Last week insurgents unleashed chemical weapons on the Iraqi people.    Two suicide bombings in Fallujah used chlorine gas to sicken 350 Iraqis and six US service members.   The attacks seemed to be a coordinated effort.  The bombings occurred within 40 minutes of each other and in both cases the bombers were driving dump trucks.  These attacks mark the fifth time that suicide bombers have used chlorine gas since January.  Chlorine gas causes severe burns when inhaled and can lead to symptoms including throat and lung irritation, vomiting and in serious cases death. 

This is not the first time that the Iraqi people have been the victims of chemical weapons.  After the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein unleashed chemical weapons on his enemies.  In 1988 during the Iraq-Iran War Saddam used nerve and mustard gas against the Kurds in Northern Iraq killing an estimated 5,600 people.  And now, all these years later, the legacy of Saddam’s brutality towards his own people has come back to torment the people of Iraq. 

When the United States and coalition forces crossed the line of departure into Iraq at the start of the war five years ago, they went in facing the very real threat of chemical and biological weapons.   Our troops were issued gas masks and protective gear.  Many received smallpox and anthrax vaccinations.   Warnings of gas attacks were an almost daily occurrence for our troops as they closed in on Baghdad.   

But as we swept into Baghdad and ousted the dictator, the fact that we didn’t find large stores of chemical and biological weapons was used as a strike against the war.  Where were the weapons the President had warned us about?  Where was the anthrax, the chlorine gas?  Is it a coincidence that the same chemical weapons Saddam Hussein used against the Iraqi people are once again turning up in Iraq?   Is it simply an unfortunate twist of fate that five years later our troops are being exposed to chemical weapons? 

Clearly the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq is not a new development.  Coalition forces may not have found sufficient amounts of chemical and biological weapons to satisfy the media and anti-war activists, but those weapons were there.  It is too much of a leap of faith to believe that the only time when chemical weapons were not in Iraq was the moment of the coalition invasion.  Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons prior to the start of the war, a fact which Saddam demonstrated himself when he used the deadly weapons.  And those chemicals are once again being used in Iraq.  Where those weapons went when the war started is up for debate, but the threat of chemical and biological attacks is once again a very real threat for our troops.