To an Insect-Free Iraq

A hat tip to Power Line Blog for providing this link to Big Lizards Blog, who did a wonderful write up on some of the bad stuff that has been found in Iraq before and since our invasion and removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The most interesting item was the apparent obsession that Iraqi soldiers had with keeping their ammunition dumps sans insects:

"At Karbala, U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what appeared to be a very large 'agricultural supply' area, Hanson says. Some of the drums were stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters - with unpleasant results. 'More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve agent,' Hanson says. 'But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business gains by securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The 'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump - evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG."

"That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable CW stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, where Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States from nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division found 55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass spectrometry analysis as cyclosarin - a nerve agent. Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and a mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site. "Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'" [Emphasis added]

I got into it with a left-wing blogger last week about WMDs. Of course he insisted that no WMDs have been found whatsoever. If by that, he means that no neon sign-adorned bunkers filled to the brim with neatly stacked caches, then he is right. But things are never quite that simple are they? Read the Big Lizards article I linked above for a true education. My question is, why in Sam Hill doesn't the Bush administration point any of this stuff out? I will admit, it frustrates me to no end when all this WMD information is out there, and I am asked by those on the left, like my blogger friend, "Why doesn't President Bush point this out?" You know what? He has a point, and I don't have an answer. I have never been accused of being President Bush's biggest fan. One of my biggest complaints about him is that when it comes to communicating with the American people, he is the anti-Reagan.

Good Day to You, Sir