UN Inspectors find Mustard Gas Shells

Is that a WMD? Or is it just banned?

Mustard Gas is a chemical weapon (pretty nasty one at that as well) which by the US definition is a WMD.

What does previoulsy known to be there mean?

It means Saddam is a dead man.

Paging Scott Ridder, Scott Ridder now what should we do? Uncle Saddom paging Scott.

Is that a WMD?

Saddam used mustard gas on Kurds in northern Iraq during a 1987-88 campaign known as the Anfal, wich possibly killed 5,000 people and left 65,000 others facing severe skin and respiratory diseases, abnormal rates of cancer and birth defects, and a devastated environment.

mustard gas

chemical compound used as a poison gas in World War I. The burning sensation it causes on contact with the skin is similar to that caused by oil from black mustard seeds.

The compound is not a gas but a colorless, oily liquid with a somewhat sweet, agreeable odor; it boils at 217. A powerful vesicant, mustard gas causes severe blistering even in small quantities.

Highly irritating to the eyes, it quickly causes conjunctivitis and blindness.

If inhaled, it attacks the respiratory tract and lungs, causing pulmonary edema. Some effects of exposure to mustard gas are delayed up to 12 hr; death may result several days after exposure.

Mustard gas was introduced by the Germans in warfare against the British at Ypres, Belgium, in July, 1917, and took a heavy toll of casualties. It is dispersed as an aerosol by a bursting shell.

Chemically, mustard gas is a thioether, 2,2-dichlorodiethyl sulfide, (ClCH ₂ CH ₂ ) ₂ S. It can be prepared by reacting ethylene with sulfur monochloride, S ₂ Cl ₂ , or by other methods. Its vesicant property is readily destroyed either by oxidation or by chlorination (e.g., with bleaching powder).

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/m1/mustardg.asp

Gas Warfare - WW1

The horrors of gas warfare had never been seen on a battlefield until 1915. The Germans have been credited with the first use, but the French and English were not far behind. Gas was a nuisance, a crippling nuisance, often only wounding and causing widespread panic instead of outright killing. Add a gas mask to the already surreal atmosphere of an offensive's rolling bombardments and heavy machine gun fire, and what you got must have been close to hell.

My husbands great uncle was killed by the Germans in WWI with mustard gas. I wonder, when they said they already knew about the gas, what that means. If they knew in the past and didn't do anything, what in heck were they doing in the 90's. What did Hill and Bill know and when did they know it?

So now we are to get a lesson in PROCESS.

The U.N. PROCESS of verifying results, writing it up, passing it up stream for approval, further verification, further approval, further documention checks, passed to the Security Council, questioned and appealed by the Iraqi's ... ad nauseum and all set up to run out the clock on cool weather attacks before the spring heat arrives.

Do we have a confirming source yet?

Baghdad's latest statement was another message of defiance to President Bush (news - web sites), who insists Iraq does possess weapons of mass destruction and has threatened war if necessary to disarm it.

No! This is a finger to Bush and a fist to the UN. I can't wait to see Ol Uday on trial for war crimes and other human rights abominations.

lol ... the yellow atom is sulfur

I think I read that the UN's verification lab is in Geneva. Another way to help Saddam run out the clock through UN red tape.

You mean news source? See #17.

Sorry, Ment – do we have a location of this find?

LOL

More info here: (warning - poorly designed/slow loading site)

http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/chemical/mustardg.htm

Mustard gas was used for the first time by Germans in
1917 at Ypres. More than 14,000 British casualties were
produced in the first three months and by the end of the
first world war more than 120,000 British mustard casualties
had occurred. The most commonly injured areas of the body
were: eyes (86.1%), respiratory tract (75.3%), scrotum
(42.1%), face (26.6%), anus (23.9%), back (12.9%), armpits
(12.5%), neck (12%).

Adolph Hitler was exposed to mustard gas during the first
world war. He described his personal experience in "Mein
Kampf" (Vol. 1, 1924): "During the night of October 13 to
14th (1918) the British opened an attack with gas on the
front south of Ypres. They used the yellow gas whose effect
was unknown to us, at least from personal experience. I was
destined to experience it that very night. On a hill south of
Werwick, in the evening of 13 October, we were subjected to
several hours of heavy bombardment with gas bombs, which
continued through the night with more or less intensity.
About midnight a number of us were put out of action, some
for ever. Towards morning I also began to feel pain. It
increased with every quarter of an hour, and about seven
o'clock my eyes were scorching as I staggered back and
delivered the last dispatch I was destined to carry in this
war. A few hours later my eyes were like glowing coals, and
all was darkness around me."

During the second world war mustard gas was not used but
Lundquist (1983) reports of a large number of Allied soldiers
and sailors who were exposed to mustard gas towards the ends
of second world war as a result of German bombing of the
harbour at Bari in Italy. Of the two dozen ships destroyed,
one was carrying a cargo of about 100 thousand kilograms of
mustard-gas bombs. Much of the mustard gas was released into
the water and some of it dissolved in the floating oil. More
than 1000 people were killed and of these deaths more than
100 were determined to have been specifically caused by
mustard-gas poisoning and many more to have been due to
various indirectly associated reasons, such as disablement
followed by drowning.