Chemical Weapons found in Iraq

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Verifiably destroy is the key part you seem to be missing.

They were quite possibly buried well before the cease fire was signed. Did the ceasefire require omniscience on the part of Saddam?

[NeOmega]

Mustard gas:

Ammonia (a couple of bags of dirty cat litter will do) + Photographic bleach=mustard gas

Voila.... WMD's

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by NeOmega
Ammonia (a couple of bags of dirty cat litter will do) + Photographic bleach=mustard gas

The FBI would like to know where you production facility is located.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
They were quite possibly buried well before the cease fire was signed. Did the ceasefire require omniscience on the part of Saddam?

There's quite a bit of missing stuff that was never accounted for.

[KrazyHorse]

Half of it actually lost, a quarter hidden and found by the weapons inspectors, a quarter hidden and never found...and quite worthless by 2002.

[DinoDoc]

Speculation and pulling things out your arse is useful when you lack the info to prove your point as KH has effectively proven.

[KrazyHorse]

How much info do you have on this?

About as much as me. I thought Iraq had hidden more chem weapons than I do now, and I thought some were probably still usable.

It's interesting to be proven wrong.

[KrazyHorse]

I started to get my first inkling when none were used at all during the war.

[KrazyHorse]

I thought it would have been a nice gesture toward Mr. Blair to at least lob a few at your own troops and pretend they came from the Iraqis...

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


A likely scenario is the Iraqi troops were leaving in a hurry, perhaps running away from the Iranians, so they buried the shells so the other side couldn't get at them, and those were subsequently forgotten.

Possibly, especially if it is shown that the Iranians penetrated as far as the location where the shells were buried.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by PLATO
Nothing from the UNSC prevented US invasion...nothing

Actually, the UN Charter itself, which as a signed treaty, is part of US law, forbids war not explicitly sanctioned by the UNSC (all wars of self-defense are sanctioned, but only up to repelling invasions, you can't counter-invade) are illegal.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
France.

AFAIK, only the US and USSR had retained living smallpox virii.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


AFAIK, only the US and USSR had retained living smallpox virii.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2073551/



KH: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2590265.stm

[chequita guevara]

Tests show no agent in Iraq mortar shells


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By MATTHEW ROSENBERG



Jan. 14, 2004 | CAMP EDEN, Iraq (AP) -- Tests by Danish and American experts indicate there is no chemical warfare agent in mortar shells unearthed last week in southern Iraq, but more testing is needed to confirm the findings, the Danish military reported Wednesday.

The preliminary findings cast doubt whether the suspicious shells will become the "smoking gun" proving that Iraq still maintained supplies of banned chemical weapons when the United States and its allies launched the war last March.

The U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group conducted tests on five shells and none of them showed traces of chemical agents, the Danish army said in a statement released in Copenhagen.

"Based on the tests, the experts conclude that none of the shells contain chemical warfare agents," it said, adding that more tests are needed for final confirmation.

It is believed the shells, discovered last week by Danish troops, are from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

"There is a certain relief that the shells do not represent a threat for the safety of the local population," the statement said, adding that soldiers expressed "some disappointment" because the hunt for chemical weapons was one of their top priorities.

Before invading Iraq, the United States asserted that Saddam Hussein's regime had stockpiles of mustard gas, a World War I-era blister agent that is stored in liquid form. The chemical burns skin, eyes and lungs.

U.S. intelligence officials also claimed Iraq had failed to destroy stocks of sarin, cyclosarin and VX in violation of U.N. resolutions. So far, however, no such materials have been found nine months after the collapse of Saddam's regime.

The Danish statement said the results of the tests will be sent to the Idaho National Environment Engineering Laboratory and the final verdict will be available in three to five days.

It said if the final results show there was no chemical warfare agents in the shells, they will be destroyed.

Capt. Kim Vibe Michelsen, the spokesman of the Danish army's Camp Eden in southern Iraq, said earlier Wednesday that Danish and British tests had come up positive for blister agent but American experts had concluded otherwise.

However, initial tests by troops in the field are designed to favor a positive reading, erring on the side of caution to protect soldiers. More sophisticated tests are often necessary.

The Danish troops initially found 36 shells, exposed by rain, in the ground outside a village near Qurnah in southern Iraq on Friday. Qurnah is about 250 miles southeast of the capital, Baghdad.

"This was a stash. They were stacked and ordered and wrapped in plastic. They weren't just lying in the ground," Michelsen told The Associated Press. He said they are probably a decade old if not older, and must have been buried at least 10 years ago.

Michelsen said the Danish troops have dug up a total of 50 shells so far and at least 50 more are believed under ground. Villagers told the troops that they had found about 400 or more some years ago and thrown them in the Tigris river, Michelsen said.

The flat muddy terrain where they were found was the scene of intense fighting during the Iran-Iraq war. The villagers told the Danes that one bloody battle was fought in the area in 1984 for seven days.

The villagers said they fled the area and returned after the battle to find all their cattle dead and the area littered with human bodies, Michelsen said. He quoted the villagers as saying that none of the carcasses or bodies bore gunshot wounds, but all were bleeding from mouth and nose.

"This is a clear indication of chemical weapons use," he said.

Michelsen said the 120 mm shells, which have no markings indicating the country of manufacture, "don't look like any known" mortars in the Iraqi arsenal.

Since the war ended, the U.S.-led coalition has found several caches that tested positive for mustard gas but later turned out to contain missile fuel or other chemicals.

[GePap]

I love sopme of the spin on the article- first of all, who ever thouhg this was any sort of smoking gun (outside of some on this thread)?

But some of the facts shown-first, that it was rain that washed away the dirt on top of this-so no one was looking for this, and if it was burried so shallowly rain washed the sirt of it after just a few years, does not sound like too much of a secret hiding operation. Then, that the battle may have takne place in 1984, and that over the years villagers have been finding these shells and throwing them away- again, sounds hardly like a plan to hide stockpiles for future use.

Importantly, someone should check the environmental damage done to the area.

[TCO]

Hendrix has nsolos that I enjoy.

[debeest]

Nice try at deflection, TCO.

[Saint Marcus]

Tests show no agent in Iraq mortar shells

[Urban Ranger]

So no BCN weapons, yet.

Will any turn up at a critical moment?

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
So no BCN weapons, yet.

Will any turn up at a critical moment?

I think Hussein had em, and hid them well. I think we already know of a few stockpiles.
However, I never thought he shouldn't have them.

[VJ]

So no BCN weapons, yet.

Isn't the official (tm) term ABC? Or is my data obsolete?

However, I never thought he shouldn't have them.

"He". This is something which bugs me often; people always refer to the bad guys personally, to fall all of the dirt made in the entire nation on to him. "He" gassed kurds. We don't say that "Bush" murders blacks when they are receiving death penalty in US, do we?

Importantly, someone should check the environmental damage done to the area.

[Gibsie]

Damn, once the facts showed up this thread really slowed down didn't it?

[GePap]

What's there to argue? we are back to reality and little evidence of hidden WMD's (as opposed to imporperly dispossed WMD's, or forgotten stashes from almost 20 years ago)

[TCO]

We never left there, GePap. Of course, I think the war was justified just because of refusal to comply with inspections. It was not up to us to sleuth out whether he had a program. It was up to him to complly after the 1991 war. A war which the Democrats opposed also.

[dannubis]

aha ...

shouldn't the thread's title not sound like "comical weapons found in iraq" ?