Posted on 10/15/2014 8:06:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This story is disturbing on multiple levels. It has been revealed that stockpiles of expired or degraded chemical munitions were discovered in Iraq during the initial years of the war and both American and Iraqi forces were exposed to them in more than twenty instances. This information was never revealed to the public.
American troops were exposed to chemical weapons multiple times in the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while the Pentagon kept their discoveries of the expired or degraded weapons secret from investigators, fellow soldiers, and military doctors, according to a published report.
The New York Times reported late Tuesday that American troops reported finding approximately 5,000 chemical warheads, shells, or aviation bombs in the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On at least six occasions, soldiers were wounded by those weapons, which had been manufactured before 1991. In all, the paper reported that 17 U.S. soldiers and seven Iraqi police officers were exposed to chemical agents during the war. The U.S. government said its number was slightly higher, but did not release a specific figure.
And if that isn’t bad enough news for you on a Wednesday morning, the material is apparently now in the hands of precisely who you wouldn’t want to have it.
The paper reported that most of the agents were discovered around the Muthanna State Establishment northwest of Baghdad, which had been a center of chemical weapons production in the 1980s. The complex has been held by Islamic State militants since June.
The details provided thus far indicate that these were certainly not a potential source for the mushroom cloud on the horizon or state of the art mobile biological weapons laboratories which were so frequently discussed in the run up to the war, but they are still WMDs by definition and a nasty piece of business. Manufactured during the 1980s, the weapons were apparently decaying and compromised, but still contained dangerous compounds which resulted in injuries to those investigating them.
The ISIS side of the question may not be as bad as it could have been from the sound of things. The weapons stored at Muthanna are apparently so old and degraded that even getting close to them may well prove more disastrous to any terrorists trying to use them than they would be to the intended targets. But the chemicals are still too dangerous to ignore and provide yet another reason to take ISIS more seriously.
Possibly more disturbing, though, is the fallout from the secrecy surrounding these discoveries. When injured veterans were returning home, might there have been more effective treatment made available if medical professionals knew that such exposure was a consideration? While it’s possible that VA doctors were provided with this information on a need to know basis in cases where soldiers were known to have been exposed, both the military and the VA owe us some answers on that. Once the immediate series of crisis scenarios calm down, I expect we’ll be seeing calls for some congressional hearings to shine more light on this situation.
Karl Rove’s advice?
The clergyman, while obviously upset about the lying, was more upset about what the government official told the congressional committee: "The government has the right to lie to protect themselves!"
What I remember even more than the sermon was Dad's comment to us on the drive home: "What if I used the same logic on the IRS?"
I was maybe five or six years old at the time, but I still understood what Dad was saying. It is funny how this type of thing sticks with you all these years.
Since, I've often thought that this government official was unfairly castigated by our preacher that day. At least he was honest enough to say out loud what most of them really believe.
WTH? Yes, again . .why?
Beat me by a couple of minutes...
That should not have mattered. Where they got them is irrelevant - the fact they had them, as we said they did, was why the war was fought! I cannot understand that it was not made public. If one US soldier was hit with mustard gas, then frankly all the anti-Bush anti-war hate would have evaporated!
Two questions if true:
1) Why did the Bush administration cover this up?
2) Why were they not all destroyed when we were there?
It was reported in the news - very scantly.
The stories were blown off by the majority of the MSM.
Along with the stories of chemical weapons being moved to Syria - which it appears are being used now.
Col. Ralph Peters said this morning that this article is an Obama/NYT propaganda hit piece timed for the elections.
In 2003 US satellites watched 11 RUSSIAN trucks move the main stockpile out of Iraq into Syria. The war colleges gamed out the entire confrontation with RUSSIA over their WMDs and the end game was thermo-nuclear war between the US and RUSSIA.
The CIA bolted on to the MSM hate spew of Bush, Cheney, Republicans, conservatives, and made up the "Oops, were were wrong" line knowing that the revengeful, hating, 2-dimensional thinkers would slurp it up, still are.
Better to take the hit than thermo-nuke war and everyone dies.
All I can figure is that they are lying NOW in order to stir America to take on ISIS on the ground.
They figure if Bush could do it, so can they?
I would not call it a “cover up” during the early years of the war. During my time in Iraq (OIF II 2004-2005) we had plenty of reports of buried/ hidden chemical munitions. But they weren’t picked up in the press or were under reported because they did not point to “on going WMD development.” Specifically, the old munitions did not point to nuclear programs (other than the 500,000 tons of Nigerian yellow cake uranium which was exported to Canada from Iraq, which received brief press coverage in 2006 or 2007). The old, hidden chemical stock piles were not made a big deal of because they were either looked upon by western analysts as disposed of rather than stored....the concept never occurring to many in the west that the Iraqi (regional) standards of maintenance and safety are somewhat less than we are used to. (— An odd example was readily apparent when one of my colleagues during another Mid-East tour (1995-1996) found blasting caps stored directly on top of high explosives in an allied munitions bunker). -—Anyhow, everybody over there was probably exposed to toxic industrial chemicals at some point; ones that were improperly stored, burned, poured in a sewage system or river, or otherwise improperly destroyed. The exposure to various degraded weaponized versions were probably not much worse...... I would be much more likely to agree with a cover up after 2008, as so much of the Democratic messaging during the Surge was focused on accusing Bush of lying and Pres Obama could not be proven wrong.
I heard about it back then, it was leaked.
Everybody knew that Saddam had chemical weapons and had used them in the past.
The first President Bush had a 92% approval rating after DESERT STORM. The press couldn’t stand that as they had been staunchly against that war. They also believe they are paid by the Democrats. They couldn’t let the second President Bush get that kind of rise in approval ratings. So they changed the debate from a madman with chemical weapons to whether Iraq was producing WMDs.
They succeeded in ruining the second President Bush’s approval rating which led to the election of Barack “Numnuts” Obama as our President. The American Press is tied to Obama and all his dithering, and they are trying to run from the mess they made. We should hand the American Press a mop and a rifle and tell them to get their asses to work and clean up the Ebola and ISIS messes they made.
“Why did Bush let the liberals accuse him of lying, when he could have proved them wrong at any time.”
Maybe because of the reasons right now. If you say they are there, at the time Hussein’s crew as well as other terrorist groups would go out looking for them. By keeping silent, you try to take care of the problem and not give anything away.
I still remember the frustration I felt when I heard about this “through the grapevine” before I retired. Word was that Bush himself didn’t want to make it public so that it didn’t look like he was pushing it in the face of his detractors -— no idea at all if that was true or not, just what was being said. It still galls me when I hear people say Bush lied about WMD’s when I know they were there. This proof -— or any proof -— will mean nothing at all to those who are sure we made it all up just so we could go to war in Iraq.
I definitely read articles about finding Mustard gas while Bush was still in office. Is this really a revelation, or more of a story about not giving proper medical care to the Soldiers effected?
Nice to see someone who gets it. Most are still deep in denial. That’s why I think voting is useless.
Oh a few of us get it. Too few though. KC Lion has a Uniparty ping list for us bitter clingers. An island of sanity until the Freeper left shows up praising their RINOs and questioning our patriotism for the crime of voting conservative..
My guess: We continued to find more stockpiles as the occupation persisted, and we didn't want those weapons to fall into the hands of the enemy (or the enemy to use them against us). The liberals in their false accusations perhaps convinced the enemy that these weapons didn't exist or at least partially inhibited the inclinations of the enemy to seek, capture, and use the weapons.
I don't doubt also that more chemical and/or biological weapons exist than even now are publicly acknowledged, perhaps rather many not yet uncovered. And yes, I suspect that the easily mobile ones went to Syrian Arab Republic, where no one on our side really now knows who captured or controls or hid them.
Another possibility - they had a pretty good idea of how much they were expecting to find, and they ended up finding less than they expected. The delta in that number likely going to Syria or other places.
Not sure how you’d spin that.
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