GOP CONGRESS MEMBERS: SADDAM'S WMD FOUND

[kpete]

Republican Congress members claim that evidence of Saddam's WMD have been identified

Michael Roston
Published: Wednesday June 21, 2006

Republican Members of Congress claimed late today that evidence of weapons of mass destruction hidden by Saddam Hussein had at last been identified in Iraq.

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. The details were referred to by the blogger Allahpundit at Hot Air.

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.

MORE AT:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Republican_Congress_members_claimed_that_evidence_0621.html


UPDATE-THINK PROGRESS

The Bush administration commissioned the Iraq Survey Group to determine whether in fact any WMD existed in Iraq. After a year and half of digging around Iraq, here’s what the administration’s own inspectors reported:

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

The White House should immediately announce whether it stands with Santorum or whether it stands behind the review conducted by Charles Duelfer. Recall, in October 2004, Bush said of Duelfer’s analysis:

The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.

Fox News isn’t waiting for an administration statement. Their right wing pundits are already peddling the story as truth.

MORE AT:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/21/santorum-wmd/

[imax2268]

1. ummmm...

this is a joke right...?

[ixion]

2. 500 rounds of degraded mustard gas

that's what passes for a WMD these days? And just how would Saddam have gotten those rusty, degraded shells from Iraq to the US anyway?

[AnOhioan]

7. Easy...he would have shipped them........

back in the original containers we used when we sent them to him.

[MichiganVote]

12. And our Dubai owned ports would have allowed them in

While our president is on vacation and our corporate congress is being entertained by lobbyist's.

[MichiganVote]

8. Yes and how does this constitute an "imminent" threat?

One would think that if this cache is so dangerous and the threat to the US was so imminent, Saddam Hussien would have used them during the invasion? Or am I confusing common sense with the Bush reality show?

[htuttle]

3. Yes, apparently they extracted them from deep....

...within Karl Rove's ass.

:eyes:

[MichiganVote]

4. And the details are?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. allegedly containing degraded sarin or mustard gas

Duh! from the first time we shut him down!!!!!!

Idiots!!

[acmavm]

6. This is an election year and they have to defend their party for it's

corrupt, nasty, murderous, expensive occupation of another country. They just voted (and so did dems I must add) to pump billions more into the pockets of Halliburton and KBR and every other crook connected to the occupation. They are desperate to justify themselves.

This does not surprise me. Everytime there's an election they find WMDs.

[napi21]

9. I'm thinkin' if it's degraded gas, and they were burried deep, they

don't qualify as WMD'S! Besides, aren't they the same ones WE supplied to him back in the 80"s?

[The Stranger]

10. Not so fast, my friend.

When he spoke to the Nation during the State of the Union, he didn't say there were a mere 500 shells lying around. He said:

500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands.

. . . upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them . . . Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

500 tons of sarin would be ONE MILLION POUNDS of the stuff, and THREE MILLION POUNDS total of these agents.

[MichiganVote]

17. For cripe's sake, didn't this asshole learn anything about not

telling a whopper when he was a kid? Hard to believe this is the spew that chokes the tongues of Americans today. Fricking asshole.

[MichiganVote]

20. Delete

[Uncle Joe]

11. This sounds like something they had left over

from the war with Iran.

[Imajika]

13. This is utter B.S.

These are leftover, degraded, effectively useless weapons of no military value. Probably stuff left over in some bunkers that no one had bothered with yet. These do not even remotely constitute the much vaunted WMD program we invaded Iraq to dismantle. Having these rotting artillery shells laying around was probably more of a liability to Iraq than an asset. My guess is they just got lost in the shuffle and were rusting away in old storage facilities that had not been dealt with yet.

This is a total crap story, and the Republicans pushing this are dishonest and acting out of desperation. This is downright laughable.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

14. They're really starting to sweat over...

...increasing talk of the illegality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq---desperately grasping for some plausible pretext. Pathetic.

[Rex]

15. alleged weapons of mass destruction

alleged killings, alleged police force, alleged Al-Quada, alleged beheadings, alleged torture, alleged insurgency, on and on the list just gets longer and longer.

[Marr]

16. This has got to be a joke.

This is just ludicrous.

[niyad]

18. does the stock of mustard gas that used to sit outside stapleton airport

count as wmd's? oops, sorry, forgot, they were ours, so that doesn't count, right???

[robinlynne]

19. No Joke. go to cspan2 now. Santorum using it to defeat the kerry-feingold

ammendment right now!

[karlrschneider]

21. What ever happened to those jet fighters "found" buried in the sand?

I forget the details but the claim made some waves around 3 years ago...
:eyes:

[quickesst]

28. The sad part is..

Most repugs will trumpet this horse-shit as proof of war justification, and unless some Kahunas were grown recently, the dems will just start shaking and pissing in their pants, as usual. Hope not. thanks.
quickesst

[leveymg]

30. MIGs don't fly 8000 miles with sand in their engines.

[babylonsister]

22. I don't believe this for a second. Planted, maybe. nt

[Armstead]

23. THIS JUST IN!!!! WEAPONS FOUND! So Sez Rick Santorum on CSPAN.

"Now it has been discovered...."

Can these people get any more transparent?

[libodem]

24. I they really wanted to know what lead up to 9/11

they should let Sybil Edmond's talk. They sat there at the FBI and let foreign interpretors erase condemning pre9/11 chatter going on in the country. Sybil had her own work erased and ruined when she would come back to work. She is able to name big names of people communicating with each other. It didn't matter to intelligence Agency's that Abramhoff and Jebbie were setting up gambling boat trips in fancy ocean liners, for some of the 9/11 hijackers. Rumsfeld, Halfwits, Cheney, Tennant, they were aware Saudi Arabia was giving scholarships to foreign nationals to take flying lessons. If sybil Edmond's could talk she would make you believe in MIHOP.

[leveymg]

25. This goes along with the aborted NYC gas attack, and the

"new" 2Oth hijacker, and all the other terrorist conspiracies that either never were, or wanted to be, but didn't make it out of boot camp.

They sure are getting desperate to dig up some proof that they stopped somebody from doing something, somewhere in Bush's America. Even if they had to go to Iraq to find it.

"Better to be fighting 'em over there . . .":eyes:

[symbolman]

26. They have that much laying around in Alabama

some residents of a town there are issued Gas Masks as they burn or destroy OUR old WMD if that's how they are now tagged..

This story has no legs.

Remember the 12,000 page report of all weapons required by the UN, that the US got the ONLY copy of, removed 8,000 pages THEN returned it to the UN? Apparently this stuff slipped through that shredder.. the 8,000 pages of course were all the WMD taht WE and other nations SOLD and delivered (probably by Dick Cheney or Rumsfeld) to Iraq under the guise of Agricultural loans, which were signed and sealed by Bush SENIOR..

If they have any REAL WMD you can bet that Germany sold them to them.. if they'd wanted to make a case against Iraq and WMDs they should have come to me, I've read plenty on what they had and where it came from and believe me, in some respects there really WAS some cause for concern.. years ago..

But the reality was at the Point that Bush the Dunce invaded them illegally and murdered tens or hundreds of thousands there was NO real reason..

One other question, is this really a scoop? This sounds like a story we heard before, about a year ago, same claim/weapons, just wondering if it's new..

[seabeyond]

27. we didnt go in for wmd's. the american people said no. we went in for

mushroom clouds, drones that could carry the shit to our shores and aluminum tubes.

[burf]

29. Isn't it odd

this story is being reported by a couple of Repub Senators? Just makes one wonder.

[leveymg]

31. Let's Welcome burf to DU. First post!

Have a cold one, on the house. :toast:

[burf]

33. Thanks for the welcome!

[babylonsister]

32. Welcome to DU, burf!

:hi: burf, a name to remember! :)

[kpete]

34. another welcome to burf and...

In an appearance later in the evening on Fox News, Santorum was told that an unnamed Defense Department official speaking for the Administration objected to his conclusions.

"Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims," reports Think Progress. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are 'not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.'"

"I’d like to know who that is," Santorum responded. "The fact of the matter is, I’ll wait and see what the actual Defense Department formally says or more important what the administration formally says."

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Republican_Congress_members_claimed_that_evidence_0621.html

[DemonFighterLives]

36. I guess they are going to have to pound that

into Santorums head. A new name almost came to me Sandboxhead- it needs work.
:)

[newyawker99]

35. Hi burf!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: