WOMD Factory in Iraq Found

fellowship · March 23, 2003 7:50PM

Smoking Gun?

You decide...

Quote:

"The 100-acre complex is adjacent to military barracks and surrounded by an electric fence, the report said.

It was not immediately clear what chemicals were being produced at the facility, but both reports said the Iraqis had tried to camouflage the facility so it looked like the surrounding desert and would not be spotted from the air."

News Link

For those who think this is about oil.

Fellowship

outsider · March 23, 2003 7:51PM

Lets ignore it. Maybe it'll go away.

fellowship · March 23, 2003 7:57PM

You sure can trust the Iraqi Government. I remember when they said to the world from the UN podium how they did not have "any" WOMD.

It is time to disarm Iraq.

Fellowship

randycat99 · March 23, 2003 8:12PM

Maybe it is a "dual use" facility, and they are just pasteurizing milk to nourish the Iraqi people?

outsider · March 23, 2003 8:14PM

Could be an aspirin factory. Man would we look stoopid!

stunned · March 23, 2003 8:16PM

The Pentagon still cannot confirm this news.

But I must say I am not the least surprised.

sammi jo · March 23, 2003 8:28PM

This is a "huge" facility according to the news sources, and not heavily guarded. How come the CIA (and every other intel. service) could miss something as massive as a 100 acre site? That is a huge area, and must have involved a lot of construction for a long time. All the activity and all the employees that must have worked in a site this large, all the traffic going in and out, the roads leading to and from the place...all visible (for years perhaps) by spy satellites that can read a newspaper headline from orbit....

Sounds like a fertilizer factory...of the organic variety produced by bovines. Not forgetting that there is a huge temptation for the Admin. to claim they found chemical/bio weapons....to justify the invasion. Finding nothing ain't going to look that great.

buonrotto · March 23, 2003 8:34PM

Latest I've heard is this site is on the list of suspected WOMD sites, so it sounds like the CIA, et al. haven't missed it. Still, let's not jump to conclusions yet. Like someone else said, it could be banal like an aspirin factory. It's important to be truthful ad deliberate because the alternative will come back to bite you. The government is being very cautious in their tone about this site. It's the TV outlets that are making this into something bigger IMO.

alcimedes · March 23, 2003 8:38PM

for once ever in a political thread i'll go with SJO on this one.

i'd like to have some outside confirmation of this. let's be honest, it's not like our govt. wouldn't have a LOT to gain by making a plant or two.

by the same token, i don't really think they need to manufacture anything since i believe it's over there.

let's just wait and see, bit early to know for sure.

whisper · March 23, 2003 8:39PM

Interestingly, Fox is saying that the Pentagon has confirmed that it's a WMD factory, but MSNBC says that we're still investigating what it's for.

ibrowse · March 23, 2003 8:52PM

According to http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81935,00.html it has been confirmed. If this isn't anything they shouldn't have, why would it have been camouflaged?

alcimedes · March 23, 2003 9:01PM

Quote:

A senior pentagon official has confirmed to Fox News on Sunday that coalition forces have discovered a "huge" suspected chemical weapons factory near the Iraqi city of An Najaf, which is situated some 90 miles south of Baghdad.

actually, if you read that carefully it just says they found a suspected chem. weapons plant.

buonrotto · March 23, 2003 9:04PM

Reuters is basically quoting the Jerusalem Post report. Interesting that were were booby-traps (one soldier was injured), electric fence (not out of the question for any kind of plant with dangerous chemicals) and camouflaged. Also, it sounds like some Iraqi generals that surrendered might have provided info about this or other such sites. UN inspectors reported they were unaware of any such facility. That reported by Fox from the UN. No other "confirmations" that it's a real WMD site except from Fox.

Last night, Fox jumped to the assumption that the sargeant who grenaded those tents in Kuwait did it for religious reasons. They got lucky their assumption seems to be at least partly right, maybe they're running with that luck.

linky

not unlike myself · March 23, 2003 9:04PM

I think this is the first of many such sites and evidence of WOMD that we will find. I am not surprised. I wonder how many barrells of VX or Anthrax we have to find before the world believes us.....

ibrowse · March 23, 2003 9:08PM

So exactly how thorough were the UN inspectors?

buonrotto · March 23, 2003 9:09PM

Also remember that most of Iraq's chem/bio warheads are not on the big Al Samoud or SCUD missles, they're on 80-120mm artillery shells. Reportedly, all four Republican Guard divisions around Baghdad have a ton of these shells and have dug into city quarters as well as the outskirts.

moogs · March 23, 2003 9:15PM

Fox news is not reliable, period. That said, it's too early to tell exactly what has been found. On the one hand it wouldn't surprise any thinking person to discover Iraq has chemical or bio-weapons plants, on the other, I'm not sure it would surprise me if our government would claim a fertilizer plant to be "capable of producing WOMD" either.

It's going to take a while for all these kinds of things to shake out folks, what's the point in speculating and using that speculation to antagonize people on the other side of the debate? That goes for both camps....

sammi jo · March 23, 2003 9:20PM

If the CIA had the facility on their list, how come the inspectors never went there? Or did they? Chemical weapons leave chemical signatures all over the place.

And, to anyone who believes the garbage on Fox, may I interest you in a watch I have for sale?

scott · March 23, 2003 9:21PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Randycat99

Maybe it is a "dual use" facility, and they are just pasteurizing milk to nourish the Iraqi people?

Hummmm? Louis Pasteur, wasn't he French?

sammi jo · March 23, 2003 9:27PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Scott

Hummmm? Louis Pasteur, wasn't he French?

Wow....humor from Scott! Knock me out with a feather!

buonrotto · March 23, 2003 9:28PM

More info: linky

There are apparently several sites they've either checking out or planning to check out. Some documents were found in western Iraq that apparently clued them in with at least some of these sites.

Quote:

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 the Najaf area earlier this year to check on its explosives cache but did not report finding anything improper. A team of biological weapons inspectors also visited a university and school in Kufa, a few miles north of Najaf.

WOMD Factory in Iraq Found

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