I guess it’s fitting that the nimrod who released all these Iraq war documents has been proven to be not only a nimrod, but a tool:
By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
But for years afterward, WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I…
~~~…In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”
Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”
~~~…the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic” chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran.
That same month, then “chemical weapons specialists” were apprehended in Balad. These “foreigners” were there specifically “to support the chemical weapons operations.” The following month, an intelligence report refers to a “chemical weapons expert” that “provided assistance with the gas weapons.” What happened to that specialist, the WikiLeaked document doesn’t say.
Oh, and that lancet study?
I’m not sure it’s what WikiLeaks intended, but its latest leaks reveal that the infamous Lancet paper which claimed the US-led liberation of Iraq cost the lives of 655,000 Iraqis in fact exaggerated the death toll by at least 600 per cent:
The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq (over six years). These include 66,081 “civilians,” 23,984 “enemy” insurgents, 15,196 “host nation” (Iraqi government forces), and 3,771 “friendly” (coalition) forces. Some 60 percent of the total is civilian deaths.
And that’s leaving aside the argument about who actually killed the Iraqis, and whether more would have died under Saddam. Note also that this death toll is less than the number of people murdered in South Africa over the same period, and that even allowing for population differences, Iraq’s death toll is now lower.
So let’s see, first we find out that some Iraqi police abused detainees, and our troops intervened when they knew about it. Second we find out that there were indeed WMD’s in Iraq and lastly we find out that the study exaggerating the death toll in Iraq was indeed exaggerated.
Wowzers.
That Wikileaks founder should be proud. In fact, he is so proud that he walks out of a CNN interview.
And as Glenn Reynolds writes, all in time for the new Bush book release.
Heh.
More here.
See author page
John Lennon was right.
Heh.
He wasn’t blind or stupid.
But our lefty media was.
And so were any who relied on it for their information.
Lancet finally admitted it was basing it’s ”study” on anecdotals gleaned from stringers who were afraid to question anyone but friends, neighbors and family.
Yet you still hear idiots touting the Lancet numbers every now and again.
Wow. Talk about a whole bunch of self-pwnage by the Left. I wonder if they really read all of the documents as they were scanning/uploading them, or if they just stuck them into the feeder and let them rip. I can see the Right and pro-troop groups using this as confirmation that we were correct in going in to Iraq to defeat the Hussein regime.
The lancet study was always suspect in my mind. At one point they had listed one million deaths and I did a calculation showing it was something on the order of 500 deaths per day. And considering any time more than 5 people were killed at a time it made news, I was highly suspicious.
I mentioned this to some liberals and they shut up about those numbers pretty quickly.
W knew how to start the war but didn’t know how to communicate it’s successes and failures. And that was his downfall int he PR campaign. The mission accomplished banner was far too early. But announcement of caches were never really made public, and then they were they weren’t publicized very well. I knew people over there that told me about seizing some caches but never made news over here. He lost the PR war.
Ironic that wikileaks is revealing some of the truth, even though it doesn’t fit into their worldview.
A snapshot of Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Kidnapping for ransom and the use of children as suicide bombers were common ploy of the group, leaked documents show.
http://english.aljazeera.net/secretiraqfiles/2010/10/20101022164635810456.html
Old Trooper, on using women and children and even youngsters with Down’s Syndrome, I think I posted a story about how young teens are falsely charged with theft then cross-amputated THEN recruited as suicide bombers since there is no safety net for men like them anyway.
This is worse, but akin, to the way women are recruited via marrying a fighter who allows other men to rape her then uses emotional blackmail to force her to choose between being honor murdered OR having a tiny chance at paradise if she blows up a few infidels with her death in a bomb vest.
Gee, let me think!
Also I used to read a blog called Iraq the Model when one of their relatives was kidnapped.
His car was fitted with a remote detonator on the bomb in the trunk.
After his family paid the ransom he was told to follow a certain route home OR ELSE.
He did so and his car was detonated in front of a checkpoint.
Too many innocent Muslims are forced into these situations.
There will either be a complete routing of extremist views out of Islam OR the so-called extremists will win.
What they will win is a whole other thing.
@ Nan G, every Society or Culture has those that intimidate, take advantage of the weak, exploit fears and manipulate others. This is just an example of Civilization at it’s worst as included in the documents that were “leaked” but the NYT and Al Jazeera that published those documents for the benefit of “public interest” will never condemn these acts. They will attribute it to a reason that the US should have never intervened in Iraq. I have seen mass graves in the old Yugo Republic and Iraq and know that the bodies just did not get there all by themselves.
I have been to the area that the Kurds resided in that were subject to “Chemical Ali’s” genocide.
There is a lot of evil out there. Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Balkans are only the recent examples. I have visited Auschwitz as well. Not all of the Casualties of War are Military ones.
OT2 when those Kurds were gassed Saddam was our boy fighting the evil Iranians. As far as some containers of stuff that may have been/was linked to something that MIGHT have been used as a weapon, but wasn’t weaponized, what point are you trying to make ? That Saddam DID have WMD ? That they were located ? But for some reason Bush and Cheney chose not to publicize it ?Both Bush and Cheney NOW admit that Saddam had WMD, and that was the single biggest reason that we went to war, not so that 4 women could later open a coffee shop. And certainly not so that we could put in place an Iraqi government that was pro Iranian
OLD TROOPER 2: hi, YES so many haters move out and end up in FREE CONTRYS, and
wait their chance to hurt the free people, using their their religion to cover their intent,
and the good people don’t do nothing, until it happen to them personaly.
bye
@ John ryan, wrong again Johnny. I suppose the Oil for Food business is something that you well
defend was well or the rape of Kuwait.
There were two iterations of the use of Chemicals. I reckon You were not in “need to know” status on All Classified Info then? Now scamper off to post your tripe on your route of other websites.
So buch, you are saying Saddam being out of power hasn’t helped the Iraqis or improved their lives? I see you went to the same special ed school as john ryan.
The al-Anfal Campaign (Arabic: حملة الأنفال), also known as Operation Anfal or simply Anfal, was a genocidal campaign against the Kurdish people in Iraqi Kurdistan led by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid. The campaign takes its name from Surat al-Anfal in the Qur’an, which was used as a code name by the former Iraqi Baathist regime for a series of attacks against the peshmerga rebels and the mostly Kurdish civilian population of rural Northern Iraq, conducted between 1986 and 1989 culminating in 1988. This campaign also targeted Shabaks and Yazidis (both ethnically Kurdish), Assyrian and Turkoman people, and many villages belonging to these ethnic groups were also destroyed.
International sources for technology and chemical precursors
The know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained by Saddam’s regime from foreign firms. The largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and West Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie Ltd.) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.
Allegations of Iranian involvement
An investigation into responsibility for the Halabja massacre, by Dr Jean Pascal Zanders, Project Leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute concluded in 2007 that Iraq was the culprit, and not Iran. The U.S. State Department, however, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, took the official position based on examination of available evidence that Iran was partly to blame.
A preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study at the time reported that it was Iran that was responsible for the attack, an assessment which was used subsequently by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for much of the early 1990s. The CIA’s senior political analyst for the Iran-Iraq war, Stephen C. Pelletiere, co-authored an unclassified analysis of the war which contained a brief summary of the DIA study’s key points. The CIA altered its position radically in the late 1990s and cited Halabja frequently in its evidence of weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Pelletiere claimed that a fact that has not been successfully challenged is that Iraq was not known to have possessed the cyanide-based blood agents determined to have been responsible for the condition of the bodies that were examined, and that blue discolorations around the mouths of the victims and in their extremities, pointed to Iranian-used gas as the culprit. As of 2010 none of this fact-based evidence has been challenged, all subsequent re-evaluations have been based on careful selection of opinions and speculation by third-parties. Some opponents to the Iraq sanctions have cited the DIA report to support their position that Iraq was not responsible for the Halabja attack.
Joost Hiltermann, who was the principal researcher for the Human Rights Watch between 1992–1994, conducted a two-year study of the massacre, including a field investigation in northern Iraq. According to his analysis of thousands of captured Iraqi secret police documents and declassified U.S. government documents, as well as interviews with scores of Kurdish survivors, senior Iraqi defectors and retired U.S. intelligence officers, it is clear that Iraq carried out the attack on Halabja, and that the United States, fully aware of this, accused Iran, Iraq’s enemy in a fierce war, of being partly responsible for the attack. This research concluded there were numerous other gas attacks, unquestionably perpetrated against the Kurds by the Iraqi armed forces. According to Hiltermann, the literature on the Iran-Iraq war reflects a number of allegations of chemical weapons use by Iran, but these are “marred by a lack of specificity as to time and place, and the failure to provide any sort of evidence”. Hiltermann called these allegations “mere assertions” and added that “no persuasive evidence of the claim that Iran was the primary culprit was ever presented.”
Concentration camps and extermination
When captured Kurdish populations were transported to detention centers (notably Topzawa near the city of Kirkuk), adult and teenage males viewed as possible insurgents were separated from the civilians. According to Human Rights Watch/Middle East,
With only minor variations … the standard pattern for sorting new arrivals [at Topzawa was as follows]. Men and women were segregated on the spot as soon as the trucks had rolled to a halt in the base’s large central courtyard or parade ground. The process was brutal … A little later, the men were further divided by age, small children were kept with their mothers, and the elderly and infirm were shunted off to separate quarters. Men and teenage boys considered to be of an age to use a weapon were herded together. Roughly speaking, this meant males of between fifteen and fifty, but there was no rigorous check of identity documents, and strict chronological age seems to have been less of a criterion than size and appearance. A strapping twelve-year-old might fail to make the cut; an undersized sixteen-year-old might be told to remain with his female relatives. … It was then time to process the younger males. They were split into smaller groups. … Once duly registered, the prisoners were hustled into large rooms, or halls, each filled with the residents of a single area. … Although the conditions at Topzawa were appalling for everyone, the most grossly overcrowded quarter seem to have been those where the male detainees were held. … For the men, beatings were routine. (Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, pp. 143-45. ISBN 0-300-06427-6)
After a few days in these camps, the men accused of being insurgents were trucked off to be killed in mass executions.
In its book Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, Human Rights Watch/Middle East writes: “Throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, although women and children vanished in certain clearly defined areas, adult males who were captured disappeared in mass … It is apparent that a principal purpose of Anfal was to exterminate all adult males of military service age captured in rural Iraqi Kurdistan.” (pp. 96, 170). Only a handful survived the execution squads. Even amidst this most systematic slaughter of adult men and boys, however, “hundreds of women and young children perished, too,” though “the causes of their deaths were different — gassing, starvation, exposure, and willful neglect — rather than bullets fired from a Kalashnikov.” (Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, p. 191.) Nevertheless, on September 1, 2004, U.S. forces in Iraq discovered hundreds of bodies of Kurdish women and children at the site near al-Hatra, believed to be executed in early 1988 or late 1987.
The focus of the Iraqi killing campaign varied from one stage of Anfal to another. The most exclusive targeting of the male population occurred during the final Anfal (August 25-September 6, 1988). This was launched immediately after the signing of a ceasefire with Iran, which allowed the transfer of large amounts of men and matériel from the southern battlefronts. The final Anfal focused on “the steep, narrow valleys of Badinan, a four-thousand-square mile chunk of the Zagros Mountains bounded on the east by the Greater Zab River and on the north by Turkey.” Here, uniquely in the Anfal campaigns, lists of the “disappeared” provided to Human Rights Watch/Middle East by survivors “invariably included only adult and teenage males, with the single exception of Assyrians and Yezidi Kurds,” who were subsidiary targets of the slaughter. Many of the men of Badinan did not even make it as far as “processing” stations, being simply “lined up and murdered at their point of capture, summarily executed by firing squads on the authority of a local military officer.” (Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, pp. 178, 190, 192; on the fate of the Christians and Yezidi Kurds, see pp. 209-13.)
On June 20, 1987, directive SF/4008 was issued under al-Majid’s signature. Of greatest significance is clause 5. Referring to those areas designated “prohibited zones,” al-Majid ordered that “all persons captured in those villages shall be detained and interrogated by the security services and those between the ages of 15 and 70 shall be executed after any useful information has been obtained from them, of which we should be duly notified.” However, it seems clear from the application of this policy that this referred only to males “between the ages of 15 and 70.” Human Rights Watch/Middle East takes this as given, writing that clause 5’s “order [was] to kill all adult males,” and later: “Under the terms of al-Majid’s June 1987 directives, death was the automatic penalty for any male of an age to bear arms who was found in an Anfal area.” (Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, pp. 11, 14.) A subsequent directive on September 6, 1987, supports this conclusion: it calls for “the deportation of … families to the areas where there saboteur relatives are …, except for the male [members], between the ages of 12 inclusive and 50 inclusive, who must be detained.” (Cited in Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, p. 298.)
*************************************************************
Now Johnny, was any of this US Sanctioned? Nope. I was in Northern Iraq for “Provide Comfort” with the 3/325 Airborne Battalion Combat Team in 91′.
@Old Trooper
Did the US supply money, weapons and other resources during Saddam’s time in power?
After Halabja massacre – what was the response of the Reagan administration – and do you you believe that was adequate?
George Bernard Shaw
@ GaffaUK, As I was not a member of the Reagan Administration or the DIA, CIA or in the region or had knowledge of the events at that time I honestly cannot say. I deal in facts that I can access and assume nothing. I do know that the US did not supply the precursor agents nor has it ever sanctioned genocide as a matter of policy.
I do know that both Iraq and Iran used chemical warfare in their last conflict in the 80s but I am not aware of any official or unofficial sanctions by the US for the use of those agents. If you have further facts I would like to see them. I do know of Iraq’s use of agents on the Kurds as does the UN and it was proven in Iraqi Courts. There were survivors that offered sworn testimony to that effect.
What Saddam Hussein did with aid money is obvious. He hired Foreign Contractors for a great many purposes. At the time Iraqi Oil was sold on the world market so any Nation can be accused of financing Saddam’s pursuits.
Has anyone else noticed that almost every time the liberals come up with a way to embarrass conservatives it comes back and slaps them in the face? You would think that the propaganda media would have learned that lesson a long time ago with stories they have promoted that, thanks to Fox News and conservative blogs, have been revealed for the lies that they are.
I see John Ryan posted his coffee shop garbage again. I would love to take John Ryan on a trip through Iraq. He has no idea how much better the Iraq people live now. Would they like to live better lives? Yes, but the withdraw of troops before the peace was won due to political issues likely will prevent that.
Hey Gaffe, IIRC we did not supply the Iraqis with weapons. The French and Russians certainly did. I also recall something about Iraq stealing money from an agricultural program we ran.
Have proof to the contrary?
Randy, he doesn’t care about the Iraqi people or anything other than his socialist agenda and hatred of America. It would be a much better use of your time to drop him into Cuba so he could live his socialist dream.
@ Randy, Johnny considers FA to be a restroom wall. He runs up, spray paints his “grafiti” and giggles as he runs off. It is just a misdemeanor in his eyes and a source of annoyance for the rest of us. I would like to introduce him to a few of the truly hard case characters that were apprehended in Sadr City, Kirkuk or Falujah that he views as freedom fighters. I think that they would give him an eye opening experience. An up close and personal encounter with those characters is what he needs. It would only take about 3 minutes to get the desired result.
Yup, sure enough…
Iraqi PM: WikiLeaks Release Is Political Sabotage
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/10/23/iraqi-pm-wikileaks-release-political-sabotage/
The largest unauthorized disclosure of classified government documents in U.S. history confirms a long-standing assertion of President George W. Bush at the start of the 2007 troop surge:
Iran was orchestrating one side of the Iraqi insurgency.
…..
In one case, the military circulated a Dec. 22, 2006, warning that a group known as Jaish al-Mahdi planned to kidnap U.S. soldiers.
The man planning the operation, Sheik Azhar al-Dulaimi, was trained by Hezbollah terrorists near the Iranian city of Qom, the document stated. Hezbollah is a Lebanon-based militia that was founded, trained and funded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
…..
Analysts today generally do not dispute Iran’s role in providing covert political and weapons support to insurgents in Iraq, but it was a major political issue in 2007.
POLITICS OVER WAR STRATEGY…..OBAMA?
In September 2007, Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, proposed a resolution condemning the Iranian role in subversion in Iraq. The amendment called for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to be officially designated a foreign terrorist group, something Mr. Bush did in 2008.
Barack Obama, as a Democratic senator from Illinois, opposed the resolution….
Obama also used the vote in support of the measure by Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a Democratic senator from New York, to attack her anti-war credentials during public debate in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses.
In a letter to Iowa voters from October 2007, Mr. Obama said the resolution was dangerous because “George Bush and Dick Cheney could use this language to justify keeping our troops in Iraq as long as they can point to a threat from Iran.
Why didn’t they tell about finding the WMD? That was one of the main criticisms of the invasion. I think I might have one possible answer. They found out through undercover sources and they figured if they released the news it would hinder them from finding more, if there were any more to find.
That I could understand, but you would think it would have come out before now, and that it wouldn’t take Wilileaks to bring it out. This is a pretty big deal and would serve to justify the invasion.
@Old Trooper
Well I guess you weren’t a member of Saddam regime or part of those other countries governments or agencies you cite but compared to your impressive knowledge of the situation you seem to have a big blind spot when it comes to US involvement…
If Saddam was such a tryrant and oppressed his people (which he was)…why did…
How do you explain the following?
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php
and
http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo09202003.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1230-04.htm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article807098.ece
http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06172004.html
@ GaffaUK, I was not a member of the Reagan Administration or Saddam’s either. At the time I was attending Ranger School at various locations as an Enlisted Soldier. A few years later I attended Officer Candidate School and was Commissioned. Do I need to explain it? Nope.
At that time I was not responsible for US Foreign Policy and still am not. Were you in any position to influence the Foreign Policy of any Government at that time? Were you ever deployed when any Nation’s Foreign Policy failed? Probably not.
If you wish to assign responsibility to Reagan, Rumsfeld or any others, have at it. Neither of them worked for me.
@Old Trooper 2
It’s largely irrelevant what you personally were doing during the 80s. If you are interested in history and facts then surely you would understand that the US had a significant part to play in regards to aiding Saddam’s regime. Maybe not as much as certain other countries. The US administration under the darling of the Republican right, Reagan was more interested in US interests than the victims of Saddam Hussein. For the Bush government or any other current or future US administration to use Halabja massacre for propoganda without admitting the US’s own complicity in aiding Saddam is sheer hyprocrisy. This also goes for western democracies like France and the UK who were also played a part and yet still hypocritically condemn Saddam’s regime (once they fell out over his illegal invasion of Kuwait). Actions should match words – rather than the revisionist tripe we are fed in the last decade which was one of the reasons to justify a preemptive war.
I mean the US goes looking for WMDs in Iraq but yet back in the 1980s it was the US who sold sold Anthrax, bubonic plague, VX nerve gas, West Nile Virus and botulism to Saddam! http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1381.htm