
The Secret U.S. Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons - GabrielF00
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Banner&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
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spikels
According to this article the justification for the invasion of Iraq was not
that Iraq "possesed WMDs" but that they had "active WMD programs". Wow - I
somehow missed that distinction all these years.

And when people say that "Iraq didn't have WMDs" they are wrong. In fact Iraq
did have some but they were old and not that many of them.

Nothing is ever simple.

~~~
mikeyouse
> And when people say that "Iraq didn't have WMDs" they are wrong. In fact
> Iraq did have some but they were old and not that many of them.

When (most) people said that we didn't find WMDs in Iraq, they're clearly
talking about the secret nuclear programs or mobile chemical weapons labs that
were so prominent in the rationale for war.

At the time, Fox News et al. pumped the news every time an old shell was
found, but there was zero active biological or nuclear program and the bulk of
the chemical weapons were leftovers from the Gulf War.

Factcheck has a nice summary:

> Experts from the three nations failed to document any existent biological or
> nuclear weapons and discovered only a few random chemical weapons. The ISG
> concluded that contrary to what most of the world had believed, Iraq had
> abandoned attempts to produce WMDs.

[http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/no-wmds-in-
iraq/](http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/no-wmds-in-iraq/)

~~~
adventured
There seems to be a very common belief in the US that there were effectively
zero WMD in Iraq at all. That perception was built up by the non-stop media
assault by the left directed at George W. Bush and Republicans in general,
proclaiming Iraq had no WMD period. It was used to tar and feather the right
politically for being so gun-ho about the war.

In fact, there were WMD in Iraq, just not an especially menacing arsenal, and
they of course were not actively developing new weapons.

I don't think the general public understands the distinction at all. For
nearly a decade I've heard the same statement variation: 'well, there were no
WMD in Iraq'

~~~
mikeyouse
When the administration repeatedly claims that Saddam could "Launch a chemical
or biological attack in 45 minutes" and that the Iraqi WMD program is "just a
series of evil weapons unaccounted for, huge quantities of anthrax that can
kill millions of people, huge quantities of botulinum toxin that can kill
millions of people, ricin that can kill millions of people." or when Colin
Powell says that Iraq has obtained “sufficient fissile material to produce a
nuclear explosion”, I think you can forgive people for not considering the
handful of 30-year old chemical weapons as justification for the invasion.

Though, I don't expect we're going to agree on much so I suppose HN isn't the
place to discuss this anyway.

