Charles Hanley Writes Leftist Propaganda Piece For The AP

Take a look at this headline:

Half of U.S. Still Believes Iraq Had WMD

No bias there huh?

Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"?

Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.

People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.

Sigh….let me see, if you click on the Saddam Documents on my category sidebar you will see tons, literally tons, of documents that prove not only did he have WMD's, but that he moved these weapons into Syria with the Russians help.

The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.

You get that?  NO TRACE of banned weapons.  Guess he forgot about those chemical munitions found recently huh?

The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center’s commander said here today.

“These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes … they do constitute weapons of mass destruction,” Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.

The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.

The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. Sarin attacks the neurological system and is potentially lethal.

“Mustard is a blister agent (that) actually produces burning of any area (where) an individual may come in contact with the agent,” he said. It also is potentially fatal if it gets into a person’s lungs.

The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.

While that’s reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. “We’re talking chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and have a great effect,” he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.

This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred, Chu said. It’s not known exactly how sarin breaks down, but no matter how degraded the agent is, it’s still toxic.

Oh wait a second, he does recall that find but believes its all a conspiracy:

Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.

But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.

Yeah, no surprise that chemical weapons were found in Iraq, I mean the press didn't tell us all that there was absolutely NO wmd's did they?

Then this writer has the gall to quote pedophile Scott Ritter: 

"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."

Great source there. 

He then proceeds to dismiss the Iraqi General assertion that the wmd's were flown to Syria: 

Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general's book – at best uncorroborated hearsay – claimed "56 flights" by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.

And finally you knew it was coming, it's all Bush's fault:

"I think the Santorum-Hoekstra thing is the latest 'factoid,' but the basic dynamic is the insistent repetition by the Bush administration of the original argument," said John Prados, author of the 2004 book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War."

Administration statements still describe Saddam's Iraq as a threat. Despite the official findings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has allowed only that "perhaps" WMD weren't in Iraq. And Bush himself, since 2003, has repeatedly insisted on one plainly false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in," as he said in 2003, and "he chose to deny inspectors," as he said this March.

The facts are that Iraq – after a four-year hiatus in cooperating with inspections – acceded to the U.N. Security Council's demand and allowed scores of experts to conduct more than 700 inspections of potential weapons sites from Nov. 27, 2002, to March 16, 2003. The inspectors said they could wrap up their work within months. Instead, the U.S. invasion aborted that work.

This is not a news article my friends, this is a leftist talking point memo issued to their masses.  For 12 years Saddam strung along the world, letting inspectors in and then kicking them out.  As recent documents show Saddam's regime actively hid material during the inspections:

Republic of Iraq Intelligence Service Secret, Personal and Urgent (TC: foreign classification) Letter # M6/1/2/1488 Date 3/23/1997

To: General Managers & Top Officials
Re: Instructions

We noticed during the last inspection of the Agency location by UN team #182, that the team asked about specific acronyms of some of the Agency's directorates and procedures. Their questions are aimed at determining the activities of these directorates and finding a connection between their intelligence work and the country's military industrial activities. In order to avoid the possibility of any discoveries by the upcoming inspection teams, we find it is necessary to do the following:

1. Go through all the records and files, remove the documents linked to the Atomic Energy Organization and the Military Industrial Commission, or other stations & departments related to restricted weapon programs such
as offers, research, studies, manuals, examinations & invitations to consultants ….. etc.

2. Remove all documents and reports related to tracking the UN inspection teams and UNSCOM, and nterdepartmental memos in that regard.

3. Remove the restricted materials, devices, dual use equipment, documents catalogs, and related books from libraries and technical departments. Ensure clean-up of the laboratories, warehouses and factories from all traces of chemical, biological or radiation that were previously used or stored.

4. The process of removing or destroying the documents, reports and equipment must be done by special committee in accordance with the rules and regulations, and that will obtain the necessary approvals to destroy or move them to a substitute location.

5. Use a standard method of dealing with UN inspection team members. Answers are not permitted other than through the authorized representative. If they question the departments or organizations outside of the agency site, a standard response is to be made to all questions that this is intelligence-related work, and that they have to consult with higher authorities for permission to answer.

6. Directorate 3 is to check all computer work stations, microfilm, computer terminals, discs, and storage retrieval devices to transfer information related to the above subject in coordination with the agency of concern to avoid targeting of these devices in the future.

Put these orders into effect and give our agency feed back within a week from the date issued.

Notes: Return this memo to the agency after the above-mentioned procedures are executed.

Signature of the Director of Directorate 6
3/23/1997

And after 9/11 when there was proof that Iraq had TRIED to acquire yellowcake from Niger (you notice I said tried), that Saddam had contacts with Al-Qaeda, and refused to let inspectors do their job, it would have been criminal if Bush had not gone in. 

UPDATE

Just a bit of digging around found this report to the UN in 2004:

7. While sites in Iraq were being monitored for updates through satellite imagery, it was detected that some sites subject to monitoring by UNMOVIC had been cleaned up and equipment and material had been removed from the sites (see figures A.4 and A.5 below). In other areas, whole buildings that had previously contained equipment and materials subject to monitoring had been completely dismantled. The work continues to cover all known sites in Iraq. 

David Kay admitted that there was evidence some of the Iraqi WMD program went to Syria:

David Kay, the former head of the coalition's hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, yesterday claimed that part of Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programme was hidden in Syria.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year's war to overthrow Saddam.

"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."

And here is another reason why Saddam was dangerous:

In a major development, potentially as significant as the capture of Saddam Hussein, investigative journalist Richard Miniter says there is evidence to indicate Saddam's anthrax program was capable of producing the kind of anthrax that hit America shortly after 9/11. Miniter, author of Losing bin Laden, told Accuracy in Media that during November he interviewed U.S. weapons inspector Dr. David Kay in Baghdad and that he was "absolutely shocked and astonished" at the sophistication of the Iraqi program.

Miniter said that Kay told him that, "the Iraqis had developed new techniques for drying and milling anthrax-techniques that were superior to anything the United States or the old Soviet Union had. That would make the former regime of Saddam Hussein the most sophisticated manufacturer of anthrax in the world." Miniter said there are "intriguing similarities" between the nature of the anthrax that could be produced by Saddam and what hit America after 9/11. The key similarity is that the anthrax is produced in such a way that "hangs in the air much longer than anthrax normally would" and is therefore more lethal.

Put that report together with this document found in Iraq which shows that Dr. Germ was actively testing how to spread biological weapons:

In the name of God, most Merciful, most Compassionate\

THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE DECISION

An appendage to the Biological Committee Decision, on 10 March 2002, subsequent to the biological activity combined list review, that was received after the delegate’s return from Moscow, and in reference to the concluded meeting convened on 10 April 2002, [when] the (GRL) draft list study was completed. – The Biological Section is evaluating what is shown in the third revised attachment for the continuous observation and examination plan. – The grades are subject to change according to the automation of export and import controls, according to resolution 1051 (1996) issued in document No. (S / 2001 / 560) which shows us the following:

1 – What is included in the draft list (GRL) is similar to what is included in the revised comments; submissive grades according to the system of export and import controls except the following:

a. Paragraph 7-1 from the revised statement and the (GRL) draft about the aircraft sprayers that are able to scatter dust. The dispensing percentage exceeds the one liter suspended liquid per minute or 10 grams of the dry substance per minute, therefore the size of the aerosol or dust portions were increased to the size of (15) microns or less.

b. A new paragraph under No. (11) was added to the draft list (GRL). According to that, it combined microscopic conservation equipment and Micro Encapsulation that was taken from the reviewed merchandise list (the additional list) stated in resolution (1382) 2001.

c. The (GRL) draft list indicated changes to the biological part, which was placed in the last page of the draft. Agents were added for the use of tissues and cell cultures (Cell Culture Mediators), and added cell growth cultures to cow fetus serums of (1) liter or more. These changes are not included in the mentioned list in paragraph (5) relating to culture media.

2. According to the changes shown in Paragraph (1-7), it increases the size of aerosol portions or the dust, and limits it to within (15) microns or less that and does not create a problem. The available information that we’ve been referring to is that agricultural usage doesn’t need these small sizes (quantities), but larger sizes (quantities). What is related to the change in the previously added paragraph (11), combining microscopic conservation equipment and micro encapsulation also does not create a problem because the use of this equipment is very limited, and it does not effect the production or research process.

Changes mentioned (suggested) in paragraph (5), that subjoin culture agents used in tissue culturing or cells and cell growth culturing to cow fetus serum is not considered a problem. These agents [were] originally entered including the complicated culture agent paragraph mentioned in paragraph (5) from the revised comments of the grades that are subject to notification in accordance to the system of imports and exports, that were imposed by resolution 1051 (1996).

Review please with respects.

Dr. Rehab Rasheed Taha
Committee Chief
Captain
Senan Abdel Hassan
Member
04-13-2002
Thamer Abdel Rahman
Member
04-13-2002

And you can see why us foolish citizens were a bit afraid of what Saddam could do.  Ed Morrissey summerizes the Saddam Document here:

This shows that Taha continued to pursue application of biological weapons, in this case taking care to exploit UNSCOM parameters to hide the existence of the source material, its weaponization into the proper size (15 microns or less) for dissemination, and the process by which she produced it. This memo is dated in American format and comes from April 2002, prior to the Congressional authorization of force, but well after 9/11 and our renewed focus on the region.

UPDATE 1330hrs PST

ABC News has picked up this pathetic example of propaganda here. So has Al-Jazeera & CBS.  Of course The Washington Post couldn't let it get away either along with The LA Times and most every newspaper across the country.

UPDATE II 1440hrs PST

Dafydd at Big Lizards posts some thoughts about another subject (Israel's invasion of Lebanon) but it has bearing on this subject:

The surreal argument advanced by Democrats — now including nearly all of them, other than the soon to be unemployed Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT, 80%) — is that we should have waited until the last, possible moment before the invasion window closed, just on the off chance that it was all a terrible mistake: that there were no WMD programs, that Saddam Hussein was really a nice guy, and all things black and ugly we thought we knew about him were just lies, spread by his competitors.

And indeed, the Left seized upon as vindication the supposed "failure" to find WMD, which was actually a deliberate decision by the CIA — which had always opposed the invasion — to refuse to label as "WMD" any program, device, chemical, or biological sample that had any conceivable non-war purpose, no matter how implausible or even ludicrous.

Thus, 55-gallon drums of Cyclosarin sitting in camouflaged bunkers near empty chemical rocket shells were not chemical-warfare tools; perhaps the Iraqis were simply obsessed with having aphid-free ammo dumps.

And those mobile labs that were described so accurately by Iraqi defectors who had worked on them, and who also described their use in developing chemical and biological munitions, were dismissed by the CIA as "mobile hydrogen-production factilities"… despite the fact that Iraq, being an oil-drililng and refining country, would routinely make tens of thousands of liters of hydrogen commercially and store it in tanks that were a fraction of the weight of those labs — and of course were already ready for use.

Perhaps, on the very eve of the Coalition invasion, Saddam Hussein was simply focused like a laser beam on protecting Iraq's critical supply of weather balloons.

Rather than acting with alacrity in invading that country when we were pretty sure — as we are now, especially with the wealth of new finds of the progress of creating WMD and the possible stockpiles moved to Syria — the Left wanted us to wait until we could prove that Hussein was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (In fact, it was more like what Patterico wants the standard to be in death-penalty cases: "guilty beyond all possible doubt.")

As this standard would have put the possibility of military action forever out of range under any circumstances, since intelligence gathering is never as certain as all that, accepting it amounts to saying that no matter how serious the threat to the United States, we can never go to war — even if the bad guys attack us first — so long as they refuse to admit it was they.

I called that the 18½ Minute Gap

I linked to Dafydd because its an excellent summary of what the Democrats wanted us to do, which is nothing.  They got their wish for 12 years, just let him be, he isn't all bad.  Oh wait, the left didn't say that did they?

• “Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.” – Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
• “[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the US Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.” – Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sense. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
• “Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.” – Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
• “Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.” – Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
• “We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.” – Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
• “Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.” – Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
• “We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.” – Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
• “I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force– if necessary– to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.” – Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

Whoops.

Anyways, the fact that Charles Hanley writes in such a way to ignore all of the accumalated evidence that exists today that proves Iraq did in fact have WMD, wanted to obtain more WMD, and was a danger to the region and to our country in a post 9/11 world, proves this is nothing more then a propaganda hit piece against the recent poll results.