I’m sure you are probably trying to be critical about the weak intelligence that took us into Iraq in 2003… But you have just dove face first into the stupid end of the pool here bud.
It’s a very well documented fact that Iraq produced shit tons of WMD… The vast majority of it being stored still at the Muthanna Chemical Complex (MCC) which was relatively recently seized by ISIS a few years back… Many of which died after becoming exposed to the various chemical weapons that are still there, improperly stored, and leaking all over the environment…
It’s never been false that Iraq had WMDs… What was false was that they had begun producing them again. It wasn’t as farfetched as you are trying to make it seem.
You’re being obtuse and misleading. OP is clearly referring to alleged Iraqi WMDs in the lead up, and justification for, the 2003 invasion.
Stockpiles of WMDs were never found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
The ISG has not found evidence that Saddam possessed WMD stocks in 2003, but [there is] the possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq, although not of a militarily significant capability."
You don’t have to be a jerk about it. And after reading about this briefly I think that your presentation is misleading (and possibly factually incorrect; I didn’t immediately find sources that ISIS terrorists died from chemical exposure, though I didn’t look long).
And it was not far-fetched that Hamas could have been using tunnels under hospitals as a command center. Most people just don’t think attacking the hospital on the surface is justified even if so, since the people on the surface had no way of avoiding it. But any excuse to ethnically cleanse Palestine will do for right-wing Israelis.
I never said we invaded for that reason… I said that Iraq had produced WMDs in the past. Which was a well known fact. They also had pursued a nuclear weapons program in the past as well. This is why the falsified intelligence that lead to the 2003 invasion wasn’t farfetched… It’s not as simple as saying well it was a falsified report that led us to invade. It was bad tradecraft to assume that one Iraqi insiders report was all that was leveraged with no confirming Intel reporting of any kind from secondary sources. There was certainly also a level of political expediency that is also impossible to ignore if you are an honest person. Lots of politicians making the decision did seem to be a lot richer after that decision than before it…
But it’s nothing more than just really bad tradecraft on behalf of the Intel community. The report itself simply wasn’t farfetched enough to be dismissed as a lie.
And if you reread my original reply just a little more closely, I already said that while the poster was clearly trying to say that we entered Iraq for stupid reasons… He didn’t say that… He was implying Iraq didn’t have WMDs. Which is just purely false. They have some of the most deadly chemical weapons ever produced.
I don’t really care what you could or couldn’t find because I’m not giving you a report of something I read. I spent more than a year living in the Salah Ad Din province of Iraq. Im giving you facts as a first hand expert on this subject, you can chose to educate yourself or ignore me… It makes no difference to me either way.
I’m sure you are probably trying to be critical about the weak intelligence that took us into Iraq in 2003… But you have just dove face first into the stupid end of the pool here bud.
It’s a very well documented fact that Iraq produced shit tons of WMD… The vast majority of it being stored still at the Muthanna Chemical Complex (MCC) which was relatively recently seized by ISIS a few years back… Many of which died after becoming exposed to the various chemical weapons that are still there, improperly stored, and leaking all over the environment…
It’s never been false that Iraq had WMDs… What was false was that they had begun producing them again. It wasn’t as farfetched as you are trying to make it seem.
You’re being obtuse and misleading. OP is clearly referring to alleged Iraqi WMDs in the lead up, and justification for, the 2003 invasion.
Stockpiles of WMDs were never found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3718150.stm
You don’t have to be a jerk about it. And after reading about this briefly I think that your presentation is misleading (and possibly factually incorrect; I didn’t immediately find sources that ISIS terrorists died from chemical exposure, though I didn’t look long).
Wikipedia says weapons there were being decommissioned, and The Guardian says when ISIS took the facility the US wasn’t particularly concerned because there was nothing usable or intact there.. We didn’t invade Iraq for decommissioning old weapons.
And it was not far-fetched that Hamas could have been using tunnels under hospitals as a command center. Most people just don’t think attacking the hospital on the surface is justified even if so, since the people on the surface had no way of avoiding it. But any excuse to ethnically cleanse Palestine will do for right-wing Israelis.
I never said we invaded for that reason… I said that Iraq had produced WMDs in the past. Which was a well known fact. They also had pursued a nuclear weapons program in the past as well. This is why the falsified intelligence that lead to the 2003 invasion wasn’t farfetched… It’s not as simple as saying well it was a falsified report that led us to invade. It was bad tradecraft to assume that one Iraqi insiders report was all that was leveraged with no confirming Intel reporting of any kind from secondary sources. There was certainly also a level of political expediency that is also impossible to ignore if you are an honest person. Lots of politicians making the decision did seem to be a lot richer after that decision than before it…
But it’s nothing more than just really bad tradecraft on behalf of the Intel community. The report itself simply wasn’t farfetched enough to be dismissed as a lie.
And if you reread my original reply just a little more closely, I already said that while the poster was clearly trying to say that we entered Iraq for stupid reasons… He didn’t say that… He was implying Iraq didn’t have WMDs. Which is just purely false. They have some of the most deadly chemical weapons ever produced.
I don’t really care what you could or couldn’t find because I’m not giving you a report of something I read. I spent more than a year living in the Salah Ad Din province of Iraq. Im giving you facts as a first hand expert on this subject, you can chose to educate yourself or ignore me… It makes no difference to me either way.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/10/15/356360949/pentagon-reportedly-hushed-up-chemical-weapons-finds-in-iraq
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28222879
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/11/isis-chemical-biological-weapons/
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/middleeast/isis-chemical-weapons-syria-iraq-mosul.html
https://www.chds.us/ed/resources/uploads/2010/05/2017_UAPI_Summit_Almemar_ISIS.pdf
https://public.websites.umich.edu/~graceyor/govdocs/pdf/duelfer3_bb.pdf