The most ironic thing in this whole shitbag story about the new "stockpiles" of WMDs that were "found" in Iraq is just how the fuck Saddam got his stockpile of weapons in the first place.
All this sanctimonious crowing by wingnuts about this new discovery that was not announced on national TV by Bush himself. Or Cheney or Rumsfeld, or in a press conference with press sec'y Snow, or even Chertoff. Where there has there been no release from the White House or Pentagon that gives their approval or agreement with this (other than that half ass statement by Rumsfeld). And, by the way, how do unusable chemical weapons result in the "mushroom cloud" that we were warned about by Rice and Cheney over and over and over again.
And why was this "very important find" announced by a junior Senator from Pennsylvania - the same junior senator that is over 20 points down in his reelection campaign? The same junior senator who believes in creationism over evolution, who kept a dead fetus in a jar for days and had his other children "cuddle with it" after his wife miscarried? The same junior senator who believes that gay marriage will lead to man marrying his pet, or that gay marriage is a bigger threat to this country than Al Qaeda (yes, he said all that)? The same senator who is 2nd to last in the entire senate in approval ratings by his own state?
But why, WHY has nobody pointed out the fact that during the 1980s, Reagan, Rumsfeld and Saddam had many a deal involving nuclear weapons (or should I say "weapons of mass destruction program related activities) as well as information or materials that could be (and most likely were) used for biological weapons purposes? That it could be argued that some of these very "stockpiles" from before 1991 were actually provided to Iraq by the Reagan/Rumsfeld era of the mid-80s.
Yeah, how quickly "we" forget.
Shall we start with the nuclear program (and even more appropriate as the source is foxnews.com)?
Dozens of suppliers, most in Europe, the United States and Japan, provided the components and know-how Saddam Hussein needed to build an atomic bomb, according to Iraq's 1996 accounting of its nuclear program....
Iraq's report says the equipment was either sold or made by more than 30 German companies, 10 American companies, 11 British companies and a handful of Swiss, Japanese, Italian, French, Swedish and Brazilian firms. It says more than 30 countries supplied its nuclear program.
It details nuclear efforts from the early 1980s to the Gulf War and contains diagrams, plans and test results in uranium enrichment, detonation, implosion testing and warhead construction....
Most of the sales were legal and often made with the knowledge of governments. In 1985-90, the U.S. Commerce Department, for example, licensed $1.5 billion in sales to Iraq of American technology with potential military uses. Iraq was then getting Western support for its war against Iran, which at the time was regarded as the main threat to stability in the oil-rich Gulf region.
Or shall we start with bioweapons (and even sweeter as this is Novakula)?
An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease- producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American- exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran.
This record is no argument for or against waging war against the Iraqi regime, but current U.S. officials are not eager to reconstruct the mostly secret relationship between the two countries. While biological warfare exports were approved by the U.S. government, the first President George Bush signed a policy directive proposing ''normal'' relations with Saddam in the interest of Middle East stability. Looking at a little U.S.-Iraqi history might be useful on the eve of a fateful military undertaking.
Wow, and to think that he was only a few months away from his part in compromising national security for political gain.
Or, what if we were to put it more bluntly (from March 2003)?
Yet here we are, on the eve of what could turn into a $100-billion war to disarm and dismantle the Iraqi dictatorship. U.N. inspectors are working against the clock to figure out if Iraq retains chemical and biological weapons, the systems to deliver them, and the capacity to manufacture them.
And here's the strange part, easily forgotten in the barrage of recent rhetoric: It was Western governments and businesses that helped build that capacity in the first place. From anthrax to high-speed computers to artillery ammunition cases, the militarily useful products of a long list of Western democracies flowed into Iraq in the decade before its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
---snip---
American Type Culture Collection was not the only supplier to send biological materials to Iraq in the decade before the Gulf War, when the Reagan and first Bush administrations tilted toward Iraq in its eight-year war with Iran. Also between 1985 and 1989, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq 14 agents "with biological warfare significance," including West Nile virus, according to Riegle's investigators.
"We did work with Iraq's scientists along with other scientists on microbiological agents and reagents," said CDC spokesman LLelwyn Grant last week. "That did occur in the mid-80s but . . . there were no other shipments that were sent after the incident involving Iraq's invasion of Kuwait."
ok, so now that all you wingnuts and talking meatsticks can get over yourselves and remember how it was the US in the 1980s that helped Saddam build up his nuclear and bioweapons knowledge and capacity, let's dig a little deeper. Who, within the Reagan administration was instrumental in arming Saddam with WMDs like the ones previously discovered to be old, decrepit and unusable (except to Santorum and other kool-aid drinkers)?
None other than Rumsfeld himself. So chew on that, jackasses. Remember this picture?
Or how about this story?
Newly released documents show that U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, played a leading role in building up Iraq's military in the 1980s when Iraq was using chemical weapons, a newspaper reports.
It was Rumsfeld, now defense secretary and then a special presidential envoy, whose December 1983 meeting with Saddam Hussein led to the normalization of ties between Washington and Baghdad, according to the Washington Post.
The cozy relationship was an effort to build a regional bulwark against America's enemies in Iran.
Or what about this story?
But it was Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad which opened of the floodgates during 1985-90 for lucrative U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. According to a 1994 GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period....not by our European allies, but by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
So what do you have to say about that, Hannity? Coulter? Limbaugh? 101st Fighting Keyboardists? Yellow Elephants? Freepers? Other wingnut idiots?
The same man who was instrumentally involved with giving Saddam the very weapons that we invaded his country over was also instrumentally involved in that invasion. First he negotiates deals on behalf of a REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION to arm Saddam with bioweapons and nuclear weapons programs. Then he says those are illegal weapons and must be stopped. Then, he conveniently forgets how it was him who set this whole thing up 20 years ago. And most of `Murka goes along, cluelessly, with this.
Now, when "stockpiles" are touted to have been "found", the focus is on playing games of "gotcha" and "I told you so". But let's not forget that these were from BEFORE THE FIRST GULF WAR. Since the first Gulf War was during the early 1990's, we can only use logic (the nemesis of Right Wingnutistan) to point out, "hey, morons - these wouldn't have been likely to have even been an issue if the same people that are responsible for invading Iraq hadn't been the same fucking people that had a huge hand in giving Saddam his WMD capacity in the first place".
Stupid jackasses.
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