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Saddam had WMD's?????

 
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hogwonguy1979



Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: the racoon den

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:29 pm    Post subject: Saddam had WMD's????? Reply with quote

on my flight back to states yesterday I was reading the book �Seal Target: Geronimo� and something that jumped out to me was the authors contention that Saddam had WMD in terms of chemical weapons and had buried them throughout Iraq and that Al Queda had gotten a hold of at least some of them and actually used them in IED attacks in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Says its been documented in the Wikileaks dump. Anybody else seen this? I�ve never heard a report in either the lefitist (MSNBC/Huff Po) or rightist (Fix Noise/Drudge etc) media.

Am I missing something?
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rollo



Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 8:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does any thinking adult not believe that SAddam had WMD. I mean all the reports about weapons sent into hiding in other countries. All the reports from GErman British, American , Israeli intelligence services that said he had WMD. I mean he used chemical weapons in the 80's and 90's several times. Would he have allowed Al-Queda access to those weapons doubtful. There was a greater danger of Al-queda getting them in the chaos of an invasion and overthrow of the government.
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The Floating World



Joined: 01 Oct 2011
Location: Here

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 9:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
All the reports from GErman British, American , Israeli intelligence services that said he had WMD.


Oh you mean the ones that were faked and caused the minister repsonsible to commit suicide over it?
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wintermute



Joined: 01 Oct 2007

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

rollo wrote:
Does any thinking adult not believe that SAddam had WMD.


No - he did use them, and the US did sell at least some of them to him, so "Saddam had WMD" is not controversial

"Saddam has WMD" is where the thinking adult tended to diverge from the rest, correctly suspecting that it is propaganda calculated to manufacture consent for a totally unnecessary war.

rollo wrote:
I mean all the reports about weapons sent into hiding in other countries. All the reports from GErman British, American , Israeli intelligence services that said he had WMD.


I wasn't privy to those reports, but if you mean media reports of those reports, well, the thinking adult has reason to not trust media reports in the run up to an unpopular war. Still, where there reports about reports of smoke , we can't categorically rule out the presence of fire.

rollo wrote:
There was a greater danger of Al-queda getting them in the chaos of an invasion and overthrow of the government.


True dat.

As for the OP, you didn't give us much to go on. Could you provide more details about the authors claims?

But there is no reason why a dusty old mustard gas round or something couldn't have ended up in one of the other theatres, and been included in an IED. It doesn't necessarily conflict with our hindsight-enhanced understanding of the situation immediately prior to the invasion.

Thinking about it, though, if the US knew about such an incident, would they cover it up, or milk it for all its worth?

They would milk it! If imaginary WMDs are good enough to start a war, some real ones would really help keep it going!

As it is, since the Pentagon did not report it, they judged it to be less credible than "We caught the guy who shot down the chopper full of SEALs" - a totally transparent piece of BS.

That is just my feeling, anyway.
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wintermute



Joined: 01 Oct 2007

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Floating World wrote:
Quote:
All the reports from GErman British, American , Israeli intelligence services that said he had WMD.


Oh you mean the ones that were faked and caused the minister repsonsible to commit suicide over it?


"Commit suicide"?!?

So they got to you too...

Very Happy
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hogwonguy1979



Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: the racoon den

PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wintermute wrote:


As for the OP, you didn't give us much to go on. Could you provide more details about the authors claims?

But there is no reason why a dusty old mustard gas round or something couldn't have ended up in one of the other theatres, and been included in an IED. It doesn't necessarily conflict with our hindsight-enhanced understanding of the situation immediately prior to the invasion.

Thinking about it, though, if the US knew about such an incident, would they cover it up, or milk it for all its worth?

They would milk it! If imaginary WMDs are good enough to start a war, some real ones would really help keep it going!

As it is, since the Pentagon did not report it, they judged it to be less credible than "We caught the guy who shot down the chopper full of SEALs" - a totally transparent piece of BS.

That is just my feeling, anyway.


you'd have to read the book, there were entire chapters dedicated to this, the readers digest verison is this: Saddam had chem/bio's located all around Iraq and Al Queda had gotten a hold of them and used them in a few IED attacks that media failed to report. There were also chem attacks in Afghanistan and a failed chlorine gas attack in Baghdad. Author says the documentation is found in the Wikileaks document dump, thing is he doesnt cite which documents.

Funny thing is I read a few reviews of the book which were generally favorable but none have a mention of this
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duke of new york



Joined: 23 Jan 2011

PostPosted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 3:39 am    Post subject: Re: Saddam had WMD's????? Reply with quote

hogwonguy1979 wrote:
on my flight back to states yesterday I was reading the book �Seal Target: Geronimo� and something that jumped out to me was the authors contention that Saddam had WMD in terms of chemical weapons and had buried them throughout Iraq and that Al Queda had gotten a hold of at least some of them and actually used them in IED attacks in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Says its been documented in the Wikileaks dump. Anybody else seen this? I�ve never heard a report in either the lefitist (MSNBC/Huff Po) or rightist (Fix Noise/Drudge etc) media.

Am I missing something?


It is well known that there were WMDs buried in Iraq when the US invaded, but they weren't something they were making at the time, they were left over from the Iran-Iraq war and the invasion of Kuwait. As Rumsfeld famously said, when asked how we know the Iraqis had WMDs, "because we have the receipts." From what I understand, these would not be in a usable state in 2003.

I've never heard of insurgents using them to make IEDs, but I'm sure it's possible, and it wouldn't be as big a deal as you're interpreting it to be. The chemicals in the weapons would have been dangerous enough to fashion an IED from, but the weapons themselves would not be usable to, say, attack another country.


In the early years of the Iraq War, so many of my hardcore pro-Bush, pro-war friends would show me news articles "proving" we were right and Saddam had WMDs, but they would just be about the troops digging up some decrepit old SCUD from the Iran-Iraq war.
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