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"...even the wicked get worse than they deserve." - Willa Cather, One of Ours

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Sarin shell found in Iraq

Tim Blair (Aussie blogger)
IXLNXS writes:

Invading Iraq for one shell of outdated sarin gas equates to the local police kicking in your door and shooting your family because [you] supposedly have a huge weapons cache, and they end up finding a pistol.

Lets wait and see what else develops of this before the "Mission Accomplished" banner unveils shall we.
And reader CurrencyLad responds:

Your analogy should run like this:

Three of that family's neighbours had been shot at by the householder concerned. [Some of the ethnic minority] neighbours down the street had been poisoned to death. The police issued operational commands for [a warrent to be served and] the household to be lawfully raded by SWAT unless the madman came out peacefully. Affadavits had been signed by most of the local citizens attesting to the relevant crimes.

The miscreant householder didn't come out with his hands up. A few of the neighbours were being bribed to look the other way, as were [several] police officers [and city officials]. [A siege begins which results in the starvation of some of the children in the madman's house. After waiting for several months, f]earful for their well being, some of the neighbours facilitated the rading of the house by a coalition of security firms. The madman was removed.

Doesn't even really matter whether or not they found weapons in the manhole or the basement. As it happens, they found a few. Kurdish neighbours will not be slaughtered again, others will not be burgled again. Madman's children will not be [starved, murdered and] abused again.

Mission goddam accomplished.
I modified CurrencyLad's ananlogy to improve its clarity.

Note: None of the arguments for taking out the madman have to do with the madman supporting terrorism against people from the next town, or the madman supposedly having a huge stash of illegal weapons.
Posted by: Zayphar / 5/18/2004 02:59:00 PM
Comments:
The shell appeared to have been manufactured before the Persian Gulf war in 1991, officials said, adding that it was not clear that the insurgents who planted it knew it contained a nerve agent.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 11:15 PM
 
Iraq never declared any binary CW 155mm artillery shells. In fact, they never claimed any filled with sarin at all in the UNSCOM Final report (look for "Munitions declared by Iraq as remaining").

They were not declared as existing at the end of the Gulf War, not declared as not having been destroyed in the Gulf War, and not declared as not having been destroyed unilaterally.

No artillery shells are listed as binary CW shells. In fact, the only binary munitions claimed by the Iraqis were aerial bombs and missile warheads.

Iraqi CW agents were not comparable in quality to those stored in the arsenals of the USA and the former USSR, however. Impurities meant that the toxic compounds lacked stability and easily decomposed; as a consequence, Iraq developed a crude type of binary munition, whereby the final mixing of the two precursors to the agent was done inside the munition just before delivery. This had a major impact on the logistics of and preparations for chemical warfare, which may partly explain how overwhelming coalition air superiority prevented the use of CW during Operation Desert Storm.Air superiority could stop deployment of binary CW weapons because they were all on aircraft, not artillery.

This isn't one binary CW shell stolen from an inventory of thousands. It is just one shell all alone. Was it the only one in Iraq?

No one buys just one artillary shell of a rare type and an unusual (for Iraq) caliber. If you believe that this is a lone shell then I have a bridge to sell you.
# posted by Blogger Zayphar : 11:44 PM
 
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