Saddam's WMD

[red-beard]

From the Wall Street Journal this morning:

Saddam's WMD

By PETER HOEKSTRA and RICK SANTORUM
June 26, 2006; Page A15

On Wednesday, at our request, the director of national intelligence declassified six "key points" from a National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) report on the recovery of chemical munitions in Iraq. The summary was only a small snapshot of the entire report, but even so, it brings new information to the American people. "Since 2003," the summary states, "Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent," which remains "hazardous and potentially lethal." So there are WMDs in Iraq, and they could kill Americans there or all over the world.

This latest information should not be new. It should have been brought to public attention by officials in the intelligence community. Instead, it had to be pried out of them. Mr. Santorum wrote to John DeFreitas, commanding general, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, on April 12, asking to see the report. He wrote, "I am informed that there may well be many more stores of WMDs throughout Iraq," and added, "the people of Pennsylvania and Members of Congress would benefit from reviewing this report." He asked that the "NGIC work with the appropriate entities" to declassify as much of the information as possible.

The senator received no response. On June 5, he wrote again, this time to John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, "concerning captured Iraqi documents, data, media and maps from the regime of Saddam Hussein." He mentioned his disappointment that many captured Iraqi documents had been classified, and that he still had received no response from Gen. DeFreitas. Some 10 days later, still with no response, he shared his dismay with one of us, Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence, who on June 15 wrote to Mr. Negroponte, urging him to declassify the NGIC analytic piece. Mr. Hoekstra was also dismayed because he had not been informed through normal intelligence channels of the existence of this report.

To compound matters, during a call-in briefing with journalists held at noon on June 21, intelligence officials misleadingly said that "on June 19, we received a second request; this time asking that we, in short order -- 48 hours -- declassify the key points, which are sort of the equivalent to key judgments from something like a National Intelligence Estimate, from the assessment." The fault was their own; we had been requesting this information for nine weeks and they had not acted.

On Thursday, Mr. Negroponte's office arranged a press briefing by unnamed intelligence officials to downplay the significance of the report, calling it "not new news" even as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was reiterating the obvious importance of the information: "What has been announced is accurate, that there have been hundreds of canisters or weapons of various types found that either currently have sarin in them or had sarin in them, and sarin is dangerous. And it's dangerous to our forces… They are weapons of mass destruction. They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found… And they are still being found and discovered."

In fact, the public knows relatively little about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Indeed, we do not even know what is known or unknown. Charles Duelfer, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, stated that the ISG had fully evaluated less than 0.25% of the more than 10,000 weapons caches known to exist throughout Iraq. It follows that the American people should be brought up to date frequently on our state of knowledge of this important matter. That is why we asked that the entire document be declassified, minus the exact sources, methods and locations. It is also, in part, why we have fought for the declassification of hundreds of thousands of Saddam-era documents.

The president is the ultimate classifier and declassifier of information, but the entire matter has now been so politicized that, in practice, he is often paralyzed. If he were to order the declassification of a document pointing to the existence of WMDs in Iraq, he would be instantly accused of "cherry picking" and "politicizing intelligence." He may therefore not be inclined to act.

In practice, then, the intelligence community decides what the American public and its elected officials can know and when they will learn it. Sometimes those decisions are made by top officials, while on other occasions they are made by unnamed bureaucrats with friends in the media. People who leak the existence of sensitive intelligence programs like the terrorist surveillance program or financial tracking programs to either damage the administration or help al Qaeda, or perhaps both, are using the release or withholding of documents to advance their political desires, even as they accuse others of manipulating intelligence.

We believe that the decisions of when and what Americans can know about issues of national security should not be made by unelected, unnamed and unaccountable people.

Some officials in the intelligence community withheld the document we requested on WMDs, and somebody is resisting our request to declassify the entire document while briefing journalists in a tendentious manner. We will continue to ask for declassification of this document and the hundreds of thousands of other Saddam-produced documents, and we will also insist on periodic updates on discoveries in Iraq.

This is no small matter. It is not -- as a few self-proclaimed experts have declared -- a spat over ancient history. It involves life and death for American soldiers on the battlefield, and it involves the ability of the American people to evaluate the actions of their government, and thus to render an objective judgment. The people must have the whole picture, not just a shard of reality dished up by politicized intelligence officers.

Information is a potent weapon in the current war. Al Qaeda uses the Internet very effectively and uses the media as a terrorist tool. If the American public can be deceived by people who withhold basic information, we risk losing the war at home, even if we win it on the battlefield. The debate should focus on the basic question -- what, exactly, we need to do to succeed both here and in Iraq. We are dismayed to have learned how many people in our own government are trying to distort that debate.

Mr. Hoekstra is the chairman of the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Santorum is the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference Committee.

[tabs]

WOW...500 Shells that they collected in ones, twos and threes....They probably hadn't been moved since 1990. Sadam probably didn't even know he had them or where they were if he did.

They still dig up unexploded ordinace from WW1 in France, and I'm sure some of it is Mustard or Chlorine Gas shells, does that qualify as WMDs?

[on-ramp]

do you remember "Shock and Awe"?

Here's a trivia question: Which nation, under the leadership of a texas monkey gun-slinging cowboy, has used WMDs to kill thousands of innocent Iraqis in the name of "fighting terrorism" and the misleading "war on terrorism" rhetoric?

[Tobra]

Originally posted by red-beard


...Charles Duelfer, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, stated that the ISG had fully evaluated less than 0.25% of the more than 10,000 weapons caches known to exist throughout Iraq...

Funny how some focus on the unimportant point, or turn it from they found 500(when he had none, according to the UN), and have not fully evaluated 99.75% of the weapons caches that have been identified, to they found 500 old munitions, that probably don't work, and he probably forgot about them(I actually laughed out loud when I read that, thanks, very amusing)

I had not heard that we were using nerve gas and mustard gas on the Iraqi civilians, not reading the dailykos often enough I suppose.

[Overpaid Slacker]

The UN didn't say he had "none" (where do you get this perfectly counter-factual crap?!?) In fact it was the UN that maintained a catalog of what he had; and received his inventory of the weapons he admitted he had and was supposed to destroy.

The UN "knew," as did anyone actually paying attention, that he had WMD (which nobody with 1/16th of a clue denies he used against his own people and Iran), acknowledged he had WMD and was compelled by UNSC resolutions from the cease-fire in the Gulf War [687 (1991)], through 16 more UNSC resolutions not only to destroy the weapons the UN (and everyone else) knew he had, but to verify that destruction "under international supervision".

Note -- verification of the destruction of weapons the UN and others knew he had was not intended to be a "scavenger hunt" where UNMOVIC and IAEA were hoping to find Easter Eggs somewhere in Iraq. Nor were we going to take his word that he had, uh destroyed them; yeah, all of them; yesterday; yeah, you guys' would've loved to see it, yeah; but it's over and destroyed now, so you can go home.

It was Iraq's affirmative obligation, under penalty of force, not only to demonstrate the dismantling and destruction of WMD, but of the capacity to produce WMD, in each case "under international supervision". Fn1

Just as a fer'instance: Before the UN inspectors returned to Iraq in late 2002, Saddam's regime was suspected of possessing 8,500 liters of anthrax, a deadly agent that the Iraqis claimed to have destroyed. The UN view, published on March 6, 2003, was not only that Iraq still had anthrax, the inspectors increased their estimate for the volume of unaccounted anthrax from 8,500 litres to 10,000 liters. As Iraq could produce little evidence of either production or destruction, Blix's team concluded that: "Based on all the available evidence, the strong presumption is that about 10,000 litres of anthrax was not destroyed and may still exist."

So WTF does the staggeringly ignorant phrase "when he had none, according to the UN" come from? Do you frequently opine in this manner that makes "wrong" too small a word?

The UN would establish and for 11 years attempt to effectively implement, a program requiring Iraq to "unconditionally accept the destruction, removal or rendering harmless, under international supervision" of WMD that "according to the UN" he had none of. Brilliant.

All this information is readily, publicly available. Is it too much to expect that you'd do even the most basic research before dropping an ignorance H-Bomb?

Knowing how loathe many are to actually read primary documents b/c they do such savagery to the convenient lies and conflations (like this gem: "when he had none, according to the UN") I don't expect many folks to seize the opportunity, again, to actually read Resolution 1441 and/or any of the resolutions it incorporates by reference. But, for those few of you who will (even hoping for some pathetic "gotcha" language therein) please enjoy.

JP

fn1 -- from UN Security Council Resolution 687 (1991):

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of:

(a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities;

(b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

9. Decides, for the implementation of paragraph 8 above, the following:

(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below;

(b) The Secretary-General, in consultation with the appropriate Governments and, where appropriate, with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, within forty-five days of the passage of the present resolution, shall develop, and submit to the Council for approval, a plan calling for the completion of the following acts within forty-five days of such approval:


(i) The forming of a Special Commission, which shall carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile capabilities, based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission itself;

(ii) The yielding by Iraq of possession to the Special Commission for destruction, removal or rendering harmless, taking into account the requirements of public safety, of all items specified under paragraph 8 (a) above, including items at the additional locations designated by the Special Commission under paragraph 9 (b) (i) above and the destruction by Iraq, under the supervision of the Special Commission, of all its missile capabilities, including launchers, as specified under paragraph 8 (b) above;

(iii) The provision by the Special Commission of the assistance and cooperation to the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency required in paragraphs 12 and 13 below;

10. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally undertake not to use, develop, construct or acquire any of the items specified in paragraphs 8 and 9 above and requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Special Commission, to develop a plan for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with this paragraph, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of this resolution;

Edited to clarify reference to the UN Security Council.

[Tobra]

Man, that stuck a little sand in your vagina now, didn't it. Okay, he was "supposed" to have none and he claimed to have none(but was lying about it), does that make you feel better?

So the fact that he defied the world, had this stuff and was making more(or else he had a goose that laid vials of anthrax, or whatever)

So, 11 years is not long enough, how long do you wait before you enforce something like this? I supose the period of time one would desire is proportional to the amount of money your country is skimming from the oil for food program, hence the resistance by certain members of the security council.

It is still funny how you focus on everything but the "99.75% weapons caches not fully evaluated bit.

Thanks for supporting our going after him, or does the penalty of force mean something different than it appears to mean?

[914GT]

Originally posted by Tobra
Man, that stuck a little sand in your vagina now, didn't it.

You seem to have a fixation on that phrase. Personal experience perhaps?

[fastpat]

Whether there were or were not chemical weapons*, which are not really WMD's at all except for political expediency, was wholly between the UN and the Iraqi government. The warmongering neo-cons within the Bush regime wanted war with Iraq, sought sanction for war from the UN and were refused, and convinced the little fuhrer in the White House to invade without sanction. There was no agreement between the Iraqi's and the US government.

The invasion was illegal, WMD's of any kind notwithstanding.


*Real WMD's are nuclear weapons and no others.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by fastpat
*Real WMD's are nuclear weapons and no others.

Do not know what you are smoking but I hope that I never am exposed to any.

*WMD are NOT ONLY Nukes, period. What does it take to pound this into your head??!! Chemical, Bio and other weapons are classified as WMD!

[Tim Hancock]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
Do not know what you are smoking but I hope that I never am exposed to any.

*WMD are NOT ONLY Nukes, period. What does it take to pound this into your head??!! Chemical, Bio and other weapons are classified as WMD!

Keep in mind Joe that Pat is a nurse and he probably keeps a full supply in his compound of chemical suits, masks and drugs to ward of the effects of any Bio or Chem attacks. He is a highly trained medical professional you know!

[Joeaksa]

Tim,

Difference is that he insists that the WMD found are "not dangerous" but when I ask if he would mind storing a few of these shells in his house, he backpedals and fast.

I bet that the law officials would love to see the contents of his home pharmacy AND arsenal. Wonder how much of it is legal?

[jyl]

The US govt sales job leading up to the 2003 invasion wasn't based on rusty, degraded, 20 year old shells left over from the Iran-Iraq war. The pitch was that Saddam was building an arsenal of WMD that was a threat to our country. Which was false.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by jyl
The US govt sales job leading up to the 2003 invasion wasn't based on rusty, degraded, 20 year old shells left over from the Iran-Iraq war. The pitch was that Saddam was building an arsenal of WMD that was a threat to our country. Which was false.

"Which was false" .... someday my friend you might just eat your words.

We are still finding munitions and bunkers from WW2, so how can you absolutely guarantee that everything has been found in Iraq? As well with open proof that Saddam smuggled hundreds of truckloads of "weapons and other things" to Syria, how can you document that WMD were not in these shipments?

I am not saying 100% that there were WMD there but my gut feeling says that they were. Saddam would not possess then hide (buried in a scientists backyard) plans for nuke devices had he not been in the process of building them. Its documented that he ordered and received some of the machinery to build nuke materials.

Almost everytime the UN inspectors came for a surprise inspection materials were smuggled out of the camps before the inspectors were allowed inside. Why did they do this pray tell?

[sammyg2]

On-ramp, I was waiting to try and find out what color the sky is on your planet but I can't wait anymore. You made the ignore list.

BTW, before you continue making asinine accusations, look up WMD and see what the acnronym actually stands for and what is defined as a WMD. Obviously the answer will surprise you.

[Joeaksa]

Agreed and OnRamp needs to get a clue...

Today, the term WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) means different things to different people. The most widely used definition is that of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons (NBC). http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/mtcr_anx.html]), although there is no treaty or customary international law that contains an authoritative definition. Instead, international law has been used with respect to the specific categories of weapons within WMD, and not to WMD as a whole.

The acronym NBC is used with regards to battlefield protection systems for armored vehicles, because all 3 involve insidious toxins that can be carried through the air and can be protected against with vehicle air filtration systems. However, there is a persuasive argument that nuclear weapons do not belong in the same category as chemical, biological, or radiological weapons, which have limited destructive potential (and close to none, as far as property is concerned), whereas nuclear weapons are famously colossally destructive and belong in a class by themselves.

The NBC definition has also been used in official US documents, by the US President ([2], [3]), the US Central Intelligence Agency ([4]), the US Department of Defense ([5], [6]), and the US General Accounting Office ([7]).

Other documents expand the definition of WMD to include radiological or conventional weapons. The US military refers to WMD as:

Weapons that are capable of a high order of destruction and/or of being used in such a manner as to destroy large numbers of people. Weapons of mass destruction can be high explosives or nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons, but exclude the means of transporting or propelling the weapon where such means is a separable and divisible part of the weapon.([8])
While in US civil defense, the category is now Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE), which defines WMD as:

(1) Any explosive, incendiary, poison gas, bomb, grenade, or rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces [113 g], missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce [7 g], or mine or device similar to the above. (2) Poison gas. (3) Any weapon involving a disease organism. (4) Any weapon that is designed to release radiation at a level dangerous to human life. This definition derives from US law, 18 U.S.C. Section 2332a and the referenced 18 USC 921. Indictments and convictions for possession and use of WMD such as truck bombs, pipe bombs, shoe bombs, cactus needles coated with botulin toxin, etc. have been obtained under 18 USC 2332a.

[widebody911]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
... or rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces [113 g]

Like an Estes "D" engine?

[914GT]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
We are still finding munitions and bunkers from WW2, so how can you absolutely guarantee that everything has been found in Iraq? tell?

God knows how much crap is still on the bottom of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

[jyl]

We'll never have "absolute" proof one way or the other, of whether Saddam had built an arsenal of moderm WMD and then smuggled them to Syria or hid them on the dark side of the moon.

Like most things in life, we have to make our decisions based on weighing the available evidence.

I personally think that given the time and effort the US govt put into searching for the WMD arsenal, including interrogating Iraq scientists and generals and ex-soldiers, every year that those words go uneaten makes it more and more likely that there is in fact nothing much to eat.

But the point of my first post was a little different, which is that finding old degraded mustard gas shells doesn't say a whole lot about whether Saddam indeed built and hid that arsenal. Not even the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush crowd would have tried to sell America on the idea of launching a major ground war and indefinite occupation at a cost of more or less $100BN/yr to capture some old munitions left over from the Iran-Iraq war.

Heck, thousands of rail cars cross the USA every day, carrying gases and chemicals that are "hazardous and potentially lethal."

Edit: I don't see why it matters if the fine print of some US govt regulation define "WMD" as including Estes D rockets, shoe bombs, pipe bombs, etc. We didn't go to war to seize shoe bombs, or so we thought.

[Tim Hancock]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
"Which was false" .... someday my friend you might just eat your words.

We are still finding munitions and bunkers from WW2, so how can you absolutely guarantee that everything has been found in Iraq? As well with open proof that Saddam smuggled hundreds of truckloads of "weapons and other things" to Syria, how can you document that WMD were not in these shipments?

I am not saying 100% that there were WMD there but my gut feeling says that they were. Saddam would not possess then hide (buried in a scientists backyard) plans for nuke devices had he not been in the process of building them. Its documented that he ordered and received some of the machinery to build nuke materials.

Almost everytime the UN inspectors came for a surprise inspection materials were smuggled out of the camps before the inspectors were allowed inside. Why did they do this pray tell?

No one can say for sure what he hid, moved or did not have. However, the naysayers will probably continue to fling their poo for a long time, because it would be simple to hide something in a country the size of Iraq.

One can argue that not much has been found, but I think it is just plain crazy to think that just because we haven't found them, that they could not have been moved or hidden. SH had the choice to comply fully or else. He chose the latter.

[on-ramp]

2500+ dead US soldiers based on fraud.

that's what is tragic here.

U can resume arguing about the meaning of "WMD", doesnt change too much.