Iraq loses control of chemical weapons depot to ISIS militants

The Iraqi government has informed the United Nations that it has lost control of a former chemical weapons depot to Islamist insurgents affiliated with ISIS, or IS, and cannot carry out its obligations to destroy what’s stored in the compound.

In a letter penned by Iraq’s UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim, it was revealed that “armed terrorist groups” took over the Muthanna complex on June 11. Located north of Baghdad, the facility was the main center for chemical weapons production prior to the 1991 Gulf War, and is still home to 2,500 rockets containing the lethal nerve agent sarin.


According to the Associated Press, the compound is now in the hands of the Islamic State extremist group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In the letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Alhakim said that Iraqi officials witnessed the intruders looting some of the equipment before the surveillance system was taken offline.

Iraq loses control of chemical weapons depot to ISIS militants

Well, if this is true it really sucks..

And why the heck didn't the US take out these "chemical compounds" while they were in Iraq?

This seems to be getting real serious now.

So what do you think ATS .

do you think this is an excuese to go back into iraq ?

Do you think its propagand ?

Do you feel the US should now get involved ?


Humbly LSH .





Also i ask respectfully that we not make this a Muslim hate thread , let's focus on the topic.

Convenient excuse .. designed to get public support through fear ..
More of the same old tired propaganda .. and like before people will fall for it once again ..

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

I don't think it's propaganda, I'm sure this has probably actually happened. I also think it's could possibly be used as an excuse to try to go back to Iraq. I do not think the US should get involved, but we probably will. I also continue to think that there is something really fishy about these ISIS guys. I'm not saying they were secretly put in place by some alphabet agency of the US... but... I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

I posted a thread on this on June 21st.
Many members were of the opinion that there were no weapons of value there.

ATS Thread from 6-21-14

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

I wonder what condition the rockets are in?

Sarin degrades after a period of several weeks to several months. The shelf life can be shortened by impurities in precursor materials. According to the CIA, some Iraqi sarin had a shelf life of only a few weeks, owing mostly to impure precursors.[16]

I also wonder why the US didn't destroy any weapons it found?

I also wonder why the US stated publicly there were no weapons left in Iraq?

I wonder who would believe this BS.

LOL. Really? After trillions of dollars spent in 'nation building' and 'mission accomplished' and over a million dead civilians and over 5000 of our own people dead, and Halliburton and the aptly-named Blackwater, GE and all the rest including of course, the thieving bankers who are running this carnival, the strangely well-armed and well-trained new guys on the block have 'captured' a whole bunch of stuff that may or may not deteriorate in the 120 degree heat that is an Iraqi afternoon?

Send Bush and Cheney over there and water board them with it.

But U.S. officials have played down the seizure, saying the degraded chemical remnants date to the 1980s and were stored at the facility after being dismantled by UN inspectors.

NY Daily News


A total about face from the kind of talk we'd have heard under Bush. One administration goes nuts trying to locate WMDs, finding nothing, the other finds them and acts like it's nothing.

Nuke the facility, end of problem.

You cant just bomb a chemical weapons plant - if you are trying to eradicate the chemicals that are on site, blowing the factory in half is going cause contamination for miles, hardly a good way to go about it.

This is going to be quite the nightmare if ISIS is in fact in control of this site with live sarin armed weapons.

We were there 10 years and left without making them destroy it?

I smell BS.

Wait wait wait... we fought a war in that country for a decade and these weapons of mass destruction were there the whole time?!?

You're joking, right?

There's no way they're actually effective, live weapons. They have to be junk.

Who knows what to believe anymore.

The brass was adamant that these WMD's existed but despite the resources they poured into Iraq they still appeared to have come up with nothing, but yet somehow this rag tag group of rebels can find them?

There are more questions than answers at this point. The funny thing is that three months ago I never knew ISIS even existed, and now are all over the news.

Of course they found chemical weapons in Iraq. I bet some of em are the ones that were supposed to be getting transported to Texas from Syria. Regardless of that, they have to be able to say ISIS got them from somewhere when they ride into some town and use them. They didnt seem too concerned with getting those stinger missiles, abram tanks, and black hawk helicopters. I doubt they do much about this. ISIS is being allowed to run amock.

ETA. Chemical weapons are probably easier to make than people believe. If you mix chlorine and ammonia it makes a lethal gas. Those weren't the weapons of mass distruction they claimed Iraq to have. I remember phrases like "yellow cake" "aluminum tubes". There was the one bogus report of Saddam using gas somewhere and taking babies out of incubators but that story has been proven to be categorically false.

I liked this comment:

The US, under the pretext of wmd's, illegally invaded Irak and murdered more than one million of its citizen, they stayed there for more than a decade, during which time they installed a puppet government, a private central bank and made sure that Irak's oil would be sold only for worthless US ink and paper, now, having said that, if these ISIS warriors or rebels or what ever you want to call them, are in fact who they want us to believe they are, and this newly found (or not) cache of wmd's is for real, who is there to blame?, shouldn't the US be held accountable for the use or misuse of these weapons?

Ayep.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
We were there 10 years and left without making them destroy it?

I smell BS.

The US runs its military model off of Hollywood success. When you write a movie now days, to you tie all the loose ends? No. You leave something at the very end to make people expect a sequel so you can franchise the movie.

Iraq is one of our real-life movie trilogies. Bush Sr. left it open, Bush Jr. left it open and now Obama might close it. But who knows? Four-part movies are a trend now so maybe we'll make sure to leave this war with the leader's hand sticking out of the rubble menacingly while our news teams slowly pan away and roll the credits.

a reply to: Cuervo
So Eisenhower was a prequel?

Nine times outta ten sequels suck.

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

2,500 rockets armed with sarin gas?! How in the hell were these left there when we left? Sounds to me like the USA had gone there for a different reason if this story is true....Oil ring a bell? Apparently the agenda wasn't what they told us! Not surprised, but another lie to add to the count...Anyone keeping track? I would say the amount of dollars the national debt is should be close to the amount of lies the government has spouted out to us over the last 15 years or so....

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

I was going to repky but you said what I was about to say

And why the heck didn't the US take out these "chemical compounds" while they were in Iraq? 

This seems to be getting real serious now. 

serious wasn't exactly the word but hey.

How is there still chemical weapons and if so are they not seen as wmd's?

I have a sneaky feeling there are many getting played off against each other here.

more importantly, how long before Hamas gets some?

from ISlamic state of Levant?
or are they on the same team?

Hamas/Isis?

a reply to: weirdguy

Hardly the end of the problem. More problems. Bigger problems. Read up on nukes before you make such an absurb statement about "nuking" anything.

Possibly millions affected with land, air, weather, commerce, cities and villages.... all affected.

Yeah, sure. "Nuke 'em! End of it". Really? You really said that? Im just gonna assume you made a casual remark without thinking......