I've been going with the security aspect. After all if it was confirmed that they were hidden stockpiles, they would be a mad treasure hunt by the terrorists for them.

But this is just more proof that Bush lied about WMD's in Iraq. By not correcting the common narrative of, "there are no WMD's" he led us all to believe that they were no WMD's. So since they are WMD's in Iraq, that means Bush lied about WMD's being in Iraq. I think my brain hurts, I guess its just not flexible enough to think lefty thoughts.

I suspect a lot of it is the reason no. 2 -- CYA, plus a certain amount of institutional reluctance in parts of the intelligence community to do anything that might have supported the administation's narrative on Iraq.

Moreover, if serious attention is given to WMD finds in Iraq, there could conceivably be a demand from the politicos for further searches for WMD, and further analysis. I am certain that, this late in the day, that nobody in the intelligence community wants to allocate their budget or resources, much less personnel for another Bug Hunt in Iraq. Iraq and Saddam's programs, whatever happened to them, are old news for these people.

Chester you are correct, the NGIC (called nnn-jik by thise dealing with it) is army intel and has little to do expect liasons to the CIA.

NGIC has as one of its task of tracking terror groups in Iraq. So concievably this could have been part of a greater op.

Here's another reason. The administration thinks that its antagonists in the press will see this as small beer. (Which I think is true -- not that it's really small beer but that that's how it'll be portrayed.)

Here's how the new story goes: You said Saddam was actively pursuing WMD. Saddam said he wasn't, and that he'd destroyed all those "missing" WMD you kept hyping. These are old shells, and only 500 of them. Sure, they weren't actually destroyed -- but if you can only find this many, then surely that's evidence that they tried to destroy them all. You can't expect their regime to be perfect, can you, when we make all these mistakes?

So, basically: They were right (the old WMD were destroyed), and you were wrong (new WMD weren't being made).

Now you're just trying to make a big deal about old news.

From http://wizbangblog.com/2006/06/22/wmd-in-iraq.php: (but it seems to be a quote of a quote of a paraphrase...)

"General Tom McInerney is reporting on Fox Hannity and Colmes right now that that the administration has been keeping this low profile to avoid exposing 3 of the 5 members of the UN Security council; Russia, China, and France. McInerney says these weapons will be traced to these countries, and asserts it is well known that Russia helped Saddam move most of his WMD stockpiles out of Iraq before the war."

It may also be that a lot of the findings we aren't hearing about deeply implicate Russia, China and France; Security Council Members all.

It may also be that a lot of the findings we aren't hearing about deeply implicate Russia, China and France; Security Council Members all.

It is possible that a lot of the findings we didn't hear about severely implicated Russia, Chaina and France - our "friends" on the Security Council.

There is a simpler explanation: The best way to get the press to report on this story and give the discovery of WMD credibility is for the Bush administration look like they are trying to keep it secret. If the administration just came out and said, "We found this," the press would disparage it. But making it look like something the administration doesn't want the press to know, the press will fall all over itself (remains to be seen) trying to uncover more Bush secrets.

The most compelling reason I've heard is that because the weapons were diffused around the country and likely there are many still out there in forgotten arms dumps, it would be unwise to tip off the insurgents to this fact.

Chester,

Excellent analysis. I concur with commenter above, even if this is "old news" (pre-1991 stockpiles), one of the big untold stories is the degree to which China, France, and especially Russia supported Iraq and provided WMD technology and munitions.

Syria and Iraq were virtual vassal states to the old Soviet Union at various points, we know there were Russian military advisors in Iraq on the eve of war in 2003 (if not after as well).

This may be power politics international style, and the Bush Administration no doubt would try to work multiple angles if we had some highly embarrassing intel about French, Chinese or Russian munitions and military hardware, or efforts by these countries to support some of Saddam's WMD aims.

I think there's more here...and I bet Chester can help dig it out.

"So, basically: They were right (the old WMD were destroyed), and you were wrong (new WMD weren't being made)."

But the old WMD were not destroyed. It was Saddam's responsibility to destroy them ALL, and to keep the UN inspectors around so they could document the process. But instead he kicked them out.

And I don't recall anyone saying that new WMD were being made, only that Saddam was trying to rebuild his capacity to do so. We've already found huge barrels of 'insecticides' at ammo dumps, which could have been just waiting to have another component added to them to make them into chemical weapons, once sanctions were lifted.

This is has been coming out. I have heard of them finding the occaisional shells for a while. I guess Santorum decided to fight back against the "We Found **NO** WMD" meme by totalling them all up and presenting them. It's such a small amount, though, and found piecemeal, I kind of doubt it will be effective.

It is a combination of what General Tom McInerney said and the conference in Vienna. There was a reason why this came out at this time.

Ask yourselves the following...

Who were the biggest suppliers of WMD technology (in violation of UN sanctions) to Iraq?

Who is helping Iran obtain nukes?

Who sits on the security council of the UN?

Who has the most to lose if the UN ceases to be because they have consistantly played the UN as a blocking mechanism against the US and to cover for their actions?

Who has the most to lose if the US, Britian, Australia and a bunch of other countries determine that the UN is useless because of some members of the security council blocking any sanctions/pressure on Iran?

Remember that President Bush is by all accounts an excellent poker player and what he did was show one card of a very loaded hand yesterday. Now we will see if the people who that message was intended for call or fold.

I'd say that the most compelling reason is that the Administration needs cooperation from France and Russia on Iran and NK, and agreed to avoid embarrassing them as their price for such cooperation. In this scenario the policymaking/strategic aspect would be at the forefront, thus explaining the DNI's stonewalling.

Whether protecting France and Russia makes sense at all, especially at the expense of U.S. intelligence credibility and scarce political capital while the confrontation with Iran is ramping up, is another question.

Another Scenario:
The specific technology (or weapons system, or stock number on the bombs, etc) implicates the wrong people.
What if the weapons are of US manufacture (whether dating from the Iran-Iraq War or since then)? What if they are French? What if Allied technology is found that can be dated to the period of the UN-Iraq sanctions (the oil-for-food period)?

Steve

re: this story, the release of Iraqi documents, similar efforts.

What if the bar for declassification is "if there's even the slightest possibility this information will put one more soldier at additional risk of injury or death, don't."

Americans are adults, Rumsfeld et al have clearly told us that this administration trusts that they (we) are and will remain well "centered" irrespective of how much jihadi propaganda is presented as news and fact by the Left and their allies in the MSM.

As we've seen in this president from his past behavior it's clear he'd rather lose an election than lose one more soldier, so I suspect we'll have to wait for the story behind this story, and not really understand all that was going on until 30-40 years from today (similar to the time it took for anger to fade and dispassionate histories to be written for our previous wars).

Sorry-
Many of the comments above mine that said virtually the same thing weren't there when I began typing.

Steve

Here is some clues as to some of the cards in the hand.

Darfur.

Oil for food scandal. Follow the money on that one.

Sudan. Ask yourseves why the Syrians sent a planeloads of WMD's to Khartoumb to be warehoused about a month after we rolled into Iraq? Ask yourselves why the Sudanese were so freaked out by this that they told Syria to either remove them immediately or they would turn them over to the U.S? Now why would Syria want to send their *own* WMD's to Sudan to be warehoused? Or was it a case of passing the very hot potato off in order to avoid becoming "collateral damage" for holding Saddam's hot potato?

One thing to remember is that the Iraqi Army did not mark their chemical rounds, so they were indistinguishable from conventional rounds. This information seems to support the idea that the Iraqi chemical munitions were not "stockpiled" in one place, but distributed throughout the country in small amounts mixed in with conventional munitions supplies. It's a perfect way to hide the rounds from inspectors provided you have a logistics system that is good enough to keep track of where everything is when you need to use it. That makes actually finding these munitions literally searching for a needle in a hay stack. We (the US and the Iraqis) will probably be finding small batches of these shells for the next 20 to 30 years.

SWLiP,

It is not to protect the Russians/Chinese/French.

It is the threat to cut them off at the knees if they decide they want to play games.

The Russians and French already have a large problem with Islamofascists but they would still be inclined to play games if they thought the U.S. was going to let them. They know in the end it buys them no "brownie points" with the Islamofascists but it is in their best business interests to keep the U.S. out or their pie and occupied elsewhere, so to speak. Both France and Russia make a great deal of money from Islamofascists, money they would like to see keep rolling in.

The Chinese know how to handle their Islamofascists-they publicly execute them and dig the bullet out of the brain of the dead Jihadi and give it to their family as a reminder of what will happen to ALL of them if anyone else decides to follow their executed relatives path. But they would have a very large problem if they lost MFN status. In the end the Chinese will take care of the NorK's for it is in their best interest to do so.

the lefties don't want to change their "bush lied, people died" tattoes and the right-minded already believed...

now if we could just get the job done without all of the hand-wringing...

how many pregnant german and japanese women were killed by FDR and Truman's "stategic bombing campaigns? where is the history of outrage over the millions killed then?

i don't much like dubya; but i voted for him because of who the opposition was... maybe the leftist reaction to this news (as well as the whole immigration fiasco) will get me excited about voting again...

To expand on my previous comment, I think this leads to why the information hasn't been released. At this point we (the US) probably has enough data to extrapolate out how large Saddam's chemical weapons stockpile was, based on what we have found and how it was distributed. My guess is that is part of the information that was not released. I don't think anyone wants to say publicly 'we estimate that Iraq had X tons of weaponized sarin and mustard, we just haven't been able to get our hands on it because we have to go through every single ammunition storage site in Iraq and test every batch of artillery and rocket rounds to find it.'

I'm not convinced that we are just hearing of this now. There were reports of a shell full of sarin being detonated a year or two ago in a failed IED attack. I recall another report of about 20 shells full of mustard gas. I wonder if we went back through all the pentagon press releases, if we wouldn't find reports of more finds like these in small dribs and drabs that add up to around 500. After the first couple of small finds, I could see the press ignoring finds of 5 or 10 shells here and there, months apart.

The left will not care about this news at all. When a group of people is actively siding with the terrorists against America, they will actively seek to make America look evil.

They will merely say that 'Bush planted these' or something.

The US has systematically downplayed the chemical weapons in Iraq since the Gulf War - there are many credible reports that they were used on the US during Desert Storm.

I don't think that the number of weapons - 500 - is the issue here. The meme that there are "no" WMD found in Iraq has been propped up by the President and the rest of the Administration, they have said that verbatim - no WMD found in Iraq. But even the Duelfer report, that many in the press and the Left (not that there is a difference) have used to exonerate Iraq reveals that there were 53 weapons recovered, and it was a huge story when a binary sarin shell was used as an IED - though "experts" like Scott Ritter claimed that such a shell could not exist.

So it isn't like we are keeping a secret from the terrorists - they know that there are chemical weapons that they can use. We are only keeping it secret from the US. An example - the Danes found over 100 mustard filled mortar rounds - and the US tested them and reported that they were not filled with chemicals. Of course, there is no other liquid filler for mortars, and the photos of the rounds were classic examples of mustard filled munitions - corrosion and a yellowish buildup from leaking around the fusewells.

I FOIAed the results of the tests from the national energy lab, since if they weren't chemical agents - if they were harmless, as claimed - then the results showing what the liquid filler actually was shouldn't be classified. That was over a year ago. I know, bureaucracy, blah blah blah, but it just isn't that hard.

There is definitely a coverup of what we know about WMD in Iraq, and it isn't for OPSEC.

"Iraq has more ammunition depots than Texas has barbecue."

Hmmm... This barbecue gap concerns me. Texas doesn't like being second best.

I think there are a few other reasons why this information hasn't been released/trumpetted:

1. As the UNCLAS summary states, the bad guys actively want to get their hands on these sorts of weapons. It is reasonable to assume that there are still unsecured weapons of the exact same kind still in Iraq. Publishing what we know about the location, storage and detection of teh 500 shells we've uncovered only helps the bad guy in trying to find the same.

2. Bush really doesn't care about the "he lied" B.S. and felt it was more important to keep it quiet than to try and protect his reputation.

Despite all the jabs at how stupid Bush is, he has consistently demonstrated longer-range thinking, strategy and perspective than almost any other American politician in recent history (the other exception being Ronnie baby).

SWLip:
"Another Scenario:
The specific technology (or weapons system, or stock number on the bombs, etc) implicates the wrong people.
What if the weapons are of US manufacture (whether dating from the Iran-Iraq War or since then)?..."

HOGWASH. Nice try though, serve up a little backhand "but saddam was our friend" cr*p.

I'm with Dave on this one, specifically #1. We might not know what we know due to bureaucracy, but the enemy might also not know what it has. Why advertise what they could obtain and use in a more deadly manner?

One question regarding this came up today in the WH press briefing. I've posted it in full here on my blog. Perhaps, needless to say, it is disappointing. It appears the WH knows but doesn't care.

I have a few questions about these WMD and a political observation of what is going on.

I know almost nothing of military artillery. I do not know if an ordinary high explosive shell requires maintenance other than reasonably dry storage. I know that 30-06 ammunition from pre WW II is generally still functional if kept dry.
I know that Atomic bombs need periodic work to keep them functional. As I recall the triggering device includes a rare gas and some other components that degrade over time. I don’t know about sarin gas in an artillery shell. Is the fact that these devices are not functional a result of no maintenance? If so, how long have they not been maintained? Is it possible to make them functional, and if so how much work and time is involved?
Here is my observation. The left has been yelling NO WMD! BUSH LIED™ ! At a minimum the NO WMD part seems to be untrue. The administration has undoubtedly known of these WMDs for a long time. Yet we have not heard a peep about them until now. Announcing these WMDs would have had the likelihood of cooling the rhetoric some time ago. Why wait until now? The left has gone pretty far out on a limb with NO WMD. At a minimum they will have to back up some now. It helps to shift the momentum in June as we approach the November elections. But could there be even more here than meets the eye?

The White House initially did not disclose these WMDs and even now declines to take apparent political advantage of this disclosure. But listen closely to what they are saying. According to the posts above the report says that:

“THESE [emphasis added] are not the WMD the global intelligence indicated were in Iraq prior to the invasion”

Some people think that Sadam shipped his active WMDs to Syria or perhaps somewhere else during the extended run up to the war. As we dig through the documents that we seized following the war, including those recently seized from the terrorists, we will end up knowing just about everything about the former government of Iraq.

Try this as a Rovian October surprise.

INSERT PICTURE FROM YOUR IMAGINATION

“THESE ARE the WMD the global intelligence indicated were in Iraq prior to the invasion”

GWB

Now if only we can get copies of the transcript logs of those who know about Saddam's terror ties....

My view...the military doesn't want the bad guys to know what we know. Simple OPSEC / INTSEC. Santorum and others see an opportunity to play this politically in very close races. They risk exposing intelligence operations for their political gain.

Iraq failed the test of UNMOVIC and other groups determined to eliminate their weapons stockpiles. I am also convinced that they had some current capabilities, although not sufficient to employ in the Iraq War (2003).

The remaining artillery shells are part and parcel of Iraq's culture of obfuscation which led to the invasion in the first place. 500 rounds of chemical weapons do not get "misplaced" they constitute a significant risk and would have been well documented.

I think the October surprise will be immigration, by the way.

I don't consider 500 to be a small number, nor do the lefties or the MSM.

Doubt me? Consider what their reaction would be to a report of 500 deaths.

Because that's the very minimum of what the sum of these shells could have done, should they have fallen into the wrong hands.

And really, how much political damage has "NO WMDS!!!" done? Raving nutters are going to rave nuttily. You can't stop them. Better to let them rave nuttily about "NO WMDS!!!!" If you made them stop raving nuttily about that, who knows, they might stumble on something effective.

And if you have to, you can always pull the rug out from under them.

The 500 or so chemical weapons shells contained old, degraded mustard or sarin dating from before the first Gulf War. What it doesn't support is Saddam's regime was manufacturing chemical weapons after the Gulf War. The news of the recent discovery of WMD is coming from Sen. Santorum, who is desperate to save his political career from almost certain defeat in the fall.

I would not talk about these shells until they were all destroyed or out of country. With these kind of munitions that might take a long time.

The Sarin shell is an enduring mystery, and a part of the downplaying of the WMD in Iraq. There is more known about it that has been released. This is something written by Scott Ritter regarding it:

What gives away whether the shell had been fired is the base-bleed charge, which unlike the rest of the shell, will show evidence of being fired (or not). Iraq declared that it had produced 170 of these base-bleed sarin artillery shells as part of a research and development program that never led to production. Ten of these shells were tested using inert fill - oil and colored water. Ten others were tested in simulated firing using the sarin precursors. And 150 of these shells, filled with sarin precursors, were live-fired at an artillery range south of Baghdad. A 10 percent dud rate among artillery shells isn't unheard of - and even greater percentages can occur. So there's a good possibility that at least 15 of these sarin artillery shells failed and lie forgotten in the Iraq desert, waiting to be picked up by any unsuspecting insurgent looking for raw material from which to construct an IED.

Now, Ritter says the base-bleed charge is a giveaway, but it is actually much simpler to tell whether the round has been fired - there is a brass band on the body of the projectile that will be grooved if it has been fired - no technical analysis necessary, simple visual inspection. Even if the round had blown up, or was blown up by Engineers or EOD, that evidence exists. CENTCOM knows whether the round was fired or not - that information has never been released.

Why not? If, as Ritter supposes, it is a dud from a known and declared binary program, with each and every round accounted for, then it will show as a fired round. If it is unfired, then the accounting of the program, as certified by the UN (and Ritter) is verifiably wrong, or it is from an undeclared program.

Thing is that the US government knows. It isn't lost in the bowels of bureaucracy, it can't possibly have any OPSEC value, this is DoD not CIA, and since this thing was lying on the street and we know EOD went to go look at it, sources and methods are not being revealed. Why will they not tell this information to the American people?

Maybe this will clear it up for you:

From the Fox News report:

' a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."'

From the Fox News report:

' a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."'

Hmmm. Obviously not an official statement, because we didn't "go to war for WMDs" - I can't imagine thee administration saying so, and certainly not at this point. Plus, unaccounted for WMDs were a part of the justification for the war, and these were certainly unaccounted for.

As the reasons may be cumulative, and not exclusively one or the other, here is one more angle.

Suppose Gen. Sada is correct and the WMD went to Syria and the Bekka valley. If we confirm this, then we have to do something about it.

If China, Russia and France have ther fingerprints all over the WMDs, then the UN is not going to do anything. And we may feel that we have more pressing issues at this time.

This also brings up the question of whether the government of Lebanon has control over the Bekka valley? And if Lebanon has control of the Bekka, do they know what is there and will they do anything about it?

Such questions could be very destabilizing for the government of Lebanon.

How many people would on shell of sarin kill or how far would it spread? Anyone know? Then we can multiply by 500 to see if this find is significant or not.

Baronger:"...he led us all to believe ..." You don't know what I believe.

Great discussion! Thanks to all for contributing!

Probably a former defense department official made an unapproved statement. Like the leaking of top secret info, there are Klington holdovers every where. Mr. Rumfield got that streight today when he said something to the effect that 'those things will still kill you and several other people'. They have been finding WMD since 2004 that i know of, including some 'new' vials of Sarin gas with one of our phony allies name all over them. The Bush administration didn't cover this up, the antique MSM just wanted their fans in their normal state; Blind, deaf and 'dum'. I've seen several reports from alternative media sources reporting and showing the recovery of WMD of various types. Now the left wing has changed their rant from 'Bush Lied' to 'Those don't count'. Is everyone in the left wing Mentally Retarded? Judging by their actions of the past week i think they are, re-submitting a bill in the Senate that got a whole six (6) votes a couple of days ago so it could waste hundreds of thousands of dollars, and gain seven (7) more votes making a total of 13 votes to approve. Hanoi John Kerry the great mentally retarded phony hero.

"Is everyone in the left wing Mentally Retarded?"

No, they are not retarded, but they are, for the most part, completely dominated by their emotions. Their education has severely crippled their ability to think -- and they have been taught that America is an evil/racist/imperialist society with a history of oppression, run by a cabal of bloated rich fat-cat Republican big-business CEOs who control the country through crony politicians like Bush and Cheney.

Having had this narrative rammed down their throats from grammar school through college, they are unleashed on society brimming with hate and ready to swallow any story -- however preposterous -- that fits with this view of the world.

So when you deal with the left, for the most part you are not dealing with people that arrived at their beliefs through a process of reason based on evidence; you are dealing with people dominated by fierce emotions of hate and resentment who desperately need to believe things that justify those emotions. And there are plenty of liberal politicians, media people and intellectuals to feed them such stories.

"'Iraq has more ammunition depots than Texas has barbecue.'

Hmmm... This barbecue gap concerns me. Texas doesn't like being second best."

I know this troubled me greatly. I immediately fired up on the grill upon realizing this.

The 500 or so chemical weapons shells contained old, degraded mustard or sarin dating from before the first Gulf War.

You are apparently unfamiliar with the resistance to degradation that this particular chemical compound exhibits...or you use the recognizable lefty tactic of making up your own facts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/south/series9/week_four.shtml

from the BBC

So many live bombs are unearthed by farmers, there are designated spots where they are left for collection by the military.

They may be 90-years-old and look harmless but the chemical agents can be as deadly as the day they were first made. Destroying them has to take place inside a high security lab.

The scale of the problem is frightening and with toxic agents like phosgene and mustard gas, it is dangerous work.