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Apparently these "field tests" are all worse than useless. They seem to have a 100% false positive rate. Like that time we found what turned out to be merely pesticides in big, camoflaged drums near military installations, but the stupid "field tests" came up positive for chem. weapons. Like that.

I don't see why we need to test anything in the first place. We KNOW there were no WMD in Iraq (because Bush lied) so what's the point of all these tests anyway. Just tell the two soldiers being treated for wounds, that this stuff probably had some innocent use. Like pesticides, perhaps.

Iraq was really heavily invested in the pesticide business.

Actually, the high false positive rate of a field test for chemical weapons is predictable , and not a bad thing.

In laboratory parlance, its the difference between sensitivity and specificity.

Screening tests, ie . field tests, are by design very sensitive -- they have a very low false negative rate, which is what you want if you're looking through a broad range of materials for a weapon. However, the down side of any extremely sensitive test is a lack of specificity ( ie, a high false positive rate ). In this case pesticide residues cause a false positive test -- pesticides are incidentally very closely related to nerve agents chemically.

A highly specific test is the second tier test for all the samples that test positive on the screen. It will be designed to have a very low false positive rate, and very specifically identify chemical weapons, and weed out the 'pesticide' residue samples that are flagged as positive in the first screen.

Its a scientific method with broad usefulness.

"They seem to have a 100% false positive rate. Like that time we found what turned out to be merely pesticides in big, camoflaged drums near military installations, but the stupid "field tests" came up positive for chem. weapons. Like that. "

I found that whole story strange and suspicious. *BURIED* chemicals near an ammo dump? And they turn out to be pesticides? Maybe, then maybe the assumption should be questioned ...

There was an IGC survey member who went public (early April or so) saying that the IGC was jumping to conclusions in saying it was *not* chemical weapons. They found evidence Saddam had infrastructure to make chemical weapons. The question was, where were the precursors to make them? The chemical composition of pesticides and chemical weapons is very similar. Remember, pesticides are nerve agents applied to bugs. Chemical weapons are nerve agents applied to humans.

http://www.hereticalideas.com/archives/001816.html
Another find occurred around the northern Iraqi town of Bai’ji, where elements of the 4th Infantry Division (Mech) discovered 55-gallon drums of a substance that mass spectrometer testing confirmed was cyclosarin and an unspecified blister agent. A mobile laboratory was also found nearby that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site. And only yards away, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, as well as gas masks were found. Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up. It seems that Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping their ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that “no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.” . . .

Other articles of the 'strange reporting but it means nothing so move along' variety:

http://www.hereticalideas.com/archives/001891.html

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/05/1b42f9f7-2e25-4ffb-8231-e407bee36977.html

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040426/D826NGT01.html

http://tides.carebridge.org/TIRR/TIRR075.htm#_Arms_found_by_Danish_troops_in_Iraq