Inspectors: Sarin possibly left over from pre- Gulf War

http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20040518/topstories/52563.shtml

The former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, said it was possible a shell containing ingredients for sarin nerve agent that detonated Monday was a relic that was overlooked when Saddam said he had destroyed such weapons in the mid-1990s.

<snip>

Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix agreed the shell was likely a stray weapon scavenged from a dump and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles.

Numerous arsenals and weapons depots were looted in the turmoil following the collapse of the regime last April. Some depots still are only lightly guarded. Many of the materials used for roadside bombs were believed to have been looted.

<snip>

Blix, whose inspection team didn't make any significant weapons finds during months of searching Iraq before the war, said he and his team found 16 warheads that were tagged as used for containing sarin but were empty.

Saddam's government had disclosed binary sarin testing and production after the 1995 defection of Iraqi weapons chief Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Saddam's son-in-law. But Saddam's government never declared that any sarin or sarin-filled shells still remained.

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One shell doesn't prove WMD's either way. This easily could be from somewhere else or left over from a long time ago. I'll only believe WMD's if some major stockpile shows up and we can verify it was Saddams. Therefore, we will probably be having this conversation in July when they mysteriously "appear"

all the claims by the Bushies before the war that "We know Saddam has WMDs" and "We know where the WMDs are". They'll stumble all over themselves to praise the boy king - "we have found the promised WMDs! war is justified!"

On whatever their morning show is, was just about in hysterics about WMDs and nerve gas. They're playing this for all it's worth.

:puke:

Charles Gibson is a Bushwhore and Diane Sawyers (former Nixon speechwriter) is disgusting.

I think it is now commonly accepted that this war wasn't about WMDs anyway.

I just come back to my old standard... why don't we ask the other man in this picture? (And I don't mean Tariq Aziz)

The ones we know they had, where they are, and are in the process of moving south to use on the troops as they engage in the fighting? Those ones?

driving home from work around 11:30 on 710 KIRO. He was talking about the size of the shell, where it probably came from and the fact that the shelf life of that sarin gas was minimal at best. In other words when Saddam was working these shells back in the day, he had to fire them almost immediately because they would have virtually no effect after a certain period of time.
I am obviously paraphrasing big time but I got the sense from Scott that this missile and the potential others are much ado about nothing.
He said that the missile was probably gotten from a pile of junk missiles that they have over there, and they just got it to use as the roadside bomb, NOT as a WMD.

This came up several times in the run-up to the invasion. The experts said that even if Saddam had been actively pursuing a chemical weapons program prior to Gulf War I, and stockpile that he had would have been rendered almost harmless because they deteriorate over time.

This shell was probably no more deadly than any other IED, but you wouldn't know that from the media whore feeding frenzy.

Of course this isn't a WMD, but the anti-war crowd is being put on the defensive over non-evidence. It gets me so angry. You can't tell me that the Bush administration doesn't know damn well that this shell is a leftover.

I've heard Scott Ritter talk before about the shelf life of anthrax. I didn't realize that sarin also had a short shelf life.

Remember, on Februrary 5, 2003, Colin Powell told us that Iraq had 500 *tons* of Sarin and mustartd gas, 38,000 litters of botulism, and 26,000 liters of anthrax.

Two days ago he admitted he was wrong. Finally.

:-)

by Rummy and his gang ...

WHY? because the shell had already exploded. They dare not find an unexploded shell because the UN weapons inspectors will be able to prove it as a plant based on the chemical analysis of precursor "fingerprints".

Watch out for more exploded WMDs -- the ones where the evidence literally goes up in smoke and/or down in pieces.

Plus the 25,000 liters of anthrax; 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin; and 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Fortunately, our government has told us that we know where they are.

This can only be described as a triumph of Bushian proportions.

FIRE THE LIAR