WMD FOUND IN IRAQ

Coalition forces have found an IED containing the nerve agent sarin today in Iraq. The IED detonated, exposing two soldiers to the nerve agent. Fortunately it appears as though the contamination was minor and the soldiers will recover.

Also in Iraq, the head of the Iraqi governing council was killed by an attack outside the Green Zone in Baghdad. President Izzedine Salim was killed by a suicide bomber in an attack that claimed several Iraqi lives. This comes as a blow to the Iraqi people and the coalition who are preparing for the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi Governing Council on the 30th of June. The terrorists may have killed the President of the IGC, but we cannot allow them to kill the dream of Iraqi democracy.

More as the story develops.

UPDATE: The bomb was found near the Baghdad airport. It appears that the IED was not intended to be a chemical weapon, but whomever built it just happened to find a chemical shell in with the regular artillery shells. This indicates that there is a good chance that Saddam simply mixed in the chemical and the regular shells together, exactly as some had predicted.

The reason the shell did not cause any major damage is due to its design – sarin is a binary weapon, meaning two agents must combine to become the nerve agent. The IED was designed as a regular explosive, meaning that only a small amount of the two agents combined to form the actual sarin. Fortunately our troops are equipped with atropine in case of a situation like this, and a small exposure with significant ventilation isn’t necessarily life threatening.

The shell is of the type used by Saddam prior to the first Gulf War. Under the cease-fire, all such weapons were to have been destroyed.

There we go. Saddam had WMD. We now found at least one of them. The next step is to find where this shell came from and start getting rid of this stuff once and for all.

UPDATE: An Iraqi scientist that worked on Saddam’s weapons program has indicated that Saddam buried some of his WMD and shipped the rest to Syria and he expects that the coalition will find more as time goes on.

UPDATE: Captain’s Quarters has more on the issue. I have to mirror their question: will the media report this or try to cover it up? Given the nature of the story one would think this would be a bit hard to gloss over, but considering the fanatical anti-war position of the mainstream media I wouldn’t put it past them either.

UPDATE: FoxNews is reporting that this is the second such discovery in some days as earlier an ISG team had located a shell containing mustard gas in an IED. Fortunately the mustard gas had not been properly stored and had degraded. However, this leads one to ask how many more of these shells are waiting for terrorists to find them?

13 thoughts on “WMD FOUND IN IRAQ

  1. I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the liberal media to make a big deal of this.

    The liberal media won’t be satisfied unless we find a veritable secret evil hideaway out of a James Bond movie. Then they want the WMD labeled “WMD” in English just for good measure.

    When they keep looking for that “smoking gun” that does everyone a disservice.

  2. The liberal media is this country’s biggest liability.

    They are working in a de facto way for an American defeat in Iraq, and would tie our hands in fighting the war on terror.

    Regarding the elections in Nov, the biggest obstacle for Bush to overcome is not Kerry but the liberal media. Kerry alone would not stand a chance, but look at the way the liberal media is determined to keep up the pressure on Bush and not give him any credit for anything.

    We all need to work at the grassroots level to circumvent the liberal media. We need another Tea Party to overthrow the liberal media.

  3. Hrm, 11,750 or so dead so far to find WMD’s that, apparently, contained enough destructive power to briefly inconvinience two GI’s.

    I hope you chickenhawks are proud of yourselves.

  4. I know these 10 oz. of half-a-WMD is such a big news, but maybe no one should miss that todays’real news were:

    -500 000 demonstrators in the street of Jerusalem for a retreat of Gaza, and a stop in revenge actions from Israel.

    -The US army declassifies a note in which “special operations units” are granted the right to overrule the Geneva Convention described as “obsolete”. Afghanese and iraqis thanks their free and brave soldier spreading democracy who really “kick ass”!!

    -Big protest in Paris where all the political spectrum is represented to fight against anti-semitism and racism.

    -The president of the provisory coalition in Irak dies. The US to retrieve sovereignity to irakis in 40 days. To who? And Jay comments:” The terrorists may have killed the President of the IGC, but we cannot allow them to kill the dream of Iraqi democracy”. Jay, please wake up, this is not a dream iraqis are having, and it doesn’t smell like democracy either.

  5. Yeah, I always thought the dream Iraqis were having was to not get raped and tortured in prisons. But thanks to ol’ Rummy we’re rounding up guys off the street and stacking them like naked cordwood.

    It’s really funny how you neocons keep trying to pretend like you’re in the position of moral superiority on this one. I really love how the adminstration tries to spin it like “in democracy, we root this stuff out, unlike Saddam blah blah blah etc.” when if these pictures hadn’t come out of stuff that was happening in January, the administration would have kept on burying it like business as usual.

    Hell, I knew this was going on in January, because it was on Salon. You’re trying to tell me this was a surprise to the President?

    I’ve never seen people so out of touch as you conservatives. But I get that’s what you get when you view informing yourselves as simply an excercise in ignoring anything presented to you by “the other side.”

  6. Jesus H. Christ – is this how low you people have had to go to justify your ideology? Sarin – a bloody nerve agent only inconveniences you? If that shell had been mixed properly, those soldiers and a hell of a lot of people around them would be dead right now. It was only because the terrorists didn’t know what they had that nothing happened. You’re damn right it’s inconvenient to die an agonizing death from one of the world’s deadliest nerve agents.

    Look, if you think that removing Saddam Hussein is so wrong, how about you call for his return to power. Apparently you think that a bunch of thugs castrating Kurds, chopping off fingers, and cutting out eyes and tongues is perfectly fine, but if a group of 12 US troops out of 135,000 embarrasses a group of Iraqis then every single one of them is bad.

    If you’d bother to consider what you’re saying rather than throwing down a bunch of idiotic ad hominems about those evil “neoconservatives” you might not look so foolish.

  7. The liberals have become unhinged. They equate our prison abuses to Saddam’s abuses, when there is no comparison. Even Iraqi’s admit that the prison abuses are no big deal compared to what Saddam did. And of course, the main point is that our abuses are the exception and not the rule, and we take steps to stop it. With Saddam his abuses were the rule.

    The liberals have no perspective. Democracies are not perfect…acts far worse than the prison abuses occur in American cities every day. Does that mean our democracy should not exist?

    The liberals also have no historical perspective…in every war, every side, even the Americans, have at least a relative few who do wrong. This was true even in “good” wars like WWII.

    Bottom line: liberals are out to take down Bush and take down this country. No matter what happens, they will criticize Bush for it, as if Bush is God and can control every event and circumstance. If Bush had not taken out Saddam and liberated Iraq, you want to bet that the same critics would be complaining in this election year that Bush was failing to deal with an obvious threat?

  8. The same criticisms of American misbehavior in Iraq and civilian losses could have been made during WWII and even moreso.

    Even when a good military fights for a just cause, there will be some misbehavior. And even in a just war, there will be civilian casualties.

    Had the liberal media been around in the early 1940’s we would all be speaking German now and be very well versed in the goose step.

  9. Naturally, because I don’t agree with you, I’m an “unhinged liberal.” For as much as you guys talk about “groupthink”, you’d think you’d notice that this website is a textbook example of it.

    Over 11,000 dead, 200 billion going to be spent, and you think one can of sarin was worth that?

    Christ, is there any reasoning with you people? We’re spending $3 in Iraq for every $1 spent on security prgrams here in the US. Do you really think that Iraq presents three times the security risk as anybody else?

    Hey, Another – I don’t know if anyone told you this in grade school, but if you’re going to call yourselves the “good guys”, you have to act like a good guy. Rounding up innocent Iraqis and dumping them in naked dogpiles isn’t “good guy” behavior anywhere I’m from. It disgusts me how you guys just write this off as business as usual.

  10. Wait a second: I know you only read the press that is talking about Bush in a positive way, but I guess you cannot avoid to know that it is Rumsfeld himself (and Cambone) that decided that the Geneva convention was obsolete, and that torture was fine if it could help saving american lives from any new terrorist attack. We’re not talking about a bunch of crazy soldiers here, but of a current practice of the US army. It seems that it’s not only joking around: women have been raped in front of their husband to make them talk, a man was forced to be raped by his own friends untill he started to talk…and of course, the pictures of all that weren’t souvenirs, but means of pressure on other detainees or even on the famillies (if an iraqi knows that his familly can see the pictures of him being raped, his life is ruined). Are you gonna deny that? (général Geoffrey Miller, colonel Thomas Pappas and général Ricardo Sanchez don’t!!)

    The Bush’s team is definitely not the “good guys”: They have betrayed their supporters by making them believe and cover lies after lies, they have betrayed their country by throwing away billions of dollars and thousands of life for half-a-WMD (that opposants didn’t even knew they had, and may well come from the 80’s and the war against Iran -if you want good nerve gas in the 90’s, you go for XV, not sarin or mustard…that’s WWI type of ammunition just in case you didn’t knew it!), and worst of all in our globalised world, they have betrayed the ideal of democracy that was the only positive exit for the world: now, many people in the world know that even The “land of freedom” can start a war or rape detainees for no reason. Democracy is not seen as an ultimate goal for humans, but as a mascarade for american interest. Neocons will never be forgiven for that. Their theories are the most dangerous since Hitler. Their american supremacy is nothing more than the copy of the Aryen supremacy. The worst part being that it’s only for Cash…pathetic!

    And if you wonder if it is a good thing that the US army has remove Saddam, please take the time to think about this sentence:
    “If you want to help a man never to be hungry again, don’t give him food, but teach him how to fish”

  11. “but I guess you cannot avoid to know that it is Rumsfeld himself (and Cambone) that decided that the Geneva convention was obsolete”

    This is true, of course, because Sy Hersh says it is. And because the Deranged left wants to believe it.

    Funny how all the sudden these people are worried about Iraqi lives. Apparently Iraqis TRULY raped, tortured and murdered by Saddam and his thugs aren’t worth pissing on. This is much more titilating.

  12. This is what the left has come to these days. It’s almost pathetic, if it weren’t based on such a virulent form of hatred.

    While Benon Savon and Kojo Annan were profiting from illegal oil sales and Saddam Hussein was raping, murdering, and mutilating thousands, the left didn’t say a word. It’s only when Americans do something that the left becomes indignant.

    It’s mindless hatred all over again… I’m starting to agree with Jean-François Revel and Oriana Fallaci – Europe is facing a wave of hateful anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism that hasn’t been seen since the days of Joeseph Goebbels.

    Perhaps when a European city is nuked into oblivion by al-Qaeda they’ll wake up to the real world, although I suspect Europe is so deep into its decadent moral nihilism that they’ll simply roll over and let themselves be wiped out.

  13. It’s only when Americans do something that the left becomes indignant.

    It’s called “democracy”, Jay. Another way to say that is “participatory government.” I know you neocons would like to just switch to a Bush dynasty, but try to bear with me for a moment.

    Last I checked, I didn’t get to vote in Iraq. I do get to vote in America. That means part of what America does is my responsibility, just like it’s the responsibility of every citizen (including you.)

    So yes. When America does bad things, it’s worse – because its my damn country doing them. I don’t want America to be the country doing those things, and because it’s America, we get to try to change that. That’s why we’re incensed about it, Jay. Because America is a better country than Iraq, and moreover, it’s my country.

    But, you know, vote for Bush, if you want a few powerbrokers to run the country. Honestly I don’t see how anybody but a crazy person could come to the conclusion that a vote for Bush is anything but a vote against democracy.

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