UN Inspectors Find Empty Chemical Warheads

[Adam Smith]

BBC and MSNBC report that UN inspectors found a dozen empty chemical warheads in an ammunition storage area.
BBC Story

MSNBC Story

The shells are supposedly in very good condition.
Did these shells somehow get missed when Iraq claimed to have destroyed its weapons of mass destruction? Or is Saddam's slip showing?

edit: fixed the url's

[Boris Godunov]

The warheads were empty. They predate 1990, too, apparently. So?

[Asher]

What use are empty warheads?

I don't understand...

[Arrian]

The article I saw said they were left over from inspections in 1991. I don't think this is a big deal.

I highly doubt the inspectors will find anything of note. Like the Iraqis are really going to let them! What a joke. It will still come down to Bush saying Saddam's got nasty toys, and Saddam denying it.

-Arrian

[GePap]

I very recently got cable (again), so I was able to see (again) 24 hour news at their best: MY GOD, THE HUMANITY!

24 Hours news cable netwroks are Utter Crap! The anchors have the knowledge of a vegetable on any topic, and not only are they generally igonorant, but they aren't even good enough to coe up with good questions. Places like Msnbc, Fox news and even CNN now are more a har, than good. Good news is not simply information thrown at you, but information backed with impartial, informative annalysis. None of the "news" networks provide such a thing.

As for this news:

'Shrug': the admin will make a big deal of it, as they are counting down to the Jan 27 "deadline". Obviously the hawks are itching to get the war started, now that the military is almost ready to go. Opponents of war will dismiss the news. Same ol', same ol'

Perhaps more interesting is what documents were found inside the private homes of a couple of scientists the inspectors searched today.

[Adam Smith]

Gepap:
It takes a while to analyze information, so I don't necessarily fault news networks for that.

Arrian:
MSNBC article appears to indicate that these are not the same shells left over from 1991 inspections.

I don't know what to make of this yet, but one question is why there are shells laying around for weapons they supposedly no longer have.

[Arrian]

Documents found? Don't leave us hanging, GePap.

I heard on NPR this morning that the UN inspectors had started interviewing people... and that they had left a private residence with a scientist and his papers after a "heated" argument with Iraqi authorities. Have you more to add?

-Arrian

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Why wouldn't Iraqis let them (the weapons inspectors), if they don't let them Bush is coming to look for them himself. So far at least they were allowed to go where they wanted to, and so it should be.

Still it remains to be seen if the inspectors find the traces of chemical/bio agents on the warheads, and than ask questions.

Well, at least this is some first tangible evidence of undeclared material. Proof that weapons inspectors can do something.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
Gepap:
It takes a while to analyze information, so I don't necessarily fault news networks for that.

But I do. These places call themselves 24 hour news networks, but half of what is going on in the world never makes it in. Why? I could think of various way in which "24 Hour News Networks" could be far better at spreading out info. Number one problem: people don't have to know immidiately about something. Lets say you get the news: well, spend 1 hour annalysing it in the back room, having trained researchers and editors look at it, and write informative peices, while on air, you spell out what is going on around the world: there is plenty of news: natural disasters, international politics, the situation in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the chaning of leaderships in Brazil, Ecuador, Kenya, so forth and so on: how are the peace negotiations in the DRC going?

Would a channel more like a Newspaper be profitable? would it get as high ratings as the muckrakers and yellow journalists? Perhaps not, but it woul be real news.

As for the documents: using their new powers under SCR 1441, inspectors went into the private homes of a couple of Iraqi scientist, took various documents, and my guess is, interviewed the scientists. The Iraqis were not very happy and there were some angry words and reactions from the Iraqis about that. The documents, of course, are still to be look at, their information made public.

[Sandman]

Who cares? Those shells would be more dangerous if filled with explosives, anyway. Gas is a highly overrated weapon.

[optimus2861]

^^ Something I've been pondering as well. Chemical weapons are so reliant upon proper dispersion in order to be effective -- wind, temperature, pressure, etc etc -- that to lump them in as a "weapon of mass destruction" with nukes (which are in a class of their own, no question) and biological agents (which share many of the same dispersion problems as chemicals, however can somewhat make up for it if they are infectious agents) has always puzzled me.

[JohnT]

Optimus: read up on WW1 for further clarification.

[Boris Godunov]

Chemical weapons aren't any more deadly than conventional explosive weapons. To consider them WoMD is hyperbole, IMO.

[Arrian]

Chemical weapons make the list mostly due to WWI, I think. And bio weapons are especially creepy (silent, invisible death), and of course there is the potential for someone to come up with a really effective one that could do damage on a global scale (i.e. The Stand).

-Arrian

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Bio weapons are the future... you just need to mod a virus, which could be doable in a relativley small lab as technology progresses for a mad dictator or scientists and those will always be around.

When we are at viruses here is an threadjack link about a virus never found before on Antartica that affects humans and animals, but they didn't say it is lethal (probably not). Nevertheless if this was contagious like flu... here you go a perfect bio weapon, for terrorists of course, noone normal would want to use it as you cannot control the spread. http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/01/16/42144.html

edit: actually if they got hold of ebola virus and just spread it in daylight at New York airport or here in London. Now that would be a global catastrophe. I better not think about those things