The Secret U.S. Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
And when people say that "Iraq didn't have WMDs" they are wrong. In fact Iraq did have some but they were old and not that many of them.
Nothing is ever simple.
When (most) people said that we didn't find WMDs in Iraq, they're clearly talking about the secret nuclear programs or mobile chemical weapons labs that were so prominent in the rationale for war.
At the time, Fox News et al. pumped the news every time an old shell was found, but there was zero active biological or nuclear program and the bulk of the chemical weapons were leftovers from the Gulf War.
Factcheck has a nice summary:
> Experts from the three nations failed to document any existent biological or nuclear weapons and discovered only a few random chemical weapons. The ISG concluded that contrary to what most of the world had believed, Iraq had abandoned attempts to produce WMDs.
And this implies that the statement "Iraq did not have any WMDs" is false. Right?
What you and the NYTimes seem to be saying is that all along this statement actually meant they weren't producing WMDs. Right?
That's the distinction I missed. You don't need to be a prick about it.
> What you and the NYTimes seem to be saying is that all along this statement actually meant they weren't producing WMDs. Right?
Exactly this. Part of the motivation for the Gulf War was Saddam's gassing of the Kurds and other ethnic groups. So we knew they had at one point manufactured and stored chemical weapons. The motivation for the 2003 Iraq War was a series of administration claims that they were still producing WMDs including Anthrax and Nuclear weapons -- contrary to international opinion / UN weapons inspector claims.
Again, I apologize if this is more emotional than typical for HN, but the Iraq War led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, billions (trillions?) of taxpayer dollars flushed down the toilet, and the formation of ISIS.
Here are some actual claims from the buildup to the Iraq War:
Dick Cheney in 2002:
> “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”
GWB:
> “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.”
Paul Wolfowitz:
> [The Iraq WMD Program is] “just a series of evil weapons unaccounted for, huge quantities of anthrax that can kill millions of people, huge quantities of botulinum toxin that can kill millions of people, ricin that can kill millions of people.”
Colin Powell:
> “biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails,” an “extensive clandestine network” to supply “its deadly biological and chemical weapons programs,” and the obtaining of “sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion”—“facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_weapons_laboratory#Dis...
In fact, there were WMD in Iraq, just not an especially menacing arsenal, and they of course were not actively developing new weapons.
I don't think the general public understands the distinction at all. For nearly a decade I've heard the same statement variation: 'well, there were no WMD in Iraq'
Though, I don't expect we're going to agree on much so I suppose HN isn't the place to discuss this anyway.