One day the story of WMD in Iraq will be known, at least partially. For now, the information is coming out in bits and pieces. Bottom line — those who said there was no WMD in Iraq were wrong. (Using the definition and standard they set for President Bush, I guess that means they were lying, right?)
Jay at Stop the ACLU has a great roundup of blogosphere reaction to the latest from Pete Hoekstra and Rick Santorum:
U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, joined Congressman Peter Hoekstra, (R-MI-2), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today to make a major announcement regarding the release of newly declassified information that proves the existence of chemical munitions in Iraq since 2003. The information was released by the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, and contained an unclassified summary of analysis conducted by the National Ground Intelligence Center. In March, Senator Santorum began advocating for the release of these documents to the American public.
“The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq,” said Senator Santorum. “It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq. I will continue to advocate for the complete declassification of this report so we can more fully understand the complete WMD picture inside Iraq.”
The following are the six key points contained in the unclassified overview:
• 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.
• 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. I have not checked in at the major liberal blogs to get reaction. My guess is that the conventional wisdom is still that Bush lied about WMD and that there was none in Iraq. (I will update later if I find this not to be the case.) What I find absolutely amazing is that many of those who believe Bush had something to do with the Twin Towers collapsing and who believe that John Kerry really won in Ohio find it impossible to believe that Saddam had WMD — even though Bill Clinton, the UN, France and dozens of Democrat politicians said he did over and over again.
Over two years ago, I found Ken Timmerman’s report of WMD found in Iraq quite compelling, but no one ever seemed to pay much attention to it. (Be sure to read it if you aren’t already familiar with it .) Maybe eventually all the information found will be compiled and we will have a comprehensive picture of everything that has been found. Maybe the media will even decide to report it.
UPDATE: From A Real Ugly American (via Flopping Aces’ excellent, must read post):
General Tom Mcinerney is reporting on Fox Hannity and Colmes right now that that the administration has been keeping this low profile to avoid exposing 3 of the 5 members of the UN Security council; Russia, China, and France. McInerney says these weapons will be traced to these countries, and asserts it is well known that Russia helped Saddam move most of his WMD stockpiles out of Iraq before the war.
I have on several occasions speculated about why the President would not be touting the information we have about WMD found in Iraq and had come to a similar conclusion. My theory was that if the public knew that certain other countries had been involved with moving WMD, they would demand action that we did not want to, or were not able to, take.
Check out Pajamas Media’s WMD Files for previous blogging on the subject. Just for the record, I never doubted.
Davebo:
So let’s get this straight, you are saying, that 500 artillary shells of mustard and sarin gas is not MWD? If not, can you tell we what is and who set that benchmark?
grh,
You may want to check the update in the article before you spout off anymore. You can only shove your foot so far into your mouth.
*sigh*
Making you libtards look like fools is hardly even sporting any longer. I demand UBER-trolls!
Oh, and grh?… “Blood for Odin”.
For years, leading up to the Iraq war, and in fact since the end of the Gulf War, the intelligence community, the press, the UN, and the Bush administration argued over whether reconstituted weapons and weapons programs existed in Iraq. This distinction was made in virtually ever instance that the issue was discussed. It was such a common, well-understood, universally recognized distinction that the average 7th-grader probably could have held forth at some length on the difference between the impotent, rusting remnants of a destroyed WMD program and reconstituted weapons and programs.
They. Are. Two. Different. Things.
They. Always. Were.
Everybody. Knows. This.
And here comes Senator Man-on-Dog Santorum with a “Major Announcement” on the discovery of…remnants! Of a destroyed program! That everybody’s known about for TWENTY YEARS!
And the wingers and snake-jugglers eat it up. It’s almost like this is somehow news to you, a revelation of something you hadn’t already heard discussed thirty million times over the past 15 years.
Are you kidding me? Are you all honestly going to pretend you don’t understand the difference between remnants of a destroyed program and reconstituted weapons?
If this is the best you’ve got, you are in serious trouble in the midterms. This should embarrass you. Look at how you’ve debased yourselves by pretending that the “discovery” of remnant chemical weapons is somehow a surprise, when these very weapons were explicitly excluded from the Bush administrations case against Iraq, when they posed no threat, and when they represented no reconsitited program. And now you’re concocting truly bizarre theories about why the Bush administration is too shy and coy about this to say anything about it.
Keep waiting, suckers.
From the Washington Post:
Neither 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.
Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
Now, the knee-jerk winger reaction to unhelpful facts is to engage in ad hominem. But to score points here, you can’t just scream that the Washington Post is librul. You have to disprove their facts, do original reporting, or cite other sources of authority that contradict their reporting. Anything short of that is meaningless.
Pete.Fosse.
Periods.Do.Not.Make.Your.Point.Any.Stronger.
These.Are.STILL.WMD.
Sorry.
Pete Fosse:
So..500 Shells of sarin and mustard gas is not WMD? Really? that’s a relief, because I heard that stuff could kill people.
I also heard that sarin and mustard gas can kill people regardless of distinctions made about it’s creation.
Davebo,
Good for you buddy, a positive mental attitude is key.
You say you’re a vet? Then you should understand that when nations go to war, like they did in 1991’s Gulf War, the losing side has to lose–either by being destroyed or by surrender. Iraq surrendered. Part of that surrender is that the winner gets to set some terms that the loser must follow. The winner in the gulf war–the UN-led coalition–set some rules for the loser, Iraq.(you with me so far? good!) Part of those rules was that the shells we have found should have been destroyed by Iraq under the purview of the UN inspectors. This didn’t happen, so the US finally added some backbone to the UN resolutions and we went in and removed Saddam.
That shouldn’t be too hard for a vet to understand, considering that you’ve been closer to an actual battle than I will have ever been. Yet, you don’t seem to acknowledge or care that this is what has happened on the planet Earth. That’s your problem, bro.
I’m perfectly happy to let you have the perceived rhetorical win on wizbang.com. I’m also perfectly content to see my rhetorical argument justified by history. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose…
Pete Fosse, my above post can apply to you too.
Or, let’s make things even simpler for our oh-so-nuanced lefty friends:
If Saddam would have destroyed shells like these in front of U.N inspectors, we wouldn’t have had to go in there in the first place.
Get it yet?
What was declassified was a small portion of a much larger document!!! They are furious at negraonte for not releasing all of it, apparently he is keeping the parts classified related to the rest of the WMD’s that Russia/china helped them move from the public
Ok, you’re not addressing any of my questions. Point out where I said that degraded, impotent chemical weapons “are not WMD.” You’re really getting into the Clintonian hair-splitting here if you want to debate whether degraded sarin is sarin. Depends on the defintion of “is”.
From Fox News:
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.
“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.”
What I said in clear English just a few inches up the page is that everybody knew about WMD remnants in Iraq, and they had nothing to do with the war because they weren’t a meaningful threat to anybody. The issue was whether Saddam had reconstituted his WMD program.
In 2003 the DoD issued a press release stating that all known legacy WMD sites had been secured. Remember this??? Anybody?? Bueller? Bueller? This was in 2003. Now, ask youselves, why in 2003 would the DoD release such a curious statement if these WMDs had just been “discovered”? What, exactly, would they have been referring to?
Hmmm. That’s some mystery.
I’ll give a gold star to the first nutter who can answer that question.
Have we all forgotten that Zarqawi was days away from a massive chemical attack in Jordan involving nerve gas an other chemical agents that could have killed 20,000 to 80,000 people in April 2004?
That plot was thankfully busted by the Jordanians only a few days before it was to be carried out against the Jordanian government and the American embassy in Amman.
Had these Muslim butchers gotten hold of these sarin-filled shells before we did, THEY WOULD HAVE USED THEM.
What is so damn difficult for you Bush-hating liberals to understand about that?
So what you’re saying is that Bush is furious at Negroponte, who works for Bush, for not declassifying a document that would totally exonerate Bush on the whole WMD issue, because Negroponte wants to protect the Chinese, the Russians, and the French. Yeahhhh. If you believe that, you will truly believe anything.
Big Mo –
Don’t you think the chaos of war, and our failure to secure all legacy WMD sites (as evidenced by this recent “discovery”), made it more likely that those sites could be looted by extremists?
Pete Fosse – that’s a good point.
Predictions:
History will remember this ploy as “Santorum’s Folly”.
It will end his political career.
Pete – I meant what you said at 9:07. It seems that he hadn’t reconstituted his programs, but was waiting for the world’s attention to be removed, so he could start again.
I think ol’ Zark man got his chems from one of those sites. I posted my comment above before all the other comments were out there about how those shells were so degraded to be unusable, so i fell a little silly now.
What seems to be the real truth of the matter is that Saddam and his good played the ultimate shell game, but picked the wrong man to play it with, and lost.
He DID have to be taken out, because he DID FAIL to comply with the UN over the course of a decade concerning those WMD and programs. If the UN is tro mean anything, then its word has to have teeth.
If the inspections farce had been allowed to continue its natural course, no WMD would have been found, of course, we may have stood down, our troops may have been withdran, and Saddam would have skirted scot-free–to reconstitute his programs without any interferance. That’s what the Dulfer, etc. reports concluded.
So, in essence, searching for WMDs in Iraq that don’t exist or may have been removed to another country pre-2003 is really counterproductive (and I jumped into the fray without thinking (damn knee-jerk reaction!).
“Now, the knee-jerk winger reaction to unhelpful facts is to engage in ad hominem.”
–Pete Fosse
“I’ll give a gold star to the first nutter who can answer that question.”
–Pete Fosse
God, how I LOVE the smell of unhinged moonbat in the morning!
>>>Predictions:
>>History will remember this ploy as “Santorum’s Folly”.
>>>It will end his political career.
–Lee
Your prediction seems about as accurate as any of those election predictions from the KOssacks.
Pete Fosse:
I thought that distinction was important. The right has been beaten bloody with the “NO MWD” bat for 3 years. 500 shells of degraded sarin and mustard gas has been compiled now and we get the Obi wan Kanobee “these are not the WMD you’re looking for” as if the date of their creation suddenly removes what they are, and where they are.
What I’m seeing now is these really weren’t the ones that were referred to pre-war. If what “a senior defense department official” says is true, and they are degraded to the point of being useless, then the right needs to realize that this isn’t a political victory. We’ll see how the situation evolves, and I hope you stick around here because you can actually construct a salient point, which is nice for a change.
As far as terrorists not looting legacy WMD sites, would they have even knew what they were?
What’s it really all about?
“Pennsylvania voters give Democratic State Treasurer Robert Casey Jr. a 52 – 34 percent lead over incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, with 12 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.”
It’s called desperation folks. Just like this post and most of the comments.
Mo –
I don’t find much to disagree with there. There were a lot of good reasons for taking Saddam out. I voted for Bush in 2000 and supported the war. There were no easy solutions to this problem, but it’s quite obvious to me that what’s happened there since the war began has been a disaster. Hopefully we will recover from it.
However, the importance of Santorum’s stunt hinges on the case that Saddam had WMD. This was a fact of which the administration assured us with absolute certainty. In the buildup to the war they even said they had irrefutable classified evidence that they could not share – but trust us, we know he has them (“them” being reconstituted WMD).
Well, he did not. Bush is paying the price for that now. Had Saddam had those weapons, he’d be reaping the benefits. That’s how it goes. Life’s tough when you’re president. But today’s announcement signifies nothing, because the first thing the Army did when they landed was attempt to secure the known WMD sites. So it’s quite obvious, to anybody paying the slightest bit of attention to this war, that we knew WMD sites existed.
And really, I’d expect this war’s biggest boosters (the smart folks on this page) to be familiar with basic information like this. It’s really unseemly to act like a bunch of cheerleaders for the war but not even be aware of how the game is played and what’s happened so far.
Peter Fosse … Last I checked, Saddam was ordered to reveal all his weapons. There were no exceptions and/or caveats that allowed him to hide and keep weapons manufactured pre-1991.
For years, leading up to the Iraq war, and in fact since the end of the Gulf War, the intelligence community, the press, the UN, and the Bush administration argued over whether reconstituted weapons and weapons programs existed in Iraq.
You do remember that there was a two-term Administration that ran the Executive Branch during that intervening period, don’t you? What did that Administration say?
Let’s look at this by President Clinton himself; he delivered this speech at the Pentagon to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the 17th of February, 1998 …
Remember, as a condition of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, the United Nations demanded not the United States the United Nations demanded, and Saddam Hussein agreed to declare within 15 days this is way back in 1991 within 15 days his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them, to make a total declaration. That’s what he promised to do.
The United Nations set up a special commission of highly trained international experts called UNSCOM, to make sure that Iraq made good on that commitment. We had every good reason to insist that Iraq disarm. Saddam had built up a terrible arsenal, and he had used it not once, but many times, in a decade-long war with Iran, he used chemical weapons, against combatants, against civilians, against a foreign adversary, and even against his own people.
[…]
In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam’s son-in-law, and the chief organizer of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more.
Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth. Now listen to this, what did it admit?
It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs.
And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production.
[…]
UNSCOM … [has] uncovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction capacity than was destroyed during the Gulf War.
This includes nearly 40,000 chemical weapons, more than 100,000 gallons of chemical weapons agents, 48 operational missiles, 30 warheads specifically fitted for chemical and biological weapons, and a massive biological weapons facility at Al Hakam equipped to produce anthrax and other deadly agents.
[…]
The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.
[…]
Neither do I remember the focus on WMD during the long debates in Congress and at the UN prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom being strictly limited to “reconstituted” weapons. If this distinction is so well-known, as you assert, then you must have a link to something credible that proves your point.
And finally, I do not accept your contention that these weapons are so degraded that they are incapable of causing any damage. These things, well and expertly deployed, can still kill thousands of people. So that’s just you begging the question.
What disturbs me here is the fact that y’all on the Left have actually motorized the goal posts. Saddam Hussein was ordered to disclose the location of all his WMDs and allow unfettered inspections.
He did not.
American troops subsequently find over a ton of chemical weapons and your response is that nerve gas is not a WMD … and, apparently, even if you do concede that these finds are WMDs, these are the “wrong” set of WMDs!
500 shells of nerve gas representing over a ton of still very deadly chemical weapons are a serious issue, are they not? Yes or no?
Heralder –
Thanks.
Bush himself really hasn’t pushed WMDs in iraq for a long time. He knows he paid a huge price for the f-ed up intelligence, but he also knows that 1) the WMD issue wasn’t the only reason, and 2) it’s a back-burner issue now as far as Iraq’s present and immediate future are concerned.
Most of the American public has long since made up their minds on this issue. They fall into one of two camps: 1) Bush lied (which is a crock) or 2) our intelligence was f-ed up (which is the truth). Not much is going to change that.
Martin:
Unfortunately, all we have to work with is a single MSM news report, and in it:
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.
So it’s not an independent assertion. I think this finding as a whole is important, but not perhaps the way we were thinking it was.
We’ll see what more information we get.
via Powerline,: Michael Ledeen writes:
Please point out to your readers that Negroponte only declassified a few fragments of a much bigger document. Read the press conference and you will see that Santorum and Hoekstra were furious at the meager declassification. They will push for more, and we all must do that. I am told that there is a lot more in the full document, which CIA is desperate to protect, since it shows the miserable job they did looking for WMDs in Iraq. “
————————————————
This is the same geo-political problem they had getting Project harmony docs released, which finally happened in March and still being translated………have to think about the geo-politics of the public finding out about Russia/china/France helping out Saddam behind out backs.
Heh – Jonah Goldberg at NRO’s The Corner echoes me:
“I’m still reading up, but my guess is that this story will not change the conventional wisdom much because peoples’ minds are made up and while I think this story is significant it’s just not enough to change minds. Part of the blame falls on the Bush White House which clearly decided a long time ago to stop aggressively defending this aspect of the decision to go to war. This always struck me as proof — contra the Bush-bashers — that he went to war in good faith. If it had all been a conspiracy, the evil neo-cabal would have protected their cover story a lot better.
“Regardless, the White House clearly made the decision that WMDs aren’t part of the story any more. And you’d need to find more than this to change that.”
EXACTLY! If Bush lied, don’t you think he’d have at least planted some evidence to cover his tracks? ;^)
LEE
“History will record this as Santorums coming of age”
His political career has been justified.
These were missiles that were buried in the Desert during the Iran-Iraq war, before 1988.
It is false to assert that they could be sold or used on the black market, perhaps by terrorists. Under ideal conditions these agents degrade within five years to useless sludge.
These old shells were a threat to no one. Bush told America that Iraq was a threat sometimes more than a dozen times in a single speech.
A DoD official has already disavowed this.
Dear Human,
Dear Lorie Byrd,
Greetings Citizen,
Please wake up. Whatever your feelings about the war, know that Santorum and Hoekstra knew that these were not WMD when they made their announcment. They were attempting to play Americans for fools.
I will never be proved wrong about this, because there are no facts on Earth to prove me wrong.
Someday you will be proved wrong, and on that day, when the Pentagon clearly and unequivocally denies that these shells qualify as WMD what will you do?
Feel free to contact me.
914 – Were that the case, we’d really have something to worry about. This is a political ploy from a desperate politician who is way behind in the polls. Only the IQ-challenged are falling for this nonsense.
The question was never whether there might be some remnants of Saddam’s WMD stocks around somewhere (it would be truly amazing if there were not)–the question was whether there was an imminent WMD threat that required a “pre-emptive” invasion with only limited international support, with American troops suffering the bulk of the casualties and American taxpayers bearing the bulk of the financial burden.
Since rumsfeld was actually involved in selling the sarin to iraq I can see why they might not want to broadcast that fax. Also since another branch of the rethugnican govt is calling hoekstra and santorum liars, shich should we believe?
“Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions. “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.”
500 shell of deadly gas, is that all? c,mon that’ll only kill 7/8 million people? You got to be able to find the factory warehouse with thousands of tons with each shell labled for disbursement by which terrorist organization and to which U.S. city and shopping mall they are destined..then you will have proof. of course you would still need to get by the ACLU and the libs ( same thing ) to prosecute the manufacturers because they have rights yknow.
This has got to be someone else’s universe,cause I dont recognize it anymore..
Martin A Knight,
There is no way 15+ year old mustard gas could kill anyone unless they drowned in it, and there are certainly easier ways to drown people. This is chemistry, not politics.
Big MO,
It doesn’t really make look Bush better to say “At least he didn’t plant fake WMD in Iraq” it is reassuring that he didn’t. He’s done a couple other decent things. A nice ban on certain motorized equipment in Yellowstone. He banned Margaret Thatcher’s son from entering the United States because of Mark’s role in the racist mercenary coup to topple the government of Equatorial Guinea, and it looks like this Hawaii thing might be good for Earth in the long term.
Heralder … You’re right.
We should wait and see, though I find it hard to believe that the sarin within the shells had become so degraded that it cannot still kill huge amounts of people.
Hmmmmm.
@ grh
sigh.
Because there hasn’t been enough **TIME** for the White House to assemble a public position on this subject yet?
Most administrations wait until something like this fully shakes out before they come out with a public position on it. And this administration is even worse than most.
A) There’s no talking sense to these Leftist idiots.
B) If Saddam is so good at hiding things that weren’t supposed to exist – I’m pretty concerned with how many OTHER pounds, tons, kilos, tablespoons or thimblefuls of nonexistent stuff he has hidden beneath the sand.
C) There’s no talking sense to these Leftist idiots.
D) Give Bush some credit for not shouting it from the rooftops. If it were Kerry’s administration, he’d have to put the Swiftboat and Purple Heart crap on the back burner long enough to holler about “I found Weapons of Mass Destruction! Told ya so!”
E) grh – leave Jesus out of this.
F) And Son of the Godfather – BFO!!! (LOL)
Researching a little further I found this:
Sarin has a relatively short shelf life, and will degrade after a period of several weeks to several months. The shelf life may be greatly shortened by impurities in precursor materials.
Oddly, I can’t find a definitive shelf life for mustard gas…the general consensus seems to be about 10 years.
Hey Iraq war lovers, how do you like the part about how Iraqs that kill Americans will be given amnesty? And these are the people you want Americans to die for? And by the way, if you support this war so much but aren’t over there you are a coward. Too bad we can’t confiscate your bank accounts to pay for this stupidity, now THAT would be justice.
What about Sarin, Maury?
PS: trrll, Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat. He said the world should not wait until the threat is imminent.
Maybe We should bring one of those shells home, just one mind You and demonstrate its usefulness right in the Capitol Hill Rotunda and see how ineffective it is or is not? well even let all occupants wear gas masks if they wish, but why would they ?its harmless and they can prove their points to the American people right?
if they live and dont become violently ill then the Dems are right. But if they drop dead then the weapons are validated and We cleaned up the government all in one fail swoop. sounds like a win win..and the Dems get to prove how patriotic they all are and take one for the country..
Fred:
And by the way, if you support this war so much but aren’t over there you are a coward.
Contrary to popular belief, the US armed forces does not just accept anyone that applies. I applied before college but they wouldn’t take me because of my knees. They wouldn’t take my sister because she had flat feet.
You can support an action without taking part. Some people realize the need for action, but also realize they are not fit for the rigors of war. Cowardice has nothing to do with it. However, if you are to follow that line of thought Fred, if you’re so against us being there, why aren’t you fighting with the insurgents to eject us from the country, are you a coward?
Hmmmm.
Ahh but the operative word is “mustard”! They’re not WMDs! They’re *condiments*!
As for “sarin”. That’s obviously a brand of Columbian coffee.
What we have here aren’t WMDs at all. It’s a stockpile of groceries. Those Iraqis are damned amazing. Who would have thought they’d have such an overwhelming taste for mustard and coffee?
(joke)
914,
No demonstration is needed. If sarin has a short shelf life it has a short shelf life. Frankly, the fact these weapons are useless is a relief to me…the thought that someone could have gotten their hands on old stocks of active sarin and used it against our troops and Iraqi civilians is a scary thought.
The mustard gas however, may still be chemically active.
Josh Narisn – my point is that the whole “Bush lied” meme of the left has never made any sense. No lefty has ever offered a logical or rational explanation of why Bush would lie to get us into Iraq, particularly using WMD as a big reason for it when it could be easily disporven when we got there.
Even if we find a huge stockpile of WMDs today, the left would shrug it off as no big deal. Just like Zarquawi was a big deal (ie. a failure of US military) when we didn’t get him. Now he is not. So predictable.
Have any of you ever seen so many Bush haters admit so readily, even eagerly, that, ‘hey, of course we all knew Iraq still had WMDs all over the place, now let us explain how this doesn’t mean Bush didn’t lie and how whatever WMDs we find that we knew were there all along aren’t really WMDs because, well, they were misplaced and old…so they’re like, MWMDs (Misplaced WMDs), which were never a threat to anyone anyway you stupid Bush slaves that can’t do anything but insult people, you stupid morons’ at one time before?
I’m thinking there are precious few straws left to to grasp at.
Hmmmm.
1. Amnesty: Personally I’m rather sanguine about that. IMHO people tend to revert to type and rarely ever really reform. This is why the IRA has had such a hard time letting go, it’s core set of terrorists just cannot give up the lifestyle because it means becoming Mr. Average Joe. I.e. becoming a nobody and having to get a job.
I figure this amnesty doesn’t mean anything because these guys will revert to type and either continue their hand at organized crime or they’ll find some excuse to restart their terrorism. IMHO I think, to a terrorist, the only thing worse than death is becoming irrelevant.
And so there will be future opportunities to deal with them. And it’ll be even easier the second time around because they’ll universally take this amnesty opportunity to boast about their actions. So cataloging them will be very easy.
2. Iraq, “coward”: Well I have ESRD, End Stage Renal Disease, and require dialysis three times a week so I’m not even able to go as a civilian worker.
But you Fred, you can change that. Donate one of your kidneys to me and I’ll head right on over.
So how about it Fred? Put your kidney where you big fat mouth is ok?
rofl.