Posted on 03/13/2005 1:14:45 AM PST by txradioguy
No there were a lot of places that got looted before we got there and quite frankly we didn't have the manpower on the ground at the time I was there to secure all the places 24/7.
Trust me it was a priority. We got to them as fast as we could. But some of them we couldn't get to fast enough.
Well first off to correct your lack of knowlege on the subject there is no "expired shelf life" on munitions.
Yes we have found actual weapons.
To date the Polish troops have recovered over 100 shells filled with mustard gas.
There have been other more "quiet" take downs of weapons and the people who were making them.
That last "public" incident was the 155mm shell filled with 4 liters of sarin that was uned in an I.E.D.
The deputy minister of industry wants his five axis CNC machine tools back! There was a plasma welder in that batch for welding sections for missiles. A large "isostatic" press, made by a Swedish-Swiss firm, Asea Brown Boveri, used for shaping the high-explosive charges that set off a nuclear chain reaction.
"and was all of the "evidence of programs" run off with by looters???"
Do I sense a bit of sarcasm?
Fact of the matter is we have the satellie evidence that shows large convoy's moving to the Syrian border days before Iraq fell and they were allowed to pass without hindrance.
And we know for a fact that a lot of the "looters" were plain clothes Republican Guard soldiers doing what their orders told them to do by getting rid of the "evidence".
But but but...where's the "evidence" they were using them for WMD construction? (/sarcasm)
--Boot Hill
The critics have always liked to have it both ways. They offer nothing particularly new here in this NYT story except that now it's an Iraqi official saying what was said previously by someone at the UN some time back. Next week they'll have quotes from John Kerry saying this to show the NYT is objective.
"So the WMD is in Syria, or just the equipment to manufacture WMD???"
Best intelligence analysis says both are. Plus the scientists that we'd like to talk to but can't find.
"The critics have always liked to have it both ways."
That's the single most frustrating thing to me when these stories come up.
We could find some huge cache of shells loaded with anthrax...the instruction on how to use the shells and the protective measure for the soldiers using them and there would STILL be people that will say "So? That still doesn't prove he had WMD's"
thud! thud! thud! (the sound of me banging my head on my desk)
That Iraq would one day be able to deliver a nuclear device? Yes. Be it in a year or 10 years, to depend on an avowed enemy of the USA to honestly divulge his weapon capabilities, was becoming quite dangerous.
Saddam wasn't letting weapon inspectors do the job. He was building onto those sites. He lied, delayed, bribed to keep the UN from peeking into his WMD programs. Be thankful of the 1991 invasion, today Saddam would have the whole Mideast under nuclear blackmail. Who is to say if the 2003 never took place that Saddam would have the area under the same today or ten years from now. Action was needed, and it sure did not come from the France, Germany or Russia.
No they haven't. And if they have they aren't releasing the info to the public. Most of Saddam's inner circle has remained extremely tight lipped about what they know.
And one thing I must correct you on. The WMD's were NOT the main reason we went into Iraq. It is however the one the MSM likes to cocus on as a way to smear the President.
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