Sarin Nerve Agent Bomb Explodes in Iraq

[darrels joy]

Sarin Nerve Agent Bomb Explodes in Iraq

May 17, 2004 11:11 AM EDT


BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing deadly sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. It was believed to be the first confirmed finding of any of the banned weapons upon which the United States based its case for the Iraq war.

Two people were treated for "minor exposure," but no serious injuries were reported.

The deadly chemical was inside an artillery shell dating to the Saddam Hussein era that had been rigged as a bomb in Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq.

U.S. troops have announced the discovery of other chemical weapons before, only to see them disproved by later tests. A dozen chemical shells were also found by U.N. inspectors before the war; they had been tagged for destruction in the 1990s but somehow were not destroyed.

"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Kimmitt said. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy.

"A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent," he said.

The incident occurred "a couple of days ago," he said.

The Iraqi Survey Group is a U.S. organization whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after Saddam's ouster.

The round was an old `binary-type' shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said.

He said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn't know it contained the nerve agent, and that the dispersal of the nerve agent from such a rigged device was very limited.

"The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War," Kimmitt said. Two members of a military bomb squad were treated for minor exposure to nerve agent, but none was injured.

It was unclear if the sarin shell was from chemical rounds that the United Nations had tagged and marked for destruction before the U.S. invasion.

Prior to the war, U.N. inspectors had compiled a short list of proscribed items found during hundreds of surprise inspections: fewer than 20 old, empty chemical warheads for battlefield rockets, and a dozen artillery shells filled with mustard gas. The shells had been tagged by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s but somehow not destroyed by them.

In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult unleashed sarin gas in Tokyo's subways, killing 12 people and sickening thousands. In February of this year, Japanese courts convicted the cult's former leader, Shoko Asahara, and sentence him to be executed.

Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonizing choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas.

Nerve gases work by inhibiting key enzymes in the nervous system, blocking their transmission. Small exposures can be treated with antidotes, if administered quickly.

Antidotes to nerve gases similar to sarin are so effective that top poison gas researchers predict they eventually will cease to be a war threat.

The Bush administration cited allegations that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as a main reason for launching the war in Iraq last year, but no evidence of such weapons has been found.

Since the war ended, the U.S.-led coalition has found several caches that tested positive for mustard gas but later turned out to contain missile fuel or other chemicals.

In January, troops discovered 36 mortar rounds believed to hold a blister agent, but later tests showed there was no such chemical inside.
http://start.earthlink.net/newsartic...82KE8904_story

[Arrow]

But there are no WMD in Iraqjust as there are noAl Qaeda and a former president that will go unnamed did not have sex with "that woman".

Arrow>>>>>

[SuperScout]

This just can't be!! What evil lower-life form would produce just one 155mm artillery round filled with the binary agents to create SARIN, one of the most deadly agents on earth? I thought we were told by all the experts that there weren't any WMD in IRAQ?

All things considered, I guess what the libs would only believe as ample evidence are 37 missles pointed at the US, firing panels lit up in the "Ready to Fire" mode, a stencil label indicating "WMD - Intended for the Great Satan America!"

[colmurph]

Heck Superscout.....are you "Out of the Loop"? The libs on other websites are saying that Rumsfield smuggled it in when he came over to look at the prison. You KNOW that Liberals NEVER LIE!
Only Republicans lie whenever thay are talking about Kerry.

[darrels joy]

Spinning the Sarin
Tests confirm that artillery shell that blew up in Iraq did indeed contain sarin--between three quarts' and a gallon's worth, Fox News reports. The New York Times buries the story on page 11 (something about weddings in Massachusetts led the front page, bizarrely enough), and it's shot through with pro-Saddam spin:

The discovery of the sarin-filled shell appears to offer some of the most substantial evidence to date that Mr. Hussein did not destroy all of the banned chemical agent, as he claimed before the war last year. It provides some solace, and possibly fresh leads, to the American teams that have been conducting an otherwise fruitless search for the weapons for more than a year.

The Bush administration's belief that Mr. Hussein continued to maintain stocks of such banned weapons was the primary justification put forward for invading Iraq in March 2003. American inspectors scouring the country since April 2003 have so far found little evidence that Mr. Hussein maintained such weapons or a program to produce them.

Even more brazen spin comes from the liberal Detroit Free Press, which editorializes:

This new and dangerous aspect of the war may be a consequence of the American failure to secure hundreds of Iraqi weapons caches and ammunition dumps during the race to Baghdad. There was simply too much stuff and not enough troops.

Now, this may all be true. But isn't it amazing how the argument switched from "no WMDs" to "too much stuff" in the blink of an eye?

Writing in The American Spectator Online, George Neumayr argues that the find confirms weapons inspector David Kay's case for war: "We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq," Kay told Congress "And now we know that there was little control over Iraq's weapons capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country--and no central control."

[firemedic]

Superscout, If they take those missles, which the left said they didn't have, and they fire them at us, which the left said they had no intention of doing, somehow, it's going to be Bush's fault. Probably because he humiliated them by putting panties on the prisoner's faces.

[SEATJERKER]

...they just misplaced that ONE when they were distroying the other 78505096976959584874,...

...just a leftover,,it was only a sample , err,...

...WAKE UP PEOPLE/WORLD,

[Seascamp]

The race to Baghdad, indeed, what a very interesting crock of crap the "Free Press' is serving up. Apparently the vested interest in the ?WMD myth? needs a bit of spin doctoring and a few more band aids on the band aid ball. The fall 2002 diddle fiddle dance in the UN bought all the time necessary to disposition all that WMD, especially the interesting items that countries like France, Germany and Russia didn?t want the US to find. Look to the west, way to the west and odds are that Syria and possibly Lebanon have a very interesting situation on their plate. It?s possibly not unlike looking right down the double barrels of a buck-loaded shotgun and being very nervous about even contemplating a move or allowing one.

Scamp