Right wing radio is crowing about WMD found in Iraq

[CatWoman]

a dozen artillery shells filled with Sarin to be exact.

Anyone here know anything about it?

This is the first I've heard, and it's not being reported in the mainstream news.

[Hawkeye-X]

1. Sarin is probably dead.

Nerve gas has a short shelf-life.

Probably wouldn't even hurt a cockroach.

Plus, I wouldn't even trust right-wing sources.

Hawkeye-X

[Caution]

2. even if true

a dozen shells is not 50,000 gallons

[RBHam]

3. So they found some old weapons that Reagan sold to Saddam...

Okay...

[lil-petunia]

5. no no no

it was Cheney, not raygun. And Rummie.

well, ok, so ronnie was president, but his alzheimers was already fool blast.

[aquart]

4. How old are they? Sarin decomposes.

And it's a perfectly crappy method of distribution. Could ONLY be used in a limited area, like Iraq, and therefore not even close to being WMD.

Call me when you have a delivery method that will guarantee a minimum 200 dead in America. We'll talk.

[Jade Fox]

6. So, how many war million$ is that per shell?

This so makes the monitary and human cost of the war worth it...
:eyes:

[Richardo]

Wow! Only 67 dead US servicemen, 833 Iraqis and $16.7 billion per shell!

THAT was worth it! :eyes:

If true...

[Jade Fox]

20. Thanks for the math, Senor Richardo...

How desparate are these people that they think this gets Bushco
off for their lies and justifies this war?

[progressivebydesign]

7. I thought that was LAST month..

.. there were shells found tipped with Sarin. They were very, very old shells, and unusable for some reason. I guess the tests just came back on them... We sold them the fucking Sarin back when we loved Saddam.

[Trajan]

8. This is a laughable claim ...

First: what they found was old and dead ....

Second: they found it 13 months AFTER occupation: the source of these 'wmd's' can rightly be questioned as possible plants ...

[Vickers]

9. Artillery shells? That's no immediate threat to the USA

That was their whole thing in the beginning anyway, that they could hit us (the USA) in 45 minutes. So even if they DO find some (broken down) nerve agent, it's too old to do anything, and it can only go a few dozen miles.

Not that any journalists will (a) raise those points, or (b) remember the RW's reasons for going to war anyway.

[LuminousX]

21. They were working on BIG GUNS to hit the U.S.

[Guaranteed]

10. That was months ago

And they were fifteen years old, buried.

[porphyrian]

11. That's The Best They Can Do To Distract People From F9/11?

Wow, they are fucked.

[yardwork]

29. LOL! You are so right

and they are so fucked!

[The Magistrate]

12. There Probably Are A Few Such Scattered About, Ma;am

One seems to have been used, poorly, in a roadside bomb some weeks ago.

There was never any question that a quantity of such shells had been mabufactured; there was some question by U. N. inspectors about the quality of paperwork that indicated the destruction of many of them.

That a few escaped destruction would be no surprise. They hardly constitute weapons of mass destruction in any case; a dozen field artillery shells could not poison much more than an acre.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. It stems from a Fox News interview with the current ISG head

"He also told Fox News that about 10 or 12 sarin and mustard gas shells have been found in various locations in Iraq.

The shells are all from the first Gulf War era and thus weakened, though intelligence sources say they’re still dangerous."

So yes, Reagan era shells.

[CatWoman]

16. all I could find is this NewsMax story

Friday, June 25, 2004 11:36 a.m. EDT
Iraq Survey Chief: More WMD Found

The head of the U.S. team conducting the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq announced on Thursday that his group has uncovered at least ten more artillery shells filled with banned chemical weapons and is finding new WMD evidence "almost every day."

"We've found ten or twelve Sarin and Mustard rounds," said Charles Duelfer, who replaced David Kay as head of the Iraq survey group earlier this year after Kay concluded that WMDs were unlikely to be found.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/6/25/114037.shtml

[The Magistrate]

19. Sarin And Mustard, Ma'am?

That is an even greater stretch. Mustard gas hardly constitutes a weapon of mass destruction; it is not generally lethal in usual military concentrations, though certainly debilitating. Again, there is no secret that it was manufactured in Iraq earlier; it was routinely used in the Iraq-Iran war, with the full knowledge and conivance of the Reagan administration.

[swag]

17. oh, they're still dangerous?

I guess I won't eat them for breakfast any more.

[SoCalDem]

14. Gee. I thought this thread was the confirmation that * HAD gone to Iraq.

When he gets there (if he's not too chicken..or if we spoiled the surprise) the WMD will be there.. He will be the one to formally find WMD.. All he has to do is look in the mirror...and there is the WMD, looking back at him :)

[joefree1]

15. All I could find was this shrill report from Newsmax

Friday, June 25, 2004 11:36 a.m. EDT

Iraq Survey Chief: More WMD Found

The head of the U.S. team conducting the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq announced on Thursday that his group has uncovered at least ten more artillery shells filled with banned chemical weapons and is finding new WMD evidence "almost every day."

"We've found ten or twelve Sarin and Mustard rounds," said Charles Duelfer, who replaced David Kay as head of the Iraq survey group earlier this year after Kay concluded that WMDs were unlikely to be found. Friday, June 25, 2004 11:36 a.m.

edit ...
Duelfer told Fox that even if the shells had degraded over time, they were still capable of killing "dozens" of people. He warned that both soldiers and civilians in Iraq should carry gas masks and have access to chem-bio suits.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/6/25/114037.shtml

Sounds like old stuff. Meanwhile recent polls continue to show Americans are increasingly against the war.

[DoverFrank]

18. Google

http://news.google.com/news?q=wmd&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=N&tab=nn


First one is from newsmax so who knows.

[RUSTY SHACKLEFORD]

22. Well there you have it.

Saddam's secret cache of chemical weapons.

Oh those, and the guy that got busted with that gallon of diesel fuel/bag of fertilizer.

Patently absurd.

Where are the "Mobile Biological Laboratories"?

Where's that atomic weapons enrichment centirfuge made of all of that highly machined aluminum tubing?

Where is all that nuclear material Saddam bought from Nigeria?

Where are the tons and tons of supposedly undeclared Sarin, Botchilinum, VX nerve gas, et. al.??

Anyone?


Anyone???



Bueller???

[annak110]

23. Seemingly this old junk was much like the stuff found near Denver

at an old nuclear site the nuts are trying to turn into a wildlife refuge. This was a fairly recent discovery, maybe the gathered them up and took them to Iraq to bury long after the illegal invasion...

BTW here is a poll. It asks if Bush lied about Saddam Hussein's "ties to al Queda". Obviously Bush doesn't have a clue about what truth is and simply blurts out a constant stream of lies but 60+ percent who have voted in this weird "poll" don't seem to be able to imagine that the dimwit might have lied.
Please, go vote!

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Are they also talking about the WMD's in Israel?

Like 200-300 nuclear warheads? Intermediate range missles? Stockpiles of Sarin? The fact that they refuse to sign the nuclear non proliferatin treaty?

[NickB79]

25. Christian Science Monitor even disagrees

This is an article written by Scott Ritter, the WMD expert put into Iraq in 1991 by Bush Senior himself. Even he is saying the ONE confirmed artillery shell they found was NOT part of a more widespread WMD program or stash.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0521/p09s01-coop.html

Even if you found a dozen artillery shells that contained Sarin, they wouldn't make a decent WMD unless fired from artillery. Sarin-tipped arty shells have two compartments, each filled with two Sarin precursors, so technically they don't have Sarin in them per se. These components actually do give it a lifespan of quite a few years though, as opposed to pure Sarin. However, when the shell is fired, the membrane between them ruptures and the chemicals mix, generating Sarin. The time from launch to impact gives many seconds for the chemical reaction to occur and give a high yield of Sarin. The one shell that was detonated as a roadside bomb a few months ago, however, had no such mixing opportunity. The bomb explodes, and you get a few milliseconds of reaction, creating almost no Sarin. Consider that the two soldiers exposed by the roadside bomb were treated and released the SAME DAY! You would also be hard-pressed to attempt to extract the Sarin precursors without a lab to work in, unless you were suicidal.

In short, unless you can get your hands on a howitzer, these shells have almost no value as chemical weapons. Even with a howitzer, they are only dangerous AFTER we put troops within their range in the first place.

[tjwash]

26. Where are the FUCKING NUKES?

Until they find a nuke out there, the right needs to STFU.

[GreenPartyVoter]

28. After terrorizing us with "mushroom cloud, mushroom cloud" I

agree. They should shut up about the little stuff.

[leesa]

27. Again. How many decomposed, small batch weapons do they need to

be proven wrong about before they give it up?