Thousands More Lethal Chemical WMDs Have Been Found in Iraq, Wounding Soldiers

           The liberal New York Times reports that 5,000 chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMDS) have been found so far in Iraq – a figure that is ten-fold the number previously reported by the United States in 2006 – and that this number was known beforehand but not previously publicly disclosed.  The true number of Iraqi WMDs may never be known because of improper documentation and disposal methods in battlefield conditions that disincentivized proper reporting, according to the Times report.

The Times further reports that – contrary to critics of the Liberation of Iraq who had dismissed the lethality of Iraq’s chemical WMDs that had been discovered – these chemical munitions remained dangerous to the point of being lethal and even wounded several American soldiers from 2004 to as late as 2008 and also Iraqi soldiers as recently as 2010.  The soldiers were wounded through exposure to nerve or blister agents from artillery shells with chemical warheads, according to the report, and mishandled during their removal and destruction.  These chemical WMDs were either set up by insurgents, knowingly or not, as improvised explosive devices that targeted American and allied troops, or were scattered among stockpiles of conventional munitions, the Times reports.

The Times report exposes the necessity of providing proper care to soldiers wounded by Iraq’s chemical weapons because they had not received appropriate care, as well as to award them Purple Hearts for being wounded in action. 

These chemical weapons were among the stockpile Iraq’s Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein had either never disclosed or never convincingly proved it had destroyed, as it had been required to do under United Nations resolutions.   Despite the claim of the Times in its report that the Administration of U.S. President George W. Bush justified the Liberation of Iraq because of its insistence of an active Iraqi WMD production program, the concern that Iraq had retained a stockpile of WMDs was sufficient to justify war, apart from the reason that its WMDs were of concern in the first place, which was Iraq’s history of military aggression and state sponsorship of terrorism.  The report proves not only that Iraq was, indeed, a threat because of its WMDs, but that American and allied forces were successful in eliminating far more WMDs than previously known.  Alas, the Times report suggests that more Iraqi chemical WMDs may get into the hands of the “Islamic State,” which had already captured Iraq’s chemical weapons storage facility.

For more on the justifications for the Liberation of Iraq, including its chemical WMDs, see two comprehensive website compilations of links.  The first was posted in July of 2010 by a commenter, “Free Stinker,” on a discussion forum entitled “The Invasion of Iraq – Still the Right Thing To Do” on the Newsbusters website, which includes links to U.N., U.S. government and mostly liberal news media reports about Iraq’s use and retention of prohibited WMDs and chemicals and their discovery after the Liberation of Iraq, its overall WMD program, as well as Iraq’s possession of banned missiles, history of serial aggression, extensive sponsorship of terrorism and attempted assassination of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush:  http://newsbusters.org/forums/topic-discussion/invasion-iraq-still-right-thing-do.  An additional justification cited by the forum commentator was Iraq’s violation of the 1991 cease-fire that ended the Liberation of Kuwait.  I note Iraq’s cease-fire violations especially in the three years from the year 2000, the last year of the Clinton Administration, through the beginning of the Bush Administration until the Liberation of Iraq in 2003.  Violating the cease-fire signified Iraq’s intention to continue hostilities, for Hussein considered “The Mother of All Battles” never to have ended.  Indeed, Iraq was at war with the United States and its coalition partners from 1991-2003, long before George W. Bush became President, which was one reason Clinton had made it American policy to overthrow Hussein.  The second compilation appears on the “That’s Right I Said It” blog of U.S. Navy veteran Joe Kidd: http://www.networkedblogs.com/OsDEP, which particularly includes links to U.N. and U.S. documents and reports from a wide spectrum of the media about the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein’s retention of prohibited WMDs and chemicals the discovery of them and related materiel over several years, and Iraq’s overall WMD program, including October of 2010 reports about the WikiLeaks publication of secret U.S. documents that describe the finding of WMDs in Iraq. 

Both compilations include reports of Iraq’s violations of the arms embargo and intent to restart its WMD development program after obtaining the lifting of sanctions.