Freepers making fuss about Sarin gas, when it's possible that shell

[doubles]

(if the story is accurate) could have easily come from outside Iraq.

[Lucky Luciano]

1. desperate times call for desperate measures.

[madrchsod]

2. freepers are really

fucking stupid.it`s really amazing that they actually can use a computer.

[sundog]

3. umm...

"found by roadside" -- I mean, do you actually believe anything like that at this point?

[Dropkick]

16. Exactly, some soldier was

cruising down the road in his humvee when he just happened to glance out the window and said "Holy crap! Look! A WMD!" :think: Uh huh.

[Webster Green]

4. It could have been some of Rummy's old shit....

from years ago (Shakes hands with Sadaam to seal the deal)

.....whatever

[usregimechange]

5. Even if it is don't forget they still lied about WMDs, example

"reconstituted nuclear weapons" Dick Cheney

[galadrium]

6. From what I know this shell was probably a leftover from the

Iran-Iraq war. The person who used it probably had no idea what was in it. I dont think this constitutes a WMD.

[John_H]

7. Did anyone hear the guest on C-Span say that...

Saddam didn't have shells that could mix the chemicals, that only advanced countries could do it, like russia and the US? The US? The US?....

[scarletwoman]

11. Yes, the US.

Why not? Why do you suppose the ptb's are letting this story die instead of shouting "we found the WMD!" to the rooftops?

Take a look at these:

http://www.agonist.org/archives/015802.html#015802

Sarin, Again

Now, this came from a helpful reader: FOX was reporting that the DoD says the shell tests positive for sarin and that IT WAS A TWO-CHAMBERED SHELL. That's weird. It means either:

One: it wasn't the Iraqi device I was describing, it's foreign. Even the most fearmongering sources I've seen, culling from UNSCOM, etc., admit that Iraq never could pull off in four years what it took the US twenty years to make, which is why Saddam had some poor sap in a gas mask do the things by hand.

Two: FOX screwed up and gave the Little Golden Book definition of binary, ignoring that fact. The BBC did something like this on Monday, but they were quoting some civilian official. No one is picking up FOX's story, and even FOX has moved it off their front page. WTF? Has FOX jumped the gun again?

However: The DoD quote states that the ingredients "didn't mix properly" during the explosion, so despite some sloppy wording by FOX, that means #1 is more likely.

So where the hell is this thing from?


Candidates:

As I said earlier, Soviet shells were 152mm, Stratfor's mumbling about little green rings notwithstanding. Wrong calibre, wrong markings (the shell in question had none, one of a number of things behind Kimmit's theory about the ignorance of its use). Iraqis were big on their 155mm artillery for chemical weapons for one simple reason: it throws stuff farther (40km, I think). They liked rockets even more.

Iraq bought lots of stuff from China. Can't find a reference to a 155mm binary anywhere.

The UK supposedly helped Iraq with its weapons program (and much of Iraq's 155mm artillery was from S. Africa, but I don't know how much of that was based on pre-1947 models). Can't find a reference on that.

Nope, the only one I can find is the M687, made in the USA.

Now hold on. The usual response is to say I'm saying this thing is a plant. That's stupid. I might as well plant a samurai sword on you and accuse you of assassinating Abraham Lincoln. Planted evidence has to be plausible.

More likely, I think, is another John Gunther Dean moment, only this time it isn't the Mossad that's going to get soaked. This also explains why this story has no legs and the adm. isn't pushing it they way they've pushed even weaker stuff in the recent past:
-It's one thing to move the goal posts from A Bazillion Tons of Hot Death to two duds.
-It's quite another to call unwanted attention to more direct involvement in the Iran/Iraq war than we've admitted previously.

Even though W couldn't have had anything to do with that, no GOP administration would want that to break this close to an election.

Two possible outcomes: this gets really weird in a hurry; this story dies. Right now it looks to be the latter. This story has fallen like a turd from a tall moose ever since it broke.

And here:

Posted on the Kerry blog a few days ago

Someone in contact with several soldiers said this was not made a big deal of because the weapon was made in the USA!

Here is the direct quote:

NEWSFLASH

SARIN GAS SHELL FOUND IN IRAQ MADE IN USA

I just got this info from some high ranking military buddies ( 4 independent and seperate sources) this is the reason bremer kimmet and others are downplaying the issue. The soldiers don't take these things lightly so do everything to spread the real deal by word of mouth. The military buzz in iraq is that the shell did not explode or injure anyone but was detonated with C4(high explosive) to hide its embarassing origin, this is why our guys on the ground are not worried, if this were not the case the men would have insisted on safe deployment implementation.
Bottom line is the guys on the fireing line do not completely trust their chain of command so have set up their own independent information sharing.... how sad the politicization of our military has become, that the grunts see their top C.O.s as politically motivated so less than trustworthy

ANYONE WITH TIES TO THE KERRY CAMPAIGN PLEASE PASS ON THE INFO the sources are good

So, yeah. Made in the USA? Not an unreasonable question at all, methinks.

sw

[salinen]

8. They need this to be proof sssssoooooooo badly

that we will hear nothing but this being proof from here on out.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

9. Ha!

See! They have WMD! Its all worth it now! AHA!

:boring:

[MrPrax]

10. Sarin or Pesticides?

It got scrubbed quite quickly...

"*"Smoking gun" WMD site in Iraq turns out to contain pesticide
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1514&e=3&u=/afp/20030407/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_war_wmd_030407175243>*

*NEAR NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - A facility near Baghdad that a US officer had
said might finally be "smoking gun" evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons
production turned out to contain pesticide, not sarin gas as feared. *

*A military intelligence officer for the US 101st Airborne Division's
aviation brigade, Captain Adam Mastrianni, told AFP that comprehensive
tests determined the presence of the pesticide compounds. *

*Initial tests had reportedly detected traces of sarin -- a powerful
toxin that quickly affects the nervous system -- after US soldiers
guarding the facility near Hindiyah, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of
Baghdad, fell ill. *

Old story from last month, but porbably the same conclusion...

*Mastrianni said: "They thought it was a nerve agent. That's what it
tested. But it is pesticide." *

Read more here?? nope...
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1514&u=/afp/20030407/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_war_wmd_030407175243&printer=1%3E.


The story was posted at Yahoo, but 'expired' very quickly eariler today...

Found it mirrored here: http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq/040703_Smoking_gun_WMD_site_in_Iraq_turns_out_to_contain_pesticide.htm

continued...
"The belated correction was an embarrassment for the US forces in the region, who had been quick to say that they thought they had finally found the proof they have been actively looking for, that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction."

[VOX]

12. The "Chemical Weapons Found" bull**** was plastered on Faux for 48 hrs...

Since the all-American, "altruistic" slant of "we got rid of Saddam-the-evil-man" has been upstaged by a different brand of coalition cruelty, the WMD angle is the last leg the freepers have got.

Faux even reported the amount of sarin as "a gallon," when the amount was more likely closer to 3 liters.

Some freepers are even ranting that this ancient artillery shell **is** a WMD, since a droplet of pure sarin could be fatal. By that reasoning, any ammo dump is a WMD.

[tjwash]

13. Did they find it under the same rose bush?

nt

[Skittles]

14. they are so freaking desperate

very pathetic

[Must_B_Free]

15. outside Iraq?

How dare you implicate Israel, you anti-Semite!

[Mountainman]

17. The shell was a 155mm round, I heard.

My guess is that type of shell is fired from an American howitzer. It needs to have bags of explosive charges placed in the breech of the gun to fire it. It doesn't explode sitting around by itself. It had to break apart for the two chambers to spill their chemical to make the gas. It was very old so chances are the chemicals wouldn't work together.

The shell could have been one we gave to Iraq to fight Iran and was left over from that war.

[alcuno]

18. The stench of their desperation grows stronger everyday.

They are going to have to find a lot more than a rotting shell with some garbage in it. They have to find stockpiles of, preferably, nuclear weapons with a handwritten note attached saying they were intended for the US.