I'm pretty much just following this thread as impartially as I can.......but I do have one question.


you're not by any chance a Democrat are you?
:cool:

What Mike said wasn't Shakespeare (sorry Mike) I think Shakespeare would say, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." (Hamlet Act II Scene II.) Or “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.� (Othello Act I Scene II)

Does this count?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

U.S. officials confirm an artillery shell used in a roadside bomb in Baghdad did contain the nerve agent sarin.



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The recent discovery of two chemical artillery shells in Iraq has raised concerns among weapons inspectors that other shells may turn up in the hands of insurgents battling American troops, the head of the U.S. search team said Wednesday.

"We need to investigate whether there are more where that came from, wherever that is, and we need to make certain that they're not finding their way into anti-coalition or terrorist hands," said Charles Duelfer, head of the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group, in an interview via satellite from Baghdad.

Laboratory tests of an artillery shell used in a May roadside bomb in the Baghdad area confirmed the presence of the nerve agent sarin, and a shell found two weeks before then contained the decayed residue of mustard gas. (Full story)

Those are the first nonconventional weapons to turn up in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein -- a move the United States said was necessary because Iraq was violating U.N. resolutions requiring it to disarm.

Before the conflict, Iraqi officials told U.N. weapons inspectors that they had destroyed the country's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

The Iraq Survey Group reported last fall that it had found evidence of weapons research that Iraqis had concealed from U.N. inspectors.

But Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, predicted in January that no large stockpiles of banned weapons would be found.

Duelfer said he did not think that chemical shells would be found in the thousands. But given the number of weapons Iraq was unable to account for after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he said it is likely that others will turn up.

The insurgents who rigged the sarin shell -- which was unmarked -- as a roadside bomb "didn't know what they had," he said.

But now that one chemical shell has been found, insurgents may figure out how to use others against coalition forces, Duelfer said.

"There is evidence they have a lot of desire to connect themselves with either or both the intellectual capital of the previous regime with respect to weapons of mass destruction and quite conceivably materials," Duelfer said. "That is a very strong concern, and it's something that fuels a lot our investigation at the moment."

He declined to discuss whether any evidence suggested that insurgents such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have linked up with former Iraqi weapons technicians. U.S. officials have said that al-Zarqawi has links to al Qaeda and that he has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqis and others.

Iraq used chemical weapons in its 1980-88 war with Iran and to put down a Kurdish uprising against Saddam in 1988. Baghdad admitted to the United Nations in 1990 that it had built some artillery shells to carry sarin -- prototypes that it insisted had all been destroyed during testing.

"We have found one. We don't know if that means there are more," Duelfer said. "We don't know if that means they are making their way into hands of those who would use them against the coalition. But certainly, it is important, because there were not supposed to be any."

The sarin shell was designed to mix two precursor chemicals after being fired from a cannon, and it was ineffective as a roadside bomb. The mustard gas shell was "less troublesome" because the contents had deteriorated to the point that it was no longer an active chemical weapon, Duelfer said.

He said the Iraq Survey Group's work has been hampered by a reluctance among second- and third-tier engineers and scientists to cooperate with U.S. inspectors amid the ongoing violence in Iraq.

Two soldiers assigned to the survey group were killed in an explosion last month at a Baghdad laboratory suspected of producing chemical weapons.

"In some ways it appears things are getting better for many people -- there's commerce and so forth," he said. "And yet the security is not good. You know, not a night goes by where you don't hear gunfire."

Duelfer has met with several once-high-ranking Iraqis -- many of them depicted on the deck of playing cards issued to U.S. troops in the early days of the occupation -- who are now held by U.S. troops.

He described the meetings as "poignant" since he had met with many of those people as a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s. But he said it was "still hard to determine whether they are telling the truth or not."

Inspectors also are trying to elicit some answers from Saddam, whom American troops captured in December.

Duelfer called the ousted leader a "special case."

"He is of course of great interest because if one person knows the real story it's him," Duelfer said.

But attempts to question him have been difficult, he said "because the incentives for being candid are not necessarily strong."

Duelfer said he hopes to present a full report within the next few months. He denied the search is a wild goose chase, as some critics have suggested.

"A wild goose chase is when you're looking for something that may not exist," he said. "We're looking for something that does exist, and that is the truth. You know I wasn't sent here to find weapons of mass destruction. I was sent out here to find the truth about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/26/iraq.duelfer/


Yours, Mike

Personally, I would say it doesn't. Google around and you'll find claims that the shell was some 1980s-90s leftover - not part of a major stockpile.

Let's assume that's true because they have yet to find the stockpile. Also, I would assume it would not be difficult to estimate the shell's age from fragments of the explosion.

There have also been small quantities of mustard gas found but these, too, were confirmed as old stock and the quantities were not major.

In any case, the US didn't go to war over a single sarin shell, did they? :nope:

Now if you google for, say "+iraq +sarin", you'll also find some small sarin lab kits found in Iraq. Yet I cannot find an official confirmation as to what they are and for what they were used.

Iraqi WMDs revisited
 

So what do we do now that two WMDs have been found that were not supposed to be there "in the first place":

1.
We deny the facts, because they may require us to re-evaluate our earlier position, which brings a level of uncertainty to our mind that we don't like.

2.
We study were these WMDs came from and check the context of their use with an open mind, likeThen we all swallow the truth - whatever that may be - and try to live with our previous opinion...

3.
We take one, just one, of those WMDs to somebody who is dying to see one.Then we all tightly watch from a stand for it toMany 'dogmatics' might take option 1, personally I'll chose option 2, although option 3 is funnier and far more spectacular...
:D

Iraqi WMDs revisited
 

Whatever it comes from, it's kind of unnerving that unmarked chemical shells are spread around the country from leftover stockpiles that supposedly were destroyed.
The multi million dollar question is: Is this incidental or was there a policy of using unmarked chemical shells and dispersing them...
If so, why? To hide them from weapon inspections seems the obvious answer...

well... all i can say, in the light of your obviously superior logical deductive powers is...


http://www.livinginthelightms.com/uf...ablealiens.JPG
http://www.steveniles.com/gallery/al...foot01_001.jpg http://cryptozoo.monstrous.com/pictures/nessy.jpg

http://www.action-tv.org.uk/features/books/pics/ufo.jpg
http://www.dred.unh.edu/bigfoot.jpg

http://www.superiorbroadcast.org/ima...%20saucers.jpg



... in the light of such an overwhelming amount of 'proof'... you two must be right...


--Mike

Iraqi WMDs revisited
 

Fair enough, case settled. WMDs have been found; let's wait till the final report what that means.

P.S.:The only thing that worries me is that you refer to me as: "you two".
I checked the memberlist and there is only one "Abraham" registered. Furthermore my postings are not syndicated with Mr. George W. Bush. What I write is my responsability, not shared with anybody else.

P.P.S.S. It is hard to take your last posting as a serious answer to a serious problem. You obviously switched into denial mode. But if you just want to make fun, I'll play along...
:D

http://www.danzfamily.com/pictures/p.../hijackers.jpg

CONFIRMED DEAD: 2948 • REPORTED DEAD: 24 • REPORTED MISSING: 24 • TOTAL: 2996

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/mem...lists/by-name/

I guess it depends on your personal definition of WMD....this little group of dirt bags killed almost 3000 people....hum.
Wonder what 3000 dirt bags with EXACTLY the SAME ADMITTED mentality could do....it is only a question of when,where,how,how many more victims there will be....it is an unstoppable chain reaction already ..like a meltdown.....just keep throwing dirt on it...maybe it will stop....yea right.
Call those aliens Red Oct...maybe they'll beam ya up lol.
An entire religions guidelines dictate to them they're duty of forcibly submitting all who oppose or rejct they're way of life....period...what parts of this are unclear to anyone anymore?
To ignore this is Total and Complete failure on the part of my government.Funny I personally don't subscribe to the solution but it is crystal clear what must be done for the world to survive.....China,Russia, and the U.S. along with all the peoples of the world will have to pull together and take away the dangerous sharp objects from the children of the world by FORCE and be made to submit like a whipped dogs....

you know it won't happen...maybe that's why some obscure carpenter had a thought on this years ago...

Matthew 24
[21] For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
[22] And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Enjoy your day little children.

How many of them were from Iraq?

Id bet 2 or 3 maybe from iraq.

What I fail to see is the necessity of posting the 9/11 terrorists on a thread about Iraqi arms.

I dont see the connection.

Were they from Iraq?
Were they trained there?
Did Iraq aid or fund them in any way?

Why are the two events connected?

In my mind, the only connection is due to the 12 months of repetition from the US Government; never explicitly stating but always implying. There's your connection.

Oh, thanks. That's just made my ****ing day

None of them were Iraqi, Kapitan. 14 of them were Saudis, though, with one Egyptian, one Lebanese, and three from the UAE. Not one of them even had ties to either Iraq or the Hussien regime.

good points, indeed, from the last four postings...

ya see... clear and concise thinking evades a lot of people... like i said before, they are the ones who are most susceptible to be blinded by the amorphous clouds of ignorance and propaganda... add religion to the mix (iceman is quoting, transliterations mind you, from the books of the bible), and the cloud becomes a whirlwind of misinformation, and worst of all, a breeding ground for all sorts of unjustified hatreds...

at least the last four posters have been able to see through the fog, and raise questions about factual events and circumstances... they base their reasonings on facts... real events and circumstances...

you are so religious iceman... you outta thank god for these people...

the others are part of the crop circles/bigfoot/ufo crowd... eyes wide shut to anything but what they've been indoctrinated into believing... facts mean nothing to them... they derive their conclusion based on their irrational fears, and their lack of vision...


--Mike

None, as someone allready pointed out, reality is that Saudi Arabia is a bigger threat than Iraq ever was. Red Mike, i dont have any fog in this issue either, but pure clarity. :P