Two chemical weapons-related stories this week should be considered separate, not necessarily interchangeable, parts of a whole.
The first was that ISIS had used chemical weapons against Kurdish forces in Kobani, raising the question of where ISIS would have acquired such weapons. The second, in the New York Times, detailed how U.S. forces in Iraq uncovered thousands of shells filled with chemical munitions from various areas of the country following the invasion, and how they were stored and guarded until 2011.
Those disinclined to support the Iraq War, including the Times, International Business Times, and Huffington Post, posit that the chemicals ISIS is said to have used in Kobani are from old Iraqi stocks now under ISIS control. That would make it “Bush’s fault.” The NYT story details how the Bush administration hid the finding of chemical munitions and suggests two motives:
First, neither the troops nor expert groups dispatched later found the active Iraqi chemical weapons production capability the administration said existed. Information about the age and condition of the shells, and the absence of newer munitions, would have confirmed that Saddam had no active program, further undermining already lagging support for the war.
What U.S. troops in Iraq found was old and leaky but still very, very dangerous. In fact, the most important part of the story is how American troops were exposed to chemical shells that had been turned into IEDs and found caches of chemical ordinance lying around in ditches. Their treatment by the U.S. military, including poor medical treatment, denial of Purple Heart medals, and later lack of medical follow-up should be seen as a precursor to the VA scandals of 2014.
Second, reporting would have indicted a number of Western countries for their role in providing Saddam with chemical capabilities in the first place. “Germans built the facilities…aviation bombs from a Spanish manufacturer, American-designed artillery shells from European companies, and Egyptian and Italian ground-to-ground rockets — to be filled in Iraq,” according to the NYT. This is not news. The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq by Kenneth Timmerman was published in 1991 with the details in spades.
So did ISIS really raid the leaky Iraqi stocks from a containment facility in territory now under its control? That could prove more toxic to ISIS than to the Kurds.
How about a more plausible scenario? ISIS got its supplies from Syria.