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

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Edan


Cause WMDs are only about ~90+ years old, give or take. ~60 years ago isn't recent in that context.

Why is 60 years ago not considered recent history, if there are people still alive today who remember events 60 years ago??

[Edan]

Originally posted by MrFun


Why is 60 years ago not considered recent history, if there are people still alive today who remember events 60 years ago??

Cause the context is WMDs.

Is Zork a recent computer game?

[Spiffor]

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

Already?

I expected this surprising news to happen later in the campaign. I suppose Bush is seriously in a bind to discard this campaign item so soon.

[mindseye]

NY Times has an AP story that it was a 155mm artillery shell rigged up as a crude roadside bomb.

Exploded in this way, the chemical would be largely ineffective (the two ingredients mix when the a wall between them breaks due to rotational force when the shell is fired).

The article noted that it is not clear whether whoever rigged the bomb even knew there was sarin inside.

Hey, wasn't Rumsfeld just in Iraq?

Sarin Nerve Agent Bomb Explodes in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 17, 2004
Filed at 12:11 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A roadside bomb containing deadly sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. It was believed to be the first confirmed finding of any of the banned weapons upon which the United States based its case for the Iraq war.

Two people were treated for ``minor exposure,'' but no serious injuries were reported.

The deadly chemical was inside an artillery shell dating to the Saddam Hussein era that had been rigged as a bomb in Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq.

U.S. troops have announced the discovery of other chemical weapons before, only to see them disproved by later tests. A dozen chemical shells were also found by U.N. inspectors before the war; they had been tagged for destruction in the 1990s but somehow were not destroyed.

``The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found,'' Kimmitt said. ``The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy.

``A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent,'' he said.

The incident occurred ``a couple of days ago,'' he said.

The Iraqi Survey Group is a U.S. organization whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after Saddam's ouster.

The round was an old `binary-type' shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said.

He said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn't know it contained the nerve agent, and that the dispersal of the nerve agent from such a rigged device was very limited.

``The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War,'' Kimmitt said. Two members of a military bomb squad were treated for minor exposure to nerve agent, but none was injured.

It was unclear if the sarin shell was from chemical rounds that the United Nations had tagged and marked for destruction before the U.S. invasion.

Prior to the war, U.N. inspectors had compiled a short list of proscribed items found during hundreds of surprise inspections: fewer than 20 old, empty chemical warheads for battlefield rockets, and a dozen artillery shells filled with mustard gas. The shells had been tagged by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s but somehow not destroyed by them.

In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult unleashed sarin gas in Tokyo's subways, killing 12 people and sickening thousands. In February of this year, Japanese courts convicted the cult's former leader, Shoko Asahara, and sentence him to be executed.

Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonizing choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas.

Nerve gases work by inhibiting key enzymes in the nervous system, blocking their transmission. Small exposures can be treated with antidotes, if administered quickly.

Antidotes to nerve gases similar to sarin are so effective that top poison gas researchers predict they eventually will cease to be a war threat.

The Bush administration cited allegations that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as a main reason for launching the war in Iraq last year, but no evidence of such weapons has been found.

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.

In January, troops discovered 36 mortar rounds believed to hold a blister agent, but later tests showed there was no such chemical inside.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Sarin.html

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Edan


Cause the context is WMDs.

Is Zork a recent computer game?

ok -- gotcha

[chequita guevara]

Yer, slow.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


This analogy doesn't hold. A better one is, if a large corporatiion could not account for all its inventory, what is the hope for a corner store for achieving this goal?

They're independent problems.

[Sandman]

Oh no! An single ancient shell rigged up by untrained partisans with precisely zilch chance of giving anybody anything other than a headache!

It's funny how sarin is always labelled the 'Nazi' Gas. The far more potent VX nerve gas was invented by Britain. But we never hear about that, do we?

I'm going to repeat my standard claim; gas is a sucky weapon which poses much less danger than explosives or incendiaries in the hands of terrorists.

[Kropotkin]

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

Cybershy: In case you haven't found out all ready, Sarin only lasts for five years. It can hardly have been some from Saddam's old stock.

Maybe it's to soon to make som half decent speculations yet...

[Japher]

Maybe it's to soon to make som half decent speculations yet...

No it's not I'm most certain Saddam got those weapons from OBL...

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Jamski
Why am I arguing with brainwashed teenagers on internet forums anyway?

-Jam

Because brainwashed teenagers can grow up to become brainwashed shock troops that knock down your door and drag you away into the night. Because brainwashed teenagers can grow up into brainwashed informants who turn their neighbors in to the government. Because brainwashed ... well, the list is rather lengthy, but you get the idea.

Gatekeeper

[Sava]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm sorry but whatever gave you the idea I was talking about Sadam?

I'm sorry but whatever gave you the idea I was talking to you?

[Dis]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Kimmitt did not say where the weapon was found nor did he say if it originated in Iraq.

Wow, one shell. I guess the war was justified after all.

Then again, the Coalition's been wrong everytime before they claimed they found something.

how many is it going to take.

The fact is we found weapons of mass destruction. Our job is now done

[Dis]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
And here I was hoping for an intelligent comment from Texas. Disappointed again.

you should have learned your lesson by now, that's never going to happen.

[chequita guevara]

YAY! We can go home now!



War is over if you want it!