We’ve Found the Iraqi WMD! We’ve Found the Iraqi WMD!
As someone who’s made much of the Bush administration’s lies (and yeah, that’s what they were) about Iraqi WMD in the run-up to the invasion, I would be remiss if I didn’t link to this story in the Washington Post from last week: Iraqi chemical stash uncovered.
BAGHDAD, Aug. 13 — U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.
Oh my gosh. But don’t you see? This proves Bush was telling the truth all along! Saddam was stockpiling dangerous weapons of mass murder. Okay, maybe not nukes, but still.
Except for one small detail:
[Military spokesman Lt. Col. Steven A.] Boylan said the suspected lab was new, dating from some time after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Oops.
You know, we still have Saddam on ice. We could put him back in charge and have the old Iraq back again, the Iraq that was only a make-believe threat to our security, rather than a real one.
August 19th, 2005 at 8:55 am
Wow! Talk about setting up straw men arguments to then knock down!!! I don’t recall a horde of war supporters using this discovery to make a WMD justification. I think most people recognised this eqiupment as being a product of the post-war insurgency.
Although it does raise an interesting question as to the capability of the foreign or Iraqi elements of the insurgency to finance and produce some form of WMD-like chemical weaponary to use to further destabilize the fledgling Iraqi government, and develop further discontent and anger among the population (not to mention US public opinion). They have already demonstrated an unflinching willingness to murder large numbers of civilians to further their cause.
August 19th, 2005 at 9:13 am
Craig, it was intended as sarcasm. Of course war supporters aren’t trying to make anything of this discovery. The discovery makes a mockery of their main justification for going to war, so they’re doing their best to ignore it.
If you can’t see the irony in our invasion, and subsequent no-stone-unturned search, turning up no sign of the WMD that provided the principal rationale for the war, only to have the chaos of the invasion’s bungled aftermath create the conditions in which a real chemical weapons factory can be established, well, I think you need to have your irony-detector serviced.
August 19th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
I’d have been inclined to believe it was purely a sarcastic reference to the WMD issue if you hadn’t tossed in a “small detail” as if you still had to provide prove of its falsehood.
Kind of like Jon Stewart saying, “Today in Iraq, US forces arrested a man who owned a firework stand filled with a cache of M-80’s and cherry bombs. President Bush hailed the arrest as the initial uncovering of Saddam’s WMD.”
(Laughter and appluase)
“But, you see those kind of things couldn’t really be WMD, because they can’t really hurt a large number of people…..other than an assorted finger or two. But not really on a mass scale…..”
(awkward silence, quizzical looks, scattered small coughing)
Whatever. It’s a relatively small point anyway.
I would think that my question in my post would imply that there was some irony involved if today’s insurgents ended up with the ability and desire to use similar types of chemical weapons now on US forces that were feared from Saddam at the start of the war.
August 19th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
I guess that’s why no one pays me the big money to be funny. *sigh*
*shakes fist*
“Damn, you, Jon Stewart!”
August 19th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
JBC, I was in tears with laughter…oh wait, there was no laughing. Stupid wars waged by opporitunistic governments really suck ass, don’t they?