Some background on Iraq's chemical weapon history:

In March 1988, the Iranian & Iraqi armies had a battle near the border-town of Halabja. Witnesses claimed both sides used chemical weapons. While the soldiers on both sides had protective gear (e.g. gas masks), the Kurdish civilians did not, and over 5,000 of them were killed (some reports say the number dead was as high as 7,000). The initial reports from Human Rights Watch claimed that the Iraqis were the ones who gassed the Kurds, and that this was intentional.

In July 1988, 4 months later, Bechtel was hired by Saddam Hussein's government to build a huge petrochemical complex that would give Iraq the ability to generate chemical weapons. (prior to this, most of their chemical and biological weapons had been purchased from the Washington-based company American Type Culture Collection)

That same month, the United States congress (both houses) voted in favor of sanctions against Iraq. President Reagan vetoed the bill, citing a report which had been prepared by DOD which concluded that the gas that killed the Kurds was the type that the Iranians were using, and thus the Iranians had gassed the Kurds, not the Iraqis.

So instead of sanctions, President Reagan approved guaranteed loans for Iraq in the amount of $2 billion, meaning if Iraq was to default, the loans would be paid by US taxpayers.

The money was borrowed from the Atlanta branch of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, and was guaranteed by the Federal government through the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation, which is meant to be used to guarantee loans to foreign governments for food purchases from US farmers. Instead, the money was paid directly to Bechtel and was used to build the PC2 Petrochemical Complex south of Baghdad. In the summer of 1990, after the UN imposed sanctions on Iraq, they defaulted on this loan.

So in 1991 after the Gulf War, when the UN inspectors went into Iraq, guess where they found most of the Chemical Weapons had been produced? You bet!

Since the current war in Iraq started, Bechtel has received over $2.8 billion in rebuilding contracts.


So here's a summary:

US taxpayers paid an American company hundreds of millions of dollars to build a huge chemical weapons factory in Iraq, 4 months after the crazy Iraqi leader had already been accused of killing over 5,000 of his own citizens using chemical weapons.

Then, 15 years later, US taxpayers are now paying this same American company over 2 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq after the US destroyed and invaded the country under the pretext of preventing Iraq from developing biological and chemical weapons.

Good job! :thumbup:

:yawn: I gotta tell yaw'll this is boring:whistle: . A lot of facts figures :dunno: that could or could not be true. :confused: A lot of ranting and raving. :rant: A lot of mental trips over the same worn out conversational pavement leading to nowhere.:banghead: Would someone please provide a pragmatic solution. ;) Thank you.

Everything you quote came from where? A liberal newsletter propaganda machine. These are "quoted" "facts" from documents that have no liability of being factual & can be manipulated as the liberals wish. People can publish anything they want. Especially when politics are the driving force nothing can be taken as true. You can "quote" anything you want from your biased sources but who really believes anything you "quote" because of your reputation as the most liberal "quoter".

I was in the desert at the time of the sarin incident and read the official report. I have EOD friends who personally know the two guys that were affected. You know nothing about chemical weapons but these guys could be dealing with that exposure for the rest of their lives. And you really doubt this happened just because it WASN'T quoted in your liberal media sources. You honestly need to realize you have been and continue to be brainwashed by whatever liberal newsletters you subscribe to. You need to understand that anything they publish needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Do you really, really believe that everything they publish is true? Eric, Please just answer me that question, please.

News reports of chem incidents in Iraq...not verified to be 100% true!

http://www.hannity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11453

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html

FOX News......:rolleyes: Well I guess that settles that. How can you possibly argue with THE pinnacle in unbiased reporting........particularly when delivered by uber-anchorman Kent Brockman.


Two shells, one of them the agent was inoperative....give me a break. I can probably find more WMD's laying around in your backyard......:rofl:

I do not subscribe to any liberal newsletters. When I want to know about something, I go directly to the source. We have something called FOIA (freedom of information act) which allows you to get copies of actual documents. Many such documents are even available online.

To begin with, these are my sources:

https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/

http://www.wmd.gov/report/

Both of these investigations were sanctioned by the White House -- a White House that was desperate to find WMDs in Iraq.

In the later of those 2 investigations, several hundred investigators spent over 6 months combing through Iraq for evidence and interviewing anyone they could find.

Neither of those 2 reports mentions anything about what you posted above. How do you explain that?


Regarding my other post, which facts are you disputing? Want some non-liberal sources?

Here's a Bechtel company profile:

http://experts.about.com/e/b/be/Bechtel_Corporation.htm

Near the bottom:

In 1988, just after Saddam Hussein had earned international condemnation for using poisonous gas against thousands of Kurds, Bechtel signed contracts with Iraq to build a dual-use chemical plant in Baghdad.



Here's a US Army report:

http://www.army.mil/prof_writing/vol.../7_03_2v2.html

In 1988, immediately after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, using US-built helicopters, Saddam unleashed brutal gas attacks on the Kurds. Approximately 30 villages were gassed with chemical agents that included mustard gas and nerve toxins. Normally the United States would lead the outraged international response to any such act. In fact, the Reagan Administration did sponsor a resolution in the United Nations condemning the use of chemical weapons, and it tightened some export controls; however, the great majority of all dual-use export licenses were approved by the Reagan Administration.


The name of the congressional sanctions bill was the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988". The bill was opposed by the White House. Are you disputing this?

Here is the info from the Library of Congress:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquer...3:@@@L&summ2=m&


As far as where Iraq got their chemical & biological weapons:

From the encyclopedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War

On 25 May1994, The U.S. Senate Banking Committee released a report in which it was stated that pathogenic (meaning disease producing), toxigenic (meaning poisonous) and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq, pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It added: "These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction." The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Anthrax Bacillus) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding that "these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

Hey Lamb, I would hardly consider all the official US Government sources cited by Eric as "Liberal Media"......

The plain non-liberal, unadulterated Fact is that at the time of the US invasion, Iraq essentially had NO WMD's or any remaining programs to produce them whatsoever. This is Fact. No matter what anyone may now argue. I know what I'm talking about. The Bush Administration ordered and carried out a highly sophisticated technological process of capturing, extracting and analysing all data contained in literally Millions of Iraqui Gov. documents seized by US forces.

I do have a nose cone from a dismantled nuclear B-61 bomb on my mantle. I ask girls if they want to come over and see my nuclear weapon and they're NEVER disappointed!!! :smokin:

:bustingup

I am thinking replace Martha Stewart with Colonel Kurtz and Nantucket Colonial with Military Chic and voila I think I can imagine chez Lambeau.

:p

Interesting "Wombs and Bombs" thread. Tore myself away from the latest issue of Maxim to look at the CIA report. In "Annex F" it appears that they describe sarin and mustard as being in I-rack...confused.

PS Nobody kill each other, ok?