But what if the Bush administration was actually doing what the report assumes... that whole forward-looking thing. *GASP*!! It can't be true!

Well, you snooze you lose. I was going to write on this, but you beat me to it. But notice 2 things. Fox is the only one carrying it (CNN is stone cold), and the Libs have not commented yet. They are trying to figure out a response (i.e. how to lie out of it).

The left is already,working on their way to take away the find.. Now all you hear is.. oh they don't count, they were pre 1991 munitions, besides the chemicals were degraded, 3 of them had rust spots, and and and a few were dusty. anything that makes Bush right just drives the left up a freakin wall.

I don't think Bush'd want to talk it up too much though - the weapons were inactive, as in dead. They couldn't be used and had probably been forgotten. Relics of Bush snr's sterling diplomatic efforts in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

Apparently the original poster of the words above also missed the part of the original article that made reference to the fact that these munitions were claimed (by Saddam) to have been destroyed, as in non-existent, not available, gone, no longer possible to be used in any way, shape or form.

I guess that poster doesn't have a problem with the fact that Saddam lied, and this is further proof of it. Perhaps original poster of the quote here is more interested in running around screaming Bush Lied, soldiers died.

Uh, not quite. Hoekstra said the report, completed in April but only declassified now,

Fine. But I do remember one of you writing about a shell found in Iraq that had a small reservoir of degraded sarin gas.

Apparently the original poster of the words above also missed the part of the original article that made reference to the fact that these munitions were claimed (by Saddam) to have been destroyed, as in non-existent, not available, gone, no longer possible to be used in any way, shape or form.

I do have a name you know. Why is it important anyway? It's not like he was lying about anything he could use.

The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives and environmental storage consitions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal

You honestly think they could have loaded that stuff into a rocket, fired it into Jerusalem and caused significant damage with it? How? The Defence Department doesn't agree with you that it was a weaponised WMD:

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

Or perhaps you have better sources than the US government as members of your fictional right-wing conspiracy.

You honestly think they could have loaded that stuff into a rocket, fired it into Jerusalem and caused significant damage with it? How? The Defence Department doesn't agree with you that it was a weaponised WMD:

Regardless of your name, in addition to the question posed to you above, how about thinking about what could be done with any of the materials that were found if someone actually cared to try to put it to use.

Not weaponised does not at all mean "not useful", and "not potent." It means that some analysts felt it wasn't an immediate threat, or wasn't in a form that would make it convenient for delivery against an enemy.

Give that pile of supposedly non-existent munitions to a terrorist and let them start spreading it around in any means they choose to use. Perhaps in a crowded shopping mall? Maybe in a work place by tainting bottles of water that would be used for water coolers.

It's been downplayed because it wasn't a huge pile loaded into rockets pointed at Israel, Qatar, or perhaps Saudi Arabia. Again, none of which means it's not an important find, and none of which means it wasn't a threat to U.S. or allied interests.

Sorry Terp, I didn't see yours when I posted mine...

No worries at all, plenty of room to go around and get the news out, especially since the MSM continues to ignore the story (since it might possibly be considered "good" news for Bush and the GOP theres no way they can help legitimize the report and bring any dishonor to the liberal/democrat cause(s)).

But I totally agree, this "no WMD in Iraq" farce has gone on long enough. I also cited a Greenpeace mission which recovered a hunk of yellowcake the size of a car. I even included a picture of it. WMD were in Iraq. WMD continues to be in Iraq. Chemical and nuclear programs existed until Saddam ran to his spider hole. It's just that simple.

Very true. As noted above, just because it wasn't on the top of a rocket aimed at us doesn't mean it was not a threat. If it really wasn't there, and really wasn't of value, then why save it at all? Why bury it and hide it from inspectors and claim it was all gone? Even if it had absolutely no use and was completely harmless, it wasn't destroyed because Saddam continued to try to game the inspections and claim he had nothing in country when he was hoping all along to get rid of the inspections and restart business as usual.

Not weaponised does not at all mean "not useful", and "not potent." It means that some analysts felt it wasn't an immediate threat, or wasn't in a form that would make it convenient for delivery against an enemy.

I would argue though that that shell does not qualify as capable of mass destruction. Oh, and I think yellowcake is the ore isn't it? It probably needs some refining before it's usable.

simple question cacto, would you want to be less than 10 feet away from a degraded sarin gas munitions shell when it went boom?

So 10 feet is now the minimum blast radius for a weapon to be considered a WMD? Well, I think it's about time we banned grenades, tank shells, rockets, artillery of all kinds and nearly every weapon mounted on a ship or aircraft. There's a difference, Mod, between a weapon of mass destruction and an artillery shell that contains chemical agents. One, for example, is a weapon of mass destruction.

Also it is safe to conclude that the Mustard Gas shells found after the war are still in high quality and highly effective Chemical weapons.

So what? An artillery shell does not a weapon of mass destruction make. When will you figure this out? Chemical does not always equal mass destruction. There needs to be a significant capability for widespread destruction first. Causing a painful death for those nearby is not enough; cluster bombs can cause a painful death, and so do landmines, and the US isn't banning them.

I would direct their attention to Tokyo a few years ago. Seems that weapon was pretty effective, and it was not even delivered in an artillery shell (which can easily be fitted on a rocket with modest effort).

I don't know what to say. No one, anywhere, has to my knowledge claimed the Sarin gas attack to be a WMD strike, and for good reason. The Japanese people are the only ones in the world who know what it's like to be hit by WMDs. They're not about to consider some poxy chemical weapon as an WMD when it's incapable of mass destruction. It's just a banned chemical weapon.

You need to get your definitions in order.

WMDs are NBC

Okay, now I see the problem. I've only ever viewed WMDs as weapons capable of widespread, massive destruction - the razing of a city, the poisoning of millions, the destruction of an entire region's crops. You would consider a needle loaded with HIV-infected blood or anthrax a weapon of mass destruction (It's a biological weapon after all).

That's fine. I won't bother to take your claims seriously from now on then on this issue. We have seriously different concepts of 'mass destruction' and I would hazard a guess that they're entirely irreconcilable.