Initial tests suggest WMD "cocktail" found in Iraq

Monday, April 7, 2003

[JohnHuang2]

Initial tests suggest WMD "cocktail" found in Iraq

KERBALA, Iraq, April 7 (Reuters) - Preliminary tests on substances found at a military training camp in central Iraq suggest they contain a cocktail of banned chemical weapons, including deadly nerve agents, U.S. officers said on Monday.

Major Michael Hamlet of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division said the initial tests revealed levels of nerve agents sarin and tabun and the blister agent lewisite, Reuters correspondent Kieran Murray reported from a U.S. military post at Kerbala.

Hamlet said a team of experts would carry out further tests as early as Tuesday on the substances, discovered at the camp in Albu Mahawish, on the Euphrates river between the central Iraqi cities of Kerbala and Hilla, site of ancient Babylon.

"If tests from our experts confirm this, this could be the smoking gun. It would prove (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) has the weapons we have said he has all along," Hamlet said. "But right now we just don't know."

The United States invaded Iraq on March 20 to overthrow Saddam and prevent him using banned chemical weapons. Many other members of the United Nations opposed the attack, saying U.N. inspectors should be given more time to disarm Iraq.

[JohnHuang2]

Monday, April 7, 2003

Quote of the Day by CounterCounterCulture

[ErnBatavia]

FOX reporting the same thing - source Reuters.

[Howlin]

So is NPR.

[ErnBatavia]

Flipping channels here - CNN, of course, is still having a Wolf Blitzed piece about the postwar quagmire.

[Cyber Liberty]

I'm waiting for Dan Rather to tell me, so I'll know it's "so".

[KellyAdmirer]

Hans Blix still more worried about global warming?

[Howlin]

I suspect by the time Dan gets on the air tonight, we'll have found a mountain of this stuff.

[HIDEK6]

You hear a lot of smart-ass news types ask, "What if we don't find WMDs? Huh? Huh? Then what, nyahh, nyahh, nyahh!"

How come no one ever says, "Tell me, what if we DO find WMDs?"

[linn37]

President Bush may start the told you so's.

[Daus]

WMD "cocktail" found in Iraq

I'm guessing this is the ONLY cocktail not discovered by Hans Blix during his time in Iraq.

[mlbford2]

BREAKING>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hans Blix exclaims "Mustard gas??????? I thought we were looking for "French's yellow MUSTARD"!!!!!!!!!!!

[Keith]

He was looking for Grey Poupon....

[RaiderRose]

Nope, I don't believe it. They SAID they don't have any. I won't believe it until good ole Hans Blix announces it himself. What a useless wonder he is.

[hobson]

The Pentegon pressers are quickly re-writing their scripts... "So what if we found WMD, he didn't use them so was this war reeeallly necessary?"

[Cyber Liberty]

It might be a test problem, but it seems more likely to me that they've found something that was used for all sorts of WMD programs.

I'm thinking of the glass of water kids use to rinse their waterpaint brushes.

[Rammer]

So you mean Saddam might really have given WMD's to terrorists? That's unpossible!

</sarcasm>

[JohnHuang2]

Iraq has real weapons inspectors now ;)

[John H K]

As best I can tell, absolutely nothing has been directly lab-tested or anything yet.

And pesticides are incredibly chemically similar to nerve agents; it's just nerve gas for bugs.

There's still a danger the two reports today don't pan out, just warning people.

And the NPR report...no idea what the hell to make of that.

If NPR had reported "Marines with the 101st Airborne Division accidentally killed some babies" people would fall all over themselves to laugh at and discredit the report". But since it's finding chemical warheads the gaffe is ignored. It's one thing for Army troops to be attached to a MEF, another to have Marines attached to the 101st Airborne - the chances there are any strikes me as really low. The NPR report soundsl like a third or fourth-hand passed along rumor.

[Smogger]

REUTERS: U.S. weapons experts believe they may have found an Iraqi storage site for chemical weapons, U.S. officer says