Chemical weapons site taken in Iraq

[WillBrink]

Whether the site contains weapons grade Sarin seems in question, but the results of being wrong on that could make 9/11 look like small time event potentially. If the intel was actionable and close to real time, maybe something could have been done. By the time anything is confirmed one way or another (if it ever is) will be too late.


UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iraq said the Islamic State extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad, where 2,500 chemical rockets filled with the deadly nerve agent sarin or their remnants were stored along with other chemical warfare agents.

Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a letter circulated Tuesday that "armed terrorist groups" entered the Muthanna site on June 11, detained officers and soldiers from the protection force guarding the facilities and seized their weapons. The following morning the project manager spotted the looting of some equipment through the camera surveillance system before the "terrorists" disabled it, he said.

The Islamic State group, which controls parts of Syria, sent its fighters into neighboring Iraq last month and quickly captured a vast stretch of territory straddling the border between the two countries. Last week, its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the land the extremists control.

Alhakim said as a result of the takeover of Muthanna, Iraq is unable "to fulfil its obligations to destroy chemical weapons" because of the deteriorating security situation. He said it would resume its obligations "as soon as the security situation has improved and control of the facility has been regained."

Alhakim singled out the capture of bunkers 13 and 41 in the sprawling complex 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad in the notorious "Sunni Triangle."

The last major report by U.N. inspectors on the status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program was released about a year after the experts left in March 2003. It states that Bunker 13 contained 2,500 sarin-filled 122-mm chemical rockets produced and filled before 1991, and about 180 tons of sodium cyanide, "a very toxic chemical and a precursor for the warfare agent tabun."

The U.N. said the bunker was bombed during the first Gulf War in February 1991, which routed Iraq from Kuwait, and the rockets were "partially destroyed or damaged."

It said the sarin munitions were "of poor quality" and "would largely be degraded after years of storage under the conditions existing there." It said the tabun-filled containers were all treated with decontamination solution and likely no longer contain any agent, but "the residue of this decontamination would contain cyanides, which would still be a hazard."

According to the report, Bunker 41 contained 2,000 empty 155-mm artillery shells contaminated with the chemical warfare agent mustard, 605 one-ton mustard containers with residues, and heavily contaminated construction material. It said the shells could contain mustard residues which can't be used for chemical warfare but "remain highly toxic."

[No.6]

OK, seriously, I'm now confused. If Iraq had these in it's possession, and they are considered "weapons of mass destruction", how is it that Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass destruction when we invaded them in the second Gulf War? They didn't have them, but did have them, but really didn't have them... sort of?

[Whiskey_Bravo]

OK, seriously, I'm now confused. If Iraq had these in it's possession, and they are considered "weapons of mass destruction", how is it that Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass destruction when we invaded them in the second Gulf War? They didn't have them, but did have them, but really didn't have them... sort of?

My thoughts as well, if there is an entire facility dedicated to chemical weapons why do we keep hearing the "Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Bush lied"?

[skijunkie55]

My thoughts as well, if there is an entire facility dedicated to chemical weapons why do we keep hearing the "Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Bush lied"?

Probably because the stupid, deceitful, and misinformed in this country have the loudest voice...

The US and UK knew there were WMD's to begin with. The leaked reports that are surfacing now show it, and after this action by ISIS, it's impossible to deny. You have to feed the american public lie after lie to get your man in office. Had these reports been released years ago, the current occupant of the WH would no doubt be different... Political smoke screening at it's best.


Obama on the Iraq War : "What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaida. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with bin Laden and al-Qaida, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure that the U.N. inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair. The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not — we will not — travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain."

[TAZ]

So now Syria/ ISIS / Archer / whoever has WMD's?! Guess we will need to intervene more forcefully for the sake of the children or what not. The people are in need of another distraction I guess.

[WillBrink]

My thoughts as well, if there is an entire facility dedicated to chemical weapons why do we keep hearing the "Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Bush lied"?

Well, usual possible reasons, minus actually knowing the answers:

-They thought they were there but were not
-They pretended they were there and were not
-They were there but moved them by the time we got there
- They made more in secret

Or some variation there of. I'm unclear if any but a small handful knows the exact answer. I have personally always felt the key players didn't give a damn if there really were WMDs or not and put together a story based on flimsy evidence to justify the action, which took essential and important assets away from the Afgan theater, but that's another issue.

Meanwhile...

[Mauser KAR98K]

Why was that crap kept there to begin with and not removed when Saddam was removed?

[TAZ]

Why was that crap kept there to begin with and not removed when Saddam was removed?

Because Iraq didn't have the WMD's we gave them. Don't you read the news??

[streck]

So the site existed since the 80s and was bombed in '91 and monitored by the UN in the 90s......

UN and US State says, "Meh....."

The U.N. said the bunker was bombed during the first Gulf War in February 1991, which routed Iraq from Kuwait, and the rockets were "partially destroyed or damaged."

It said the sarin munitions were "of poor quality" and "would largely be degraded after years of storage under the conditions existing there." It said the tabun-filled containers were all treated with decontamination solution and likely no longer contain any agent, but "the residue of this decontamination would contain cyanides, which would still be a hazard."

According to the report, Bunker 41 contained 2,000 empty 155-mm artillery shells contaminated with the chemical warfare agent mustard, 605 one-ton mustard containers with residues, and heavily contaminated construction material. It said the shells could contain mustard residues which can't be used for chemical warfare but "remain highly toxic."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki expressed concern on June 20 about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant seizing the complex, but played down the importance of the two bunkers with "degraded chemical remnants," saying the material dates back to the 1980s and was stored after being dismantled by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s.

She said the remnants "don't include intact chemical weapons ... and would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely use this for military purposes or, frankly, to move it."

ISIS will figure out how to use it. I only hope they use it locally.

[oldtexan]

OK, seriously, I'm now confused. If Iraq had these in it's possession, and they are considered "weapons of mass destruction", how is it that Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass destruction when we invaded them in the second Gulf War? They didn't have them, but did have them, but really didn't have them... sort of?

From reading the linked article it's clear that weapons were found, many of which had been left over from a decade or so earlier, that they had been hit in their storage facility by Coalition airstrikes, during Desert Storm. What remained in the facility was not useful as weapons, but was viewed by inspectors as still constituting a toxic hazard.