So it's fucking war then

[Gary_Kumquat]

Lute, I apologise for repeating myself, but:

@Gary_Kumquat

Just to be clear, and apologies if I’ve misunderstood, but are you arguing that the use of 1 sarin gas shell in an IED in 2004 actually shows that Saddam’s regime had significant weapons of mass destruction?

[DrDeth]

@Gary_Kumquat

Lute, I apologise for repeating myself, but:Just to be clear, and apologies if I’ve misunderstood, but are you arguing that the use of 1 sarin gas shell in an IED in 2004 actually shows that Saddam’s regime had significant weapons of mass destruction?

WHEN? Pre 1990- yes! By 2003? No. Does the one shell itslef show that Saddams regime had 10’s of thousands of tonnes of that material in 1990? No. But the UN report shows it did. Saddam even used Nerve gas on his own people pre-1990.

So** WHEN?**

[Skywatcher]

@Gary_Kumquat

Lute, I apologise for repeating myself, but:

Missed that. Sorry.

@DrDeth

WHEN? Pre 1990- yes! By 2003? No. Does the one shell itslef show that Saddams regime had 10’s of thousands of tonnes of that material in 1990? No. But the UN report shows it did. Saddam even used Nerve gas on his own people pre-1990.

So** WHEN?**

What he said. A few hundred of Saddam’s old chemical shells were discovered after the invasion, shells which his regime said had been destroyed. The UN also reported that, of the 100,000 chemical munitions that Iraq claimed had been destroyed, about 2% could not be verified. Maybe they’re in the underground bunkers that the UN also discovered but did not bother to investigate.

[RTFirefly]

@Lute Skywatcher

MSNBC, 17 May 2004

My recollection, FWIW, is that there was a lot of that back then: a shell would turn up that the military would initially claim had traces of chemical weapons, but a few days later they’d say they hadn’t been able to confirm the initial field test.

Without knowing how this story played out over the next week or two, I can’t regard it as evidence that even a trivial amount of chemical weapons were found in Iraq after we invaded.

[RTFirefly]

@Measure_for_Measure

Pollack later stated that his book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq was a balanced treatment of the subject and wasn’t really a case for invading Iraq.

The book got “The Case for Invading Iraq” in the title just by accident. Or I guess that’s what Pollack would have had us think, once things in Iraq started going downhill.

[yojimbo]

@RTFirefly

My recollection, FWIW, is that there was a lot of that back then: a shell would turn up that the military would initially claim had traces of chemical weapons, but a few days later they’d say they hadn’t been able to confirm the initial field test.

There was a few pit threads around that time from the people who supported the war saying, Ha! fuck all y’all, there was WMD’s or something similar only for them to have to eat crow a few days later when the story was corrected.