As per Squink, I’d guess they were buried and forgotten 20 years ago
God, I’m already dreading the “Hey, we proved he had mustard gas in the 80s! We win!” screamfest. This is almost as bad as when the “Breaking News: Michael Jackson Accused of Child Molestation” thing hit.
But maybe Gephardt or Lieberman will have a shot after all.
I doubt anyone will trumpet this as much of anything. I’ve long since assumed that the scientists lied to Saddam, or everything is so well hidden throughout the region (or, worst case, distributed to bad guys) – that we will only find WMDs the hard way.
OTOH, the Bush Doctrine (whatever that is) seems to be scaring some regimes into cooperating. I know some people hate that. Iran, NK, Lybia…
The real danger was always the regime – itself – with all that nation-state leader confers on someone. Saddam had diplomats, press agents, access to billions of petro dollars. Now, in hindsight, it is clear he was one of the most demented sickos of my lifetime. Whatever kind of buffoon Bush is – and sometimes he is – his buffoonery in international diplomacy works on dictators.
1980s Flashback Slogan of the Week: “Peace Through Strength.”
That does come perilously close to “War is Peace” if parsed by those with ill intent.
[sub]Committee Notes: “Strength” (does not) = War.[/sub]
I see it as very plausible that Iraq could have stashed WMDs in Syria. From what I know about Syria, they are treated as the ugly cousin in the Middle East. They have no oil reserves, miniscule military, and are dirt poor. They need some way to survive, even if that means they give in to bullying from Iraq and make deals with the devil.
But that’s okay. If there are Iraq WMDs located in Syria, we’ll go through 12 more years of sanctions. Then Gulf War III will take place sometime in 2016. What’s the half life of some of these chemicals anyway?
You seem to be missing the other possible explanation - that Saddam was telling the truth and the WMDs were destroyed or disposed of years ago. Of course, if this was true, we would expect at some point that some reminents might turn up where they were buried ten years ago…
What it means is that Saddam likes to hide things. Everybody treats this dictator as if he operates under some kind of rule book. He does, it’s his book. I have little doubt that his toys are hidden in places he deems safe.
Syria was put on notice after 9/11 to clean up their act. I doubt the US will send in overt troops if a stash is located but that doesn’t mean the stash will be safe.
Looks to me like they were dumped in a hole in the ground and left to rust away. Which they did.
If you want to fantacize that that means the same thing as hiding toys in safe places, go ahead.
Look at the pictures. Then come back and explain how these things were safely hidden away, ready to be re-used. :rolleyes:
These things are always more effective when they are translated into German:
Frieden durch Stärke!
(sigh) We really need a Fraktur font on this board. I bet the NeoNazi boards get to have one. 
IIRC, under ideal conditions, refrigeration, and storage facilities, most WMDs will last only 3 or 4 years before they turn into useless gunk. Needless to say, “stashed under the desert sand” is far from “ideal conditions.”
Which is why, whenever the Bush Administration claims “We knew Saddam had WMDs in 1990, and he could use 'em against us now!”, the proper response is “Bullshit!”
Well, turns out it’s just another false alarm.