Conservatives continue to get Iraqi WMD story wrong

10/15/14 10:21 AM——Updated 10/15/14 04:16 PM

Steve Benen

The New York Times has a powerful, front-page article today on Iraqi chemical weapons from the Saddam Hussein era. It’s an impressive piece of investigative journalism from C.J. Chivers – which the right is unwisely seizing on for reasons that don’t make sense.

The article itself doesn’t need embellishment. As Jessica Schulberg summarized, the Times’ report reveals that “between 2004-2011, American troops fighting in the Iraq War found over 5,000 chemical warheads, shells, and aviation bombs. The discoveries were never publicly disclosed by the military; U.S. soldiers who were exposed to nerve agents like sarin and mustard gas while attempting to remove conventional weapons were denied appropriate medical care and ordered to remain silent about yet another miscalculation of the Iraq War. “