ISIS Militants May Now Have Weapons Of Mass Destruction After Storming And Seizing A Saddam-Era Chemical Weapons Complex In Iraq

Aerial view of the Al Muthanna Chemical Weapons Complex after Operation Desert Storm, from a 2004 CIA report, with R&D and laboratory facilities marked out and labelled (stock image) [Picture: CIA]

Isis Storms Saddam-Era Chemical Weapons Complex In Iraq -- The Telegraph

Facility containing disused stores of sarin and mustard gas overrun by jihadist group.

The jihadist group bringing terror to Iraq overran a Saddam Hussein chemical weapons complex on Thursday, gaining access to disused stores of hundreds of tonnes of potentially deadly poisons including mustard gas and sarin.

Isis invaded the al-Muthanna mega-facility 60 miles north of Baghdad in a rapid takeover that the US government said was a matter of concern.

The facility was notorious in the 1980s and 1990s as the locus of Saddam’s industrial scale efforts to develop a chemical weapons development programme.

Isis has shown ambitions to seize and use chemical weapons in Syria leading experts to warn last night that the group could turn to improvised weapons to carry out a deadly attack in Iraq.

Read more ....

More News On Reports That ISIS Has Seized A Saddam-Era Chemical Weapons Complex

Sunni Extremists in Iraq Occupy Hussein's Chemical Weapons Facility -- Wall Street Journal
Iraq: Isis Seizes Saddam Hussein's Chemical Weapons Storage Facility -- IBTimes
Iraq Militants Seize Old Chemical Weapons Facility -- Time
Iraq crisis deepens as ISIS captures Saddam Hussein's chemical weapon facility -- ZeeNews

My Comment: I thought Saddam Hussein did not have WMDs? I know .... I know .... that is another debate at another time.

US officials do not believe the ISIS militants will be able to create a functional weapon from the material that is still in the complex .... but they are admitting that if the U.S. had known the Iraqi government would lose control so quickly, they might not have left the old chemical weapons in place when they left the country.

Oh oh .... this is not what I want to hear.

Update: The CIA's report on this Iraqi chemical complex is extensive.