CORRECTION: US Did Find Chemical Weapons in Iraq... The Ones They Sent There

[Octafish]

Correction: US Did Find Chemical Weapons in Iraq... The Ones They Sent There

New reporting by the New York Times reveals the only chemical weapons found in Iraq were "designed in the United States, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies." And because they didn't fit the pre-invasion narrative, it was all kept quiet.

byJon Queally, staff writer
Common Dreams, October 15, 2014

These aren't the chemical weapons you're looking for.

New reporting from the New York Times, published online late Tuesday, reveals that although the administration of George W. Bush employed false claims of a chemical weapons program to justify its 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq (no such program existed) – the reality is that substantial, largely forgotten and degraded stockpiles of older weapons did exist inside the country.

However, according to the Times, because those weapons dated back to the 1980's—when the U.S. and other western nations were acting as an ally to Iraq and supplying weapons and chemical agents to Hussein during his war against Iran—U.S. troops who ultimately came across these weapons and ordered to destroy them were told to remain quiet about what they'd encountered, even as it put their own health and those of others in grave danger.

As the newspaper reports, former U.S. soldiers who participated in the disposal of such weapons during the long occupation of Iraq said the Bush administration, including the Pentagon, suppressed the existence of them for several reasons, "including that the government bristled at further acknowledgment it had been wrong."

“They needed something to say that after Sept. 11 Saddam used chemical rounds,” Jarrod Lampier, a recently retired Army major who was present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war, told the Times. His unit, he says, found more than 2,400 nerve-agent rockets unearthed in 2006 at a former Republican Guard compound, but said, “all of this was from the pre-1991 era.”

According to the Times:

The discoveries of these chemical weapons did not support the government’s invasion rationale.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush insisted that Mr. Hussein was hiding an active weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of international will and at the world’s risk. United Nations inspectors said they could not find evidence for these claims.

Then, during the long occupation, American troops began encountering old chemical munitions in hidden caches and roadside bombs. Typically 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets, they were remnants of an arms program Iraq had rushed into production in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war.

All had been manufactured before 1991, participants said. Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. Some were empty, though many of them still contained potent mustard agent or residual sarin. Most could not have been used as designed, and when they ruptured dispersed the chemical agents over a limited area, according to those who collected the majority of them.

In case after case, participants said, analysis of these warheads and shells reaffirmed intelligence failures. First, the American government did not find what it had been looking for at the war’s outset, then it failed to prepare its troops and medical corps for the aged weapons it did find.

And what's more? "In five of six incidents in which troops were wounded by chemical agents, the munitions appeared to have been designed in the United States, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

ORIGINAL ARTICLE w/links to details:

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/15/correction-us-did-find-chemical-weapons-iraq-ones-they-sent-there

FYI: This is the kind of reporting the traitors and warmongers don't like, as it's full of what Cass Sunstein calls "dangerous ideas." He's right, for the wrong reasons.

[gabeana]

1. just read the article

amazing, glad NYtimes is reporting this now, too bad they weren't doing investigative work back in 2003, that was when Judy Miller was just butt sniffing Cheney and his minions

[Octafish]

3. Perhaps the institutional memory at NYT is defective.

From the late NYT columnist and one-time speechwriter for the dishonorable Spiro Agnew:

THE ADMINISTRATION'S IRAQ GATE SCANDAL

(BY WILLIAM SAFIRE)
(Extension of Remarks - May 19, 1992)

HON. TOM LANTOS

in the House of Representatives

TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1992

Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, just 1 year ago, Americans were flush with the glow of the military victory over Saddam Hussein. Parades were held in the largest of cities and in the smallest of hamlets. New York and Washington were trying to outdo each other in the splendor of their competing celebrations of victory.

This year, however, we are wallowing in the sordid aftermath of the revelations of the misguided administration policy that brought about that war. We have been treated to details of how the administration bent over backwards in its misguided effort to support the regime of Saddam Hussein on the very eve of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Mr. Speaker, William Safire summarized this squalid tale of policy run amuck in an excellent article that appeared in yesterday's issue of the New York Times. I ask that this article be placed in the Record, and I urge my colleagues to read it carefully.

THE ADMINISTRATION'S IRAQ GATE SCANDAL

(BY WILLIAM SAFIRE)

Washington: Americans now know that the war in the Persian Gulf was brought about by a colossal foreign-policy blunder: George Bush's decision, after the Iran-Iraq war ended, to entrust regional security to Saddam Hussein.

What is not yet widely understood is how that benighted policy led to the Bush Administration's fraudulent use of public funds, its sustained deception of Congress and its obstruction of justice.

As the Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bandar, was urging Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker to buy the friendship of the Iraqi dictator in August 1989, the F.B.I. uncovered a huge scam at the Atlanta branch of the Lavoro Bank to finance the buildup of Iraq's war machine by diverting U.S.-guaranteed grain loans.

Instead of pressing the investigation or curbing the appeasement, the President turned a blind eye to lawbreaking and directed another billion dollars to Iraq. Our State and Agriculture Department's complicity in Iraq's duplicity transformed what could have been dealt with as `Saddam's Lavoro scandal' into George Bush's Iraqgate.

The first element of corruption is the wrongful application of U.S. credit guarantees. Neither the Commodity Credit Corporation nor the Export-Import Bank runs a foreign-aid program; their purpose is to stimulate U.S. exports. High-risk loan guarantees to achieve foreign-policy goals unlawful endanger that purpose.

Yet we now know that George Bush personally leaned on Ex-Im to subvert its charter--not to promote our exports but to promote relations with the dictator. And we have evidence that James Baker overrode worries in Agriculture and O.M.B. that the law was being perverted: Mr. Baker's closest aid, Robert Kimmett, wrote triumphantly, `your call to . . . Yeutter . . . paid off.' Former Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter is now under White House protection.

Second element of corruption is the misleading of Congress. When the charge was made two years ago in this space that State was improperly intervening in this case, Mr. Baker's top Middle East aide denied it to Senate Foreign Relations; meanwhile, Yeutter aides deceived Senator Leahy's Agriculture Committee about the real foreign-policy purpose of the C.C.C. guarantees. To carry out Mr. Bush's infamous National Security Directive 26, lawful oversight was systematically blinded.

Third area of Iraqgate corruption is the obstruction of justice. Atlanta's assistant U.S. Attorney Gail McKenzie, long blamed here for foot-dragging, would not withhold from a grand jury what she has already told friends: that indictment of Lavoro officials was held up for nearly a year by the Bush Criminal Division. The long delay in prosecution enabled James Baker to shake credits for Saddam out of malfeasant Agriculture appointees.

When House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez gathered documents marked `secret' showing this pattern of corruption, he put them in the Congressional Record. Two months later, as the media awakened, Mr. Bush gave the familiar `gate' order; stonewall.

`Public disclosure of classified information harms the national security,' Attorney General William Barr instructed the House Banking Committee last week. `. . . in light of your recent disclosures, the executive branch will not provide any more classified information'--unless the wrongdoing is kept secret.

`Your threat to withhold documents,' responded Chairman Gonzalez, `has all the earmarks of a classic effort to obstruct a proper and legitimate investigation . . . none of the documents compromise, in any fashion whatsoever, the national security or intelligence sources and methods.'

Mr. Barr, in personal jeopardy, has flung down the gauntlet. Chairman Gonzalez tells me he plans to present his obstruction case this week to House Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks, probably flanked by Representatives Charles Schumer and Barney Frank, members of both committees.

`I will recommend that Judiciary consider requiring the appointment of an independent counsel,' says Mr. Gonzalez, who has been given reason to believe that Judiciary--capable of triggering the Ethics in Government Act--will be persuaded to act.

Policy blunders are not crimes. But perverting the purpose of appropriated funds is a crime; lying to Congress compounds that crime; and obstructing justice to cover up the original crime is a criminal conspiracy.

SOURCE: http://fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920519l.htm

Dear Mods: There shouldn't be a problem with copyright. This comes from the Congressional Record, a public document.

[sharp_stick]

2. I didn't make a new Facebook friend

A friend of a friend posted the idiotic "See now we have proof bullshit" and I replied with. Are you a moron or a deliberately dissembling asshole? These are the WMD's that we're provided in the 80's by Western countries because Saddam was our guy back then.

He replied with a "Well I didn't read the whole article" so I got in a "So that would be number 1 then huh?"

[Octafish]

6. Lots of chemicals. Rumsfeld was a private citizen on a public errand for Reagan cough Bush...

...In that photo, Rumsfeld was working for Searle.

Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:
The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82

Edited by Joyce Battle
February 25, 2003

EXCERPT...

By the summer of 1983 Iran had been reporting Iraqi use of using chemical weapons for some time. The Geneva protocol requires that the international community respond to chemical warfare, but a diplomatically isolated Iran received only a muted response to its complaints [Note 1]. It intensified its accusations in October 1983, however, and in November asked for a United Nations Security Council investigation.

The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war (Document 24). The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against "Kurdish insurgents" as well (Document 25).

What was the Reagan administration's response? A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its "efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results." But the department noted in late November 1983 that "with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq ha[d] become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use. Given its desperation to end the war, Iraq may again use lethal or incapacitating CW, particularly if Iran threatens to break through Iraqi lines in a large-scale attack" (Document 25). The State Department argued that the U.S. needed to respond in some way to maintain the credibility of its official opposition to chemical warfare, and recommended that the National Security Council discuss the issue.

Following further high-level policy review, Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114, dated November 26, 1983, concerned specifically with U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The directive reflects the administration's priorities: it calls for heightened regional military cooperation to defend oil facilities, and measures to improve U.S. military capabilities in the Persian Gulf, and directs the secretaries of state and defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take appropriate measures to respond to tensions in the area. It states, "Because of the real and psychological impact of a curtailment in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf on the international economic system, we must assure our readiness to deal promptly with actions aimed at disrupting that traffic." It does not mention chemical weapons (Document 26).

Soon thereafter, Donald Rumsfeld (who had served in various positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including as President Ford's defense secretary, and at this time headed the multinational pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Co.) was dispatched to the Middle East as a presidential envoy. His December 1983 tour of regional capitals included Baghdad, where he was to establish "direct contact between an envoy of President Reagan and President Saddam Hussein," while emphasizing "his close relationship" with the president (Document 28). Rumsfeld met with Saddam, and the two discussed regional issues of mutual interest, shared enmity toward Iran and Syria, and the U.S.'s efforts to find alternative routes to transport Iraq's oil; its facilities in the Persian Gulf had been shut down by Iran, and Iran's ally, Syria, had cut off a pipeline that transported Iraqi oil through its territory. Rumsfeld made no reference to chemical weapons, according to detailed notes on the meeting (Document 31).

Rumsfeld also met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, and the two agreed, "the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests." Rumsfeld affirmed the Reagan administration's "willingness to do more" regarding the Iran-Iraq war, but "made clear that our efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us, citing the use of chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf, and human rights." He then moved on to other U.S. concerns [Document 32]. Later, Rumsfeld was assured by the U.S. interests section that Iraq's leadership had been "extremely pleased" with the visit, and that "Tariq Aziz had gone out of his way to praise Rumsfeld as a person" (Document 36 and Document 37).

CONTINUED...

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

GWU's National Security Archives has details, documents, images and video -- perfect for our friends on Facebook. Thank you, sharp_stick, for caring about what NYT and the rest of Corporate McPravda seem to conveniently miss.

[Mnpaul]

27. A small correction

These were WMDs. They are no longer WMDs.

[Proud Public Servant]

4. That was actually my favorite joke/riddle from 2003-2004

Q: What proof do we have that Iraq has WMD?

A: The receipts.

[Octafish]

13. Absolutely. As a Sales Rep for War Inc., Donald Rumsfeld is Death's Henchman.

He was head of G.D. Searle & Company, inventors and once proud patent holders of The Pill -- at first considered "a drug without a market." So, as if birth control and eugenics didn't already have enough in common:

Eugenics and the NAZIs: The California Connection

by Edwin Black, once of The New York Times.

[madfloridian]

5. Business Week 2002 A US gift to Iraq Deadly viruses

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2002-09-19/a-u-dot-s-dot-gift-to-iraq-deadly-viruses

In a previously unreleased letter obtained by BusinessWeek, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention admitted that the CDC supplied Iraqi scientists with nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples in the 1980s, including the plague, West Nile, and dengue fever. The letter, written in 1995 by then-CDC director David Satcher, was in response to a congressional inquiry.

The CDC was abiding by World Health Organization guidelines that encouraged the free exchange of biological samples among medical researchers -- before Congress imposed tighter controls on biological exports in 1995, says Thomas Monath, who headed the CDC lab where the viruses came from during the period in which they were handed over. "It was a very innocent request, which we were obligated to fulfill," recalls Monath. Plus, in the 1980s, Iraq and the U.S. were allies.

....Still, some observers believe there should have been more prudence. "We were freely exchanging pathogenic materials with a country that we knew had an active biological warfare program," says James Tuite, a former Senate investigator who helped publicize Gulf War Syndrome. "The consequences should have been foreseen."

The CDC's 1995 Letter to the Senate

In 1995, the Center for Disease Control & Prevention provided to then-Senator Donald Riegel (D-Mich.) a complete list of all biological materials -- including viruses, retroviruses, bacteria, and fungi -- that the CDC provided to Iraq from Oct. 1, 1984 through Oct. 13, 1993. Among the materials on the list are several types of dengue and sandfly fever virus, West Nile virus, and plague-infected mouse tissue smears. In his letter to Riegel, then-CDC Director David Satcher wrote: "Most of the materials were non-infectious diagnostic reagents for detecting evidence of infections to mosquito-borne viruses."

Here's the complete letter and list of biological materials:

By Dean Foust and John Carey in Washington, D.C.

The complete letter link is dead. Trying to find it now.

[Octafish]

14. ..."It was a very innocent request, which we were obligated to fulfill," recalls Monath.

Plus, in the 1980s, Iraq and the U.S. were allies...

Thank you for the heads-up, madfloridian. I had read about the Deadly Virus memo. It's a Must-Read for anyone cares about democracy. Here's background for those new to the subject:

The Ties That Blind How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons

How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons

by NORM DIXON
CounterPunch, June 17, 2004

On August 18, 2002, the New York Times carried a front-page story headlined, "Officers say U.S. aided Iraq despite the use of gas". Quoting anonymous US "senior military officers", the NYT "revealed" that in the 1980s, the administration of US President Ronald Reagan covertly provided "critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war". The story made a brief splash in the international media, then died.

While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of US military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Ronald Reagan’s Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime’s repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq’s Kurdish minority, but the US helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

Nor did the NYT dwell on the extreme cynicism and hypocrisy of President George Bush II’s administration’s citing of those same terrible atrocities–which were disregarded at the time by Washington–and those same weapons programs–which no longer exist, having been dismantled and destroyed in the decade following the 1991 Gulf War–to justify a massive new war against the people of Iraq.

A reader of the NYT article (or the tens of thousands of other articles written after the war drive against Iraq began in earnest soon after September 11, 2001) would have looked in vain for the fact that many of the US politicians and ruling class pundits who demanded war against Hussein–in particular, the one of the most bellicose of the Bush administration’s "hawks", defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld–were up to their ears in Washington’s efforts to cultivate, promote and excuse Hussein in the past.

The NYT article read as though Washington’s casual disregard about the use of chemical weapons by Hussein’s dictatorship throughout the 1980s had never been reported before. However, it was not the first time that "Iraqgate"–as the scandal of US military and political support for Hussein in the ’80s has been dubbed–has raised its embarrassing head in the corporate media, only to be quickly buried again.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/17/how-reagan-armed-saddam-with-chemical-weapons/

In a Wall Street way, it's gratifying to read that Saddam didn't waste all those multi-billion dollar loans extended by the US taxpayer to provide sustenance for his people. It would have been that much harder to cover up the story.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. We always knew this.

It was known back then.

[Octafish]

8. Which makes the New York Times failure to publish all the more grievous.

Last edited Wed Oct 15, 2014, 02:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Now, the Times is actually pushing war as good for the economy:

The Pitfalls of Peace

The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth

Tyler Cowen
The New York Times, JUNE 13, 2014

The continuing slowness of economic growth in high-income economies has prompted soul-searching among economists. They have looked to weak demand, rising inequality, Chinese competition, over-regulation, inadequate infrastructure and an exhaustion of new technological ideas as possible culprits.

An additional explanation of slow growth is now receiving attention, however. It is the persistence and expectation of peace.

The world just hasn’t had that much warfare lately, at least not by historical standards. Some of the recent headlines about Iraq or South Sudan make our world sound like a very bloody place, but today’s casualties pale in light of the tens of millions of people killed in the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Even the Vietnam War had many more deaths than any recent war involving an affluent country.

Counterintuitive though it may sound, the greater peacefulness of the world may make the attainment of higher rates of economic growth less urgent and thus less likely. This view does not claim that fighting wars improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments on getting some basic decisions right — whether investing in science or simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nation’s longer-run prospects.

It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military contracting, not today’s entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic growth.

War brings an urgency that governments otherwise fail to summon. For instance, the Manhattan Project took six years to produce a working atomic bomb, starting from virtually nothing, and at its peak consumed 0.4 percent of American economic output. It is hard to imagine a comparably speedy and decisive achievement these days.

SNIP...

Living in a largely peaceful world with 2 percent G.D.P. growth has some big advantages that you don’t get with 4 percent growth and many more war deaths. Economic stasis may not feel very impressive, but it’s something our ancestors never quite managed to pull off. The real questions are whether we can do any better, and whether the recent prevalence of peace is a mere temporary bubble just waiting to be burst.

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/upshot/the-lack-of-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth.html?_r=0

Things in the United States would be different if as many people read DU as do the NYT.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. Someone should counter their revisionism with an op that provides facts.

[CJCRANE]

24. War is just another form of corporate socialism.

It's another example where RWers support socialism for some economic sectors but not for others.

The government could easily spend the money on something else like energy independence or infrastructure and get better returns.

[bobthedrummer]

10. Yep. K&R. Rummy's pal Doug Feith is cited in another overlooked article from December 1986, Sir.

Military Spending Spurs Interest In Research on Biological Weapons (by Seth Shulman 12-15-86 The Scientist)
http://www.thescientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/8273/title/Military-Spending-Spurs-Interest-In-Research-on-Biological-Weapons

Of course the article above is about biological weapons, not chemical. Yep.

[Octafish]

16. Generals don't call Feith the dumbest fucking guy on the planet for nothing.

From the article:

The Defense Department expects to spend $73.2 million in 1987 on biological weapons research, a figure that has risen from $14.9 million at the start of the Reagan administration. Douglas Feith, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, told a House sub-committee last summer that "the prevailing judgment of years ago that BW is not a militarily significant weapon is now quite un sustainable."

Thank you for the heads-up, bobthedrummer! Very important quote and article for those onto their gangster NAZI asses. It really does seem like a sound socio-politico-economic case was made for having us sustain a bioweaponized Pearl Harbor a quarter century later.

[bobthedrummer]

19. Yet that "dumbest fucking guy" Feith set up the Office of Special Plans with Paul Wolfowitz, which

Dougie "commanded" as per Bush/Cheney et al.

A lot of perception management has been used to make US forget these things, hasn't it?

Office of Special Plans (Wikipedia entry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans

[Mnpaul]

28. If I remember correctly

The uranium from Niger memo also popped up in Feith's office.

[bobthedrummer]

33. The Niger memo is notorious for many reasons, it was a fabrication used along with other lies to in-

vade Iraq.

PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Findings (The National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 254)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB254

Regardless of nationstate, many intelligence operatives use cover in embassies-the Niger memo surfaced from Italy and Mel Sembler was the Bush/Cheney Ambassador there.

Mel Sembler (SourceWatch)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mel_Sembler

[Mnpaul]

37. Office of Special Plans

Feith was criticized during the first term of the Bush administration for creating the Office of Strategic Influence. This office came into existence to support the War on Terror. The office's aim was to influence policymakers by submitting biased news stories into the foreign media.

Feith played a significant role in the buildup to the Iraq war. As part of his portfolio, he supervised the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, a group of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_J._Feith

[bobthedrummer]

38. The Office of Strategic Influence/OSI was headed by former USAF Brig. Gen. Simon Peter Worden

OSI was responsible for the illegal use of PsyOps domestically (which has continued).
OSI included The Rendon Goup (which later perception managed the 2004 Democratic National Convention and introduced the then junior US Senator from Illinois Barack H. Obama), Fort Bragg's 4th PsyOps Group (the DoD dropped Psychological Operations designation now called Military Information Support Operations-yet in the contracted DoD psyops have certainly continued domestically) etc. Btw, some of the people that investigated this general subject wound up terminated, most notably Michael Hastings.

Here are a few links about OSI, in general.

DoD News Briefing February 26, 2002 with OSI excerpts (Federation of American Scientists archive)
http://fas.org/sgp/news/2002/02/dod022602.html

Office of Strategic Influence (SourceWatch)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Office_of_Strategic_Influence

Simon Peter Worden/ Pete Worden (Wikipedia) this guy is a blackop indeed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Worden

Yet Douglas Feith et al are still very active in MSM!

[malaise]

11. Ding ding we have a winner

Rec

[Octafish]

20. Remember John KOKAL.

John Kokal was a State Department officer who knew something was wrong with war on Iraq. He ended up dead from a fall the top of the State Department, reportedly just after voicing his reasons to his superiors. Another "suicide" whose sudden, if convenient, passing made it easier for the warmongers and war profiteers to make another killing on yet another day. As it was never covered in the national press, Mr. Kokal's story is now largely forgotten, especially among those who don't know John Bolton, apart from those who know our friend, Wayne.

[WillyT]

12. K & R !!!

[The Magistrate]

15. Indeed, Sir: Pretending This Is Some 'New Information' Is A Sick Joke

Even during the time of the occupation, there were reports out of such encounters, with, I would add, the same 'see, he did to have wmd' spin attempted by the usual suspects.

We knew what he had from the eighties, we had the receipts. We also knew the use he made of them, and provided intelligence for targeting to him.

We even went so far as to try and blame Iran for some of his gas attacks on Kurds in the northeast, which obfuscations some on the left would mistakenly brandish as gospel truth in the run up to Bush's invasion, in trying to claim Saddam was being 'demonized'.

[Octafish]

25. True, Sir. The new angle is how it will help justify further warmongering via ISIS...

ISIS capable of making dirty bombs with chemical weapons cache in Iraq, former British colonel warns

Damien McElroy and Philip Sherwell,
The Telegraph, Oct. 15, 2014

LONDON and NEW YORK — A former commander of the British Army’s chemical and nuclear weapons protection forces has warned that the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) has the capability of making battlefield dirty bombs.

SNIP...

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former colonel, issued the warning after it was found that two large stockpiles of shells filled with mustard and sarin gas had not been made secure, either under the American occupation or when Iraqi forces controlled the areas north of Baghdad before this summer.

Mr. Bretton-Gordon said ISIS had shown it was determined to use chemical weapons in Syria and its advance in Iraq had put dangerous material within the group’s grasp.

SNIP...

“We know that ISIL have researched the use of chemical weapons in Syria for the last two years and worryingly there are already unconfirmed reports that ISIL has used mustard gas as it pursues its offensive against the Kurds in Kobani.

“They certainly have access to the Al-Qaeda research into chemical weapons and will want to use the legacy weapons in Iraq.” ISIS seized the Muthanna State Establishment, where Iraqi chemical agent production was based in the Eighties, this summer.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/15/isis-capable-of-making-dirty-bombs-with-abandoned-chemical-weapons-cache-in-northern-iraq-former-british-colonel-warns/

Funny how everytime the War without End starts to wind down, the right org pops up to make these interesting and, for friends of Carlyle Group, profitable times.

[The Magistrate]

26. Trying To Use Derelict Chemical Munitions, Sir, Is Pretty Much A Self-Correcting Problem

These things are fiendishly dangerous to handle. I hope the boogers give it a try....

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. The Bush Administration had quite a fantasy program going...

Whoever could visualize the most would get the most play.

As an example, they talked about an underground subway system which they claimed was converted into an extensive underground chemical and biological lab. It got so bad that they had maps of the underground bunkers under one building including where his son's quarters were located. They hit that supposed "nerve center" with bunker busters as part of their "decapitating strike" and there was nothing there at all but solid ground. No hidden bunkers. They claimed there were secret labs built under his main palace and did a full tactical raid only to find it was a parking garage containing Saddam's antique car collection.

Meanwhile, known munitions depots were left unguarded as troops protected the Oil Ministry.

Oh,...and remember the FOX "News" guy who tried to smuggle out priceless museum pieces?

[Octafish]

39. The Real World.

Excellent memory, yours, Spitfire of ATJ.

"NATO's political leadership" claimed Saddam possessed drones capable of delivering anthrax to New York City.

Dr. David Kelly laughed out loud in public over the assertion. And, after yukking it up via email with Steno Judy Miller, he died all of an unnatural sudden.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

40. Don't you just love suicides where the body has been moved?

[madfloridian]

18. Octafish, I found 2 more articles from 2002 from USA Today.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp_x.htm

Report: U.S. supplied the kinds of germs Iraq later used for biological weapons

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp-list_x.htm

A look at U.S. shipments of pathogens to Iraq

[blkmusclmachine]

21. You mean George W Bush would not say the unvarnished, whole truth about something? Tell us all about

9/11, again, Georgie ol' boy.



Operation Northwoods:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662

[madokie]

22. Thats why they were so adamant about being able to find them

They knew. Many of us knew too.

[Diclotican]

23. Octafish

Octafish

THE TRUTH will always come out - even if some in power do not want it to come out for a long time - and this and many other things was debated rather active back in the days - when US was gunning up for the war with Iraq in 2003... But sadly it was pu on the table (so to say) before the war started - GWB and the gang got its war - and devastated the whole of Middle east in the proses - even if the whole war was based on lie, lies, and more lies.....

Diclotican

[rhett o rick]

29. I think I would get a lot more sleep if you didn't keep posting this schtuff.

Keep it up. I'll deal with it.

[Ichingcarpenter]

30. War

[Scuba]

31. K&R Bookmarking for later use. Thanks Octafish and all who contributed to this thread.

[Enthusiast]

32. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Thank you, Octafish.

[Initech]

34. Time to arrest the whole damn lot of the military industrial complex and the BFEE.

They have committed treason and war crimes of the highest order. Sending our troops to die for profit. I can't think of a worse crime than that.

[woo me with science]

35. K&R

[bobthedrummer]

36. bttt n/t