Multiple Tests Confirming Iraq WMD Send Media Into Deep Spin

Mulitple tests conducted in Iraq by Danish and British experts indicate that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction have finally been discovered, but mainstream news editors either ignored the story Sunday morning or are furiously spinning the news as inconsequential.

More than 12 hours after the Fox News Channel, Reuters and the Associated Press carried reports that preliminary tests showed Iraqi mortar shells discovered near Basra contain a deadly liquid blister agent, the New York Times had yet to report the bombshell find on the main page of its Web site – or anywhere in its Sunday morning print edition.

The Washington Post's Web site also chose not to cover the blockbuster news, which ABC News military analyst Tony Cordesman said Saturday would be "the first real confirmation that Iraq actually had deployed chemical weapons and was prepared to use them" if tests confirmed the find.

Saturday night the Fox News Channel revealed that initial tests had indeed confirmed the blockbuster discovery.

"Danish troops are in charge of that area around the village of Al Quarnah, and they have found what they believe are, according to this official, two hundred shells," reported FNC's Greg Palkrow.

Palkrow said the Danish official told him: "They've run four different tests on that liquid inside those shells. And all those tests do indicate that there is blister gas – that's a deadly chemical weapon - inside of those shells."

The AP said that a statement released by Danish officials cited British experts, who had also confirmed that the shells contained "blister gas."

Before the war the Bush administration had alleged that Baghdad was stockpiling blister gas in liquid form.

Both reports noted that the find had yet to be confirmed by the U.S. team in Iraq assigned to search for weapons of mass destruction.

But according to the London Sunday Telegraph, Ali Nimir, a former colonel in an Iraqi Republican Guard artillery unit, had also confirmed the find.

"I remember seeing boxes of these kinds of armaments in our base two years ago," Nimir said. "We were told that they were chemical weapons."

"They were removed from our bases and distributed to secret hiding places about a year before the war," he explained. "I never saw them again."

Still, despite the staggering political consequences of the bombshell discovery – news that could mean total vindication for President Bush against Democrat charges that he "lied" about Iraq's WMDs – mainstream reports consistently downplayed the story.

The New York Daily News, for instance, covered the news on page 24 of its Sunday edition, and then only under a headline that obscured the potential impact of the story: "Old Iraqi Gas Shells."

New York's Newsday echoed the same theme with its page 20 headline, "Weapons Found, but Likely Old" – as if the vintage of Saddam's WMDs somehow mitigated genuine proof of their existence after months of media claims to the contrary.

The only news outlet to refer to weapons of mass destruction in its headline was the New York Post, which labeled its page 2 report: "WMD Gas Shells Dug Up in Iraq."

The shells found in 1997 that Iraq was hiding contained mustard that was 97% pure and produced about the same time.

Iraq had produced very stable and deadly mustard prior to Gulf War I, and the stocks quoted by this administration were based on the stocks Iraq admitted they produced but insisted they destroyed.

If this is mustard, and they obviously were not destroyed, Bush was right, Iraq lied, and Blix is proven an incompetent idiot.

These are resources for the WMD and destruction.

July 2003 (http://www.nti.org/e_research/official_docs/other_us/crs07232003.pdf)
During its tenure, UNSCOM destroyed all chemical weapons materiel uncovered — 38,500 munitions, 480,000 liters of chemical agents, 1.8 million liters of precursor chemicals, and 426 pieces of production equipment items—and the destruction operation formally ended on June 14, 1994. In February 1998 UNSCOM discovered that shells taken from Iraq in 1996 contained 97% pure mustard gas, indicating it was freshly produced. However, the fate of about 31,600 chemical shells, 550 mustard gas bombs, and 4,000 tons of chemical precursors remains unknown. UNSCOM’s main outstanding chemical weapons questions centered on VX nerve agent, which Iraq did not include in its initial 1991declarations and of which no stockpile was ever located. Iraq did not prove it destroyed the chemical precursors. By 1995 UNSCOM had uncovered enough circumstantial evidence to force Iraq to admit to producing about 4 tons of VX, but UNSCOM believed that Iraq had imported enough precursor — about 600 tons — to produce 200 tons of the agent. In late June 1998, UNSCOM revealed that some unearthed missile warheads, tested in a U.S. Army lab, contained traces of VX, contradicting Iraq’s assertions that it had not succeeded in stabilizing the agent. Separate French and Swiss tests did not find conclusive evidence of VX. In March 2003, Iraq proposed a technical method to prove its assertions that it destroyed its VX in 1991. About 170 chemical sites were under monitoring. Iraq did not sign the Chemical Weapons Convention effective April 29, 1997....UNSCOM’s October 1998 report said it had been able to account for at least 43 of the 45 chemical and biological (CBW)warheads Iraq said it unilaterally destroyed in 1991. (The war heads were unearthed in mid-1998.) An additional 30 chemical warheads were destroyed under UNSCOM supervision.

UNMOVIC Quarterly Report to the Security Council
UNMOVIC - Friday, May 30, 2003
(http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/unmovic/un-unmovic-blix-053003.pdf)
119. The destruction of the chemical weapons agent mustard gas, which had started at the end of February, was completed in March 2003. Under UNMOVIC supervision, Iraq destroyed the 155 mm shells and the mustard gas contained in them. The shells found in 1997 were stored at a declared location — the former Muthanna State Establishment. In total, there were 14 shells, containing approximately 49 litres of the agent — four of them had been earlier emptied and sampled by UNSCOM. The agent was destroyed by chemical reaction and the empty shells with explosives. Samples taken from the shells showed that mustard gas produced over 15 years ago was still of high quality — 97 per cent purity.
From Appendix I
10. In addition to discoveries in the missile area, findings in the chemical area comprised hidden production capabilities but not weapons themselves, with the exception of a dozen artillery shells filled with mustard gas found in the period 1996-1997 at a former storage site. However, it should be noted that more chemical weapons production equipment was identified and destroyed in 1997 than in the period from 1991 to 1994 (325 and 100 pieces of equipment, respectively).

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/etc/arsenal.html
In addition, UNSCOM found evidence of R-400A bombs carrying BW at an airfield where no BW weapons were declared.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/gulfwar/cwagents/cwpaper1.htm
A 1998 UNSCOM inspection team unearthed 17 rockets at Khamisiyah that were believed to be full of agent. They were subsequently thermally destroyed at Khamisiyah by Iraq under UNSCOM supervision.

http://www.stimson.org/cbw/?sn=cb20020113271
"[After Kamel's defection] Iraq later stated that beginning in August 1990 it produced significant quantities of biological agents, as shown in Table 2. Iraq tested and weaponized these agents, filling 100 bombs with botulinum toxin, 50 with anthrax, and 7 with aflatoxin. Iraq tipped 16 missile warheads with botulinum toxin, 5 with anthrax, and 4 with aflatoxin. Iraq claims to have destroyed these munitions unilaterally shortly after the Gulf War. Of these 182 munitions, UNSCOM has recovered three intact R-400 bombs, which are being analyzed to determine which agent(s) they contained. Parts for 23 unfilled R-400 bombs were also recovered."

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/unscom.htm
In 1996, after UNSCOM obtained some storage inventories relating to these munitions, Iraq declared that they actually had closer to 13,500 munitions, but that 550 were destroyed during the Gulf war. Iraq, however, was unable to locate the site of their destruction.[UNSCOM June 98] Iraq declared that the 550 155mm shells filled with mustard had been lost shortly after the Gulf war, and no evidence of the missing munitions has been found. A dozen mustard-filled shells were recovered at a former chemical weapons storage facility in the period 1997-1998. The chemical sampling of these munitions in April 1998 revealed that the mustard was still of the highest quality. After seven years, the purity of mustard ranged between 94 per cent and 97 per cent. Iraq still has to account for the missing shells and to provide verifiable evidence of their disposition. In July 1998, Iraq promised to provide clarifications on this matter. To date, only preliminary information has been provided by Iraq on its continuing internal investigation[S/1998/920].

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/ukhaydir_ii/ukhaydir_ii_s03.htm
By spring 1997, UNSCOM had assessed that the rounds were the same and was able to account for 6,384 of the 6,394 declared by Iraq; most of these (6,380) were inspected at the Fallujah Proving Ground in September 1991, while an additional four were discovered during the two separate inspections at Ukhaydir in the spring of 1997.

Summaries of the items ( http://editors.sipri.se/pubs/Factsheet/unscom.html , http://armedservices.house.gov/pressreleases/2003/IraqiWMDs.pdf ).

Funny, it was first reported about three or four days ago on FR, with subsequent posting on FR . . .

LOL. We're way ahead of the curve, huh? I'll tell ya what's cool is . . . watch Brit Hume's show and decide for yourself if he has someone keeping an eye on us FReepers. Fox News at 5:00 PM CST.

I've run three "unofficial" tests over the past two months. I got on the net at 4:00, hurriedly did a quick survey of the threads to see what the hot story of the day was, then watched Brit's show and EVERTIME the story was not only mentioned . . . but Brit also framed the story so it was obvious he agreed with the most popular FReeper take on the topic.

Then, as painful as it was, I'd scan the NBCCBSABC broadcasts at 5:30 . . . and the TOPIC WAS NEVER DISCUSSED!

I'd be willing to bet that every news organization with a viewership larger than four has "hired lurkers" to keep an eye on what's making news over here. It's really humorous. The alphabets networks would swallow cyanide before they reported on any stories favorable to conservatives. And it bugs the hell outta them that we're the trend-setters. Imagine that. Us? US!!!! Us little band of vagabond conservatives! Unbelievable.

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