Nerve gas found at United Nations building

[maddezmom]

Source: ABC

New York - ABCNews, August 30, 2007) - ABCNews has learned that United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous nerve gas, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York Thursday morning.

Federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the White House had been notified at 10 a.m.

New York police and fire officials said federal authorities had not notified them of any problem at the U.N. building, as of 11 a.m.

A U.N. spokesperson said a statement would be issued shortly.

~snip~

"If it is properly sealed, it should not pose much of a threat unless it is dropped," said former New York City emergency services director Jerry Hauer, an ABC News consultant.



Read more: http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5619...

---

looks like they finally found some WMD's

[Joanne98]

1. The antrax killer must have been at the UN!

[krispos42]

2. "Paging Colin Powell, paging Colin Powell

We've found some personal items of yours from several years ago. Please visit the Biohazard Lost & Found on the 8th floor. Thank you."

[Renew Deal]

22. lol

That's what I was thinking.

[shraby]

3. Why were UN weapons inspectors cleaning out

offices in the UN building? Was it their own offices? If it was their own offices, why were they leaving the UN building? Why weren't the New York officials notified as there could be vials "on the loose". This article prompt more questions than it gives answers.

[MetaTrope]

30. I bet they didn't even notice a problem until they started pouring stuff into the sink

[no_hypocrisy]

4. So THAT'S where Saddam hid the WMDs. Very clever!!

[spinbaby]

6. Actually...

I'd swear that MSNBC just said it was from Iraq. I'm cooking as I listen, so I could be wrong.

[kirby]

11. You are correct...WMD from Iraq at the UN

"The material was taken from al-Muthanna chemical weapons plant north of Baghdad. The samples are sealed and have been there since 1996."

[uppityperson]

14. 1996? It's the Clenis' fault!

[Ian David]

38. Saddam was hiding his WMDs in the weapons inspectors offices?

How did Maxwell Smart manage to crack THAT case?

[JTFrog]

5. See what happens

when you say something positive about Iran?

[Schema Thing]

7. Put on your thinnest guage tinfoil and think back:

When the Bush cabal needed to sell spying and war to the American people, the people who could most act as a check and balance against that sales job received anthrax.

Now they want a war with Iran, and here the IAEA is saying that "well, Iran is working with us; they're enriching less material and allowing us our inspections". Those damned diplomats better shut up if they know what is good for them.

[Old and In the Way]

8. The UN - well known terrorist operations center.

Think I'm kidding? Watch how the right blogosphere tries to make this case. We'll probably have to bomb the UN to get the terrorists on the run.

[damntexdem]

15. Maybe it takes a lot of nerve and a lot of gas to work there.

But still ..............

[Doctor_J]

9. Probably put there by Iran

Better nuke them

[pretty_lies]

10. Phosgene Is Not A Nerve Gas

Journalists are so ignorant. Anything for a headline!

Phosgene (carbonyl chloride) attacks the lungs and is FAR less toxic than any of the nerve gases, which operate by poisoning nerve junctions.

It was last deployed as a war gas in WWI, although the Nazis also experimented with it. It's no more a nerve gas than chlorine!

[anitar1]

19. Well. pretty_lies, It must be totally harmless? seems as if I remember

that many soldiers died or were damaged for life, by this substance, during WW1, which was the reason many nations outlawed it. edit spelling.

[lumberjack_jeff]

33. Is there anything in the spectrum between "nerve gas" and "totally harmless"? n/t

[freethought]

23. Correct. but the stuff is still dangerous.

Some time ago I made my living working with hazardous chemicals. Phosgene is more common than some realize. Used to find it in cylinders or in bottled solutions with toluene.
Death from Phosgene inhalation can be an ugly way to go and it does not take much to kill someone with phosgene.

It may not be VX, Tabun, GV, or mustard gas but one should still give it the same respect.

[nealmhughes]

43. If I remember correctly from my old Navy days, phosgene can be generated by freon buildup in bilges

and then be inhaled with a cigarette and was the cause of death of several sailors smoking in the LL engineering spaces. They ship's safety officer told us that it took a high temperature to generate the deadly effects, like inhaling on a lit cigarette. He said it was not a nice way to die, a lot like Chlorine gas . . .

[freethought]

47. Safety officer was probably correct.

Freon is also used in the processing of cigarette tobacco. Trace amounts are left over and when smoked the freon changes to non-lethal traces of phosgene. Add more freon to the air, and who knows, one may be able to inhale enough to kill.

[bobthedrummer]

12. Jerome "Jerry" Hauer...

[damntexdem]

13. Interesting pair of statements:

"Federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the White House had been notified at 10 a.m.

New York police and fire officials said federal authorities had not notified them of any problem at the U.N. building, as of 11 a.m."

Is Brownie in charge of the WH response?

[rodeodance]

16. Reuters: Dangerous Iraq chemicals found stored at U.N. (from 10 yrs ago)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070830/us_nm/un_chemicals_... ;_ylt=AtVAyoqDtKcs2udSmDi.tshH2ocA
Dangerous Iraq chemicals found stored at U.N.

By Evelyn Leopold 29 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations found vials of a chemical warfare agent, which had been removed from Iraq a decade ago, in a U.N. building near the body's headquarters in New York but officials said on Thursday there was no danger.


The FBI was called in to remove the substances, which were discovered last Friday and included phosgene, an older generation chemical warfare agent, taken in 1996 by inspectors from a former Iraqi chemical weapons plant at Al Muthanna, the inspectors said in a statement.

Phosgene was used extensively during World War I as a choking agent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The inspectors, who are closing down their offices several streets from U.N. headquarters, discovered two small plastic packages with metal and glass containers, ranging in size from small vials to tubes the length of a pen with liquid substances, their spokesman, Ewen Buchanan, said.

[formercia]

Those small amounts of Phosgene are not much of a hazard

It takes pretty high concentration compared to something like Sarin to be lethal.

If it was a big hazard, the inspectors wouldn't have stored them in the building.

[tocqueville]

40. see my post below nt

[krispos42]

51. NOT nerve gas. "Choking agent". Good reporting by Reuters.

No wonder CNN is no longer using their reports.

[Gregorian]

17. And let me guess. They have Aminajad’s fingerprints on them.

Actually it's Bolton's bad vibes in liquid form.

[loudsue]

18. Someone just got threatened not to mess with the U.S.

They're doing an anthrax on their buddies at the U.N. It seemed to work on Dashle.

[go west young man]

20. How is this news?

It seems from everything I read that they knew they had them and had forgot about them. Our news organizations are fucking ridiculous. How abou reporting about the fake WMD's the media knew were destroyed back in 1991. Oh yeah that would be too easy they would have to actually read a U.N. weapons report.

[Ian David]

21. Let me guess... It was in Bolton's locked file cabinet? n/t

[bdamomma]

34. .......

exactly he was the guy who even said the UN could lose 10 floors and he did not show any remorse of saying it.

[freethought]

24. Neocons will try to spin this.

Neocons hate the UN. They always have. It wouldn't be beyond them to try to paint the UN as being terrorist sympathizers or something else crazy.

[RebelOne]

35. They sure will. Can't wait to hear Hannity's spin on this

on his radio show this afternoon. I listen to him on the way home so that way I can direct my road rage at the radio instead of the numbskull drivers during rush hour.

[Canuckistanian]

25. Phosgene? Wow, a blast from the past

Not my past - my grandfather's.

Phosgene was a deadly agent used in WWI, for sure, but not nearly as debilitating as mustard gas.

And Phosgene's delayed effects made it useless as a tactical weapon. Effects happened about 24 hours after exposure. And modern gas masks make it doubly useless.

IF Saddam had used it anywhere, he would have been disappointed at it's effects as a weapon.

[Kingshakabobo]

31. It can also be, as I recall, a derivative of air-conditioning Freon.

From a law suit:


http://www.interfire.org/features/legalview.asp?date=08...
Phosgene gas is created when the air conditioning refrigerant Freon is superheated. The Kay Jewelers store was air conditioned in part by Unit 32 of the mall's air conditioning system. Unit 32 had given the mall's maintenance employees, particularly Al Haney, a great deal of difficulty. Unit 32 contained two compressors and could operate with only one compressor. On June 2, 1994, two days before the incident, Haney installed a new compressor in Unit 32. Haney pulled a vacuum and charged the unit with Freon. On June 3, 1994, Haney checked the unit and found it would not work because the expansion valve, which meters Freon into the evaporator, was blocked. Haney turned off the compressor. Haney stated in his affidavit that he ordered a new expansion valve on June 3, 1994, and the records of Vista Ridge's purchases of air conditioning supplies show an invoice for an expansion valve dated June 7, 1994.

[Canuckistanian]

37. Never heard of that before

Good to know that ordinary smoke detectors can alert us to the presence of phosgene.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. THEY FINALLY FOUND THE WMDS

Bet that is the headline on fixed News?

[ingac70]

27. Gee, I thought the WMD were "in and around Tikrit"....

Thats what Rummy told me!

[Ian David]

39. They were to the West of Tikrit. Way, WAY *WAY* West. n/t

[zonmoy]

28. my first thought was that one of the ambassadors was being framed

for having wmds. turned out it was the weapon inspectors samples though. although I am surprised the bush cabal hadn't stolen them to frame another country for invasion.

[bdamomma]

29. hey where is John Bolten!!! Yosemite Sam!!

[lumberjack_jeff]

32. We know where the WMD's are. They're in the area around New York - to the north, south, east ... n/t

[tocqueville]

36. phosgene is a common industrial chemical

you need a special license (and declare it) to manufacture more than 30 tons a year. The primary use is to manufacture foams like production of polymers including polyurethanes, polycarbonates, and polyureas.

The average level of phosgene in ambient air may range from
approximately 80 to 130 ng/m3 although few data are available. In
view of the varied industrial hygiene practices worldwide it is
impossible to give an exposure figure for workers manufacturing or
using phosgene or for fire-fighters. At present the Threshold Limit
Values (time-weighted average) in 15 countries range from 0.4 and
0.5 mg/m3.

It is difficult to give accurate production figures because more
than 99% of phosgene production is for on-site use (Schneider &
Diller, 1989). However, phosgene is manufactured in most
industrialized countries. Approximately 37% of the world's production
is in the USA (about 1 million tons); in 1989 European phosgene
production was approximately 1.2 million tonnes (Schneider & Diller,
1989).

In Hamburg, Germany, an industrial storage
tank released 11 tonnes of phosgene into the atmosphere in 1928
(Hegler, 1928). The atmospheric conditions were conducive to the slow
spread of the gas outside the plant. No exposure levels were
reported. During a period of 5 days, over 300 people became ill, of
whom 10 died. The initial symptoms were severe irritation of the eyes
and throat, coughing, tightness of the chest, nausea and vomiting.
Autopsies of some of the victims revealed typical pulmonary lesions
and nonspecific lesions in other organs that were attributable to
local hypoxia (Wohwill, 1928). The author also felt that some
degenerative lesions in the brain and spinal cord were due directly to
phosgene, but this has not been confirmed in subsequent studies. The
only reference to the long-term effects in this population was that
there was no apparent damage to health 2 months after the accident.

In November 1966, phosgene was accidentally released from a
factory in Japan; 382 people were poisoned and 12 were hospitalized
(Sakakibara et al., 1967). Signs and symptoms observed in the 12
patients on admission were headache (9), nausea (9), cough (8),
dyspnoea (7), fatigue (7), pharyngeal pain (5), chest tightness (5),
chest pain (5), and fever (3). Lacrimation and redness of the eyes
were only observed in one patient. Seven patients showed evidence of
pulmonary oedema as revealed by chest X-rays 48 h after the exposure.
These findings indicate that pulmonary oedema may develop even 48 h
after exposure without initial symptoms of eye or nose irritation.

http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc193.htm

look on wikipedia too

conclusion : phosgene is overrated as a "chemical weapon". At least directly.

[formercia]

46. If people in the US knew what kind of hazardous materials

are shipped each year by rail and truck, they would have reason to fear, but you never hear a peep about that in the press.
What ever happened to the requirement for chemical plants to do vulnerability to terrorist attack studies?

Last I heard, lobbying groups had it killed.

[freethought]

48. That used to be how I made my living!

Phosgene, phosphine, hydrogen cyanide, picric acid, red nitric acid, pyrophorics, hydrogen peroxide in 90% concentration, organic peroxides, various radioactives. You name it. The only thing I didn't see were military nerve gases (VX, GV, Tabun) and weapons/reactor grade radionuclides. Came across a mustard gas solution once.
Your correct about one thing, people are totally unaware about how much of this stuff gets transported by rail or truck. Phosgene, as bad as it is, still has legit commercial uses.
Some years ago, a series of rail cars went flying off the rail and ruptured. They were full of white phosphorous. WHite phosphorous needs to be kept under water, otherwise the stuff reacts with the open air and starts to burn. Emergency crews decided it was best to just let the reaction take its course and clean up after all the phosphorous had reacted.

Give you an idea of what can happen. In the late 90s someone I know and worked with went to work in a TSDF facility in Cincinnati, OH. We weren't friends. They had a 55 gal steel drum full of sodium azide aqueous solution. The f_____g geniuses who initially generated the drum weren't aware that if you expose a solution of sodium azide to a bare, unlined steel drum a slow-but-sure chemical reaction takes place over time producing nitrogen based compounds that are unstable and reactive. The company who had taken the drum for disposal could not find an disposal facility that would take the drum and as a result they bounced it from storage facility to storage facility
when limits of storage times had expired. Well, this individual moved the drum off of a pallet to a hard floor( a height of 4 or 5 inches) the shock set of an explosion killing this person.
It's a pretty extreme example but such things do happen.

[EFerrari]

41. Nice job, Bushco!

[rodeodance]

42. -----were discovered last Friday but only on Wednesday

Dangerous Iraq chemicals found stored at U.N.

By Evelyn Leopold 1 hour, 11 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations found potentially lethal vials of a chemical warfare agent, removed from Iraq a decade ago, in offices near its New York headquarters but officials said on Thursday there was no danger.


The FBI and New York police were called in to remove the substances and were on the site, across the street from U.N. headquarters on Thursday.

The materials included phosgene, an older generation chemical warfare agent, which could have been lethal if it had evaporated, the officials said.

Phosgene was used extensively during World War I as a choking agent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The vials in a small sealed metal container were discovered last Friday but only on Wednesday did the inspectors find a list of what the items were as they were cleaning out 125 filing cabinets. The chemicals are being taken to the U.S. Army laboratory in Edgewood, Maryland, the inspectors said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070830/us_nm/un_chemicals_... ;_ylt=AnItbatbFnNqvRZSIE_tHwis0NUE

[AlCzervik]

44. Everyone else had Saddam's WMD's except for him.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

45. just to keep you distracted from Craig and Gonzales

[ButterflyBlood]

52. That might be true if the media wasn't still giving Craig 10x as much coverage

But they are, so it' just tinfoil garbage.

[Adsos Letter]

49. "NEWS BREAK!!!"...

...the President of the United States has just announced that combined Air, Land and Naval operations have begun against the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, in response to evidence that the location has been storing Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction...President Bush ended his announcement by declaring "we will fight the forces of evil and the enemies of righteousness wherever they may try to hide"... Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was heard to declare "My word, henny penny, this is one of the unknown unknowns we knew we didn't know we didn't know" or words to that effect before he returned to burying his snout in a tumbler of single-malt scotch... Colin Pwell was unavailable for comment {stop] Secty of State Rice was reported to have buried herself in an extended piano composition, pausing only to take quaff absinthe and babble incoherently at the moon shining outside her window

end of message

(we need a "satire" smiley)

[jmowreader]

50. Phosgene is a dual-use chemical

It's a (bad) chemical warfare agent; it's also a component of polycarbonate and polyurethane.