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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (7048)	10/26/2010 7:56:30 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Bushwikied IBD Editorials Posted 10/25/2010 07:00 PM ET WMDs: Iraq War documents released by WikiLeaks show that U.S. forces frequently encountered weapons of mass destruction facilities and specialists. A former president is owed an apology. Anyone who understands the importance of secrecy in waging the global war on terror must condemn the release of classified U.S. documents by the rogue group WikiLeaks. But if any good can come from this, it is proof that parts of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons arsenal were found in post-liberation Iraq, with Islamist insurgents and Iranian operatives using them. As reported in Wired.com over the weekend, some of the 392,000 Iraq War logs show that deadly liquid-sulfur mustard was bought undercover in Iraq by U.S. personnel in 2004. In Fallujah not long after, a chemical lab and a chemical cache were discovered. Another time, artillery shells were found "leaking a black tarlike substance," which eventually tested positive for mustard gas. And only two years ago some 10 rounds of artillery shells were found to contain chemical agents, albeit in a state of disrepair. In early 2006, chemical weapons designed to cause paralysis were found, the origin of which was almost certainly Iran. Is this the long-awaited vindication of President Bush's "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union speech — "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"? No. That came long ago. As journalist Christopher Hitchens noted in Slate magazine half a decade ago, "The European intelligence services, and the Bush administration, only ever asserted that the Iraqi regime had apparently tried to open (or rather, reopen) a yellowcake trade 'in Africa.' It has never been claimed that an agreement was actually reached." In his memoir, "Hitch-22," Hitchens recounts that "Underneath a Sunni mosque in central Baghdad, the parts and some of the ingredients of a chemical weapon had been located and identified with the help of local informers." He writes, "I still have the photographs that were taken in that mosque after the liberation, showing the cache of weaponry just where I had been told it would be." Saddam Hussein had repeatedly committed genocide with such weapons, and systematically sought to build nukes. Even without "serious stockpiles" of WMDs, Hitchens argues that post-9/11 was still "the perfect time to hit" Saddam "ruthlessly and conclusively" — both to punish him and to save the lives of thousands of Iraqis. So evidence of WMDs in Iraq is old news. What would be news is if liberal Democrats would apologize for calling the Bush administration liars. ,

To: Sully- who wrote (7048)	10/26/2010 8:33:14 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

* Keep in mind that Wired is a hard left leaning rag * WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results By Noah Shachtman wired.com October 23, 2010 By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction. 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. Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.” Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.” 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.” In WikiLeaks’ massive trove of nearly 392,000 Iraq war logs are hundreds of references to chemical and biological weapons. Most of those are intelligence reports or initial suspicions of WMD that don’t pan out. In July 2004, for example, U.S. forces come across a Baghdad building with gas masks, gas filters, and containers with “unknown contents” inside. Later investigation revealed those contents to be vitamins. But even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. “These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location, these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long time.” A small group — mostly of the political right — has long maintained that there was more evidence of a major and modern WMD program than the American people were led to believe. A few Congressmen and Senators gravitated to the idea, but it was largely dismissed as conspiratorial hooey. The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war. But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic” chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran. That same month, then “chemical weapons specialists” were apprehended in Balad. These “foreigners” were there specifically “to support the chemical weapons operations.” The following month, an intelligence report refers to a “chemical weapons expert” that “provided assistance with the gas weapons.” What happened to that specialist, the WikiLeaked document doesn’t say. Photo: Air War College Read More wired.com .