yeah that was one helluva fast spin reaction to this discovery. The phone numbers and talking points from the DNC/Kerry campaign HQ must have been taped to the monitors at MSNBC, CNN, etc.
http://forum.johnkerry.com/index.php?showtopic=30806&st=15&#entry243462
Monday, May 17, 2004 10:41 a.m. EDT
Sarin Nerve Agent Found in Iraq
An artillery shell loaded with what is being described as "a Sarin nerve agent" has been found in Iraq by the U.S. military, Fox News Channel is reporting.
CentCom spokesman Gen. Mark Kimmit confirmed Monday that the Sarin-filled shell was discovered on a roadside in Iraq.
"The round had been rigged and was discovered by a U.S. forces convoy," Kimmitt told reporters at a Baghdad press briefing. "A detonation occurred before it could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent."
Two U.S. explosives experts were treated for exposure to the gas, Kimmitt said.
The Sarin gas shell is the kind of banned weapon that Saddam Hussein had claimed Iraq destroyed before the first Gulf War.
piecing some statements together here . . .
the IED exploded before it could be rendered inoperable . . .
"The round was an old binary-type requiring the mixing of two chemical components in separate sections of the cell before the deadly agent is produced," Kimmitt said. "The cell is designed to work after being fired from an artillery piece."
From the first statement, I would conclude that the soldiers were attemting to disarm the IED and that it exploded.
In conjunction with the second statement, it seems unlikely that the sarin would have been created by the detonation itself [chemical agents are very hard to dispurse under ideal conditions - explosions generally destroy them instead of creating them!!].
Maybe there are a few experts here (I was in the Artillery in the early 80's, but this was not my expertise!!) who will correct me, but, the sarin needed to have been "mixed" prior to the detonation which indicates both a foreknowledge that the round contained sarin AND the knowledge of how to mix it properly . . .