Iraq took initial steps to fulfill its obligations. It drafted a plan to entomb the contaminated bunkers on Al Muthanna, which still held remnant chemical stocks, in concrete.In another era, I'd have hoped that they intentionally misdirected ISIS' efforts by printing a piece of US military deception (MILDEC) that might lead to misdirected resources or wasted time by anyone in ISIS interested in recovering chemical weapons. I wonder if the Times would do that now, or if they'd think to ask for one.
When three journalists from The Times visited Al Muthanna in 2013, a knot of Iraqi police officers and soldiers guarded the entrance. Two contaminated bunkers — one containing cyanide precursors and old sarin rockets — loomed behind. The area where Marines had found mustard shells in 2008 was out of sight, shielded by scrub and shimmering heat.
The Iraqi troops who stood at that entrance are no longer there. The compound, never entombed, is now controlled by the Islamic State.
UPDATE: Mr. Wolf at BLACKFIVE has a piece on the subject.
3 comments:
I read that piece in the times, and it's revisionist bullcrap. They are attempting to cover the behinds of their friends on the left by saying "this isn't the NEW WMDs Bush lied about being there, these are the OLD WMDs that no one ever denied existed until BUSH COVERED IT UP!!!"
I am so bloody angry I can spit. This is nothing more than revisionist history to obscure the fact that all along it was clearly stated that we KNEW Saddam had chemical weapons because we knew what was in his stockpiles prior to 1991, and he had been required by the ceasefire to eliminate them. He didn't and kicked out the UN inspectors. So in the leadup to the war in 2003, we stated that unless he was willing to prove those pre-1991 stockpiles were eliminated, we were going in after him. And he refused (and here's the evidence he was hiding them).
So now, when presented with fears that these very weapons will show up in ISIS hands (and I'd already been seeing reports of them using mustard gas), the NYT gets out in front of it by finally revealing what most of us already knew. But they couch it in such a way that they can pretend that "oh, THOSE WMDs... yeah, everybody knew about THOSE."
Sorry, does anyone else here remember people complaining about "Bush's lies about new WMDs," or just "WMDs"?
Bush lied and people died, was it.
Maybe Hussein O went into Iraq now just to put WMDs there so they could claim ISIS is too powerful to beat.
Various military analysts and contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq knew about WMDs being found in Iraq, but the media covered it up with reports of suicide bombings and terrorism.
Some also knew a bit was shipped to Syria, which is why WMDs were reported to be used there too.
If the military helped put a lid on this because they didn't want info getting out that people could find WMD in Iraqi munitions stockpile that was never blown up, it probably lined up with the Left's propaganda interests. A tactical benefit, perhaps, but a strategic and logistical mistake to help the media cover something up. Because the media is not on America's side.
Then again, Diversity Casey, that general, isn't on the side of patriots either.
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