Here’s Austin Bay:
I heard a report on Fox News about twenty minutes ago (5 PM Central) that Senator Rick Santorum claims coalition investigators in Iraq found chemical weapons  artillery shells filled with a chemical agent (perhaps sarin nerve agent). The Fox report said Santorum had fought with the Pentagon and White House to get the information declassified. I’d like to see Santorum put his evidence up on the web. Michelle Malkin and her team at Hot Air already had a post up on the story– Hot Air’s post says the artillery shells contained either “degraded mustard†or sarin. I gather the stocks are 1991 (Desert Storm-era) weapons (in other words, left over weapons). I’m not sure that means Saddam had an active chemical weapons program but if this report proves to be true chemical weapons stock would be a violation of UNSCR 687. Stay tuned.
Austin also notes that Rawstory is dubious about the significance of these finds:
Speaking at a late afternoon press conference, Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke with Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. They claimed that 500 chemical weapons shells allegedly containing degraded sarin or mustard gas have been recovered by coalition forces since 2003, and that other filled and unfilled munitions have been found. The details were referred to by the blogger Allahpundit at Hot Air.
Santorum also attacked his “colleagues…on the other side of the aisle” for “repeatedly” claiming that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.
Rep. Hoekstra has called strongly for the release of a large cache of Arabic-language documents, believing that they would clarify the original case for war with Iraq. It is not known at this time if the information in any of the documents, available online at this Defense Department site led to the cache of alleged weapons of mass destruction.
This is not the first time that such chemical shells have been found in Iraq. Fox News announced in May 2004 that a sarin gas shell had been detonated near Fallujah, dispersing a small amount of agent. It was not evident that the insurgents using the shell understood what they were using.
The discovery of poorly accounted for stocks of WMD is not unheard of around the world. Researcher Jonathan Tucker detailed in 2001 for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists the discovery of a significant number of chemical weapons shells in Northwest DC.
Well, sure. But everybody knows that those belonged to former DNC Chair Terry Mcauliffe, who liked to pull a paper bag over his head and huff them puppies just before morning TV appearances. Or anything involving Alan Colmes.
Whereas for his part, Hussein was supposed to account for—and destroy—his chemical ordnance. So there’s a bit of a difference, I think.
Still, is this a big deal? I don’t know, to be honest—though Polipundit suggests there’s more to this than Santorum and Hoekstra can reveal at this time.
Santorum’s press release is here.
Writes Ace:
Why is this only being declassified now? I question the timing.
Seriously– why would this EVER be classified at all? The Iraqis knew what weapons they have; who, precisely, were the intelligence agencies hoping to protect by keeping this secret?
It’s as if—stay with me on this; this is a crazy theory—there are a lot of liberals in the intelligence agencies who are over-eager to classify, and thus keep secret from the public, any information which might tend to support President Bush.
Is that the standard for classification, now? Not whether exposure of the information would harm the US government, but whether it would help it?
The Russian Devil Theory: The only way I can make sense of classifying such information is if it tended to implicate the Russians in this, and we made a national security determination that it was better to keep it hidden than embarrass our “strategic partners.”
Other than that—no idea. You don’t keep secret stuff that your enemies already know. They know they had weapons; they know we’ve been looking for them; doubtless they know we’ve found some.
So why classify it? The only people in the dark here are the American public.
To be fair, I suppose another plausible explanation is that the weapons were of such antique vintage—and their storage suggestive of the kind of neglect that typically argues for misplacement— that our intelligence community concluded that these weapons weren’t so much “hidden” as they were forgotten about.
After all, Hussein was a busy man, what with the Oil for Food stuff and the romance novels. And even tyrants can find themselves overextended from time to time…
****
See also, JunkyardBlog, the Corner, and Captain’s Quarters—who, like Austin (and many others of us who remain skeptical) would like to see the documents posted to the web.
****
update: Hot Air now has the video of Santorum’s presser in an update.
Doesn’t matter one bit; if they were stock left over from Gulf War I, well GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL.
That’s why we had the sanctions in the first place.
Of course, due prudence and restraint, aminos dominos, yadda yadda yadda.
This is only a big deal if you think that Saddam was doing what he was supposed to be doing, and that the absence of WMD proves it. Oh, and BUSH LIED!!!
So, in other words, it’s only truly meaningful to people who will do their best to ignore it and to those of us who will watch them do it.
Doesn’t this remind you of that blissful summer of 03? We’d get “WMD found, Again” scrolling on the bottom of our FoxNews screens. Only about 1-1.5 dead per day. Freedom was just a bit untidy. If only we could go back to that.
Doesn’t this remind you of that blissful summer of 01? No retarded telephone poles to ignore…
I dunno. Finding 500 shells seems like more than a few that escaped notice as the rest of the inventory was being destroyed.
500 is still 500. Given that a artillery battery can be 12-15 guns and each can fire 3-6 rounds per minute, that’s about a full ten minute barrage of sarin. That would be a rate comparable to some of the Al Anfal atrocities.
Oh, also the 22 or so violation of the ceasefire, but nevermind.
Another possible explanation for the classification would be that we weren’t the only ones to find this stuff, but the insurgents don’t know what they’ve got, which prevents them from usefully deploying the stuff. The way the sarin gas shell had been detonated near Fallujah in May 2004 would tend to support this theory, although I can’t see why such a reason would justify the information being classified for so long. Either the insurgents would figure out what they had, or they wouldn’t; they’d end up using the shells either way.
actus:
The thing that just amazes me about the left is that they feel no responsibility for anything. Of course it is true that other than shooting off their mouths they do not do much so that kind of cuts down on the things to be responsible for but the truth is if there were no wmd in Iraq, then it was the Clinton administration which should have figured that out rather than passing along bad info to the next guy in the White House.
But maybe it was not bad information. I remember seeing Bill Clinton on Letterman before the invasion. He said there was no doubt that Saddam had weapons and he said the whole thing should be over in a few weeks. But since he has this big fat D behind his name I guess that whole LIE thing does not apply to him.
Hey but cheer up, maybe Iraq will turn into Darfur and hundreds of thousands of people will die and make you a happy little lefty chanting I told you so I told you so Don’t forget I told you so. And that is all that really matters is it not?
Good point, Nick.
WMD or not it doesn’t matter.
The main purpose of the Iraqi War was to show the rest of the world “Don’t F with us” because we will
fight back.
Attention Maggots!:
– Obligatory Ignore Actus Public Service Announcement –
– As you were….Carry on
Was actus on here tonight? Huh, it must have been the soft voice as if he had just lost his mappack with all of his talking points.
Eh. I’m over it.
– A question that comes too mind is if Santorum has to twist the DoD’s arm to get just this much released, how many “other” unconvieniant items for the Lefts “cause” are still classified? Would the entire cause celeb of the Lefts “anti-war – no WMD’s – Bush lied” screed come crashing down, if all of it came out? Is this just another big picture wildly “deep cover” Rovian mind fuck to set up the Left for an unrecoverable blow to the Democratic body politic in the coming 2 years?
– These, and other equally wonderous mysteries revealed and coming to a voting district near you soon…..
I think you guys are missing the obvious reason it was classified, and hasn’t been downgraded until today: sources and methods. If they’d have found these shells in a pristine bunker with nothing else, maybe there’d be no reason — but the usual thing would be for there to be paperwork, shipping crates, who knows what.
If they know we found them, they know we have whatever went with them.
I respectfully disagree, there_… What you describe is a side benefit of the war, but not its purpose. Its purpose, all along, has been to enforce the so-called “will” of the so-called “world community” as expressed in multiple UN resolutions (basically the U.S. throwing up its hands and saying, “Geez, we’ve got to bell the cat again? All right, all right… Damn bunch of mice”), to protect American interests by putting paid to a state sponsor of terror, to ensure that unaccounted-for WMDs didn’t “fall” into the Wrong Hands (thankyouverymuch for that six-month delay, Security Council pals), and to attempt to implement the Bush Doctrine that an actual representative government in Iraq, particularly one that owed the U.S. a favor, had at least a better shot at being even a lukewarm ally than any Iraq run by any Saddamite.
We’ve known that WMD shells have been found in Iraq. A few here, a few there. One was detonated on the side of a road to no great effect by the terrorists a year or so ago .
The way this is being presented makes one believe a single stockpile of 500 shells were found. It smells more like a stunt by Santorum to put his name in the news as other than a social conservative whack-job.
I’d have more faith that this were significant if it were presented at a Pentagon news conference.
One very good reason, it seems to me, to keep knowledge of the existance of Iraqi WMDs hidded is quite simply that we have no idea who may have access to hidden stores of Iraqi weaponry. Foreign insurgents or low level solders from the former regeim have presumably found some weapons caches, but may lack the expertise to identify exactly what the shells are. Better to keep small discoveries classified than to tell our enemies what they have right under their noses.
Well, I like it. Hey, if we’ve found WMD, I will stencil in “WMD” in HUGE FREAKIN’ LETTERS on my clue bat.
Any moonbat that comes up will get hit with 3 years Karma of Klue.
Here’s the doc…
Shock.
Last year a journalist for the Stars and Stripes did a story on found Sarin shells and the marines that found them said they observed bad guys loading them into truck…can’t rememeber specifics now but the guys found the rest and said they were leaking liquid…
Anyways…I emailed the reporter and he responded to me a few times
these were sent Wed, 26 May 2004
Nope, that’s a message from the DNI to the House Intelligence Committee.
Oooooooooooooooooooooo, moonbats, game’s fucking up.
I’m with Nick. I am wondering if not releasing this information last year or in 2004 is more because we had serious fears that the terrorists had already gotten their hands on some of these weapons. We know that they bury caches of weapons to be used as needed. Why alert them that some of those might be chemical weapons. Just the other day one of the newly translated Saddam documents was made public that talks about a radioactive neutron device. I have a feeling we’ve found a whole lot more than the Admin. is letting on … maybe because it would scare the bejezus out of all of us to know what’s floating around out there.
Vercingetorix: with respect to actus, et al, why should facts suddenly begin to get in the way now?
Turing Word: basic, as in, basic training.
oops…make that 2 years ago (duh 2004)
Yes sir, I shall ignore actus. Sir.
Do any of the names on the external distribution list by Hoekstra shown in Vercingetorix’s doc link, look familiar? I wonder how long those same folks had that same knowledge.
Or was that just a vapor trail?
Hey, guys, I’m going to be in the other room doing pilates with my ClueBat of Doom and then go down to the AssHat Batting Cage.
Could someone get Mona, and Jack Roy, and anybody but actus over here. Give them a shiatsu and tell them to sit tight. Daddy’s coming home at 6.
In 1991 while living in Moscow, Russia I recall having numerous discussions with my ex, his family had bought the newspaper Pravda, about the level of arms/state secrets dealings going on between the Russian mafia and Iraq, Iran and every other mid-eastern money machine. In 2003 I came across a Washington Times op ed written by Ion Mihai Pacepa,a former soviet spy, who stated things I had heard twelve years earlier. From that moment forward I had no doubt Saddam possessed WMD’s and the knowledge, resources and determination to use them against the his neighbors and the West. Another interesting item I came across was in an article written in The Weekly Standard, I believe by Stephen Hayes, which mentioned that Russians had been in Baghdad meeting with Saddam shortly before the 2003 invasion.
Pure speculation but I would imagine one objective is to shut down the Russian mafia’s pipeline without appearing as an adversary. It’s a good thing Dr. Rice is fluent in the Russian language.
Come to think of it I also recall back then the numerous murders of American businessmen, openly on the streets, yet the US press never mentioned a thing.
Prediction: the new line will become “oh, hey, maybe he had chemical weapons, but those aren’t WMD, and the aluminum tubes weren’t really useful for centrifuges, so BUSH LIED ABOUT WMD.”
Verc
+5 Vorpal ClueBat of Doom!
Ooooooooooooooh, Capt Joe, I’ll trade you a…ummm…Elven Dragonscale mail (of Doom!) for your Cluebat. Aren’t blunt weapons good against the undead Zombies?
If you listen close you can hear’em scream!
Dear Charlie,
Well, duh.
Luv,
H. Dean (Dr.)
– Actually Forest if you listen closely to the drive-by media, you’ll be able to clearly hear the sounds of crickets booming over the MSM coverage of this…..
TW: For some reason yet to be determined by science, they’ll be definately, and permanently behind on this particular news cycle…..
The shells contain enough to kill how many people?
A lot, but not all of the MSM, SteveG.
Did anyone ever really believe that Saddam had done away with all this stuff?
Anyone? Bueller?
Am I wrong, or isn’t Sarin a nerve agent—as in, it doesn’t work on invertebrates?
Anyone want to do a pool on who the first reality based blogger will be to suggest that Bu$hitler must be hiding other captured illicit Iraqi weapons systems and he’s going to spring them just before election day?
I think I want O Dub.
Just finished watched H&C.
The official reactionary line, hot off the faxes from the DNC is, “Well, they were OLD WMDs, so it doesn’t count. Bush lied about Saddam reconstituting his WMD programs.”
What a bunch of tools.
LOL McGehee! I slump corrected.
Has anyone ever noticed the WMD rhymes with DNC?
Hmmmph.
I too had no doubt that Saddam used to have a weapons program and that we’d likely find its remnants, including parts that may not have been known to the inspectors we pulled out. To me there’s a difference between saying something wrong on Letterman and saying something wrong in the decision to spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives. But that’s just me.
– Well actass, as usual the point of the entire exercize just flew several stories high over your pointed little head.
– The very fact that the entire gaggle of moonbats incporporated can’t see why you don’t roll the dice with America’s future when you’re dealing with a certifiable madman, and all the secret services in the world are telling you the scumbag is either harboring WMD or doing everything he can to reconstitute said WMD programs, or some combination of all of the above, is exactly all anyone needs to know about your fucked up weasle assed thinking to know, it would be fucking suicide to give you the keys to government.
– The fact that you took that position in the first place, and hang to it dogmatically no matter what, just reinforces the wisdom of the voters decision to kick you and that major jackass LurchKerry to the fucking curb.
– The Iraq war is a done deal, and it would be just as insane as you are to “cut and run” at this point. But stick with that meme. It will just insure continued good choices by the electorate, and the good health of America, for who knows how many more administrations to come.
TW: Somedaay, somehow, the Left is going to process the fact that they made the mother of all political mistakes, when they decided to try to “Nam-inize” the Iraqi war.
So it’s perfectly fine to say something about a subject, as long as you don’t have the power or responsibility to do anything about it? President Bush believed in those same facts, but he was willing to do something about it. But that’s just him.
Well, if the shells are 105mm, we can assume anywhere from 1 lb. to 6 lb. of reactive material, judging by cursory examination of, say, our smoke munitions (WP*). The 105mm M60 arty round carries Mustard gas (H, HD, HN, HS), the M360 carries Sarin (GB, Cholinesterase inhibitor; causes muscles to excite until the heart explodes and you break your own back, neat stuff like that). Sarin is a binary chemical; reduce the amount of ‘material’ per round.
A cursory Google search (and here)lists G- component chemicals at an efficacy of 1 mL for a fatal dose, if absorbed through the skin.
If we equivocate sarin to white phosphorus, that’s 1-6 lbs per round. At just one pound of payload, at about a density of 1.1 g/mL, 453.6 grams to a pound, that is–technically–enough to give a lethal dose to 400 people, each 105mm sarin munition. If there are larger munitions (155mm or aircraft bombs), increase this accordingly.
*I hear in some parts WP is also a chemical weapon so maybe we can go with the full 6.
yo: wutz the lethality of these 500 wmd’s, if they had been deployed against non-protected troops/civilians?
Buncha mofos, yo. Dat shit iz wack.
So my initial estimate was fairly accurate eh, V. I mean except that lacking in spine, they can continue to coil inward and spiral into a new kind of nothing.
It doesn’t effin’ matter if the weapons are OLD, it doesn’t matter if they are still viable … Saddamm said he had NO weapons, of any kind! Did he forget about these 500 and whatever else we don’t know about that wasn’t declassified? I don’t think so. How many UN resolutions did he ignore? How many chances was he given before we dropped those bombs on his marble-clad palaces?
Someone said earlier that it only took 15 of these types of chemical-filled shells to kill somewhere around 5000 Kurds. Does anyone think this madman was keeping these around for sentimental reasons? Give me a break … you leftists need to get your heads out of your assess.
Depends, reliapundit. Sarin in the Tokyo subways, not in munitions but paper bags killed 12, seriously injured 54 and injured a thousand more. It depends on the target and concentration, wind direction, more; these are finicky weapons. Also different types of weapons do different things.
One is persistency rather than lethality; some decompose faster than others and this is an advantage. Sometimes this is a disadvantage; persistency is better.
Some countries like to mix two chemicals together such as choking or even laughing gas; the goal is to get someone protected by a gas mask, say, to breach his seal and inhale the deadly factor, so you mix a gas with a dermatological factor, vice versa. A soldier throws up in his mask, sucks in the poison, the two work together. Hussein’s Al Anfal genocide and Halabja specifically featured some patients that “laughed” themselves to death, by what I read.
Expect a kill radius equivalent to a normal high explosive round on the open battlefield, more or less. But then again, these weapons can really shine in some circumstances. 500 weapons could mean 3000 lbs. of chemical terror, an absolute nightmare if say detonated in the middle of a city. IOW, tens of thousands of potential lives.
Sara – you honestly think that a group who can’t distinguish between now and 45 years ago, will see any difference between now and 5 years ago…. waste of time… they’ve painted themselves into an “all or nothing” corner, and they’re not going to budge to their political death… Not that there’s anything wrong with that…. *snort*
As Sara says in closing, this will neither save you from Sarin nor any other forms of reality on this blue marble. Stain the course and stay the course, are actually different.
Once again, it appears my initial estimates are true.
Right as rain, forest hunter.
You know, it IS a bit quiet in here. I wonder why that could be?
Prediction: Tomorrow, Democrat Congressmen will exclaim “Bush LIED about what we kept SECRET!!!”
That’s the real story, not that they found these. We’ve found stuff like this before. It’s that it was kept under wraps for 3 years… why, exactly?
In a few paragraphs we go from not rolling the dice to ‘the die is cast.’
There are many things that are wrong that are short of costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives. And those aren’t ‘perfectly fine’ simply because they don’t meet that standard.
And he took his roll of the dice. Hear the latest on Zubaydah?
First of all, Raw Story’s evidenciary standards have proved to be flawed at the very last. Only
a step above/below Truth/Out. Second, we have
never received a solid answer as to the dis-
position of these weapons; from Naji Sabri:
(inveterate coverup artists in the Pre Gulf War
period), or that Shiite dentist related to the
Iraqi nuclear technicians)Ironically, these revelations, come right after the VIPS “sponsored”
agit prop Frontline episode, which seemed like a
poor counterpart to Syriana; giving Joe Wilson,
Richard Clarke, Cannistraro et al; the benefit of
the doubt
– Kind of Reminds you of that scene where Ripley realizes shes locked in the lab with the Alien… only even more enjoyable….
So I’m picking Friday afternoon for when this shows up on the tickers. Finally. I’ll email you a coke if you get it correct.
BUSH, THAT FUCKER, LIED TOO US WHEN HE KNEW ALL ALONG, AND WE MADE FOOLS OF OURSELVES!….
-and its all part of an evil plan by that jackal Rove! …….
Sara was right about something? Yippee! Forgive me for savoring the moment.
For the record … Sara has lost her patience.
Ya know, lefties would make great defense attorneys: “So officer, as you walked through the rooms, the empty phials were cracking under your shoes and you were kickling little plastic baggies and glass pipes out of the way.”
“That’s correct.”
“But you didn’t actually SEE anyone smoking crack, did you?”
“No.”
“Then how can you honestly call that building a crack house in your report?”
Oh, wait a minute… Jeralyn?
vercingetorix  The Russky crap the Iraqis had ran 122mm and 152mm, although they had some very long range 155mm’s they apparently bought from the South Africans.
There_was_one? Said:
I agree that even this was a worthwhile goal of the war, and would have succeeded without all the gnashing of teeth and theatrics on the left. North Korea and Iran would have got as far away from a nuclear capability as possible if we had displayed a solid consensus on the war. Now, however these rouge nations have seen what the U.S. is really made of; sugar, spice and schizophrenia. Why should they fear retaliation from the gentle, dysfunctional, giant the U.S. seems to be? The Iraq war was a brilliant move that could have not only succeeded in its main mission of forcing Saddam into compliance but putting two Johnny-come-lately nuclear powers out of business and other rouge nations on notice. The plan didn’t take into account, however the colossal stupidity and self-serving nature of the left. Ironically, they get to point out the threat posed by North Korea and Iran, a threat they fostered, and blame it on Bush.
You a nurse or a doctor or something?
True enough. We could have spent nothing and let the whole thing completely fester while the UN dicked around and sanctions got lifted because of all the kite-flying Iraqi children who weren’t getting their food and medicine and stuff and then Saddam could have found Mohammed and then passed on his glorious reign to his mutant sons and secret police and fedayeen.
A much more prudent course of inaction. We could have just signed on to a strongly worded letter or something. And if it turned out the world’s intelligence was spot on and he did have WMD, well, that’s just the price you have to pay in order to stay within shouting distance of the good graces of the international community.
Of course, the complaint at that point would be that we didn’t take him out when we had the chance.
Mr. Ghost – I might have actually had a few sessions like that when I was an Assistant State’s Attorny. Thanks for reminding me of some good times.
Sigh.
Am I going to have to sit here all night, oiled down in a leopard skin loin cloth with my +5 Vorpal Mace of Klue or will someone please herd the moonbats in for my bludgeoning pleasure?
Over at Powerline Hinderaker is reporting that Michael Ledeen says the CIA is desperate to keep this information under wraps, becuause it makes them look like fools. Of course, that means they don’t realize that they’ve looked like fools for five years now.
– Is it just my imagination, or has the CIA become a high priced country club of overpayed bureaucrats, that are more of a CYA PR problem than they’re worth these days?
Corvan: five?
Had I any money to invest (damn you, worst economy since Hoover!) I’d be sinking it into firms that specialize in the moving of goalposts.
The allegations about Zubaydah torture and Bush’s purported inquiry into whether he’d talk are unsubstantiated…
The known facts are:
Zubaydah suffered a head wound, was given the best medical attention and then was given to the Pakistanis who had jurisdiction. The information he gave led to arrests of important al Qaeda operatives…
Did the Pakistanis make life tougher on him than Gitmo? (you know Koran, arrow to Mecca, prayer rug, proper food etc) the Pakistanis don’t really care about treating traitors well, so I assume he got treated like crap.
If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.
We get all in a twist when Singapore canes an 18 year old over a Playboy or some weed… but those are the rules there.
I’d say that if you don’t want to get tortured by the Pakistanis, don’t do anything in their jurisdiction.
Its kind of like the old game talk: don’t let yourself get in a spot where the refs can decide the game.
Zubaydah violated that principle at his own peril.
I read a Canadian article on the CSIS (which I think is their CIA) and they were debating whether or not to use info that “could” have been acquired via third party torture. Their courts say that if there is a tie to a threat to Canada, the info is OK to use.
BBH: Yes. But in their defense, that’s what they were intended to be all along.
Recap: During WWII we had the Office of Special Services, purveyors of fine dirty tricks across Europe, not so effective looking the other way because of the pervasive racism then. They did medium well in South America; the Venezuelans didn’t sell the Nazis oil because of them. After the War most of them wanted to demob and go home. They were never a “real” department, just an ad hoc group, anyway.
At the same time we had other little ad hoc groups popping up across the spectrum. The Army had three of them. The Navy only had one, but it did pretty well in SE Asia, hampered by the elitist culture that’s necessary in a Navy but doesn’t work well in a less, ummmmm, structured environment.
We also had a clear need for intelligence about Stalin and his merry men. The NKVD, newly reorganized as the Committee for State Security after they got just a little raw for even Uncle Joe to take, was making inroads.
So there was the standard Washington solution: central control and oversight. The Central Intelligence Agency was born, with (legal) oversight over all the others, and the service intelligence organizations were regularized and given specific missions: DIA, ONI, NRO. The Director of Central Intelligence was to be the supervisor of all that, the “go to” guy for higher-ups. CIA was designed to be a collator and organizer, not much more.
The plan foundered on reality, necessity, and bureaucracy. Intelligence groups keep things secret… even from one another. DIA didn’t tell ONI, and ONI didn’t tell (or listen to) NRO, and and and. The DCIA found himself with direct knowledge of his agency, and only sanitized reports coming from the others (less than that from the people at State, who were contemptuous of the whole thing—it should have been organized around them). At the same time, the cowboys of the old OSS had been tamed, or so the bureaucrats thought, organized as the Operations Department of CIA. What actually happened, of course, is that the DCIA didn’t really have all that much more knowledge of what the Operations guys were up to than he did of what ONI was on about. But soldier on, soldier on…
It’s like trying to put a cat in a sack.
What bureaucrats understand is bureaucracy. From the start, CIA was intended as a bureaucratic “intelligence” organization, understandable (and controllable) from a bureaucratic point of view. It worked about as well as you’d expect. It didn’t help that the heady excitement of being in on all those important secrets contrasted with the pedestrian pay scales, thus leading to a series of betrayal scandals, and it helped even less that Felix’s boys were in the organization from the beginning, plank-owners as it were. And the capper was the decision, not really a decision because it just growed, to go the J. Edgar route and hire only clean-cut white boys from the Right Schools (and the Right People), with good hair and white teeth.
The operations guys never quite “got” that what they had to do now was different from as-needed impromptus in the middle of a shooting war, so even the things they did right tended to have long-term consequences that were less than desirable. (Dad rehearsed the Iran intervention to me and a close group of family members, predicting everything except Komeini’s name, in, I think, 1955 or ‘56. No, he wasn’t part of it.) The “analysts”—an attempt to make spies out of bureaucrats, or perhaps the other way ‘round—never did much but time-serve and read foreign newspapers.
Now it’s catching up. Good riddance, I say. The NSA, which was formed from NRO out of frustration with CIA incompetence and never really “reported” to DCIA except on paper, might be the nucleus, and the service intelligence agencies never quite completely lost their touch, so there may be the basis for constituting something that might work. I don’t think Americans have the stomach to build an NKVD, though.
Too bad. I think we need one.
Regards,
Ric
So. According to the left. Had we not invaded Iraq things would be just fine now, in the Middle East.
Hmmm. Just what does one do with 500 tons of yellowcake anyway?
Actus:
Die-casting is the process of melting metal and pouring it into a mold; it has nothing to do with gambling (dice-tossing).
I only point this out to demonstrate how stupid you look when you try to mix metaphors.
But please stick around: Every now and then you present an idea which actually sounds reasonable (at least, to me; I guess I’m gullible); and when other commenters show up and pound your theory into the dirt, then I learn something.
Thank you for your support.
Party with glow in the dark bizitches? It would be more fun with pie but…
Not just you.
Here’s the aggravating part. I was talking to a friend of mine who works for one of the news channels here in Denver. When I told him about the story, he said that..
1. It was just propaganda unless it came from a “reputable news source” unlike FOX.
and
2. It didn’t matter anyway because everyone (his word) was already against the war and no amout of WMD’s would make a difference even if “tons of WMD’s were found”. (his words)
I told him that it was proof that no one “lied” about it to which he replied “fine, I’ll say there were WMD’s but it’s not a big deal…not really news.” He then had to go.
Needless to say my jaw hit the floor, not because I couldn’t believe that MSM would do that, but that they don’t even bother to hide it anymore.
What story played on said news program instead of this “revelation”?
Story on beavers….no kidding!!!
I can pretty much guarantee this won’t make the news tomorrow either.
so sad…..
No, that was the main purpose of the Afghan war – that, and actually eliminating the regime that harbored Osama bin Laden. The “point” of the Iraq War remains elusive – it seems to have been driven by a lot of ideas, few of them based in reality – but its effect has been to show the rest of the world, “Fear, avoid, and mistrust us while placating us with soft words, because we are dangerous and don’t know what we’re doing.”
Waaaa waaaaw, brooksfoe.
So, how’s the Big Lie coming?
Santorum’s description of the Bush Administration’s reluctance to publicize WMD information as being based in a desire to remain forward looking on the war for some reason intrigues me.
What are the implications here? Is the Bush team so politically tone-deaf that they don’t perceive the political importance of this information, or are they bravely expending political capital to remain as focused as possible on advancing the war on terror?
yours/
peter.
He apparently wasn’t keeping them around to use them, since, as US forces were rolling through the desert and bringing his regime down around his head, he didn’t.
Most likely, being a paranoid out-of-touch doddering fool whose regime was not noted for military competence, Saddam lost them. And the Administration, recognizing that producing these rusty old shells as the sole evidence of WMD in Iraq would only discredit its prewar fear-mongering even more (“launch the sarin-armed drone-plane attack on Cleveland! Moo ha ha!”), decided not to. They then got classified because basically everything in this administration gets classified, by mid-level political appointees afraid of allowing public access to any information that might somehow, in some unpredictable way, embarrass the President. In the Bush Administration, if it’s not part of an approved press release, it’s classified.
Oh, looks like you guys aren’t doing as good a job of it as you used to. Though you’ve had some success at it this week.
But, gee, brooksfoe, Bush didn’t LIE. But let’s see who DID lie.
There was of course YOU, and Kerry, and Kennedy, and all.
Verc, stick to talking about military tactics, where you generally make sense, within what I feel is an overly narrow frame of reference. But this stuff is silly.
I don’t feel comfortable talking to someone who is A) incompetent or B) a liar, brooksfoe.
I mean, geez, if you distrust the consensus opinion of the world intelligence agencies and then demur at the reality of actual stockpiles, well, jeez, what else do you call that but ignorance of the highest order?
Considering how much the CinC likes Putin, I almost want to believe the “it would embarass the Russians” theory someone posited up thread…
Honorable but losing sight of the domestic audience (of course the brooksfoes and actii wouldn’t be swayed anyhoo).
brooksfoe, at least I possess a narrow purview; you have yet to engage.
But I’m game.
Pick a topic.
The domestic audience would not respond favorably to a Bush Admin effort to refight this point based on some moldering pre-Gulf War shells which represent just the kind of thing war opponents conceded Saddam probably did still have lying around. Only the 30% of remaining pro-Bush dead-enders would appreciate it. The current strategy Rove has going moves in the opposite direction: forget about the reasons for the war; the question is, what do we do now? Stand fast! And, meanwhile, we make happy noises towards Iran and North Korea and the Europeans, to defuse the “warmongerer” image somewhat. Resurrecting the old WMD issue at this point is only going to hurt the President.
It’s a good strategy. Some are saying it reflects the new Chief of Staff’s influence. To me it looks like unindicted co-conspirator Rove has more time now and is getting his game back.
Verc: “The consensus opinion of world intelligence agencies” (not equals) “ODI, some in MI5, some Italian forgers, and George Tenet agreeing to go with the Cheney-Rumsfeld flow against the advice of his actual analysts”.
And 23 US intelligence agencies, and every European agency from Lusitania to Omsk agreed. Shove it, brooksfoe, you are not rewriting this history.
You fucked up when you assumed the good word of a mass-murderer; take it like a man.
Oh, like activating our “Great WarMongering In Outer Spaaaaaace” Missile Defense System, happy-fluffy-bunny things like that? Maybe. Maybe we are getting closer to a diplomatic solution, sust like the 15 resolutions we pushed through the UN on Iraq, and then we did what we did, remember?
Telephone pole alert V. It will not matter if the mountain of WMD is discovered between his ears. BDS is a plan.
Verc, you have no idea what I thought. Nor do you have any idea what the majority of the anti-war crowd thought. It would have been odd if those of us who supported the 1991 Gulf War decided to “take the good word” of Saddam Hussein. In fact, we looked at the no-WMD evidence of UN inspectors, and the extremely poor (and it turned out mostly fraudulent) evidence of some WMD that was the best the Bush Admin could come up with. And, yes, we assumed it was quite plausible and likely that there were still some chemical shells lying around. In fact, most of us were really shocked by just how little WMD there actually was; and a supposed classified memo that Senator Man-On-Dog claims exists regarding an alleged single stockpile of old chemical weapons shells does not change that impression. If this is the best he can do, it only reinforces it.
The conclusions of the United States Defense Dept.’s 1.5-year-long postwar inspections effort stand: there was no active WMD program in Iraq. The threat hyped before the war did not exist. You guys have a habit of playing semantic games (“waterboarding isn’t torture”, “we found the WMDs”, and so on), but these dodges are increasingly unconvincing to the public.
vercingetorix –
Why you persist in taking the bait of these trolls is difficult to understand.
Get it? Get it? We are the new Baathists!
So very clever.
Oh, I know, forest hunter; it is–what’s that turn-o-phrase–“invincible ignorance”.
But this was a collosal fuck-up on their part. My stated goal is to cause these little pricks as much friction and pain as possible because, well, Karma, she is a bitch; 3 years of “Bush lied” and now proof that under no definition of “lied” could he have ever “lied” about telling the truth.
Good times.
Hey Brookweenie, this isn’t just a Congressman and a Senator making up stories, like some I know with a (D) behind their names. This is a small snippet declassified summary of a much larger document. I think the 98% of Shia, the 91% of Kurds and the 77% overall of Iraqis are saying “thank you” George Bush. Even 13% of the Sunnis are happier under the new government than under Saddamm. Isn’t that about the number that agree with you in this country? Brookings Institute statistics 6-19-2006
forest hunter:
Where are the drones? Where are the nuclear centrifuges? Where are the mobile biological weapons labs? Where is the weaponized anthrax? Where are the units ready to launch chemical weapons attacks on US troops within hours?
They did not exist. DOD: there were no WMD programs in Iraq.
I know you find that to be a terrible thing. Personally, I find it rather lucky. If there had been WMD in Iraq, considering our incompetent failure to lock down Iraqi arms stores in the aftermath of the invasion, it probably would be in the hands of terrorists by now.
Makes too of us; I figure I’m 8000 miles away from a good German mistress and fifteen minutes away from the local biker bar, I need to get my thrills somewhere.
Like this little gem;
Oh, but CONTRARE, brooksfoe, THAT is exactly what the Kay report found; active programs. Now we have the stockpiles to go with them.
Come on, pokey puppy, you can play this game too. Just put one foot in front of the other.