Thursday, June 22, 2006
These Are Not The WMDs You're Looking For...
What does the "discovery" that recently declassified documents show Coalition troops have discovered roughly 500 chemical munitions shells really prove?
In my opinion, not much ... directly. The reaction to the revelation is more revealing than the discovery itself. The online front pages of both the New York Times and the Washington Post contain absolutely no mention of the story. CNN and that radical reich-wing mouthpiece FoxNews? Nothing. Unbiased observers might think that regardless of whether the story had legs or not, the mere fact that a Republican Senator claimed recently declassified documents showed undisclosed stockpiles of WMDs might be worth a mention.
A quick search of the NYT using the terms Santorum and WMDs yielded... nothing. The Washington Post, however, relegates its brief blurb to page A10:
The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.
The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
This is surely one of the briefest stories I've seen out of the Post on the Iraq War.
One might think an unbiased news source might possibly put up a retrospective of WMD controversy (which of course, to be truly informative, would have to include at least a mention of the many references to WMDs in the recently released Iraqi "treasure trove" of documents).
Still think we get all the news? There's nothing to see here folks. Just move along.
Update: More non-news: Scott Ritter termed speculation that a sarin-filled shell found in 2004 was part of a larger cache "irresponsible".
IraqWatch claims that although early Iraqi sarin stocks were unstable and degraded quickly, Hussein's regime claimed to have solved that problem. This source also supports the contention that binary payload munitions may be an answer to the degradation problem:
According to the CIA, nations such as Iraq have tried to overcome the problem of sarin's short shelf life in two ways:
- The shelf life of unitary (i.e., pure) sarin may be lengthened by increasing the purity of the precursor and intermediate chemicals and refining the production process.
- Incorporating a stabilizer chemical called tributylamine. Later this was replaced by diisopropylcarbodiimide (di-c-di), which allowed for GB nerve agent to be stored in aluminum casings.
- Developing binary chemical weapons, where the two precursor chemicals are stored separately in the same shell, and mixed to form the agent immediately before or when the shell is in flight. This approach has the dual benefit of making the issue of shelf life irrelevant and greatly increasing the safety of sarin munitions
A CIA rundown of various chemical munitions discovered since the invasion with a summary of their condition. Most appear to have degraded over time.
Update II: The Washington Times (that rag!) at least attempts to provide some information to its readers. Via Penraker, who also wonders why there isn't more coverage and analysis in the MSM.
Chester examines several theories about why we're just hearing about this now.
Update III: Further underscoring my point about the curious lack of interest in "negative" WMD news, witness the virtual media feeding frenzy (along with voluminious follow-up reports and analysis from experts!) which greeted this find just last summer:
US troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on US and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said yesterday.
The early morning raid last Monday found 11 precursor agents, ''some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan, said in Baghdad.
Combined, the chemicals would yield an agent capable of ''lingering hazards" for those exposed to it, Boylan said. The likely targets would have been ''coalition and Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi civilians," partly because the chemicals would be difficult to keep from spreading over a wide area, he said.
Boylan said the suspected lab was new, dating from sometime after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
But then too much information has a way of clouding the narrative. Wouldn't want to confuse people.
24 Comments:
By 
cakreiz, at
Thu Jun 22, 09:17:00 AM:
Cass: Rick Moran over at Rightwing Nuthouse put it aptly: "what the American people want is not confirmation of the justification for going into Iraq but rather progress by the Iraqi government that would help get us out."
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 09:29:00 AM:
I find it intensely amusing that no matter what comes out on this issue, some people seem more interested in confirming their preconceived notions about the presence of WMDs than in exploring how well we ever searched for them and if any are, in fact, still floating around out there.
This would seem to be a topic of more than passing interest to the folks who've been screaming bloody murder about "securing our ports" (talk to any anti-terrorism analyst about *that* one sometime... it's an eye-opener).
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Jun 22, 09:53:00 AM:
So Negroponte says we found degraded chemical weapons pre-1991 munitions.
This is the investigational equivalent of finding out Bill Clinton had premarital sex with chubby fluzies before he met Hillary.
By Gordon Smith, at
Thu Jun 22, 10:09:00 AM:
Keep backpedaling, Cass. You'll get to a sensible position at some point.
Defunct 1988 munitions, possibly sold to Saddam by U.S., proof that Bush is lying when he says there were no WMD? Damn newspapers!
This is your position? Strange.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 10:15:00 AM:
Newspapers publish speculation all the time Screwy, when it suits their purposes. And this is not speculation. It is a declassified government document.
Normally the papers would be all over this, if only to pooh-pooh it. I merely find it odd that they don't even mention it.
Defunct 1988 munitions, possibly sold to Saddam by U.S., proof that Bush is lying when he says there were no WMD?
And this is just ridiculous. Even UNSCOM admits Saddam was manufacturing these weapons (which were, in fact, used on Halabja to kill 5000 Kurds).
Stop putting words in my mouth.
I never said Bush lied about anything, and I'm not saying this proves anything. Your bias is showing.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 10:18:00 AM:
And Lanky, the fact that we found even 500 degraded weapons that Saddam claimed he didn't have and UN inspectors failed to find is news.
For that reason, I find the MSMs near-silence on this deafening. You would think that at the least they'd be interested in providing accuate information to people who have heard about this and are trying to figure out what it does, and *does not* mean.
Apparently not, though.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 10:27:00 AM:
Hint: information is not the enemy.
By Pax Federatica, at
Thu Jun 22, 11:16:00 AM:
It may be just as well that we didn't find out sooner. As I remarked in the previous thread, even if we found huge caches of WMDs and made those finds public on the day after Saddam fell, our subsequent steady diet of troubles in Iraq (and the MSM's coverage of same) would likely have long since rendered that find a distant memory by now anyway.
By Gordon Smith, at
Thu Jun 22, 12:48:00 PM:
I must be dense, but I keep losing your point...
I thought your point was, "See! They did too have WMD!"
Then I thought your point was, "even though the weapons were too far gone to be useful, it proves that Saddam once had weapons"
I'm really lost here, what are you trying to say?
That pre-Gulf War weapons were good reason to go to war in Iraq?
That weapons produced after the U.S. invasion justify claims that Iraq had weapons before the invasion?
I know you're trying to make the case that Saddam would have loved to attack the U.S. and that he had the capability. The only problem is that you're failing on the latter. He didn't have the capability. He just didn't. It doesn't matter how many 1980's era degraded weapons are found, Saddam wasn't going to be attacking the United States. Sorry to disappoint you.
I know you really need not to be wrong about this, so it's poignant to see you grasping at decomposing straws offered by embattled incumbents. I know you mean well, but this line of argument leads nowhere.
Maybe if the Congress would greenlight an investigation into pre-war intelligence we could get some answers regarding why so many were so wrong about so much, but the Republican majority isn't interested in finding out.
By geekesque, at
Thu Jun 22, 01:18:00 PM:
The reason the media isn't covering it is because it's a b.s. story concocted by a politician in the last throes of his career.
These weapons were no more a danger than your local Superfund site or neighborhood sewer.
Repeat after me: Munitions that have degraded to the point where they are no longer functional are not weapons of mass destruction.
Oy.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 01:36:00 PM:
Screwy, you really need to work on your reading comprehension skills. My point (hidden in plain sight in a short post) is simply this:
What does the "discovery" that recently declassified documents show Coalition troops have discovered roughly 500 chemical munitions shells really prove?
In my opinion, not much ... directly. The reaction to the revelation is more revealing than the discovery itself.
Let me break it down for you:
1. EVEN THE NEWS THAT 500 NON-FUNCTIONAL (AND ACTUALLY THE DECLASSIFIED DOC ITSELF DOES NOT SAY THEY'RE ALL NON-FUNCTIONAL) WMDS HAVE BEEN FOUND SINCE 2003 IS NEWS.
2. JUST AS THE RELEASE OF A "b.s. story concocted by a politician in the last throes of his career" IS NEWS. EVEN IF YOU THINK THIS IS A POLITICAL PLOY, THAT'S STILL NEWS.
So my friend, where is it?
Stop trying to infer things I'm not saying and try reading the actual words in my posts.
It's not difficult. You insist on proving my point: most of the people reading this story have such entrenched preconceptions that they won't even entertain anything that contradicts what they already think.
And Geek, a media that covers the Bushism of the Day can surely find a bit of space for something like this. It's news. Cover it well and let people make up their own minds... or not.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 01:44:00 PM:
And Screwy, FWIW, I don't need to be "right" on anything because I haven't taken a position I need to defend.
Read. Carefully. I am not taking ANY position on the existence of WMDs.
I am taking a position on the lack of media coverage - in case you can't tell, I think it's bad when the media decide for themselves what we ought to find out about. Therefore, I am providing the information I think they ought to be providing. I didn't think I had to spell that one out for anyone. Unlike my usual posts, there is not a lot of opining going on.
This might have been a hint.
And Congress has "green lighted" SEVERAL investigations. They just haven't yielded the results you wish they had, which is undoubtably why there's been so little coverage of them, either.
Anyone who's been paying even marginal attention to this issue knows that even Saddam's closest buds disagree about whether there were WMDs or not. In that context it is hardly surprising that both our intel and foreign services might exhibit some uncertainty in their analysis. And in fact their conflicting findings mirrored the uncertainty amongst Husseins own ministers.
Pretty damned good for a situation where we couldn't get anyone on the inside.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 01:47:00 PM:
Gambit, it wasn't on their frontpage, nor listed under National or World news, when I checked during the writing of this post. I did link to one of their stories, so I know they weren't ignoring it.
And I'm aware that Sarin and mustard gas are different. News accounts almost invariably refer to mustard gas as "a blistering agent" as if that was the worst that could come from exposure.
It's not.
By Gordon Smith, at
Thu Jun 22, 02:43:00 PM:
Cass,
So it's news that old, decaying weapons that have no bearing on the current situation and which had no bearing on the reasons for invasion have been found. Okay. Whatever.
It's painfully obvious when you go read the FOXnews story that they're burying the part about the weapons being pre-1991. The whole story is designed to make people think that the WMD rationale for going to war has been vindicated.
In otherwords, the story is a blatant attempt to fool people much like the incessant tying of 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. So many Fox News viewers continue to believe Saddam had a hand in it. It's this type of disinformation that drives guys like me on the left to accuse folks like you on the right of distorting facts to fit a war agenda.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 02:57:00 PM:
Sorry Gambit - Just wanted you to know I did check :)
Screwy, exactly how do you "bury" something in a one-pager? Give me a break.
At least they attempted to give people some facts, unlike certain papers I could name. You seem so determined to tell people what to make of this.
The truth is, it *is* germane, if for no other reason than to give the lie to the pernicious notion that not finding something means it's not there (why didn't inspectors find these weapons? Why was it coalition troops?)
It is also germane because it proves Saddam wasn't cooperating with the inspectors as many on the Left have alleged. And it is germane because he was required to declare or get rid of these weapons under UN regs, yet he did not.
And I see you're still ignoring the update about finding 1500 gallons of chemical agents "some quite dangerous in themselves" last August, another "non-news item" the media, for the most part, found unworthy of mentioning.
You obviously don't mind the media deciding for themselves what you should see and hear.
Not everyone feels that way. You have said over and over that because you personally don't "trust" Bush, he should be more transparent with even classified information, yet you cannot fathom someone who doesn't trust the media feeling exactly the same way and non-classified news stories.
Very open-minded of you, I must say.
By geekesque, at
Thu Jun 22, 04:33:00 PM:
Don't get me wrong.
As far as I'm concerned, the more publicity that Senator Man-on-Dog gets for your side, the happier I am.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 04:43:00 PM:
Actually there are some of us who wish he would just sit down and shut up.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Jun 22, 04:44:00 PM:
So the debate isn't over the news itself, but rather that you see it as under-reported?.
Saying "the smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud" is sensational, scary, and big news. Sending the Secretary of State to the UN with a vial of white powder (on the heels of US anthrax attacks) is sensational, scary, and big news. A recently declassified year-old report that we've collected numerous, decades-old, degraded chemical weapon munitions is not big news. Sure it's news, but not front-page stuff. Declassifying a report so Senators can yell at each other is also less newsworthy than some might hope.
But if your observation is that Fox is the only news agency spearheading this story, and we should read something into that... Well, you might have a point there. Why is it that Fox is all over this story when nobody else is? Curious.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 22, 05:35:00 PM:
It wasn't *any* page news on most of the major papers this morning.
FoxNews reported both sides of the story, but I guess that's a bad thing.
And contrary to what Screwy said earlier, they "buried" the news that the contents were degraded... right in the 3rd sentence of the story.
In a one-page story, there were references to the condition of the munitions four or five times, often quoting right from the declassified document (which they linked to, so you could read it yourself).
Pretty sinister stuff. All this information is downright dangerous. We really ought to be protected from reading it.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Jun 22, 07:59:00 PM:
"So Saddam really *did* have chemical weapons, in defiance of the UN orders, which was the pretext for the invasion we've decried as 'illegal' for the last 3 and a half years, which in fact made it 'legal.' So what? They were old and harmless."
Bullshit. "Degraded" does not = "harmless." Mass quantities of nerve agent 'anditotes' were distributed to the Iraqi troops before the invasion. Upwards of a million, brand spanking new (German-made, BTW) sets. That's an awful lot of trouble to go through for old, worthless weapons no one had any intention of using isn't it? Especially given the existence of an operational Red Zone within which the use of chemical arms were authorized by Saddam.
And has already been mentioned, not just nerve agents were on hand.
I'm 99% positive that weaponized biological samples were found (and neutralized) in the early days of the conflict also, in small quantities.
Aside, I mentioned some months ago that chemical weapons have indeed been found in Iraq (I know one of the guys who found some of this stuff) and was roundly ignored.
So *hah!*
By Gordon Smith, at
Fri Jun 23, 12:18:00 AM:
Step One: Say that WMDs were found in Iraq.
Step Two: Repeat as often as possible.
Step Three: Blame the press!
Step Four: Move on to the next piece of disinformation.
Lovely. You do some polling in a week and find out how many people now believe that Saddam had an active WMD program, and the numbers will have gone up.
Nice politics. Lousy human beingship.
By Cassandra, at
Fri Jun 23, 05:44:00 AM:
There you go again, Screwy.
If you can't win an argument on logic, just distort your opponent's argument (and the facts) and you're off to the races.
Step One: Say that WMDs were found in Iraq.
WMDs *were* found in Iraq. Only by creatively redefining the meaning of WMDs (kinda like that tricky word "is") can you twist the truth to say they weren't.
Step Two: Repeat as often as possible.
Yeah. Like it was "repeated" in the NYT, LA Times, on CNN, etc. You know, I purposely didn't mention this to my husband, who has a 2.5 hour commute to work each day and listens to various news stations the whole time. Last nite I asked him if he'd read or heard anything at all about this story.
Step Three: Blame the press!
He hadn't. Total news blackout. And I didn't blame the press for our finding WMDs. I said they ought to be doing their job.
Step Four: Move on to the next piece of disinformation.
Every expert quoted said these were WMDs. They also said, Screwy, that "degraded" does NOT mean inoperable or harmless. It simply means they aren't as potent as they once were... so they wouldn't kill as many people. And that was the UN INSPECTOR from Europe talking, Screwy. But he's obviously a right-wing partisan shill in league with the White House. You amaze me with your blind determination to suppress any fact that you find inconvenient.
Lovely. You do some polling in a week and find out how many people now believe that Saddam had an active WMD program, and the numbers will have gone up.
Every single news story I saw - EVERY SINGLE ONE - stressed over and over again that THIS DOESN'T MEAN SADDAM HAD AN ACTIVE WMD PROGRAM.
EVERY SINGLE STORY stressed that these were degraded weapons left over from 1991. So anyone who comes to the conclusion this proves Saddam had an active weapons program can only do so by willfully (kind of like you!) ignoring the facts.
Wow. Put that way, maybe there IS something to worry about! Come to think of it, the government should never tell us ANYTHING because some moron might ignore the facts and come to a stupid conclusion! You know, for a liberal you sure have a very pessimistic view of human nature... you're starting to sound like one of those reich-wing extremists who doesn't trust the people.
But hey - if it makes you feel better to distort the facts, go right ahead.
Nice politics. Lousy human beingship
Couldn't agree more. It is lousy human beingship when you favor a less-informed populace because you're afraid they might come to the "wrong" conclusions - not because they've been given inaccurate information, but in total defiance of the evidence.
By Gordon Smith, at
Fri Jun 23, 08:16:00 AM:
Old Weapons that had nothing to do with the reasons we invaded Iraq were found. This is interesting, but it certainly doesn't warrant Sean Hannity going on television to say that Bush Was Right! There Were WMD!
And that's how the right-wing noise machine works, Cass. Don't play deliberately ignorant.
You're not saying that of course, oh no, you're just saying that the press doesn't do a good enough job. Well no kidding. Here's a great example. The news media, especially our Fox news commentators, are trumpeting this as a vindication. They'll be debunked, but the damage will be done.
A misinformed populace is bad news for everyone.
None of these stories "Stressed" the pre-1991 fact. Maybe we're having a semantic argument, but the only way this is even news is to say "Old, inoperable weapons discovered".
To paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, "These are not the WMD you are looking for".
By Georg Felis, at
Fri Jun 23, 01:40:00 PM:
For those of you complaining that the administration has not made a big deal about the discovery of real WMD inside Iraq, think about what would have happened if they had. Every single Liberal new organization would have roasted the news as “old” and “a publicity stunt”, the materials would be tagged as “degraded” and “obsolete”, and the conspiracy theorists would begin the long whining dialogue about how the shells were secretly purchased from Halliburton in the Bush 41 administration and buried by squads of specially-trained gophers.
Releasing the information now in this fashion put the same Liberals on the same side as President Bush, making “Ignore this, go away, nothing happening here” noises in the most insincere, unbelievable fashion possible. More people will be aware of the reality of chemical weapons in Iraq now, than if it had been announced in the President’s visit to Iraq, in a news conference next to the stacks of chemical shells. After all, if the Press denies that a story is important, downgrades the danger of the threat, and tries to sweep it under the rug, the ordinary person who listens to the news all the time will realize there is something of substance there.
