Baghdad wakes up with an explosion (Clorine Gas Truck)

A truck carrying gas exploded near a restaurant just north of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing five people and injuring over a hundred, including many women and children poisoned by gas released in the blast, police said.

They initially said the truck was carrying liquid natural gas but later said it was chlorine gas. Five people were killed by the blast and around 138 hurt, many of them poisoned by the gas being transported on the truck, police said.

what are the odds of this mistakenly happening?

Small. Trucks don't just explode. Chlorine does not burn or explode in air. The truck could have ruptured, but the pics looks like a fiery blast.

Terrorists just trying some new ways to spread Peace through Religion.

At HotAir.com there is an informative thread about this with more information.
In the comments section, 'Rockhauler' made this addition:

Entering the keywords “iraq” and “chlorine” produced half a million hits.

A few ‘cherry picked’ from the results, a declassified military document on a .mil site: dated 1991:
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_511rept_91.html

A discussion of said document on Global Security .org:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/fallujah_2.htm

Used as supporting evidence in a White House position paper 2002:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect3.html

A public document on a cia.gov web site discussing this further::
https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm#05

On CNN circa 2003::
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/02/05/sprj.irq.chemicals/index.html

And printed in the Guardian that same year::
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,908426,00.html

So what kind of ‘tanker’ truck was it? A propane tank, emptied of propane and filled with chlorine? A a tanker truck load of chlorine headed for a water purification plant? Or something else? What was the source of the chlorine? What quantity?

rockhauler on February 20, 2007 at 7:22 PM

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