Article

2014-10-15 Iraq

Finding Saddam's Chemical Weapons - Secret Until Today!

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Bobby 2014-10-15 07:10|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 No, not a secret at all. Just simply ignored. It was a "bad war" as I recall. Bush's war.

Iraqis refer to the Samarra facility as the al-Muthanna facility, the State Enterprise for Pesticide Production (SEPP), and the Samarra Drying Industries Plant. The Iraqi CW infrastructure consisted of ten CW agent production plants with a combined production capacity of 2,500-3,000 metric tons (mt) per year. Additionally, there were three munitions filling lines at Samarra, three precursor plants at Habbaniyah, and thirty storage bunkers scattered throughout the country. In about 1975, construction of two cw facilities began near Samarra and Salmon Pak. The Salman Pak facility (located 35km southeast of Baghdad) was a pilot-plant operation, whereas Samarra was an extensive, integrated chemical weapons production facility.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-10-15 07:47|| 2014-10-15 07:47|| Front Page Top

#2 NYT decided to ignore it. Doc say 2/21/2006 distributed in Congress. Been on the net for years. Didn't fit the anti-Bush narrative of 'no WMDs'.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-10-15 07:52|| 2014-10-15 07:52|| Front Page Top

#3 Klingon UNCLAS report on Project 922, and Al Muthamma.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-10-15 07:54|| 2014-10-15 07:54|| Front Page Top

#4 ...This - because clearly, the Obama Administration KNEW it - would be a very good reason for 'no boots on the ground'. One confirmed attempt by ISIS to slime US units would result in Obama having a stark choice: go after them and their enablers with everything in the tool shed...or quit.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2014-10-15 09:55|| 2014-10-15 09:55|| Front Page Top

#5 Until now. Why now?

To justify Obama putting boots on the ground.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2014-10-15 10:12|| 2014-10-15 10:12|| Front Page Top

#6 Islamic State said to use chemical weapons on Kurds

Posted by Beavis 2014-10-15 10:59|| 2014-10-15 10:59|| Front Page Top

#7 Man does this set every paranoid alarm ringing. But am I paranoid enough.

Both Mike K and NS have plausible explanations for the "why now" question. And those are diametrically opposed.

In the "never let a good crisis go to waste" mentality how are they going to combine this with Ebola?

Of course this proved Bush correct so they immediately moved the goal posts and are screaming that he lied cause he said they were "active" programs. No, he never said that this is just one more lie from the left.

We are sooooooo f*cked.

Posted by AlanC 2014-10-15 11:12|| 2014-10-15 11:12|| Front Page Top

#8 The consolation prize here is that they are probably way too dangerous for anyone to try to use.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2014-10-15 12:05|| 2014-10-15 12:05|| Front Page Top

#9 The suggested that chemical weapons support the decision to not to put troops on the ground only makes sense if Obama cared about the the military. Obama only cares about his legacy and golf.

Posted by Airandee 2014-10-15 12:23|| 2014-10-15 12:23|| Front Page Top

#10 So if we'd found a couple nukes nobody would have said anything because there wasn't an "active" nuclear program?

There's a whiff of aged mackerel about this, but you've already noticed that.

Posted by Fred 2014-10-15 12:37|| 2014-10-15 12:37|| Front Page Top

#11 WMDs in Iraq have been known for some time. It just wasn't reported by the MSM. It didn't fit the narrative of the left. The MSM could not allow that Bush might have been right. Instead they stayed with the narrative that we should never have invaded Iraq because there were no WMDs, the war was not justified and that it was illegal; none of which were true. They chose to not report the existence of WMDs in Iraq and counted on the average Democratic-voting rube to buy their load of B.S. The MSM was right about that. The MSM are complicit with the Progressives in creating and feeding the cancer within. Maybe, it is as Michael Savage predicts--civil war will come if things don't change.

Posted by JohnQC 2014-10-15 13:16|| 2014-10-15 13:16|| Front Page Top

#12 The left redefined WMD to only mean nukes. Everything less just didn't count.

The other thing that irks me is Bush said that British Intelligence said Saddam was buying Yellowcake from Niger. To my knowledge British intelliegence still stands by that claim. So there was never a lie, not even close. Even if the British were wrong that doesn't make it a lie. Yet the slogans won the day because bush let them go without counter-arguements.

Posted by rjschwarz 2014-10-15 14:38|| 2014-10-15 14:38|| Front Page Top

#13 The left redefined WMD to only mean nukes. Everything less just didn't count.

Tell it to Assad.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2014-10-15 14:42|| 2014-10-15 14:42|| Front Page Top

#14 Some light reading on al Mathamma an Doctor Rihab Taha, Saddam's "doctor germ." A delightful lady, very engaging....

Growth of biological agents[edit]

Although Taha told her fellow students at Norwich that she wanted to return to Iraq to teach biology, she went instead to work for Iraq's germ warfare program. In 1985, she worked in the al-Muthanna chemical plant near Baghdad, and later became chief production officer in al-Hakam (also spelled al-Hakum), Iraq's top-secret biological-warfare facility at the time.

During several visits to Iraq by United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), set up after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait to inspect Iraqi weapons facilities,[6] weapons inspectors were told by Taha that al-Hakam was a chicken-feed plant. "There were a few things that were peculiar about this animal-feed production plant," Charles Duelfer, UNSCOM's deputy executive chairman, later told reporters, "beginning with the extensive air defenses surrounding it."

According to the 1999 DIA report, the normally mild-mannered Taha exploded into violent rages when questioned about al-Hakam, shouting, screaming and, storming out of the room, before returning and smashing a chair.[7] However, in 1995, UNSCOM's principal weapons inspector Dr. Rod Barton from Australia showed Taha documents obtained by UNSCOM from the Israeli government that showed the Iraqi regime had just purchased 10 tons of growth media from a British company called Oxoid. Growth media is a mixture of sugar, proteins and minerals that allows microscopic life to grow; it is used in hospitals, where swabs from patients are placed in dishes containing growth media for diagnostic purposes. Iraq's hospital consumption of growth media was just 200 kg a year; yet in 1988, Iraq imported 39 tons of it.

Shown this evidence by UNSCOM, Taha admitted to the inspectors that her biological weapons agency had grown 19,000 litres of botulism toxin;[8] 8,000 litres of anthrax; 2,000 litres of aflatoxins, which can cause liver cancer; clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that can cause gas gangrene; and ricin, a castor bean derivative which can kill by inhibiting protein synthesis. She also admitted conducting research into cholera, salmonella, foot and mouth disease, and camel pox, a disease that uses the same growth techniques as smallpox, but is safer for researchers to work with. It was because of the discovery of Taha's work with camel pox that the U.S. and British intelligence services feared Saddam Hussein may have been planning to weaponize the smallpox virus. Iraq had a smallpox outbreak in the 1970s and UNSCOM scientists believe the government would have retained contaminated material.

Wiki link

Posted by Besoeker 2014-10-15 14:48|| 2014-10-15 14:48|| Front Page Top

#15 Are bits of truth now being released that might hint at the depths of Saddam's evil? Are we being prepared for the revelation that ebola didn't happen by accident, or that we should take measures to treat it as a terrorist bio-weapon just to be on the safe side ?

Posted by Besoeker 2014-10-15 15:33|| 2014-10-15 15:33|| Front Page Top

#16 The left will not care about ebola unless it impacts polar bears and spotted owls.

Posted by airandee 2014-10-15 15:43|| 2014-10-15 15:43|| Front Page Top

#17 Huh -- 8000 liters of anthrax.

They ever catch the white American male they say sent those anthrax letters?

Posted by Rob Crawford 2014-10-15 16:38|| 2014-10-15 16:38|| Front Page Top

#18 Please, someone find Steven Hatfill, that scientist from Matoon, Illinois. He's got to be responsible.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-10-15 16:51|| 2014-10-15 16:51|| Front Page Top

#19 Until now. Why now?

Posted by gorb 2014-10-15 23:53|| 2014-10-15 23:53|| Front Page Top

#20 Until now. Why now?

Because ISIS might get their hands on them and start using them. Then what would the Dems have to say about it?

Posted by gorb 2014-10-15 23:54|| 2014-10-15 23:54|| Front Page Top

23:54 gorb
23:53 gorb
23:34 Injun Ulomoque8628
22:29 Cheanter Ebbaper3878
22:20 SteveS
21:53 Procopius2k
21:40 Pappy
21:38 Pappy
21:36 Pappy
21:19 SteveS
21:18 SteveS
21:00 Zenobia Floger6220
20:46 Barbara
20:32 badanov
20:31 badanov
20:31 RandomJD
20:30 Old Patriot
20:29 badanov
20:28 Old Patriot
20:25 James
20:19 Frank G
20:02 Frank G
19:33 49 Pan
19:00 Ebbomosh Hupemp2664