Posted on 05/21/2004 6:55:23 AM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
Thanks.
I have a craving for a Whopper and onion rings . . .
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/795544/posts
"...But in January 1998, he learned the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating him for espionage with the Israelis. ''The idea of it, questioning me on the subject of patriotism!'' he said. To add to his ire, he had been told that the F.B.I. also held concerns about his wife, whom he had met in Votkinsk, where she had worked as a Soviet translator. Some in the F.B.I. thought she might be an agent, ''a hostile penetration attempt.'' He was furious..."
X + 1
Where X ='s the amount number of deadly doses found.
"By the way, what is the minimum threshold of deadly doses of Sarin before a weapon can be considered an WMD ? --5 thousand? -5 million? 5 billion? ---what's the number?"
I dunno exactly where I'd put the number but it sure as hell isn't one shell!
Look, I'm glad the war happened and that Saddam is gone. It's just also clear to me that the WMD threat at the time of war was inflated at best, non-existant at worst.
Geez! You should put a warning label on lines like that--I almost ruined my office's computer.
And 150 of these shells, filled with sarin precursors, were live-fired at an artillery range south of Baghdad. A 10 percent dud rate among artillery shells isn't unheard of - and even greater percentages can occur.
This makes absolutely no sense. If you're firing rounds to test a projectile, and some don't go off, wouldn't you dig them up to see what is wrong? Isn't that the purpose of a test program?
"Look, I'm glad the war happened and that Saddam is gone."
Okay, fair enough.
"It's just also clear to me that the WMD threat at the time of war was inflated at best, non-existant at worst."
Sounds like you're just skimming the headlines and not reading in detail.
1) This chemical round did not have a green band or any other such external indicator to clearly differentiate it from conventional rounds.
2) Given the above, consider that there are city-sized ammo dumps that will take years to inspect shell by shell since you apparently can't tell them apart by looking at them.
3) There's an awful lot of evidence suggesting Saddam set up his chemical weapons program to be disguised at least partially as dual-use tech, so that it would pass inspection but allow him to manufacture chem weapons very quickly after the inspectors leave.
4) 30 Mig jets were found buried in the sand intact outside Baghdad last summer. If you can bury 40-foot long, 15-foot tall fighter planes in the sand and have them not found by inspectors for 12 years, have you just not seriously considered the implications the discovery of these jets has for cases of chemical artillery rounds which are much smaller -- with all those thousands of square miles of remote desert sand? He buried JETS; why WOULDN'T he bury chem rounds? (Please answer that question if you expect us to continue to take you seriously.)
I am not saying that the discovery of this shell is automatic ironclad proof, but it is pretty incriminating. There is no way that any serious thinker can consider my 4 points above (there are more) and be as complacent as you sound about the chem weapon problem even BEFORE the appearance of this sarin chem round.
And now that it has appeared, anyone with half a brain, while not automatically jumping to the conclusion that there are huge stockpiles of these things, would HAVE to be at least concerned about it being a very real possibility. Yet you sound smug and complacent to the point of saying the threat could be "non-existent". Why?
The only explanation I can think of is a desperate desire to get Bush out of the White House.
Why would anyone testfire any weapon with 3 litres of sarin gas in an area just south of Baghdad? Wouldn't this pose a risk to tne inhabitants of the city? I know Saddam had little concern for his own people, but if Ritter says this was testfired in proximity to a population center it doesn't make sense.
Yes this type of shell would probably be of lighter construction than a plain high explosive. Since it's intent is to spread a gaseous mist, it may actually have a hybrid costruction where part of the shell is tougher than other parts in order to shape the pattern of dispersion. For a ground impact you would probably want a tough nose and week tail to blow the gas out the rear when the shell impacts. For an air burst, a weaker nose would probably cause greater dispersion of the gas.
You raise a few good points - ie. ammo dumps to inspect, disguised WMD programs and WMD stock being burried like Iraqi MiGs.
The problem I have with all of your points is simple. It's been over a year since Saddam's regime was toppled and half a year since the big man himself was found. The Baath party climate of fear has largely lifted and even now NO ONE has come forward to indicate where the WMD stocks are.
His top generals (many of whom have been caught) would have to have known. Hundreds, if not thousands of his troops would know as well. In all likelyhood some non-military personel would even have heard or seen something.
So how do you figure that NO ONE in a country of 25 million poeple has been able to point us to them despite the prospect of financial reward?
Could it be that the WMD stocks don't exist? Kinda looks that way.
"Why would anyone testfire any weapon with 3 litres of sarin gas in an area just south of Baghdad? Wouldn't this pose a risk to tne inhabitants of the city?"
Well....
"I know Saddam had little concern for his own people..."
Bingo!
"You raise a few good points - ie. ammo dumps to inspect, disguised WMD programs and WMD stock being burried like Iraqi MiGs.
The problem I have with all of your points is simple. It's been over a year since Saddam's regime was toppled and half a year since the big man himself was found. The Baath party climate of fear has largely lifted and even now NO ONE has come forward to indicate where the WMD stocks are.
His top generals (many of whom have been caught) would have to have known. Hundreds, if not thousands of his troops would know as well. In all likelyhood some non-military personel would even have heard or seen something.
So how do you figure that NO ONE in a country of 25 million poeple has been able to point us to them despite the prospect of financial reward?
Could it be that the WMD stocks don't exist? Kinda looks that way."
***
Ahhh, somebody on the other side who's willing to directly engage. This is refreshing to say the least.
There is only a tiny percentage of those 25 million people who would have any idea. Of these, the percentage is even tinier than you think. The Republican Guard generals (division commanders) who have been interrogated said they didn't have these weapons in their arsenal but they were sure at the time that other units did.
This means that even at very high military command levels, this info was not known. Saddam was keeping all but a very few in the dark.
That narrows down the number of people who might know considerably. And of this still smaller group, Saddam may have had those who knew the whereabouts of these weapons killed after they buried them in the desert or after coming back from transporting them to Syria so they couldn't talk. Dictators have been known to do that sort of thing.
But the fact is this shell has appeared and there's evidence that it was made within the last 7 or 8 years. Where did it come from?
If Ritter opened his pie hole, it is the big fart heard around the world, causing massive world pollution.
The article's link doesn't seem to be working.
You 'ropma' link doesn't work.
For years, many of us heard "we know he had them"--but failed to ask the crucial question: WHEN?
My guess is that they were indeed destroyed in the nineties, but the slime Saddam certainly didn't want too many people to know that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.