Powell Confirms No WMD Expected To Be Found In Iraq - FlipFlop?
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- Start date
http://www.inreview.com/archive/topic/24187.html
WMD Findings Reported To Date From Dec., 2002 through June, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------Posted by: Dirk Hudson
WMD Findings Reported To Date From Dec., 2002 through June, 2004
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Dec 4, 2002
Place: al-Muthanna
Outfit: UN inspectors
Finding: mustard gas & shells
Effects:
Source: [UN, AP, Fox News]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
Date: Apr 5, 2003
Place: Euphrates River near Nasiriyah
Outfit: marines
Finding: mustard gas and cyanide [believed to have been dumped in the Euphrates either by Iraqi soldiers fleeing from American troops or local factories that produced weapons of mass destruction.]
Effects:
Source: [London Daily Telegraph; MSNBC, citing marine officials]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Date: Apr 5, 2003
Place: Albu Muhawish on the Euphrates River about 100km south of Baghdad
Outfit: 101st Airborne
Finding: tabun and sarin, plus 55-gallon chemical drums, hundreds of gas masks and chemical suits
Effects: more than a dozen soldiers; vomiting, dizziness and skin blotches. [soldiers hosed down with water and bleach]
Source: [Knight Ridder reporter, and CNN]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
Date: Apr 6, 2003
Place: near airport Karbala, just south of Hindiyah
Outfit: 101st Airborne
Finding: two dozen drums that initially tested positive for Sarin and mustard gas
Effects: 11 soldiers, were treated for symptoms of low-level exposure - vomiting, dizziness and skin blotches.
Source: [Major Michael Hamlet, 101st, cited by Reuters ]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.
Date: Apr 7, 2003
Place: near Baghdad
Outfit: 1st Marine Division
Finding: 20 medium-range BM-21 missiles equipped with sarin and mustard gas
Effects:
Source: [per top marine official cited in NPR, Fox News]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.
Date: Apr 10, 2003
Place: near Baghdad
Outfit: marines
Finding: mobile biological- or chemical-weapons lab
Effects:
Source: [Fox News, Rick Leventhal]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.
Date: Apr 9, 11, 2003
Place: underground tunnels at al Tawaitha facility, 18 mi. south of Baghdad
Outfit: marines
Finding: stocks of low-grade nuclear materials, uranium and possibly plutonium
Effects: radiation levels are high [many drums of highly radioactive material]
Source: [Capt. John Seegar; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review][Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.
Date: Apr 12, 2003
Place: northern Iraqi air base in Kirkut
Outfit: army intelligence posting
Finding: chemical warhead with trace amounts of nerve gas
Effects:
Source: [military sources to CNN]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.
Date: Apr 25, 2003
Place: site east of Bayji, Iraq
Outfit: U.S. Special Forces reconnaissance team later: experts from Army's 1-10 Cavalry
Finding: a dozen 55-gallon drums; mixture of three chemicals, including a nerve agent and blistering agent
Effects:
Source: [Lt. Col. Ted Martin of the 10th Cavalry Regiment; Lt. Valerie Phipps, cited by ABC News]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.
Date: May 9, 2003
Place: near Mosul, Iraq
Outfit: 101st Airborne
Finding: mobile biological weapons laboratory [incomplete]
Effects:
Source: [Army Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.
Date: Oct 4, 2003
Place: Iraqi scientist's refrigerator
Outfit: U.S. arms inspectors led by David Kay
Finding: vial of botulinum bacteria [the most poisonous substance known to man]
Effects:
Source: [Richard Boucher, State Dept. spokesman to Agence France-Presse WorldNetDaily.com]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.
Date: May - Oct, 2003
Place: various parts of Iraq
Outfit: U.S. arms inspectors led by David Kay
Finding: "a clandestine network of biological laboratories"; dozens of WMD- related program activities and significant amounts of equipment"
Effects:
Source: [Richard Boucher, State Dept. spokesman to Agence France-Presse, WorldNetDaily.com]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.
Date: Oct 4, 2003 [earlier in wk]
Place: smuggled from Iraq to Kuwait [destination:. a Eur. country]
Outfit: Kuwaiti security forces
Finding: biological and chemical weapons, and biological. warheads
Effects:
Source: [Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyassah WorldNetDaily.com]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13.
Date: January 4, 2004
Place: Al Quarnah near Basra
Outfit: Danish troops
Finding: 200 Iraqi mortar shells containing a deadly liquid blister agent
Effects: Multiple tests [conducted in Iraq by Danish and British experts] all confirm shells contain blister agent
Source: Danish official sources to Fox News Channel, Reuters and the Associated Press [find also confirmed by Ali Nimir, a former colonel in an Iraqi Republican Guard artillery unit]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.
Date: April 17, 2004
Place: Amman, Jordan, 75 miles from the Syrian border [believed derived from Iraq]
Outfit: Jordanian officials
Finding: al-Qaida car "carried explosives, a chemical bomb and poisonous gas."
Effects: "The bomb, had it been detonated, could have affected people in a one-kilometer radius and cause the deaths of up to 20,000 people," Jordanian officials told Maariv.
Source: Jordanian officials to the London-based newspaper al-Hayat ; see also the Israeli newspaper Maariv; U.P.I.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15.
Date: April 26, 2004
Place: Baghdad
Outfit: U.S. troops
Finding: workshop "suspected of producing and supplying chemical agents" to Iraqi insurgents]
Effects: [workshop exploded in flames Monday moments after U.S. troops broke in to search it]
Source: Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt; Fox News; A.P.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16.
Date: c. May 3, 2004
Place: Baghdad
Outfit: U.S. military units
Finding: artillery shell containing trace elements of mustard agent
Effects: [analysis confirmed]
Source: senior Bush Admin. official to Fox News
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17.
Date: [rptd] May 17, 2004
Place: Baghdad
Outfit: U.S. military units
Finding: 155-millimeter artillery shell containing chemical cweapon sarin
Effects: two American soldiers who removed the round had symptoms of low-level nerve agent exposure [analysis confirmed]
Source: Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt to Fox News
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18.
Date: late June, 2004; rptd July 2, 2004
Place: South-central Iraq
Outfit: Polish troops
Finding: 16-17 warheads, containing cyclosarin, a deadly nerve agent
Effects: a very toxic gas, five times stronger than sarin and five times more durable
Source: Gen. Marek Dukaczewski and Polish Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek to Polish TV; A.P., Newsmax
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19.
Date: 1999 - 2000 [causes]; 2003-2004[effects]
Place: [cause] laboratories outside Iraq [per Iraqi defector quoting Saddam]; Cuba [per Cuban defectors]
Outfit: Iraqi and Cuban defectors [causes]; health officials [effects]
Finding: strain SV 141 of the West Nile virus
Effects: [initial effects] Florida Keys and eastern half of U.S., now spreading throughout U.S. and Israel
Source: Richard Preston in The New Yorker magazine, (7/12/99); Joseph Farah in WND, (6/27/04)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.
Date: June 19 -23, 2004
Place: sprawling Tuwaitha nuclear complex, 12 miles south of Baghdad [removed to U.S.]
Outfit: U.S. nuclear authorities (U.S. National Nuclear Security Admin.)
Finding: (1) c. 1.8 tons of uranium, enriched to a level of 2.6 %, (2) 6.6 lbs. of low-enriched uranium, (3) c. 1,000 highly radioactive sources*
Effects: *[3, cont.] that could be used in so-called "dirty bombs"
Source: (1) Spencer Abraham, U.S. Energy Scty.; (2) Paul Longsworth, Dep.Admin. for def. nuclear nonprolif. in the U.S. Natl. Nuclear Secur. Admin., (A.P., 7/07/04)
WMD Findings Reported To Date From Dec., 2002 through June, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------Posted by: Dirk Hudson
WMD Findings Reported To Date From Dec., 2002 through June, 2004
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Dec 4, 2002
Place: al-Muthanna
Outfit: UN inspectors
Finding: mustard gas & shells
Effects:
Source: [UN, AP, Fox News]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
Date: Apr 5, 2003
Place: Euphrates River near Nasiriyah
Outfit: marines
Finding: mustard gas and cyanide [believed to have been dumped in the Euphrates either by Iraqi soldiers fleeing from American troops or local factories that produced weapons of mass destruction.]
Effects:
Source: [London Daily Telegraph; MSNBC, citing marine officials]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Date: Apr 5, 2003
Place: Albu Muhawish on the Euphrates River about 100km south of Baghdad
Outfit: 101st Airborne
Finding: tabun and sarin, plus 55-gallon chemical drums, hundreds of gas masks and chemical suits
Effects: more than a dozen soldiers; vomiting, dizziness and skin blotches. [soldiers hosed down with water and bleach]
Source: [Knight Ridder reporter, and CNN]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
Date: Apr 6, 2003
Place: near airport Karbala, just south of Hindiyah
Outfit: 101st Airborne
Finding: two dozen drums that initially tested positive for Sarin and mustard gas
Effects: 11 soldiers, were treated for symptoms of low-level exposure - vomiting, dizziness and skin blotches.
Source: [Major Michael Hamlet, 101st, cited by Reuters ]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.
Date: Apr 7, 2003
Place: near Baghdad
Outfit: 1st Marine Division
Finding: 20 medium-range BM-21 missiles equipped with sarin and mustard gas
Effects:
Source: [per top marine official cited in NPR, Fox News]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.
Date: Apr 10, 2003
Place: near Baghdad
Outfit: marines
Finding: mobile biological- or chemical-weapons lab
Effects:
Source: [Fox News, Rick Leventhal]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.
Date: Apr 9, 11, 2003
Place: underground tunnels at al Tawaitha facility, 18 mi. south of Baghdad
Outfit: marines
Finding: stocks of low-grade nuclear materials, uranium and possibly plutonium
Effects: radiation levels are high [many drums of highly radioactive material]
Source: [Capt. John Seegar; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review][Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.
Date: Apr 12, 2003
Place: northern Iraqi air base in Kirkut
Outfit: army intelligence posting
Finding: chemical warhead with trace amounts of nerve gas
Effects:
Source: [military sources to CNN]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.
Date: Apr 25, 2003
Place: site east of Bayji, Iraq
Outfit: U.S. Special Forces reconnaissance team later: experts from Army's 1-10 Cavalry
Finding: a dozen 55-gallon drums; mixture of three chemicals, including a nerve agent and blistering agent
Effects:
Source: [Lt. Col. Ted Martin of the 10th Cavalry Regiment; Lt. Valerie Phipps, cited by ABC News]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.
Date: May 9, 2003
Place: near Mosul, Iraq
Outfit: 101st Airborne
Finding: mobile biological weapons laboratory [incomplete]
Effects:
Source: [Army Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.
Date: Oct 4, 2003
Place: Iraqi scientist's refrigerator
Outfit: U.S. arms inspectors led by David Kay
Finding: vial of botulinum bacteria [the most poisonous substance known to man]
Effects:
Source: [Richard Boucher, State Dept. spokesman to Agence France-Presse WorldNetDaily.com]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.
Date: May - Oct, 2003
Place: various parts of Iraq
Outfit: U.S. arms inspectors led by David Kay
Finding: "a clandestine network of biological laboratories"; dozens of WMD- related program activities and significant amounts of equipment"
Effects:
Source: [Richard Boucher, State Dept. spokesman to Agence France-Presse, WorldNetDaily.com]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.
Date: Oct 4, 2003 [earlier in wk]
Place: smuggled from Iraq to Kuwait [destination:. a Eur. country]
Outfit: Kuwaiti security forces
Finding: biological and chemical weapons, and biological. warheads
Effects:
Source: [Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyassah WorldNetDaily.com]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13.
Date: January 4, 2004
Place: Al Quarnah near Basra
Outfit: Danish troops
Finding: 200 Iraqi mortar shells containing a deadly liquid blister agent
Effects: Multiple tests [conducted in Iraq by Danish and British experts] all confirm shells contain blister agent
Source: Danish official sources to Fox News Channel, Reuters and the Associated Press [find also confirmed by Ali Nimir, a former colonel in an Iraqi Republican Guard artillery unit]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.
Date: April 17, 2004
Place: Amman, Jordan, 75 miles from the Syrian border [believed derived from Iraq]
Outfit: Jordanian officials
Finding: al-Qaida car "carried explosives, a chemical bomb and poisonous gas."
Effects: "The bomb, had it been detonated, could have affected people in a one-kilometer radius and cause the deaths of up to 20,000 people," Jordanian officials told Maariv.
Source: Jordanian officials to the London-based newspaper al-Hayat ; see also the Israeli newspaper Maariv; U.P.I.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15.
Date: April 26, 2004
Place: Baghdad
Outfit: U.S. troops
Finding: workshop "suspected of producing and supplying chemical agents" to Iraqi insurgents]
Effects: [workshop exploded in flames Monday moments after U.S. troops broke in to search it]
Source: Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt; Fox News; A.P.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16.
Date: c. May 3, 2004
Place: Baghdad
Outfit: U.S. military units
Finding: artillery shell containing trace elements of mustard agent
Effects: [analysis confirmed]
Source: senior Bush Admin. official to Fox News
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17.
Date: [rptd] May 17, 2004
Place: Baghdad
Outfit: U.S. military units
Finding: 155-millimeter artillery shell containing chemical cweapon sarin
Effects: two American soldiers who removed the round had symptoms of low-level nerve agent exposure [analysis confirmed]
Source: Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt to Fox News
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18.
Date: late June, 2004; rptd July 2, 2004
Place: South-central Iraq
Outfit: Polish troops
Finding: 16-17 warheads, containing cyclosarin, a deadly nerve agent
Effects: a very toxic gas, five times stronger than sarin and five times more durable
Source: Gen. Marek Dukaczewski and Polish Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek to Polish TV; A.P., Newsmax
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19.
Date: 1999 - 2000 [causes]; 2003-2004[effects]
Place: [cause] laboratories outside Iraq [per Iraqi defector quoting Saddam]; Cuba [per Cuban defectors]
Outfit: Iraqi and Cuban defectors [causes]; health officials [effects]
Finding: strain SV 141 of the West Nile virus
Effects: [initial effects] Florida Keys and eastern half of U.S., now spreading throughout U.S. and Israel
Source: Richard Preston in The New Yorker magazine, (7/12/99); Joseph Farah in WND, (6/27/04)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.
Date: June 19 -23, 2004
Place: sprawling Tuwaitha nuclear complex, 12 miles south of Baghdad [removed to U.S.]
Outfit: U.S. nuclear authorities (U.S. National Nuclear Security Admin.)
Finding: (1) c. 1.8 tons of uranium, enriched to a level of 2.6 %, (2) 6.6 lbs. of low-enriched uranium, (3) c. 1,000 highly radioactive sources*
Effects: *[3, cont.] that could be used in so-called "dirty bombs"
Source: (1) Spencer Abraham, U.S. Energy Scty.; (2) Paul Longsworth, Dep.Admin. for def. nuclear nonprolif. in the U.S. Natl. Nuclear Secur. Admin., (A.P., 7/07/04)
what a great source http://www.inreview.com/, so if i guote someone from the siccness forums will that make it valid? LMAO
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html
Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq
Monday, May 17, 2004
Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas (search) was also recently discovered.
Two people were treated for "minor exposure" after the sarin incident but no serious injuries were reported. Soldiers transporting the shell for inspection suffered symptoms consistent with low-level chemical exposure, which is what led to the discovery, a U.S. official told Fox News.
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy."
The round detonated before it would be rendered inoperable, Kimmitt said, which caused a "very small dispersal of agent."
However, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the results were from a field test, which can be imperfect, and said more analysis was needed. If confirmed, it would be the first finding of a banned weapon upon which the United States based its case for war.
Click to Read the Weapons of Mass Destruction Handbook
A senior Bush administration official told Fox News that the sarin gas shell is the second chemical weapon discovered recently.
Two weeks ago, U.S. military units discovered mustard gas that was used as part of an IED. Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group (search) — a U.S. organization searching for weapons of mass destruction — and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective."
They believe the mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles for which former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein failed to account when he made his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last year. Iraq also failed to then account for 450 aerial bombs with mustard gas. That, combined with the shells, totaled about 80 tons of unaccounted for mustard gas.
It also appears some top Pentagon officials were surprised by the sarin news; they thought the matter was classified, administration officials told Fox News.
An official at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) headquarters in New York said the commission is surprised to hear news of the mustard gas.
"If that's the case, why didn't they announce it earlier?" the official asked.
The UNMOVIC official said the group needs to know more from the Bush administration before it's possible to determine if this is "old or new stuff. It is known that Iraq used sarin during the Iraq-Iran war, however.
Kimmitt said the shell belonged to a class of ordnance that Saddam's government said was destroyed before the 1991 Gulf war (search). Experts believe both the sarin and mustard gas weapons date back to that time.
"It was a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time and it had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED and basically from the detection of that and when it exploded, it indicated that it actually had some sarin in it," Kimmitt said.
The incident occurred "a couple of days ago," he added. The discovery reportedly occurred near Baghdad International Airport.
Washington officials say the significance of the find is that some chemical shells do still exist in Iraq, and it's thought that fighters there may be upping their attacks on U.S. forces by using such weapons.
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 shell had no markings. It appears the binary sarin agents didn't mix, which is why there weren't serious injuries from the initial explosion, a U.S. official told Fox News.
"Everybody knew Saddam had chemical weapons, the question was, where did they go. Unfortunately, everybody jumped on the offramp and said 'well, because we didn't find them, he didn't have them,'" said Fox News military analyst Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney.
"I doubt if it's the tip of the iceberg but it does confirm what we've known ... that he [Saddam] had weapons of mass destruction that he used on his own people," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News. "This does show that the fear we had is very real. Now whether there is much more of this we don't know, Iraq is the size of the state of California."
But there were more reasons than weapons to get rid of Saddam, he added. "We considered Saddam Hussein a threat not just because of weapons of mass destruction," Grassley said.
Iraqi Scientist: You Will Find More
Gazi George, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist under Saddam's regime, told Fox News he believes many similar weapons stockpiled by the former regime were either buried underground or transported to Syria. He noted that the airport where the device was detonated is on the way to Baghdad from the Syrian border.
George said the finding likely will be the first in a series of discoveries of such weapons.
"Saddam is the type who will not store those materials in a military warehouse. He's gonna store them either underground, or, as I said, lots of them have gone west to Syria and are being brought back with the insurgencies," George told Fox News. "It is difficult to look in areas that are not obvious to the military's eyes.
"I'm sure they're going to find more once time passes," he continued, saying one year is not enough for the survey group or the military to find the weapons.
Saddam, when he was in power, had declared that he did in fact possess mustard-gas filled artilleries but none that included sarin.
"I think what we found today, the sarin in some ways, although it's a nerve gas, it's a lucky situation sarin detonated in the way it did ... it's not as dangerous as the cocktails Saddam used to make, mixing blister" agents with other gases and substances, George said.
Officials: Discovery Is 'Significant'
U.S. officials told Fox News that the shell discovery is a "significant" event.
Artillery shells of the 155-mm size are as big as it gets when it comes to the ordnance lobbed by infantry-based artillery units. The 155 howitzer can launch high capacity shells over several miles; current models used by the United States can fire shells as far as 14 miles. One official told Fox News that a conventional 155-mm shell could hold as much as "two to five" liters of sarin, which is capable of killing thousands of people under the right conditions in highly populated areas.
The Iraqis were very capable of producing such shells in the 1980s but it's not as clear that they continued after the first Gulf War.
In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo (search) 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.
Fox News' Wendell Goler, Steve Harrigan, Ian McCaleb, Liza Porteus, James Rosen and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq
Monday, May 17, 2004
Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas (search) was also recently discovered.
Two people were treated for "minor exposure" after the sarin incident but no serious injuries were reported. Soldiers transporting the shell for inspection suffered symptoms consistent with low-level chemical exposure, which is what led to the discovery, a U.S. official told Fox News.
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy."
The round detonated before it would be rendered inoperable, Kimmitt said, which caused a "very small dispersal of agent."
However, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the results were from a field test, which can be imperfect, and said more analysis was needed. If confirmed, it would be the first finding of a banned weapon upon which the United States based its case for war.
Click to Read the Weapons of Mass Destruction Handbook
A senior Bush administration official told Fox News that the sarin gas shell is the second chemical weapon discovered recently.
Two weeks ago, U.S. military units discovered mustard gas that was used as part of an IED. Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group (search) — a U.S. organization searching for weapons of mass destruction — and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective."
They believe the mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles for which former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein failed to account when he made his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last year. Iraq also failed to then account for 450 aerial bombs with mustard gas. That, combined with the shells, totaled about 80 tons of unaccounted for mustard gas.
It also appears some top Pentagon officials were surprised by the sarin news; they thought the matter was classified, administration officials told Fox News.
An official at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) headquarters in New York said the commission is surprised to hear news of the mustard gas.
"If that's the case, why didn't they announce it earlier?" the official asked.
The UNMOVIC official said the group needs to know more from the Bush administration before it's possible to determine if this is "old or new stuff. It is known that Iraq used sarin during the Iraq-Iran war, however.
Kimmitt said the shell belonged to a class of ordnance that Saddam's government said was destroyed before the 1991 Gulf war (search). Experts believe both the sarin and mustard gas weapons date back to that time.
"It was a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time and it had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED and basically from the detection of that and when it exploded, it indicated that it actually had some sarin in it," Kimmitt said.
The incident occurred "a couple of days ago," he added. The discovery reportedly occurred near Baghdad International Airport.
Washington officials say the significance of the find is that some chemical shells do still exist in Iraq, and it's thought that fighters there may be upping their attacks on U.S. forces by using such weapons.
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 shell had no markings. It appears the binary sarin agents didn't mix, which is why there weren't serious injuries from the initial explosion, a U.S. official told Fox News.
"Everybody knew Saddam had chemical weapons, the question was, where did they go. Unfortunately, everybody jumped on the offramp and said 'well, because we didn't find them, he didn't have them,'" said Fox News military analyst Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney.
"I doubt if it's the tip of the iceberg but it does confirm what we've known ... that he [Saddam] had weapons of mass destruction that he used on his own people," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News. "This does show that the fear we had is very real. Now whether there is much more of this we don't know, Iraq is the size of the state of California."
But there were more reasons than weapons to get rid of Saddam, he added. "We considered Saddam Hussein a threat not just because of weapons of mass destruction," Grassley said.
Iraqi Scientist: You Will Find More
Gazi George, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist under Saddam's regime, told Fox News he believes many similar weapons stockpiled by the former regime were either buried underground or transported to Syria. He noted that the airport where the device was detonated is on the way to Baghdad from the Syrian border.
George said the finding likely will be the first in a series of discoveries of such weapons.
"Saddam is the type who will not store those materials in a military warehouse. He's gonna store them either underground, or, as I said, lots of them have gone west to Syria and are being brought back with the insurgencies," George told Fox News. "It is difficult to look in areas that are not obvious to the military's eyes.
"I'm sure they're going to find more once time passes," he continued, saying one year is not enough for the survey group or the military to find the weapons.
Saddam, when he was in power, had declared that he did in fact possess mustard-gas filled artilleries but none that included sarin.
"I think what we found today, the sarin in some ways, although it's a nerve gas, it's a lucky situation sarin detonated in the way it did ... it's not as dangerous as the cocktails Saddam used to make, mixing blister" agents with other gases and substances, George said.
Officials: Discovery Is 'Significant'
U.S. officials told Fox News that the shell discovery is a "significant" event.
Artillery shells of the 155-mm size are as big as it gets when it comes to the ordnance lobbed by infantry-based artillery units. The 155 howitzer can launch high capacity shells over several miles; current models used by the United States can fire shells as far as 14 miles. One official told Fox News that a conventional 155-mm shell could hold as much as "two to five" liters of sarin, which is capable of killing thousands of people under the right conditions in highly populated areas.
The Iraqis were very capable of producing such shells in the 1980s but it's not as clear that they continued after the first Gulf War.
In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo (search) 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.
Fox News' Wendell Goler, Steve Harrigan, Ian McCaleb, Liza Porteus, James Rosen and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
same incident different source
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1528363,00.html
Sarin: 1st WMD found in Iraq
17/05/2004 17:48 - (SA)
Baghdad, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a US military convoy in Baghdad, the US military said on Monday. It was the first confirmed finding of any of the banned weapons upon which the United States based its case for the Iraq war.
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155mm artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesperson in Iraq. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a US 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. Two US soldiers were treated for minor injuries, Kimmitt added.
The Iraqi Survey Group is a US organisation whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in last year's invasion. Saddam claimed to have destroyed his chemical and biological weapons and UN inspectors had uncovered no major finds.
"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."
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. Many of the materials used for roadside bombs are believed to have been looted from arsenals after the collapse of the regime in April 2003.
First shell with sarin found
Dispersal would be far more effective if a shell containing nerve agent were fired from an artillery piece, he said. Kimmitt said he believed it was the first case in which US forces had found an artillery shell containing sarin.
"The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War," Kimmitt said. "Two explosive ordinance team members were treated for minor exposure to nerve agent as a result of the partial detonation of the round."
Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonising choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas, but that didn't stop other nations from stocking it.
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.
Edited by Tisha Steyn
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1528363,00.html
Sarin: 1st WMD found in Iraq
17/05/2004 17:48 - (SA)
Baghdad, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a US military convoy in Baghdad, the US military said on Monday. It was the first confirmed finding of any of the banned weapons upon which the United States based its case for the Iraq war.
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155mm artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesperson in Iraq. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a US 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. Two US soldiers were treated for minor injuries, Kimmitt added.
The Iraqi Survey Group is a US organisation whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in last year's invasion. Saddam claimed to have destroyed his chemical and biological weapons and UN inspectors had uncovered no major finds.
"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."
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. Many of the materials used for roadside bombs are believed to have been looted from arsenals after the collapse of the regime in April 2003.
First shell with sarin found
Dispersal would be far more effective if a shell containing nerve agent were fired from an artillery piece, he said. Kimmitt said he believed it was the first case in which US forces had found an artillery shell containing sarin.
"The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War," Kimmitt said. "Two explosive ordinance team members were treated for minor exposure to nerve agent as a result of the partial detonation of the round."
Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonising choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas, but that didn't stop other nations from stocking it.
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.
Edited by Tisha Steyn
...And now your quoting FNC...you're a fucking moron...do you really think that will carry weight around here?
Sorry to disappoint ya buddy.
“There was every reason to believe there were stockpiles,” Powell said. “There was a question about the size of stockpiles, but we all believed there were stockpiles.”
However, Powell said in response to questions from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, “it turned out that we have not found any stockpiles.”
Moreover, Powell said, “I think it is unlikely that we will find any stockpiles.”
The job now, he said, was “to go back and find out why we had a different judgment.”
The way I look at it is Colin is saying - "Oops, we rushed to war on the wrong information, got a thousand US soldiers killed, thousands of US soldiers maimed, killed thousands of Iraqi's but we are going to try to find out why we thought chicken coops were weapon stockpiles"
I think its worse than a flip flop but Im not half way intelligent. LOL
“There was every reason to believe there were stockpiles,” Powell said. “There was a question about the size of stockpiles, but we all believed there were stockpiles.”
However, Powell said in response to questions from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, “it turned out that we have not found any stockpiles.”
Moreover, Powell said, “I think it is unlikely that we will find any stockpiles.”
The job now, he said, was “to go back and find out why we had a different judgment.”
The way I look at it is Colin is saying - "Oops, we rushed to war on the wrong information, got a thousand US soldiers killed, thousands of US soldiers maimed, killed thousands of Iraqi's but we are going to try to find out why we thought chicken coops were weapon stockpiles"
I think its worse than a flip flop but Im not half way intelligent. LOL
^Why don't you tell us.
You guys crack me up. Especially those of you that hate Bush. He says WMD, stockpiles, and thats all you talk about. Isn't it obvious yet that WMD was the only justifiable reason to invade that country? It's not hard to figure out. Yet you guys are still asking about them. LMAO.
Mcleanhatch will never believe you. You will never believe him. So why go any further?
You guys crack me up. Especially those of you that hate Bush. He says WMD, stockpiles, and thats all you talk about. Isn't it obvious yet that WMD was the only justifiable reason to invade that country? It's not hard to figure out. Yet you guys are still asking about them. LMAO.
Mcleanhatch will never believe you. You will never believe him. So why go any further?