Direct link between Assad and gas attack elusive for U.S.

OntarioVanMan · Sep 7, 2013

STILL no direct proof....

Direct link between Assad and gas attack elusive for U.S.

layoutshooter · Sep 7, 2013

King Putz the 1st does not need proof. He has chosen which side he is on, that is that.

cubansammich · Sep 7, 2013

OntarioVanMan said:
STILL no direct proof....

Direct link between Assad and gas attack elusive for U.S.

Is this reminding anyone else of Iraq and those fictitious weapons of mass destruction?

layoutshooter · Sep 7, 2013

cubansammich said:
Is this reminding anyone else of Iraq and those fictitious weapons of mass destruction?

In reality, they are the very same WMD's. There was never anything "fictitious" about them. The bulk of the weapons were moved into Syria prior to our going into Iraq. That was why we only found a few hundred aging war heads plus the 500 metric tons of "yellow cake" when we went it. The "yellow cake" was pre 1991 stocks.

Most where of Soviet design, made either in China or in Iraq under license. The remainder were from other sources, including some US made warheads.

The time to have taken out these stockpiles was during the first Gulf War. They had yet to start moving them at that point. It is now too late. It was already too late when we went in the second time. Far too much time had passed. Far too many "warnings" about Iraq not destroying them according to the treaty that was signed. That gave them the time to move them, which they did.

It is now time to stay home. We don't have any leadership, have not for decades, that have a clue what is going on. They just keep repeating the exact same stupid mistakes, year in and year out, no matter which party is in control.

Ragman · Sep 7, 2013

layoutshooter said:
They just keep repeating the exact same stupid mistakes, year in and year out, no matter which party is in control.

Thank you for reiterating that. I get tired of hearing the same old complaints against one party or the other

, when in reality they operate the same.

Humble2drive · Sep 7, 2013

This article is not taking into account the super secret evidence that is being presented in the
"classified briefings".
We the people just have to trust our President and the Honorable Secretary of State because they know more than we do.

Scary thought huh??

layoutshooter · Sep 7, 2013

Ragman said:
Thank you for reiterating that. I get tired of hearing the same old complaints against one party or the other , when in reality they operate the same.

There ain't a split hairs difference between them. Neither follow the Constitution and both are after the exact same goal.

layoutshooter · Sep 7, 2013

Humble2drive said:
This article is not taking into account the super secret evidence that is being presented in the
"classified briefings".
We the people just have to trust our President and the Honorable Secretary of State because they know more than we do.
Scary thought huh??

Make no mistake here, there is a LOT of very good intell out there. This administration, like all others in the past, are only going to use what fits their agenda and take what they need, often out of context, to support their stated goal.

Also keep in mind that the "intell business" is far more art than science. It takes a decade or so, working on a single target, learning it from the ground up, for an analyst to be good at what he/she/it is doing. That kind of analyst is getting to be a "rare bird" these days, due to changes that have taken place in how we train and hire people to do the work. The result of many of those changes are now showing up. Too much emphasis is placed on "computer" analysis and far too little on "knowing your target". The "feel" is gone. There in lies much of the problems we see today.

cubansammich · Sep 7, 2013

layoutshooter said:
In reality, they are the very same WMD's. There was never anything "fictitious" about them. The bulk of the weapons were moved into Syria prior to our going into Iraq. That was why we only found a few hundred aging war heads plus the 500 metric tons of "yellow cake" when we went it. The "yellow cake" was pre 1991 stocks.

Most where of Soviet design, made either in China or in Iraq under license. The remainder were from other sources, including some US made warheads.

The time to have taken out these stockpiles was during the first Gulf War. They had yet to start moving them at that point. It is now too late. It was already too late when we went in the second time. Far too much time had passed. Far too many "warnings" about Iraq not destroying them according to the treaty that was signed. That gave them the time to move them, which they did.

It is now time to stay home. We don't have any leadership, have not for decades, that have a clue what is going on. They just keep repeating the exact same stupid mistakes, year in and year out, no matter which party is in control.

We are talking about Sarin in Syria are we not?

layoutshooter · Sep 7, 2013

cubansammich said:
We are talking about Sarin in Syria are we not?

Yes, we are. The problems we are dealing with in Syria today date back to the mid 1980's. Things move far more slowly in the real world than our "sound byte" news makes it out to be. The overall problem in the Middle East, at least in "modern times" can be traced to the very late 19th century and the bulk of the damage took place in the early to mid 20th century. We are now paying for those mistakes.

Until we learn to look at the problems, over the entire time they have been brewing, we will never learn to avoid those same mistakes again. Short time thinking cause long term misery.

cubansammich · Sep 7, 2013

layoutshooter said:
Yes, we are. The problems we are dealing with in Syria today date back to the mid 1980's. Things move far more slowly in the real world than our "sound byte" news makes it out to be. The overall problem in the Middle East, at least in "modern times" can be traced to the very late 19th century and the bulk of the damage took place in the early to mid 20th century. We are now paying for those mistakes.

Until we learn to look at the problems, over the entire time they have been brewing, we will never learn to avoid those same mistakes again. Short time thinking cause long term misery.

You believe this is Saddam's old Sarin that they used?

layoutshooter · Sep 7, 2013

cubansammich said:
You believe this is Saddam's old Sarin that they used?

It very well could be. It is well known that Saddam's stocks were moved to Syria prior to our going in after them. There are other types of warheads with other agents there as well.

Brisco · Sep 7, 2013

cubansammich said:
Is this reminding anyone else of Iraq and those fictitious weapons of mass destruction?

layoutshooter said:
In reality, they are the very same WMD's. There was never anything "fictitious" about them. The bulk of the weapons were moved into Syria prior to our going into Iraq. That was why we only found a few hundred aging war heads plus the 500 metric tons of "yellow cake" when we went it. The "yellow cake" was pre 1991 stocks.

If only "Common Sense" could prevail over the Bush haters of America................

Better Yet..........

Brisco · Sep 7, 2013

cubansammich said:
You believe this is Saddam's old Sarin that they used?

Possible..............Yes.

Believe It................Yes.

Provable...............Time will Tell.

All in All..........Don't really care. Saddam's WMD's ARE over there on their Soil somewhere. If this batch of Sarin was NOT part of Saddams...........Oh Well. That country is Reaping what it sowed in the first place by taking sides with Terrorists all these years.

cubansammich · Sep 7, 2013

layoutshooter said:
It very well could be. It is well known that Saddam's stocks were moved to Syria prior to our going in after them. There are other types of warheads with other agents there as well.

What do you suppose is the shelf life of Sarin gas?

layoutshooter · Sep 7, 2013

cubansammich said:
What do you suppose is the shelf life of Sarin gas?

it is dependent on how it is stored. Much, much longer in a "binary" warhead.

The purity of the chemicals can also affect it's "self-life". The warheads that were found in Iraq were badly degraded "unitary" weapons.

RLENT · Sep 7, 2013

layoutshooter said:
In reality, they are the very same WMD's. There was never anything "fictitious" about them. The bulk of the weapons were moved into Syria prior to our going into Iraq.

Please stop peddling the bogus urban legend crap that you seem so fond of:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel accused Russia of supplying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with chemical weapons, the most eyebrow-raising moment in a long and sometimes strange hearing that included the Obama administration's first estimate of the financial cost of a potential U.S. strike on Syria, a detailed description of the U.S. target list, and a Republican congressman's meandering attempt to link Syria to the consolate attack in Benghazi and the Justice Department's "Fast and Furious" scandal.

First, Russia. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) -- best known for screaming "you lie" at President Obama during a State of the Union address -- made the most news at today's hearing when he asked Hagel where Assad had gotten his chemical weapons.

"Well, the Russians supply them," Hagel responded. "Others are supplying them with those chemical weapons. They make some themselves."

Reports that Russia has been selling chemical weapons to Assad -- or at least providing the ingredients and equipment his scientists needed to make them -- have been floating around for years, but Hagel's comments marked one of the first times a high-ranking American official made the charge publicly.

The comments were later walked back by Pentagon Press Secretary George Little, who in a statement to reporters said: "In a response to a member of Congress, Secretary Hagel was referring to the well-known conventional arms relationship between Syria and Russia. The Syrian regime has a decades-old largely indigenous chemical weapons program. Currently, Russia provides the Syrian regime a wide variety of military equipment and support, some of which can be modified or otherwise used to support the chemical weapons program. We have publicly and privately expressed our concern over the destabilizing impact on the Syrian conflict and the wider region of continued military shipments to the Assad regime."

Full article:

The Mysterious Source of Syria's Chemical Weapons and the 4 Other Biggest Takeaways from Syria Hearings, Day 2 | The Cable

Since the early 1980s, Syria has made efforts to acquire and maintain an arsenal of chemical weapons. Regional security concerns, and most notably Syria's adversarial relationship with Israel, represent the most likely present-day motivation behind Syria's chemical weapons program. Specifically, a series of disastrous military defeats to Israel in 1967, 1973, and 1982, followed by the weakening of Arab unity against Israel following the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and Israel's presumed acquisition of nuclear weapons, provided impetus for Syria to pursue a strategic deterrent against the conventional and nuclear Israeli threats. Syria has neither signed nor acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), and has officially stated that while it supports a region-wide ban on WMD, it cannot unilaterally renounce chemical weapons for as long as Israel continues to pose a threat to its security.

Full article below is a great overview of the history of Damascus' involvement with chemical weapons:

Syria | Country Profiles | NTI

Article below basically talks about urban legend status of what you are peddling and the Iraq Survey Group’s chief, Charles Duelfer's, ultimate conclusions about it:

GOP Congressman Endorses Bogus Theory That Syria Got Its Chemical Weapons From Saddam | Mother Jones

layoutshooter said:
That was why we only found a few hundred aging war heads plus the 500 metric tons of "yellow cake" when we went it. The "yellow cake" was pre 1991 stocks.

Most where of Soviet design, made either in China or in Iraq under license. The remainder were from other sources, including some US made warheads.

The time to have taken out these stockpiles was during the first Gulf War. They had yet to start moving them at that point. It is now too late. It was already too late when we went in the second time. Far too much time had passed. Far too many "warnings" about Iraq not destroying them according to the treaty that was signed. That gave them the time to move them, which they did.

Largely false ... the reason why we only found a few hundred was because most of them had been either been used (Iran/Iraq war) and/or destroyed - as documented by the actual statistics of what UNSCOM destroyed, which are listed below:

Iraq's capacity to develop chemical weapons was greatly assisted by its ability to import precursor chemicals and production equipment, and obtain technical support from western suppliers. Iraq eventually produced mustard blister agent and nerve agents such as tabun, sarin, and VX. Following its defeat by United States and allied forces in 1991, Iraq declared to UN inspectors that between 1982 and 1990 it produced 3,859 tons of CW agents and more than 125,000 filled and unfilled special munitions, most of which was stored at the Muthana State Establishment, Iraq's primary CW production, filling, and testing facility. This declaration served as the basis for UNSCOM's subsequent efforts to verify the destruction of all Iraqi CW.

By December 1998, UNSCOM inspectors had destroyed 38,537 filled and unfilled chemical munitions, 690 metric tons of CW agents, more than 3,275 metric tons of precursor chemicals, over 425 pieces of key production equipment and 125 pieces of analytical instruments.[2] Taking into account items unilaterally destroyed by Iraq prior to the beginning of inspections, UNSCOM was able to account for the destruction of 88,000 filled and unfilled chemical munitions, over 690 metric tons of weaponized and bulk CW agents, approximately 4,000 metric tons of precursor chemicals, 980 pieces of key production equipment and 300 pieces of analytical instruments.

layoutshooter said:
It is now time to stay home. We don't have any leadership, have not for decades, that have a clue what is going on. They just keep repeating the exact same stupid mistakes, year in and year out, no matter which party is in control.

In this last thing at least, you have managed to be correct ...

layoutshooter · Sep 7, 2013

Talk to the guys from 10th Mountain who were there, then get back to me. It is not urban legend. Most are still alive. A few are still in the service, but not for long.

I am not here to argue with you. I don't give a rat's patute what you believe or don't believe. I also don't buy every "story" that our "leadership" tries to "feed us". It is not like any SOD, SOS, or president has EVER covered up or "altered" the "reality" they put out for the "news" to find.

You can post all the "sanitized facts" you wish. I will take the word of those who were there, boots on the ground. Get back to me when you talked to them.