Posted on 05/17/2004 4:12:46 PM PDT by ambrose
Mon 17 May 2004
7:28pm (UK)
Sarin Blast 'Shows Saddam Did Hide Weapons'
By Joe Churcher, Chief Parliamentary Reporter, PA News
The discovery of a bomb containing deadly nerve agent sarin proves that Saddam Hussein did hide stocks of weapons of mass destruction, a Foreign Office minister said tonight.
Bill Rammell told MPs that the substance appeared to be part of a programme that should have been destroyed under United Nations Security Council resolutions.
During a debate on the latest developments in Iraq, he said: "This does not represent a new capability but it does appear to be part of a programme declared to the UN. That munition should have been handed over
to UN weapons inspectors] and destroyed.
"It does therefore appear to be in breach of UN Security Council resolutions and it does significantly appear to back up what we have been saying all along that Saddam did conceal some of his stock.
"I think that point needs to be made."
He added: "It is thought to be an old munition. Those who planted it may not have known what it contained.
"Preliminary field testing of the substance proved positive for sarin and further samples have been sent for analysis."
I think we both know the answer to that....This news doesn't fit in with the Imperial News Media's agenda (which is to undercut Bush). Plus, it shows Bush didn't "lie".
"Why is not media on top of this?"
They think they've got Bush on the ropes with the prisoner abuse story and they're not going to let anything upstage it.
No they have America on the ropes. I love George Bush but in the end we are all the victims of this leftist propoganda. The prisoner story, in the great scheme of things, is a big nothing.
Duh
On The Contrary. The rabid true believer who chooses not to acknowledge this was a WMD implementation methodology that was absolutely, unequivocally required by UN resolution to be turned over or destroyed is a rabid true believer of the leftists of this country (among whom are many in a recent wave who have joined Free Republic).
This is total, complete vindication. WMDs existed. They were stored. They were not turned over to the UN or destroyed as required. They were a major reason for the war. They are now proven to have existed.
QED.
HA! Take that you liberal weasels!
By the way, am I correct that now U.N. apologists are claiming there were a significant # of WMD's sitting around Iraq with U.N. tags on them? that's preposterous or they would have been on the agenda for all the attempted inspections. What they are saying is these things were tagged for destruction, SHOULD have been destroyed, but sadaam never accounted for them properly. How it would be ok for some of those items to be "left over" is beyond me. The idea that it was safe for these things to be sitting around in sadaam Hussein's Iraq is crazy.
FoxNews has been reporting it ALL day.
Funny how your typo turned out, but its accurate just the same.
Left over's don't make an excuse here. His obligation under the UN resolution was to ACCOUNT FOR ALL weapons of mass destruction.
How does that excuse it? What is magical about the year 1991 which means that if a weapon was created before that year, Saddam is allowed to keep it and not report it to anyone?
Those were NOT the terms of Resolution 1441.
The guys who used it [presumably simply for the propellant explosives -- it was a 155mm artillery shell] may well not have known what it was.
Yes, that seems likely. However, whether they knew the shell contained binary-mix WMD is irrelevant to the whole did-Saddam-have-WMD issue.
They still need to find the stocks in order to verify the WMD claims the admin made.
What's a "stock"? A "stock of WMD" is what, an amount of WMD?
But they HAVE found an amount of WMD. It's called sarin and the amount was small but nonzero, and still enough to kill many people if dispersed properly. I don't know what "claims" you think need to be proved but the primarily claim w/r to international law was that Saddam Hussein was hiding and not reporting banned materials as required by Resolution 1441. This find only buttresses that claim (though to be honest it had already been proven long ago).
One or two ancient shells don't do that for any except the most rabid true believer.
The ancientness or not of a shell is totally irrelevant to everything.
It is those who use arguments such as yours who are the "true believers".
How much evidence do the naysayers need? No amount of evidence will convince those with their heads buried in the sand.
I read your profile. You spell and use the language rather poorly for one so highly educated.
I smell a 'rat.
I posted this on another thread. I think it's important to repeat them here.
So, I guess the threshold is going to be raised with each discovery, huh?
It might be postulated that a booby-trapped shell is a shell whose owner lacks access to a gun that can fire it. By the transitive property of logic that means said owner has access to a cache of shells without an artillery piece.
Which means it is entirely possible a bunch of guys are running around with this crap in trunks of cars, eventually to be wired up and ready to go. It's easier to find and deal with three punks with a big gun, bit harder, I assume, a few more with loose shells taken out of a hidden bunker.
Blix, if he were sincere, or didn't have the logical inquiry skills of an insect, would be more concerned about this development than this response.
As an aside, nothing happens without a reason. A roadside bomb today, something planted in front of a hotel tomorrow. These bastards field test the old-fashioned way--they've proven that time and again.
You are precisely right! Even if this bomb was an "ancient" chem. weapon with a UN tag on it, that is totally irrelevant, because that is a weapon that should have been destroyed per UN resolutions, and wasn't. It also shows that "Saddam lied" when he insisted that he'd destroyed his old WMDs. Since the bottom-line reason for toppling Saddams was that he didn't adhere to UN resolutions on WMDs, this weapon, "ancient" or not, is a complete vindication that Bush was correct to press the issue.
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