Pentagon withheld information about decades-old chemical weapons during Iraq War, report claims FoxNews.com

In fairness, some of this was actually made available at the time - however, nobody wanted to report it. I have a friend who (as a contractor) was involved in moving several tons of "yellow cake" uranium from Iraq to Canada several years back. This would be the same "yellow cake" that people stated didn't exist. It did get reported in several sources for a few days, but it was a very subdued reporting. Nowhere near the level of the "Saddam had no nuclear program" reporting.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25546334/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/secret-us-mission-hauls-uranium-iraq/#.VD--5b6F9ws

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/the_550_tons_of_yellowcake.html

SFC(P) (Join to see), I heard that the Iraqis developed/created the chemical weapons with U.S. help during the Iran-Iraq war. I suspect that may have something to do with why the Pentagon said nothing. Kind of hard to say that Iraq had chemical weapons, and then have to say, "Well, yes, we did provide them to the Iraqis."

Here's a long story at the NY Times about this issue:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1

Time magazine also ran an article on it:

http://time.com/3508881/iraq-isis-chemical-weapons-report/

Additionally, members of one of my old units had stories about running into the stuff while they were over there, so apparently it wasn't just a one-time thing.

SFC(P) (Join to see) is right, this is what we went into Iraq for, which makes it somewhat of a mystery why this wasn't better publicized.

According to the Fox News article, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel stated that "the Defense Department made public its discovery of these munitions as far back as 2006 and acknowledged the likelihood that more could be found." If that's true, I haven't seen any sign of the report, I only heard about it from firsthand accounts before this. Anyone else know of any previous official reports publishing this?

As for where we go from here...this stuff in the hands of ISIS is not a pleasant thought. Think IEDs that incorporate chemical agents...nasty stuff whether directed at military or civilian targets.

The sad thing is it's all about politics. Too many just don't care for the truth even with facts and evidence in front of them.

My thoughts are, why now? Why has the main stream press continued to aid and abet the Obama Administration? Why do the majority of American not know, or care about, the facts in this. Then at the end of the day, does this really make a difference in how I raise and defend my family? If no one else is going to care, why should?

I believed from the beginning that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, e.g. chemical weapons. They had a program to develope and manufacture chemical weapons, and we sold them Sarin to use against our common enemy, Iran. Saddam had no qualms about using them either. When we decided to clip his wings and go look for them, they were not to be found initially, but as soldiers moved around the country, chemical weapons caches were located and some soldiers were adversely affected. My issue is with leadership in this nation withholding that information for political purposes. Politics, like we see today, must stop if we are to have a republic. It falls on the shoulders of those on this forum, and others like us, to ensure the republic survives. Better dead than live under the yoke of tyranny. Semper Tyrannis!

Adding the link to the story since it wasn't provided in the original post:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/15/us-troops-wounded-by-decades-old-chemical-weapons-during-iraq-war-report-claims/

Also, for clarification, this is a Fox News story based on a New York Times report. Here is one of the articles from the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Banner&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

And a link to the NY Times documentary on the issue:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/ [login to see] 0160/chemical-secrets-of-the-iraq-war.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSum&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

SSG Selwyn Bodley please post the source that should accompany this thread.

I don't understand why the pentagon would sit on something like this for so long. The reason that we went into Iraq was for the WMD's and then were led to believe that they didn't exist. I'm sure that the American people would have felt a lot differently about the whole situation if this information had been revealed in the beginning.

SSG Selwyn Bodley Wouldn't those be classified as WMDs? LOL