'CHEMICAL SHELLS FOUND' (Hello Mr. Blix!)

Sky News ^ | 13 April, 2003

[Happy2BMe]

'CHEMICAL SHELLS FOUND'

US Marines have discovered 278 artillery shells carrying a substance that tested positive as a blistering agent, senior officers have said.

Major Stephen Armes, of the Marines 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, said the shells were found in trailers parked in a schoolyard.

Three were mounted on launchers, he said.

But the battalion commander said more tests were required before any conclusions could be drawn.

Coalition forces have yet to find any evidence of chemical weapons since launching the war in Iraq on March 20.

All the alleged finds have so far turned out to be false upon further analysis.

But military commanders remain confident they will eventually uncover weapons of mass destruction.

They say thousands of sites have to be searched and it is only a matter of time. 

"I have not found any that I have absolutely satisfied myself are...weapon of mass destruction materials," Coalition commander General Tommy Franks told reporters.

"But you're talking about 2,000, 3,000 perhaps, places in this country where we know we're going to go and investigate each one of them.

"We may have...somewhere between five and 10 and 15 site exploitations ongoing in a 24-hour period of time."

In some of these cases the testing could take up to three weeks or more, he added.

[sargon]

Franks further stated that he is convinced there are WMD in Iraq.

I'll take Franks at his word, as opposed to some embedded reporter.

[Happy2BMe]

"To even try it you'd have to mass artillery, and the massed artillery and the men who man it would instantly become targets for a MOAB or some horrific fuel-air weapon which, as we've seen, was never more than 12 minutes away on a circling B1."

Very well said.

The evidence that demands a verdict (against Russia, Germany, France, Syria - and God knows who else) is beginning to flow in now.

There will be a flood of it very, very shortly.

[cyncooper]

Odds are that this is a mistake too, you know.

Really? Can you name one site found to date that has been excluded and deemed a "mistake"?

(Hint: There isn't one)

[Prince Charles]

Nothing to see here... move along now. Those were just pesticide-tipped shells.. be on your way.

[cyncooper]

I haven't heard that our military has yet declared any of the stuff found to NOT be WMD.

You are correct.

[KneelBeforeZod]

maybe they are giant cadbury creme eggs. it is almost easter after all.

[RaceBannon]

I want everyone here to think of something:

Either we have been fiding weapons of mass destruction or we have the worst detection equipment in the world.

It cannot be both. We are declaring these to be weapons that have tested positive for sarin, lewsite, and other chemicals of dual use or definite chemical warfare use, yet each time we hear that there needs to be more testing, or a secondary 'secondary' test (since all these finds have already been tested twice by the forces at the scene and have all checked out as positives) proved it otherwise.

Well, either our equipment is lying to us, or the government is about the secondary 'secondary' test!!

So, is this a scandal of the information being witheld or is it a scandal of our equipment failing to provide accurate results?

I think our stuff is working just fine. Something is wrong with all these secondary tests, though, that or we are having much information witheld from us, either to be released later as a complete report, or to never be released.

[Happy2BMe]

"I hope that is true prescience instead of false prophesy."

This war is like finding a giant's RAT'S NEST full of dead and dying bodies with NOBODY taking the blame for any of it.

This Iraqi Lt. General did something quite interesting when he surrendered to U.S. Forces - he set up GERMAN TELEVISION CREWS to be on-scene at the time of his surrender. Why? Why was it so important to flag the Germans he had been captured (and was about to be interrogated)?

I say the talking heads in Russia, Germany, and France are so scared $hitle$$ about now of what is getting ready to come out of this it would be hilarious to be a fly on the wall in Paris, Moscow or Berlin about right now.

Saddam has been "gang-banged" by this trio of thugs (Chirac, Schroeder, and Putin) for so long now they have extra pairs of underwear laying around Baghdad for overnight flings.

Saddam had enough (oil) money to entice the three of these to (secretly) invest billion$ in weapons sales to Iraq.

[Iron Eagle]

I sense that this is false alarm number 673 -- give or take a few. I will wait until Franks et al confirm it, before I get all hot and a bothered.

[Symix]

Wow - Hillary looked vicious even then

[Symix]

hehehe - nice idea! Let gother all the people that that Iraq had no chemical weapons to be present when they open the shells. No chemical suits of course.

[snopercod]

So why is it a big announcement then suddenly quashed? Sure, there've been a few mistakes but something weird is going here.

I agree, but don't know the answer. I asked the same question in #44 of this thread: Rescued POW Lynch arrives in U.S. [Why won't they tell us if she was tortured?]

[Madcelt]

Wow - Hillary looked vicious even then

You ain't kidding. It could knock a buzzard off a gut truck at a 1000 yards.

[tiki]

I tell you what, since I know they're never going to believe this anyway we should take up a collection and let them see it and feel it in person.

[mtbopfuyn]

It's more than strange that the odds in rolling dice is better than getting "proof" all those green banded and liquid filled shells, secret panelled trucks, hot barrels of nuke waste, gas masks with anti-meds, and nausea/rash inducing pesticides/fertilizers, decam showers in underground bunkers, and shells carefully stored upright in sand so they don't get jostled of being WMD.

[oyez]

Another WMD story that will be squashed or FUBAR by tomorrow.

[snopercod]

Say, maybe you could tell me. What kind of "shells" are mounted on "launchers". Is this terminology a British thing? Did they mis-spell "lorries"? Does anybody care?

[SandRat]

Opening one in downtown Paris seems like a good test to me.

Even Better at the next UN Security Council meeting, less of course the representatives of those who stood beside us? Can we also make sure that Peter Jennings, Peter Arnett, Ms. Grafalo, Ed Asner, Babsi Striesand, Mike Farrel, Sean Penn, and the rest of the Media/Hollywood left are present?

[George W. Bush]

Either we have been fiding weapons of mass destruction or we have the worst detection equipment in the world.

A false premise, I think. The battlefield detectors, the basis for all these false alarms, are not laboratory equipment. They are extremely conservative in warning against possible chemical attack, just as they should be. But they register many false positives. This has been reported pretty widely. And if these battlefield detectors were so accurate, you have to wonder why we were carrying live animals initially (before they died) to help warn of chemical attack.

Much the same applies to the sealed waste that was so radioactively dangerous. The real nuke experts tell us that weapons-grade uranium and plutonium just aren't all that radioactive or easy to find. Even the U.N. knew about all the really dirty waste we found.

We'll probably find WMD eventually (not that it matters any more) but I think it'll be pretty well hidden. Especially the nuclear stuff and any VX. I expect we'll find blister agents first (mustard gas, etc.) as those are supposed to be the most common agents and more suited to use by a backward military like Iraq's.