Friday, June 23, 2006

why aren't we hearing more about this?

WMDs in Iraq: found.

WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

Is there a reason I'm seeing this only on Fox News?

ABC News Iraq coverage page-- nuthin'.

MSNBC's "Conflict in Iraq" page-- this article, which both politicizes the info and casts doubt on it. Interesting article, though. I'm no friend of Sen. Santorum, anyway, so the journos can bash all they want. The main thing to note, though, is the lack of objectivity evident in the article's tone. I don't mind the fact that there's media bias: I simply don't like the bullshit claim that people are being objective. My solution to this has been to read both the leftie and the rightie new sources.

CNN's World/Middle East page-- nuthin'.

Surprisingly, the right-leaning Breitbart (often cited by the Drudge Report) has nothing on its "World" page.


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8 comments:

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

It's not the big news that it might seem. All it shows is that some of Saddam's pre-1991 chemical weapons were never destroyed (but have long since degraded).

The weapons that I was expecting (and genuinely surprised not to find) were recently constructed chemical weapons that had been manufactured as part of an ongoing WMD program in Iraq.

Such things have not (yet) been found.

That's why we haven't heard much about these 500 chemical weapons. They don't fit the bill.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

Anonymous said...

Is there a reason I'm seeing this only on Fox News?

If you honestly have to ask that question, then you really have been out of the states too long.

Had Dubya and the administration spent 2 years making the case that we needed to invade Iraq in order to find and destroy a few hundred degraded, unuseable chemical munitions from the 80's, then this would be HUGE news.

But they didn't, so it's not. Given the political fortunes of Senor Bush over the last couple years, you can bet that if they thought it was a legitimate find, they'd have trumpeted their existence back in 2003, when they found them in random pantries and trash cans throughout Iraq. But when you spend almost 2 years giving the press and public big, long lists of hundreds of thousands of known stockpiles of different kinds of WMDs, have Powell at the UN showing photos of CURRENT WMD factories and storage facilities, and have Cheney on Meet the Press talking about active nuclear weapons in Sadaam's hands....then you look like an idiot touting the "discovery" of some worthless antiques leftover from the Iran-Iraq war.

The fact that this 3-year old information came from Rick "18 points down in the polls" Santorum, is being basically ignored by the President and the administration, and is being trumpeted only by Hannity and friends should tell you everything you need to know.

And if it doesn't, you're probably a good candidate to believe everything the Rodong Shinmun tells you as well.

Anonymous said...

http://www.slate.com/id/2144346/fr/rss/

Kevin Kim said...

Brit Hume's Mom,

Have some courage and leave an actual ID, with possible email contact. I don't abide cowardice in my comment threads.

I gather you don't read this blog. If you do read it, I'm disappointed in how superficially you read. If you read with any thoroughness, you'd know I've been against the war, and have no love for senators like Santorum. This would provide you with some context for my current post, which isn't intended as a hawkish screed.

You'd also know that I'm a big fan of the skeptical approach, which benefits me as I look at the idiocy-- expressed as talking points-- on both sides of the political aisle.

My own point is essentially about media bias. I'm not particularly triumphalistic about the finding of WMDs. Even if we were to find them, my basic attitude toward our "project" in Iraq would be unlikely to change.

Take the time actually to read my blog before you even begin to attempt to assess my gullibility. Make no further comments here until you're ready to comment intelligently. A good example to follow might be Dr. Hodges, above, who makes his point without rancor.

If your next comment is in the same tone, it will be deleted.

Justin,

In that Slate URL you offered, there's a link to this.

In a sense, that article makes some of the same (legitimate) points made by Brit Hume's Mom, above, but it further notes that Republicans have been shooting themselves in the foot regarding PR. I'd say that's been true for several years.


Kevin

Anonymous said...

Many say Fox News has an agenda for what it reports. I'd say there's more of an agenda in what is NOT reported by CNN et al. Commie News Intl. I've been on an extended overseas TDY and in most places the only Eglish channel is CNN Intl. It's bascially a 24-hour anti-Bush channel with some World Cup coverage and about 33 percent commercials.

Are they chemical weapons? Yes, no doubt. Are they super significant? No, except for the fact that one cannot state that there were no chemical weapons in Iraq and be factually correct, anymore.

James Na blogged about this;

http://www.korealiberator.org/2006/06/22/pre-war-iraq-and-wmd/

Also worth reading;

http://www.dprkstudies.org/documents/SpiesLiesWeapons.pdf

Anonymous said...

Many say Fox News has an agenda for what it reports. I'd say there's more of an agenda in what is NOT reported by CNN et al. Commie News Intl. I've been on an extended overseas TDY and in most places the only Eglish channel is CNN Intl. It's bascially a 24-hour anti-Bush channel with some World Cup coverage and about 33 percent commercials.

Are they chemical weapons? Yes, no doubt. Are they super significant? No, except for the fact that one cannot state that there were no chemical weapons in Iraq and be factually correct, anymore.

James Na blogged about this;

http://www.korealiberator.org/2006/06/22/pre-war-iraq-and-wmd/

Also worth reading;

http://www.dprkstudies.org/documents/SpiesLiesWeapons.pdf

Anonymous said...

I'm not interested in receiving email from anyone, and posting an email address doesn't represent courage, nor does leaving an "actual ID." There are plenty of people that post comments on your blog without email addresses and actual IDs that identify who they really are. Your beef is with what I wrote, not with the real or imagined person behind Brit Hume's mom.

I also see nothing on your blog about prohibiting anonymous comments, and if you're going to require people to fax their drivers license to you in order to comment, you should make it known publicly. Otherwise, I'd suggest dealing with what's said, not with who's saying it.

I've read stuff of yours off and on for a while and I believe your claims of being skeptical of both sides are generally true. So the reason for my "rancor" was that I was in fact surprised (and disappointed) that you (or anyone else not drinking Hugh Hewitt's KoolAid) were gullible enough to fall for what was obviously a long-shot hail mary from a desperate Senator, pushed along by a single media outlet with a long history of hyping anything and everything that may help the GOP.

The surprise you expressed at other news outlets not picking up this "scoop" seemed to me to be something akin to the mindless cheerleading that comes straight off of Powerline or Malkin (or Kos or Atrios), and that's not a compliment. It also seemed to be atypical of your general skepticism, and quite frankly, disappointing.

What I'm trying to figure out is, what was it about the story that lead you to buy into it, even if temporarily? My first run through the article, there were red flags flying all over the place: The flailing Santorum announcing it a press conference; The fact that the weapons weren't useable; The fact that they were 15+ years old; The fact that the Bush administration thought the information wasn't worth any attention; And finally the fact that no other news organizations gave it even a sniff except to shoot the bullshit down.

All of those red flags were evident in the initial article you linked to, and even more were all over the blogosphere and other media sources for anyone that took 5 minutes to look.

As a skeptic, and given all those red flags, your first reaction shouldn't have come anywhere near proclaiming that WMDs had been found accompanied by disbelief that the rest of the media were ignoring the bombshell. Your first reaction given the facts should have been to assume it was bullshit political posturing, accompanied by disbelief that it was receiving any coverage at all by any media outside of Ken Mehlman's speed dial.

Delete my post if you feel it's too rancorous, ban me, whatever. I'm an anonymous reader who happened to be right on the substance of this issue while you happened to be wrong, and I think that bothered you more than the fact that I posted anonymously. I'm not an asshole and I wasn't trying to insult you. Although I'm not interested in 90% of the topics you post on (read: religiosity), I do enjoy the stuff you write on Korean issues and American politics, and I admire the thought and depth you display, as well as the balance you achieve on complicated issues. I also think you're smart enough to deal with valid criticisms (rancor or not) and answer them reasonably without resorting to threats of deletion.

Then again, it's your blog, so let the King be the King and ignore me if you so desire.

Whatever you do, watch this:

http://santorumexposed.com/serendipity/archives/175-Weapons-of-Minor-Discomfort.html

It turns out those WMDs Santorum exposed have the capacity to inflict minor burns and rashes if rubbed directly against the skin. Our national nightmare of hundreds of American soldiers with rashes almost became a reality, and we have Rick Santorum to thank for saving them from endless scratching.

Kevin Kim said...

Brit Hume's Mom writes:

"Delete my post if you feel it's too rancorous, ban me, whatever. I'm an anonymous reader who happened to be right on the substance of this issue while you happened to be wrong, and I think that bothered you more than the fact that I posted anonymously. I'm not an asshole and I wasn't trying to insult you."

If a person walks into my living room and takes a shit on my carpet, it's highly doubtful I'll allow them to walk into my living room again. By keeping the same snotty, self-righteous tone, you've lost your privilege to post remarks here.

You also need to stop projecting your own insecurities on other people. If the real problem is that I'm wrong in substance about this, then by your pop psych analysis I should also ban the other commenters in this thread who have contradicted me. How do you explain their continued presence?

And that's the thing: I don't mind being wrong, and adopting a certain style to elicit comments (such as shouting "Why haven't we heard more about this?") is one way to find out where I'm wrong. I've had commenters tell me I'm wrong many times before, and have had no problem with the content of what they've said.

You failed to see that, however, and instead took this post as an opportunity to present a superior, sarcastic attitude. Not only that, but after I called you on your attitude, you came back to my living room and shat on the carpet again.

Don't bother posting here anymore. Meanwhile, grow up, "Mom."


Kevin