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Mobile Labs Could Not Have Produced Hydrogen As Described, Prologue
Captain's Quarter's Blog ^ | 7/3/06 | Captain Ed

Posted on 07/03/2006 2:47:55 PM PDT by Phsstpok

From Captain's Quarters: 

I have written several times about the issue of the mobile laboratories in Iraq and the subsequent conventional wisdom that they served as hydrogen generators for weather balloons instead of WMD production facilities. In April, I pointed out that the hydrogen theory came as a minority opinion within the CIA/DIA teams that reviewed the two labs captured by the Coalition. One month later, Joseph Shahda translated a key memo showing that the Iraqis spent $33 million on the mobile labs in September 2002, while America decided to take military action against the Iraqis, and that the same agency that controlled Iraq's WMD programs (the Military Industrialization Committee) arranged to purchase these facilities.

One key point (besides the memo) that undermines the argument for a civil hydrogen production facility is the ease in which the Iraqis could already produce and store hydrogen. Oil refining creates hydrogen in fairly large quantities as a normal byproduct. If the Iraqis wanted hydrogen for weather balloons, they could have simply pumped it into tanks and used normal trucks to transport it where needed. Now we have another argument against the hydrogen production explanation.

A CQ reader with a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Minnesota and with over sixteen years of experience in weapons and materiel laboratory work in the military has written a paper on why the hydrogen lab explanation cannot possibly explain the existence and the engineering of these mobile laboratories. Preferring anonymity for professional reasons, "ChemicalConsultant" has allowed me access to a condensed version of an analysis that he has sent to Joby Warrick at the Washington Post, Reps. Curt Weldon and Jane Harman, and former CIA director John Deutsch, now at MIT -- none of whom have responded to ChemicalConsultant or addressed these concerns.

I will put ChemicalConsultant's CV, stripped of any personal identification, in the extended entry below. Over the next three days I will post his analysis of the physics of hydrogen production and why that explanation makes no sense whatsoever. At the end, I will interview ChemicalConsultant and post the transcript. Continue reading "Mobile Labs Could Not Have Produced Hydrogen As Described, Prologue"
Posted by Captain Ed at 02:00 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iraq; iraqiwmds; mobilelabs; mobillabs; prewardocs; wmd
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This issue has been discussed as recently as the Sunday Talk Show thread of a week ago (for example, tarheelswamprat's post #634).  Several folks have taken issue with the "conventional wisdom" that this was "just a hydrogen generator."

Tie this to the disclosure of the 500+ chemical warfare WMD shells that have been found (and covered up by the DBM and dims in Congress) and the house of lies they have been constructing may be crashing about their ears.

Kerry's still lying, how soon will we start dying?

1 posted on 07/03/2006 2:47:58 PM PDT by Phsstpok
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To: tarheelswamprat

Ping on mobil labs


2 posted on 07/03/2006 2:48:40 PM PDT by Phsstpok (Often wrong, but never in doubt)
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To: Phsstpok

Dang, Phsstpok.....you have just stretched my mental capabilities with THIS kind of a report...

jeez louise, I still don't get how gas makes a car go...and now THIS???

LOL


3 posted on 07/03/2006 2:53:54 PM PDT by Txsleuth (FREEPATHON TIME--INDEPENDENCE DAY--TEXAS FREEPERS,we have been challenged...please donate!)
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To: Phsstpok

Iraqi document translations.
NYT (again) leaking classified info.
"Old" wmd found in Iraq.
Kook Left Wing base revving up.
"Fitzmas" case imploding.
Rove must be rubbing his hands in glee.


4 posted on 07/03/2006 2:54:07 PM PDT by mikeybaby (long time lurker)
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To: jveritas; eyespysomething

Ping mobil labs.


5 posted on 07/03/2006 2:54:54 PM PDT by jazusamo (DIANA IREY for Congress, PA 12th District: Retire murtha.)
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To: Phsstpok

NYT/MSM "Rut-Roh"


6 posted on 07/03/2006 2:55:38 PM PDT by Paladin2 (If the political indictment's from Fitz, the jury always acquits.)
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To: Phsstpok

Neat tag...


7 posted on 07/03/2006 2:57:52 PM PDT by johnny7 (“And what's Fonzie like? Come on Yolanda... what's Fonzie like?!”)
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To: Phsstpok
33 mil to generate something they get for free? That'd be a government project, all right.

Why in the world would you need a mobile lab to generate hydrogen for weather balloons anyway? They don't have gas bottles in Iraq?

8 posted on 07/03/2006 3:00:13 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Phsstpok
I remember also that Coalition Forces found tons of 'insecticide' in hardened bunkers on Iraqi Air Force bases. Now, why any country would find it necessary to store 'civilian' insecticide on a military base is beyond me.

As I understand it, insecticide act is a very similar manner as other nerve agents on the human body, as well as on insects.

This find was immediately dismissed as of no value. That always struck me as absurd.

9 posted on 07/03/2006 3:00:55 PM PDT by keithtoo (The GOP is fortunate that the Dim's are even more spineless and disorganized.)
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To: Billthedrill

During the first Gulf War they would launch weather balloons to check conditions before Scud launches.


10 posted on 07/03/2006 3:04:25 PM PDT by Wristpin ("The Yankees announce plan to buy every player in Baseball....")
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To: Phsstpok
I want to know why a fermenter would be used to produce hydrogen.
11 posted on 07/03/2006 3:05:41 PM PDT by Perdogg
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To: Phsstpok; jveritas; Fedora; Howlin; ravingnutter; piasa; Peach; Grampa Dave; pinz-n-needlez; ...

Sounds like the "civilian hydrogen for weather balloons" explanation for the mobile labs in Iraq is falling apart, thanks to Captain Ed's physical chemist source and the translations of jveritas!!

Now that Colin Powell has already apologized for his UN presentation, and now that the MSM and whole world takes it as a given that the Bush administration was just making stuff up, how does the truth ever get its shoes on, never mind make it around the world?


12 posted on 07/03/2006 3:06:20 PM PDT by Enchante (Keller & Sulzberger: Forget elections, WE are the self-appointed judges of everything)
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To: pissant

ping for later


13 posted on 07/03/2006 3:12:50 PM PDT by pissant
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To: Phsstpok

"They" couldn't go with swamp gas this time, so it was weather balloons again, worked in 1947.


14 posted on 07/03/2006 3:13:55 PM PDT by razorback-bert (Rush was a victim of profiling)
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To: Phsstpok
To obtain hydrogen in the field in sizable quantities [one regular size hydrogen cylinder weighs about 60-70 kg and contains 10 cubic meters of gas [about 1 kg], enough to fill balloons capable of lifting 20-25 pounds] compressed hydrogen emphatically would not do. Chemical production on the spot is much more preferable:
old traditional setup involved using calcium hydride - water sensitive solid - and water: 10 kg of CaH2 is enough to produce that same 1 kg of hydrogen. Newer setup, using sodium borohydride with water and cobalt or nickel catalysts, needs even less material: only about 5kg of NaBH4 for the same amount of hydrogen. The equipment does not take much room and is not heavy. Any water- from a creek or a rain puddle - would do.
15 posted on 07/03/2006 3:26:57 PM PDT by GSlob
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To: Enchante

Is there some higher power or priority that keeps the Bush White House from using this info that they obviously have to justify their decisions to go in to Iraq?


16 posted on 07/03/2006 3:28:22 PM PDT by Thebaddog (Labs Rules! Brilliant!)
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To: Phsstpok

No these trucks were mobile baby milk plants and distributed ice cream ...the MSM told me so it must be true.


17 posted on 07/03/2006 3:42:06 PM PDT by The Great RJ ("Mir wölle bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: Enchante

The answer is, it doesn't.

I find myself very frustrated at the lack of coverage of all of the documents that have been translated.

MAYBE, someday, if we get into Syria..and can check for weapons...but, even then, I don't know if it would make the front pages....sigh


18 posted on 07/03/2006 3:42:15 PM PDT by Txsleuth (FREEPATHON TIME--INDEPENDENCE DAY--TEXAS FREEPERS,we have been challenged...please donate!)
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To: Thebaddog

I just don't know anymore..... it seems the Bush WH settled a long time ago on the view that it wasn't good to debate the run-up to the war and that they would just "move on"..... for one thing, they want to stay focused upon all the things that are going on all the time, executing now rather than debating the past. But I don't know if anyone there appreciates how badly not just the WH but the USA has been harmed by the very widespread impression that we went to war for at best careless and at worst fabricated intel and judgments about it. It is crucial to set the record straight, though the MSM will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to notice.


19 posted on 07/03/2006 3:43:46 PM PDT by Enchante (Keller & Sulzberger: Forget elections, WE are the self-appointed judges of everything)
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To: Thebaddog
I believe Bush is trying to keep things quiet about WMD's to avoid embarrassing and confronting Russia. Honestly, if Americans knew how involved Russia was with Saddam's weapons we would call for all out war. I think Bush believes we can parlay Russia's guilt into cooperation. This is just my theory
20 posted on 07/03/2006 3:43:56 PM PDT by FreeLuna
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