Iraq is falling

[GIThruster]

ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) terrorists have seized and gained control of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) that were stockpiled by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

We’ve been told by the Democrat Media Complex that WMDs didn’t exist in Iraq, and that George W. Bush started the war against Saddam Hussein based on that false assumption.

Pelosi, for example, said that, “Bush led us into the war on the basis of unproven assertions.” And, let us not forget the moronic Democrat Party meme, “Bush lied, Americans died.”

How could the ISIS terrorists have taken over Saddam’s WMD facility if WMD’s never existed?

Like it or not, George W. Bush has now officially and forever been completely vindicated.

Although numerous Democrats, including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and others, claimed from 1998 through 2002 that Hussein had WMDs, they labeled President George W. Bush a liar after the war in Iraq began for having made similar statements, despite the fact that the Democrats overwhelmingly voted for the war.

Every Democrat, including Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Wasserman-Shultz, who called George W. Bush a liar and every other hateful name in the book, including every MSNBC host, owes him a huge apology.

The UK Telegraph reports on this seizure of WMDs in Iraq.


Isis jihadists have seized a chemical weapons facility built by Saddam Hussein which contains a stockpile of old weapons, State Department officials have told the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. officials don’t believe the Sunni militants will be able to create a functional chemical weapon from the material. The weapons stockpiled at the Al Muthanna complex are old, contaminated and hard to move, officials said.

Nonetheless, the capture of the chemical-weapon stockpile by the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS or ISIL, the militant group that is seizing territory in the country, has grabbed the attention of the U.S.

“We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a written statement. “We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials.”

They continued with reporting on Saddam Hussein’s history of using these weapons.


The remaining chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein’s regime are stored in two sealed bunkers, both located at the Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex, a large site in the western desert some 80km north west of Baghdad.

This was the principal manufacturing plant for both chemical agents and munitions during Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons were produced, stored and deployed by the Saddam Hussein regime. Iraq used these weapons during the Iran – Iraq War (1980 to 1988) and against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

The chemical weapons that were seized from the facility include mustard gas, Sarin, Tabun, and VX.

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/06/20/bush-vin ... acilities/

http://online.wsj.com/articles/sunni-ex ... 1403190600

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/06/148934- ... -iraq-war/

[Skipjack]

But these WMDs are all old, they were already useless in 2003, because they were essentially already decomposing!!

[GIThruster]

If they're too dangerous to move, they're still dangerous.

Face it, the press lied about this issue for more than a decade and now the truth is out.

I would remind you that the US stockpile of VX and Sarin is likewise sitting because no one wants to risk moving it. That does not make it a serious threat. It is a serious threat and anyone who would make the argument that the US has no chemical WMD's would be instantly roasted for their deceit.

Also note, we didn't give Saddam these weapons. He made them himself. Looks like we must have given him the recipe however, since I think VX is a uniquely American abomination.

[Skipjack]

If they're too dangerous to move, they're still dangerous.

Face it, the press lied about this issue for more than a decade and now the truth is out.

I would remind you that the US stockpile of VX and Sarin is likewise sitting because no one wants to risk moving it. That does not make it a serious threat. It is a serious threat and anyone who would make the argument that the US has no chemical WMD's would be instantly roasted for their deceit.

Also note, we didn't give Saddam these weapons. He made them himself. Looks like we must have given him the recipe however, since I think VX is a uniquely American abomination.

Ok, you don't seem to understand the difference between "dangerous to adversaries" and "dangerous to those handling them".
I guess the reason why they are still sitting in this stockpile is because they were too dangerous to move or otherwise dispose of.

[choff]

Hopefully ISIS will have a few internal accidents handling them, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

[hanelyp]

By my understanding of the mentality behind ISIS, killing a few of their own soldiers to make a big attack won't make them hesitate. Impossibility of moving the chemical materials "safely" won't stop them. They don't have a civilized view of the value of human life, even their own.

[Diogenes]

Of course I know that you choose to ignore Iraqi nuclear program scientists that came forward and handed over weapons program materials and knowhow they were order to sit on by Saddam as well.

Again, Skipjack is an idiot.


U.S. Helps Remove Uranium From Iraq

American military personnel helped move about 600 tons of uranium in the form called yellowcake. It had been stored at Tuwaitha, an installation 12 miles south of Baghdad, which had been the site of Iraq’s nuclear program.

This was not the first time that the United States intervened to remove potentially harmful nuclear material from Iraq. Just a few days before the Americans formally transferred sovereignty back to Iraq in June 2004, they removed 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium, as well as other radioactive sources, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/world ... 7iraq.html

[GIThruster]

When you target civilians and use suicide bombers, it doesn't matter at all the stuff you're handling might go boom. This find is a big deal, and its a big deal that Bush took the shit for finding no WMD's for more than a decade, knowing full well about this facility but unable to say anything about it for fear of advertising it to the bad guys. My respect for him just went way up.

[Skipjack]

Of course I know that you choose to ignore Iraqi nuclear program scientists that came forward and handed over weapons program materials and knowhow they were order to sit on by Saddam as well.

Again, Skipjack is an idiot.


U.S. Helps Remove Uranium From Iraq

American military personnel helped move about 600 tons of uranium in the form called yellowcake. It had been stored at Tuwaitha, an installation 12 miles south of Baghdad, which had been the site of Iraq’s nuclear program.

This was not the first time that the United States intervened to remove potentially harmful nuclear material from Iraq. Just a few days before the Americans formally transferred sovereignty back to Iraq in June 2004, they removed 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium, as well as other radioactive sources, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/world ... 7iraq.html

Its yellowcake! So what? We all knew that Iraq had a nuclear program at some point. That is NO NEWS. It was long abandoned in 2003. The yellow cake is left over from that. That does not mean it had a nuclear weapons program in 2003!
Geeze, people! You guys have no idea what you are talking about!
Plus the article is from 2008. Oh man! You guys are so far gone, it is beyond helping!

[ladajo]

2008 is the point Skippy.

It was long abandoned in 2003

And no the program was not abandoned. See above mentioned yellow cake.
See numerous references to Iraqi nulcear scientists that had been ordered to go into stasis and hiding with material, equipment and documentation. You know, ones that did not come out of hiding until after the fall of Saddam.

If Saddam had abandoned his program he would not have undeclared and undocumented scientists, material, equipment and supporting documentation.

You are myopic and also stubborn to admit that you were/are wrong about the extent and intent of Saddam and his WMD programs.

And what, no comment on how France, Germany and others were supporting and willing to support further the war?
So much for your vaunted elite more intelligent and humane politicians. They are liars and cheats. Surprise!

[paperburn1]

Don't waste your time, Skippy would say the sky is green if that's what his buddy's told him.

[choff]

Putin and Russia have come out in support of the embattled Iraqi government.

Russia backs Iraq government.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-2 ... er-scorned

And of course Russia: because while Putin clearly benefits from rising crude prices, it is his Lukoil that is developing (and investing vast amounts of money in) the vast Iraqi West Qurna-2 oil field. It is not clear how he would feel about it falling into ISIS hands

[williatw]

Why the Iraqi army can't defeat ISIS

The math seems so simple. The Iraqi army has 250,000 troops; its enemies, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), somewhere around 7,000. The Iraqi army has tanks, planes, and American training. ISIS has never fielded a tank or a plane and its troops didn't get formal training from an advanced military. Yet ISIS is demolishing the Iraqi army on the battlefield, seizing a massive swath of the country's northwest. Why?
It comes down to two things: training and professionalism. ISIS learned how to fight, while the Iraqi army has long been a weak fighting force. All the weapons in the world won't matter if you don't know how to wield them. And ISIS's victories, not to mention the Iraqi army's repeated failures, tell you a lot about the country's larger crisis.

The Iraqi army has never been disciplined

In Mosul, Iraq's second most populous city, about 800 ISIS fighters invaded and sent 30,000 Iraqi army troops running. That's been portrayed as a sudden collapse of the Iraqi army, but that's not quite right. "The Iraqi army has been collapsing for months now," Yasser Abbas told me.
Abbas, originally from Baghdad, is an analyst at the private research and consulting firm Caerus Associates. Before that, he served as a linguist in for the military in Iraq from 2005 to 2009. "At the end of 2006, I was involved in training the Iraqi national police in Baghdad," he said. "The amount of corruption and under-training was [astounding] ... insubordination became widespread."

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/20/5824480/wh ... efeat-isis

[choff]

ISIS has western training and western backing, they were used to create the pretext for attacking Syria, now they're being used to carve up Iraq into Bankster dominated dependencies.

They are succeeding because the fix is in, no other way.

[williatw]

ISIS has western training and western backing, they were used to create the pretext for attacking Syria, now they're being used to carve up Iraq into Bankster dominated dependencies.

They are succeeding because the fix is in, no other way.

That doesn't explain how the Bush administration's trained & financed rebuilt Iraqi Army apparently couldn't beat the Salvation Army. Of course Paul Bremer (and the Bush administration's) decision to completely disband the Iraqi Army back in 2003, producing the impetus for the insurgency (all those unemployed disaffected Sunni young men); necessitating the need eventually for the famous Surge didn't help matters. We are out now, we should stay out.