U.S. Forces have found a chemical arms factory in Iraq:
The huge 100-acre complex, which is surrounded by a electrical fence, is perhaps the first illegal chemical plant to be uncovered by US troops in their current mission in Iraq. The surrounding barracks resemble an abandoned slum.
It wasn’t immediately clear exactly which chemicals were being produced here, but clearly the Iraqis tried to camouflage the facility so it could not be photographed aerially, by swathing it in sand-cast walls to make it look like the surrounding desert.
Prediction: this is just the first of the long list of weapons that Saddam claims not to have that the Allies will discover.
Yes. I’d like to immerse Hans Blix in the vilest looking vat until he was satisfied that he had “enough evidence”.
Quoth CNN:
“I will not confirm that report,” said Army Lt. Gen. John Abizaid. “We have an Iraqi general officer — two Iraqi general officers — that we have taken prisoner, and they are providing us with information.”
Abizaid said it was too soon to say whether the U.S. forces had found weapons of mass destruction.
“We are continuing to look for weapons of mass destruction,” Abizaid said. “We have received reports from various prisoners that have given us leads. Suffice it to say that we continue to look, but so far we haven’t found any conclusive evidence.”
That’s like FoxNews saying SCUDs were fired before they had confirmation– turns out they were just regular missiles… Don’t jump the gun.
Everyone’s on the lookout for a scoop. Wild rumors going through the infantry are going to be cited as : “Reliable sources on the field” and Junior officers as : “Field commanders out on the battlefield”…
Let the dust settle a little. The US Army will only be glad to organize 12 hours, all inclusive tours of Know Evil WMD Manufacturing Sites ™(r) for the newsies. They’ll even provide refreshments, light lunch and staged photo-ops with Genuine Marines ™.
Party-of-war bloggers have jumped on this ‘news’ (Instapundity etc), but its based upon one story from a Fox reporter ’embedded’ in the US military. CNN, BBC, etc are not carrying it.
The US gvt has a poor record on Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. They lost some credibility with that fake african uranium story. Better to wait till the real news come out.
And you can bet that if they don’t discover any actual WMDs they’ll put some there to justify this whole obscene mess.