June 22, 2006
WMD Media Blackout
To put it mildly, this bears discussion:
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."
Or at least, one might think this would bear discussion, whether Santorum and Hoekstra are right or wrong.
If correct, their claims of found chemical weapons—mustard gas or sarin, filled or unfilled, degraded or in perfect condition—would seemingly vindicate the Bush Administration and bury a key canard of leftist opposition to the war, that soldiers and civilians have "died for a lie."
Likewise, it would be worth it for the media/anti-war/Democratic Party camps to begin questioning the story, on the chance that Santorum and Hoekstra have buried themselves with inaccurate information.
Everyone should be talking about this… so why aren't they?
While Fox News runs a story about the Santorum/Hoestra release, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe have taken the code of omertà as of midnight, though the Washington Post, to its slim credit, squeaked out a page A10 mention essentially claiming that these WMDs didn't count, even though they provide exactly zero support for their claims.
With the exception of Fox News, the WMD story and the underlying newly declassified six paragraph summary (PDF) seems to be the subject of a major news blackout.
Is this silence the sound of fear?
7:00 AM Update: According to a Google News search for WMDs, all the news organizations cited above still refuse to discuss this news.
Shocking.
So confusing... You've been telling us for 3 years now that the presence of WMD was never the point. Now it is?
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger at June 22, 2006 12:31 PMDid you even bother to read the post before commenting. This is a post about the media coverage--actually the lock of media coverage--of what should be a front-page story.
Anyone with even a room temperature IQ should have been able to discern that as the main theme of this post.
I guess for you, it really was "so confusing," just as you state...
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at June 22, 2006 12:44 PMOf course he didn't read it - it contains "facts" - something that liberals are deathly afraid of...
Posted by: Zone3 at June 22, 2006 12:53 PMWell I agree with you. It is odd that this hasn't received more play in the news.
Perhaps it's because Rick Santorum is such a tool.
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger at June 22, 2006 12:55 PMBainbridge:
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2006/06/500_wmd_shells_.html
Don't you get it, they had their REALLY BIG story today ... the Duke case. They trash a minority woman, defend the drunken jocks of Duke as "boys will be boys," all the while claiming that our guys looking at a Muslim woman constitutes torture (remember Kerry's "terrorizing women and children in the middle of the night" claim. Ooooooh, such torture.
Posted by: Sara (Squiggler) at June 22, 2006 01:08 PMWell, this makes it all worthwhile. Wait, no it doesn't!
Remember this fun from 2004? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html
This is old news brought to the forefront by a desperate Senator trying to keep his seat.
Posted by: Shelby Tse at June 22, 2006 02:07 PMMaybe this will clear it up for you:
From the Fox News report:
' 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."'
Mustard gas and several of the binary nerve agents such as those in shells could easly be reused. I wonder why the pentagon is lying about this. Infact mustard gas from WW1 was still messing people up in Ypres France in the 90's.
Posted by: lip at June 22, 2006 05:27 PMThe only way certain people will believe their eyes is when gobs of people die in a massive gas attack in some fast food resturant and it becomes all so real, while people run for their lives and turn rush hour into a riot, then the people will demand that we nuke Saudi Arabia or demand Osama bin Laden surrender or we go back to cold war status with the Russians.
It all began with Reagan saying 'Tear Down this wall " to Gorbachev.
Heh heh..
Liberals, why I won't ever vote Democrat again.
Posted by: GOPLad at June 22, 2006 07:52 PMthe chemical weapons were not in useable conditions
Yea, binaries are like that -- gotta mix'em first...and that only happens in flight.
They weren't being shot out of cannon, ergo they weren't "usable". Perfect tautological moonbat logic.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at June 24, 2006 04:04 PMI honestly believe that our media should be OBLIGATED to report honestly and fairly. I feel that the finding of these weapons were just swept under the carpet by the US media which proves BIAS and that we cannot TRUST anything that they report. God pray for us... we need the freedom of speech but we need to know the truth and facts if we can't trust our media to do this... what is to become of us... will our government begin having to control the media like other communist and dictatorship countries?
Posted by: LP at July 6, 2006 09:26 AM
