Had you heard about this? (UPDATED)

I'm a news junkie and MSNBC.Com is actually my default home page and yet, I missed this piece that aired in April (See UPDATE below):

Preliminary tests conducted by MSNBC.com indicate that the deadly toxins ricin and botulinum were present on two items found at a camp in a remote mountain region of northern Iraq allegedly used as a terrorist training center by Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The field tests used by MSNBC.com are only a first step in the evidentiary process and are typically followed by more precise laboratory testing that MSNBC.com has not conducted. U.S. intelligence agents were conducting their own tests in the same area and had not yet released their results, according to officials in northern Iraq.

MSNBC.COM CONDUCTED the tests over a two-day period at Sargat, an alleged terrorist training camp a mile from the Iraq-Iran border. MSNBC.com purchased the test kits commercially. The field tests, developed by Osborn Scientific Group in Lakeside, Ariz., are regarded by some experts as very effective and have been used by U.N. weapons inspectors and federal government agents around the Sept. 11, 2001, attack site in New York City.          

The Sargat camp, set back in an isolated valley and surrounded by snow-capped peaks, was home to the radical Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which counts among its some 700 followers scores of al-Qaida fighters.

Interesting stuff.  Thankfully, Obama will talk them out of any nefarious intentions once President and we can rest easy.

Right?

Right.

With thanks to Flopping Aces.

UPDATE:  tim aka The Godless Heathen has noted that this was actually reported much earlier:

Rick,

I believe that's April of 2003.

http://thomasjoscelyn.blogspot.com/2006/01/sargat-training-camp-toxins.html

And on a related note, via The Anchoress comes news we could use (but liberals can't) from Gateway Pundit:

Finally... The New York Times admits that Bush was right and the surge was a massive success.

The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement. Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.

Gina Cobb adds, "The Americans who elected George W. Bush as their commander in chief, or who at least gave him the benefit of the doubt in wartime, were right."

Comments

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

Rick,

I believe that's April of 2003.

http://thomasjoscelyn.blogspot.com/2006/01/sargat-training-camp-toxins.html

Still worthy, just clarifying.

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

Ya’ know what’s really shocking? The silence from the resident critics who were telling us all, quite recently even, how horrible everything was/is in Iraq.

I guess a mea culpa from them would be too much to expect. Pride gets the better of them apparently.

Not that I had much respect for them anyways but now it’s even less. You know who you are, not gonn’a name names…we’ll be waiting…