Great Cartoon & Larry Johnson's take on inSanetorum

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Friday, 23 June 2006
So Called Iraqi WMD
by
Larry C Johnson

Senator Rick Santorum's desperate effort to reenergize his failing re-election campaign by touting the discovery of so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Repeat after me, BULL FECAL MATTER!

Leave it to Faux, er, I mean, Fox News, to spin the malarkey:

"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."

Now for a reality check. Mustard gas and sarin gas are not Weapons of Mass Destruction. They are potential Mass Casualty Weapons, but they do not cause "mass destruction". They can cause mass casualties but, fortunately, are not very reliable weapon systems. How do we know? We have the empirical evidence from the Iraq-Iran war. Most of the casualties in that 8 year war were caused by conventional weapons, not so-called "WMD". To cause mass casualties, mustard or sarin must be delivered via massive artillery bombardment or through air platforms (i.e. airplanes). Then Mother Nature has to cooperate and ensure that the wind is blowing toward the enemy lines. And the soldiers have to stand still and breathe the gas. Of course, soldiers do not always cooperate. Instead of sitting around smelling the fumes, they


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