Kay said. "I rather doubt that because it
appears the insurgents didn't even know they had a chemical round."

"Jean Guernon" <jguernon@globetrotter.net> wrote in message
news:zPbqc.15655029$Of.2612004@news.easynews.com...

Absolute Zero a écrit:

Jean Guernon <jguernon@globetrotter.net> wrote in message

news:<Df4qc.4685119$iA2.546306@news.easynews.com>...

http://us.cnn.com/

Coalition forces in convoy find sarin nerve agent in artillery round

rigged as

improvised explosive device, U.S. military says. Details soon.

An improvised explosive device based around an Iraq/Iran-war shell, I

Nope, laced around a chemical weapon warhead.

This type of WMD was said to have been experimental and totally destroyed

in the

experiment.

They obviously were stocked for arsenal purposes, or else they were

shopped from

Syria or N. Korea to AlQaeda.

From an AP story:

Two former weapons inspectors - Hans Blix and David Kay - said the shell was
likely a stray weapon that had been scavenged by militants and did not
signify that Iraq had large stockpiles of such weapons.

Kay, who led a U.S. team hunting for weapons, said it appears that the shell
was one of tens of thousands produced for the Iran-Iraq war, which Saddam
was supposed to destroy or turn over to the United Nations. In many cases,
he said, Iraq did comply.

"It is hard to know if this is one that just was overlooked - and there were
always some that were overlooked, we knew that - or if this was one that
came from a hidden stockpile," Kay said. "I rather doubt that because it
appears the insurgents didn't even know they had a chemical round."

Maybe if they knew what it was they would have sent it to North Korea.

wager. I recall Kay saying there were plenty of them still dotted
about Iraq.

-A

Nah, if Kay could have found even one he would have jubilated. I guess

youare

talkign about the empty shells they found. Some coalition troups also

found

rusted out stocks. But nothing like that yet. This is really a functional

WMD. A

chemical weapon, still, not as lethal as a biological one. But a WMD
nonetheless. Prohibited.

"Hans Blix said it was likely the sarin gas used could have been from a
leftover shell found in a chemical dump.

"It doesn't sound absurd at all. There can be debris from the past and
that's a very different thing from have stocks and supplies," he said."


Apparently it didn't work properly:

"It appears two chemical components in the shell, which are designed to
combine and create sarin during flight, did not mix properly or completely
upon detonation, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity."

Because:

"Sarin-type agents produced by Iraq were largely of low quality and degraded
shortly after production, U.N. inspectors said in a March 2003 report. They
said it was unlikely that agents produced in the 1980s would still work
today."


And apparently these particular "insurgents" didn't have chemical warfare on
their minds:

"Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said he believed that insurgents who planted the
explosive didn't know it contained the nerve agent."