t find huge stockpiles of
new WMDs, it did uncover stockpiles that the UN had demanded destroyed as a condition of the 1991 truce that Saddam Hussein abrogated for twelve years (via
Instapundit):
An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive
WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal,
largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.
In
August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid
sulfur mustard, a toxic “
blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base. …
Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “
the rounds tested positive for mustard.”
Some of these discoveries have been known for years. To the extent that the media covered these at all, these finds were generally treated as long-forgotten leftovers that somehow never got addressed by the Iraqi military in twelve years of UN inspections. That, however, disregards completely the kind of totalitarian state that Hussein had imposed on Iraq, up to the minute that circumstances forced him into his spider hole in 2003. Had Saddam Hussein wanted those weapons destroyed, no lower-ranking military officer would have dared defy him by keeping them hidden. It would have taken dozens of officers to conspire to move and hide those weapons, as well as a like number of enlisted men, any and all of whom could have been a spy for the Hussein clique.
That would have had to have happened a number of times, not just once, organically arising in the ranks. And why create a vast conspiracy of defiance to save the weapons that Saddam Hussein liked the most while Hussein himself complied with the UN? Why not a conspiracy to just remove Hussein and his sons and let the military run the country instead? Obviously, Hussein wanted to keep enough WMDs to use as terror weapons, not against the US, but against Iran in the event of an invasion from the east.
This isn’t exactly vindication of
one of the arguments the Bush administration gave for invading Iraq, which was that Hussein had already begun stockpiling new WMDs and was working on nuclear weapons, but it
is another vindication of the primary reason for restarting the war: Hussein and Iraq had violated the truce and refused to comply even after 17 UN resolutions demanding compliance. Hussein never had any intention of abiding by the truce, for whatever motivations one wants to assign to him. After the invasion, the US proved (through an armed-version of Wikileaks in Iraq’s diplomatic files) that the UN had allowed Hussein to grab billions in personal wealth by perverting the embargo in the Oil-for-Food Program, which would have given Hussein the means to fuel another WMD program as soon as the West withdrew from Iraq, and to restart Hussein’s dreams of pan-Arab dominance through military adventurism. In the end, there were no good options."
We Found WMD and It Was Ours - by David DeBatto
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"After relating his background and experience to us, Rahman told us that there was indeed WMD in this area and that he would be willing to lead us to it. Not being overly trusting of Iraqis at that point and certainly not of a prior Iraqi military officer, I was very skeptical of anything he told us. I asked Rahman why he was telling us all of this and he said very matter-of-factly,
"Because I love my country and I want things to change."
I looked at Weichert and asked him with my eyes what he thought. Weichert’s response was to Ask Rahman if he would lead us to the weapons right now and Rahman said,
"Yes, of course."With that, the three of us got into our Humvee and drove to a bunker located at the southeast quadrant of the base, not even one mile from where were sitting.
The bunker sat in a deserted part of the base that had several similar bunkers spread throughout a large area and connected by a single serpentine road. All of the bunkers were constructed of concrete covered by tan stucco, which blended in perfectly with the surrounding desert. They were of various sizes, but all had two, large metal doors which either slid to the side or opened outward, leading into the one large storage area inside.
As we pulled up to the Bunker that Rahman indicated contained the WMD, I noticed that the dry, desert field surrounding the area was littered with ordinance, primarily aerial bombs. Some were rusted beyond recognition and lay half- covered in sand. Others were neatly stacked in the original shipping crates and surrounded by a high earthen berm, which looked like a small crater.
The high, steel doors of the bunker were ajar. Weichert and I each pulled one of them open and the three of us entered the dark and musty storage room. Immediately upon entering, I noticed a chemical detection kit lying open on the floor, just inside the entrance. The hair on the back of my neck went up and I looked over at Weichert, who was also staring at the kit.
"Holy Shit!" we both said at almost the same time. That was
not what I wanted to see at that particular time. I looked closer at the detection kit and saw that it had Russian lettering – not that unusual, since Iraq had many contacts with Russian scientists, engineers and military personnel over the years. They had also purchased a large assortment of military hardware and munitions from them – to include chemicals and related equipment.
Rahman pointed to a number of long wooden crates stacked up in rows three high along the wall to the left of the entrance. There appeared to be 25-30 crates in all. Two or three had their tops removed and grey, aerial bombs, about six feet in length, sat inside. Weichert and I walked over to the crates and looked at one of the open ones. It appeared to be a conventional high explosive bomb used on any number of military aircraft, both in Iraq and in elsewhere.
Rahman motioned for us to come over to where he was standing next to another of the open crates. He pointed to the midsection of the bomb and to what appeared to be a small, thin metal door or covering bolted shut with small metal pins and possibly covering a slot or chamber. Inside, Rahman, explained, was a small parachute. He told us that after the bomb was dropped from the aircraft, the metal covering was blown open and the parachute deployed at about two hundred feet, slowing the descent of the bomb. A chemical agent, which was located in another chamber located at the rear of the bomb, was then dispersed into the air in an aerosol spray and spread over as large an area as the prevailing winds allowed.
Rahman led us around to the rear of the bomb and pointed to the tail assembly. It had a circular piece of metal connected to spokes in a conventional sort of design, but the similarity stopped there. Where ordinarily the rear end of a conventional high explosive bomb would taper into a point, this bomb had apparently had the tail section cut off about six inches from the tip resulting in a flat, circular end. Into that flat end, a small handle was inserted like one on a drawer. Rahman motioned with his hand near the handle and said that this device was twisted in order to open the compartment and then the technician pulled the drawer out and inserted a chemical agent in the slot. When finished, the drawer was reinserted into the bomb and the handle was once again secured.
The chemical WMD was now ready to be loaded onto the aircraft.
Rahman next pointed to the hand lettered numbers on the side of the crates. They were numbered from 1-29. Rahman said that he placed hand-lettered numbers on each one personally and can assure us that were 29 chemical WMD bombs under his supervision. Not 28 or 30 – but 29. He seemed to be very proud of his accuracy and neatness in numbering each crate. He went on to say how he had spent the last eight years or so playing "cat and mouse" with UNSCOM (the UN inspectors). Every time they were due to come to his region for an inspection, he would be notified by his superiors. Then he would arrange for the bombs to be transported to a different area that was not going to be inspected. Sometimes, he told us, he would simply dig a deep hole near the storage facility and bury the bombs, crates and all, until the inspectors left and then dig them up again and put them back where they were. He was familiar with Scott Ritter and Hanz Blix in particular and said they never found any WMD in his region.
He even ran his hand along one of the crates and brushed off some dried clay, which was clinging to the outside. These were dug up after the last inspection before the war and placed back into the bunker with the large areas of clay still covering some of the crates. He was right – every one of the wooden boxes had varying amounts of dry, reddish clay – which is the common soil found at that location – caked to their wooden exteriors. These bombs had definitely been buried locally at some point just before being placed into that bunker – that was a fact.
Looking around the rest of the bunker interior, I could see dozens of metal chemicals containers – some apparently unopened, and some with their tops open and with dried, powdery substances on the floor all around them and inside the containers. Some containers were covered with what appeared to be dried liquids, almost like dry paint, streaming down the sides.
I can honestly say that I was having a hard time comprehending what I was seeing. Unless my senses were deceiving me, Weichert and I had actually found the mother load of Operation Iraqi Freedom – actual Iraqi WMD. I walked over to one of the crates and saw a plastic sheath containing what appeared to be a bill of laden. I cut it open with my Leatherman and pulled the documents out.
At this point I want to say that loud and clear that I very much regret not having either shoved that document in my pocket or made a copy of it and sent it home for safe keeping. At the time I actually thought that a report would be written and normal Army and intelligence protocol would be followed, so there would be no need for me to have to prove anything. But I digress…
I opened the folded off-white paper form and noticed several interesting things right away. The bombs had been purchased in the United States in 1988 from what appeared to be a government contractor called The Carlyle Group. I am almost embarrassed now to say that I had not heard of The Carlyle Group at that time so the name meant nothing to me. The only reason I remember it at all is that I was amazed that the bill was in English and I was stunned to see that a bomb that was used by Iraq in delivering chemical WMD – the only WMD found during the entire Iraq war – was in fact supplied to Saddam Hussein by the
United States. Un-blanking believable.
The date on the bill was either 1987 or 1988, I don’t recall exactly. I do recall that the bomb was manufactured in Spain and shipped through France. So much for their claims of being holier-than-thou. I checked several more bills and they were all identical. These bombs had all been shipped together. Rahman told us that similar weapons had been used all throughout the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s as well as against the Kurds. We were staring at what could have possibly been some of the same type of WMD used in one of the most heinous attacks in recorded history – the gassing of Halabja in March of 1988 which killed an estimated 5,000 Kurdish civilians.
I instructed Weichert to both videotape and take digital still photos of the bunker and its contents. The outside area which included many more chemical containers and HAZMAT suits were documented as well. At least fifteen minutes of video and 50 still photos were taken at that location. These were then incorporated and attached to the detailed written report that I wrote and sent up the chain of command through CI channels.
I also personally reported the discovery to the battalion commander of the 223rd MI, CA ARNG, Lt. Col. Timothy Ryan. Ryan seem excited by the news and asked to be taken to the bunker immediately. Weichert and I drove Ryan to the bunker within minutes after his request and showed him our discovery. He seemed genuinely impressed with the authenticity of our find. He commented to me,
"You guys have found the real deal."
So we had. Too bad it was ours."
portland imc - 2003.08.01 - Missing Iraqi air force turns up
Friday, Aug. 1, 2003 UPDATED AT 11:55 AM EDT
Missing Iraqi air force turns up
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press
Washington — Some of Iraqi's missing air force has turned up down below.
Search teams, some hunting for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, found dozens of fighter jets from Iraq's air force buried beneath the sands, U.S. officials say.
At least one Cold War-era MiG-25 interceptor was found when searchers saw the tops of its twin tail fins poking up from the sands, one Pentagon official familiar with the hunt said. He said search teams have found several MiG-25s and Su-25 ground attack jets buried at al-Taqqadum air field west of Baghdad.
Iraq's air squadrons were a no-show during the war, and U.S. military officials supposed their pilots stayed grounded because they believed they were overmatched by U.S. and British air power.
Various officials differed in opinion as to whether the buried aircraft could ever fly again. Many of the planes were buried intact with minimal efforts to protect them from the sand.
"Our guys have found 30-something brand new aircraft buried in the sand to deny us access to them," congressman Porter Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said after a recent trip to Iraq. "These are craft we didn't know about."
He said the planes were not considered weapons of mass destruction for which coalition troops have been searching for months, "but they are weapons (Iraq) tried to hide."
http://www.marshallcenter.org/mcpub...e/F_Publications/perConcordium/pC_V2N1_en.pdf
"Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q.
Khan waves outside his home in
Islamabad in February 2009. The
architect of Pakistan’s nuclear
program, Khan admitted he
operated a network that spread
nuclear technology to North Korea,
Libya and Iran.
The U.S. Department of Defense
shows the components of a B-61
nuclear bomb. Tactical nuclear
weapons such as the B-61 are
rarely the subject of nuclear arms
limitation treaties, although the U.S.
and the former Soviet Union have
voluntarily reduced stockpiles of
such weapons."
The Russians would know all this, and it doesn't change the power equations in any way. All it does is to solidify Russia's naval access to Europe.
I am not so sure how this will play out. The Europeans also depend (30%+) on Russia for their energy supplies and can't switch to other sources. Already, West Europeans are humming and hawing about any strong actions, and public opinion in Germany and France is not supportive of antagonizing Russia.
Mate, the problem is that the US of A also set so many bad examples in the past that it has no moral standing today. You may not believe what I have to say, however, believe you me, you need to travel the length and breadth of Europe, get into conversations with people with an iota of grey matter, and they'll all say the same things about the US as well.
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Thanks for your views. We have been in Europe recently, have many European friends there, and I read on the Internet several European newspapers. Also get at my USA home mailing address THE ECONOMIST Magazine. Your views are not shared on the street by all Europeans. Europeans in the main want to see Putin punished and removed from office, but Putin's old Stalinst style of governance seems to have democracy loving Russia's now cowered, fearful of being jailed for dissent.
As you know just last week a major Russian TV talk show host was fired for disagreeing with Putin's actions to have invaded Ukraine. But the one English language daily newspaper, THE MOSCOW TIMES thus far seems to be doing a fairly objective job of "telling the truth." I have friends who work at that newspaper, who are Russians, not Americans, fyi.
The March 22-28 2014 ECONOMIST has on it's cover a color photo of Putin riding on top of a Russian tank under the magazine cover headline THE NEW WORLD ORDER. Europeans are very upset and against Russia's invasion of Ukrane, and concerned Putin wants more of Eastern Europe, besides Ukraine, to "at the point of a gun" to merge with Russia.
Inside this current ECONOMIST issue are cover related 6 (six) articles all opposing Putin and Russia's invasion thus far of Ukraine: See LEADER on p. 13. On page 22 "The struggle inside Ukraine"; Page 23, "In Crimea, violence is not far from the surface; "How America and Europe hope to put pressure on Russia, page 24; "For Angela Merkel, the crisis is a throwback to worse times, page 25; "London has more to lose than most when it comes to scaring off oligarchs," page 25; "Europe has yet to wean itself off Russian energy: Charlemagne," page 56.
Both Europe (particularly Spain with it's huge reserves of LNG) and the USA,. which is just now benefiting from the combination of tapping more vast supplies of both natural gas and oil, together with an upsurge in many states of additional power and energy from both solar and wind power can take up the slack sooner vs. later. The IMF and each nation's Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) at the Bank for International Settlements can help fund energy expansions "overnight."
