Thursday, June 22, 2006

Smoking Gun Found In Iraq

Interesting timing on that "smoking gun" story about the 1991 chemical shells from Iraq. Early Monday I wrote a review of "The Dark Side" which included the following passage: "The manipulation of the intelligence stuff [in The Dark Side] was not new to me. I had already seen "Uncovered: The Story of the Iraq War" so I knew how damning that was. "Uncovered" did have one additional bit of information. In one of Bush's speeches he listed all the chemical stockpiles known from the first Gulf War and then repeated that they were unaccounted for. "Uncovered" pointed out that some of those chemical weapons only had a shelf life of a couple of months, and couldn't be around nearly ten years later, but that was the only other detail I wish "The Dark Side" had included."
Senator Santorum, the Drudge Report, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh are all breathlessly pointing to these shells as proof that the reasons we went into Iraq were correct. It's the same old scenario: Lie and get as many people as they can to buy into it. I'm proud that I just happened to address this topic prior to this latest deception by the Far Right. The irony is that these shells are a smoking gun. The administration knew these weapons had degraded since 1991 to the point where they were useless. So the fact that President Bush cited them in one of his speeches prior to the war, without mentioning the shelf-life angle, just proves they were willing to lie us into the war. These shells are the smoking gun, all right, just not the smoking gun these Republican phonies want you to believe.

5 Comments:

At 10:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Umm....except that the report states that 75% of the recovered munitions were active or effective. Oops..that kind of shoots down your theory, doesn't it?

Better keep with your present practice: don't let truth get in the way of my lefty, tinfoil hat mythology.

 
At 11:20 PM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

Check out the Drudge Report:
"Iraq chemical weapons too old to use: US intelligence officials"
This was a gimmick by the party that lied us into Iraq and got a lot of young Americans killed. I'm not surprised so many of the right wing fell for it. Admitting a mistake on this scale, is not easy, especially when President Bush assured you that God told him it was the right move. I'm sure the fact that Reagan helped Saddam so much must be tough to admit, too.

 
At 11:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey anonymous,
OK, 75% of the recovered munitions, shells, RPG's, Ak-47 were active or effective. Where are the weapons of mass destruction that threaten the U.S.? The Facts do not lie...Bush does!

 
At 10:36 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

degraded mustard and sarin gas in disconnected, unattended and unorganizaed locations! Yes, that's EXACTLY why we went into Iraq. :rolleyes:

 
At 11:06 AM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

I saw a quote in the Oregonian today saying that these shells couldn't have caused mass casualties. That means they're not WMDs by definition. But we're missing the point. The Republican spin machine is not proceeding with an honest difference of opinion here. This is the machine that led many Americans to believe Saddam caused 9/11. It is about lying to and duping as many people as possible from now to election day. The entire agenda of George Bush begins with how the spin will play and works backwards to the action. Nothing is genuine. He is decisive because Karl Rove told him the American People want him to be decisive. It's not real. The problem is that you can't spin some things. You can't spin a hurricane and you can't spin the Middle East. In these places the White House's strength - which is to lie about something - comes in contact with reality and that's why they are in trouble.

 

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