Should I stay or should I go?
Your help is kindly requested to make sense of the following:
July 2, 2004: WARSAW (Reuters) – Artillery shells found by Polish troops in Iraq definitely contained the deadly nerve agent cyclosarin, the Polish army said on Friday. […] Poland said its soldiers found 17 Grad rockets and two mortar shells in late June and said U.S. experts had carried out tests on the weapons.
July 3, 2004: Sixteen rocket warheads found last week in south-central Iraq by Polish troops did not contain deadly chemicals, a coalition spokesman said yesterday[.]
July 5, 2004: Political and military officials in Poland Saturday reaffirmed that missile warheads found by Polish troops in Iraq contained poison gas, despite denials by the multinational forces in Baghdad.
Michael Ledeen, July 7, 2004: So when, say, Polish soldiers find some [WMD,] “coalition authorities” are quick to say, nah, that doesn’t count, that’s older stuff. As if old WMDs weren’t real.
To answer Michael: if they’re deteriorated to the point of no longer functioning, we’re going to have to call these as not real, sorry:
Yesterday’s coalition release also said that two other 122-milimeter rounds, found by the Poles on June 16 with help from an Iraqi informer, tested positive for small quantities of sarin but were “so deteriorated” that they would have had “limited to no impact if used by insurgents against coalition forces.”
Mr. Ledeen finally asks:
If you don’t believe that, you will have to explain how every major intelligence service in the world agreed there were WMDs. Do you think Ahmad Chalabi duped the Israelis? The Russians? The French?
Over at Atrios, reader sheldonlanghorne offers this:
If you believe Santa Claus doesn’t exist, how do you explain the fact that children in other countries believe in him?
Discuss.
I mena come on! Lots of people belive God created the world in seven days! Belief is more powerful than actual fact!
Maybe if Saddam had been a good little boy then Santa would have left him some WMDs under the tree? Why did Santa Claus take an alias? To sound more Christian? It’s not like Kris Kringle sounds like an Islamofascist.
No wonder they are referred to as dumb ass Polacks.
Santa doesn’t exist? Boo-hoo-hoo! You have shattered my universe. Severely disillusioned, I now have no choice but to vote for John Kerry.
Mebbe they said ‘MADE IN USA’ on them?
I’m really looking forward to the screenplay Ledeen is working on with Roger Simon.
http://rogerlsimon.com/archives/00001063.htm
If Michael would read something other than cereal boxes he would know that Chalabi and the INC did, indeed, send people out to all of the major countries with stories about WMDs, so that the stories would be multi-sourced and more believeable to the intel community.
Chalabi is a con-man, but, credit where credit’s due, he’s a skilled con-man and knows that you have to be verified by other sources to be believed by intel.
The Poles were using the US detectors which go off in the presence of gym socks. Talk to the vets of Gulf War I about getting into the bio-chem suits every other day because of those busted suckers.
If you believe Santa Claus doesn’t exist, how do you explain the fact that children in other countries believe in him?
One could say the same thing about SullyWatch’s invisible friend in the sky.
Returning to WMD’s, almost everyone thought or assumed that Saddam had some quantity of them. However, just about everyone besides the U.S. (including Iraq’s neighbors, who could be expected to be more worried than the U.S.) thought he didn’t have many and that inspections rather than war were a better way of dealing with them.
If Michael would read something other than cereal boxes
Maybe he’s trying to do that rooster puzzle?
Centcom debunked it too: http://tinyurl.com/332bs
You can also see my url for a blog entry.