Hundreds of WMD Found in Iraq Since 2004
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 at 09:43PM Republican Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee held a news conference today reporting that about 500 weapons munitions have been found in Iraq since May 2004.
A declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit reports:
Subject: Iraqi Chemical Munitions
Purpose: This summary provides an unclassified overview of chemical munitions recovered in Iraq since May 2004.
Key Points:
—Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agents.
—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. **(in addition to the 500 already found)
— Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market . Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.
—The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.
—The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.
—It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.
As right now, many major networks are not covering the story. Check out CNN.com. Liberal guests on Fox News fully discounted the news as meaningless.
“This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Rick 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.”
Remember what the Dems said about WMD and Saddam as late recently as 2003.
When my husband was in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003, soldiers found munitions buried in the backyards of a couple high ranking Baathist officials. I recall seeing the reports on CNN and other places, but not much came of the reports. Back in June 2005 I wrote that the United Nations reported 109 sites in Iraq had missing WMD:
UNITED NATIONS — U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.
Liberals will aruge that these are pre-Gulf War WMD, but they the very ones Saddam told the U.N. he destroyed yet we all knew he had, based on various intelligence. Liberals will also say they WMD are useless and ineffectual, but the classified report says they could be sold on the black market or that they could be “used” outside of Iraq. Useless WMD wouldn’t have a demand on the blackmarket. And why would Iraqi groups and insurgents try to obtain the WMD that were unusable? You’ll also hear libs point to a Defense Spokesman saying that this is “nothing new.” Keep in context that these have been uncovered since 2004.. hence the Defense Department’s “nothing new” quote.
Could it be that Pres. George W. Bush is owed a huge apology? Al Sharpton said on Fox’s Bill O’Reilly tonight that if WMD were ever found in Iraq that he would apologize to the President on the O’Reilly Factor. I’ve got the DVD-R on record…
Michelle Malkin Stop the ACLU Flopping Aces
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Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R – MI) appeared on FOX News’ Hannity & Colmes Wednesday night to discuss the breaking news of WMD being found in Iraq.
WATCH THE VIDEO (Expose the Left)
Expose the Left had this commentary on the interview:
Alan Colmes, like liberal bloggers are trying to downplay this situation. Why are they not happy that we found WMD in Iraq, and more importantly why are liberals trying to question the authenticity of them? Is it okay to question their patriotism, now?
Colmes tries to spin this as a “desperate attempt” on Santorum’s part to win re-election in his Senate race. That is absolutely disgusting, but Alan’s a liberal, so it’s understandable.
Colmes kept saying that the WMD is outdated and old, at the end of the segment co-host Sean Hannity suggested a liberal should house the WMD and see how they feel about that.
Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who broke the news yesterday at the press conference with Sen. Santorum, said this the Hannity & Colmes interview: “If the Iraqi Survey Group spent 18 months and found very, very little and over the last 18 months our troops have by accident stumbled across over 500 chemical weapons, what else do we not know about Saddam’s pre-war Iraq?”
It was recently discovered that a 2003 al-Qaeda attack on New York City subways was thwarted in part by the President’s Terrorist Surveillance Program. The plan was to release hydrogen cyanide gas into subway cars. Similarly, the worst terrorist attack in Japan occurred in Tokyo subways March 1995 with very small amounts of sarin, which are highly lethal.
For the sake of argument if the “pre-Gulf War” WMD were not capable of being used in missiles, which appears to be the case, they are still lethal and can be used in other form of attacks. “Degraded” does not mean “unusable”, a point liberals are trying not to address. This is why the US Intelligence Department said:
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. **(in addition to the 500 already found)
Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market . Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.
While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.
It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.
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Reader Comments (56)
PS Liberals should NOT answer this question lest I begin to turn purpel, then green.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html
i why should I believe what the liberal FOX news has to say about it either.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html
"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."
Instead I am going to believe a politically motivated report by Santorum. The most Centrist and holiest of Senators. The one who brought his dead fetus home for his children to hold and sing to.
Just curious. Regarding this statement. "insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons." They just haven't done so yet because why exactly? Too nice, don't want to escalate the conflict? I like this one too regarding misplaced mustard gas that is 15 years old. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal. So we went to war becuase they possesed 500 12 year old, degraded chemical weapons that had been misplaced but we knew where there somewhere. I would say the recovery of those 500 useless shells is worth 2,500 american lives. Wouldn't you?
"While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter."
"Could it be that Pres. George W. Bush is owed a huge apology?"
let's see what Bush has to say on the issue, shall we, hmmm?
"The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14897-2004Oct7?language=printer
Actually this is really good news. It shows how incredibly desperate the GOP is and how scared they are about november. Sanatorium is one of the GOP's most vulnerable Senators and this just makes him look more crazy than he is already known to be.
I'm sorry, I was fiddling around with my IP blocks and apparently yours was undone. I banned you from the last thread. If you can keep it clean and polite you can stay. Otherwise, I'll delete your entries and ban your IP.
I have to add this to my liberal deflection list:
"I would say the recovery of those 500 useless shells is worth 2,500 american lives."
And no blood for oil, right? The unclassified portion of the reports says,
"While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal."
And
"Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market . Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out."
And
"insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons."
Now, why would they be wanted on the black market or used by insurgents if they were useless? Do you remember the sarin attack in Japanese subways on March 19, 1995? The tiniest droplets were lethal. This is serious stuff.
Santorum said:
"pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist. **(in addition to the 500 already found)
In other words this is the tip of the iceberg. These are the WMD Saddam said he destroyed. BINGO.
"While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991."
More than 500 is a small number? You are joking I hope. And how do you know they are worthless?
This is my first time on your site, jumping over from Michelle Malkin. I read your bio and admire your work. As a transplanted northern Catholic, now living in Louisiana, a strong Catholic area, I will remember your causes in my prayers.
Says the ANONYMOUS official you mean. Yeah, no political motivations there huh? I'll always trust the word of a mysterious "official".
"And how do you know they are worthless?"
They don't. You knew this would happen Amy, and my brother already predicted all of the possible responses from the liberal left on his radio show. Thomas has stereotypically given everyone of them. Bottom line, the GOP isn't as desperate as the left wants people to think, otherwise they would be gaining ground while the Republicans are on the decline. That hasn't happened, because the key players in the Democratic Party are flip floppin Kerry, drunk-driving Kennedy, and insane in the membrane Dean. Hillary won't even get the nomination, because liberals themselves won't vote for her because their pissed off she voted for the war and has since modertated itself.
The liberal media is downplaying this groundbreaking news, because the political implications are HUGE. The libs can try and explain away these new found WMD's all they want, but the American people have common sense. Tell them we found 500 chemical munitions and game over for the anti-war movement.
Regarding MSM coverage, as of this writing msnbc.com has this story way down on their page with the title of "GOP claims WMD found in Iraq". Note that, according to MSNBC, WMD were not actually found, only that the GOP claims they were found. Their top story is about global warming. So much for fair and balanced coverage.
To berate everyone by using the, "I know someone who worked somewhere ..." or "I was there in [n] capacity" kinda thing doesn't help. Unless you are David Kay's right hand guy ... ???
We are gathering proof every day. You have not provided yours. Until it is released, you are just as credible as the rest of us ... it just happens that more and more evidence is going our way ... sorry.
"This "Dan Rather" type document is interesting at best. This will undoubtedly have to be proven."
This is an official document, formerly classified, now unclassified, from the Director of the National Intelligence to the House Intelligence Committee. There is nothing "Dan Ratherish" about it. John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence to obliged the House Intelligence Committee, was the US Ambassador to Iraq replacing Paul Bremmer. He is acting properly in his office of Director of the National Intelligence... I'm not sure what's questionable about the document except that it officially took so long to surface.
This is "nothing new" in that I have known of these findings, little by little, all along since the initial invasion in 2003. I've reported them and they've been poo-pooed by libs. The news is that the US can positively confirm that 500 chemical munitions have been found in Iraq since 2004 and that there are still munitions "filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist. **(in addition to the 500 already found) "
The fact that it's official is the story. The left refuses to believe it.
>>>"President Bush said yesterday that he was "just as disappointed as everybody else" when U.S. troops failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and pledged that his administration is adjusting strategy to defeat Iraqi insurgents.
In a lengthy speech to the World Affairs Council of Charlotte, Mr. Bush also said he is confident Iraq can govern itself and urged its leaders to create a unity government quickly.
"The enemy for a while tried to shake our nerve. They can't shake my nerve. They just can't shake it," Mr. Bush told hundreds of supporters gathered in the auditorium of the Central Piedmont Community College.
"So long as I think I'm doing the right thing, and so long as we can win, I'm going to leave our kids there because it's necessary for the security of this country."
In his latest defense of the Iraq war -- an ongoing White House effort to convince Americans that a plan for victory is in place -- Mr. Bush said Saddam Hussein needed to face "serious consequences" after refusing to cooperate with the United Nations.
"I fully understand that the intelligence was wrong, and I'm just as disappointed as everybody else is," Mr. Bush said. "But what wasn't wrong was Saddam Hussein had invaded a country, he had used weapons of mass destruction, he had the capability of making weapons of mass destruction, he was firing at our pilots.
"He was a state sponsor of terror. Removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing for world peace and the security of our country."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060406-112119-5897r.htm
So how does Rick Santorum know more about this subject than the President of the United States? Does Rick Santorum have higher security clearance than the President? Does Rick Santorum have better contacts with Intelligence agencies than the President?
And how does a "degraded" 25 year old relic from the Iran-Iraq War constitute a "smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud" type threat to the United States?
--Cobra
Democrats want "cut and run" or "cut and jog" which is stupid. I say we stick with the 3 year and runing Republican plan of "LIE and DIE". According to Karl Rove...2500 is just a number! I think its awesome that this country chose to have a bunch of draft-dodging, pink-team pansies who have not seen one single second of combat or credible military experience in their entire, collective lives start and run a war. Sounds like something a freakin Liberal would do.
A stupid assumption since we had NAMED sources with Clinton. Paula, Monica, pick an intern. And don't forget Pardongate.
"I think its awesome that this country chose to have a bunch of draft-dodging, pink-team pansies who have not seen one single second of combat or credible military experience in their entire, collective lives start and run a war. Sounds like something a freakin Liberal would do."
Well Bush's two opponents were Gore (check his service, if you can find it) and Kerry, a supposed "war hero" although those that served with him say the opposite. Those "pansies" you mentioned did more to stop terrorism than any liberal has done, that's for sure. Liberals can dance around these WMDs all they want but Americans aren't in this to win an argument, and they are not in this for political gain. 500 chemical weapons munitions is all they need to hear.
Btw Cobra, April 7th isn't "recently." Nice try with your "source." Citing a quote Bush made 2 months ago about a statement made June 21 06 is pretty sneaky.
***"I say we stick with the 3 year and runing Republican plan of "LIE and DIE". According to Karl Rove...2500 is just a number! I think its awesome that this country chose to have a bunch of draft-dodging, pink-team pansies who have not seen one single second of combat or credible military experience in their entire, collective lives start and run a war."
What an offensive statement, particularly for a military family to hear. Does it score any points with you that my husband served in Iraq with the 82nd ABN from Feb. 03 - Feb. 04 and we totally support this war effort? Or that all our friends who had boots on the ground also support the war effort? Are they draft-dodging pink-teamed pansies too, or will you take their word for it when they say WMD are still be recovered in Iraq and that getting rid of Saddam had to happen for national security purposes, if not sooner than later?
Karl Rove, although I do not know the context, would not say 2500 is just a number. Republicans have not lied about the war in Iraq or the intelligence leading up to it. I can't repeat myself but have in this blog repeatedly shown and painstakingly explained how there was no LIE and how the current administration has been repeatedly vindicated. The "lie" supposedly centered around the African uranium procurement and the intelligence turned out to be true. Joe Wilson's conduct in Niger supports the intelligence as well, that Iraq tried to procure uranium.
Please don't feign concern that soldiers die in Iraq. No one believes it. It was Clinton who dodged the draft; if you recall, Dan Rather is out of a job today because he tried to perpetuate the very lie you are, which is that Pres. Bush didn't serve, or that he served under dishonorable circumstances. Remember "memogate"? And do YOU have a military record? If not, how is it that you can have an opinion about the war? Did Clinton, Carter, or Gore have military records? Why do you libs choose ex-soldiers who seem to hate America to be your representatives, like Murtha and Kerry, who both constantly talk down the troops and their efforts as well as have questionable records regarding the awards they tried to procure for themselves?
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=%5CSpecialReports%5Carchive%5C200601%5CSPE20060113a.html
Murtha's War Hero Status Called Into Question
January 13, 2006
"Murtha is a retired marine and was the first Vietnam combat veteran elected to Congress. Since 1967, there have been at least three different accounts of the injuries that purportedly earned Murtha his Purple Hearts. Those accounts also appear to conflict with the limited military records that are available, and Murtha has thus far refused to release his own military records.
A Cybercast News Service investigation also reveals that one of Murtha's former Democratic congressional colleagues and a fellow decorated Vietnam veteran, Don Bailey of Pennsylvania, alleges that Murtha admitted during an emotional conversation on the floor of the U.S. House in the early 1980s that he did not deserve his Purple Hearts.
"[Murtha] is putting himself forward as some combat veteran with serious wounds and he's using that and it's dishonest and it's wrong," Bailey told Cybercast News Service on Jan. 9. Murtha served in the Marines on active duty and in the reserves from 1952 until his retirement as a colonel in 1990. He volunteered for service in Vietnam and was a First Marine Regiment intelligence officer in 1966 and 1967."
Cobra, the President was referring to "stockpiles"; large quantifies in one place when referring to "faulty intelligence". I frankly think the President has done a horrific job of defending his position and relaying the case for war... bloggers do a better job. Military on the ground and in command disagree with many of the statements you posted from the President.
All Santorum has done is reveal UNCLASSIFIEFD INFORMATION. I don't get what's so hard to understand. If you want to accuse the Intelligence Department of perpetrating a fraud, go ahead, but Santorum is only reiterating findings. There are photos to accompany the reports of WMD.
Rumsfeld said about the 500 munitions: "They are weapons of mass destruction. They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found."
**"And how does a "degraded" 25 year old relic from the Iran-Iraq War constitute a "smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud" type threat to the United States?"
I dunno, Cobra, but why does the Nat. Intelligence report, based on examination of the 500 munitions uncovered by soldiers in Iraq, that:
- Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market ?
-The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.?
-While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal?
-insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons?
Degraded doesn't mean ineffectual. I guess that's why the soldiers and workers removing the chemicals in Iraq are covered head to toe in protective gear and NBC masks, because they're harmless, right?
This is what gets me. If for no other reason but humanitarian reasons we went into Iraq, how can you libs justify your position? And I thought liberals were supposed to the compassionate ones.
These are the bombs Saddam told the U.N. he destroyed. He did not. We found some. What's so hard to understand? (or should I say 'accept'?)
"You banned me previously? I didn't call anyone names, i thought I was more polite than anyone was to me, including you."
Yep. So polite you called me "hateful and evil" because I have a different opinion of Israel's sovereignty than you do (and it's one almost everyone else agrees with). If that's polite, what would you consider rude?
Lacks the "oomph" of the original I say.
They will come up with some other type of hate Bush propaganda and try to save face, count on it.
Mwalimu, that is hilarious! I'll take one! lol!
I don't know what planet Trevor lives on, but 500 cannisters of mustard gas/sarin gas can wipe out entire populations, and NO ONE has declared these WMD NON-LETHAL. That is Trevor talking out of his wallet pocket. I was stationed on the DMZ in Korea in 1999-2000 and every Soldier stationed there goes through mandatory training about duds (unexploded ordinance) and are ordered not to touch the duds that have been there sometimes as long as 50 years! Trevor is spinning like a wobbly top. "Weapons of minor discomfort"?????? Yeah buddy, I'd like to see you handle these WMD. That's outrageous. For the real explanation of mustard gas:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWmustard.htm
"Mustard Gas (Yperite) was first used by the German Army in September 1917. The most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used during the war, it was almost odourless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks.
The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be strapped to their beds. It usually took a person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas poisoning. One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote: "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke."
Get your facts straight, please.
Sarin: 1st WMD found in Iraq
17/05/2004 17:48 - (SA)
Baghdad, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a US military convoy in Baghdad, the US military said on Monday. It was the first confirmed finding of any of the banned weapons upon which the United States based its case for the Iraq war.
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155mm artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesperson in Iraq. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a US force convoy.
FIRST SHELL WITH SARIN FOUND
Dispersal would be far more effective if a shell containing nerve agent were fired from an artillery piece, he said. Kimmitt said he believed it was the first case in which US forces had found an artillery shell containing sarin.
"The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War," Kimmitt said. "Two explosive ordinance team members were treated for minor exposure to nerve agent as a result of the partial detonation of the round."
Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonising choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas, but that didn't stop other nations from stocking it.
Nerve gases work by inhibiting key enzymes in the nervous system, blocking their transmission. Small exposures can be treated with antidotes, if administered quickly.
Antidotes to nerve gases similar to sarin are so effective that top poison gas researchers predict they eventually will cease to be a war threat.
OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
Saddam's WMD
have been found
New evidence unveils chemical, biological, nuclear, ballistic arms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: April 26, 2004
1:36 p.m. Eastern
New evidence out of Iraq suggests the U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction is having better success than is being reported.
Key assertions by the intelligence community widely judged in the media and by critics of President Bush as having been false are turning out to have been true after all.
But this stunning news has received little attention from the major media, and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found.
In virtually every case -- chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles -- the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors.
The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight.
"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."
Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner.
The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with these demands as one justification for going to war.
Both Duelfer and Kay found Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs," the official said. "They found a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on human subjects."
They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these cases, "Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their activities to the U.N. inspectors," the official said.
But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly hide behind ambiguity and a lack of sensational-looking finds for not reporting some discoveries, in the case of Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they have no excuse for their silence.
"Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior administration official told Insight.
"Saddam Hussein's prohibited missile programs are as close to a slam dunk as you will ever find for violating United Nations resolutions," the first official said. Both senior administration officials spoke to Insight on condition that neither their name nor their agency be identified, but their accounts of what the United States has found in Iraq coincided in every major area.
When former weapons inspector Kay reported to Congress in January that the United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden weapons in Iraq, his conclusions made front-page news. But when he detailed what the ISG had found in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last October, few took notice.
Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight have been amplified in subsequent inspections in recent weeks:
A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program?
"Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'"
New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations.
A line of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, or drones, "not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350 kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit."
"Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the U.N."
"Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] -- well beyond the 150-kilometer-range limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates]."
In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized documents and other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made "clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles -- probably the No Dong -- 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise missiles and other prohibited military equipment," Kay reported.
In testimony before Congress on March 30, Duelfer, revealed the ISG had found evidence of a "crash program" to construct new plants capable of making chemical- and biological-warfare agents.
The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a "high-speed rail gun," a device apparently designed for testing nuclear-weapons materials. That came in addition to 500 tons of natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's main declared nuclear site south of Baghdad, which International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight had been intended for "a clandestine nuclear-weapons program."
In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer said his investigators had discovered that "the primary source of illicit financing for this system was oil smuggling conducted through government-to-government protocols negotiated with neighboring countries [and] from kickback payments made on contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program."
What the president's critics and the media widely have portrayed as the most dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has been the claimed failure to find "stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons. But in a June 2003 Washington Post op-ed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus called such criticism "a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security."
The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons [MT] and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW [chemical warfare] agents -- much of it added in the last year."
That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions contained in the final report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 1999, which highlighted discrepancies in what the Iraqis reported to the United Nations and the amount of precursor chemicals U.N. arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but for which it no longer could account.
Until now, Bush's critics say, no stockpiles of CW agents made with those precursors have been found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the administration "lied" to the American people to create a pretext for invading Iraq.
But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was anyone seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted warehouses packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, with labels written in English?
Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to smoking vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory?
Stockpiles found
In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority's intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice working order -- but found all the same.
Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20 years, and a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic demolitions munitions security officer and a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer. As a civilian analyst in Iraq last summer, he worked for an operations intelligence unit of the CPA in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science and Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal employment for Iraqi WMD scientists.
In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the online magazine AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from U.S. combat units and public information confirming that many of Iraq's CW stockpiles have indeed been found.
Until now, however, journalists have devoted scant attention to this evidence, in part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting forward since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war.
But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly undramatic nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have described. The materials that constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like pesticides, which they indeed resemble.
"Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson says. "In fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the 'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents."
The United Nations was fully aware that Saddam had established his chemical-weapons plants under the guise of a permitted civilian chemical-industry infrastructure. Plants inspected in the early 1990s as CW production facilities had been set up to appear as if they were producing pesticides, or in the case of a giant plant near Fallujah, chlorine, which is used to produce mustard gas.
When coalition forces entered Iraq, "huge warehouses and caches of 'commercial and agricultural' chemicals were seized and painstakingly tested by Army and Marine chemical specialists," Hanson writes. "What was surprising was how quickly the ISG refuted the findings of our ground forces and how silent they have been on the significance of these caches."
Caches of "commercial and agricultural" chemicals don't match the expectation of "stockpiles" of chemical weapons. But, in fact, that is precisely what they are. "At a very minimum," Hanson tells Insight, "they were storing the precursors to restart a chemical-warfare program very quickly."
Kay and Duelfer came to a similar conclusion, telling Congress under oath that Saddam had built new facilities and stockpiled the materials to relaunch production of chemical and biological weapons at a moment's notice. At Karbala, U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what appeared to be a very large "agricultural supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the drums were stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters -- with unpleasant results.
"More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve agent," Hanson says. "But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business gains by securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The 'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump -- evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG."
That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable CW stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, where Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States from nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division found 55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass spectrometry analysis as cyclosarin -- a nerve agent.
Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and a mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site.
"Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'"
At Taji -- an Iraqi weapons complex as large as the District of Columbia -- U.S. combat units discovered more "pesticides" stockpiled in specially built containers, smaller in diameter but much longer than the standard 55-gallon drum.
Hanson says he still recalls the military sending digital images of the canisters to his office, where his boss at the Ministry of Science and Technology translated the Arabic-language markings. "They were labeled as pesticides," he says. "Gee, you sure have got a lot of pesticides stored in ammo dumps."
Again, this January, Danish forces found 120-millimeter mortar shells filled with a mysterious liquid that initially tested positive for blister agents. But subsequent tests by the United States disputed that finding.
"If it wasn't a chemical agent, what was it?" Hanson asks. "More pesticides? Dish-washing detergent? From this old soldier's perspective, I gain nothing from putting a liquid in my mortar rounds unless that stuff will do bad things to the enemy."
The discoveries Hanson describes are not dramatic. And that's the problem: Finding real stockpiles in grubby ammo dumps doesn't fit the image the media and the president's critics carefully have fed to the public of what Iraq's weapons ought to look like. A senior administration official who has gone through the intelligence reporting from Iraq as well as the earlier reports from U.N. arms inspectors refers to another well-documented allegation.
"The Iraqis admitted they had made 3.9 tons of VX," a powerful nerve gas, but claimed they had never weaponized it. The U.N. inspectors "felt they had more. But where did it go?" The Iraqis never provided any explanation of what had happened to their VX stockpiles.
What does 3.9 tons of VX look like? "It could fit in one large garage," the official says. Assuming, of course, that Saddam would assemble every bit of VX gas his scientists had produced at a single site, that still amounts to one large garage in an area the size of the state of California.
Senior administration officials stress that the investigation will continue as inspectors comb through millions of pages of documents in Iraq and attempt to interview Iraqi weapons scientists who have been trained all their professional lives to conceal their activities from the outside world.
"The conditions under which the ISG is working are not very conducive," one official said. "But this president wants the truth to come out. This is not an exercise in spinning or censoring."
WMDs Found in Iraq
Posted Nov 09, 2005
• Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
• Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons
• Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas
• Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs
• Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin
Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered
Post-Invasion Cache Could Have Been For Use in Weapons
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page A18
BAGHDAD, Aug. 13 -- U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.
Monday's early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad.
Combined, the chemicals would yield an agent capable of "lingering hazards" for those exposed to it, Boylan said. The likely targets would have been "coalition and Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi civilians," partly because the chemicals would be difficult to keep from spreading over a wide area, he said.
Boylan said the suspected lab was new, dating from some time after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration cited evidence that Saddam Hussein's government was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for the invasion. No such weapons or factories were found.
Military officials did not immediately identify either the precursors or the agent they could have produced. "We don't want to speculate on any possibilities until our analysis is complete," Col. Henry Franke, a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer, was quoted as saying in a military statement.
Investigators still were trying to determine who had assembled the alleged lab and whether the expertise came from foreign insurgents or former members of Hussein's security apparatus, the military said.
"They're looking into it," Boylan said. "They've got to go through it -- there's a lot of stuff there." He added that there was no indication that U.S. forces would be ordered to carry chemical warfare gear, such as gas masks and chemical suits, as they did during the invasion and the months immediately afterward.
U.S. military photos of the alleged lab showed a bare concrete-walled room scattered with stacks of plastic containers, coiled tubing, hoses and a stand holding a large metal device that looked like a distillery. Black rubber boots lay among the gear.
The suspected chemical weapons lab was the biggest found so far in Iraq, Boylan said. A lab discovered last year in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah contained a how-to book on chemical weapons and an unspecified amount of chemicals.
Chemical weapons are divided into the categories of "persistent" agents, which wreak damage for hours, such as blistering agents or the oily VX nerve agent, and "nonpersistent" ones, which dissipate quickly, such as chlorine gas or sarin nerve gas.
Iraqi forces under Hussein used chemical agents both on enemy forces in the 1980s war with Iran and on Iraqi Kurdish villagers in 1988. Traces of a variety of killing agents -- mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX -- were detected by investigators after the 1988 attack.
No chemical weapons are known to have been used so far in Iraq's insurgency. Al Qaeda announced after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that it was looking into acquiring biological, radiological and chemical weapons. The next year, CNN obtained and aired al Qaeda videotapes showing the killings of three dogs with what were believed to be nerve agents.
I'm just waiting for the liberals to poo-poo it all....
The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight."
So, even though Saddam Insane was cheating and hid all these weapons for all those years from U.N. inspectors, even though they could potentially be used to kill a massive amount of people (WMD?), even though Saddam had used WMD's in the past, and even though Saddam was helping Islamofascists with financing and in other ways, we should have trusted him and left him in power, while the food for oil catastrophy was propping him up and Iraqis were dying because of it.
Since we just should have left things as they were, we should have just kept the cat and mouse game going with Saddam and the U.N. inspectors while he built up his military machine, blackmailed even more nations and sought ways to destroy America.
At what point would this WMD of a diabolical, blood thirsty maniac have actually become a threat to the region in the eyes of radical liberals? Wait! I know! It would have been AFTER he OR his buddies struck us.
If the Democrats were still in power at that time, then they surely would have sent missiles to destroy "evil" asprin factories again in response to those "criminals.".
Those cut and run Democrats just don't get it. They like cutting and running no matter what the outcome might be. Why don't we just station all troops that are currently in or near the Middle East in Okinawa and run operations from there, like john Murtha suggeted? All problems solved.
Liberal methodology:
1. Invoke your personal authority for your war views based on someone in your family tree (not you, of course!) having served in the military;
2. Call names, use profanity, demigogue.
3. Attack Christian stay-at-home Moms but protect terorists, insurgents and other 'freedom fighters';
4. Rinse and repeat.
Trevor, you'd better be glad I don't know where you live buddy, because I do not appreciate the way you dishonored my wife.
Silly Trevor, tricks are for kids.
Human Events didn't write the book, Richard Miniter did. Here's a bit of his bio:
http://www.richardminiter.com/bio/index.html
Richard Miniter is the author of two New York Times bestselling books, Losing bin Laden and Shadow War, and is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism.
http://www.richardminiter.com/
He also wrote “Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton’s Failures Unleashed Global Terror”. It's a great book, you should pick it up.
By the way, Trevor, is there any particular reason you only questioned Human Events? I also quoted from CNN, The Washington Post, a local TV affiliate and News World Communications Inc. How come you didn't bemoan them? I can find some more CNN reports.. there are tons of them. Also lots of AP reports.
You guys are so political its not funny. Liberals are the reason why politics has a bad name.
Poor Trevor, you really stepped in it! You said:
"Amy, I wish a sppedy return for your husband and I'm sure he has a snowball's chance in hell when you believe Human (air america for the right) events online but....real military men who have served this country in wars based upon truth and valor know what your husband is being sacrificed for. Your husband married a faceless drone."
Um, JOHNNY is my husband. 82nd ABN ALL THE WAY. That's why he can speak so authoritatively on the subject. He's literally been there, done that.
Trevor, YOU'RE the one spewing a "spiteful feverish pitch of venomous desperation". Your filthy comments have made that abundantly clear. You might want to read About Amy which is "our" bio page.
Clearly that I stick to the subject and present fact incenses you. Wish it were my problem but its not.
Give peace a chance bro... have a beer and take a bubble bath. And read the rules for this site while your at it. Your foulness has earned you the distinction of being BANNED. First I'll allow you time to read this and be embarrassed.
The Washington Post reported June 22 that "[n]either the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062101837.html
Also, according to a 22 June interview on Talk of the Nation, Charles Duelfer, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, did not consider these munitions significant:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5504298
NEAL CONAN (host): The report says hundreds of WMDs were found in Iraq. Does this change any of the findings in your report?
DEULFER: No, the report -- the findings of the report were basically to describe the relationship of the regime with weapons of mass destruction generally. You know, at two different times, Saddam elected to have and then not to have weapons of mass destruction. We found, when we were investigating, some residual chemical munitions. And we said in the report that such chemical munitions would probably still be found. But the ones which have been found are left over from the Iran-Iraq war. They are almost 20 years old, and they are in a decayed fashion. It is very interesting that there are so many that were unaccounted for, but they do not constitute a weapon of mass destruction, although they could be a local hazard.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. So these -- were these the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration said that it was going into Iraq to find before the war?
DEULFER: No, these do not indicate an ongoing weapons of mass destruction program as had been thought to exist before the war. These are leftover rounds, which Iraq probably did not even know that it had. Certainly, the leadership was unaware of their existence, because they made very clear that they had gotten rid of their programs as a prelude to getting out of sanctions.
And as for post-1991 WMDs - perhaps we should wait until all of the facts are in before saying there were none. We have been told for three years by the MSM and Democrats that there were no WMDs of any kind. They were wrong. Why not be sure before we jump to another wrong conclusion? What we have found so far should frighten anybody.