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ISIS in Iraq seizes control of Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons facility

Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

I don't get it.

1) People say the chemicals in those bunkers are degraded and useless.

2) They also say that it would be too dangerous for ISIS soldiers to even go in those bunkers.

3) How can the chemicals be both "degraded & useless" AND "too dangerous to handle" at the same time?

The difference between being able to be fired into the air and go "KABOOM" and spread huge amounts of deadly chemicals, gas and what not over a very wide area
resulting in massive numbers of casualties (that would be war ready weapons judged to be in active status) and a giant "Oh Sh!t!!" moment inside the bunker
in which just enough of the bad stuff is released (again, inside the confines of the storage area) to render personnel dead.

There, I fixed it! wiggumnose.jpg
 
Islamicists didn't start hating the U.S. just because we got involved over there.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant - Worldnews.com

Reportedly the ISIS has seized control of Saddam Hussein's best chemical weapons plant and it STILL has stockpiles of Sarin, VX, and mustard gas.

What happened what we've been hearing about for 12 years about "Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq".

Now, you can say "oh they're old" (20 years plus).

Who gives a damn. Lots of old weapons still work fine. The U.S. was using bombs built in WW2 during the Vietnam War.

The U.S. was firing 16 inch gun rounds from the Iowa class battleship forty years later in Desert Storm.

At any rate, supposedly, Iraq had NO WMDs which means NO CHEMICAL WEAPONS. And in fact supposedly had NO ABILITY to build them.

Lots of people owe Bush/Cheney a big apology.

Wait a minute here, the US had troops in Iraq for how many years? and Bush and the shooter didn't order our troops to seek out and destroy them? that's weird. Oh, that's right, our troops didn't secure any of Saddam's weapons, they let insurgents get their hands on them so they could use them against coalition forces, how could I forget that? :roll:
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Yeah. We got that intel from the Germans, who had a source who had "worked" those facilities. We asked to talk to him ourselves so we could put him to the test (lie detector, human interrogation with control questions, etc), and the Germans told us he was virulently anti-American and so we couldn't talk to him. That turned out later to be a lie - no idea why they did that.

You must be referring to THIS guy:

Curveball (informant) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service and the British Secret Intelligence Service questioning the authenticity of the claims, the US Government and British government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory.[2][5] They were later found to be mobile milk pasteurization and hydrogen generation trailers. On 24 September 2002, the British government published its dossier on the former Iraqi leader's WMD with a personal foreword by Mr Blair, who assured readers Saddam Hussein had continued to produce WMD "beyond doubt".[6]
On November 4, 2007, 60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity.[7] Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth."[2]
In a February 2011 interview with the Guardian he "admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war."[8]


And the most amazing part of it is, the Germans continued to protect him!
According to a Danish state TV documentary, DR1 Dokumentaren "Manden der løj verden i krig"[17] broadcast April 21, 2010, Curveball is still living in Germany under strong protection of the German police. Danish TV filmed Rafid on the streets and recorded clips of conversation with him, before he surreptitiously called the police and had the TV-crew banned from his neighbourhood.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

What was the mission of coalition forces again? I've forgotten, oh, yeah, get Bin Laden, liberate the country from Saddam Hussein, secure and destroy wmd's, um, I think we forgot something. :roll: oh, mission accomplished.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

What was the mission of coalition forces again? I've forgotten, oh, yeah, get Bin Laden, liberate the country from Saddam Hussein, secure and destroy wmd's, um, I think we forgot something. :roll: oh, mission accomplished.

"but...but...but...Hussein doesn't have WMD! Bush Lied about that!"

Those WMD were secured, until we gave the whole show away and let the Jihadists takeover.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Of course it has to be enriched. That requires, among other things, transforming it into uranium hexafluoride via a network of centrifuges.
Our intel grasped that pretty far back and we also figured out that Iran was in the process of doing the same thing, only in the case of Iran they had
actually begun real work...they actually had the centrifuges and they were operational. We unleashed the STUXNET virus which caused the centrifuges to overspeed, which is a severe hardware damage situation. Thus we rendered Iran's centrifuges unsalvageable.


STUXNET either corrupted and changed the base parameters of the Variable Frequency Drives that drive the motors that drive the Centrifuges or it corrupted the control loop that monitors a variable or control point and then trasmits a signal back to the drive that controls the Frequency.

The base parameters of a VFD are set before the drive is put into operation and generally include limits, like minimum output frequency, and Maximum output frequency and ramp up and down times.

FVD parameters are adjusted for the application and the motor they're controlling.

The output of the VFD or the speed of the Centrifuge is controlled by a closed loop control that monitors a variable like Temperature, or pressure or amperage and then transmits a analog 4-20 Ma or 2-10 VDC signal back to the VFD.

Inherent control issues like hunting around the setpoint or overshoot can be further tuned by adjusting what's called a PID loop.

Some additional parameters are alarm parameters, like Over Volt or Over Amp and those are set before the drive is put into operation.

Any Alarm condition will immediately shut down the drive and the Centrifuge.

Stuxnet must have overroad the analog input back to the drive and caused it to peg at 20 Ma or 10 VDC.

But doing that would cause the motor to over amp, thus shutting down the drive before the centrifuge could overspeed.

Stuxnet was brilliant but I would love to know more about it and how it bypassed all of the safety's and controls that keep that from happening.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

"but...but...but...Hussein doesn't have WMD! Bush Lied about that!"

Those WMD were secured, until we gave the whole show away and let the Jihadists takeover.

Ask why the chemical weapons were not destroyed, when we were there.

next......

you're calling Bush a liar now. he admitted there were no wmd's, look on youtube for the video, it's there.
 
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Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Those WMD were secured, until we gave the whole show away and let the Jihadists takeover.
The sudden devastating defeat of the Iraqi army launched the open season on looting govt buildings, including suspected WMD sites. The looting of WMD site started as soon as the Iraqi army abandoned their posts.

If you will recall, we were not able to secure these sites for quite some time after the invasion was underway.

There was at least one WMD related place which was looted to the concrete foundation just after we invaded, April 2003 iirc.


ETA


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/i...7534dd977e6dc08&ei=5094&partner=homepage&_r=0

Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says
By JAMES GLANZ and WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: March 13, 2005


In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms...

...Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications...

...based largely on observations by government employees and officials who either worked at the sites or lived near them.

"They came in with the cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites," Dr. Araji said. "They knew what they were doing; they knew what they want. This was sophisticated looting."

...the installations were left largely unguarded by allied forces in the chaotic months after the invasion.

...United Nations agency disclosed that approximately 90 important sites in Iraq had been looted or razed in that period.​
 
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Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant - Worldnews.com

Reportedly the ISIS has seized control of Saddam Hussein's best chemical weapons plant and it STILL has stockpiles of Sarin, VX, and mustard gas.

What happened what we've been hearing about for 12 years about "Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq".

Now, you can say "oh they're old" (20 years plus).

Who gives a damn. Lots of old weapons still work fine. The U.S. was using bombs built in WW2 during the Vietnam War.

The U.S. was firing 16 inch gun rounds from the Iowa class battleship forty years later in Desert Storm.

At any rate, supposedly, Iraq had NO WMDs which means NO CHEMICAL WEAPONS. And in fact supposedly had NO ABILITY to build them.

Lots of people owe Bush/Cheney a big apology.

If it's true I guess it's worth asking Bush/Cheney why they didn't destroy the stockpile after they won the war.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Ask why the chemical weapons were not destroyed, when we were there.

next......

you're calling Bush a liar now. he admitted there were no wmd's, look on youtube for the video, it's there.

Apparently it's Obama's fault that we didn't destroy whatever chemical weapons were in Iraq (and I have a very difficult time believing that if they actually existed, Bush would have had every reporter from every newspaper in the world there to see his vindication). :lamo
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

The sudden devastating defeat of the Iraqi army launched the open season on looting govt buildings, including suspected WMD sites. The looting of WMD site started as soon as the Iraqi army abandoned their posts.

If you will recall, we were not able to secure these sites for quite some time after the invasion was underway.

Well well well, guess that's what happens when the best equipped, most organized and most powerful military on the face of the Earth
invades, right?

Wrong.

It's what happens when policy centers around such glib phrases as "you go to war with the army you have."
It's what happens when people in a position of great power and responsibility actually BELIEVE "it will be over in four weeks",
"it won't cost more than fifty billion dollars" and "we can pay for it with the oil we seize."

It's one thing to spew stuff like that at the masses and politicians in both parties frequently do but when I hear crap like that I assume
they don't actually believe it.

Who in their right mind would dismiss an entire army and just send them packing without a long range plan as to their disposition?
Word on the street was some of them were eager to be part of the transition, but apparently that was ignored, or did I imagine those reports?

"We were unable to secure those sites?"
Since we supposedly knew all about them, why didn't we make provisions for sufficient manpower to go directly TO them after neutralizing
the place? Why wasn't that part and parcel of the overall plan?

If a publicly traded corporation went about a large scale venture with that kind of planning isn't it reasonable to guess that the CEO
would not only be out on his keister but possibly even brought up on charges?

Many people have asked all of these questions for years. I am by far not the first person to do so.
And I've heard every fracking excuse under the sun.
It will be interesting to see if there are some new ones, because I don't expect to hear anyone admit that this was the most poorly planned,
slapdash, ego driven, lackadaisical operation in the entire history of this country.

And it could have been avoided if senior military had been allowed to do most of the planning, not glib politicians.
It could have been avoided if it had been an official declaration of war, not "an operation".
It could have been avoided if leadership hadn't insisted we work with cooked and cherry picked intel that sounded good but had little connection with
reality.
It could have been avoided if everyone had done away with all the ridiculous religious overtones and starry eyed faith based pablums.
It could have been avoided if it hadn't been couched in overly brute emotional arguments and belligerent swagger.

War is a science.
The religious right in this country, which is what was in power during the runup and execution of the Iraq War, does not believe in science,
and they routinely dismiss the reality based community as a blasphemous antagonist to their biblical fairy tales.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

apparently it's obama's fault that we didn't destroy whatever chemical weapons were in iraq (and i have a very difficult time believing that if they actually existed, bush would have had every reporter from every newspaper in the world there to see his vindication). :lamo

bingo!
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Oh yeah, al Qa'Qaa


[h=2]Background[/h] In October 2004, the Iraqi interim government warned the U.S. that nearly 380 tons of conventional explosives had been removed from the Al-Qa'qaa facility. The Bush Administration was criticized for failing to guard known weapons stashes of this size after the invasion. Critics of the Bush Administration claimed that U.S. forces were to blame for the looting, which put weapons that were formerly under UN control into the hands of insurgents.

The Bush Administration asserted before the 2004 U.S. election that the explosives were either removed by Iraq before invaders captured the facility, or properly accounted for by US forces,[SUP][2][/SUP] even while White House and Pentagon officials acknowledged that they had vanished after the invasion.[SUP][3][/SUP]
MSNBC News wrote:
"Whether Saddam Hussein's forces removed the explosives before U.S. forces arrived April 3, 2003, or whether they fell into the hands of looters and insurgents afterward — because the site was not guarded by U.S. troops — has become a key issue in the campaign."[SUP][4][/SUP] Time Magazine reported the sequence of events: "In late April IAEA's chief weapons inspector for Iraq warned the U.S. of the vulnerability of the site, and in May 2003, an internal IAEA memo warned that terrorists could be looting "the greatest explosives bonanza in history." Seventeen months later, on Oct. 10, in response to a long-standing request from the IAEA to account for sensitive materials, the interim Iraqi government notified the agency that al-Qaqaa had been stripped clean. The White House learned about the notification a few days later."[SUP][5][/SUP]

Evidence indicated that the explosives were most likely removed after invading US forces captured the facility. The looting was witnessed by U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsman from separate units as well as officials of the new Iraqi government.[SUP][6][/SUP] Frank Rich editorialized in the New York Times (May 15, 2005):
It's also because of incompetent Pentagon planning that other troops may now be victims of weapons looted from Saddam's munitions depots after the fall of Baghdad. Yet when The New York Times reported one such looting incident, in Al Qaqaa, before the election, the administration and many in the blogosphere reflexively branded the story fraudulent. But the story was true. It was later corroborated not only by United States Army reservists and national guardsmen who spoke to The Los Angeles Times but also by Iraq's own deputy minister of industry, who told The New York Times two months ago that Al Qaqaa was only one of many such weapon caches hijacked on America's undermanned post-invasion watch.
For a timeline of events resulting in the storage and subsequent loss of the high explosives, please see Al Qa'qaa high explosives timeline.





I suspect that much of whatever is useable and worth having from al Muthanna is long gone.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

According to our government they are useless period.
"The facility in Al Muthanna is said to still contain a stockpile of old weapons. However, the militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams will have a hard time using them, even if they manage to access them, the Wall Street Journal reported.

According to the U.S., the weapons are old, contaminated and hard to move. "We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL," Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a written statement according to the Journal. "We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials."

However, a survey of the site conducted by the Iraq Study Group determined the facility has since been dismantled, and that existing weapons stockpiles was sealed and unusable, the Journal said."

According to U.S. officials, the seizure of the Muthanna complex, though attention grabbing, is meaningless as far as concerns for usage of chemical weapons goes."
Iraqi militants ISIS seize Saddam's top chemical weapons facility - Middle East Israel News | Haaretz



They didn't say they were "useless period", they said they are not of "military value", which actually doesn't matter since nobody expects ISIL to use them for military purposes. "Military value" would mean that the payload would need to be in a functional delivery mechanism (rocket, mortar round, artillery shell) and of sufficient potency to be released in open air. That doesn't rule out use in subways or office buildings which are closed systems and non military.

The question still remains: Would you stand in a room where one of those munitions was opened?
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Lol !

" Sealed " ?

What exactly does that mean ? Like welded shut ?

Bolted shut ? Is there a Child proof cap that MIGHT keep a toddler or curious Chimpanzee from killing themself ?

Because nothing is " Sealed " absolutely.

And " unusable " implies that all existing chemical stockpiles have been rendered inert, so no reason to " seal " them right ?

Dismantled, obsolete, contaminated, and are sealed and unusable. End of story.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

They didn't say they were "useless period", they said they are not of "military value", which actually doesn't matter since nobody expects ISIL to use them for military purposes. "Military value" would mean that the payload would need to be in a functional delivery mechanism (rocket, mortar round, artillery shell) and of sufficient potency to be released in open air. That doesn't rule out use in subways or office buildings which are closed systems and non military.

The question still remains: Would you stand in a room where one of those munitions was opened?

"However, a survey of the site conducted by the Iraq Study Group determined the facility has since been dismantled, and that existing weapons stockpiles was sealed and unusable"
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

The question still remains: Would you stand in a room where one of those munitions was opened?

I wouldn't stand in a room when the local cops cleared out one of the hundreds of meth houses they'll find this year. Hope the meth cooks don't make a dirty bomb out of their old chemicals!
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

They didn't say they were "useless period", they said they are not of "military value", which actually doesn't matter since nobody expects ISIL to use them for military purposes. "Military value" would mean that the payload would need to be in a functional delivery mechanism (rocket, mortar round, artillery shell) and of sufficient potency to be released in open air. That doesn't rule out use in subways or office buildings which are closed systems and non military.

The question still remains: Would you stand in a room where one of those munitions was opened?

That is a Condi Rice tactic and it begs the response: Would you go to the trouble of moving, absconding with, transporting, smuggling, reconstructing and deploying
something of that low a value when for forty bucks worth of materials and a pressure cooker you can do so much more for so much less?

So it sorta DOES rule out their use in subways or an office building...or a marathon.
For much less effort, ordinary Iraqis who barely have high school chemistry chops, can make their own home brew explosives, and even use high tech triggers.
If these were of ANY value whatsoever I bet they would have already found their way into a bazaar, a car, whatever.

Just standing around and pitching stuff at the wall to see if it will stick?
Why, what's the payoff?

PS: And if they can't use high tech triggers, they can use a cellphone, or even a washing machine timer.
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Cheney Feigned Ignorance on Yellowcake Claim | ThinkProgress

On September 14, 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to discuss the faulty pre-war evidence on Iraq.
Here was Cheney’s response on the question of whether Iraq was trying to acquire uranium:

I guess the intriguing thing, Tim, on the whole thing, this question of whether or not the Iraqis were trying to acquire uranium in Africa. …. I don’t know what the truth is on the ground with respect to that. [Meet the Press, 9/14/03]



 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The rest is HERE:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html
 
Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Didn't Obama tidy that up before he left?

C'mon, enough of this mishegoss...
 
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