Iraq Had WMDs After All

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Another revelation by the NYTimes as it relates to the question of Iraq WMDs (Via Powerline):

Until now, I have been willing to go along with the conventional wisdom that Iraq did not possess significant stockpiles of WMDs prior to the 2003 war. Leftover chemical munitions were discovered here and there during and after the invasion, but it was plausible to think that they were odds and ends, not part of a usable stockpile subject to the regime’s control.

Today, however, the New York Times dropped a bombshell: in the aftermath of the Iraq war, the CIA purchased from an unidentified intermediary no fewer than 400 Borak warheads filled with sarin, a deadly nerve gas:

The analysis of sarin samples from 2005 found that the purity level reached 13 percent — higher than expected given the relatively low quality and instability of Iraq’s sarin production in the 1980s, officials said. Samples from Boraks recovered in 2004 had contained concentrations no higher than 4 percent.

The new data became grounds for concern. “Borak rockets will be more hazardous than previously assessed,” one internal report noted. It added a warning: the use of a Borak in an improvised bomb “could effectively disperse the sarin nerve agent.

An internal record from 2006 referred to “agent purity of up to 25 percent for recovered unitary sarin weapons.”

~~~

Some have tried to disparage the importance of munitions like the Borak warheads on the ground that they are “old” WMDs, manufactured before 1991. But this is wrong. One of the chief concerns about Iraq’s WMDs always was whether it had actually destroyed its vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons, as it claimed. One of the principal tasks of the UNMOVIC inspections that were carried out until 2002 was to try to verify that these “old,” but still lethal, weapons had actually been destroyed.

~~~

In my opinion, the revelation that more than 400 Borak rocket warheads armed with sarin were still extant after the 2003 war is of a different quality than prior reports of old stocks that were encountered here and there by American troops. These rockets were not, it appears, dispersed randomly in dumps and forgotten storage depots. One individual was able to produce more than 400 of them, suggesting that they most likely were stored and inventoried by the Baathist regime. If that is the case, the conventional belief that the world’s intelligence agencies were wrong, and Iraq did not possess significant stockpiles of WMDs prior to the 2003 war, is incorrect. One shudders to think what a terrorist group could accomplish with 400 sarin-equipped rockets.

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One shudders to think what a terrorist group could accomplish with 400 sarin-equipped rockets.

More shudder at the thought that the lies about the lies were lies all along.

Uh huh. Why does the photograph of the “usable” stockpile show a heap of rusting metal parts, with suited-up UN technicians at work sealing leaks? They were only “usable” in the sense that they weren’t so degraded they were no longer dangerous.

What this story represents is more details about something that’s been known all along: A random assortment of chemical weapons left over from the Iraq/Iran war were still scattered around Iraq over 20 years later. Every time a new detail about that comes out, it’s heralded as vindication of the Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein had a Weapons of Mass Destruction capability that threatened the United States to a degree justifying a full-scale military invasion.

He didn’t. In fact, the only thing that put U.S. and coalition troops in range of an attack with a weapon improvised from deteriorating Iraqi chemical ordnance was the invasion and occupation of Iraq itself.

The 5,000 other WMD that were discovered constitutes stockpiles as well. The left will keep changing their version of what they claimed to be true at the time, that is Iraq had NO WMD, because they simply don’t have the integrity or honor to admit that they were wrong. Arrogance is bliss. Perhaps if some of these know-it-alls were rounded up and exposed to the contents of one of these sarin equipped rockets they would change their tune but then again most of them probably wouldn’t be around to do so afterwards. That is of course if they had the stones to take the challenge in the first place. As I noted on another thread in reference to the continuing revelations that Iraq DID possess WMD, I know of one case whereby two American servicemen died from exposure to the contents of one of the 155 WMD rounds that were discovered. But hey, it was “old” and therefore no threat.

There hasn’t been much change in the left’s reaction to old military junk that has turned up. The right’s tale, however, has come a long way from what we were warned about to begin with.

“America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

I don’t think many people would have been ready to go to war if he’d raised the specter of random heaps of rusty and degraded chemical ordnance left over from a war that had ended over 2 decades earlier. I wish people would quit trying to pretend that the threat we were warned about has turned out to have been real.

@Greg: How did you envision WMD’s being used against the United States, Greg? Iraq’s fleet of long-range bombers carpet bombing NYC? Their super-long range artillery shelling California or Denver?

As it relates to possible terror attacks against US cities, those weapons are just as functional and useful to the terrorists in their current condition as in the condition when they were new.

Weak and silly.

@Greg: Ontario Hydro bought 600 tons of yellow cake which is being processed for fission fuel for nuclear reactors. This , of course, does not count in the tabulation of WMD’s.

@Bill:

Weak and silly.

Which is why it is useless responding to the comments anymore.

@Bill, #5:

How did you envision WMD’s being used against the United States, Greg? Iraq’s fleet of long-range bombers carpet bombing NYC? Their super-long range artillery shelling California or Denver?

I really don’t know. Maybe you can explain just how that mushroom cloud Bush referred to was expected to come about.

@Greg:

Intel Reports: Saddam Could Have Had Nukes By 2007

The combination of intelligence reports that were coming into the 16 different intelligence agencies was high in quantity, low in quality, and as such these caveats and doubts and question marks remained. The best assessment that the entire intelligence community could declare was that:

Saddam wanted a bomb
Saddam still had some nuclear program infrastructure, and was acquiring some more (though they couldn’t reveal it at the time, many knew about the AQ Khan network which was selling nuclear program components to anyone and everyone in 2002).
Saddam had already built a bomb back in 1992, but it didn’t have a warhead because he didn’t have the special weapons grade material, and if he could somehow get that material from outside Iraq, then he could rebuild his bomb in no time. Some said months. Some said years. The consensus was that if nothing was done about Iraq, and sanctions continued to decay or were lifted, then he’d most likely have a bomb as early as 2007.

Even if they hadn’t read the declassified report as responsible members of Congress with the slightest bit of integrity and responsibility would have done, just about everyone pretended to be authorities on Iraq. Many politicians “hyped” the intelligence, exaggerated, and otherwise tried to scare the nation into war despite the caveats shown in the NIE (something that probably wouldn’t have happened if they’d have read the NIE report that they “demanded” earlier).

(Snip)

Oddly enough, while President Bush was being portrayed by opponents of the war and fair weather patriots (positive polling patriots?) as rushing to war…., it was he who tried to be realistic about the threat, the lack of solid intelligence reporting, and the need to try diplomacy before rushing to war as he himself had been accused of doing.

(Snip)

Not included in the NIE, and known only to a handful of people in the entire world, was the fact that the U.S. had finally managed to secure a human intelligence source inside Saddam’s inner circle, and in September 2002, the source reported that,

“The Committee told Saddam that a nuclear weapon would be ready within 18-24 months of acquiring the fissile material. The return of UN inspectors would cause minimal disruption because Iraq was expert at denial and deception.”

(Snip)

..One of the things that are particularly interesting in regards to the ISG’s findings is that Saddam had in fact successfully secreted away valuable portions of his nuclear program. Some equipment was hidden in bunkers, others in secret labs, and more disguised as benign, everyday dual-use equipment. This is stated repeatedly, but the pictures in the report demonstrate it unmistakably. After years of inspections, and months of renewed inspections, after the IAEA had declared that Saddam’s regime was not a nuclear threat, the truth was hidden everywhere. There were even centrifuge parts hidden in a person’s rose garden and blueprints hidden in a scientist’s home.

“Iraq has maintained its nuclear scientists and technicians as well as sufficient dual-use manufacturing capability to support a reconstituted nuclear weapons program. Iraqi defectors who once worked for Iraq’s nuclear weapons establishment have reportedly told American officials that acquiring nuclear weapons is a top priority for Saddam Hussein’s regime. “

(Snip)

Earlier this week NBC News reported on a new book, The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack (15) by Ronald Kessler. The book includes commentary from Saddam’s interrogator. His words prove the 2002 assessment was true:

Saddam wanted a bomb
Saddam still had some nuclear program infrastructure, and was acquiring some more.
And since Saddam had already built a bomb back in 1992 sans a nuclear core (that special metal ball of enriched uranium or plutonium), it remains perfectly logical that if he could somehow get that material from outside Iraq, then he could have rebuilt his bomb in no time.

The last part of this horrifying equation is the third news story, “Iran hands IAEA nuclear blueprints”AP (16). There’s plenty of people in the world who are still ignorant enough to actually believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is working on peaceful nuclear power and has no desire to acquire nuclear bombs. This week, the government of Iran decided to acquiesce to the IAEA’s demands and hand over the plans they had bought illegally from the AQ Khan nuclear component network. These plans detailed the process of taking enriched, weapons-grade uranium and molding it into a special metal ball for use only in a nuclear warhead. Iran claims that it doesn’t want nuclear warheads, but until this week had refused to hand over the plans to make something that can only be used in a nuclear bomb(s). Even in the face of stories like this one, there are still be people who believe that having actual plans to build a bomb, and refusing to hand over those plans are both benign actions that in no way indict Iran’s claims of pursuing peaceful nuclear power.

“VIENNA, Austria – Iran has met a key demand of the U.N. nuclear agency, handing over long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, diplomats said Tuesday.

“Iran maintains it was given the papers without asking for them during its black market purchases of nuclear equipment decades ago that now serve as the backbone of its program to enrich uranium — a process that can generate both power or create the fissile core of nuclear warheads.”

After reviewing the threat intelligence regarding Saddam’s regime in 2002, after confirming-through the ISG and Saddam’s interrogator-that he was capable, and he intended to restart his program and acquire nuclear weapons one can only reach the conclusion that the post-war intelligence suggests in both quantity and now quality that yes, Saddam would “be able to make a weapon [between] 2007 to 2009.” Given the current crisis in nuclear-armed Pakistan, the likelihood that Iran too is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power, it seems that the invasion of Iraq in 2003-costly as it has been in blood and treasure, actually did accomplish something. It has staved off a scenario where nuclear powers from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia were on the brink of nuclear holocaust, and a scenario where there was nothing the world could do to prevent a slide down the slippery slope towards hell on Earth. Whether he meant to or not, President Bush got something right, and the confirmation of the Iraqi nuclear threat helps disprove, The Lie That Bush Lied

@Greg:

Maybe you can explain just how that mushroom cloud Bush referred to was expected to come about.

Before I answer this soft-ball question easily and briefly, let me preface it with this explanation of factors you are obviously and embarrassingly unaware.

People that come to such sites as Flopping Aces are not your run-of-the-mill keyboard warrior that goes on MSNBC’s Facebook page and says stuff like “Yeah, but Bush lied and people died” or “The recession was caused by Bush’s economic policies”. In fact, the people that come here do so (mostly) because they have more curiosity, information and knowledge than the average bear out there. I am not claiming that I am the most well-informed or intelligent that posts here (Lord, no) but I am in league and, in the outside world (on the Dallas Morning News opinion pages, where I frequent, for instance), where the stupid and willfully ignorant go forth and issue their stock off-the-shelf opinions, courtesy of Kos, Media Matters, Huffington, DNC, MSNBC, etc, I AM a giant among mental midgets.

That being said, have you never heard of suitcase bombs? Have you never heard of dirty bombs? Your straw-man argument of a proposed fear of some straw-intercontinental-army is, well, weak and silly. No one feared Iraq using any of these capabilities to attack the US in a conventional matter. Had you paid a bit of attention, you would remember that the concern was Iraq providing these capabilities to terrorists to make terror attacks on US soil. The unsecured way in which storage containers are shipped and received at US ports was a MAJOR concern.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/DoSuitcaseNukesExist.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb

While, at the time, the goals and objectives of the war in Iraq were clear and concise, you on the left routinely distorted it to being somehow related to a belief that Hussein was involved in the planning or execution of the 9/11 attacks or that Iraq somehow was threatening to attack the United States with its WMD’s. Understand that this fools NO ONE. Kind of like wearing a bad toupee among family and friends that have seen you bald for decades; epic fail.

If you are trying to convince me that you are stupid, you are succeeding.

I suppose the data will never come out. Truckloads of WMD went across the border to Syria, as documented by our spy satellites. I don’t know where it all went, but there was a thundering lot of it.
What was left in Iraq was only a small part of what Saddam owned.
Remember: he wanted to take over as the supreme ruler of Islam.
That was why the war with Iran; he wanted control of the Muslim holy sites in Iran.
And then there was Joe Wilson.
What a terrible conflagration of lies and deceits!

@mathman:

Truckloads of WMD went across the border to Syria, as documented by our spy satellites.

The fact that Iraq had such large quantities of the older WMD’s when they weren’t supposed to have any, lends credibility to that argument.

@Wordsmith: How many times have you posted this? How many times did Mata and Aye post it? Yet it still doesn’t sink in. I have often been complimented on my patience with people. Yours far exceeds mine.

@Greg: Greggie, did Bush lie??

Leftists are delusionally choosing never to see the world as it is, but insist everyone accept their insane misperception of reality. They are ‘The Man of La Mancha’ on a double LSD/PCP overdose. They cannot accept the truth that Iraq had WMDs anymore than they could accept that islam demands the subjugation or slaughter of all non-muslims – even though it is repeatedly written in the koran. They cannot accept that there is no way to continually overspend your annual income and ever hope to get out of debt. They cannot accept that some people are more successful than others because they worked harder. They cannot accept that there is any possibility that the ideology of leftism could be wrong – in fact they regularly insist the only reasons leftists ever lose elections are because:
A) Voters are too stupid to know what is good for them, or
B) The left didn’t do a good job getting their message out.

I do not envy those who will live through the chaos hurtling towards us.