New Bush Lie on WMDs discovered, I think. DU researchers...

[usregimechange]

Before the war Bush told us of “thousands of tons” of chemical agents that Sadam had. Is that the number before or after weapons inspectors destroyed most of what they had?

"The Iraqi regime...possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

[sofa king]

1. Hi, usregimechange

This statement was actually exposed as disingenuous before the fact by Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector and early victim of the Rove slime machine.

On July 17, 2002, Ritter explained:

"Well, look: As of December 1998 we had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability -- "we" being the weapons inspectors. We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production and we couldn't account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three years. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start the process of producing these weapons since December 1998."

See the Wikipedia article on Ritter for a fuller quote and more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter

By the time the President uttered that nonsense, the chemical and biological weapons Saddam could have had were useless. That didn't stop the President from repeating the allegation in his State of the Union Address almost four months later.

[shraby]

3. I was wondering how he got away with

listing the different chemical and biological weapons in that state of the union address and all anyone was upset about was the 16 words.

[Montauk6]

2. Didn't your freeper FFAR* tell you?

Saddam hid them in Syria.

Well, next week's Thanksgiving, I'm sure you'll hear such comparable gems as you're passing the cranberry sauce (that is, if you're lucky enough to have a 100% progressive holiday).


*FFAR = Friends, Family and Relatives (a multi-level marketing term)

[ErisFiveFingers]

4. I figured it worked out this way...

It's a "true" statement in that it's also "true" that Saddam used chemical weapons in the Iraq-Iraq war. He produced thousands of tons, and and then used or had destroyed thousands of tons. Just like * used factually accurate information strung together to try and convince people that September 11 and Saddam were linked, he often used factual information about past weapons use/abuse to try and convince people that the weapons still existed, or were somehow a treat to the US.