Tests on an artillery shell that blew up in Iraq on Saturday confirm that it did contain an estimated three or four liters of the deadly nerve agent sarin, Defense Department officials told Fox News Tuesday. The artillery shell was being used as an improvised roadside bomb, the U.S. military said Monday. The 155-mm shell exploded before it could be rendered inoperable, and two U.S. soldiers were treated for minor exposure to the nerve agent.
James Taranto has more on the spin at the New York Times and elsewhere.
'A little drop on your skin will kill you.'
And 3-4 litres would kill........ hundreds at least. If One shell is not proof enough of WMD, then what is? If more are found, will the liberals move the goalposts again? '100 shells is not evidence of WMD.'? Will an entire town being wiped out by one be proof enough, or will they dis that also?
OFF TOPIC: Is anyone else getting e-mails that look and are worded like this?
Fron: queenamin_amin@arabtop.net
Dear Sir,
I am making this contact to you in good faith and with hope that it
will transpire into a more mutual relationship between you and I for now
and in future. I am Queen Amina Amin. The Daughter of the late president
Idi Amin of Uganda, who died in Saudi Arabia while in exile.
As you may have read from the international media,my fathers
investments in various places like France, Switzerland and Belgium were
all confiscated and his international accounts frozen by their, Governments.
Now that the situation has calmed down, there is the need for my family
to invest discretely in various part of the world without our family
name mentioned. It is in view of the above, that I make this contact to
request if you may like to be my family'sfinancial manager.
The fund to be invested is the sum of 28 million U.S.D is in the volt
of a Security Company/Firm in syria in affiliation with syrian embassy
in dubai, being part of my father's deposits. It is my wish that you
invest this fund for us in your country and around the world by engaging into lucrative investmentssuch as buying of shares/stocks in multinational companies, real estate
and other non-speculative investment.
Upon the acknowledgement of your response, I will arrange for a
face-to-face meeting for you and I. In the meeting we shall sign a
working agreement and the fund will be handed over to you for investments.
Please forward to me your private telephone and fax numbers to enable me
discuss with you more confidentially.
Waiting for your earliest response.
My regards
Queen Amina Amin
I think I'm going to contact my ISP and advise them. Please let me know if anyone is getting e-mail like this.
Thanks,
D.C.
DC
That e-mail is utter rubbish. Every once in a while I get an e-mail from 'Obadai Obajosano', or something like that, in Africa asking me to give out my bank account information so he can 'deposit' his vast African fortune for me to temporarily hold. It's so ridiculous it's comical.
These two-bit e-mail scams are commonplace and unfortunately there are poor fools who fall for them.
CF
DC~ I have gotten Tons of those in the past few weeks, some half a dozen times, from the same 'person,' in a single day. I have been reporting them all in to Yahoo as spam...
Most all are from Africa, supposedly, with a few from within the US... again supposedly. Only a few actually claim to be Muslim tho. They usually mention someone like a doctor who died leaving a huge fortune, and ask for your personal details.
Wish I had kept the one: it was appealing to 'my Muslim brothers'!
Gee. I'll be muslim around ten minutes after the sun goes nova.
*reads the email you got* *bol* the daughter of Idi Amin!!!!!!?!!!??? That's Hilarious!
PS~ my Fiancee says, these people write very good english considering it is not their first language.
The only reasons our guys survied this attack with cem shell is they carry aritpin and were trained on what to do.
When the press realise once again that they are at threat again they will be deamanding tourcher of people we catch. Were some of these guys we let go from prison have the info where the cem bombs were?
the Cems are in Iraq and yes they moved some but the ? is why is our CIA working againist the USA? Chilibi is out of Iraq the CIAs Man? He has caused more problms sence he got to Iraq go back and look it up. rumor had him linked to this guy sadr? again the CIA???
Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who Fight with her give them Strength and Courage to stay the course to Victory and Fredom Amen
Thanks...I reported it to my ISP as Spam....sorry to go off topic like that.
DC Watson:
I've received several of those type of emails recently, including some from someone claiming to be a former official from Basra.
New twist on an old scam.
Since I'd used a real account on the net (big mistake apparently) I've been getting such emails, too. I wrote to one guy and said I would be delighted to help him and that he should contact me at my email dealing with financial matters which was ____________@_____ whatever the email address was of the other jerk trying to extort money from me. That was on a day I was feeling contrary. Other days I just delete.
D.C.:
Expect a lot more of that type of e-mail from now on; also, hacking attempts, virus attempts, etc. I get several of those e-mails EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Personally, I'm more concerned about stray chemical rounds than I am about email scams and viruses.
The left's spin of this story is incredible.
It's amazing how the mainstream press is minimizing or even dismissing the announcement of the sarin finding. They won't admit that they were wrong. However, they will receive the same nasty surprise as the rest of us.
D.C. I have receive many of those messages. I just delete them.
dixie has the right idea.
give one spammer the other spammer's
email address.
;0p
I keep hearing references to "traces of sarin" having been discovered.
I'd enjoy nothing more than demonstrating the effect of 3-4 liters of sarin by introducing it into the ventilation system at CNN's headquarters in Atlanta.
DC i usually post the e-mail at LGF and leave it open for anyone who wants to respond or reply that my relative is an FBI agent and that i forwarded the e-mail to them.
I just sent the NY Times a brief letter regarding the absurd spin contained in the editorial referenced above. Of course, since I've spent 20+ years actually working with chemical weapons, that automatically disqualifies me from presenting any information to them, so I doubt that it will be published.
Apparently, the policy at the Times is that anything appearing on the Opinion page has to be just that: Opinion, not fact.
Lobo~ on the off-chance they do, please put up the link! And if they do, I will be curious to see responses, if any.
Here's a copy of what I sent them:
Your May 19, 2004 editorial, “The New Weapons Find in Iraq,” exemplified the absurd lengths to which opponents of the Bush Administration are willing to go in order to portray the war in Iraq as some sort of misguided imperialist adventure.
Had your editorial writer bothered to contact anyone with a background in chemical weapons, he or she would have learned that chemical agents sealed in artillery shells don’t “lose their punch” over the course of a decade or two. We have many hundreds of thousands of such rounds in our own inventory, most of which were produced in the 1960s and ‘70s. Were the contents of those shells any less lethal today than they were when they were produced, we wouldn’t be involved in court battles over the safety of the technology we’re using to destroy them.
As for the quantity of agent that was contained in the shell discovered in Iraq, your description of it as “small traces” was both incorrect and misleading. A 155-mm chemical shell contains 3 to 4 liters (approximately 1 US gallon) of liquid agent. By way of illustration, if a similar quantity of properly mixed sarin were to be introduced into the ventilation system of a large office building (the one in which the NY Times is headquartered, for example), it would likely result in a death toll that would make the events of September 11, 2001 look like a minor traffic accident.
While I may be considered part of the “dwindling band of die-hards who remain convinced that Mr. Hussein squirreled away stockpiles of illicit weapons,” the thought that they may be used against American forces in Iraq is not what worries me. Our troops are equipped with the best protective equipment money can buy, and there are trained medical personnel standing by to treat them if needed.
The same cannot be said for our civilian population, however.
lobo91:
Great letter! I hope they publish it.
Thanks
They've actually published letters from me twice in the past, which surprised me.
I guess they need an occasional "token" conservative writer.
i wonder is there any sites that list chemical weapons stocks for countries. i would like to know how much israel and russia have.
You won't find any official lists from Russia or Israel.
The Russians won't say how much they have, and the Israelis "won't confirm or deny" whether they even have any.
In the case of the Israelis, I'm not sure if they ever bothered to produce any chemical weapons. They have a big enough nuclear arsenal to deter any of their neighbors from trying anything too stupid, and chemical weapons really aren't all that useful militarily.
Joseph:
According to this: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/cbw/cw.htm
Russia has a stockpile of around 40,000 tons of chemical weapons, 80% 0f which are nerve agents.
Thanks to all for your responses. Sorry to jump off the WMD topic.
i wonder is there any sites that list chemical weapons stocks for countries. i would like to know how much israel and russia have.
Posted by joseph at May 19, 2004 12:52 PM
Silly man, Russia and Israel? Why is it Joseph that you caudle the Middle East, where most of the threat to us is coming from? What is it with you and the slinging of trash you do with regard to civilized nations, while you have little to nothing to say about the scum that wants us all wearing diapers on our heads and praying to a black rock five times a day?
What? Are you upset that they found this material in Iraq? I guess a better question would be are you truly surprised that they found it?
I guess I'm referring back to the many comments you've made over the last couple of months that exhibit your disdain for America, and Non-Muslims. You should think about being more realistic with your thoughts and words.
is that really you DC....
i was just asking a question for a website that gave info on known chemical weapon stockpiles for countries....
There's a really fascinating old Army training film that demonstrates the effectiveness of nerve agents:
Two men wearing protective suits, gloves and goggles place a drop of VX in the eye of a goat, and immediately flush the eye with water to decontaminate it (it should be noted that they weren't wearing masks, because VX produces no vapors at moderate temperatures).
After a few moments, the goat begins to twitch. Within a minute or so, it collapses on the table and goes into convulsions.
The men proceed to give the goat first aid (injections of atropine and 2-pam chloride, as well as artificial respiration), and it survives. At the end of the film (about 45 minutes in elapsed real time, measured by a clock in the corner of the screen), the goat is able to stand without assistance, although it looks somewhat worse for wear.
Although I'm sure PETA would have a fit, I think the public should really see that film, so they can put the threat of chemical weapons into perspective.
Too bad none of our TV networks would ever broadcast anything like it.
Joseph, remember that I've gotten to know your ways. Just let me take a guess at it and if I'm wrong, I'm sorry. You want the information on other nations and their stockpiles of Nerve Agents, and other deadly weapons so you can say, .......
"well, these other countries have them, so why can't Iraq, Iran and Syria have them too? Or, "ou guys are racists because you don't think Muslims should have the same weapons as everyone else."
Stop me if I'm wrong Joseph.......I just know how you get with these topics.
DC Watson:
I'm sure that's what he's planning to say, but the reality is that other than the US and Russia, both of whom are in the process of destroying their stockpiles, most of the countries that DO have chemical weapons are Arab/Muslim.
The civilized world has figured out that we need to get rid of the things.
My old military chemical weapons classes said that 50 micrograms (about 30 grams to the ounce) of VX will kill half the people exposed to that amount. Sarin is nearly as lethal. However, it is less persistent - it breaks down more quickly than VX.
jay
Jay:
My old military chemical weapons classes said that 50 micrograms (about 30 grams to the ounce) of VX will kill half the people exposed to that amount.
Without looking it up, that sounds about right.
Sarin is nearly as lethal. However, it is less persistent - it breaks down more quickly than VX.
Yup. Under the right conditions, VX can hang around for quite awhile. It's primarily a contact hazard, unless it's pretty warm out. Sarin has a much lower vapor point, making it more of an inhalation hazard, but limiting its persistency.
Of the two, sarin would probably be more useful for a terrorist attack. It's also easier to make.
'Under the right conditions, VX can hang around for quite awhile. It's primarily a contact hazard, unless it's pretty warm out. Sarin has a much lower vapor point, making it more of an inhalation hazard, but limiting its persistency.
Of the two, sarin would probably be more useful for a terrorist attack. It's also easier to make.'
Quite right. Any of you ever been in the Tubes? Nice and cool, and breezy. Not to mention multiple levels. I would imagine Sarin gas would last longer and spread faster under those conditions.
Gary:
Any of you ever been in the Tubes? Nice and cool, and breezy. Not to mention multiple levels. I would imagine Sarin gas would last longer and spread faster under those conditions.
True, but I think you'd also have the sheer volume of the subway tunnel system working to disperse an agent cloud.
I still think the most effective use of sarin by terrorists would be in a densely-populated, relatively sealed, climate-controlled structure.
Office buildings...shopping malls...basketball arenas...etc.
Hey lobo91:
Alya over on the May 15 :Berg had Qur'an ..." thread is calling you a muslim.
Everyone:
On the same thread, Dina is saying that www.al-islam.com is a "false website created by a Jew".
Alya over on the May 15 :Berg had Qur'an ..." thread is calling you a muslim.
I can hardly wait to hear how the ignorant little twit came to that conclusion...
lobo91:
Maybe she's just a poor communicator.
I would say to everyone not to use your real email address. Use a made-up one.
what was the chemical weapon used in Moonraker?
where bond watches the guys knock the container over and it releases the gas in there lab
thank god he is dead and thank god his money is seised and anyone who thinks this e-mail is legite should send their bank info because as long as there are so many stupid people in this world the laws of statitics will keep me from being one of them
this story is fake because every good liberal knows their are know weapons of mass destruction in iraq and every good liberal knows that anyone belonging to that great religion of peace would never create or use this type of weapon these shells were planted by the cia under the direct comand of gb1 cause we all know were he came from
Now for all you lib's out there do you know how to use your duct tape and other emer-gan-ie stuff if not go to getready.gov so we don't have to hear you wien later one thing they left out is have a gun an amo. be pre-pared that is the American moto.
Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who Fight with her give them Strength and Courage to stay the Course to Victory Amen
We all have a dog in this fight!
FYI:
USA Today did run an article on the Sarin shell, but it was relegated to page 10, and by paragraph 2) quickly said this was not "evidence that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD."
Then it quoted inspector David Kay who said he "didn't think it was a big deal."
Read this again. We have our work cut out for us.
What is up with this Bremmer? and Oil for Food?
Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who fight with her give them Strength and Courage to stay the course to Victory Amen
PS Remember we still have dogs in this hunt!
give us the strength to forgive ourselfs for what they make us do!
D.C. and everybody, from what I heard last night Iraq had listed NO chemical or bio weapons in 155 category. Either they lied to the UN inspectors about what they had, or the shell was a new one brought in country specifically for the purpose of using chemical weapons. The news also carried a report that a shell had been found containing mustard gas.