U.S. Military Intelligence Agent Says The Chem Shells Were Purchased From The U.S.

The degraded chemical munitions shells which were discovered by the U.S. Army in Iraq shortly after the invasion have been declared by the pro-war crowd to be a vindication that we did actually find those missing weapons of mass destruction so hyped by the administration before the war.

The fact that the United States justified going to war to stop active WMD programs is one of those nuances that is too complicated for the apologists to wrap their minds around.

It also turns out that, according to David Debatto, a counterintelligence special agent attached to the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion, California Army National Guard, who was among those who found the chemical weapons, there was paperwork at the site that showed that Iraq had purchased the shells from the U.S. during the Iran-Iraq war.

I opened the folded off-white paper form and noticed several interesting things right away. The bombs had been purchased in the United States in 1988 from what appeared to be a government contractor called The Carlyle Group. I am almost embarrassed now to say that I had not heard of The Carlyle Group at that time so the name meant nothing to me. The only reason I remember it at all is that I was amazed that the bill was in English and I was stunned to see that a bomb that was used by Iraq in delivering chemical WMD – the only WMD found during the entire Iraq war – was in fact supplied to Saddam Hussein by the United States.

The date on the bill was either 1987 or 1988, I don’t recall exactly. I do recall that the bomb was manufactured in Spain and shipped through France. So much for their claims of being holier-than-thou. I checked several more bills and they were all identical. These bombs had all been shipped together. Rahman told us that similar weapons had been used all throughout the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s as well as against the Kurds. We were staring at what could have possibly been some of the same type of WMD used in one of the most heinous attacks in recorded history - the gassing of Halabja in March of 1988 which killed an estimated 5,000 Kurdish civilians.

I instructed Weichert to both videotape and take digital still photos of the bunker and its contents. The outside area which included many more chemical containers and HAZMAT suits were documented as well. At least fifteen minutes of video and 50 still photos were taken at that location. These were then incorporated and attached to the detailed written report that I wrote and sent up the chain of command through CI channels.