A speculative discussion of why we're only now hearing about the finding of chemical shells in Iraq, and what else the administration isn't telling us.

[Update in the afternoon]

"Formerspook" has the back story.

It's all about timing:
Put this news out just before the election... wait, the election is many months off.

Put this news out when your poll numbers are in the tank... wait, the poll numbers were already moving up.

Put this news out during to get bad news out of the press... wait, Kosola isn't bad news for the administration.

Ok... just watch this space. Someone, probably anonymously, will come up with some rational as to why the timing of this worked out better for the administration and thus was planned all along.

"Someone, probably anonymously......."

LOL!!

Of course!

I find it suspicious that none of the major news outlets have mentioned this yet - could the data be bad?

Bad for anyone with BDS, yes.

My guess is that it's a much more mundane reason we're just finding out about this now.

We went to war with the intelligence we had at the time. We know now, that the intelligence was likely faulty, but there was no way to know then. The entire world thought Saddam had large stockpiles of WMD.

These finds are relatively small, and probably left over from before Gulf War I. To make a big deal about them at the time, and to scream, "See, we were justified!" would just invite a lot of attacks on the size of the find, the age of the shells, etc. They would be discredited immediately, and would have extended a story that was dying, and it would have given the media more time to extend the "Bush Lied" myth.

My guess is that it's coming out now because Santorum just found out about them, and HE'S making a big deal out of it, not the administration. The administration has moved on to focusing on finishing the job, not justifying the past.

My $0.02.

Bob

I thought that the existence of these shells was already publicly known... weren't there news reports about the pre-Gulf War shells a couple of years back? Is there something new here?

Right now there's not much to go on--have you seen the actual document? It consists of half a page of assertions and no details. It also refers to "pre-Gulf War chemical munitions." That means chemical munitions from before 1991. This could easily be stuff that was buried out in the desert or forgotten in a warehouse for fifteen years. And it could also be disputed by other members of the intelligence community.

Seriously, if the evidence was a slam dunk, wouldn't the administration be making a big deal out of it? The President can order anything declassified that he wants. So why didn't he personally go on television with this information? My guess is that the info is shaky and in dispute.

They didn't crow about this 10 weeks ago, for the same reason FDR didn't go on the radio and announce that we had broken the Enigma Code. It's called security.

I'm pretty sure they haven't divulged everything they got off of Zarqawi's laptop yet either. It's called security.

It doesn't matter what gets found or when it gets announced, the loopy lefties will continue to say no WMDs have ever been found, right up until the 2020 elections, when the Bush sisters run and win the White House. And I can retire in security.

> To make a big deal about them at the time, and to scream, "See, we were justified!" would just invite a lot
> of attacks on the size of the find, the age of the shells, etc. They would be discredited immediately

Why would they be "discredited"? The UN resolutions did not permit Saddam to keep "small" numbers (hundreds) of chemical weapons or even "aged" chemical weapons. He was required to destroy all chemical weapons, of whatever age -- and he agreed to do so.

The argument up to now has been that "Saddam did not have any chemical weapons" -- not that it was okay for him to have up to 500 chemical weapons.

> Seriously, if the evidence was a slam dunk, wouldn't the administration be making a big deal out of it?

Based on past behavior, no. This administration has been completely inept when it comes to making their case to the American people. There's no reason to expect that to suddenly change.

Oh my.

I agree with Ed!

My guess is that it's coming out now because Santorum just found out about them

Theory two is that they only just found them. This sounds plausible, considering that they were probably hastily buried in the desert during or before Gulf War 1 and were likely forgotten about.