Wait, according to the Left, he never possessed those kinds of weapons and the invasion of Iraq was “all about the oil”.
From Fox News.
American troops were exposed to chemical weapons multiple times in the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while the Pentagon kept their discoveries of the expired or degraded weapons secret from investigators, fellow Soldiers, and military doctors, according to a published report.
The New York Times reported late Tuesday that American troops reported finding approximately 5,000 chemical warheads, shells, or aviation bombs in the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On at least six occasions, Soldiers were wounded by those weapons, which had been manufactured before 1991. In all, the paper reported that 17 U.S. Soldiers and seven Iraqi police officers were exposed to chemical agents during the war. The U.S. government said its number was slightly higher, but did not release a specific figure.
The paper reported that most of the agents were discovered around the Muthanna State Establishment northwest of Baghdad, which had been a center of chemical weapons production in the 1980s. The complex has been held by Islamic State militants since June. The Iraqi government told the United Nations that approximately 2,500 chemical rockets remained on the grounds of the facility when it had fallen to the militants.
In the months after the 2003 invasion, The Times reports, the Pentagon first made searching for chemical weapons a lower priority in the midst of attacks from insurgents, then withheld data from high-level investigations, including the Iraq Study Group in 2004 and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2006. During the latter investigation, the paper reports, U.S. Soldiers discovered more than 2,400 chemical rockets, some containing sarin gas, at a former Republican Guard compound. All appeared to have been buried before the first Gulf War in 1991.
As late as 2010, Iraqi troops were discovering chemical weapons that appeared to have been collected elsewhere by U.S. or Iraqi army units and had not been secured properly, according to The Times. The ultimate responsibility for locating, securing, and destroying the weapons was to fall to Nouri al-Maliki’s Iraqi government. The paper reports that a plan was drafted to entomb the Muthanna site in concrete, but the remains of the facility were overrun by Islamic State before the plan could be put into action.
The Times also reports that as the U.S. stay in Iraq dragged on, doctors became less aware of how to treat wounds sustained by chemical weapons. Military officials reportedly attributed the Soldiers’ wounds to conventional weapons or other factors to prevent acknowledging the discovery of pre-1991 chemical weapons. In one case, a wounded Soldier who suffered burns and blisters due to mustard gas was presented with a Purple Heart by former Secretary of the Army Peter Geren. Weeks later, he was told that he had been denied the medal because the Army had determined that his wounds had not been suffered in enemy action.
The Army reportedly admitted to The Times that it had not followed its guidelines for treating Soldiers exposed to chemical weapons in the years following the invasion. It vowed to identify troops and veterans who had been exposed and follow up on their cases.
The Iraq war was more than justified.
In 2003, when I deployed to Iraq (the second time) with the 101st Airborne Division, coalition forces started to uncover a massive stash of chemical/biological weapons that had been hidden from U.N. inspectors. Those weapons included 1.7 metric tons of enriched uranium, and 1,500 gallons of chemical agents.
Saddam Hussein was a Hitler-style megalomaniac who had connections to terrorist groups and fully intended to continue his WMD program, regardless of what the U.N. or the U.S. proscribed.
Lots of dangerous Cyclosarin, enriched uranium, looting of the material during OIF, and proof of Saddam Hussein’s continued efforts to produce WMDs, still isn’t enough to convince sympathetic leftwing nutbags of his malevolence. Those materials could have easily been adapted to warheads and other methods of dispersal. Weapons of mass destruction are defined as weapons capable of inflicting massive destruction to property and/or population, using chemical, biological or radioactive material.
Those “degraded” weapons we found had the potential to kill thousands of people. They continue to be quite harmful past their so-called “expiration”.
I received three separate letters from the Department of Defense between 1997-2005, reference to my ‘possible exposure to low levels of chemical warfare agents’, and that if I exhibited any symptoms, I should notify the DOD and get checked by a medical doctor. We were all over Iraq, and gawd knows we were exposed to a lot of things. To date, (thankfully) I haven’t suffered any effects from exposure to these weapons. But some Soldiers have, and the consequences are devastating. ‘Gulf War illness’ anyone?
It was an established fact that the weapons were present, so much so, that we took Pyridostigmine bromide (PB) anti-nerve agent pills during Operation Desert Storm, and received a series of painful Anthrax shots prior to our deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The Pentagon should have been up front about those weapons and the harmful effects as soon as the information was obtained. What the hell were they afraid of? Dealing with the aftermath?
Reblogged this on ROWAN OATH KEEPERS.