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.
ping
Been awhile since I got to use this tagline...
I'd rather see him be Lynnde's next POW.
Wasn't there a story last week how documents uncovered in Baghdad showed that a member of Blix's inspection team was on Saddam's payroll?
exactly!
Isn't Blix from Germany? Can you imagine the $$$ he and his UN buddies were getting from the food for oil scheme?
Blix wouldn't know a chemical or biological weapon if it were shoved up his butt and set off..... Amazing that he maintains his ignorance even after Saddams payoffs have been cut off (or is he still getting some funds from someone else?).
OK, so Blix says, "Finding WMD is no proof of WMD." What credibility!
Hans: Your bias is showing.
Nothing to see here folks...Move along please...Nothing to see here...
Inspector "Clueless" strikes again!!!
Follow the money people...FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!
How did this guy get to be a weapons inspector? Don't you have to have some kind of desire to find weapons instead of immediately talking down incriminating evidence?
When you lose the argument, change the basis of the argument--and hope no one notices.
I don't recall anyone justifying the invasion of Iraq over "stockpiles" of WMD. I distinctly remember the justification being that we didn't want WMD getting into terrorists' hands.
Don't let the media-fascists bury this story!
OMG! Do you realize what this means??? THE SARIN GAS IS ABLE TO CREATE ITSELF OUT OF THIN AIR!! IT'S ALIVE!!! IT'S ALIIIIIIVE...
/sarcasm OFF
"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."
We also must not discount a possible Babylonian origin.
We must read between the lines here.
When he says these shells are 'debris from the past', he means that ANY chem/bio we find is irrelevent because Saddam's regime hadn't made it the month before invasion. We could find a thousand shells that would be considered 'debris from the past'.
Ignorance is indeed Blix. And ignorance could very well get us all killed.
This of course depends on the meaning of "possessed". Just because WMD was "found" there doesn't necessarily mean that they "possessed" it. Bill Clinton could expalin this better than me.
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