Kasz216 said:
That would make sense... if you ignored the fact that they found actual chemical weapons labs. So clearly not all of it was old. |
This was my point about the article being vague. It says they came across a house with a chemical lab and found some substances. This is hardly proof of WMDs. The chemcial lab could easily be an old chemical lab in dis-repair. There is just no context to the quote to make a claim either way. Point being, without more info, the lab could have been built anytime, pre or post-invasion. Needless to say, the article also does not specify what types of "substances" were found, so this makes the conclusion that there were WMDs even more difficult to reach. As noted in the article concerning other cases, the substances found could have been a "false alarm" and turned out to be something not related to chemical weaponry. The substances also could have also just fit the bill of being degraded and decayed chemical substances. There just isn't enough info to make a claim.
The main point I was trying to originally get across was what the npr interviewee mentioned about differentiating between local hazards and mass destruction. Namely, a WMD does not just need to be a chemical, biological, or chemical weapon, it also need to be capable of mass destruction. Given the wikileaks article, the interview, and other sources I have looked at, I just don't see sufficient evidence that there were weapons capable of this type of damage.
That's why I said the question, "Were WMDs found in Iraq?" is misleading. The term WMD is ambiguous, and people use the term differently. As an obvious example, it is clear that the US/UN weapons inspector is using a different defintion of WMDs than the wikileaks author. Better questions would be like, "Were nuclear weapons found in Iraq?", "Were chemical weapons found in Iraq?", "Did Saddam have plans to start a nuclear program?". At least to me, these questions are clearer and assess knowledge better than asking whether there were WMDs in Iraq.
