Posted on 07/08/2014 8:29:35 PM PDT by sheikdetailfeather
It’s a confirmation of reports in June that ISIS had taken control of a site where some of Saddam’s WMD arsenal remained.
Iraq has informed the United Nations that the Islamic State extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad where 2,500 chemical rockets filled with the deadly nerve agent sarin or their remnants were stored along with other chemical warfare agents.
Iraq’s U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon circulated Tuesday that “terrorist” groups entered the Muthanna site June 11 and seized weapons and equipment from the protection force guarding the facility.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
soon to rain down on Baghdad and Iran—then Israel.
Bush turned it over to the UN and the ISG. Dumbass decision, because they took one look at the crumbling facility and put a chain on the door, washing their hands of it.
Bush lied about Islam being a RoP and, as long as he has not retracted that brainless statement, there are millions of gullible Americans who still think that Islam’s imminent danger to this country is highly exaggerated.
Come on this has to be BS. The war in Iraq was evil due to the fact Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. If he actually did, then we may have to rewrite history. But nah the Kurds simply were eating bad food. The inspectors couldn’t have missed some weapons in an are 2/3 the size of Texas, could they?
Here is a post I made on the issue last month to clear it up
Here’s the stink from what I can gather. The facility is called Al Muthanna. After UNSCOM failed to destroy the chemicals there during the 1980s, Saddam used chemicals manufactured there to kill civilian targets. In the 90s, the facility was heavily damaged during the war, in which it was a target for US bombing campaigns.
The facility was subsequently sealed off and remained thus throughout the invasion in the 00s. It was simply too dangerous to operate. Because of this, the suspected WMDs were not believed to have been manufactured or housed in this facility. It was abandoned and entrances were blocked off. Despite this, there were sporadic reports of looters who had found a way into the facility.
During US occupation, the military made the decision that it was safer to leave the chemical weapons buried in the unstable environment than attempt to move them, which would have been a monumental and expensive task. Supposedly, both UN and ISG inspected the facility to the best of their ability, however this was likely incomplete because it sprawls over 10 square miles, with underground laboratories. The interior is highly hazardous for humans to enter.
Now that we are aware that members of Saddam’s Baathist military command, including al-Douri, are helping ISIS to topple the Shi’ite government, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that they are aware of how to access a deeper sub-level of the complex where less degraded weapons could be available. Even degraded amounts of VX are highly effective regardless. I very much doubt they hit this place by accident.
The idea that these terrorists cannot use these chemicals unless they are ‘military grade’ (which means they are safe for weaponization and use) is lunacy.
Not even George Bush or Colon Bowel?
That was informative. Thank you.
A ‘Daisycutter’ might solve the problem.
Bu... bu... but the Duelfer Report (2004) said, “While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG [Iraqi Survey Group] judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991.”
“Indeed1 One would think the US would have done away with these when we occupied Iraq.”
That is my question too. Why did not the Bush administration and then the Obama administration not do away with them?
The Iraqi’s must have manufactured them after the America media decided that none existed when we invaded.
Considering Iraq was making binary mustard and nerve agents, I hope you are right. They had considerable stock piles of mustard and sarin that were produced after the war with Iran. Binary configurations have a pretty long shelf like, far longer than unitary. Iraq spent considerable time and effort refining both. Most were placed in artillery shells, perfect for IED use and easily transported.
During their war with Iran, Iraq was only producing short lived, unitary nerve agents and mustard. It is highly unlikely these are left overs as they would have been destroyed due to their short effective lifespan.
Yep. I bet my retirement they never set one foot in this facility. They wrote it off, locked the door, forged the report and went home for champagne. If Baghdadi wins the war using these highly valuable weapons, he can chalk his victory up to bureaucratic idiocy at ISG.
When some leftist enclave gets hit by these weapons, the MSM will suddenly discover all of this.
Game changer.
Last week there was an article here that Zero was sending Hellfire missiles to Iraq. They must have arrived.
/s
Bookmark
I have a feeling that the current government of Iraq is trumping this up to get the U.S to bomb Isis.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.