Chemical weapons finds
 

I'm sorry for being the thread starter so often in Current Events. I really don't mean to be so dominant but there is so much going on and it's all quite fascinating.

Over the last three days there have been a few reports of various chem finds, followed by heavy silence as people decide that they aren't equipped to figure out what they're finding and don't want to say any more. But the pattern is clear: some of these reports are starting to ring true, and if they don't quite constitute a "smoking gun" yet, they *will* after experts have had a chance to test and document everything.

Adjust your war attitudes accordingly!

I linked to the findings in that camp in the north, but there have been a few other, much more damning findings recently. In another, the 101st found missiles "ready to fire" were found tipped with sarin and mustard gas warheads.

This was on the heels of the news that several 101st soldiers and even journalists and prisoners had to be treated and hosed down with bleach after they suffered some physical effects from being close to possible nerve agents.

Saturday we had a determination that cyanide and mustard had been dumped in the Euphrates river.

But this one made the NY Times. Sarin, mustard, tabun. 55-gallon drums. At a military site, not an industrial plant, so this can't be a "dual use" situation.

Yea but teh US slod them teh wepons bakc in '84 so its you're fault.

Or....was it the French that sold it to them? Recently.

All i've heard here is that they found some drums which may or may not be pesticides.

That was just the latest batch.

Well it seems they were sold up until around '94 actually, and if you're going to quote me, at least use the quote function dave, you've been here long enough to know it. The US giveth leadership, the US taketh away leadership, ah the beautiful circle of tinpot dictatorial life.

Accompanying documentation or trademarks and serial numbers may indicate who sold what to whom and when.

With luck there will be financial transaction records hanging around too, to audit the whole thing. The intelligence effort here is going to be enormous and will certainly take months.

What could speed it up would be if civilians involved came forward with information they had and assisted in the whole thing.

I hear now that in at least one situation that the suspected chemical agents turned out to be pesticide, not chemicals used to exterminate people.

I almost posted the news when I heard it but I was waiting for corroboration from a makor news source to which I could link, just so that I couldn't be accused of making up things or being a knee-jerker.

Brian

Re: Chemical weapons finds
 

"Let's not go sucking each other's dicks just yet"--Mr. Wolf (Harvey Keitel) from Pulp Fiction

So, let's say these are indeed WMDs. Okay...I'm not surprised.

Of course, I don't oppose the war b/c I thought Iraq was sans these items.

Finding a nerve agent after the fact does not constitute a smoking gun. By definition, the smoking gun - the threat - must exist clear and obvious before war as to justify war.

The guy has a crooked nose. Therefore he must have been cooking up massive batches of explosive. What kind of justificaton is that? Even if investigators find that batch of explosives, the evidence would have been rightly thrown out of court. 'Smoking gun' evidence must exist before the act is legal - execution of search warrant OR war.

It does not matter if the cop KNOWs what the criminal is thinking. If the cop cannot first prove his knowledge, then the search warrant cannot be issued. If someone gets killed, well, that is unfortunately but necessary to preserve something more important - both rule of law and the purpose of those laws.

Whether nerve or chemical agents exist is irrelevant. I am quite surprised none were used in battle since I expected them to exist and to be used. However it still appears as if Saddam had zero WMD - or so few that the number rounds off to zero. Lots of speculation and still no proof.

Whether he did or not is irrelevant. The proof must exist before war starts - or there is no smoking gun to justify that war.

Perhaps they had proof that they couldn't show to the public for some reason or another?

I understand that the Bush administration was concerned about revealing too much before the war for security reasons...but if they really wanted to make their case at the UN, they needed to provide a bit more information, IMO. Powell's presentation was lame-o.

As Den Beste puts it,

I'm wondering then, why aren't they using them? I mean there are troops on the tigris ffs!

If you declare you have none, then use them, that kinda puts your ass in a sling.

The "no chem weapons used" is part of a long list of "was predicted, didn't happen" items.

-- No missiles fired on Israel
-- At least one dam was wired with explosives, but never blown up
-- Several bridges were wired, but never blown up
-- Not a hint of any Iraqi Air Force, even on day one before their runways were made unusable
-- They could have easily created humanitarian crises, causing refugees to clog the roads and slow the military
-- They could have engineered more specific bombing of civilians to try to create more anti-war fervor
-- They could have started terrorism elsewhere in the world

...and much more. It suggests that there have been serious hits to that "command and control". And maybe some incredible intelligence work.

Having the living shit bombed out of you tends to too, lets face it, not much to loose really. It's possible they didn't want ot burn all thier bridges, actually thought they could take out the giant, death by 1000 raids on supply convoys etc, who knows.

Hey, that's always good advice!

Was a bad joke and that was a truely horrible bit of typing *sighs*.

Aparantly US troops removed some 'drums of white powder' from an Islamic training camp in the North, interesting. TV here also had pics from there of papers with chemistry forumlas on them.

By editing my post in the quote, you make it less obvious that I was making fun of jaguar.

the presence of chems doesn't much affect the moral impetus for the war. it does two things:

1) demonstrates the impotence of the UN inspection program as currently constituted. It reinforces that the inspectors function effectively ONLY in their capacity as auditors and regulators of voluntary compliance with non-proliferation treaties. They cannot, and should not, be used as bird dogs .

2) demonstrates the necessary conditions as being fulfilled for the enforcement of UN 1441 by force. They possess banned weapons not disclosed, and undertook a program of deception to obscure that fact. Note that this is not the moral justification for the war, it is merely the legal justification as pertaining to the UN charter [different topic, different thread on the validity of THAT premise!]

They did not blow bridges has more to do with an American strategy to make bridge destruction difficult. Bridges were wired to blow well in advance. But cluster bombs that explode on contact with ground took out wires to those explosives, took out the detonator man, and yet did not damage the bridge.

Ooops. Sorry.