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06-21-2006, 09:25 PM
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 #1 |
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CTU agent
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Game Over, Democrats. WMDs Found!
Maybe? Maybe not...or maybe.
Quote:
WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.
"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.
Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf...eclassified.pdf
He added that the report warns about the hazards that the chemical weapons could still pose to coalition troops in Iraq.
"The purity of the agents inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal," Santorum read from the document.
"This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows that years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.
Hoekstra said the report, completed in April but only declassified now, shows that "there is still a lot about Iraq that we don't fully understand."
Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.
"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."
The official said the findings did raise questions about the years of weapons inspections that had not resulted in locating the fairly sizeable stash of chemical weapons. And he noted that it may say something about Hussein's intent and desire. The report does suggest that some of the weapons were likely put on the black market and may have been used outside Iraq.
He also said that the Defense Department statement shortly after the March 2003 invasion saying that "we had all known weapons facilities secured," has proven itself to be untrue.
"It turned out the whole country was an ammo dump," he said, adding that on more than one occasion, a conventional weapons site has been uncovered and chemical weapons have been discovered mixed within them.
Hoekstra and Santorum lamented that Americans were given the impression after a 16-month search conducted by the Iraq Survey Group that the evidence of continuing research and development of weapons of mass destruction was insignificant. But the National Ground Intelligence Center took up where the ISG left off when it completed its report in November 2004, and in the process of collecting intelligence for the purpose of force protection for soldiers and sailors still on the ground in Iraq, has shown that the weapons inspections were incomplete, they and others have said.
"We know it was there, in place, it just wasn't operative when inspectors got there after the war, but we know what the inspectors found from talking with the scientists in Iraq that it could have been cranked up immediately, and that's what Saddam had planned to do if the sanctions against Iraq had halted and they were certainly headed in that direction," said Fred Barnes, editor of The Weekly Standard and a FOX News contributor.
"It is significant. Perhaps, the administration just, they think they weathered the debate over WMD being found there immediately and don't want to return to it again because things are otherwise going better for them, and then, I think, there's mindless resistance to releasing any classified documents from Iraq," Barnes said.
The release of the declassified materials comes as the Senate debates Democratic proposals to create a timetable for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq. The debate has had the effect of creating disunity among Democrats, a majority of whom shrunk Wednesday from an amendment proposed by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to have troops to be completely withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of next year.
At the same time, congressional Republicans have stayed highly united, rallying around a White House that has seen successes in the last couple weeks, first with the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then the completion of the formation of Iraq's Cabinet and then the announcement Tuesday that another key Al Qaeda in Iraq leader, "religious emir" Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, was also killed in a U.S. airstrike.
Santorum pointed out that during Wednesday's debate, several Senate Democrats said that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, a claim, he said, that the declassified document proves is untrue.
"This is an incredibly — in my mind — significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction, is in fact false," he said.
As a result of this new information, under the aegis of his chairmanship, Hoekstra said he is going to ask for more reporting by the various intelligence agencies about weapons of mass destruction.
"We are working on the declassification of the report. We are going to do a thorough search of what additional reports exist in the intelligence community. And we are going to put additional pressure on the Department of Defense and the folks in Iraq to more fully pursue a complete investigation of what existed in Iraq before the war," Hoekstra said.
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06-21-2006, 09:29 PM
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 #2 |
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Needle Mouse
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Kansas City, MO
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So three years after they start finding them, they tell us now?
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06-21-2006, 09:41 PM
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 #4 |
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Change is a sound
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Chicago
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GO GEORGE BUSH!!!!!
Seriously....Republicans>Democrats.
__________________
Let's bury the hatchet. We smoke um peace pipe! -Jerry Seinfeld
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06-21-2006, 09:44 PM
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 #5 |
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Beware the Meteorologist
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Home
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Joester
So three years after they start finding them, they tell us now?
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Quote:
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"It is significant. Perhaps, the administration just, they think they weathered the debate over WMD being found there immediately and don't want to return to it again because things are otherwise going better for them, and then, I think, there's mindless resistance to releasing any classified documents from Iraq," Barnes said.
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So, Bush got burned over WMDs and doesn't want anything to do with the subject anymore, fearing further burnination? Santorum did say he heard about the documents from outside White House. Rove or someone else leaving breadcrumbs? Maybe all that stuff about Syria, Lebanon, and Sudan taking in the weapons and Libya being Saddam's nuclear workshop will turn out to be true after all. 
__________________
Need someone to visit my Animal Crossing:WW town so that I can get Nookington's. PM me if you'll visit my town.
My friend code is:
2148-4650-8590
Thanks much!
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06-21-2006, 09:44 PM
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#6 |
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De novo
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Avon Lake, Ohio
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The number of munitions and their age certainly undermines the finding and its significance. Nevertheless, it does show that Iraq was not WMD-free and that Saddam did not destroy all of his WMD capability.
Anyway, I don't expect this news to deliver a major blow to the anti-war cause since this revelation does not entirely vindicate our pre-war intelligence, which purported the existence of a much larger WMD threat.
__________________
Read excellent short stories and poetry at The Dying Art.
Last edited by Crusader : 06-21-2006 at 09:53 PM.
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06-21-2006, 10:06 PM
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#7 |
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Golden f*cking Sun!
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: L.A., Tuskegee, AL or Albany, GA depending on time of year.
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So, we went to war over 500 chemical munitions?
Overreaction FTW!
__________________
Investors Business Daily on Obama "death panel":
"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."
Needless to say, Hawking, who is recognized as one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20th and 21st century, was born in the UK and has lived his entire life there.
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06-21-2006, 10:47 PM
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#8 |
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CTU agent
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Quote:
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So, we went to war over 500 chemical munitions?
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And only 15 warheads caused 5000 deaths when Saddam used them in the 86! |
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06-21-2006, 10:48 PM
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#9 |
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Mr. Tambourine Man
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Australia
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How many times did I have to tell you guys that Hans Blix has the thinking capacity of a demented pony?
Nobody listened. And now I'm right again.
Anyway, I hope the extremists who doubted the honorable President Bush can find it within themselves to be honest for a change and apologize for three years of unrelenting hate and odium.
__________________
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06-21-2006, 10:58 PM
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#11 |
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Golden f*cking Sun!
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: L.A., Tuskegee, AL or Albany, GA depending on time of year.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Assman
And only 15 warheads caused 5000 deaths when Saddam used them in the 86!
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WHAT?! You're saying people were killed in an uprising against a government, and we have to go free them because they can't muster the military might to defeat their dictator?! Oh YEAH! We've got to save ALL the countries that have got the same thing going on to spread democracy even though the people we're srpeading it to people who hate us and our policy! Forget about the nuclear weapons the president said they had, or the fact he said they had the ablity to reach US shores! Just ignore those Downing Street Memos that clearly state our intentions to mislead the American people! Our failed theory of neo-conservatism is worth your son or daughter dying for!
__________________
Investors Business Daily on Obama "death panel":
"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."
Needless to say, Hawking, who is recognized as one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20th and 21st century, was born in the UK and has lived his entire life there.
Last edited by Game Guru : 06-22-2006 at 01:31 AM.
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06-21-2006, 11:06 PM
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 #13 |
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Like the Groundhog Phil.
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Punxsutawney, PA
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You don't let the world know that you've found chemical weapons in a country you can't control. Come on, guys.
Not everything they do in the White House is about PR. Some of it actually does involve national security.
__________________
What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?
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06-21-2006, 11:08 PM
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#14 |
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to jue
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: the "Employee of the Month" parking spot
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Democrats rock. Bush blows.
Can it get any simpler?
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06-21-2006, 11:12 PM
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#15 |
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Golden f*cking Sun!
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: L.A., Tuskegee, AL or Albany, GA depending on time of year.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Assman
And once again, Game Guru makes himself look like an idiot.
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WHAT! That guy Game Guru doesn't agree with you and the GOPs set talking points?! Treason! Treason!
And the downing street memos don't need to be proven. They already are. When the news media releases something, and it's not true, the person who would be affected by the untruth is supposed to come out and say, "Hey that's a fake document!". President Bush nor Tony Blair have done this. So the DSMs are obviously true. It's kinda the same thing with the warrantless wiretapping story. Bush hasn't said the wiretapping exists, but he isn't denying it either, with means it exists. And if the DSMs are true, Bush lied, plain and simple. Not that you NEED the DSMs to prove he lied...
__________________
Investors Business Daily on Obama "death panel":
"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."
Needless to say, Hawking, who is recognized as one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20th and 21st century, was born in the UK and has lived his entire life there.
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06-21-2006, 11:12 PM
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#16 |
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Needle Mouse
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Kansas City, MO
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Advance
Not everything they do in the White House is about PR. Some of it actually does involve national security.
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The American public has every right to know about these WMDs... If they found them that early own... we should have been notified right away. They were quick to show us reasons for going into Iraq but they weren't quick about telling us if they were right or not. |
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06-21-2006, 11:19 PM
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#17 |
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CTU agent
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Game Guru. I'm disagreeing with you on the fact that you said Saddam had nuclear weapons. You're wrong, and I provided the link.
And about the DSM:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/...20/105038.shtml
More:
Quote:
Robin Niblett, a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, says it would be easy for Americans to misunderstand the reference to intelligence being "fixed around" Iraq policy. " 'Fixed around' in British English means 'bolted on' rather than altered to fit the policy," he says. This view was seconded by the writer Christopher Hitchens. Others have dismissed this criticism, saying the British usage of the term is the same as in the U.S., and that the meaning of "fixed around" in the memo is clear from context.[67] Furthermore, the grammatical conjunction 'but' implies a contradiction which would only be grammatically correct if the phrase 'fixed around' was the American definition.
It has also been pointed by many observers that in the same exact memo, the mention of the possible use of WMD is discussed. Critics argue, this contradicts the purported “smoking gun” of the issue of WMDs being fabricated.
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Quote:
Michael Smith, the journalist who first reported on the Downing Street Memo, has said that he protected the identity of his source by photocopying the original and returning the original document to the source. The document was retyped from the photocopy, and the photocopy destroyed. This has led some to question the document's authenticity, but no official source has questioned it, and it has been unofficially confirmed to various news organizations, including the Washington Post, NBC, The Sunday Times and the LA Times. Several other documents obtained by Smith, and treated similarly (see below), were confirmed as genuine by the UK Foreign Office.[38] The retyping process certainly opens up the possibility of errors or mischief. It will be impossible to authenticate the contents of the copy by physical means. Because of this, the retyped copy would not be admissible in any court.
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Yeah. Let's destroy the real copy. 
Strike two, Game Guru. |
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06-21-2006, 11:20 PM
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#18 |
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Banned
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Land of the free, home of the brave
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man the downing street memo is as false a document as the bill burket "Bush guard story" memo, in that they are real only in the minds of deranged liberals.
i dont expect this to make a lick of difference to the extreme left. it wouldnt even make a difference if we found a nuke ready to launch aimed at NY city.
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06-21-2006, 11:27 PM
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#20 |
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Banned
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Land of the free, home of the brave
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that is f*ckin hilarious assman. i mean come on, how stupid does he think we are?
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