Jonah, [a source which Jonah linked to in an earlier entry] got very close to, but missed, the really huge news behind the sarin gas shell. The thing was not marked. This is not the way you manufacture, store or deploy chemical munitions. They require special handling and careful considerations when used to avoid endangering your own troops. So why in the world would this chemical munition not be clearly marked?

1. Hiding the things from inspectors. Chemical weapons, disguised as conventional ordinance, would be extremely difficult to detect by anyone, especially if they were mixed in with conventional ordinance at weapons dumps, with innocuous markings (perhaps simple numbers) to allow handlers to tell the difference. If this be the case, our missing WMDs may very well be hiding in plain sight to this day, undiscovered until terrorists grabbed what they thought was a regular conventional artillery round from an unsecured sight that inspectoirs may have already gone through.

2. Disguising the things from Saddam's own commanders. It was no secret that America was serious about WMDs, and threatened war even during the Clinton administration over it. It was also no secret that WMDs were what American military commanders most feared in the event of an Iraqi invasion (remember the worries during the first Gulf War?). Saddam surely would have anticipated America appealing directly to Iraqi field commanders not to use chemical weapons, and may have known that we would hold those who did personally responsible in war crimes trials post invasion. We threatened exactly that. Faced with the possibility that his own commanders may not follow orders to use chemical weapons, he issues artillery shells and other weapons that are devoid of known markings that distinguish between types of ordinance. That means that if Iraqi cammanders shoot anything at all, the will likely shoot chemical weapons in the mix. Ironically, that may have backfired on Saddam. Many Iraqi Republican Guard Units deployed around Baghdad melted away faster than expected. What if that is because Iraqi commanders that suspected they had chemical weapons "in the mix" refused to use any of their weapons and abandoned their post?

Of course, this is loaded with speculation. But whatever the reasoning, the story of unmarked chemical weapons munitions turning up randomly in central Iraq is bound to get real interesting. Real fast.

--Joe Frye