“We aren’t viewing this particular site and their holding it as a major issue at this point. Should they even be able to access the materials, frankly, it would likely be more of a threat to them than anyone else.” All right. Nonetheless, this is a sign that the Islamic State continues to advance.
“Iraq tells U.N. ‘terrorist groups’ seized former chemical weapons depot,” Reuters, July 8, 2014
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Iraq’s government has lost control of a former chemical weapons facility to “armed terrorist groups” and is unable to fulfill its international obligations to destroy toxins kept there, the country’s U.N. envoy told the United Nations.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, made public on Tuesday, Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said the Muthanna facility north of Baghdad was seized on June 11. He said remnants of a former chemical weapons program are kept in two bunkers there.
“The project management spotted at dawn on Thursday, 12 June 2014, through the camera surveillance system, the looting of some of the project equipment and appliances, before the terrorists disabled the surveillance system,” Alhakim wrote in the letter dated June 30.
The Sunni Muslim group known as the Islamic State is spearheading a patchwork of insurgents who have taken over large swaths of Syria and Iraq. The group, an al Qaeda offshoot, until recently called itself the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“The Government of Iraq requests the States Members of the United Nations to understand the current inability of Iraq, owing to the deterioration of the security situation, to fulfill its obligations to destroy chemical weapons,” he said.
Iraq would resume its obligations when the security situation improves and it has regained control of the facility, Alhakim said.
U.S. Defense Department spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said last month that the United States’ best understanding was that “whatever material was kept there is pretty old and not likely to be able to be accessed or used against anyone right now.”
“We aren’t viewing this particular site and their holding it as a major issue at this point,” Kirby said. “Should they even be able to access the materials, frankly, it would likely be more of a threat to them than anyone else.”
Joseph says
Nota Bene: SAINT Pope John Paul II warned the U.S. AGAINST invading Iraq in 2003. And he was UNEQUIVOCAL. Said something about it being a really bad idea all around. Guess he was right.
I voted for W the first time. But after I saw what he did in Iraq I did not vote for him the second time. His Iraq policy was an absolute nightmare from the first moment. Not that Barry’s policy isn’t a thousand times worse. but this started with W.
mike ryan says
Right! Dubya will be remembered by posterity as the American president who took a secular Arab republic and turned it into an Islamic theocracy.
I have the bad feeling that we Americans allowed the creation of a GREATER evil here.
Myxlplik says
I don’t know the narrative for as long as I can remember has been, “Muslims hate us because we support dictators and not real democracy in the Middle East”. The problem with a lie if told often enough is eventually someone will believe you. So we found out, the narrative was a lie, we gave them their right to implement free will and we got a theocracy and a Caliphate. And they still hate us, heck we believed the narrative so strongly we mortgaged our country to China to give them their Caliphate. We should build them an Islamic Statue of “Liberty”. A large bronze pregnant woman in a burqa, Quran in one hand and a scimitar held high over her head.
And we found out before our demographics changed too much, another several decades would have been too late, Bush in his stupidity may have saved our civilization if we are only wise enough to SEE
jus wundrin says
Interesting. Those WMD’s were there for decades, but the left said that there were none. Not much of a fan of the bush, but it appears that he was right.
Now they belong to evil.
Alice says
There were videos of them in convoys leaving Iraq for Syria.
All sorts of evidence.