Germany confirms Peshmerga fighting ISIS were attacked by chemical weapons
This spring, the Kurdish government informed its allies that Peshmerga forces were attacked with chlorine gas. Late last year, ISIS repotedly seized an Iraqi chemical weapons factory with about 2,500 rockets, containing the deadly nerve agent Sarin.
About 80 German soldiers are stationed in the Kurdistan Region to train the Peshmerga forces. Germany is one of the few countries supplying the Kurdish troops directly through Erbil and not through the Iraqi central government in Bagdad.
Friday, August 14, 2015
WMDs in Iraq
remember when that was a lie of the Bush Administration? From one of the Kurdish news agencies (a group with experience of being on the receiving end of Iraqi chemical weapons):
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I wouldn't take this too strongly. Saddam had chemical weapons factories and Sarin artillery shells, but he seems to have gotten rid of them all before the invasion. (Except a few odd scraps.)
ReplyDeleteIf there was an intact chem-weapons plant with 2,500 functional Sarin rounds in Iraq, it would have been found, and the find would have made headlines. And it would not still be there for ISIS to capture now.
Chlorine's another matter. It's a very crude chemical weapon, which can be produced by relatively simple industrial processes. Very nasty stuff, but not really the sort of "chemical weapons" that were expected.
It's interesting that Germany is dealing directly with the Kurds. That's a rather forward position for Germany to take on its own. This may be happening because there is a large Kurdish diaspora community in Germany (originating in immigrants from Turkey, but probably now including many Iraqi Kurds).
There are people with important positions in his government who say the weapons were shipped to Syria on the eve of war, and some these weapons ended up in al-Qaeda hands in Syria shortly before an attempted attack on Amman.
ReplyDeleteSyria has it's own Chemical Weapons program.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Bush never did claim that Saddam had an active program. He said they had previously had one, and they had facilities, and he feared they would resume. He was right on all counts.
ReplyDeleteThe crucifixion of Bush on the "Bush lied, people died" was a terribly shameful time for America. A number of his accusers had themselves seen the same intelligence, arrived at the same conclusions, and supported the war. This included Hillary.