Let’s make the Left come out and explain again and agian
why 500 rounds of sarin and mustard gas artillery ordnance
A: aren’t WMD ... and B: weren’t a danger to anyone.
Pentagon - "Not the WMDs We Went to War Over"
Posted by SeeDubya
JunkYardBlog
Puh-leaze. Here’s an unnamed Pentagon official:
<<< “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.” >>>
Okay, pal, could you kindly show us those weapons too, then? Or are you waiting to declassify those until 2013?
Until then, these weapons are fine with me, buddy, and you’ll excuse me if I light up a stogey anyway. As I say below, there are ten thousand voices on the left and the right ready to, ahem, drizzle on this parade and minimize the significance of the ongoing discovery of deadly, illegal weaponry. But this is great news, people. What did you want?
There were, as I saw it, four good reasons for going to war in Iraq—strategic, humanitarian, legal, and WMD-preventive. I’ll spare you an exposition of each of those, but suffice to say for now that President Bush put too many eggs in the WMD basket. The humanitarian case and the UN sanctions/ international law case have been vindicated. The strategic question is still in debate and while I think we were right to risk it going in, it’s still in the air as to how it turns out. But the failure to find WMDs has been treated by the Left and the media and the country’s enemies abroad as the sole reason we invaded, and therefore our failure to find any delegitimated (for them) the entire project. But they don’t have that canard to stand on anymore. They can’t frame the issue that way, but they’ll have to come up with a real debate on long term strategies if they want to protest the war—that is, they will have to, if we don’t let them dodge this story.
We should be talking about this, okay? Let’s make the Left come out and explain again and agian why 500 rounds of sarin and mustard gas artillery ordnance A: aren’t WMD (Hello, Juan Cole?) and B: weren’t a danger to anyone.
And no question it’s for real; the declassified document popping up around the web (it’s at MM and Captain’s Quarters, but I couldn’t download the .pdf) comes from one Mr. John Negroponte (links below).
Back to Fox, where the official continues:
<<< …the findings did raise questions about the years of weapons inspections that had not resulted in locating the fairly sizeable stash of chemical weapons. And he noted that it may say something about Hussein’s intent and desire. The report does suggest that some of the weapons were likely put on the black market and may have been used outside Iraq. >>>
Ah ha. this is a guy with Pentagon-level clearance commenting about the report, and he suggests terrorists may already have discovered and used these outside of Iraq.
Interesting—that’s news to me! Have there been chemical weapons attacks recorded anywhere outside of Iraq since 2003 (inside there was one of these chem shells used as an IED in summer 2004), besides Zarqawi’s attempted attack on Jordan (discussed in the post below, and which I don’t think involoved these kinds of chemicals)? If so, why didn’t we hear about it?
He continues…
<<< He also said that the Defense Department statement shortly after the March 2003 invasion saying that “we had all known weapons facilities secured,” has proven itself to be untrue. “It turned out the whole country was an ammo dump,” he said, adding that on more than one occasion, a conventional weapons site has been uncovered and chemical weapons have been discovered mixed within them. >>>
Puzzling. Ace’s theory-and another mentioned on CQ-was that this was kept secret to protect the Russians or someone doesn’t really hold up to this statement—this was not all a single cache, but the result of prowling through weapons dumps all over the country since 2003.
Which makes it all the stranger that this information is only now being declassified. There is no sources-and-methods consideration for keeping this secret. These weapons were found over a long period of time, at least in part through the very conventional method of sorting through conventional weapons caches. Maybe they will trace back to UN Security Council members, but I can’t say that that would surprise anybody. France, after all, helped build Saddam’s Osirak reactor. russia is supposed to have helped Iraq evacuate WMD’s. And after Oil-for-Food, it’s not like anyone expects these countries to be blameless.
Y’all keep drizzling on this parade if you like. Me, I’m going to go chill some champagne now. This is all kinds of good news.
UPDATE: I wonder if this unnamed Pentagon official was a white-bearded fellow with a British accent…
PENTA-GON KENOBI: These are not the WMD’s you’re looking for.
FOX NEWS: These aren’t the WMD’s we’re looking for.
PENTA-GON KENOBI: We can go about our business.
FOX NEWS: You can go about your business. Hey, wildfires!
PENTA-GON KENOBI: Move along.
RIGHT WING BLOGGERS: Move along. Move on. Hey, Ann Coulter said something mean!
Update: previous entry on this subject: woohoo! ;
junkyardblog.net
subsequent: The Parole Hearing
junkyardblog.net
junkyardblog.net
foxnews.com
junkyardblog.net
townhall.com
michellemalkin.com
captainsquartersblog.com
ace.mu.nu
captainsquartersblog.com |
