Posted on 05/17/2004 8:20:19 PM PDT by yatros from flatwater
FORMER chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said that a shell containing sarin nerve gas used in an attack in Iraq was most likely a stray weapon possibly from the first Gulf War.
The US-led coalition used that claim to justify the invasion even though UN inspectors failed to make any significant finds before the war.
The former Swedish foreign minister said the 155-mm shell used to attack a US military convoy Monday could have been part of a group of old, unused shells that were simply debris leftover from the war in 1991, adding the weapon could have been scavenged from a dump.
"It doesn't sound absurd at all. There can be debris from the past and that's a very different thing from having stockpiles and supplies," he said.
"Whether this may indicate something more ... I think we need to know more about it."
Saddam's regime was told to destroy any weapons of mass destruction under UN resolutions passed after the 1991 war. Blix reiterated that his inspectors found no such weapons in the run-up to the invasion.
"We found a dozen warheads that were intended for chemical weapons and they were empty," he said.
His inspectors also found four other shells that were designed to carry chemical weapons, including the sarin used in the attack Monday, but they were also empty.
US Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad that two soldiers were treated for minor exposure to sarin, but no serious injuries were reported. He said he believed that insurgents who planted the explosive didn't know it contained the nerve agent.
Blix, former director of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, has sharply criticized the US and Britain for invading Iraq without UN approval. He retired last year and currently heads a new Stockholm-based independent commission on weapons of mass destruction.
Blix said today that the discovery of the nerve agent was not a sign that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction before the war last year.
Recent reporting? This has been going on in Sudan for years. The issue is not whether Sudan should be in the U.N., its whether Sudan should be allowed on the Human Rights Panel. That is an outrage. What is needed is an overhaul of the U.N. rules and processes that allows things like this to happen.
After Iraq, the U.N. has become irrevelant anyway. If countries cannot agree to diasarm a "Saddam Hussain", then who would they diasarm? The world is divided between the terrorists, the states who support them, those countries brave enough to fight the terrorists and the naive Neville Chamberlains who want to placate and appease the terrorists.
That ding-a-ling still can't remember that his mission to Iraq was NOT to find WMD's, but to determine if Sodom had destroyed the WMD's that he (Sodom) declared that Iraq possessed!
the relevance of these discoveries depends on when they were produced and how long they had been in their current state. If you searched through some of my old storage boxes you might find some old drug paraphenalia from the 60's. However, that is not an indication of any recent drug use.
If those shells were produced prior to Gulf War I, I doubt they prove anything other than shoddy record keeping on the part of one of Saddam's staff.
Most particularly, the countries in Africa.
Does fact that GW never personally lead an attack in Iraq or Afghanistan mean that he's not the Commander in Chief?
What other method is there other than to identify the terrorists and terrorist states supporting them (Iraq) and diassarm, arrest and/or kill them? Name an alternative method.
If you were on parole for possession, and the authorities found your bong smoking in the middle of the street and two young men sitting around it with a contact high, would the judge dismiss your parole revocation based on your plea of shoddy record keeping by your housekeeper?
...but that would not be an indication of infidelity.
Well,Hansy Baby, I guess you missed one. Go stick your head back in that hole you had it in and we'll pretend you never existed. Okay?
Cool, thanks.
As for Blix: ....ugh forget it. I mean.......ugh, forget it.
I guess I would also try to minimize something that would prove that I was a complete failure for over 6 years and didn't deserve a penny of my salary over that period of time.
Ignorance is Blix!--Classic! Should be silk-screened and worn by Powell at his next address to the well-healed, pro-arab UN.
What chaps me about this is that a man who was led on a wild goose chase by Saddam, who did not have access to everything we have access to by virtue of dethroning Saddam is still believed by the media. The don't see WMD solely because they don't want to.
...could have been part of a group of old, unused shells that were simply debris leftover from the war in 1991, adding the weapon could have been scavenged from a dump.
Hmmm... a pair of fully functional 155mm binary-type rounds {chemicals mix whilst in flight to activate the Sarin Gas} were rigged as IEDs.
Sure Blix, Saddam gave them to Al-Queda before GWII;
Wait!
There's no connectin betwix the too...
Keep in mind that elements of Blix's "inspection" team were on Saddam's No-War-For-Oil-Contracts payroll.
Weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are weapons designed to kill large numbers of people, usually civilians but also potentially military personnel. They are generally considered to be of limited military usefulness because their destructiveness is likely to trigger an extreme response. They are also known as weapons of indiscriminate destruction, weapons of mass disruption and weapons of catastrophic effect.
Though the phrase was coined in 1937 to describe aerial bombardment, the types of weapons today considered to be in this class are often referred to as NBC weapons or ABC weapons:
nuclear weapons (including radiological weapons)
biological weapons
chemical weapons
Blix not evidence of intelligent life on Earth.
That one shell alone can hold like 5 liters of sarin if it's shot the way it was meant to be and the two component chemicals mix. That's enough to kill over a thousand people.
Someone needs to ask that moron just how many people can be killed by one weapon for it to be a WMD?
The shell is evidence that Blix was wrong. 1: it's not "residue", it's two seperate chemicals which, if the shell is fired from a 155mm cannon like it was designed to be, mix and become sarin.
I'm amazed by your post.
I noticed you are "new" to the FR. For the past two days, you and your fellow comrades attempted to convince us there is no WMD in Iraq. Knowing that one teaspoon of sarin can kill a man in 15 minutes or less, I'd say 5 litres of sarin has proven you're a horse's arse. Go peddle you HS on Moveon.org Ollie. Sarin could end up in Oslo and effect your loved ones by your friendly neighborhood islamofascist. Wake up!
By Liza Porteus FOXNEWS
NEW YORK — Tests of the artillery shell that detonated in Iraq on Saturday have confirmed that it did in fact contain an estimated three or four liters of the deadly sarin (search) nerve agent, Defense officials told Fox News Tuesday.
The artillery shell was left as a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said Monday. Two U.S. soldiers were treated for minor exposure to the nerve agent when the 155-mm shell exploded before it could be rendered inoperable.
The soldiers displayed "classic" symptoms of sarin exposure — most notably dilated pupils and nausea, officials said. The symptoms ran their course fairly quickly, however, and as of Tuesday, the two had returned to duty.
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