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| Iraq-Jordan |
| More Info on the WMD Shells from FOX |
| 2004-05-19 |
| Except from Fox News report on WMD shells - hattip to Human Events... -Snip- Previously reported material 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. 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... 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. I hope they are talking about something better than Atropine and 2PAM Chloride injectors. I have seen many a crashing patient on ER receive Atropine, but they always flatline anyway. Maybe Dr. White has some more encouraging news. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #3 Gazi George's opinion seems the most likely explanation for what happened to Saddam's WMD. There will be news articles (mostly suppressed or ignored) of new WMD findings for decades to come, unfortunate Iraqi farmers and construction workers will turn up what Hans Blix never could. Probably there will be an occasional terrorist bombing in Iraq using these leftover agents. My biggest worry is that the materials spirited out of Iraq are now on their way to the US and Europe in a ship's container mixed in with thousands of others looking just like it. 5 liters is a little more than a gallon. There is no way our port security could ID something that small without an intelligence tipoff. |
| Posted by: Tresho 2004-05-20 1:16:48 AM |
| #2 11A5S, as of '94, on a UNS ship threatened by chemical attack, they would issue each crew members 3 atropine auto-injectors and 2 autoinjectors of whatever 2-PAM Chloride auto-injectors to be used in between does of atropine. I think the Gulf War Syndrome was caused by something they made everybody in theater take - possibly for anthrax? I'll check your link though. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-05-19 3:47:20 PM |
| #1 SH: I think that they're talking about Pyridostigmine Bromide. It's been used for years to treat nervous disorders. IIRC, the Iranians first used it in the Iran-Iraq war as a nerve agent prophylactic (cheaper than gas masks, I guess), not antidote. PB has been accused as being the cause of Gulf War Syndrome. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2004-05-19 11:41:12 AM |