Posted on 06/29/2006 7:48:35 PM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today.
"These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.
The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.
The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. Sarin attacks the neurological system and is potentially lethal.
"Mustard is a blister agent (that) actually produces burning of any area (where) an individual may come in contact with the agent," he said. It also is potentially fatal if it gets into a person's lungs.
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.
While that's reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. "We're talking chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and have a great effect," he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.
This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred, Chu said. It's not known exactly how sarin breaks down, but no matter how degraded the agent is, it's still toxic.
"Regardless of (how much material in the weapon is actually chemical agent), any remaining agent is toxic," he said. "Anything above zero (percent agent) would prove to be toxic, and if you were exposed to it long enough, lethal."
Though about 500 chemical weapons - the exact number has not been released publicly - have been found, Maples said he doesn't believe Iraq is a "WMD-free zone."
"I do believe the former regime did a very poor job of accountability of munitions, and certainly did not document the destruction of munitions," he said. "The recovery program goes on, and I do not believe we have found all the weapons."
The Defense Intelligence Agency director said locating and disposing of chemical weapons in Iraq is one of the most important tasks servicemembers in the country perform.
Maples added searches are ongoing for chemical weapons beyond those being conducted solely for force protection.
There has been a call for a complete declassification of the National Ground Intelligence Center's report on WMD in Iraq. Maples said he believes the director of national intelligence is still considering this option, and has asked Maples to look into producing an unclassified paper addressing the subject matter in the center's report.
Much of the classified matter was slated for discussion in a closed forum after the open hearings this morning.
They are doing the only thing they can do, pretend these weapons did not exist. If that doesn't work then they will call these weapons being discovered "this late in the game" as unfair White House Republican trick.
I found this and posted it on FR.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1654560/posts
The article tells about how French farmers are STILL being killed by WW1 unexploded mustard gas and other shells to this day, and farther down the article, tells how collection sites set up for the collection and destruction of these old shells are being "raided", and the shells stollen, and then sold on the black market. If they are "too old and depleted" why are they being "stolen and sold" ????
You aren't the only person to return from Iraq that has hinted at this. That's all I'm going to say about that.
I think what we need is a set of ads ran nationwide explaining what we did find. The more WMDs and the discovery of precusors and nuclear material enters the public mind in association with Iraq the more the Democrats will be left looking like the fools they are. A commercial summarizing the worst of what was discovered in Iraq and the new hope our soldiers are bringing and then a phrase expressing the populist sentiment that "Real Americans don't cut and run". The Democrats have nothing to run on but they do have something to run from and that is themselves. This midterm election is a political strategists dream and the Republicans have a very strong inherent advantage if they take advantage of it.
I must be dense or exhausted but can you describe why it would hurt the troops? Theoretically, of course. Not asking for specific but just a hypothetical.
With the nerve agent, I have seen basically about one or two drops bring down a goat. They would do that for us until it got out they were killing goats and rabbits.
The mustard is not really a gas, it is more a liquid and when a burster goes off inside of a shell it becomes a mist. What they put on our arm in training was about 10% strength the size of a pin head. It raised a blister the size of a dime that did not neal for over a month. I still have the scar from 40 years ago. Just think what something like that would do to the inside of your lungs. We had an EOD guy set off a Mustard Gas mine near Verdun, France around 1960. I saw pictures of him, one of the most horrible things I have ever seen. Huge water filled bisters all over him.
Most of their stuff should me 152mm projos or 122mm rockets. If it is 155mm then it is something new. I have seen reports they did find one 155mm binary round (French) but empty. We got them just in the nick of time.
However they did find 100's of tons of HMX and RDX. HMX is an old British Military High Explosive that is used in conventional ammunition. I suspect Iraq manufactured this but it is a possitive indication they were fixing to rearm.
There was also another Freeper Thread which mentioned a neutron generator that was found in a lab, the neutron generator is used ONLY nuclear warheads.
Also in Belgium they are washing up on the beaches, this includes the agent also. They are from the 100's of tons they dumped off shore back around 1919 or 1920. There are also lakes that have just pure mustard that they dumped it in. It settled to the bottom and is still there.
The longer the world thought there were no WMD the longer the terrorist would have thought it foolish to look for them or highly unlikely. After all, it's common knowledge there were none, so why waste time trying to buy them or find them.
I can look at converted ground to air missiles to ground to ground with the HE warhead removed and a tank replacing it. Also all the new chemical suits we captured with the decon and detechtion gear. The new factories that can be converted overnight to make chemical munitions. The neutron generator they found and the 100's of tons of new high explosives. I also saw a booster for a Roland missile with a 2001 lot number on it. I saw all of this in Time and Newsweek. To anyone with just a little bit of knowledge, it isn't hard to figure out what was coming had we not invaded.
What the MSM doesn't care to ask is how'd we find it, how was it hidden, or what'd the lab results show. They're content with some "degraded" comment that dismisses this stuff. Hence, they can continue to pooh pooh this information now that they're allowed to know it.
Remember, MSM still thinks using WP is using chemical weapons.
I have considered going over to the Middle East in a civilian capacity until I just heard a guy one year ahead of me at North Georgia College just got back on active duty at 64 years old. NGC also had a doctor go to Afganistan on a tour at the age of 67. I would really like to play with one of those little robots they have now. I got to go to the IED school at the EOD school at Eglin about two years ago. They took me on a tour. Things have sure changed. I wonder if they still do the DOFA in the unit bar?
The term degraded is an odd one in a way. These things could be said to be degraded in the sense that they no longer meet there original designed purpose. But none of these chemicals are necessarily any less lethal because of age. If anyone doubts it, look at the lethality of the US stockpile that is much older and nearly as lethal as the day it was made. So an inquiring journalist might want to ask what is meant by the term, but it's much easier to find WMD in Iraq than to find an inquiring journalist.
You use other chemicals on it or a very hot fire. You will still have a down wind hazard. Before they stopped us from doing it, we had a procedure called vent and burn. You would hit the round with a very small shaped charge called a MK 2. It would punch a very small hole in it. At the same time you would start a very hot fire which would burn the chemcical off as it vented out. But that did not always get all of it.
In the first Gulf war, I understand EOD tried to blow it but they had some downwind problems. The problem with Nerve and Mustard is that some of it stays in the system and you never get rid of all of it. About two years after they used it on us they quit using it once they found out.
Sorry everyone, I started a second thread on this story. I didnt see this one. Maybe a mod can combine the.
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