BREAKING NEWS: nerve gas found in road side bomb in Iraq

[Kuciwalker]

Of course they didn't intend for it to happen, if they didn't care whether or not it happened!

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Kucinich
The fact that it had other effects does not make it WMD. Was the Chernobyl explosion WMD?

Ah -- inflating my claim to something that I would not stand for.



that's fabulous

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Of course they didn't intend for it to happen, if they didn't care whether or not it happened!

Actually, not caring wether or not something happens does not imply any sort of intention. What it implies is disregard.

[Ted Striker]

Okay here is what I think happened.

Someone mentioned that the insurgents found the WMD's for us (unknowingly) and I think that is very true.

I think it was Oerdin who said the reason those IED's are all over the place is because it is very easy to get access to stockpiles of artillery shells and rig them up as roadside bombs. There are apparently stockpiles of artillery shells all over the place and the Coalition has been unable to destroy all of those stockpiles. (This blew my mind when he said it and I figured this would be one of the first things that would happen during the occupation).

Since there is a shell with a serin in it:

1) There must be a whole stockpile
2) Nobody knows where it is except the guys who set the bomb
3) If they hear about the serin (which they probably will) they are probably smart enough to try and go back to their stash and find some more to try and use them

[Imran Siddiqui]

It was found on the side of the road? Convenient .

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon


Because it's a matter of international law. They, along with nukes and bioweapons were given that name back in the 70s IIRC.

Only nukes are really weapons of mass destruction in the ordinary meaning of that term. Bioweapons are unproven and most of the money spent on such things goes on nukes for the simple reason that nukes work.

Yes I fully understand the classificationis due to international treaty and law. Doesn't mean tho' I hold them in the same class as Bio and nukes wrt real and immenent threat for use via terrorists.


IIRC studies were shown kill to cost ratio as follws

conventional
chemical - 1 order of magintude less
Bioweapons - 2 to 3 order of magintude less
Nuclear - 3 order of magnitude less


The nightmare of bio weapons is the stealth that they can be employed. A fanatical could easily infect himself with small pox or worse and attempt to come into contact with as many as possible setting off chain reactions of exposure.

The likelood of a chemical weapon being employed with proper LD50 concentrations to effect large areas is fairly remote.

[Agathon]

If someone infected themselves with smallpox, the response would be a mass campaign of vaccination. At present, the vaccine kills about 1 in X hundred thousand of people who get it, and is viewed as an unacceptable risk.

There is no reason to think that Saddam has the smallpox virus anyway. It's been eradicated in the wild for years. And we all know how dangerous anthrax is. What? Four or five deaths? Hardly panic material.

It's all smoke and mirrors. Nukes are the only real WMDs. That's why the vast majority of expenditure goes towards them and not chemical or bioweapons.

All this terror over chemical and bioweapons has more to do with movies than the facts.

[Ted Striker]

That is the biggest underestimation that I have ever heard

Terrorists play by different rules

Bio and chemical weapons are well within their budget

The reason that STATES spend more money on nukes is that, as terrible as they are, they are more "acceptable" for use than the other two alternatives

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
It was found on the side of the road? Convenient .

Yeah -- they got drive-by pickup stations now for greater convenience.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon
If someone infected themselves with smallpox, the response would be a mass campaign of vaccination. At present, the vaccine kills about 1 in X hundred thousand of people who get it, and is viewed as an unacceptable risk.

There is no reason to think that Saddam has the smallpox virus anyway. It's been eradicated in the wild for years. And we all know how dangerous anthrax is. What? Four or five deaths? Hardly panic material.

It's all smoke and mirrors. Nukes are the only real WMDs. That's why the vast majority of expenditure goes towards them and not chemical or bioweapons.

All this terror over chemical and bioweapons has more to do with movies than the facts.

Anthrax is a joke. It is hardly a bioweapon except in the same fashion that chemical weapons are relying more on initial exposure and concentration less communicability.

Movies certainly overhype( 12 Monkeys, Outbreak etc.), but the facts remain DOD reckon Bioweapons on a scale of destruction to life on the same order of cost to kill as nukes.

Wrt to what Saddam had the news was never really evident as to what strains he was cultivating. There was reports tho' that several strains of critters were in possession hidden at one of the Iraqi scientists home. Whether this is urban legend or not I don't know.

I believe you vastly underestimate the potential of bioweaponry in light of DOD estimates and the ease at which they could be introduced unawares into society.

Finally wrt to massive innoculation, the effect would already have happened by the time the call for massive innoculation would be made. At that point the attack would be successful in terms of death count as well as hysteria created IMO.

[Ted Striker]

USA is putting robots into the water supply

Their mission will be to float around and monitor the water as an early warning system in case of contamination

[Alexander's Horse]

If it is nerve gas, that is very disturbing. All over the former Soviet bloc are decaying chemical weapon stockpiles, many of which the successor governments can't accoutn for, so it wouldn't be hard to get a shell or 3 via criminal or politically sympathetic connections liek the Chechens.

If they manage to lob a chemical bomb into the green zone there is going to be major headaches for the coalition.

Chemical weapons are the perfect terrorist weapon in my view.

[Ted Striker]

Agreed

That is why we need to send DROT in ASAP with copies of Upskirting Magazine to weaken their morale!!!!

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by CyberShy


'most of them' doesn't cover 'all of them'
and apparently some still work. (read todays news)

cheg, of course it's valid to question the USA's way of handling these kinds of weapons, but that's another discussion. Unless you of course suggest that the bomb that exploded today is one of those unaccounted american bombs.

And your 2nd theory is interesting, and most obviously true in some way. But that still leaves the question open why Sadam didn't come with the evidence when the USA were knocking on his door.

It's a little bit silly to keep the idea of having WMD to keep small enemies out of your territory, but fail to see that a bigger enemy will break your door because of it.

The evil America Governmen t refuse to look at or believe
the evidence. This might be than left over shell from the Iraq-Iran war which was miss. In the derest around El Paso is than area that was once use to fire live artill shells durnging WWII than the area is close off as there is unexplorse shells out there.

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


It wasn't a weapon at all, by definition. It was a defoliant. A glorified weed killer. As a weapon, it would be useless, since anyone sprayed with it (including my brother) was perfectly capable of shooting at you for days, weeks, months and years. In fact, many people with significant AO exposure will die of old age with no verifiable direct effects from AO.




Documentation from something other than Castro and his proxies? Cuba likes to blame every failing of their system on the US.

Castro is more credital than Prejury Bush and his henchman. Some European Governments grather evident of this like French than they support Castro in this. Durnging the Korean War America drop plague bombs on China which didnot work as well as we hope. The Black Death was pettry common in China that people recognite the signs of it petty quickly. China grather the evidence than show it to other countries round the World. This is one of the reason we where careful in our treatment of China.