Posted on 08/30/2007 9:26:05 AM PDT by farlander
Edited on 08/30/2007 9:46:09 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous nerve gas, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York this morning, federal authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
The federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the White House had been notified at 10 a.m.
New York police and fire officials reported to the scene around 12:15 this afternoon.
A U.N. spokesperson said a statement would be issued shortly.
Authorities said the phosgene was believed to have been discovered in Iraq and manufactured prior to 1991.
Former U.N. weapons inspectors told ABCNews.com that vials of phosgene had also been used by inspectors in Iraq to help calibrate air sampling instruments.
“huge archive of materials found in Iraq”, this statement is kind of weird since the UN has always claimed they found very little.
Yeah that's what I thought. It was a common WWI Choking Agent IIRC from my NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical Warfare) School notes. Along with the old Mustard Gas which was a BLISTER agent inhalation of either was supposed to have induced the condition of dry land drowning. Where basically your lung tissue emulsifies and you drown from that. Rare to actually happen however. Very inefficient killer as chemicals go. Now a nice liberal dose of VX or GD SOMAN....that's the ticket!
Thanks very much. Going to check it out.
My father was gassed by the stuff in WW1 and had an uncontrollable coughing fits the rest of his life.
Now who would want any harm to befall our friends in the U.N.?
Just a scare? Pity.
Yep,”keep it vague” and if anything major does come out put a layer of sugar on it.
This site has even more ‘reports’ and archives. I haven’t found any mention of ‘Phosgene’ in any of them so far.
FNC is still saying 1996; not 1990s, like CNN.
I’m relieved, CNN has just declared no danger. /s
................Let’s see. Office equipment:
pencils
yellow legal tablets
shredder
phosgene...............
Yeah, the guy just kept it around to deter Sandy Burgler from rummaging through his things!
LOL
can you believe how fast they are down playing this just after the release of info that an attack is emanate?
One thing not mentioned is the concentration of the vials. If they are pure phosgene that is one thing. If they are carefully controlled samples at 1 part per million concentration, then they might just be calibration standards for sensing equipment.
According to this ‘report’, all chemical weapons and precursors ‘found’ in 1996 were ‘destroyed’ at the very plant that it is now being reported that these chemicals came from:
http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/sres96-848.htm
“8. All chemical weapons destruction was carried out at the Muthanna State Establishment, Iraq’s primary chemical weapons facility, with one exception. Some munitions found at the Khamissiyah arms depot in October 1991 were judged too dangerous to move. Therefore, they were destroyed in situ during February/March 1992. The destruction of all other agent and munitions took place at Muthanna from June 1992 to May 1994. The work was carried out often in extremely harsh and dangerous physical conditions including the presence of chemical warfare agent, precursors, leaking munitions and unexploded ordnance. Appropriate standards of health and safety were maintained. During the period, the Commission supervised the destruction of over 480,000 litres of live chemical weapons agent, 28,000 chemical munitions and approximately 1.8 million litres, and over 1 million kilograms of some 45 different precursor chemicals. A variety of equipment was also rendered harmless.”
Something doesn’t quite add up here. Let me know if you find anything interesting.
From the CNN article:
“Inspectors from UNMOVIC and its predecessor agency UNSCOM were responsible for verifying Iraq’s compliance with U.N. resolutions requiring it to abandon its pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The material collected normally would have been destroyed after analysis, UNMOVIC said.
UNMOVIC’s mandate ended this year, and its offices are being packed up and moved out, State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said.”
In other words, someone didn’t destroy the samples like they were supposed to, and we’re just finding out about it now that UNMOVIC is packing up. Could this be less of a story?
...here’s another: “there is no terrorist threat” - John K***
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