Chemical Weapons factory found

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Maybe just a tad premature to jump to conclusions.


"
Middle East - AP

U.S. Finds Suspected Iraq Chemical Plant
23 minutes ago

By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - U.S. troops have found a suspected chemical factory in Iraq (news - web sites) and officials were trying to determine late Sunday whether it was involved in making chemical weapons, U.S. officials said.


AP Photo



The plant is near the city of Najaf, which U.S. troops reached Sunday on a push to Baghdad, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.


U.S. Central Command said in a statement that troops were examining "sites of interest," but did not elaborate. The statement said reports describing the discovery as a chemical weapons factory were "premature."


President Bush (news - web sites) and other U.S. officials say ridding Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime of chemical and biological weapons is the main objective of the war.


Saddam's government denies it has any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programs to produce them.


Asked at a news conference in Qatar Sunday about reports of the chemical plant, Lt. Gen. John Abizaid of U.S. Central Command declined comment. He said top Iraqi officers have been questioned about chemical weapons.


"We have an Iraqi general officer, two Iraqi general officers that we have taken prisoner, and they are providing us with information," Abizaid said.


If the plant is confirmed as a chemical weapons factory, it would be the first find by the U.S.-led invasion force validating U.S. allegations that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction.


Iraqi officials have insisted that they destroyed all of the chemical and biological weapons they made after the 1991 Persian Gulf War (news - web sites) — a claim U.N. weapons inspectors have questioned.


U.N. weapons inspectors are not aware of any large-scale chemical sites which could be used to make chemical weapons in Najaf, said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the inspectors. However, there are many such dual-use sites in other parts of the country because of Iraq's petrochemical industry.


U.N. inspectors visited a cement plant in Najaf earlier this year but did not report finding anything.


The U.S. military's discovery was first reported in the Jerusalem Post, which has a reporter traveling with the unit from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division which reached the chemical plant. The newspaper reported that about 30 Iraqi troops, including a general, surrendered at the plant."
 
The ewok.
Mate the first casual;ty of war is the truth so please dont believe everything you read or hear.We are only getting what they want us to believe and the truth comes later.This is the second post on the war that you have been premature on, we know that it is what You want to hear but we are not in a perfect world and its not going to all go the way you want it to..
 

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'The first casualty of war is the truth'

Quite right - and we can thank an overly exuberant journalist for breaking this story. It may well turn out to be true - then again it may not.

To the military's credit they were the ones trying to dampen down this story quickly. Media hype at this stage and following the initial beat up the media seem to have calmed down on this one.
 
As Lester stated, the initial reports have been dampened down quite significantly since the story broke.

Apparently the thing which originally caused suspicion was that the "factory" was surrounded by electric fences, and that it contained booby traps which set of an explosion, injuring a coalition soldier.

Not quite a smoking gun ... but resembling the sort of thing they're looking for.
 
Originally posted by The Ewok
All over the news now

UN claim they didn't know about this facility (all 100 acres of it)

No doubt a US setup :rolleyes:

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1084802,00.html
Click to expand...

Completely irrelevant, even if it IS a chemical weapons factory.

It would be just like an amphetamine factory uncovered in a drug squad raid without a warrant. It was discovered illegally ... therefore it means precisely stuff-all.

Keep trying, Ewok ... You must be getting pretty desperate to make a valid point.
 
Re: Re: Chemical Weapons factory found

Originally posted by Dr.Grouse
Completely irrelevant, even if it IS a chemical weapons factory.

It would be just like an amphetamine factory uncovered in a drug squad raid without a warrant. It was discovered illegally ... therefore it means precisely stuff-all.
Click to expand...

Interesting theory

If the US find a huge warehouse choke full of Anthrax, VX, Mustard Gas whatever in downtown Baghdad, some people will still find away to explain it away :rolleyes:
 
Re: Re: Re: Chemical Weapons factory found

Originally posted by The Ewok
Interesting theory

If the US find a huge warehouse choke full of Anthrax, VX, Mustard Gas whatever in downtown Baghdad, some people will still find away to explain it away :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

And if none get found, some will still say that they had them hidden too well. :rolleyes:
 
Whether the latest find is or is not the "smoking gun", one has to ask - Why wasn't it searched beforehand by the UN-sanctioned weapons inspectors ?

Surely it's the sort of venue that required searching. Fitted the profile perfectly. But appeared these inspection teams did not even know of its existence !!

Obviously not everything was disclosed by Saddam and his bowling buddies ...
 
Looks like this one can be put to bed as The Ewok once again jumps at his own shadow.

Following is part of a longer piece on media spin in The Age 27/3

"Stories about the alleged discovery of an Iraqi chemical weapons factory captivated the world media on Sunday, for example, but were quietly contradicted by Pentagon sources on Monday.

The story was first reported by a Jerusalem Post journalist travelling with the US 3rd Infantry Division in Najaf, who said that troops had captured "the first Iraqi installation that appears to have produced chemical weapons".

Within hours, the story had spread worldwide and was given prominent coverage on Fox News, among several US television networks. Doubts grew about the accuracy of the report, however, and US officials said on Monday that no chemicals were found at the site, which had been abandoned long ago by the Iraqis."
 
Originally posted by Pointy Birds
Looks like this one can be put to bed as The Ewok once again jumps at his own shadow.

Following is part of a longer piece on media spin in The Age 27/3

"Stories about the alleged discovery of an Iraqi chemical weapons factory captivated the world media on Sunday, for example, but were quietly contradicted by Pentagon sources on Monday.

The story was first reported by a Jerusalem Post journalist travelling with the US 3rd Infantry Division in Najaf, who said that troops had captured "the first Iraqi installation that appears to have produced chemical weapons".

Within hours, the story had spread worldwide and was given prominent coverage on Fox News, among several US television networks. Doubts grew about the accuracy of the report, however, and US officials said on Monday that no chemicals were found at the site, which had been abandoned long ago by the Iraqis."
Click to expand...


I put this on another thread, but it's more appropriate to this one:


The generally corroborated aspects about the discovery of the complex are that it was huge, it was heavily camouflaged and there was an Iraqi GENERAL there in charge of it.

Fox News questioned Unscom and Unmovic - they knew nothing about it.

Why would an Iraqi GENERAL be in charge of and hanging about a camouflaged complex unless something crucial to the regime was going on there?

There is much more to this story than meets the eye, especially since the Pentagon has put a lid on it?



__________________
 
Originally posted by GuruJane
I put this on another thread, but it's more appropriate to this one:


The generally corroborated aspects about the discovery of the complex are that it was huge, it was heavily camouflaged and there was an Iraqi GENERAL there in charge of it.

Fox News questioned Unscom and Unmovic - they knew nothing about it.

Why would an Iraqi GENERAL be in charge of and hanging about a camouflaged complex unless something crucial to the regime was going on there?

There is much more to this story than meets the eye, especially since the Pentagon has put a lid on it?



__________________
Click to expand...

I've got a funny feeling you're right Guru Jane. The situation seemed very suspicious and the Coalition forces just seem to have gone too quiet on it too quickly.
 

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Originally posted by GuruJane
\
There is much more to this story than meets the eye, especially since the Pentagon has put a lid on it?
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I dont get what you are hinting at.

All it reads to me is that a news story about "chemical weapons" went world wide. The US let it run for a few days, before quietly denying it.

I'm sure the more forgetful of us will be saying in a few months. ...."but what about that chemical weapons factory they found back in March".
 
Originally posted by grayham
I dont get what you are hinting at.

All it reads to me is that a news story about "chemical weapons" went world wide. The US let it run for a few days, before quietly denying it.

I'm sure the more forgetful of us will be saying in a few months. ...."but what about that chemical weapons factory they found back in March".
Click to expand...

It's just that I read the initial report which was in the Jerusalem Post, written by one of their senior writers Caroline Glick who is "embedded" with the unit that found it. I have read her stuff before and know she is something of a heavyweight. Her report was extremely detailed and eyewitness. It seemed she'd been inside the complex herself.

Her report was then picked up by a Foxnews anchorwoman, a former war correspondant herself - and she spent a couple of hours constantly updating and corroborating the story from her own sources.

Then there was the Iraqi general who was captured at the site. Grayham an Iraqi general doesn't stay behind in a an insignificant installation when there is a war going on!

Then the pentagon starts to play it down.

Well I'm just suspicious because of Glick's detailed initial account. Either she was making it up and there was no general there or else ... what?

I won't forget it for sure, so will check back after the war!
 
I still dont get what you are trying to say.

The Iraqies had chemical weapons in the past. They must have had factories. They found one. It didnt have anymore weapons.

Whatever the factory was used for lately it would still have been strategic as it was built for war conditions, hence the odd general was there.

Foxnews is very pro-war, so not suprised they would run with a story which would "justify" certain actions.


Originally posted by GuruJane
It's just that I read the initial report which was in the Jerusalem Post, written by one of their senior writers Caroline Glick who is "embedded" with the unit that found it. I have read her stuff before and know she is something of a heavyweight. Her report was extremely detailed and eyewitness. It seemed she'd been inside the complex herself.

Her report was then picked up by a Foxnews anchorwoman, a former war correspondant herself - and she spent a couple of hours constantly updating and corroborating the story from her own sources.

Then there was the Iraqi general who was captured at the site. Grayham an Iraqi general doesn't stay behind in a an insignificant installation when there is a war going on!

Then the pentagon starts to play it down.

Well I'm just suspicious because of Glick's detailed initial account. Either she was making it up and there was no general there or else ... what?

I won't forget it for sure, so will check back after the war!
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by grayham
I still dont get what you are trying to say.

The Iraqies had chemical weapons in the past. They must have had factories. They found one. It didnt have anymore weapons.

Whatever the factory was used for lately it would still have been strategic as it was built for war conditions, hence the odd general was there.

Foxnews is very pro-war, so not suprised they would run with a story which would "justify" certain actions.
Click to expand...

Iraq may have a quite a few generals, but they wouldn't leave them hanging around insignificant abandoned chemical factories.

There have been other fragmented reports which obviously may be simply Coalition propaganda. These include the shipment of chemical shells to Republican Guards south of Baghdad and the discovery of thousands of chemical warfare suits in one of the captured towns south of the capital.

If they have chemical weapons, we'll see them used as Coalition forces approach dug-in Medina Division south of Baghdad.
 
The US dreams of two 'Hollywood' scenarios - troops being showered with roses all the way to the open gates of the citadel , and then unearthing WsMD or even the odd Dachau.

Any reports that even hint of these things will be trumpeted from the rooftops. Time to 'Wag The Dog.'
 
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