Interesting WMD Revelation In WikiLeaks Document Dump

The WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents show “U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.” While there’s no evidence here of a widespread, continuing WMD program, there is some disturbing new evidence:

The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.

But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic” chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran.

There’s little here that will impact the never-ending debate about the various rationales provided for starting the Iraq War. But the further evidence of Iranian involvement, especially in support of chemical weapons use, is sure to inflame more than a few commentators.

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Dodd Harris
About Dodd Harris
Dodd, who used to run a blog named ipse dixit, is an attorney, a veteran of the United States Navy, and a fairly good poker player. He contributed over 650 pieces to OTB between May 2007 and September 2013. Follow him on Twitter @Amuk3.

Comments

  1. wr says:

    Gee, what a surprise that this is what you seized on — not the vastly higher death numbers or all the times the US turned a blind eye to torture by its allies.

  2. Dodd says:

    Those revelations have already been widely reported on, including here at OTB. This one has not.

  3. Davebo says:

    Because everyone knows Iran and Iraq were BFF’s all along….

    that whole 20 year war thing was just a horrible misunderstanding.

  4. sam says:

    “But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms.”

    I’d like to see that fleshed out, as it strikes me as odd if the insurgents and militants referred to were Sunni. Not saying it couldn’t have happened, but I’d like to see a fuller report.

  5. ikeziskash says:

    Can someone explain to me the left’s excitement in discussing reports of casualties that make the U.S. look bad and can damage war efforts so often? Do they not care that it makes it harder for the U.S. to win or just relish taking shots at this country and it’s military? Or both?

  6. muffler says:

    There are two clear statements at work. The first is that these WMD (if these even qualify) were known to exist for decades and the only problem was the invasion making them available to outside insurgents. The second issue is that if the US had not started an illegal war and spent a trillion dollars while lying to the citizens and the it’s own soldiers there wouldn’t be anything to be leaked. The truth is hard to handle when the media spends more time on reporting the latest ipod or gaff versus informing the public.

    Someone here said they wanted to know why the left is excited. I am not excited – I am disheartened and feel betrayed by the people who have used power for corporate and personal gain at everyone else’s expense. In return Can someone explain why the right thinking that as long as no one knows about the bad things we did then they are OK? And how do you prevent bad things from happening if you are kept in the dark about them?

  7. Ole Sarge says:

    Once again, I was correct, we ought NOT to have gone in like we did. It should have been done back in 91, when the Iraqis were “expecting us” to come in and finish the fight.

    No one is explaining some stuff missing from the inventories that the UN teams had in the mid 90s. So did it go to Jordan and Syria or to Iran, or even back to France or Russia?