This can't be good.

[DanISSELisdaman]

http://video.foxnews.com/v/3840333545001/new-york-times-chemical-weapons-now-in-isis-hands/?intcmp=latestnews#sp=show-clips

[CitizenBBN]

Yeah, those chemical weapons Saddam didn't have, that never got stashed or moved to Syria. Uh huh.

Bush II not looking quite so wrong these days. Apparently we even found them when we were there, we just didn't own up to it. They weren't new, but clearly he had chemical weapons, and goodness knows what may have gotten moved to Syria.

ISIS is now heavily armed, with the weapons we left the Iraqis, that were never fired and only dropped once, plus everything they have picked up from Saddam's old days and Syrian stockpiles. Nothing like a bunch of crazy bloodthirsty lunatics with heavy weapons.

[suncat05]

Not only that, but now it appears that we may have had some credible intelligence. I guess there was a "smidgeon" of truth in what we told the world about Saddam and his WMD? Who'd a thunk it? :533:

[DanISSELisdaman]

I'm thinking Israel may be feeling even more like a bullseye since ISIS is armed with these weapons. ISIS is just stupid enough to send a missile armed with a chemical warhead their way, and you know what that would trigger. If they need the missile to carry it, I'm sure Iran will be glad to furnish it.

[suncat05]

I know some of you guys may not agree with me on this thought, but Iran is the home of almost all of these Mid East problem children.
And when they do attack Israel, and they will, that is a given, the Israelis will unleash hell on them. It's coming, just a matter of when.

[UKHistory]

The Times article said that the Bush administration must have felt embarrassed that the WMDs found were made by the West including the US prior to Gulf War I. While we thought those WMDs were gone or not usable--we were wrong.

Gulf War II was poorly conceived and poorly prosecuted early and late. Horrible situation to think that ISIS has access to these weapons. And with the US and Israeli relations not the best, the US sure won't be able to keep Israel from responding in kind.

[jazyd]

There was a report during the war that some had been found, used on Kurds but the media ignored it. Also remember the caravan of covered trucks leaving Iraq right before we went in that headed to Syria
It doesn't take much to hide these, remember the Libyan who had chemical weapons under his rose bushes that their former dictAtor had citizens hide?
Bush was correct. He just had a low life top general leading the way who turned on him and supported Obama

[suncat05]

Why in the world would the Bush II team be embarrassed about finding those weapons? And even though some of them may have been American made and sanctioned at one time previously, why not be truthful about it and just disclose it?
Telling the American people the truth goes a longer way towards getting their support than lying to them does. But I guess that's just what politicians do. Just like convicts, if their lips are moving they're lying. And it doesn't matter which side of the aisle they're on.
Those weapons should have been seized and properly disposed of. So, in my mind, somebody dropped the ball big time. Bury that stuff in the desert? Who's bright idea was that? What moron thought that was a good idea? And now the bad guys have those weapons. That's just brilliant. Was there no thought as to what happens if somebody else finds this stuff? And since it was buried in the sand, obviously somebody had to have known where this stuff was.........and were any Iraqi's involved, and if so, WHO?
I still believe Bush II was right about the WMD's, but it looks more and more like some of his supporting cast in this were almost as dumb & inept as the current POTUS's advisers. Where do you find idiots like this that make a living fouling things up so badly that it looks like a Shakespearean comedy?

[KeithKSR]

The finding of WMDs were reported during the Bush administration, but few media sources carried the info and they quit reporting them being found.

[UKHistory]

I am going by the New York Times article that detailed this story. The why I can't guess except for the fact that the only chemical weapons left in the country were the one that the US and the West had helped them put together. It new chemical weapons but old ones we helped them get.

Based on the interviews of the soldiers affected the soldiers exposed to sarin and mustard gas initially received poor treatment from the med staff and again going on the account relayed in the paper soldiers were being told to not tell their comrades about the possibility of being exposed to these old chemical weapons. That meant that other units would not be prepared for the possibility of being exposed to chemical rounds as opposed to general ordinance.

A lot of people are quoted in the article as saying that the were not aware of these weapons.


Why in the world would the Bush II team be embarrassed about finding those weapons? And even though some of them may have been American made and sanctioned at one time previously, why not be truthful about it and just disclose it?
Telling the American people the truth goes a longer way towards getting their support than lying to them does. But I guess that's just what politicians do. Just like convicts, if their lips are moving they're lying. And it doesn't matter which side of the aisle they're on.
Those weapons should have been seized and properly disposed of. So, in my mind, somebody dropped the ball big time. Bury that stuff in the desert? Who's bright idea was that? What moron thought that was a good idea? And now the bad guys have those weapons. That's just brilliant. Was there no thought as to what happens if somebody else finds this stuff? And since it was buried in the sand, obviously somebody had to have known where this stuff was.........and were any Iraqi's involved, and if so, WHO?
I still believe Bush II was right about the WMD's, but it looks more and more like some of his supporting cast in this were almost as dumb & inept as the current POTUS's advisers. Where do you find idiots like this that make a living fouling things up so badly that it looks like a Shakespearean comedy?

[suncat05]

History.........does it really make any difference if it's an OLD weapon or a NEW weapon? It's all made to do the same thing, kill people. It doesn't matter WHO it kills, as long as when it's released that it does what it's supposed to do.
I mean, I'm not trying to split hairs here, but either way we were lied to about the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq. It doesn't matter for squat if the stuff was ours, or Soviet, or Chinese, or Martian.

[kingcat]

http://www.real-english.com/reo/42/images/hopeless.jpg

"We are not awake of this I am certain..yet me thinks I have not the patience to endure a paradigm shift"

http://inlandpolitics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Elections.jpg
"Now..let's see, what did they tell me to do again?"

[DanISSELisdaman]

I think someone in the Pentagon was covering things to make Bush look worse than he was. With all the heat he (Bush) was taking, he would have wanted them to report it if they found a slingshot, so I'm pretty sure he had nothing to do with the cover-up.

[DanISSELisdaman]

There was a report during the war that some had been found, used on Kurds but the media ignored it. Also remember the caravan of covered trucks leaving Iraq right before we went in that headed to Syria
It doesn't take much to hide these, remember the Libyan who had chemical weapons under his rose bushes that their former dictAtor had citizens hide?
Bush was correct. He just had a low life top general leading the way who turned on him and supported Obama

I'm sure the weapons that left Iraq for Syria were higher grade than what was left behind and there's a very good chance that some of them will fall into the hands of ISIS if it's not already happened. I will always think France, Russia and probably China had been supplying Saddam with WMD'S. I think that's why they fought so hard to keep the US from invading them. They wanted time to get the evidence out of the country and it worked.

[Doc]

History.........does it really make any difference if it's an OLD weapon or a NEW weapon? It's all made to do the same thing, kill people. It doesn't matter WHO it kills, as long as when it's released that it does what it's supposed to do.
I mean, I'm not trying to split hairs here, but either way we were lied to about the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq. It doesn't matter for squat if the stuff was ours, or Soviet, or Chinese, or Martian.

Only reason it makes a difference is political points where there is reference to justification for returning to Iraq by Bush II. In reality it does not matter because this is a different issue. This issue is that terrorists now are in possession of yet another weapon which can be used to bring harm to us. This weapon is actually one I'd be most fearful of as it the most likely to be used in this country on the citizens of this nation in a mass attack such as a subway gassing as was seen in London and these are just the people who would use it. Sarin, mustard, Ebola, etc are all the types of thing that I can see them using to strike massive panic across this country

[suncat05]

And let's not forget, the justification for the 2nd invasion of Iraq was because all of the then current intelligence, and not just U.S. intelligence, but British, French, German, Italian and Spanish intelligence ALL said he had WMD's. So we were not the ONLY country with that intelligence info. ALL of them could not have been wrong.
Saddam needed to go. Period. But the exit plan was a clusterbumble, heck, the rebuilding plan was too. We should have been paying more attention to Afghanistan, and making plans to deal with Tehran, which is in all reality Muslim Terrorist Central.

[dan_bgblue]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/17/dragon-egg-marines-who-guarded-saddam-mysterious-bunker-fear-weapons-unleashed/

[UKHistory]

The justification for invasion that Sadam had chemical weapons and that he was making it. My understanding was that the chemical weapons he had made, with US and Western assistance prior to Gulf War I was depleted or in operable. We went to war again based on him making more and disregarding the terms from the previous war.

I thought he was making new weapons and was not an opponent of going to war.

Based on what we are told, he was not making new but now it appears that he had plenty of the old. Unfortunately an even more pressing danger has them now.

Regardless of the reason, by ousting that dictator we left real power vacuum in the country and the region. We did not invade Iraq and occupy it with enough forces to stabilize once we got rid of Hussein. He was a bad guy who ran a horrible regime but he was your secular bad guy; a cruel thug but not a religious extremist.

The bottom line is once we were there we should have prepared our troops to hand handle chemical weapons and certainly not do anything that would have kept the incidents secret from other units who might have to dispose of such ordinance.

And slightly off topic for the greatest military power in the world, we can't train 3rd countries to fight worth crap. The Iraqui army just ran when they encountered ISIS. Why spend millions when guys are going to cut and run like Hell?

[suncat05]

No resolve. They have no stomach for real fighting, unless the enemy is Iran or Israel. But basically no resolve for fighting because they basically lived under Saddam's tyranny for so long that they can't figure out how to handle freedom or govern themselves without oversight from a guiding third party. They haven't "believed" in anything for decades now, just accepted life as it was under Saddam and whatever he said was considered as the word of law.
Another thing that keeps them from being free is their belief in this tribal system of hatred from since before Biblical times. How can these guys come together to govern themselves as one nation when Sunnis hate Shia's who hate Kurds who hate Sunnis who hate Kurds...........it's just a giant cyclic hatefest that hasn't and will never end. That kind of stupidity is rooted in ignorance which again, will never end. But Saddam did at least keep all of that in check, most of the time, albeit at the business end of an AK-47.
And now you have ISIS, the new Nazis on the block. Nice mess, huh? And we have the weakest President to ever occupy the White House that has no resolve or stomach to do what's right by America in this whole stinking mess.
And no one in any American leadership position has a clue how to deal with the Persians.

[CitizenBBN]

Based on what we are told, he was not making new but now it appears that he had plenty of the old. Unfortunately an even more pressing danger has them now.

Regardless of the reason, by ousting that dictator we left real power vacuum in the country and the region. We did not invade Iraq and occupy it with enough forces to stabilize once we got rid of Hussein. He was a bad guy who ran a horrible regime but he was your secular bad guy; a cruel thug but not a religious extremist.


I think that's the crux of it. They were right about Saddam having chem weapons, but wrong about why.

Our mistake was trying to bring democracy to a region not ready for it. We would have been better served to install a new power regime and use our influence to keep it from becoming excessively repressive, but with dictatorial enough powers to keep extremists in check.

That's an ugly approach, but a far more practical one. I think we can see what happens when you hand democracy to people who don't value it nearly as much as they value fighting to rule as dictator.

Oh, and we leave troops there to insure they behave and that our influence isn't usurped by other nations, and we get a good deal on oil.

It would have provided stability to the region and created the hegemony we need against Iran. Israel would have little to fear, Syria would be isolated, and the Saudis and Kuwaitis and OAE states would be both more stable but also more easily pressured by us.

[UKHistory]

There is a tight rope to walk. We would have been better served to install a new power regime and use our influence to keep it from becoming excessively repressive, but with dictatorial enough powers to keep extremists in check.

If you can map that out, the CIA and NSA will hire you as a consultant that will put you on easy street. I don't mean to be flippant that is such a delicate balance to create. Benevolent dictators are more fantasy than historial fact. Tyrants rule through tyranny. To show mercy or humanity is to give people hope and show a weakness that can be exploited by your enemies.

They don't get democracy over there. We have enough trouble with it balancing the majority rules while still offering protections to the "loyal opposition".

If you open the door to liberty a little, the people have a habit of pushing it all the way open. We didn't put enough troops into Iraq to stabilize the country. You can beat a weak army with high tech weapons but to secure a country you need troops on every block and troops need not just armored cars but more importantly tanks on every right next to them.

We didn't have the right people or enough people to implement such a government. Capitalism and democracy don't go hand in hand necessarily and they are not automatically going to mirror a Western or an English rule of law sensibility. And a true nationalist government that values democracy is not an easy partner to work with as countries tend to want to do what is in their own best interests.

The idea to view the Bathist (spelling) leadership as Nazis and remove them from power was noble but poorly conceived.

In 1991 I wondered if we were celebrating too early by stopping the carnage and not going onto to Baghdad. By declaring the war over when we did we minimized US casualties and thanks to James Baker, actually made a financial profit. Our invovlement was bankrolled by Saudia Arabia and Japan.

Gulf War II shows what happens when you go all the way and take a country and then don't know what to do with it. Occupying Germany and Italy was much easier than this. Those are European cultures we could relate to more easily. By keeping the Emperor in power we secured peace and little to no resistance when the war in the Pacific was over. MacArthur wrote a constitution that made sense for the Japanese and made proper reforms--including allowing women the right to vote.

This is far more difficult.



I think that's the crux of it. They were right about Saddam having chem weapons, but wrong about why.

Our mistake was trying to bring democracy to a region not ready for it. We would have been better served to install a new power regime and use our influence to keep it from becoming excessively repressive, but with dictatorial enough powers to keep extremists in check.

That's an ugly approach, but a far more practical one. I think we can see what happens when you hand democracy to people who don't value it nearly as much as they value fighting to rule as dictator.

Oh, and we leave troops there to insure they behave and that our influence isn't usurped by other nations, and we get a good deal on oil.

It would have provided stability to the region and created the hegemony we need against Iran. Israel would have little to fear, Syria would be isolated, and the Saudis and Kuwaitis and OAE states would be both more stable but also more easily pressured by us.

[CitizenBBN]

History I'd go so far as to concede that finding that balance for very long is completely impossible.

I think you err on the side of a stable regime and accept there will be what we consider to be excesses. A good example of a place that worked well is Egypt. From Nassar to Sadat to Mubarek we supported a leader who was definitely a dictator, who arrested people simply for opposing the government. So they were repressive, controlled the media, etc., but overall the nation was stable and even a major tourist destination.

It's a mixed bag, but it begins with the simple premise that we aren't going to install democracy in these place either by the point of a gun or by handing out flowers. They'll get to democracy in their own time, the best we can hope to do is maintain influence to keep there from being constant civil war and madman level oppression.

not easy, but we've done it more often than people think IMO. Egypt since Nassar switched to the west, we struck a deal with the House of Saud in 1945 that has worked, also Kuwait. Even in Iran, where the Shah maintained power for 40 years. It comes back to bite us too, as in Iran, but the alternatives are to pursue the Obama policy of isolationist withdrawal (and that hasn't worked out well for people there at all) or trying to put in governments doomed to fail.

it's a no win proposition. In the end the only way to have stability and prosperity in a place is for the people to demand it and fight for it and protect it. It's not up to us, we can just dance around the edges and make the best situation for us and them we can.