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Originally Posted by rdorman
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Rdorman,
Check out the chapter titled:
"Residual Pre-1991
CBW Stocks in Iraq"
It says:
However, ISG believes that any remaining chemical munitions in Iraq do not pose a militarily significant threat to Coalition Forces because the agent and munitions are degraded and there are not enough extant weapons to cause mass casualties. However, if placed in the hands of insurgents, the use of a single even ineffectual chemical weapon would likely cause more terror than deadlier conventional explosives.
Anybody who runs around saying that Husseins chemical weapons are still effective are playing into the terrorists hands. The only way that terror can be caused by ineffectual chemical weapons is if people think they are still effective.
There is also a section saying the chemical munitions were mixed in with other munitions during the Iran/Iraq war, and that we should expect to continue finding those - even though the chemical in them is now useless goo.
Hussein learned from Gulf War 1 that anything he sent to Iran/Syria was not going to be returned, and it might possibly be used against him.
Also, the report says that Hussein viewed Iran as the bigger threat (as I've said). And while Hussein did use WMD on Iran, he did not use them on us during Gulf War 1, when they would have still been lethal. If he didn't use them on us then, why would he suddenly decide to use them on us now?
Hussein/Iraq was an annoyance, but they were hardly a real threat to us. Iran was countered quite a bit by Iraq, and we removed that counter. That ends up making Iran stronger, and that is a bad thing if the radicals in Iran ever manage to consolidate power (there is a lot of turmoil in Iran between various factions).
The one thing that I am a bit concerned about is the scientists who did work on Husseins weapons programs. Many of them have now been scattered to other countries. That might be a worse thing for us that Iraq having any sort of WMD. The enemy that you know...
It's also interesting that you mention Sada. He has stated that what is going on in Iraq right now is an internal matter, and is best solved by Iraqis, with American help only from a distance. Not that I'm trying to hijack the thread...
Steve