Posted on 11/04/2004 6:49:55 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
The Los Angeles Times this morning ran an article on the alleged looting of the Al QaQaa explosives. Pivotal to the article, whcih relied on unidentified GI alleged witnesses to the looting, was this:
One soldier said U.S. forces watched the looters' trucks loaded with bags marked "hexamine" — a key ingredient for HMX — being driven away from the facility. Unsure what hexamine was, the troops later did an Internet search and learned of its explosive power.
"We found out this was stuff you don't smoke around," the soldier said.
The trouble is, it's completely bogus. Hexamine isn't an explosive, and has no 'explosive power'. It's a urinary antiseptic. It is used in the synthesis of RDX and HMX - but without a chemical plant and a number of other chemical ingredients, some dangerous and hard to obtain, you can't make RDX or HMX from it. All the explosive properties of RDX and HMX come from the fuming nitric acid which is another ingredient in the manufacture. I doubt you could even get hexamine to burn decently, let alone explode. I wouldn't be at all surprised that Saddam was manufacturing RDX and HMX, and that's why he had sacks of hexamine, but no terrorist is going to be able to do anything with hexamine (except, maybe, treat his gonorrhea).
I'm befuddled how the LA Times could have used a second-hand google search as a source for the most element on the story. I contacted them, and their 'reader representative' gave me an implausible story of how they'd checked their chemical information with the Encyclopedia Britannica, but promised to tell their editors. I'm not holding my breath waiting for a correction.
In case I need to establish my credentials on this, just google 'hexamethylenetetramine harbison' and look at the first hit. Hexamethylenetetramine is the correct chemical name of hexamine. I've done quite a bit of published research with the stuff.
No, you are putting undue stress on documents which are largely written by CYA bureaucrats with no real knowledge of the materials on which they're writing. I have a safety label from a jar of laboratory sand on my wall. It lists all the bad things sand can do to you - lung disease, asphyxiation, skin irritation, eye irritation. It's a scary list.
You need that rarest of commodities, guy, a sense of proportion.
There is some chemical dictionaries online they could have even checked.
Send them a link.
I think hexamine is used to make RDX. You combine hexamine with citric acid, and add high-percentage hydrogen peroxide. The precipitate is RDX.
Your credentials of being a "chemist" carries no weight here. I back up my claims by presenting the guidelines for all chemical transportation industries and every emergency responder in North America. If you can't admit you are wrong, then so be it. Lots of people think they know it all and get themselves and others killed by taking dumb risks. You sound like one of those.
"You need that rarest of commodities, guy, a sense of proportion."
Have you ever had to pick up body parts after an explosion? Have you ever been responsible for the safety of hundreds of thousands of civilians? Didn't think so. Since you know next to nothing about chemical safety, I suggest you get some education. You even admitted in an earlier post that you didn't know much about hexamine - that it was even flammable. And what is your purpose for even posting this?
Send this to the WASH TIMES, NY POST, National Review and others.
Go build a working bomb from hexamine, and get back to me.
The 'guidelines' of which you speak are why the chemical industry has largely left the United States. Too many stupid regulations written by too many bureaucrats with too little knowledge of chemistry. Yeah, organic materials burn, sometimes violently. They release gases, which under some circumstances can be explosive. Burning wood does both those things. But, guess what, they're not building IEDs in Iraq using wood as the explosive. Why is that?
I think perhaps you're splitting hairs a bit too close.
There are many things that are or can be 'explosive'. Each of us are driving around in cars that have tanks full of a substance that under the right conditions could have the explosive power of many sticks of TNT. Grain silos yes, can blow in a most impressive fashion.
The operative point here is whether or not bad-guy looters were able to steal 'high explosives' from under the noses of the U.S. forces in Iraq.
First, on the face of it, I think this was a dumb story from the beginning. There is no argument that there was a whole buttload of ordance available all over Iraq for the bad guys to use in the fabrication of IED's. So what? Whether it was some tons of this or some tons of that... the fact is that there was a massive amount of materiel from which to construct explosive devices.
This is not news.
What *is* news, is that the various media sources are now trying to construct a story out of whole cloth. What this thread has exposed, and it would seem to be rightly so, is that the materials discussed in the LA Times story could only really be made into high-order explosives with the application of manufacturing processes that are in all likelihood not available to them. This stuff is not worth the bother. They don't need to be messing with such things to do what they are doing, and there is no evidence that any of it is showing up on the street in the form of IED's.
This would appear to be yet another case of a reporter, and a paper, with an agenda... and the importance of the agenda blinded them to the need to really check the facts and make sure they were actually telling the whole story. Because its not the whole story that they really wish to tell.
Exactly.
You should send it to a reporter or a columnist at the NY Post, Wash Times.... they get less email
Dude. Chill. Out.
Take a deep breath. Crack open a beer or something.
This is not about Material Safety Data Sheets. Lots of things are dangerous. Running with scissors is dangerous.
This is about what sorts of things the bad guys might be using for explosives. This stuff would appear to be not among their better choices.
Pro Ping
The distibuted intelligence of Freerepublic is awesome. Thanks for the info.
At these "prices" everything must go!
A chicken mask? (Posted on 04/07/2003 8:39:39 AM)
Iraqis loot refridgerators, ceiling fans, a mirror, and a chicken mask from the drama department of a college of Literature in Basra, Iraq as coalition forces moved to take possession of the city Monday, April 7, 2003. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Sadly the photo of the Iraqi running around with a chicken mask on his head and an armful of booty has expired from Yahoo's servers.
BTTT
Hey, I'm cool. This is not MY opinion. It is the chemical industry opinion (among others).
The fact is that someone posted nonsense saying that hexamine was neither flammable nor explosive. He sucked a bunch of FReepers into his story, but he really didn't know what he was talking about because he didn't check his own industry safety guidelines for information.
It IS flammable (a Class 4 solid combustible; hence the red and white diamond placard in the picture) and under certain conditions it becomes highly explosive. That is why there is concern about it being in the hands of the terrorists. I don't want them to even have a book of safety matches, let alone a class 4 combustible in massive quantities.
All these comments that many things are explosive or dangerous is immaterial. I certainly don't deny that many common products when used incorrectly become dangerous. Right now we are talking specifically about hexamine, a product that may be dangerous under ordinary conditions, and definitely can be dangerous when put into the hands of someone who wants to use it as a weapon.
I'm sorry if I rubbed some people the wrong way here, but I just don't want FReepers passing along factually incorrect or misleading information and making us all look ignorant. I'm not doing this to win some argument, but to educate people.
"But, guess what, they're not building IEDs in Iraq using wood as the explosive. Why is that?"
Maybe because they prefer something like... hexamine?
Since you now finally admit that Hexamine is flammable and potentially highly explosive, I think we are on the same wavelength, although I totally disagree with your cavalier attitude on chemical safety. I hope you don't do that for a living.
As you mentioned, the terrorists would still need red fuming nitric acid, but an enterprising terrorist might just remember that all of Saddam's ballistics missiles were liquid fueled and used RFNA as the oxidizer. If the terrorists knew where to find hexamine laying about, surely they would also know where the RFNA was stored. And when you've got those two ingredients, it's game, set, match.
As far as the chemical plant goes, all they would need would be some thermometers, large stainless steel cooking pots, some copper tubing and a source of running water for cooling the reaction.
Perhaps harder to get than the RFNA, would be a sufficient knowledge of chemistry to keep from blowing themselves up by letting the process run to hot.
But then, maybe that was the plan all along!!!
--Boot Hill
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