Bush Was Right - Chemical WMD Were in Iraq - ISIS Is Now Using Them

The Guardian reports that Kurds battling ISIS militants for control of Kobani fear the extremists may have used an unidentified chemical weapon, according to officials and one of the few doctors still working in the besieged Syrian town. Patients came to a clinic with blisters after a blast was heard on Tuesday evening, Dr. Walat Omar said. He said that the symptoms were not normal and he could not identify their cause, but suspected a chemical weapon : “After a loud explosion, we received some patients with abnormal symptoms. They reported a bad smell which produced some kind of allergic reaction,” the doctor said in a telephone interview with the Guardian. Dr. Omar said : “Some had red patches and blisters on their skins, others had difficulties breathing and others were vomiting, with painful throats, and others with burning eyes and noses. There was one patient, all his body was covered in red patches and blisters.” ~~~~~ ISIS may have obtained stocks of ageing but usable chemical weapons when it seized Iraqi army bases where they were stored, according to a New York Times report earlier this month. The NYT reported that in June, ISIS took control of the Al-Muthanna State Establishment that had been the center of Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons program, and that there may also have been chemical weapons buried or abandoned elsewhere, that were not destroyed by US forces or the Iraqi military. The Guardian explained that chemical stocks manufactured before 1991 are dirty, corroded and not always easy to identify or use, but can still cause serious injury. Dr. Omar told the Guardian he feared eight civilians had been injured by some kind of chemical attack, but the intense fighting has made it impossible to supply doctors with the equipment they need for definitive tests for the use of chemical weapons. Dr. Omar described their symptoms as being distinct from anything else he had treated in weeks of heavy battles. He said he had ruled out chlorine gas or biological weapons, based on his medical training, but thought the injuries were caused by a chemical : “This is the first time we have seen this kind of condition....I have seen other strange conditions but nothing like this before.” The Guardian said that opinions of chemical weapons experts it consulted were divided after seening a series of pictures provided by Omar of a young man with large skin blisters and a severely swollen lip. The pictures did not have any metadata to confirm the time and place they were taken, but had not been published on the internet before Omar provided them to a Kurdish journalist. One expert with personal experience of treating mustard gas victims said that, although the blisters were not typical, the symptoms overall were consistent with a possible sulphur mustard poisoning, which could only be confirmed with a urine or blood test. Other experts said that while the symptoms could be consistent with exposure to a chemical agent, they were somewhat unusual and other medical conditions, such as a severe allergic reaction, would need to be ruled out. Senior Kurdish politicians said they feared a chemical attack, and had asked for testing kits to seek confirmation : “Many people were injured…and showed symptoms of chemical weapons use: choking, breathing difficulties, bleeding eyes, burning skin etc,” said Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister of the Kobani administration. “Some of the doctors say that it might be phosphorus or poison gas of some kind, but the investigation is ongoing, we don’t know for sure.” The Guardian suggested thar it is possible that ISIS fighters could mistake some chemical munitions for ordinary weapons and use them without being aware of what they are handling. It could also be harder to evaluate the impact of attacks using partially degraded weapons, one expert said. Jean-Pascal Zanders, a former analyst with the chemical and biological warfare project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said : “Various factors might contribute to far milder symptoms than those normally associated with mustard agent exposure under combat conditions. These could include impure or degraded agent, short-term exposure, or exposure to a limited volume of agent.” The bomb believed to have caused the injuries treated by Omar exploded at about 10pm Tuesday in west Kobani, near a hospital. Omar said he thought ISIS may have targeted the medical centre to try to undermine morale, although it was not being used and none of the forces defending the city were in the area. Byt, Omar said he treated fighters who were further away for watering and burning eyes, and pain in their nose.” Dr. Omar estimated that around 20 of them were affected but needed only basic first aid. Regarding civilians who were closer to the blast, Omar said he was treating affected patients with oxygen, the steroid cortisone and other drugs until about 2.30am, as well as fielding calls from people who did not want to leave their homes. The three most seriously injured patients, who ranged in age from 17 to over 40, stayed in the clinic overnight for observation and Omar was trying to arrange for their evacuation to Turkey for further treatment. ~~~~~ In a related matter, Iraqi officials said 11 police officers were poisoned by chlorine gas last month, when ISIS fighters used it to attack the Iraqi town of Duluiya. All the officers survived. The Russian Times reported today that the Iraq Defense Ministry and doctors recently confirmed that the gas was chlorine. This marks the first officially documented ISIS attack with the chemical. The ISIS militants’ chlorine gas attack occurred on September 15, in the town of Duluiyah, located north of the capital, according to the Washington Post. The blast followed an exchange of fire between the militants and the members of the sunni Jabbour tribe, who were guarding the town’s borders. The RT quoted doctors and a survivor : “It was a strange explosion. We saw yellow smoke in the sky,....The victims talked of the fog that hung close to the ground - a possible indication that it was chlorine, which is heavier than air." The treating physicians also confirmed that their diagnosis was poisoning by chlorine gas. “They were panicked; we were panicked,” said Kasim Hatim, director of the hospital in the nearby city of Balad, where the officers were taken. “We initially thought it might be a more serious gas, a nerve gas or an organophosphate.” ~~~~~ An Associated Press report confirms that Iraqi officials say Islamic State militants used chlorine gas during fighting with Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen last month north of Baghdad. A senior security official, a local official from the town of Duluiya and an official from the town of Balad say ISIS used bombs with chlorine-filled cylinders during September clashes. They told the AP on Friday that about 40 troops and militiamen were slightly affected by the chlorine and showed symptoms consistent with chlorine poisoning, such as difficulty in breathing and coughing. They were treated in hospital and quickly recovered. ~~~~~ Dear readers, these reports are extremely disturbing. We have been told that all chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria have been destroyed. But chemical stockpiles were obviously left behind when the Saddam Hussein regime fell. Their existence was denied in sharply negative commentary suggesting that President George W. Bush and his administration were lying about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, as an excuse to invade Iraq. But, ISIS seems to have found chemical WMD somewhere -- more likely in Iraq than in Syria. And we know that Saddam used chemical WMD on his own people during his war with Iran. Bush-hating critics said the lives of over 4,000 US troops were wasted, in addition to the money supposedly squandered in the Iraq War. But, the New York Times has published a 10,000-word, eight-part story called “The Secret Casualties Of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons,” which says WMD were in Iraq : “In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.” And, the soldiers were told to keep quiet about the WMD. “Troops and officers were instructed to be silent or give deceptive accounts of what they had found. ‘Nothing of significance’ is what I was ordered to say,’ said Jarrod Lampier, a recently retired Army major present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war: more than 2,400 nerve-agent warheads. Of course, the Left and Democrats are saying these WMD were old and don't count. Ask Kobani Kurds. ~~~ The New York Times and Democrats ought to apologize to President Bush. But they won't. So, why don't we just vote all of them out on November 4?