No Mention of WMD Documents on ABC News Tonight

ABC News ^ | June 22, 2006 | Self

[syriacus]

Trying to watch Hannity (Oliver North sitting in) and Colmes discussion of this on Fox News right now, but getting bad static only on Fox News Cable channel.

[syriacus]

Bad static on FNC started and ended during discussion of WMD on Hannity and Colmes.

[StJacques]

"A question and short answer at todays White House Press Briefing; it was a most unsatisfactory response. . . ."

I didn't know about that statement Dave, thanks for the link. I'm going to post the relevant Q & A portion of it for this thread:

Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Steve Hadley [and Tony Snow]

"Anything else? Steve.

Q This document that was unclassified yesterday, Republican lawmakers released it pointing toward 500 weapons dumps or munitions found in Iraq since 2003, of some chemical weapons. Do you consider this as a smoking gun of some sort, proving the WMD charge, or is this old material that is pre-Gulf War? What do you make of it?

MR. HADLEY: I think really it is what it is. There's a declassified, I think one-pager, that the intelligence community has cleared. I don't know whether that's been released to the press.

Q It has, yes, it has.

MR. HADLEY: That's really the story, I think. And I don't have a whole lot to add. It sort of, it is what it is. And I think -- I read that statement quickly last night and it's really all we can say about it. And I think people are going to have to draw their own conclusions.

But the bottom line is, 500 chemical munitions in Iraq, and obviously we're concerned about the potential threat they pose to Iraqis and to our forces."

[John Semmens]

Dems Debunk WMD Find

U.S. forces in Iraq discovered 500 canisters of chemical weapons that had been hidden by Saddam Hussein’s government prior to the U.S. invasion. While the find seemingly validates pre-war fears that Iraq did, in fact possess weapons outlawed by the agreement following the 1991 war, Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee debunked the find.

“Our position has been that President Bush lied to get us into war with Iraq,” said Dean. “No assertion or revelation by anyone or any source is going to change that position.”

“Besides, these were old weapons that had passed their expiration date,” said Dean. “OSHA and EPA regulations clearly prohibit the use of materials that have passed their expiration date. It would have been totally illegal for Hussein’s troops to have used these weapons. They would have faced stiff fines and possibly jail time if they had. So, given these rules, these weapons posed no threat to anyone.”

Senator Rick Santorum (R-Penn) says he is baffled by Dean’s reasoning. “Hussein was beyond the reach of OSHA and EPA regulations,” said Santorum. “Threats of fines and jail that may work on corporate managers could hardly be expected to influence a brutal criminal like Hussein. While I’m sure that fresh chemical weapons would be more potent, I don’t think we could reasonably conclude that older weapons would be harmless. The Democrats’ ‘position’ seems more like mindless dogma to me.”

read more satire at...

http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm