Iraqi insurgents use 2nd 'dirty' bomb

AP | 2/21/07 | By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer

[Victor]

I prefer the smell of napalm...

[xcamel]

more:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1788669/posts
(NYT)

[BenLurkin]

Michael Moore must be very proud of his "freedom fighters".

[Eccl 10:2]

No, I'm sorry, this can't be true.

There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Don't any of you read Newsweek?

Sheesh.

[highlander_UW]

Could the left tell me again that terrorists wouldn't use WMD's?

[Strategerist]

Could the left tell me again that terrorists wouldn't use WMD's?

Exactly how broad is the WMD definition going to get? If Chlorine Gas is a WMD, then you're average pool maintenance shack is a WMD storage facility.

[church16]

From wikipedia;

"Weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a term used to describe a weapon with the capacity to indiscriminately kill large numbers of people. The phrase broadly encompasses several areas of weapon synthesis, including nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC) and, increasingly, radiological weapons."

So, yes, it does meet the description.

[DBrow]

Technically you are correct. These attacks are "expedient uses of Toxic Industrial Chemicals (TICs)".

However, Chlorine was used in WW I by the Germans; subsequently the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention forbid the use of Chlorine and several other gasses. Legally this may be considered a weapon of mass destruction as defined by international law since it is the use of a listed poison gas in (unconventional) warfare.

If cylinders of Cl were popped open in your neighborhood I think you'd consider it a WMD attack.

[Yardstick]

The attacks offer a sweeping narrative on evolving tactics by Sunni insurgents who have proved remarkably adaptable.

I wonder if the writer has ever seen "sweeping narratives" in anything our guys have done.

[Admin Moderator]

You are required to provide a working link to this story.

Please give me one and I'll post it at the top.

[Strategerist]

If cylinders of Cl were popped open in your neighborhood I think you'd consider it a WMD attack.

So someone opens a cylinder of Cl in my neighborhood it's a WMD attack, but if they set off a truck with a ton of ammonium nitrate it isn't. Gotcha.

So should we be invading every country that has Cl gas?

[American_Centurion]

Folks, lets not get wacky here.

This is NOT a WMD. This is a chemical attack.

Chemical WMDs are generally persistent agents and chemical weapon Chlorine gas COULD be a WMD attack if it was used in artillery shells that took out a grid in Baghdad or a village.

This is a chemical attack, and almost all of us knew darn well the enemy was capable of it.

[DBrow]

ANFO is an explosive, and has a local (if devastating) effect. Cl, sarin, tabun, phosgene, cobalt 60 dust, anthrax, and so on cover a wide area, drift with the wind, and are indiscriminate.

ANFO is used in some of our large munitions and don't go much beyond hundreds of yards.

Chlorine drifting in the breeze can cover lots of ground.

Hey, I don't write the definitions, but a BLU143 ANFO blockbuster is not WMD, but the same size device filled with chlorine or mustard or cyclosarin is. As for invading every country with chlorine, if they put it in tanks, drive it into populous areas, and pop them off, you bet. If they disinfect pools and bleach pulp, no.

[American_Centurion]

I agree with the definition in the technical sense of indiscriminate, however "large numbers" is extremely subjective.

In a city the size of Bagdad, 1000 would be "large", in a rural village wiping them all out would qualify as "large".

This incident is not large in the statistical sense that a true WMD attack would cause, though it is a war crime without any doubt.

[Strategerist]

Yeah, personally, I think considering anything other than biologicals or a true nuclear fission or fusion (NOT overhyped "dirty bombs") a "WMD" is silly.

Basically, we've reached the point where people want to consider every single substance that is conceivably fatal if inhaled or ingested a "WMD" - which makes the majority of the people on the planet posessors of a WMD.

Cl is a common and crucial industrial chemical that anything above a stone age society needs to function - you're reaching the height of absurdity when people start proclaiming it a WMD.

People are forgetting about the "MASS" in "WMD."

[DBrow]

Yup, see my #8- it's an expedient attack using industrial chemicals, though I feel that by law it may be considered WMD, because of the history of chlorine and the post WW I treaties.

You are correct, this is not like nerve gas or nukes.

I think though if you tried this in the USA, you'd still get charged with a WMD rap, and a terror rap, and "emitting a bad smell going beyond menudo residues" which should be a crime.

[Strategerist]

For whatever reason the world at large has concluded that dying from inhaling a chemical or being irradiated is somehow clearly worse and far more awful than being burned to death or blown to pieces or shredded with shrapnel.

I'd suggest people step back and really think about that.

[American_Centurion]

I agree.

We look silly arguing "See there are WMDs!"

Educated people remember Colin Powell showing trucks leaving Iraq for Syria, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out WTF was going on.

[DBrow]

Don't forget the "classic" nerve gasses in multi-kilo quantities or a kilo of anthrax, or gram of botulin, or smallpox. These would be considered WMD and would kill many people.

[American_Centurion]

No doubt you would be charged as a terrorist, as you should be.