Gaar, A (as in one) 155mm shell containing Sarin gas?????
On Sep 11, 1:43 pm, Gaar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/mariani/2004/mariani052804.htm > > The Sound of Silence: Iraq's WMDs Found > > May 28, 2004 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > by Joe Mariani > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > After spending more than a year attacking the Bush administration > daily for their supposed failure to produce the WMDs that everyone -- > including the United Nations, as well as most leading Democrats -- > believed Saddam had hidden, the Left has suddenly gone strangely > silent on the subject. The "mainstream" media has been tiptoeing > around the discovery of a 155-mm mortar shell containing Sarin gas in > Iraq, the contents of which have been confirmed. The shell was used as > part of an improvised explosive device (IED) on a road near the > Baghdad International Airport, and exploded as it was being disarmed. > > The shell contained three liters of Sarin -- nearly a gallon. It was a > type of shell designed to mix chemical components during flight, which > was why the explosion didn't kill anyone (though two soldiers were > treated for exposure). Three liters of Sarin is enough, if the > components are mixed properly, to realistically kill hundreds, and > potentially thousands. A concentration of 100 milligrams of Sarin per > cubic meter of air is enough to constitute a lethal dose for half the > people breathing it within one minute. > > This type of chemical warfare shell had never been declared by Iraq -- > it was not even known that Iraq had ever made them. The 1999 UNSCOM > report on Iraq reported that thirty binary/Sarin shells were known to > exist, and stated that all had been accounted for. According to > UNSCOM, "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." Someone actually had to physically > pour the components of the Sarin (or other type of G-series nerve > agent) into the shells before they could be fired. At least, that's > how the ones we knew about worked. > > So, a previously-unknown type of artillery shell is found in Iraq, > containing an actual, verifiable chemical weapon. This is front page > news, right? Should we expect apologies from formerly doubting > Liberals? Newspapers filled with retractions from prominent Democrats? > Conciliatory visits to President Bush from Jaques Chirac and Gerhardt > Schroeder? Not so fast. Remember: it's an election year. Liberals, > Democrats, terrorists and appeasers all want President Bush to lose > the election so everyone can get back to business as usual. Terrorists > want to get back to their implacable war against Western civilisation, > and the others want to get back to trying to placate them. The media, > as long as we let them get away with it, will only run stories that > attack President Bush and undermine support for him. In fact, Liberals > already have their spin on this Sarin find ready to go. The vast > majority of them -- when you can get them to admit that the Sarin and > the shell are real -- argue that it doesn't matter for one of four > "reasons." > > A. The shell is old, from before the 1991 Gulf War, so it's not what > we were looking for. > > Since the cease-fire that suspended the Gulf War depended on Saddam's > handing over to the UN "[a]ll chemical and biological weapons and all > stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all > research, development, support and manufacturing facilities", this > shell is precisely what we were looking for, especially if it predates > 1991. This shell and others like it is why the UN passed 17 > resolutions demanding that Saddam disarm. No matter how old it was, it > was still lethal. There is no statute of limitations on weapons of > mass destruction. > > B. There is only one shell, not a stockpile, so it doesn't mean > anything. > > This one shell contained enough WMD material to potentially kill as > many people as died on 9/11, all by itself. Is it logical to assume > that this is the only one in existence -- or just wishful thinking? > The fact is that we still don't know how much Sarin Iraq actually > produced. "At first, Iraq told UNSCOM that it had produced an > estimated 250 tons of tabun and 812 tons of sarin. In 1995, Iraq > changed its estimates and reported it had produced only 210 tons of > tabun and 790 tons of sarin." (Yes, that's tons.) At the very least, > it tells us that we haven't nearly finished looking for the WMDs that > Saddam was supposed to surrender, and didn't. Besides... a shell > containing mustard gas was also found. Well, maybe there were only two > WMD shells in all of Iraq. > > C. Just because Saddam had WMDs after all, it doesn't mean Bush didn't > lie about them. > > As ridiculous as it sounds, this appears to be the instinctive, > defensive reaction of many Liberals to this news. They so badly need > to believe that President Bush lied in order to legitimise their > hatred of him that they're capable of this sort of twisted reasoning. > The rationale seems to be that WMDs don't count if they aren't exactly > where the CIA told us they were, as if they couldn't be moved. > > D. The terrorists didn't even know it was a chemical shell. > > Well, they do now. And they know where they found it, too. > > We need to redouble our efforts to stop the terrorists and find > Saddam's WMDs, before they're used to derail the new Iraqi > government's formation. The media's refusal to give this news the > coverage it deserves can only be due to a calculated attempt to reduce > American support for our efforts in Iraq, including that of tracking > down Saddam's banned weapons. The Left's deliberate silence on this > subject for the purpose of influencing our election only helps our > enemies. > > Joe Mariani > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Joe Mariani is a computer consultant born and raised in New Jersey. He > lives in Pennsylvania, where the gun laws are less restrictive and > taxes are lower. Joe always thought of himself as politically neutral > until he saw how far left the left had really gone after 9/11. His > essays and links to articles are available athttp://guardian.blogdrive.com/. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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