WAR: Sarin Nerve Gas Shell Explodes on Iraqi Roadway

Well, I watched Fox News Chicago tonight for the first time in a long time. I wanted to see what they had about this serin gas shell found. So I'm watching, and about 13 minutes into the broadcast (at about 9:13 PM CST) they did a segment on it. It lasted about 11 seconds. It was a leadin to the car bombing story that took out the president.

See, at first, I was shocked. I thought this was big news. But then, thankfully, I remembered that the main stream media has no bias, so I knew it couldn't be that importaint of a story.

An interesting development, indeed.

Some people won't be convinced until we find a 50-foot ICBM buried in the desert with a swatch of Saddam's DNA on it. (And of course, then they'll cry 'conspiracy'!)

--Gee, how come we found all these gas masks laying around when we got there? Guess it was to protect them against all those poison gases the US uses?

--Yup, Saddam had plenty of notice. Lots of time to truck things anywhere he wanted them hidden, Syria or otherwise. It's a big country, millions of trucks. Which one had the WMD in it, and where did it go?

--UN inspectors go in the front of the 'suspected' WMD facility, as trucks go out the back at the very same time. And they didn't find anything inside? Hmmmm...

--Of course, there was no uranium...but wait, what was all that yellow radioactive stuff that turned up in the load of Iraqi scrap metal?

Just a few points, you see where I'm going here. No doubt some of you are already plotting your debunk for each of these!

All kidding aside, there are a couple of very serious issues here.

Was this just an IED made by some schmucko who just thought it was a regular 'ol artillery shell he added for extra 'bang'? The practice of adding the artillery shells is indeed quite common to the 'lil terrorist's IED construction kit'. The alternative is that the maker knew this was a sarin shell, and put it there intentionally. That's the scary part.

What if the WMD (or at least a portion of) wasn't shipped off to Syria or buried in the desert, but left in the care of Fedayeen/Al-Qaeda/not-so-nice-folks to be used in just this manner? As pointed out earlier in this thread, a person could put enough WMD to kill millions in any common briefcase, backpack, or whatever. Just like the 'second bomb' concept, people will rush to the site of a big explosion. By the time anyone figures it out, it's too late.

Claim that it's just a clever way to pin something on Zacarwi all you want, such a device would be well-within his area of expertise.

Speaking of expertise, does anyone have any dirt on any info we got from Chemical Ali, or 'Mrs. Anthrax'?

Shell dates back to Iran/Iraq war:

However, a senior coalition source has told the BBC the round does not signal the discovery of weapons of mass destruction or the escalation of insurgent activity.

He said the round dated back to the Iran-Iraq war and coalition officials were not sure whether the fighters even knew what it contained.

BBC

Are you saying because the shell is old somehow mitigates the fact that Bush was right? It isn't WMD? I don't understand the logic? Maybe I'm reading into the post more than it was intended.. Why does the age of the weapon matter? Much of US weapon systems and WMD are very old. No doubt we have WMD stockpiled from the 50's.

Everyone said the Iraqi's had no WMD. None. It was all a LIE. Guess that argument is kaput. Wait until these Saddamites find a 155 Howitzer. Then they can actually disperse the weapon as it was intended. Of course, if they only had one round left in the country this isn't going to happen. Maybe it was just a lucky find on the part of the insurgent Saddamites?

V


Variable


[Edited on 5/18/2004 by Variable]

Originally posted by VariableWhy does the age of the weapon matter?

It matters because of the CIA report:

Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.

Baghdad hides large portions of Iraq's WMD efforts. Revelations after the Gulf war starkly demonstrate the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information.

Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

CIA.gov


[Edited on 18-5-2004 by AceOfBase]

AoB, I don't know what your trying to imply on your answer to the question about weapons age because everything in that CIA quote you used is actually true.

I'm saying that they claimed weapons were made well after the Gulf War.
The weapon they found was made during the Iran/Iraq war so their claims haven't been proven right yet.

Originally posted by AceOfBase

The weapon they found was made during the Iran/Iraq war so their claims haven't been proven right yet.

Have you read the Kay report in detail?

Excerpted points from the Kay Report,

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:

� A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

� A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

� Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

� New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

� Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

� A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

� Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

� Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km -- well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

� Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.

In addition to the discovery of extensive concealment efforts, we have been faced with a systematic sanitization of documentary and computer evidence in a wide range of offices, laboratories, and companies suspected of WMD work. The pattern of these efforts to erase evidence -- hard drives destroyed, specific files burned, equipment cleaned of all traces of use -- are ones of deliberate, rather than random, acts.

Text of Kay Report, CNN

jsobecky: "Proves absolutely nothing? It proves what I was attempting to say EXACTLY; that is, a WMD can be in a very small container. I made no claims as to it's origin. Get your facts straight.

You need METHODS OF DELIVERY? Yeah, like the sarin gas that was released on the subway in Japan. No big missile involved there, was there now, jakomo?

The book is far from closed on the WMD issue. To call it a lie is foolish, and a failure is naive.

Only two injured? Would it have made you happier if many were killed?"

You're delusional. A single artillery shell filled with sarin gas (enough to injure two people) is NOT a WMD. I don't know what kind of Dr. Seuss world you're living in, but you can make far more dangerous chemicals in your backyard than one single artillery shell could contain.

This wasn't set up as a gas bomb, so the terrorists who set it probably didn't even know there was gas in it. They probably grabbed it from one the dozens of ammo dumps around.

Again, this is not a WMD. A warhead on a missile containing sarin gas is a WMD, not a single solitary canister of gas. And it also doesn't prove that there are still WMDs. It might make it a bit more likely but it PROVES nothing. Stick to the facts.

Affirmative Reaction: "
WMD's were NOT the ONLY reason Iraq was invaded. That is the lie the libs like to use to bash the administration. Lack of WMD's has NOT been proven to be a lie, as we are still on the hunt, and as jsobecky says, there is a lot of desert out there to search. It wasn't that Saddam could hit us with a shell or missle, it's that he could have given WMD's to terrorists such as Zarkawi (yeah, that's probably spelled wrong...live with it) who has been in Iraq for years under Saddam's protection, and would love nothing more than to smuggle it in and unleash it on American soil. There's your method of delivery."

Stretch that a little further. Why didn't he do anything after 1991? Was he disarmed or was he evilly plotting world domination with a can of gas?
Why was there no terrorist attacks against US citizens that could be tracked back to the Iraqi regime?

"So why, praytell, is this an "illegal invasion"? Nobody has been able to tell me why. Congress approved it. The president did what congress approved. And the shell and it's contents could and most likely DID come from Iraq.... "

INTERNATIONAL LAW, not U.S. There's an actual world out there with laws, too, you know. Resolution 1441 did not allow military invasion and the whole REASON for the Coalition was because the UN Security Council did NOT vote to go to war. The US ignored this and invaded illegally.

"shell and it's contents could and most likely DID come from Iraq..."

The death of thousands due to a "most likely". Excellent. You should be proud.


I have to laugh at all you people who believe that this exonerates the US from their illegal invasion.

"Hey it's been over a year after the invasion and we just found one canister of sarin gas! See, Saddam was PURE evil and had to be dealt with."

In a week or two we'll see either more use of such shells because the terrorists found them or had them first. Alternatly coalition forces will locate the source and report on quanity. Either way they are bound to show up, as Smokey the Bear said - "Where there is smoke, there is Fire".

Originally posted by Jakomo

The death of thousands due to a "most likely". Excellent. You should be proud.


I have to laugh at all you people who believe that this exonerates the US from their illegal invasion.

"Hey it's been over a year after the invasion and we just found one canister of sarin gas! See, Saddam was PURE evil and had to be dealt with."

Probably one of the best ways to explain it to the war mongers is in a cartoon i saw at the beginning of the invasion and conquest of Iraq.
It showed bush addressing the nation, and under it the caption read
" We have decided to ignore the U.N. and invade Iraq because Iraq has ignored the U.N. "
Now how is that for doublethink?

Just in - Fox News reporting Sarin (confirmed) containing shell carried three to four liters of Sarin.

Shell contained 3-4 liters of Sarin

"NEW YORK � Tests of the artillery shell that detonated in Iraq on Saturday have confirmed that it did in fact contain an estimated three or four liters of the deadly sarin nerve agent, Defense officials told Fox News Tuesday".

It is about time there is proof. I believe if they would start searching the country under the sand they will find more wmd.

Phoenix: "In a week or two we'll see either more use of such shells because the terrorists found them or had them first. Alternatly coalition forces will locate the source and report on quanity. Either way they are bound to show up, as Smokey the Bear said - "Where there is smoke, there is Fire"."

Except Smokey the Bear is imaginary, just as these alleged stockpiles of big bad weapons are. Good analogy.

You're delusional. A single artillery shell filled with sarin gas (enough to injure two people) is NOT a WMD

Dunno where you get your facts at but a 155 Howitzer shell is more than enough to injure two people. The reason why the 2-4 liters of sarin link did not kill everyone around the bomb was because it is a two part bomb. If it had been shot from an artillery piece the full damage would have been done. Same with the Mustard gas shell from two weeks ago.WMD Facts

I agree with Phoenix, I think the cats out of the bag, either we will find the stockpile where these shells came from, or the Saddamites will use more of them perhaps properly) This is a whole new level of danger for our troops and innocent Iraqis. One shell could kill thousands used at the right place and time.
link

Variable

[Edited on 5/18/2004 by Variable]

J, has'nt anyone taught you that proving a negative proposition is impossible, so therefore prove that the WMD did'nt exist. Like they always say "find one termite and you've found a whole mound"

Tests Confirm Sarin Gas in Baghdad Bomb, for all those that were skeptical whether or not the shell actually contained Sarin - it did!

AP Story

WASHINGTON - Comprehensive testing has confirmed the presence of the chemical weapon sarin in the remains of a roadside bomb discovered this month in Baghdad, government officials said Tuesday.

The shell was a binary type, which has two chambers containing relatively safe chemicals. When the round is fired from an artillery gun, its rotation mixes the chemicals to create sarin, which is supposed to disperse when the shell strikes its target.

Some analysts worry the 155-millimeter artillery shell, found rigged as a bomb on May 15, may be part of a larger stockpile of Iraqi chemical weapons that insurgents can now use.

Bumpity bump,

According to Fox radio,

Charles Dulfer, head of Iraqi WMD survey group, confirms a number of additional Sarin gas weapons have been found in Iraq.

Listening to Radio on drive home I've heard this news is supposed to be released to the wire services and major media outlets tonight 8-10 pm EST

Here's a Fox News story on it:

Fox News:
...He also told Fox News that about 10 or 12 sarin and mustard gas shells have been found in various locations in Iraq.

The shells are all from the first Gulf War era and thus weakened, though intelligence sources say they�re still dangerous.

originally posted by AceOfBase'

The shells are all from the first Gulf War era and thus weakened, though intelligence sources say they�re still dangerous.

I'll wait for further more detailed reports because if they are found to be of the binary type like the one on the roadway then they will be of newer vintage, even if they are the older manual fill type that saddam had pre gulf-I he still was required to declare and destroy. 12 shells dont sound like much but as I said before "where theres smoke - theres fire"