Reuters is reporting statements made by the US Army that a shell containing Sarin gas was discovered in a IED this past Saturday in Baghdad. From the report....



Luckily, nobody was injured when this shell went off, but it is an omnious sign.

Are we about to find out what happened to Iraq's WMD the hard way, or is this an aberration?

To add a little more information to Aquilla's query:

Coming across the news now in the wake of the Sarin gas discovery, the Iraq Survey Group is saying they found mustard gas two weeks ago in another artillary shell IED in Baghdad.

I always have believed Saddam had WMDs in his arsenal, and apparently they're starting to appear.

What catches my attention is that the sarin shell was not marked. Given that the insurgents have been looting ammo dumps for the ammunition they need for fighting, how many more unmarked rounds are there (in their possession and in the ammo dumps)? Given the fickle patience of the American people, I wonder if they would have enough patience as the ISG went through every single artillary round in Iraq (and they say there is tens of thousands of tons of ammunition to go through).....

It's too early to know how accurate the reports are, but I'm going to go out on a limb here as I've done with other "reports" of WMD in Iraq:

It's not accurate. They detected something that registered a "positive" the way sarin would, but it wasn't sarin. It's just my guess. But, so far, guessing that way has turned out to be more right than not.

I think the reports are premature.

You maybe correct. Time will tell on that.

But, if this was Sarin and was in an unmarked shell, then maybe this is what happened to the missing bio/chem weapons. They are sitting in stockpiles with what we thought were conventional weapons. Certainly seems totally possible and would be an understandable strategy for the former Iraqi government to use in their avoidance of UN inspections.

They found the IED a few days ago and have tested it (apparently the shell was intact after the IED went off and handed over to the ISG).

It is confirmed to be sarin gas, just as the mustard gas was confirmed to be mustard gas. I'm sure the Democrats and the ABB crowd don't want to hear this, but it's been confirmed.

I would prefer not to turn this into just another political discussion, we have more than enough of those open already.

Past reports have been mainly "quick and dirty" field tests that have turned false positives (and it's better to have a false positive than the other way around), but this one seems to be pretty definitive from the statements made. I don't know what the process is for testing for this stuff, but they've had since last Saturday to do their thing on it and the General at the briefing seemed pretty positive that it was the real deal.

I'd really like to keep this thread on the topic of whether or not people expect that we could be seeing more of these things in the coming days. If so, it's a pretty serious escalation.

So how many times have we found the WMDS?

The first time I remember was the trailers that could have been used and someone in the Bush Adminstration said that was the WMDS.

Since then there have been countless reports in the news about finding WMDS or something similar to WMDS.

So ever so often we get another report.

I am not saying this is another bogus report but how about getting more confirmation or facts before releasing another scare.

The Bush adminstration or his followers are straining so hard to find anything that resembles any weapons.

Remember the story about the boy that hollered wolf too many times. That same principle may be applied here.

Its 1 shell. Not an epidemic (not a stockile). Insurgents have been firing mortars and using IED's forever and they happened to stumble onto a shell (probably pre 91) and use it.

To be honest as of now this is a scrap of evidence. It should be treated as an anomaly because nothing suggests otherwise. It is 1 shell. It's not indicative of anything. I dont see how 1 shell fired in the over 1 year since the invasion is now going to be a sign of some big nuclear movement. Its needless hysteria just like the march to war.

The truly bad thing is that this fluke is going to make the army overeact and leaders panic as it always does and you will have soldiers wearing MOPP gear level 4 in the Iraqi sun in fear of another needle in a haystack. The people who used it knew less about it then we did in all probability. After all the attacks and attempted attacks the US army has been through I find it insane that now we expect the apocalypse because 1 single solitary mortar round exploded.

Is this shell the only one of its kind? No, but it isnt vindication it isnt imminent threat and it isnt the beginning of anything. I have no doubt some more of these exist but this is minor. It was a forgotten shell that was obtained and used by coincidence.

It's more then one shell, and the two bombs found so far are made from artillary shells that were unmarked, resembling normal artillary munitions. Given the level of cover-up reported in David Kay's report, and the fact that these rounds are disguised as regular rounds....

Apparently 155 MM artillary rounds are one of the most common components of Saddam's ammunitions dumps as well.

The most plausible explanation is that it was a mismarked and misplaced shell. If the insurgents knew they had a Sarin filled shell, you have to think they would have tried to use it in a more serious attack, such as launching it into a known area of Americans.

We will see more accidental uses of mustard and/or sarin gas, but if this was an orchestrated effort to use such weapons, it would have happened a long time ago.

Firstly, as has happened several times before, some preliminary news comes out and both sides leap to show how this 'proves' their side of the argument. As amf pointed out, this may well turn into yet another hoax or false positive, like all those that passed before it.

However, it might also turn out to be true. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq has released a stement that the shell did contain trace elements of binary sarin. He also declared that "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."

As it was a binary shell, exploding it as a roadside bomb was a complete waste, the compounds are intended to mix in flight after initial firing (the two seperate compounds are individually benign). The people who set off the roadside bomb were either unaware that it was a sarin shell, or they are complete idiots.

Oh, and I did a bit of looking for this report of 'mustard gas' found in Iraq you mentioned, and all I could find was two reports of mustard gas shells being founf, one in january, one in february, both of which turned out to be false. I have no idea where this recent 'find' you mention came from, and the major news outlets around the world seem to have missed it...

So, given that, what do we know FOR SURE?


It makes no sense to NOT mark a nerve has shell as such, for exactly the reasons we just saw, the users of the shell completely misused it. It also makes no sense to deliberatly 'hide' such a thing in a way that it cannot be recovered.

We know Iraq HAD nerve gas shells back in the day, they reported them all destroyed. Given what we know for sure, even if this turns out to be a real positive chemical weapon, as opposed to all the false positives we have seen, this means very little with regards to any supposed 'wider existence' of WMDs. I am sure the right will wish to draw massive conclusions based on this, just as they have every time such a discovery was made before (before going strangely silent when they all turned out to be false) but it is not realistic to draw any wider conclusions from it.

Dispite keric's insistance, it is just 1 shell, the other shells detonated in the roadside bomb were all conventional, more evidence that the terrorists had no idea what they had. (You do not detonate chemical and conventional weapons together, it limits the chemical effect)

The mustard gas was found two weeks ago, here let me be clearer for Vermillion:

T - W - O W - E - E - K - S

Not months, not years, two weeks ago.

The White House released the statement about an hour ago, that the mustard gas bomb had been found in Baghdad two weeks ago and the ISG had confirmed it to be mustard gas.

As for the terrorists using it in an IED, I stated in the 'did they lie' thread that I don't believe the terrorists knew what they had else they would have used it in a mortar. As sarin gas spreads more effectively and deadly in the air, then from an IED explosion.That given that the shell was unmarked and looked identical to a regular explosive round that they took it from one of the many ammunition dumps unknowingly.

I don't believe that even with the best intentions it would have been possible to completely rid a nation the size of Iraq, of all its NBC munitions. The misplacement and lack of control that seems to be an ingredient of all munitions stockpiles is probably just as present in Iraq as it is every where else.

We've seen such lax control leading to all manner of NBC materials being smuggled out of the former soviet union, and there is nothing to indicate that Iraq was any better.

I bet there are hundreds of unaccounted for NBC munitions floating about in private stock piles all over Iraq.

Thank you for repeating your assertion in big letters.

However, saying it multiple times does not make it more valid. I assume you can provide a news link evidencing this, I would certainly appreciate it as I have been unable to find a single reference to this 'discovery' of yours on any of the major news sites.


However, as I said in my previous post, EVEN IF this one shell (or even a second shell, assuming the mustarg gas keric asserts turns out to be real) does turn out to be real, given the ignorance around the use of the shell, it seems unlikely that this can be used to draw wider conclusions about WMD.

Oh and as a general FYI, and the use of the shell was not wasted because "sarin spreads more effectively and deadly in the air, then from an IED explosion". The problem is that as the shell was never fired, the binary compounds never combined. Thus even if someone was standing right over the shell, they would at best be treated for minor exposure, as they would simply have been sprayed with the two benign binary agents.


edit to add:



This is quite correct, unknown and lost Mustard gas munitions have also been found in canada, Britain, Holland, France and Japan over the last 10 years, given the mass production of this agent over the last 80 years, it is common for these things to turn up. EVEN IF this report turns out to be true, it provides for only limited conclusions.

As more information pours in (Sarin-Filled Munitions in Iraq Worry U.S.):

Here you go Vermillion. I found it by using a combination "mustard gas Iraq" in the "Google" search engine.

Thank you for that. After a some searching, I also found a couple other sites carrying similar news. I say similar because Foxnews seems to have its own take on the story. Here are several independent versions from a few other non-Fox sites:

"WASHINGTON — A small amount of residue from mustard gas, a potentially deadly chemical agent, was found in an old artillery shell on a Baghdad street, says a U.S. military report.

The shell was from a “very old stockpile,” and for that reason experts didn't consider it evidence that former dictator Saddam Hussein was hiding illegal stockpiles of chemical weapons, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the matter is classified.

The report, obtained Thursday by Knight Ridder Newspapers, said tests identified the substance as mustard gas residue. The official confirmed that and said more tests were under way." (KCStar - May 7th)


"TRACES of mustard, a potentially deadly chemical agent, have been found in an old artillery shell on a Baghdad street, according to a US military report.

But because the shell was from a "very old stockpile", it is not considered evidence that former dictator Saddam Hussein was hiding illegal stockpiles of chemical weapons, said a senior official, who asked not to be identified as the find is classified information. (Herald - May 8th)


Similar reports, all making the same references to the US report, exist on sites in Canada, the UK, Australia and so on...


Thus, I think, since the US military explicitly states this is NOT evidence of WMD in Iraq, we can discount this Mustard gas tale and get back to the actual debate, the sarin shell recently mis-used in a roadside bomb.

you forgot america. just a few years ago while the EPA was cleaning rocky flats here in colorado they found sarin bomblets that the government thought were destroyed.

as to the main question, I do not think this is indicative of large numbers of WMDs. as has been pointed out, it is KNOWN that Iraq had chem weapons in the late 80's early 90's and used them during the Iran-Iraq war. as the case of rocky flats shows, ordinance can be misplaced sometimes. these are shells that saddam said were destroyed in the early 90's. I think it is most likely these were misplaced somehow and ended up in a regular ammo dump. even AMERICA has lost a few bomblets over the years!

As one of the articles commented, its possible that the insurgents in possession of the rounds didn't even know it was a chem weapon (which is both sad and frightening).

Both of the munitions referenced thus far seem to predate the first Gulf War so I think we're lacking the "smoking gun" (pardon the pun) that is still being searched for.

I think the Sarin shell and the assassination of the IGC president do have me a little worried that things are going to escalate in the next 45 days leading up to the 6/30 handover. I hope I'm wrong.

Doc

Also right here in the good old USA. Forgotten burried munitions keep cropping up as Colorado development spreads, some of it mustard gas.

But that's beside the point of the question. I have no idea if this means the insurgency will become more deadly. Hope not.

I also have no idea how artillary rounds are marked in Iraq. Are they etched? Stamped? Drawn on with Sharpies?

There's just not enough intel to tell.

A few qualifying statements need to be brought out here.

1.)Rumsfeld himself has stated that that it's still too early to tell whether or not the Sarin story is still true.

2.)Sarin gas is not a weapon of mass destruction. Mustard gas and other poisonous weapons have been around since WWI and most everyone has them. If we are going to lower the bar on this issue by allowing any and all chemical weapons, then will we invade other nations for possessing mustard or sarin gas?

If people start saying this is vindication it will backfire for Bush. Losing hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers, thousands upon thousands of Iraqi citizens, spending 100's of billions and eliminating a future world coalition making the US the most hated nation on earth because we had to take Iraq out now before they took over the world.........with a 15 year old mortar round that had some traces of Sarin.

This is likw a drug bust where you say someone has 100 pounds of heroin, 300 pounds of coke, 6,000 sheets of acid, 1,000 pounds of mushrooms and 400 liters of liquid G.I and he is selling it all to elementary school kids so you get a warrant and bust down his door and find half of a marijuana joint. That isnt vindication.

If it was actual Sarin gas,there WOULD HAVE BEEN ALOT OF VICTIMS.Sarin gas is deadly with some people.Age has no affect on it as long as it stays contained.The results of just a small amout can result in many many victims.Look what happened here.I know it was in a bomb and in a open area.But it is heavier than air and acts lie a very humid bubble.Remember this? http://www.sma.org/smj/97june3.htm

My understanding of this thing is that it was a 155 mm artillery shell (not a mortar shell) and what they call a "binary weapon". That means there are two components contained within the shell in separate compartments that need to be mixed together to make the sarin. Apparently this happens when the shell is fired from the gun and the mixing takes place while it flys through the air. In this instance, the shell was exploded while it was sitting by the side of the road which meant there was minimal mixing of the two components and thus a minimal amout of sarin produced.

Luckily the insurgents don't have access to a 155 artillery gun or they could lob these shells into the green zone and really cause some casualties.

You have to be kidding 6 million Iranians didn't die from a flu bug during Reagans term. I am also sure insane hussein didn't flush all the nerve and mustard gases etc. down the toilet. It would be no surprize to find mega tons of these agents across all of Iraq. Correct me if I'm wrong ,But was not the bush administration talking about nuclear capabilities pertaining to weapons of mass destruction ,not weapons from wars past. Funny Reagan sure did some flip flopping on supporting both Iran and then iraq or was it the other way around or maybe both at the same time ahhh that must be it. huh wonder why more and more of the world distrust us. They find a nuke and I will vote for the moron bush

Sounds like a smart policy to me. Better them killing each other, then us.

The two things I get from the pervious posts and the auricle are this:

1. The amounts used were very small.


2. They were IEDs (Improvised Exploding Devices), which means that the insurgents made them (and apparently not too well) and the chemicals used were not neccessarily the "WMDs" that Bush said Hussein had.

If the insurgents wanted to use the weapons that Hussein apparently had wouldn't they just use the original amounts that were put in the original missiles? Why would they take out the chemicals and make the amounts smaller so that soldiers only showed "low-level chemical exposure"? It seems to me that they would have better weapons if they were using the Hussein types, or the weapons would have had more deadly results. I do not believe this will lead to us finding the WMDs, but more dirty bombs will probably be found.

Chemical Weapons found in Iraq

Now, I won't jump to conclusions and say 'we told you so'. If this is true, then there is a good chance that this could of been part of a collection.

The fact that the shells were unmarked is rather interesting. It wasn't marked for a reason I imagine, and there could be more out there.



Actually, if you give it a chance, the idea of not marking those specific shells, although on the outside sounding stupid, makes sense. If the only ones intended to come into contact with them knew what they were, it's possible that only certain units would of been given such weapons. Perhaps the Republican guard or Iraqi Reg's guarding Baghdad.

If you make weapons you don't claim to have, claim your regular stuff (and give inspectors a lil something to bite on a.k.a. the Al-Samoud 2's) then on paper, everything looks good. But imagine if unimpeded access was given... someone might of sniffed up something else... and Saddam couldn't of had that.



...I'd like to dispute that remark...

Sarin a.k.a GB was developed by the Nazis. And it wasn't for keeping those pesky insects away from Goering's rose garden.

And you can say, 'oh well N. Korea has them, why don't we go after them?' till the cows come home. I've stated my thoughts on that, but the fact of the matter is Section C, Number 8, Subsection A in UN Security Council Resolution 687 (1991) states...



So I'd say it's a good bet Sarin IS a WMD, and that if this does lead to more finds then obviously Saddam was in violation of said resolution. But then, that's a huge suprise.

Like I said, I won't hop to conclusions, but where there's smoke...

Those opposed to the war have let themselves be sucked into an irrelevant debate. It is similar to a boxer allowing himself to be goaded into a brawl.
Saddam could have stock piles of WMD and the war would still be wrong, but due to the fact that people against the war are jumping on the obvious... lack of truth, the true merits of why or why not we should go to war has changed. I mean look at the way people who supported the war cling to the idea that a shell with a "TRACE" of sarin gas is a WMD.

It is funny, but think of the reaction if we find a warhead filled with a chemical agent. They'll swear up and down that they are vindicated and that people against the war are just being stubborn when we don't say "O.K. O.K. the war was justified."

To answer the question, it is an arty shell with a small amount of chemicals. There will likely be more shells, some, maybe full with a chemical agent. We may find a rusty barrel full of mustard gas, as well. The stuff will likely be expired past its shelf life (yes chemical and biological weapons do have a "use by" date), but this information isn't widely told. It isn't as easy to spread fear if people know the WMD has likely... expired.

So the Iraqi survey group has confirmed that the shell contained Binary Sarin, in a 155 mm shell dating from the Iran-Iraq war. It turns out that nobody was actually exposed to sarin gas, two people were trated for preventative exposure with small doses of atropene and adrenalin.

The shell was over 20 years old, and the binary agent was intended to be mixed after preliminary ignition, or firing of the shell. As firing never occurred, there was no mixing of the binary agent, and thus there was no actual nerve gas released. Binary nerve gas has a shelf life of 8-12 years, so it is very unlikely that even if there had been a full mixing of compounds the result would have been a viable nerve gas.

The shell was unmarked and indistinguishable from regular artillery shells, which dispite several claims from the far-right about intentional hiding, is almost undoubtably a mislabelling error. Given that shells are often used for preliminary bombardment or training, the accidental deployment of a persistant nerve gas would be suicide for Iraqi troops. It would be imperative to know when such a weapon was being fired. Tactical use of aresol chemical agents is completely different from tactical use of HE indirect fire rounds.

Added to that, hiding such a weapon in a manner that it is unrecoverable after the fact is an excersise in futility and stupidity.

As previous chemical weapon discoveries (7 of them reported to date) have ALL turned out to be false or residue elements, this represents the first actual discovery of any chemical agent in Iraq since the war started.

Notably:

"However, a senior coalition source has told the BBC the round does not signal the discovery of weapons of mass destruction or the escalation of insurgent activity. He said the round dated back to the Iran-Iraq war and it is clear that the fighters did not even knew what it contained." (BBC- May 17th)

Thus this debate can come to a close: The US has declared that this find does NOT signal the discovery of WMD in Iraq.


Sarin was the first even nerve gas ever developed, and is fairly mild compared to subsequent nerve or blood gasses developed during the cold war.


In 1997 the United states declared that it had stockpiled 25,000 tons of unitary sarin gas and 700 tons of Binary Sarin. However since then, in accordance with the 1985 congressional directive, approximatly half of those stocks have likely been destroyed.

Russia remains the world's largest holder of chemical weapons, with over 50,000 tons of varied agents. Specific breakdown of the Russian stockpile is unknown, but likely 75% of it is second generation (G-series) nerve gases: Sarin, Cyclosarin, Tabun and Soman. Due to lack of funds Russia is estimated to have destroyed less than 5% of its Cold war chemical weapon stockpile.

First, I am going to say that this discovery does not excuse the horrible planning and the naive thinking that we could somehow turn Iraq into a democrat government.

That being said, this weapon was and still is a WMD. It may be left over from earlier stockpiles, but it is still a weapon that Iraq was banned from having, period. FYI, this type of shell does not have a "shelf life", as the chemicals needed to make the gas are not mixed yet. Only when they are mixed do they truly begin to degrade. You people may downplay this, but if the terrorists knew what was in the shell, it certainly is an escalation. Thankfully for the guys who were exposed, the gas was released in an open area and the mechanism to release it was primitive. God help us if they figure out a better way to fire these things

Exactly. David Kay said last night this shell was part of the many WMD that Iraq was required to turn over to the UN and since the shell is not marked as a chemical weapon there could be hundreds mixed in with normal shells in Iraqi arsenals that cover thousands of acres.
IMO this is the tiny tip of the iceberg.

NEW YORK — Tests on an artillery shell that blew up in Iraq on Saturday confirm that it did contain an estimated three or four liters of the deadly nerve agent sarin (search), Defense Department officials told Fox News Tuesday.
The artillery shell was being used as an improvised roadside bomb, the U.S. military said Monday. The 155-mm shell exploded before it could be rendered inoperable, and two U.S. soldiers were treated for minor exposure to the nerve agent.
Three liters is about three-quarters of a gallon; four liters is a little more than a gallon.
"A little drop on your skin will kill you [in the binary form," said Ret. Air Force Col. Randall Larsen, founder of Homeland Security Associates

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120268,00.html

I am sorry, I do not mean to be at all rude here, but as I posted about three messages above, the US military does not consider this to be evidence of WMD in Iraq, they stated so explicitly. I quoted one unnamed source above, and that has now been echoed by Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt himself. So before people start talking about the tip of the iceburg or what this 'proves' please be aware that the US military and head of forces in Iraq disagrees with you.

I also noted that it is FAR more likely that this was mislabelled in error considering an assortment of logical reasons. Add to that the fact that over the course of the second war in Iraq when the Us was actively fighting Iraqi forces, tens of thousands of artillery shells were fired by Iraq, and none registered as Chemical weapon rounds. If large numbers of Sarin shells were dispersed among conventional weapons, you would expect one would have been fired during the war.

The conspiracy theory of this being one of many thousands of shells intentionally hidden just makes no sense at all.

I hope that this is a single incident as many have said only time will tell. I have one question though. Iraq's primary weapon supplier was the Soviet Union, though they did buy 76 French 155mm GCT SPGs.

Why use a caliber that is not widely used in their military?Their most common heavy caliber artillery piece was the 152mm. So is this an error or did the Iraqis develop WMD for what would be an oddball caliber?

Its not exactly oddball. Iraq had 155mm GCT self-propelled howitzers, 155mm G-5 towed howitzers, GHN-45 155mm guns, and M114 155mm guns. A significant proportion of its heavy Artillery was 155mm.

Also, keep in mind that dispite the small numerical difference in caliber, 155mmm guns have up to 6 km more range than 152mm guns, and I imagine when planning on using Sarin shells, extra range is fairly important.

EDIT to add
Just did a bit of digging, and apparently Iraq only ever developped four means of dispersing CBW agents, as reported in their declarations to the UN, and confirmed by weapon inspectors: 155mm artillery shells, artillery rockets, a MiG-21 drone, and aerosol generators.

So, in terms of artillery, Iraq in fact only ever developped the 155mm caliber shall as a CBW platform.

Well I will stand corrected especially since there over 12,000 155mm Mustard Gas shells destroyed. Though the number of 155mm pieces was less than 10% of the number of 152mm tubes available, very interesting.

I believe the number of M114s was two captured from Iran. Hardly enough for use as a major weapon system. Now I have to wonder why they choose that caliber

Oh well just another point to ponder

It wasn't a preventative measure.

The soldiers displayed "classic" symptoms of sarin exposure, most notably dilated pupils and nausea, officials said. The symptoms ran their course fairly quickly, however, and as of Tuesday the two had returned to duty.

Tests Confirm Sarin in Iraqi Artillery Shell

Kimmitt said no one was seriously injured in yesterday's explosion of the shell, but that two people were treated for what he called "minor exposure" to nerve agents. The general said there were no serious injuries apparently because detonating the shell was much less effective in dispersing the nerve gas than had the shell been fired from a cannon.

The Sarin-Laced Shell: Major Discovery Or A Curious Relic?



Vermillion, would you please provide the link. I did a google search using the quote above and found no results. I even went to the BBC and couldn't get a hit. I know it has to be there and want to read the article. Thanks.



Well, it does signal a discovery of WMD. Maybe not a large stockpile, but WMD nonetheless, four liters of it. Does it prove that they were there, that at least some weren't destroyed and that they weren't declared?



Sarin is a clear, odorless liquid that can cause lethal convulsions in those who breathe it or get it on their skin. It was the poison used by the Aum Shinrikyo cult to kill 12 people in an attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

Iraq first told U.N. inspectors it had made 812 tons of sarin, then said it had made 790 tons. Iraq also produced binary weapons: bombs carrying two separate chemicals that, when combined in an explosion, produce sarin. Iraq acknowledged making thousands of rockets, artillery shells and bombs containing sarin. It used the chemical during its war with Iran in the 1980s and is believed to have used it against Kurdish Iraqi civilians.

SARIN FACTS

I truly can't believe what I am reading. When the claim that Iraq possesses WMD, the logical implication is that they have an active program there, not that some old weapons may still exist there.

A cache of weapons could be in Iraq for various number of reasons from being hidden purposely, or getting lost in the paperwork. It happens here in the United States, in Russia, in many other countries. By saying there are weapons there and that's what the president says and not taking into consideration "perspective" (took that off Senator Inhofe ), you like childish. Finding weapons in Iraq doesn't prove the point.

An active program that dates to post-Gulf War is needed. This is the proof. Not Iran-Iraq War and not even the first Gulf War. A shell does not tell you anything and it doesn't prove anything. I believe the debate of whether this discovery is ominous is premature, and seems to be people getting their hopes up about WMD, so they can tell the anti-war crowd, "I told you so." Let's be real here.

I think it's like saying a guy that used to deal with illegal weapons says he's out of the business. You don't believe him, and try to get a warrant to search. The warrant is turned down and you search the house on your own. Upon searching the house you find nothing. You raze everything you can find, still find nothing. About a month later, a bullet from these illegal weapons is found. Does this bullet prove your point? Or is it a mere oversight? Rationally answer this question.

I don't see an escalation, you need more evidence.

It's a tough question to answer.

In a way, if it is part of a larger cache, then it pretty much vindicates our role in this....

YET

If it is, that probably mean that a group of terrorists could control these weapons.

The scary part of the whole thing is remembering that these groups often conduct smaller "tests" prior to taking much larger actions.

As has been repeated ad nauseum in this thread, as well as in the news, from experts in the US and UK armed forces as well as anlysts around the world, it is clear the terrorists had no idea this was a Sarin bomb, it is scarecly possible to imagine a way they could have used it less effectively if they had.

This was no test, it was an accident that a chemical weapon warhead was lost among conventiona weapons, and nobody, not even those who tried to set it off to blow up a convoy, had any idea what it really contained...

note to redliner -- my apologies if i am taking your quote out of context; I don't know what your history of positions is on this... but your something about your quote got me thinking... (a rare enough event that I thought I would celebrate with a post!)

It is fascinating -- for months now the pro-war set has been telling us that this was never about WMD, (they must have been misunderstood) this was about the liberation of oppressed people. Well... the whole "liberation" arguement is not going so well, what with the prisoner abuse scandal and all. Now, conveniently, we have a shell with Sarin in it... and what do you know... it was about all WMD!...and clearly we were justified in our actions.

I will leave it to the david kay's, hans blix's, and scott ritters of the world to interpret what this means about Saddams WMD program, or other illegal activities -- my only request or suggestion is that we all think for a moment about what really matters, which is (in my opinion) not "was the war justified"? but "what do we do now?" Interestingly enough, I am not sure that Kerry and Bush are all that far apart on what happens next -- so if one discounts the chain of events that brought us to this juncture, I sense a fairly unified front on what needs to happen in Iraq next, even if we disagree on some details (such as the role of UN)


of course, I could be wrong

JACABO

-

Well, quite! Apart form everything else, if these sarin shells are unmarked and hidden amongst normal artillery shells, which we are told is what makes them so dangerous and hard to find, what makes anyone think that terrorists will be able to find them to use against allied forces and personnel?

In the absence of portable X-Ray machines and sophisticated detection equipment (admittedly an assumption that might be incorrect), they surely would have to explode ALL the shells they find and hope that some of them have sarin inside?

Julian:



You do understand that these are not the only ways that one might know what was in the shells?

If told that sarin was in the shells, by someone who placed the shells in a cache, then no x-ray machine or explosion would be needed.

Vermillion:



So provide the link that shows that the culprit was caught and led the coalition forces to the cache and that the evidence was that these shells were randomly placed within the cache . That is the only way that is certain to know this information. If you can't, then it is speculation at best.

EDIT: Potentially aggressive sentence removed at the advice of the administrator, with my apologies.


Let's start this post by saying that sources in both the US and UK military up to and including the commander of US forces in Iraq have all stated that they are confident that the terrorists did not know that this was a sarin shell, and that this does not represent a find of WMD in Iraq.



So in THIS theory, some mysterious expert who knew where all the unmarked Sarin shells were hidden in a stockpile (which makes one wonder why they were unmarked) tells the terrorists that this is a nerve gas shell, but this expert then forgets to tell them how to use it, or that blowing it up at the side of the road is a complete waste of time and will accomplish nothing.



Are you serious?

So the only way you will believe that this is not a well organised conspiracy to detonate a hidden stockpile of sarin shells unmarked but kept hidden from inspectors and US search teams (for which there is absolutely zero evidence at all, by the way) is if the culprits are caught and they show you where they got this particular shell, and it turns out that the rest of the shells are all conventional? But will even that illogical extreme that convince you, or will you then just argue that the person is lying or the shells were moved...

Reality: a single unmarked shell was set off by terrorists in a manner exactly consistent with how HE shells are set off in roadside bombs. The binary agents never mixed and was thus detonated in about the worst possible manner if one hoped to hurt people. The shell was completely wasted, two people were treated for mild expose either to the binary agents or to diluted sarin from trace elements of the binary compounds mixing in the air, reports seem to differ. Experts on the ground in Iraq have declared that the terrorists were clearly unaware this was a nerve gas shell, and its markings were indistinguishable from a regular shell. These same US army experts have declared that this does not represent a WMD find in Iraq.

Thus, if you are going to present such a wild conspiracy theory alone, rejected even by those in positions to know who have a vested interest in there BEING WMD in Iraq, you need to present at least a single shred of evidence to that effect. Accusing me of 'speculation' when all I am doing is repeating what the all the evidence and all the experts are saying is a touch weak.

Vermillion:

Here is my original post



Please note the following:





All indicate speculation, that is what the qualifiers were put in place for.

Your response:



Please note the following:



No qualifiers. This is presented as FACT. I see nothing in the above that would indicate this was speculation.

Again, please supply the link to these facts.

You want to talk about illogical...

So there's only one shell is what you're saying?

What are the odds on that...

A war in which one of the main reasons cited were WMDs such as this sarin gas here.

Tens of thousands of tons of ammunition (they estimated in one field alone, a field that as far as the eye could see was filled with boxes of mortar shells, they estimated 10,000 shells there).

Yet, somehow those who created the IED managed to unknowingly salvage the only chemical weapon shell in the ammunition dumps...

What are the mathematical odds on that I wonder? These are some lucky lottery winning terrorists if they somehow just managed to accidently find the -only- shell out of god knows how many tons of ammunition....

No, I would figure they obtained the shell unknowingly from a stockpile of even more such shells... to find just one shell out of so much ammunition...

I would imagine that if you wanted to figure out the difference between HE shells and Sarin shells, unmarked and mixed together, you could just start weighing them. Odds are that the majority of them will be HE rounds and will all weigh about the same, the few that don't weight the same are something other than HE. So you drag a couple of those out in the desert and blow them up to see what's inside and presto, you now know how to find sarin, or other non-HE, shells in an unmarked and assumed HE stockpile without anything more sophisticated than a scale.

I don't want to have to repeat again the fact, cited several times, that the US and the UK, including Kimmet have declared that the terrorist clearly did not know that it was a sarin shell, and that this does not signify the discovery of WMD in Iraq. I don't know why people on this forum continue to disagree with them, they are in a position to know, they have far more knowledge of the events then us, and they also have a vested interest in there BEING WMD in Iraq, so the standard acusation of 'Oh, thats just the left-wing's opinion' does not apply.

As I said, if you are going to propose some big conspiracy theory that:
-makes no sense
-has no supporting evidence
-is not accepted by everyone in a position to know in the field

then you have to provide a shred of evidence, anything really, anything at all... to back it up. I say again, idle speculation about how this MIGHT have come froma super-secret massive pile of similarily unmarked gas shells hidden somewhere in the desert not discovered by UN inspectors or US search teams is literally fiction unless you can provide even the slightest bit of evidence that its possible. The US military disagrees with you, they seem confident it is an isolated accident. Why are you so sure?



You logic is fatally flawed.

Firstly, there have been HUNDREDS of IEDs detonated in the last year, involving thousands of shells. Most result in little or no damage, only those that kill or main hit the media. The most common kind of IED is unexploded munitions, usually several artillery shells being remotely detonated. So your 'maths' argument does not even make any sense. Given the widespread use of these shells, that one eventually would be a sarin shell if there were saril shells lost in the pile is not only possible, it is almost inevitable.

Secondly, no I am not saying there is only one shell. The mistake of marking which caused this one to get lost could easily have been repeated, there could be other shells out these lost in the stocks of shells prepared by the Iraqi military.

Thirdly, the fact that 'there must be stockpiles because Sarin was used as an excuse to start the war' is completely silly. So was nuclear weapons preparations, and biological weapons. So was active chemical weapons production facilities. NONE of those have been found at all, and the WMD argument had largely been discarded even by the right wing. Even if that were not the case, it is circular logic: There must be WMD because we said there were WMD because there must be WMD.

Fourthly, if there exist secret stockpiles of sarin gas shells nobody has heard of or discovered despite UN inspection teams and almost a year of searching by the US military, then why, after getting one of these super-secret shells from this super-secret stockpile, did the terrorists use it exactly as you would a conventional explosive, and completely waste it?

If a big super-secret horde of these shells exists, why were the PEOPLE WHO GOT THE SHELL FROM THE STOCKPILE unaware of what they were carrying?

Why did they chose a binary agent shell, the least common of chemical weapon shells, in particular as it would be even LESS useful than a unitary Sarin shell?

Why has there been a grand total of one of these things used in the last year, even is used completely improperly?

Considering your theory has ben rejected by the people on the scene who would know, and considering the complete illogic and lack of any evidence whatsoever of your claim, how can you stand by it?

Can you provide us with even the tiniest, single scrap of anything resembling evidence which shows that your conspiracy theory is based in any kind of reality?