Article

2003-12-08 Iraq

WMD: SADDAM COLONEL MAKES CHILLING CONFESSION

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Posted by Dragon Fly 2003-12-08 8:10:17 AM|| || Front Page|| [11132 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 ..I want to be very careful how I phrase this.

I am extremely glad that an apparently (so far) credible source has come forward to say, "Yes, they were there." My concern is that what he's describing - from the point of view of an ex-wing wiper - sounds a bit...well, off.
Chem/bio weapons on 'hand-held rocket-propelled grenades' ? This sounds a bit like the al-Davycrockett. Under the best of circumstances, these would have been suicide weapons (though I put little past the old Iraqi leadership, and it does make sense to put chem/bio in something the inspectors weren't looking for) once the detectors started going off, and even under battlefield conditions it would'nt have been long. The other thing to keep in mind is that even under best case conditions, you are talking about an extremely limited weapon that would have (depending of course on local weather and terrain conditions) would have left only a very small (a few yards radius at best) contaminated zone. The burst charge would have had to have been extremely small - not more than a few ounces of explosive - in a very thin-skinned warhead. Given the Iraqi penchant for not doing terribly well with modified weapons, I have to wonder how well these things would have worked.
Admittedly, if we're talking about weaponized anthrax, you could have contaminated a considerably larger area - but only at the risk of killing everybody who was doing the launching, with almost zero effect against US/UK forces, who were not only traveling in a fairly advanced MOPP level, but were immunized and trained to fight and survive under literal floods of CBW weapons.
I don't doubt he had some kind of 'secret weapon' tucked away, not at all. But based on what I've seen so far, this sounds a bit off for even Saddam.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2003-12-8 11:21:35 AM|| 2003-12-8 11:21:35 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Should clarify - the Davy Crockett was a hand-launched (!!!)tactical nuke from the late fifties. It was designed as more of a technical exercise than a realistic weapon, but you can imagine what the guy who were going to have to use it thought of it.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2003-12-8 11:23:10 AM|| 2003-12-8 11:23:10 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 First! Put this one up yesterday.

Posted by Steve White 2003-12-8 11:45:09 AM|| 2003-12-8 11:45:09 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 The first step to firing the Davy Crockett was to dig yourself a nice deep trench.... Definitely the sort off weapon you'd use only as a last resort such as the Alamo.

Posted by Shipman 2003-12-8 11:51:12 AM|| 2003-12-8 11:51:12 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 One of the news ~~teams~~ whores was shown Sunday accompanying ~~insurgents~~ terrorists to their weapons cache. Some of the items shown were reported to be chemical RPG rounds. The reporter said they RPGs had a peculiar odor. This could get interesting if it's true.

Posted by Gasse Katze 2003-12-8 11:59:42 AM|| 2003-12-8 11:59:42 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Davy Crockett technical info:
The Davy Crockett was designed in the late 1950's primarily for frontline use by the U.S. infantry in Europe against Soviet troop formations. The weapon system used a spin-stabilized, unguided rocket fired from a recoiless rifle. It's 51-pound nuclear warhead had an explosive yield of 0.18 kilotons (equivalent to 18 tons of TNT, with an added radiation effect). As a secondary design feature, the system could also fire a conventional high-explosive round for other use, such as an anti-tank weapon. The Davy Crockett's warhead was launched from either a 120-millimeter (M-28) or 155-millimeter (M-29) recoilless rifle. The 155 millimeter version, which became the standard issue, had a maximum range of 2.49 miles and could be fired from either a ground tripod mount or from a specially designed jeep mount.
The system was deployed with U.S. Army from 1961 to 1971, and over 2,100 were produced. The W54 nuclear warhead was designed at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (now the Los Alamos National Laboratory) and built by the Atomic Energy Commission. Successful test-firings of the warhead took place on July 7 and 17, 1962, at the Nevada Test Site in what were called the "Little Feller" shots. The July 17 test (using the 155 millimeter Davy Crockett) was conducted under simulated battlefield maneuvers and detonated 20 feet above ground at a distance of 1.7 miles, as planned.

Posted by Steve 2003-12-8 12:04:38 PM|| 2003-12-8 12:04:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 It's 51-pound nuclear warhead had an explosive yield of 0.18 kilotons (equivalent to 18 tons of TNT, with an added radiation effect).

0.18 kilotons would seem to indicate 180 tons, or 360,000 lbs. (A MOAB, by contrast, provides only 20,000 lbs of explosive effect in a much larger package).

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-12-8 12:15:25 PM|| 2003-12-8 12:15:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Some more details on the test(s) are available at Nuclear Weapons Archive -- scroll past Operation Storax (Sedan) to Operation Sunbeam. Yields are listed as 22 tons (Little Feller I) and 18 tons (Little Feller II), so we're dropping 0's all over the place today...

Posted by snellenr 2003-12-8 12:34:39 PM|| 2003-12-8 12:34:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 A chem RPG round doesn't make any sense as a battlefield weapon, agreed. But it makes one hell of a terror weapon. Tactic: Car pulls up. lobs a couple of rounds into the lobby of a high-rise hotel or office building and scrams. Lobby is contaminated so occupants can't evacuate. At the same time, ventilation system pumps increasing concentrations of agent throughout building. Of course, Iraq would have no motivation to build such devices since they had no contacts with terror organizations like Al Qaeda ;-)

Posted by 11A5S 2003-12-8 12:40:16 PM|| 2003-12-8 12:40:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 the fact they had a certain smell makes them sound ...well, a little.... leaky lol

Posted by Frank G 2003-12-8 1:21:28 PM|| 2003-12-8 1:21:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Most of Iraq's WMD programs had more to do with terror or genocide than battlefield use. They worked on weaponized aflatoxin because it causes genetic damage that shows up in the victim's kids; it's worthless for killing troops. They worked on weaponizing rusts and smuts (crop diseases) so they could induce famines.

Sarin RPGs aren't that surprising in light of that focus. And while I take anything a reporter says about weapons with a block of salt, if they were told they saw chemical RPG rounds, I'd believe they were told that.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2003-12-8 1:46:53 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com] 2003-12-8 1:46:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Obviously we don't know much about the weapon itself (we assume it was a rudimentary chem or bio), but I think that if I had been an anti American Iraqi who understood chemical weapons I certainly wouldn't have fired these weapons because they would likely have killed lots more Iraqis than Americans.

Posted by mhw 2003-12-8 2:04:23 PM|| 2003-12-8 2:04:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 The smell was from the armpits of the Saddamites.

The guy who discovered prussic acid had the time to write: "Prussic acid smells of bitter almonds" and he fell dead. Sarin and similar milatary gasses are MUCH more toxic than prussic acid. And most of them have no smell, at least not at non-lethal concentrations.

Posted by JFM 2003-12-8 4:04:54 PM|| 2003-12-8 4:04:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Once you issue a chemical RPG, how are you sure that it won't be launched into a Sadaam palace or the local Baath headquarters. Sadaam would be too paranoid to issue a chem weapon to anyone that didn't have a last name like Tikriti.

As for really bad weapons - my favorite is the Subroc. Which creates a radioactive tidal wave 12 miles away.

I also liked "Blip Enhanse" which would make a small ship look like a high value unit. Upkeep of a that system would be a low priority. Taking one for the team is over-rated.

Posted by Super Hose 2003-12-8 9:37:11 PM|| 2003-12-8 9:37:11 PM|| Front Page Top

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