OT: Eating Crow....

they'll just claim it took a year to fake it...

That article (which matches the CBC Radio report that I heard yeaterday) says the shell is Saddam-era. Unless I missed something, it doesn't say a word about where the payload came from.

Do delivery systems count as weapons?

What is 'Saddam-era?' Any time until he was caught? Any time up to the start of this war? Any time up to Gulf War I?

The problem here is the same one that has bothered me right from the start--Saddam at one point had chemical weapons and the Iraqis used them against the Iranians. Then, suddenly, he doesn't have them anymore, but cannot or will not provide documentation regarding their destrution or disposal. Yet we cannot find infrastructure or stockpiles of the stuff, nor any evidence of intent to deploy during the recent war. One (possibly deteriorated) shell hardly proves anything one way or the other, except perhaps that Saddam did not comply with UN requirements, and that is absurdly irrelevant at this point, given all his other malfeisances.

Mark Schynert

Beats me - they aren't defining the term.

Did Iraq ever actually manufacture its chemical weapons, or did they buy them on the world market? (I do recall that, at least at the start of the Iran/Iraq war a couple of decades ago, various NATO nations including Canada and the USA were quite happy to arm Iraq in its battle against the "evil Ayatollahs". How times have changed...) If they never made any of their own weapons, then the lack of a manufacturing base is to be expected, and any old stockplies just deteriorated in normal chemical reactions. (Only a fool sells long-lived chemical weapons to a country in a near-perpetual war zone, which the Mesopotamian lands were at the time.) If they *did* make some, though, then your concerns are well-justified, IMHO.

It seems that it was an old dud Artillery shell from the Iran-Iraq war, and the insurgents probably had no idea it contained remenents of Sarin. A lot of the IEDs that have been used in Iraq have been based on mines or unexploded artillery shells left over from that conflict.

Besides, if this was in any way evidence of an Iraqi chemical weapons program, don't you think Bush would be on TV with a big shit-eating grin on his face?

(snippage)> Yet we cannot find infrastructure or stockpiles of the stuff,

The best take I heard on it was that while Saddam THOUGHT he had WMD programs and was shelling out big bucks for them, the people who were allegedly running the programs were just taking the money. This explains Saddam's stonewalling to hide nothing. Kim M

They sure did make their own. Here's something else interesting:

......

No intent? What about all of the chemical warfare protective suits the coalition troops found in the possession of Iraqi army troops?

Ed "If an enemy power is bent on conquering you, and proposed to turn all of his resources to that end, he is at war with you; and you -- unless you contemplate surrender -- are at war with him." --Barry Goldwater

Yeah, what about that? It makes sense if you think the U.S. is going to use chemicals on you. Sounds like utter nonsense, I realize, but the Iraqis seemed rather good at utter nonsense. How many chemical suits did we issue? Probably scads (or at least they weere at forward depots for quick issue).

Mark Schynert

The coalition troops also had chemical warfare protective gear with them. By your logic, the coalition troops intended to use chemical weapons. Kim M

Not so fast, Bub. The US has been destroying its stockpiles for years. That's public knowledge. Ed "If an enemy power is bent on conquering you, and proposed to turn all of his resources to that end, he is at war with you; and you -- unless you contemplate surrender -- are at war with him." --Barry Goldwater

I've been out of touvh on TDY for a while bit I'm back now and had to comment on this one.

Kim: I think your best take isn't very good. If Saddam only THOUGHT he had WMD, where did that artillery shell come from? It certainly wasn't a figment of their imagination that detonated and contaminated those EOD troops with Sarin.

As has been said in other posts, the kicler is not the age of the shell. It's the mere presence of the shell at all. Saddam claimed not to have and binary munitions and that he destroyed ALL his chemical munitions he. If he complied with UN mandate on destruction of chemical weapons, my question remains.....where'd the shell come from?

" In walks the village idiot and his face is all aglow; he's been up all night listening to Mohammad's radio" W. Zevon

Presumably, some forgotten corner of an artillery dump. So- we have spent 14 months at war, lost 800 coalition troops, killed 5,000 Iraquis, and spent $87 billion for one artillery shell? Oh yeah, I forgot. Jenkin's Ear was already taken. Kim M

"Royabulgaf" wrote

No. We did all that to show the world that the United States can and will act unilaterally and pre-emptively when we feel it is necessary; and that the United States is willing and able to go into the center of the previously taboo "Arab World" and tear a country apart.

That's "why they hate us". Before March 2003 - certainly before September

2001 - the world sort of thought we might be able to do these things but figured we didn't have the stomach for it. For some reason, the rest of the world thought that anyone with real or imagined grievances should have been able to act against the US with impunity. The realization that the tables have turned is troubling to many.

KL

"Digital Cowboy" wrote

The UN's nature is to avoid war at all costs. Laudable, but unrealistic.

KL