WMD's not in Iraq?

Will Robinson · Post by **Will Robinson** » Mon May 17, 2004 9:03 am

So today they rigged an artillary shell as a roadside bomb, a common tactic, only this shell contained Sarin nerve gas.

Do you think the shell originally didn't have nerve gas in it but some terrorists mad at Bush smuggled the gas into Iraq, found a shell that would hold it and rigged it as a bomb and set it off?

Or do you think the nerve gas and shell was already in Iraq?

Zuruck · Post by **Zuruck** » Mon May 17, 2004 10:14 am

could be...although i beg to ask the question if this shell came from the same pile that Rumsfeld said prior to the war "We know where these stockpiles are at"...

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Mon May 17, 2004 11:11 am

what exactly does Sarin do to a human body? ive heard different stories and explainations.

TrueLightGuild · Post by **TrueLightGuild** » Mon May 17, 2004 11:22 am

It kills you, and after that you don't really care because you are DEAD!

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon May 17, 2004 11:50 am

heh, word

Gooberman · Post by **Gooberman** » Mon May 17, 2004 11:58 am

Will, the question was whether or not he was disarming and still trying to aquire new ones. And if all we find is this one, wouldn't that have to be an emphatic yes?

Sarin isn't some new high-tech weapon that Sadamn researched. It has been around for about 75 years.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Mon May 17, 2004 1:05 pm

TrueLightGuild wrote: It kills you, and after that you don't really care because you are DEAD!

i know that it kills you, but prior to that, or a minor exposure, what does it do to your body when your first exposed to it.

Birdseye · Post by **Birdseye** » Mon May 17, 2004 1:18 pm

Interesting, I wouldn't be surprised if more things were found. However I would be cautious for a few days, as I remember reports of Iraq firing a Scud missle at the beginning of the war were later found to be false.

I just would be very surprised if we found a lot of stuff saddam himself had access to but didn't use on US troops. I don't know about the uses of sarin beyond the subway incident, however.

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Mon May 17, 2004 1:43 pm

More here.

Zuruck · Post by **Zuruck** » Mon May 17, 2004 2:07 pm

according to Yahoo news...US officials believe that the insurgents that used the bomb didnt know it had sarin in it because it was rigged in such a way to defeat the mixing protocol that chemical weapons require to detonate correctly. Sounds like the village idiots stumbled upon something luckily...

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Mon May 17, 2004 2:56 pm

Sarin is (relatively) easy to make and you can find the instructions online if you want to. I wouldn't use this one incident to conclude that "native" WMD's are down there..

Delkian · Post by **Delkian** » Mon May 17, 2004 3:41 pm

For that matter, neither does it prove that the shell hasn't been in unauthorized hands for 15 years - from the pre-Gulf War era.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Mon May 17, 2004 4:25 pm

AceCombat wrote:
TrueLightGuild wrote: It kills you, and after that you don't really care because you are DEAD!
i know that it kills you, but prior to that, or a minor exposure, what does it do to your body when your first exposed to it.

Ever watch the movie "the rock" with Nick Cage and Sean Connery?

either way, this is what the CDC has to say about Sarin.

in short, you suffer system-wide muscle spams that essentialy tire out your breathing muscles, and you asphixiate.

GO GOOGLE GO!

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Mon May 17, 2004 4:28 pm

Zuruck, inside the shell are the precursors that have to be mixed to create sarin. The mix occurs when the shell is fired and spins through the air. As to not knowing the shell had sarin in it, remember back when David Kayes said Saddam had a policy of not marking shells whether they were WMD or not. Good way to fool Hans Blixs, no?

Zuruck · Post by **Zuruck** » Tue May 18, 2004 7:13 am

well, after reading the article in the Chicago sun times i've come to the conclusion that even US policy makers arent making a big deal of it. First off, it was only prelim reports that said it was Sarin, they are doing more complete testing to make sure. Secondly, they are even saying it might have come from an ammo dump that was lightly guarded. So no big deal yet? I guess this was the smoking gun bush was looking for??

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Tue May 18, 2004 10:50 am

I don't think anyone here is assuming the Sarin shell was specifically known by the bombers to be Sarin. So yeah, it could've come from a lightly guarded ammo dump or something -- who cares? The story isn't "OMG the terrorists have a big stockpile of WMD!" it's "such things may still exist, unmarked in ammo dumps across the country."

Provided the shell really *did* have Sarin in it, and it really *did* come from Saddam's arsenal (including, possibly, an ammo dump)... then whether or not the Islamikazes or Jihadis knew what was in it is irrelevant. Furthermore, the shell's age is irrelevant -- the Gulf War I treaty, and the UN resolutions following, specified that Saddam had to destroy his biological and chemical weapons and dismantle the programs designed to build them. They didn't say he had to just stop making them -- they also said he had to destroy or dismantle all the old weapons (and if this contained Sarin, then clearly, he failed.) And they also said he had to get rid of programs designed to create them (it has already been established he still employed scientists who kept parts of centrifuges etc. hidden.)

I think people are asking the wrong questions. "Did the terrorists know what was in the shell?" is irrelevant. "Was the shell older than 1991?" is irrelevant. "Did Saddam have actual WMD?" is irrelevant. "Did Saddam continue to seek WMD or retain equipment and scientists for the purposes of designing or creating WMD?" and "Did Saddam fail to dismantle all of his pre-gulf-war WMD?" are relevant.

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Tue May 18, 2004 5:14 pm

AceCombat wrote:
TrueLightGuild wrote: It kills you, and after that you don't really care because you are DEAD!
i know that it kills you, but prior to that, or a minor exposure, what does it do to your body when your first exposed to it.

Google is your friend ...
Edited by Lothar: BBcode is also your friend. Long links are bad.

Delkian · Post by **Delkian** » Tue May 18, 2004 6:44 pm

Lothar wrote:"Was the shell older than 1991?" is irrelevant.

Yes, it is, but if it came from Saddam's storages, it is not irrelevant when it came from there.

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Tue May 18, 2004 7:03 pm

I suppose it would be relevant if the shell was so old that it was already in a dump before the first Gulf War -- because then it wouldn't have qualified under the various UN resolutions and treaties requiring Saddam to 1) stop building WMD and 2) account for the WMDs he already had.

However, if the shell was not in the dump before Gulf War I, then it's not relevant whether or not it was produced before then.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Tue May 18, 2004 7:15 pm

Perhaps another relevant question is, "Did Saddam know these shells existed after he said all were destroyed".
One has to wonder if there is a master list showing the disposition of all the unmarked WMD artillary shells?