ISIL Captures WMD Site – Lingering Chems Still There?

Editor’s Note – It is now being reported that ISIL (ISIS) has taken control of one of Saddam Hussein’s largest and most lethal mega-WMD facilities in Al Muthana, Iraq. Though it was bombed and inspected, much of it is still intact and there is the real possibility that chemical stores may still exist, now in the hands on terrorists.

Since the ISIL began attacking and taking large portions of Iraq and solidifying its holdings in Syria, much blame has been spread around with both President Obama and Hillary Clinton being portrayed as having left the area in a power vacuum. They left the country to be led by corrupt leadership, with open allegiances to Iran, bent on keeping the Sunnis down and out of the power structure.

The failure to avidly seek an exit strategy that would help the fledgling government called a “Status of Forces” agreement and Maliki’s intransigence meant no deal was finalized. Therefore Obama pulled out leaving a corrupt government and a schism between the Sunnis, the Shiia, and the Kurds. The ‘Balkanization’ of Iraq now looks complete.

On the other hand, the left is blaming Bush for getting us into the war based on “lies” about WMD and therefore we should never have been there in the first place. That canard is not based in fact, but hoping to secure a democracy among these groups was a difficult proposition anyway. Now we see that by leaving as we did, the stability was gone and now we see that ISIL is garnering much equipment, and now, the chemical facility and its bunkers.

Unfortunately, despite mountains of evidence that the WMD issue was not a lie, the perception that there were no WMD persists. Now that the ISIL has taken control of the facility, what was left may be used in some form, even though the State Department is saying they cannot use what is left to make any weapons. Who knows what they will find and be able to use.

The Al Muthanna mega site for chemical weapons was found, bombed extensively, and then inspected by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) between 2003 and its report in 2007 after the invasion. In their 2007 report, it was clearly noted that there were extensive stockpiles:

ISG conducted multiple exploitations of the Al Muthanna site to determine whether old chemical weapons, equipment, or toxic chemicals had been looted or tampered with since the last UN visit to the site. ISG is unable to unambiguously determine the complete fate of old munitions, materials, and chemicals produced and stored there.The matter is further complicated by the looting and razing done by the Iraqis…

Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored there. The most dangerous ones have been declared to the UN and are sealed in bunkers. Although declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be confirmed. These areas of the compound pose a hazard to civilians and potential blackmarketers…

It is not known what the ISG and US forces did with the facility before leaving Iraq, but now ISIL is in command of it, and if any of the material found to be sealed and hidden is still there, now ISIL has it. Read more on the biological reports of Saddam Hussein’s long history with biological WMD.

It is also well known that during the long delay in attacking Iraq in 2003, the Russians were aiding Saddam Hussein to truck everything he had out through Syria where they have been located. They also had been transported into Lebanon. At every juncture before the invasion, all western intelligence agencies believed there was much more, and a much larger contingent of lawmakers saw the intelligence and backed the war in 2003.

We all knew Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds between the two Iraq wars and on the Iranians prior, but that fact seems to be ignored as well by those on the left and even some on the right here in the USA.

Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that ISIL has taken control over this and other locations, please read on:

Washington—Sunni extremists in Iraq have occupied what was once Saddam Hussein’s premier chemical-weapons production facility, a complex that still contains a stockpile of old weapons, State Department and other U.S. government officials said.

U.S. officials don’t believe the Sunni militants will be able to create a functional chemical weapon from the material. The weapons stockpiled at the Al Muthanna complex are old, contaminated…

However, the State Department is down playing the whole story, but there were 30 sites and we did not get them all. Please read this report on their stance and the events now emerging here:

Iraq: Isis Seizes Saddam Hussein’s Chemical Weapons Storage Facility

Latest developments and news from the Iraq crisis, as Saudi Arabia warns that Britain and US must not meddle in Iraq

By Umberto Bacchi - International Business Times

Islamist militants in Iraq have taken over a military complex containing a stockpile of old chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein’s era.

The US State Department said that they believe jihadist fighters with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) will not be able to make any use of the material seized at the Al Muthanna complex as it is too old, contaminated and difficult to move.

“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,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told the Wall Street Journal.

Psaki however added that the US remained “concerned about the seizure of any military site by the Isis.”

According to the UK Ministry of Defence, the Al Muthanna chemical complex “was the principal manufacturing plant for both chemical agents and munitions during Saddam Hussein’s rule.”

The facility, located in the desert some 80 km northwest of the Iraqi capital, was used in the 1980s to produce and store chemical weapons, reportedly including Sarin and Mustard Gas.

“Iraq used these weapons during the Iran – Iraq War (1980 to 1988) and against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988,” the British MoD said in 2012, announcing it was to provide training to Iraqi personnel to dispose partially destroyed chemical munitions and agents stored there.

Stockpiles of weapons and the complex’s ability to produce new material were severely hampered by the two Iraqi wars.

“The majority of the Al Muthanna complex was bombed during Desert Storm, completely incapacitating Iraq’s chemical weapon production capabilities, however, large stockpiles of chemical weapons and bulk agent survived,” a 2004 CIA report read.

Most of Iraq’s chemical munitions were then destroyed and disposed under the supervision of the UN. Some partially destroyed contents were left over and sealed in two bunkers at Al Muthanna.

The complex has now fallen into the hands of Isis, which has conquered large swathes of Iraq in a lightning campaign backed by Baathists and other former loyalists to Hussein.

US Military officials said that they would have not left chemical material there after the 2011 pull out, if it represented a security threat.

“The only people who would likely be harmed by these chemical materials would be the people who tried to use or move them,” a military official said.

Isis steams form Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Aqi) that was formed in 2003 shortly after the start of the second invasion of Iraq, which was originally launched to strip the regime of Hussein of its alleged stockpiles of chemical weapons.

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