RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events WMDs FOUND!!!!

The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

"This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows that years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.

Hoekstra said the report, completed in April but only declassified now, shows that "there is still a lot about Iraq that we don't fully understand."

Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.

Santorum pointed out that during Wednesday's debate, several Senate Democrats said that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, a claim, he said, that the declassified document proves is untrue.

"This is an incredibly — in my mind — significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction, is in fact false," he said.

As a result of this new information, under the aegis of his chairmanship, Hoekstra said he is going to ask for more reporting by the various intelligence agencies about weapons of mass destruction.

"We are working on the declassification of the report. We are going to do a thorough search of what additional reports exist in the intelligence community. And we are going to put additional pressure on the Department of Defense and the folks in Iraq to more fully pursue a complete investigation of what existed in Iraq before the war," Hoekstra said.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
It doesn't matter what teh facts are, the Dems have thier mantra, and they're sticking to it!

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wannabuyamonkey said:
Again, they haven't lied. Even the example you used of them finding muntions that they thought were WMDs that later turned out not to be isn't a lie. Infact it answers the "fishyness" that you and PJP smell. If they've blundered in the past by rushing to judgement then they learned thier lesson and decided to wait untill they collected enough evidence to be sure of thier claim before making it public... this sounds like quite the opposite of the boy who cried wolf. I think the boy who cried wolf better describes those who keep claiming we're losing the day before another victory and want to huury up and get out of Iraq before we collect enough victories that they can no longer claim we're losing.

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the G-man said:
Ray, to date, you've been unable to document a single actual lie. At best you've shown failures of intelligence gathering or legitimate differences of opinion.

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And now we have reports that Saddam did have WMDs.

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It's over, ray. The "Bush LIED" canard is played out. Time to go back to the well for a new talking point.

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the G-man said:
You're mistaken (or, using your logic, "lying"). Senators, not Bush, called the press conference yesterday that revealed the existence of these WMDs. So even if you weren't mistaken (or, using your logic, "lying") about Bush's record, that record is irrelevant to this news.

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the G-man said:
Which republican senators "LIED" about WMDs in the past?

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DOD disavows Santorum's WMD claims

Sen Rick Santorum (R-Pa) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) held a press conference yesterday to announce that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, only to have their claims flatly disavowed by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Santorum and Hoekstra were talking about the degraded and inoperable remnants of Saddam's pre-1991 chemical weapons program that are turning up at various sites around Iraq. Their allegations are based on the U.S. government's own Iraq Survey Group. The very same report convinced President Bush that Iraq did not have WMD.

The DOD flatly disavowed the Congressmen's WMD claims. ThinkProgress: "Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”

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San Jose Mercury News

Santorum's approval rating slides to 38 percent, poll shows
PETER JACKSON
Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Bob Casey's lead over U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum has stretched to 18 percentage points since early May, as Casey picked up new support and the Republican incumbent's approval rating skidded to a four-year low, according to a poll released Wednesday.

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No, Click Here!

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The "Bush LIED" canard is played out.

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What's been announced is accurate, that there have been hundreds of canisters or weapons of various types found that either currently have sarin in them or had sarin in them. And sarin's dangerous. And it's dangerous to our forces and it's a concern. So, obviously, to the extent we can locate these and destroy them, it's important that we do so. They are dangerous. And anyone, I'm sure, General Casey or anyone else in that country, would be concerned if they got in the wrong hands. They are weapons of mass destruction. They're harmful to human beings. And they have been found. And they had not been reported by Saddam Hussein as he inaccurately alleged that he had reported all of his weapons. And they are still being found and discovered.

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the G-man said:
If we're going to deal in absolutes, such as the war was ONLY about WMDs, let's deal in absolutes.

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For some people, it never will be, will it, G-man?

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First Amongst Daves said:
As time passes, even after the official US search has long ended, and long after Bush officials have adopted the line that they were (rightly or wrongly) misled by defective intelligence, there will still be people who will say that Iraq had WMDs, just that they're missing, or in the desert, or in Syria, or that inconsequential old shells disregarded by the Department of Defence were actually the cause for war. Because there will never be an end point where someone can give up hope that they were there, so long as nothing is found: the true believers will persist.

Such is the nature of fanatical partisanship, where hope for a righteous justification defies even the inevitable logical conclusion reached by their political leaders: faithful to a lost cause, still snarling, and blind to reason.

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r3x29yz4a said:
only a Sith deals in absolutes.

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First Amongst Daves said:
Such is the nature of fanatical partisanship, where hope for a righteous justification defies even the inevitable logical conclusion reached by their political [candidates]: faithful to a lost cause, still snarling, and blind to reason.

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I couldn't have said it better myself.

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wannabuyamonkey said:

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First Amongst Daves said:
As time passes, even after the official US search has long ended, and long after Bush officials have adopted the line that they were (rightly or wrongly) misled by defective intelligence, there will still be people who will say that Iraq had WMDs, just that they're missing, or in the desert, or in Syria, or that inconsequential old shells disregarded by the Department of Defence were actually the cause for war. Because there will never be an end point where someone can give up hope that they were there, so long as nothing is found: the true believers will persist.

Such is the nature of fanatical partisanship, where hope for a righteous justification defies even the inevitable logical conclusion reached by their political leaders: faithful to a lost cause, still snarling, and blind to reason.

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Translation: No matter what happens or what evidence points to the contrary, Bush lied!

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Captain Sammitch said:

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First Amongst Daves said:
Such is the nature of fanatical partisanship, where hope for a righteous justification defies even the inevitable logical conclusion reached by their political [candidates]: faithful to a lost cause, still snarling, and blind to reason.

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I couldn't have said it better myself.

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First Amongst Daves said:
The real issue is there are no WMDs. There was no threat to America or global peace lying in wait in Iraq. The search for them is long over. No amount of obscurification changes that.

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whomod said:

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whomod said:
I'd have simply posted this back again..



Seems only fitting since it's not anyone on the "left" flipping them off and making them look foolish (again).

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Welcome back!