So We’re Now Willing To Admit WMDs Were Found In Iraq Because Wikileaks Says So?

by John Hawkins | October 25, 2010 6:15 am

If the CIA had done its job and killed Julian Assange[1], there probably wouldn’t have been a huge new WikiLeaks document dump that may get even more Iraqis murdered for the terrible crime of helping the United States.

Still, the info is out there and one surprising development has been how many liberals are now willing to admit that Gulf War era WMDs were found in Iraq. For years, many liberals not only denied that WMDs had been found in Iraq, they mocked people who said otherwise.

Yet now that WikiLeaks has released the information, they finally believe it and are producing articles like this[2],

WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq — With Surprising Results

By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But for years afterward, WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime – the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict – and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.

…Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”

…But even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. “These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location, these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long time.”

So, “By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Really? Don’t you mean that liberals had given up on it? Actually, no one who has been reading Right Wing News should be unaware that we found Gulf War era WMDS.

For example,

..and of course, that we did find warheads designed to carry chemical warfare agents and artillery shells filled with mustard gas & sarin (even though they were small in number and weren’t recently made). — July 11, 2005[3]

The “surprising” thing here isn’t that the number of Americans who believe Saddam had WMD’s has risen from 36% to 50%, it’s that the number isn’t 100% since 500 WMDs have been found. Certainly you could argue that the WMDs might be of limited use because of their age or that they weren’t part of the ongoing program, but after finding WMD stockpiles in Iraq, it’s impossible to successfully argue that Saddam didn’t possess them. — July 25, 2006[4]

As has also been much discussed, many people on the Left and Right were wrong about Saddam having a WMD program although hundreds of Gulf War era WMDs were found. — July 17, 2009[5]

It’s great to see so many liberals now catching up to where conservatives have been for years on the news front. Now maybe if the scumbags at WikiLeaks release “secret” information that shows that socialism doesn’t work, we might make even more progress.

Endnotes:
  1. killed Julian Assange: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/2010/07/the-cia-should-kill-julian-assange/
  2. producing articles like this: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/
  3. July 11, 2005: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/special/xyz.php
  4. July 25, 2006: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/archives/week_2006_07_23.PHP#006113
  5. July 17, 2009: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/mt331/2009/07/the_left_and_right_got_a_lot_o.php

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