Fox news knows the truth before anyone else . . .

June 21, 2006 5:25 PM

WMDs? Sorry if this is double post or newsfilter, but fox news is claiming that WMDs were found in Iraq. Is it ethical to state as truth that which was been unconfirmed by anyone but one person? Depending on how this pans out, this could continue the shift of approval that started last week.
posted by klik99 (111 comments total)

The "source" is Rick Santorum. Let me know when someone credible has something to say.
posted by Nelson at 5:28 PM on June 21, 2006

According to your links, they're reporting only that Santorum is saying it, not that it's true. Or am I missing the part where they're saying that he's correct?
posted by JekPorkins at 5:31 PM on June 21, 2006

If the find was genuine, Bush would have held a press conference tonight and interrupted So You Think You Can Dance to do a jig of his own. I'm confident that our nation's entertainment feeding tube will remain plugged in.
posted by Mr. Six at 5:32 PM on June 21, 2006

More importanty the WMDs in question are "pre-Gulf War chemical munitions", which have long since past their sell-by date.

In fact, these would be the same chemical weapons that we sold to Iraq in the 80s.
posted by tkolar at 5:33 PM on June 21, 2006 [2 favorites]

Well, a homeless dude was muttering something about the economy turning a corner, thanks to his awesome tax cut, and a disabled veteran said he'd learned the value of self-reliance thanks to cuts at the VA! I'm with klik99 - sunny days are ahead, now that the mission's been accomplished!
posted by swell at 5:36 PM on June 21, 2006

If Rick Santorum says so, it must be false.
posted by birdherder at 5:36 PM on June 21, 2006

Rick Santorum once sodomized me. He was loving and gentle. I enjoyed it.
posted by xmutex at 5:38 PM on June 21, 2006

Ali G: If you had evidence that Saddam had these BLTs in his house, would you have said yes, attack?

Pat Buchanan: Not unless he had, if he had anthrax, if had mustard gas...

Ali G: Whatever he put in them.

Pat Buchanan: No, no, if he had mustard gas, no.

Ali G: Let's say if he didn't have mustard and the BLTs just was plain, would you go in there then?

Pat Buchanan: No.

Ali G: Is it ever worth fighting a war over sandwiches?

Pat Buchanan: Is it ever worth fighting a war? Yes.

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2004/07/fighting_a_war.html

(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)
posted by Alexandros at 5:38 PM on June 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

You can always trust the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that sometimes resutls from anal sex.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:44 PM on June 21, 2006

They apparently found several hundred barrels of some noxious frothy mixture.
posted by loquacious at 5:45 PM on June 21, 2006

The Fox part is one line at the end of a Think Progress post, where they say Fox News is reporting what Santorum says. Stop trying to manufacture posts.
posted by smackfu at 5:47 PM on June 21, 2006

They apparently found several hundred barrels of some noxious frothy mixture.

They found Saddam's secret stash of Guinness?
posted by QuestionableSwami at 5:51 PM on June 21, 2006

I think the point is - they found something, but not near what they expected to.

Although I doubt we still know 100% of the story.
posted by b_thinky at 5:53 PM on June 21, 2006

Santorum is a person?
posted by Artw at 5:53 PM on June 21, 2006

they found something

...a fat lot of fuck all?
posted by Artw at 5:53 PM on June 21, 2006

They found Saddam's secret stash of Guinness?

It resembles Guiness, yes.
posted by loquacious at 5:55 PM on June 21, 2006

"Is it ethical to state as truth that which was been unconfirmed by anyone but one person?"

For these jackasses? Sure.

For the rest of humanity, of course not.
posted by zoogleplex at 5:58 PM on June 21, 2006

Alexandros: Thank you.
posted by twiggy at 5:59 PM on June 21, 2006

smackfu: The Fox part is one line at the end of a Think Progress post, where they say Fox News is reporting what Santorum says. Stop trying to manufacture posts.

Uh.. manufacture posts? Fox News is reporting this. Perhaps OP should have linked this story, but still...
posted by twiggy at 6:02 PM on June 21, 2006

Rasmussen Poll: Santorum 33% -- Casey JR 56%
Easy enough for me to understand:
Mashed-cauliflower-for-brains desperate for attention/any-press in hopes of spectacular comeback receives insane vision after watching NBA playoffs. Only prob is that he's down 3-0 with seconds left in the last quarter of the last game in which he is down by 7. Not much of a chance, but the desperate and idiotic will keep swimming anyway. Sharks circle. Olfactory nerves in high gear. Only a matter of time.
posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 6:03 PM on June 21, 2006

According to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, as of March 24, 2005, the United States has destroyed 11,216 tons of chemical weapons or 35% of the original stockpile of nearly 31,500 tons of nerve and mustard agents declared in 1997. Of the weapons destroyed, 500 tons was mustard gas and the majority was other agents such as VX and sarin (GB), of which 86% was destroyed by April 2006.[4]
posted by furtive at 6:07 PM on June 21, 2006

OH NO! SOME OLD AND DECAYING MUSTARD GAS SHELLS!

JEBUS H CHRIST SOMEBODY SAVE US!

Sans caps: even assuming this is true, how is this justification for going to war?
posted by Ryvar at 6:08 PM on June 21, 2006

Who's Saddam? Oh yeah--the guy who flew those Iraqi planes into the Twin Towers. He's dead.
posted by bardic at 6:17 PM on June 21, 2006

Saddam's insidious plan to destroy America

1) Lure all Americans to Iraq with promises of delicious cakes and pies.

2) Drop old canisters of mustard gas and sarin gas on them while they are eating the pies and cakes.

3) America defeated!

4) Save some pies and cakes for celebratory party with Al Queda. Save some old canisters for this party, too.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:19 PM on June 21, 2006

Uh.. manufacture posts? Fox News is reporting this.
Fox News is hardly credible
Fox's Slanted Sources.

Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War.

The Fox News Effect

posted by andywolf at 6:19 PM on June 21, 2006

To clear up some things that people said -

a) swell - I never said "mission accomplished", instead that there's been a trend towards more approval of the Iraq war in this last week. I never made a judgement on it.

b) I actually heard this on talk radio, this congressman came on and started saying about how it was gospel truth, and then I saw it on Fox News and they didn't mention that it was just proposed, they were saying it as if it were truth. I know most people here have too much congnitive dissonence to pay attention to the conservative media machine, but they are already speaking as if it is the truth.

This is the way the conservative machine works, and it must be coming up time for an election . . . I have heard this from 3 different places today and can find almost no information about it on the internet other than those few short articles.

Just to be snarky for a second - I haven't posted here for a while - these comments seem more fitting on fark than anything I remember . . .
posted by klik99 at 6:19 PM on June 21, 2006

Uh.. manufacture posts? Fox News is reporting this.

CNN has the story too. Why call out Fox News for it?
posted by smackfu at 6:20 PM on June 21, 2006

In fact, these would be the same chemical weapons that we sold to Iraq in the 80s.

Exactly, a far cry from the nuclear material Saddam was supposedly acquiring...
posted by j-urb at 6:20 PM on June 21, 2006

Fox News is hardly credible

It seems that what matters these days (or probably ever) is not how credible you are but rather how many people believe you are.
posted by klik99 at 6:21 PM on June 21, 2006

31k tons sounds like a lot, but it's the equivelant of 1 shipping container.

read in the new yorker the other day that there are 120,000 merchant ships at work today. american intel have estimated that al qaeda owns or controls as many as 50(!).

we went to iraq for one fucking container of nerve gas. meanwhile the perps of 9-11 and the terra mofo's are roaming the wide open seas with 50 merchant ships that can hold an exponential amount of containers!

way to go USA! go get those terras!
posted by oliver_crunk at 6:22 PM on June 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

If you claim Fox News says something, then link to Fox News.
posted by mischief at 6:22 PM on June 21, 2006

According to the Federation of American Scientists, stockpiles of Chemical Weapons have been found within the United States. In a press conference, President Bush assured his people that he will eradicate these evil doers with his very own mandated hands...like dry brush from a herd of shrubbery!
posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 6:26 PM on June 21, 2006

If Saddam had all these WMD's why didn't he use them to defend himself. I could never get the rationalization for Saddam to collect WMD's then when the time comes to actually defend himself he supposedly ships them off to another country, or buries them in the desert. That never quite made sense to me. Was Saddam enacting Isaiah 2:4, "and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
posted by Buck Eschaton at 6:29 PM on June 21, 2006

They found Saddam's secret stash of Guinness?

No, but they did find 2 tons of microwave burritos that could be processed into something nasty.
posted by clevershark at 6:32 PM on June 21, 2006

Does finding WMDs, years after the war was started, justify the war? The fact is that the Bush administration claimed they found WMDs, and they had not.

But it doesn't matter, because we sit here and complain about their lies, while the rest of America doesn't care.
posted by Titania at 6:36 PM on June 21, 2006

The Brits invented VX. The US used nerve gas in Vietnam. The US nuked Japan. Etc. Etc. Blah Blah Blah. A pile of dead Mustard gas tubes! Somebody poke Ricky in the eye, spin the shells in a circle with shifty hands, and lets move on. Besides, there's some good prison sex going on and all this flappy flappy about weapons-N-stuff is making me horny.
posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 6:38 PM on June 21, 2006

The US used more than nerve gas in Vietnam... Oh so much more.
posted by j-urb at 6:41 PM on June 21, 2006

Sorry, j-urb, I guess you didn't see those catagories under the etc. shells. My hands spin them quickly. And under the second "blah" lies a pile of tainted gummi bears we once dropped on unsuspecting kids at a rave in Barcelona.
posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 6:45 PM on June 21, 2006

but they are already speaking as if it is the truth.
This is the way the conservative machine works

It's the way that any group, conservative or otherwise, works. Neo-cons are just really, really good at making effective propaganda.
Argumentum ad nauseam: Uses tireless repetition. An idea once repeated enough times, is taken as the truth. Works best when media sources are limited and controlled by the propagator..

posted by andywolf at 6:47 PM on June 21, 2006

a) swell - I never said "mission accomplished", instead that there's been a trend towards more approval of the Iraq war in this last week. I never made a judgement on it.

I don't think that's actually the case. Do you have any polls that back up what you're saying?
posted by delmoi at 6:47 PM on June 21, 2006

of course, they are claiming this to counter the truly explosive info that Susskind has published and that Frontline is trying to tell the American ppl.

ditto with the information about deliberately targeting al jazeera, isn't this enough information to call for an independent investigation to see if we should remand the top people in the Bush admin for war crimes prosectutions...for crimes against humanity?

the wmd story is a firescreen.

I will proudly be wrong, but I fear I'm not.
posted by Unregistered User at 6:48 PM on June 21, 2006

Anyway, if it was really legit there is no way it would be Santorum anouncing it.
posted by delmoi at 6:49 PM on June 21, 2006

Hey, I hear Rove is about to be indicted, too.
posted by Jimbob at 6:50 PM on June 21, 2006

Ron Suskind: US deliberately bombed Al-Jazeera
posted by Unregistered User at 6:52 PM on June 21, 2006

I don't think that's actually the case. Do you have any polls that back up what you're saying?
posted by delmoi at 8:47 PM CST on June 21 [+fave] [!]

He doesn't, because there are none. Any increase will be in a one percentage point magnitude or less, easily covered by the margin of error. NEXT
posted by cellphone at 6:53 PM on June 21, 2006

isn't this enough information to call for an independent investigation to see if we should remand the top people in the Bush admin for war crimes prosectutions...for crimes against humanity?

That threshold was passed a long time ago. With a Republican majority in congress it won't happen. Democrats are probably too spineless to do that much even if they win control. Also, with Bush
renouncing the world court treaty not much can happen internationally.

posted by andywolf at 6:55 PM on June 21, 2006

We know that Saddam used gas on his Kurds--that is one of the reasons Bush gives for going to war. What has been found then is merely somne leftover stuff, if indeedeven that has b een found. I would be more interested in the story were anyone but Rick S. the news brin ger...He is a fool.
posted by Postroad at 7:07 PM on June 21, 2006

Oh, good thing we didn't cut and run, then.

I hope Santorum is sodomized when he goes to prison.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:07 PM on June 21, 2006

To be clear about my earlier comment:

The comment saying the original post was not manufactured was not meant at all to lend credibility to Fox News.

smackfu seemed to be snarking and saying the original poster was just looking for something to post, and was saying fox news reported it when all he could find was a reference to fox news reporting it in some other post.

I was just pointing out that fox news, while not linked in the original post, was, in fact, reporting it.

fox news can go to hell. twice.
posted by twiggy at 7:13 PM on June 21, 2006

Was any of this *anything that hadn't already been declared to UN inspection teams?
posted by Dipsomaniac at 7:21 PM on June 21, 2006

this just in: saddam had weapons of mass destruction all along! but since they weren't chemical (or gaseous? 'cuz explosives are "chemical") or biological, they were left unguarded!

now insurgents have them. santorum unphased.
posted by Hat Maui at 7:24 PM on June 21, 2006

"We have found over 500 weapons of mass destruction" = 500 "sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles". Can one projectile cause Mass Destruction, the whole language of this is off.
posted by RufusW at 7:25 PM on June 21, 2006

Wait, wait. Everyone is looking at this all wrong. The WMDs have been found! The whole reason for going to Iraq has been eliminated. There is no reason we can't just leave now.

Right?

fox news can go to hell. twice.

Amen.
posted by quin at 7:28 PM on June 21, 2006

There are a few old WMD laying around, you see they sort of fought a decade-long war with their neighbor using them. But let's not forget the verdict of our own government's Iraq Survey Group. NO WMD. and the UN Inspectors NO WMD.

One thing Santorum hasn't found, a plan to win Iraq. Why? NO PLAN TO WIN IRAQ.

Speaking of winning, how's little Ricky doing in his senate race.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:32 PM on June 21, 2006

Hmm, let's read the story, shall we?

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."

Wow. You mean we've known about these 500 shells from a time decades ago for two years? Stop the presses!!!!! Senator finds National Guard report showing old degraded WMD still sitting around in Iraq.

I love how the Christian News Service calls the official report of the U.S. Government on the matter the "so-called Duelfer report" to try and discredit it.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:39 PM on June 21, 2006

As of 10:44 p.m. this is the lead story on the Fox News Web site - can't find a thing about it on CNN or Yahoo News.

One wonders how many other "surprises" the GOP has up its sleeve as we count down to November. Certainly nice of them to let Tricky Ricky Santorum have this one, as a poll out today shows his approval rating is declining and Bob Casey Jr., his opponent, is up by 18 points, his biggest lead since October.

I'm half expecting a full-on terrorist attack, conveninently timed that Republicans maintain control of Congress.
posted by kgasmart at 7:48 PM on June 21, 2006

I'm half expecting a full-on terrorist attack, conveninently timed that Republicans maintain control of Congress.

I'm fully expecting a full-on attack timed to maintain control of the executive branch, since Congress has no balls to challenge the President's violations of the Constitution anyway.
posted by Mr. Six at 7:51 PM on June 21, 2006

why would they stoop to the dirty work of another terror attack when apparently they can just steal any election, and no one will ever care about it?
posted by donabean at 8:19 PM on June 21, 2006

"CNN has the story too."
At this point if John Gibson ate a turd live on the air, CNN would have Wolf Blitzer doing the backstroke through a lake of pigshit before the hour had passed.
posted by 2sheets at 8:28 PM on June 21, 2006

Rick Santorum once sodomized me. He was loving and gentle. I enjoyed it.

He's sodomized the entire state of Pennsylvania for the past 16 years.
posted by blucevalo at 8:45 PM on June 21, 2006

Meanwhile: 8 U.S. troops charged with murder
posted by Artw at 8:49 PM on June 21, 2006

Wow. There seems to be a lot of people doing backflips to discredit the sources and info before the facts are even known. There's a good chance it may not pan out, but given what we do know about Saddam's stockpiles it's not ridiculous.

Here's a good rundown of what we know so far. And yes, I know that's conservative blog, so you commence shredding the story needlessly.

Oh and here's a PDF of the letter outlining the declassification of WMD info from John Negroponte -- the original source of the info, not Santorum, so we can please stop talking about fecal matter, em kay?
posted by Heminator at 8:51 PM on June 21, 2006

Fox used their FOX NEWS ALERT to cover a Rick Santorum press conference. They seemed to be the only news outlet to do this.

They had this alert up for hours. John Gibson covered it. Bill O'Reilly demanded that liberals apologize and Sean Hannity dedicated a whole show to it. They even included a segment with Ann Coulter to discuss it.

Sean Hannity said this was one of the biggest developments of the war, hours after it was discredited by Fox News' own Jim Angle.

They found mustard gas shells dating back to before I was in kindergarten.

Thank god we don't have to worry about America being attacked by expired anti-Iranian mustard gas in rusty, leaking shells... I better get my WW1 era gas mask in case Saddam wants to set up some artillery guns on American soil.
posted by DougieZero1982 at 8:52 PM on June 21, 2006

I saw this on CNN's 'recently updated' RSS feed a few hours ago. It's a couple of desparate Republicans trying to make something of some old, rusty shells found in the desert:

Hundreds of old chemical shells found in Iraq, GOP lawmakers say

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two Republican lawmakers sought to reopen the debate on Iraq's weapons programs Wednesday, announcing that U.S. troops have found hundreds of aging chemical shells in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

Some of those shells contained "degraded" mustard and nerve gas components and could pose a threat to American troops in Iraq, said Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said the discoveries refute critics of the 3-year-old war, some of whom said during Senate debate on the conflict Tuesday that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The Pentagon said the weapons all dated from before the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and one official said most could no longer be used as designed.

But the man who completed the U.S. survey of weapons found in Iraq and a Democratic congresswoman agreed that the report cited by Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Santorum was old news. (Posted 7:29 p.m.)

Maybe if someone blew one of those old rusty shells off with some other artillery shell that would actually detonate, it would be worse than the gasoline + soap faux napalm the insurgents are currently using...but probably not.

It's soooo bogus. What? Was S.H. going to hand deliver these rusty munitions to your favorite US locale and detonate them with some other explosive? Some horse shit?

Hoekstra and Santorum are desparate men in desparate times.


posted by taosbat at 9:09 PM on June 21, 2006

I just read the new Washington Post Thursday article... hilarious stuff. The defense department has no idea what Santorum is talking about and this is old news.

Are you trying to tell me that Rick Santorum independaly had a press conference and announced WMD's had been found... Is he running for re-election or something?

No one thinks this is news... no yahoo headline, no drudge report... just Rick Santorum, Fox News and CNSnews.com.
posted by DougieZero1982 at 9:24 PM on June 21, 2006

we went to iraq for one fucking container of nerve gas.

Not even that. One shipping container of shells containing nerve gas. The actual amount of gas is going to be a small percentage of the total weight, even before you consider leakage. Most of it's metal & propellant, not payload.
posted by scalefree at 9:25 PM on June 21, 2006

Wow. There seems to be a lot of people doing backflips to discredit the sources and info before the facts are even known. There's a good chance it may not pan out, but given what we do know about Saddam's stockpiles it's not ridiculous.

If Bush hadn't lied about "Saddam's stockpiles" or lack thereof we wouldn't have been in Iraq to begin with.
posted by Mr. Six at 9:27 PM on June 21, 2006

Metafilter: these comments seem more fitting on fark

I'm wondering if anyone is going to ask them about it. Does anyone in government work actually have to produce anything anymore, deliver results, or is this "service" concept more than just the economy?
posted by Smedleyman at 9:28 PM on June 21, 2006

While we're talking about Saddam, this was an interesting article in Foreign Affairs about how he surrounded himself with lackeys and yesmen, ultimately leading to his downfall.

"Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians in 1987, was convinced Iraq no longer possessed WMD but claims that many within Iraq's ruling circle never stopped believing that the weapons still existed. Even at the highest echelons of the regime, when it came to WMD there was always some element of doubt about the truth. According to Chemical Ali, Saddam was asked about the weapons during a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Command Council. He replied that Iraq did not have WMD but flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration might encourage the Israelis to attack. [See Footnote #1 below]

"By late 2002, Saddam finally tilted toward trying to persuade the international community that Iraq was cooperating with UN inspectors and that it no longer had WMD programs. As 2002 drew to a close, his regime worked hard to counter anything that might be seen as supporting the coalition's assertion that WMD still remained in Iraq. Saddam was insistent that Iraq would give full access to UN inspectors "in order not to give President Bush any excuses to start a war." But after years of purposeful obfuscation, it was difficult to convince anyone that Iraq was not once again being economical with the truth."
posted by Hal Mumkin at 9:34 PM on June 21, 2006

PS.

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > POLITICS > U.S. SENATE

Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

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."

• Click here to read the declassified portion of the NGIC report.

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.

FOX News' Jim Angle and Sharon Kehnemui Liss contributed to this report.

Rock on:


posted by taosbat at 9:48 PM on June 21, 2006

"We are working on the declassification of the report."

Bullshit. After failing to distract the public with the immigration and gay marriage debacles, the GOP is feeling out this bit of propaganda with expendable Senators.
posted by Mr. Six at 10:10 PM on June 21, 2006

Drudge is now featuring 2 WMD articles at the top of his page.

Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq... (Fox News article)

Chemical weapons... (AFP article via Breitbart)

there's no siren, and the text isn't in red... which leads me to believe that even he doesn't really buy this BS.
posted by pruner at 10:14 PM on June 21, 2006

I doubt that the US Government can account for every American WMD ever manufactured.
posted by mischief at 10:15 PM on June 21, 2006

Don't know if anyone read down here or not... but, I was going to do an FPP with a different take on this subject. Peaceniks are eventually going to get caught with our pants down on this one. Why? Because their were chemical weapons in Iraq. It's indisputable. The entire reason we kept sanctions on Iraq is because Saddam stopped cooperating with inspectors sent to verify the destruction of remaining weapons and programs.

We've been making the wrong argument about the right issue's, which is exactly why we couldn't convince America not to go to war... right ideas, bad arguments. Over and over again. It's wasn't about "no blood for oil," it's about not intervening in religious tenderboxes with no exit strategy as per our historical failures during our most benevolent missions like Beruit and Mogadishu. (which is what we say now, but not 3 years ago. trust me. i was at the war marches. we can go through my old pictures to prove it.)

The fact was there were old weapons lying around and probably buried in the desert somewhere. They were useless though. They had shelf lives because they poorly made and stored in the worst possible enviroment and thus were ineffective sludge by around 1998. How do I know? Former CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR Scott Ritter has been saying this for years and years but we'd rather listen to the talking heads. The weapons existed, but they were never a threat.

/end rant about the decline of the Thoughtful Left.
posted by trinarian at 10:34 PM on June 21, 2006

oliver_crunk: 31k tons sounds like a lot, but it's the equivelant of 1 shipping container. ... we went to iraq for one fucking container of nerve gas.

furtive's quote on the 31,500 tons figure is referring to the US Army's gradual disposal of the US military's own stockpile of chemical weapons, not Iraq's. I think the point was to show that the US still posesses more nasty chemical weapons than Saddam ever dreamed of.

And I think you're confusing pounds and tons. A shipping container can hold about 60,000 pounds of something. 31,500 tons is 63,000,000 pounds. You'd need about 1,000 shipping containers to carry such a load.
posted by Western Infidels at 10:35 PM on June 21, 2006

"They found Saddam's secret stash of Guiness"

Brilliant !!
posted by onegoodmove at 10:36 PM on June 21, 2006

my apologies for the poor grammar.
posted by trinarian at 10:36 PM on June 21, 2006

Iraq Survey Group Final Report:

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

Here's the Washington Post story:

Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

The shit's been buried in the desert since 1988.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:12 PM on June 21, 2006

smackfu: CNN has the story too. Why call out Fox News for it?

As of this writing, CNN has a couple of dismissive paragraphs, buried low down on a page with several other miniature news-bites.

Fox is running it as the topmost story, right on the front page, with a longer article that largely serves as an uncritical megaphone for Santorum's nonsensical and scattershot talking points.
posted by Western Infidels at 11:19 PM on June 21, 2006

kirckaracha:

i don't know that the public knows this stuff has been found already and i doupt they'll understand the difference if the media lets a talking head play it up as november approaches. i'm just saying we've been toting the wrong bumper sticker line of "Iraq had no WMD." There real line was more nebulous, "Iraq was not a threat" but that took too much explaining. Bush IS a liar, but the lie was about current programs, not this "there never were any weapons" rubbish I hear everyday.
posted by trinarian at 11:19 PM on June 21, 2006

Election year bullshit from panicking conservatives.

Meanwhile, chickenhawks are so eager to walk their endless talk on The War on Terror, that the "U.S. Army, aiming to make its recruiting goals amid the Iraq war, raised its maximum enlistment age by another two years on Wednesday, while the Army Reserve predicted it will miss its recruiting target for a second straight year."
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 11:36 PM on June 21, 2006

Was any of this *anything that hadn't already been declared to UN inspection teams?
posted by Dipsomaniac at 7:21 PM PST on June 21 [+fave] [!]

Yes, it was stuff that had supposedly been destroyed. Most of the weapons were hidden, some amongst conventional weapons. I think the implication is the Iraqis did this intentionally so they could keep these weapons.

That's basically why this is news, though I don't think it's huge news (mainly because it's old news - I thought we'd heard this before).
posted by b_thinky at 11:51 PM on June 21, 2006

Iraq will relentlessly swallow the GOP. There will be little victories and distractions and big lies but eventually the death and destruction and sheer fatigue of it all will bring them down. The country is going to have a civil war. The right prays they make it past the midterm elections before it gets so bad that the only choice is to pull out. How many more Hadithas, how many more mutilated Marines and Soldiers, how many more market bombs and mosque bombs and kidnappings and assassinations will it take? There is a point of entropy on the horizon, and all the US treasury and all its soldiers will not be able to stop the disaster from unfolding. Eventually, the remaining Americans who support this war will come to realize they are being lied to. By then, it may be too late. It's already too late.

We live in the midst of a slow motion coup d'etat, in the United States of America. Damn depressing how easy it was for them to pull it off. But then, all revolutions have their cycles.
posted by fourcheesemac at 12:43 AM on June 22, 2006

Would it be news if it turned out that the WMDs were given to Iraq by the US in the first place in order to fight Iran?

That would be like a double-whammy of doom for the administration in the current environment.
posted by malthas at 4:20 AM on June 22, 2006

I doubt that the US Government can account for every American WMD ever manufactured.

Perfect example: anthrax.
posted by sonofsamiam at 5:04 AM on June 22, 2006

God, our leaders are pathetic. It's like the emperor so desperately want those clothes to be real.
posted by fungible at 6:20 AM on June 22, 2006

mischief: I doubt that the US Government can account for every American WMD ever manufactured.

Exactly. It seems to me that Saddam and his people actually deserve some congratulations for the job they did ridding themselves of WMDs. Sure, a few old pieces of junk were found. Possibly discarded/hidden by some lazy jackass that didn't feel like carting them off.

An army is a messed-up complex organization filled with mistakes. Some parts work mostly, some work barely. Some only appear to work. S.N.A.F.U. (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up).

Great post, if only to illustrate the kind of BS some politicians and media will foist on the American people.
posted by Goofyy at 7:08 AM on June 22, 2006

No, but they did find 2 tons of microwave burritos that could be processed into something nasty.
posted by clevershark at 8:32 PM CST on June 21

Methane?
posted by ninjew at 7:12 AM on June 22, 2006

C & L: Santorum debunked over WMD's by FOX NEWS
posted by taosbat at 7:43 AM on June 22, 2006

though I don't think it's huge news (mainly because it's old news

You did notice, didn't you, that "old news" is an oxymoron?

A more accurate term for "old news" is "not news."
posted by soyjoy at 7:47 AM on June 22, 2006

FOX News Debunks Santorum's WMD Claim -- more from Truthdig.

I find FOX News as distasteful as the next fellow, but it seems as though in this case they've made good, sort of.
posted by illovich at 8:12 AM on June 22, 2006

I find FOX News as distasteful as the next fellow, but it seems as though in this case they've made good, sort of.

It's still a huge headline on their website's front page:



It's nice that this "revelation" doesn't seem to be breaking into Yahoo's Most Popular, and Drudge isn't carrying it right now, but Fox is probably counting on a certain amount of people seeing that headline and not investigating it any further.

A year from now, when a sizeable percentage of Americans are polled and shown to believe that we found those weapons of mass destruction, this will be why.
posted by interrobang at 8:52 AM on June 22, 2006

A year from now, when a sizeable percentage of Americans are polled and shown to believe that we found those weapons of mass destruction, this will be why.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner....
posted by tkolar at 9:00 AM on June 22, 2006

Peaceniks are eventually going to get caught with our pants down on this one. Why?

Wait, let me guess. Because 250,000 Iraqis who were supposed to be bringing American troops bouquets of flowers, and a couple of thousand of those troops, have been miraculously resurrected through the power of faith in Jesus Christ -- the same power that reattached the severed limbs of thousands more?

I can't wait!
posted by digaman at 9:42 AM on June 22, 2006

digaman: there were lots of lies. that there "were no weapons of mass destruction" is a simplistic jingoistic term and far too absolute to not be refuted. There was no threat, but there were tons of missing weapons.
posted by trinarian at 10:00 AM on June 22, 2006

I happen to agree. Red herring confirmed.
posted by digaman at 10:21 AM on June 22, 2006

This annoys me because now I'm going to get like 20 email forwards from relatives saying SEE! SADDAM WAS IN BED WITH OSAMA AND HAD TEH NUKES!!!
posted by cell divide at 10:24 AM on June 22, 2006

Just to add to these comments:

"In fact, these would be the same chemical weapons that we sold to Iraq in the 80s.

Exactly, a far cry from the nuclear material Saddam was supposedly acquiring...

If Saddam had all these WMD's why didn't he use them to defend himself. I could never get the rationalization for Saddam to"

plus the comment that brought up that Saddam gassed the Kurds (Bush Sr. invaded in part over that BTW along with the invasion of Kuwait)

the definition of weapons of mass destruction is fairly vague (it's actually changed since 2000) but it does have to be weapons that can kill massive amounts of people. How many could actually be killed by this load? I might add this is hardly the first weapons stash found, there were a lot of bomb triggers found awhile back too.
posted by aljones15 at 11:17 AM on June 22, 2006

From now on I'll be publicly referring to Fox "News" as "Fox Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda."

They are definitely not in the news business.

"We live in the midst of a slow motion coup d'etat, in the United States of America. Damn depressing how easy it was for them to pull it off."

Absolutely correct, and yes it's depressing. Americans have become soft, stupid, and easily frightened out of their nearly nonexistent wits by things that are mostly imaginary. It's pathetic.

"But then, all revolutions have their cycles."

You got that one right, brother/sister. *wolf grin*
posted by zoogleplex at 11:18 AM on June 22, 2006

Hey, where's the 2.3 trillion the Pentagon can't find?

Or is that Ok to loose a bit of military material, something to be expected?
posted by rough ashlar at 1:28 PM on June 22, 2006

Hey, where's the 2.3 trillion the Pentagon can't find?

Is that the same 2.3 trillion that Rumsfeld announced missing on 9/10 2001?
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:32 PM on June 22, 2006

Is that the same 2.3 trillion that Rumsfeld announced missing on 9/10 2001?
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:32 PM PST

2.3, 1.3, 3 trillon depending on who you talk to.

But hey! Perhaps it can be found with Leo Wanta's 27.5/70/770 trillion eh?
http://www.worldreports.org/news/the_trustor_the_cia_
posted by rough ashlar at 1:43 PM on June 22, 2006

Fox Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda."

The Ministry of PopEnProp. I like it.
posted by Sparx at 2:15 PM on June 22, 2006

Mayor: "All right, err, ahh, this meeting is to decide what we're going to do with the er, ah, two million dollars."

Marge Simpson: "Wasn't it three million dollars?"

Mayor: "Err, ahh, yes, the three million dollars!"

2.3 trillion? I bet they're building a spectacular Baghdad Monorail!!! :D

psst, Sparx: I didn't just pull that one out of my hat.
posted by zoogleplex at 3:26 PM on June 22, 2006

Trinarian, I've got to question the statement, "The weapons existed, but they were never a threat." Isn't a weapon only a weapon in direct proportion to the threat it represents?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 3:48 PM on June 22, 2006

I know, but foxpopenprop just sounds so good! Or at least better than foxvolksaufundprop
posted by Sparx at 4:23 PM on June 22, 2006

(Fox) The Ministry of PopEnProp

This needs to be used everywhere. Let's see if it can get spread far enough to be on The Daily Show or something.
posted by andywolf at 5:22 PM on June 22, 2006

I prefer the ministry of seehemewepatpuppophethreetreebeetophopstop.
posted by soyjoy at 7:35 PM on June 22, 2006

"Or at least better than foxvolksaufundprop"

ROFL

soyjoy, you forgot "photoshop."
posted by zoogleplex at 4:16 PM on June 23, 2006

Politicizing Crappy Intelligence - Again
posted by homunculus at 5:58 PM on June 23, 2006

US forces have found some old Iraqi WMD, says general

By Kristin Roberts Thu Jun 29, 7:28 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has found more Iraqi weapons in recent months, in addition to the 500 chemical munitions recently reported by the Pentagon, a top defense intelligence official said on Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, did not specify if the newly found weapons were also chemical munitions. But he said he expected more.

"I do not believe we have found all the weapons," he told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, offering few details in an open session that preceded a classified briefing to lawmakers.

Responding to questions from lawmakers anxious to make political points ahead of the November congressional elections, U.S. defense officials said the 500 chemical weapons discovered in Iraq were "weapons of mass destruction." However their degraded state may make them more dangerous to those who find them than anyone else.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra, wrote to U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte accusing intelligence officials of downplaying the significance of the finds.

Hoekstra said intelligence officials at a June 21 press briefing told journalists the weapons predated the 1991 Gulf War, were too degraded to be used as originally intended and posed no threat to U.S. forces deployed in the region during the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

"I am very disappointed by the inaccurate, incomplete, and occasionally misleading comments made by the briefers," Hoekstra said in the letter.

At the Armed Services Committee, Maples also asserted that the rockets and artillery rounds that had been found were produced in the 1980s and could not be used as intended.

If the chemical agent, sarin, was removed from the munitions and repackaged, it could be lethal. Its release in a U.S. city, in certain circumstances, would be devastating, Maples said.

LITTLE THREAT TO U.S.

But despite statements of concern by Republicans about the risk of terrorists releasing the chemical in the United States, defense officials said the munitions pose as much a threat to people who try to handle them as potential victims.

When asked by a Democrat to confirm the weapons pose a risk to troops in Iraq, not Americans at home, Maples said, "Yes."

Republican lawmakers, some facing tough election battles amid growing anti-war sentiment, called the discovery of the weapons significant.

Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania suggested the munitions were in fact the weapons of mass destruction that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lied about, leading the United States to war.

"For those who claim that these weapons are not the weapons of mass destruction that the United States went to war over, I would refer them to 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions that Saddam Hussein violated," Weldon said. "It didn't say pre-'91 chemical weapons. It didn't say post-'91 chemical weapons. It said chemical weapons."

But Democrats dismissed such arguments and said the weapons were not the "imminent threat" used to justify the war.

"It's very difficult to characterize these as the imminent threat weapons that we were told we were looking for," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat.
posted by taosbat at 8:40 PM on June 29, 2006