NY Times Exposes US Government in Iraq Chemical Weapons Cover-up; President Bush Vindicated?

Teresa Neumann : Oct 15, 2014
C. J. Chivers – NY Times

"The American government withheld word about its discoveries even from troops it sent into harm's way and from military doctors. The government's secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the war's most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds." -C. J. Chivers

(Iraq)—The NY Times has published a scathing report on a military and government cover-up regarding chemical weapons found in Iraq; how it reflects on the initial entry into the US led war in the country and the dangers it holds for the future. (Photo via NYTimes)

The article begins with an episode in 2008 near Taji, Iraq, in which American technicians discovered sulfur mustard, a chemical warfare agent, amidst artillery shells buried next to a lake. It was the first of several such discoveries.

"In all," notes reporter C. J. Chivers: "American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."

Listing the number of soldiers exposed to these chemicals over the years, Chivers goes on to accuse the military—and the government—of a pattern of secrecy. (Photo via Andrew T. Goldman/NYTimes)

"Since the outset of the war," says Chivers, "the scale of the United States' encounters with chemical weapons in Iraq was neither publicly shared nor widely circulated within the media. These encounters carry worrisome implications now that the Islamic State, a Qaeda splinter group, controls much of the territory where the weapons were found."

Click here to read this explosive article in its entirety.