Trooth

'Nerve gas bomb' explodes in Iraq

An artillery shell containing a small amount of the nerve gas sarin has exploded in Iraq.
Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said the blast had caused a small release of the substance and two people had been treated for exposure to the agent.

The substance was found in a shell inside a bag discovered by a US convoy a few days ago, he said.

It appears to be the first evidence of nerve gas existing in Iraq since the start of the US-led war last year.

'Limited effect'

The 155mm artillery round had been set up as a roadside bomb and it exploded before the US military were able to diffuse it.

DEADLY SARIN
Invented in 1930s Germany
20 times deadlier than cyanide
Attacks nervous system
Pin head-sized drop can kill
Used in Iraq in 1980s
And in 1995 Japan subway attack
Antidotes are available

Bomb reopens WMD debate

Gen Kimmitt said the dispersal of the nerve agent from a device such as the homemade bomb was "limited".

"The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War," he said.

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 coalition officials were not sure whether the fighters even knew what it contained.

Sarin is a toxic nerve gas 20 times as deadly as cyanide.

A drop the size of a pin-head can kill a person by effectively crippling their nervous system.

The gas is one of a group of nerve agents invented by German scientists in the 1930s as part of Adolf Hitler's preparations for World War II.

Although the Germans never released sarin in battle, it was used to lethal effect by Iraq during the 1980s both in the war against Iran and against the Kurds.

After the Gulf War, United Nations inspectors found large quantities of sarin in production at an Iraqi chemical weapons plant.

The Japanese doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo, also used the nerve agent in a Tokyo subway in 1995, in which 12 people died.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3722255.stm

Leader

But I thought there were no WMD in Iraq?

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ChrisF202

1) Maybe the liberals and aanit-war activists were wrong.
2) Maybe another Muslim nation sent sarin gas to the rebels

I happen to be split on my 2 ideas on the issue, the better part of me goes with choice 1 though.

Leader

I'll go with number one just on principle.

Aryan

Third option would be the terrorists synthesised it themselves, as the Japanese terrorists did in the subway bombing, if my memory serves me.

Btw, does anyone still care about the wmd issue? I certainly don't.

Ironduke

I wonder where they found it....

Leader

I don't think the terrorist over there are that sophisticated.

Honestly, I don't think it makes a difference but if the liberals are going to keep bring it up I'm going to hit back.

Confed999

....or who gave it to them.

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No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Trooth

Well, there are a couple of reports about it. The general feeling seems to be that one shell does not an arsenal make.

The thoughts are that it is a shell that was left over from Iran / Iraq war that the locals found but didn't actually know what was in it.

I don't think anyone is going to claim that this represents an arsenal. In fact i think if they do claim then they are admitting to a bigger problem - that a set of imported terrorists amanged to locate WMD, which is something we haven't managed, and that those WMD are now potentially scattered around a much larger region in less controlled hands than under Saddam. Something that is the polar opposite of the WMD related aims of this war.

Therefore i don't think either side want to claim it as the smoking gun.

Confed999

They had WMD, that's a fact, what happened to them is the question. Your statement is a possible scenario. The WMD related aims of the war was to stop Saddam from giving the weapons away or using them on his neighbors, the UN gave him years to do either.

Ballguy

sure maybe they were wrong when they said that there was no WMD, but the conservatives were far more incorrect by claiming that there were thousands of tons of weapons.

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Confed999

Conservatives like John Kerry, Bill Clinton, the UN, France, Russia and Germany? Nice one...

Shek

Thousands of tons?? Can you please provide a quote or reference with a link? Or are you referring to this report, which was written by the CIA under a Clinton appointed DCI, which BTW, used UNSCOM reports to derive the unaccounted for weapons?

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_...q_Oct_2002.pdf

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"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Garry

regardless of the scenario.... one shell is very far from being an arsenal of WMD dangerous for other countries.

So the bottom line - no WMD was found in Iraq since invasion.

ps. Hi Bluesman!

Bluesman

Here we go again...

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"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell