# Well, found those WMDs after all... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 22, 2007, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172 "2007-02-22T01:25:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/1 "2007-02-22T01:25:56Z")
…except that they probably didn’t exist prior to the US invasion. It seems that at least insurgent group has decided to [enhance its improvised explosive devices](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070222/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AnwiuCVrbRk_nkym0exqUfus0NUE) with chlorine. So now, the factions disputing what is rapidly becoming an all-out civil war seem to be adopting chemical weapons as well. Lovely. Didn’t we supposedly unseat Saddam to prevent him from doing this sort of thing? I seem to dimly remember the administration saying something about that. Lest anyone think this is nothing more than a Bush-bash, well, it is, sort of, but let’s face it, there are some seriously deranged individuals fighting each other in Iraq. I’m not so naive as to think that some poor schmuck is less dead from explosives than from a chemical attack, but jeepers, the inhumanity. I don’t recall any previous civil conflicts that have resorted to chemical attacks on civilians; if so there’s a nice little milestone achieved. I’m sure the fine, knowledgable folks here will correct me if I’m wrong on that. Fucking assholes. Not much else to say, really. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/2 "2007-02-22T01:28:45Z")
Excellent, maybe we can make the sweet ride down to DEFCON 1 after all. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/3 "2007-02-22T01:41:08Z")
[QUOTE=El\_Kabong] I don’t recall any previous civil conflicts that have resorted to chemical attacks on civilians; [/QUOTE] It’s not all that surprising: [Early Chemical Weaponization Proposals and Usage](http://www.usuhs.mil/cbw/history.htm) > [@](#): > > There are numerous examples of chemical weapons used or proposed during the course of a campaign or battle. The Chinese used arsenical smokes as early as 1000 BC. Solon of Athens put hellebore roots in the drinking water of Kirrha in 600 BC. In 429 and 424 BC, the Spartans and their allies used noxious smoke and flame against Athenian-allied cities during the Peloponnesian War. About 200 BC, the Carthaginians used Mandrake root left in wine to sedate the enemy. The Chinese designed stink bombs of poisonous smoke and shrapnel, along with a chemical mortar that fired cast-iron stink shells. Toxic smoke projectiles were designed and used during the Thirty Years War. Leonardo da Vinci proposed a powder of sulfide of arsenic and verdigris in the 15th century… You fight with the weapons you can make. Now when AP calls these things [“Dirty Bombs”](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070222/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_12), _that’s_ worth a rolleyes or two. **OMFG! Sunnis with NUKES! They’ll follow us home for SURE now!** ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/4 "2007-02-22T02:04:26Z")
[Quote=Squink] You fight with the weapons you can make. [/Quote] Well, that’s an interesting cite, and I’ll read it at length later, but it would appear that the various mentions of the use of chemical weapons were by organized armies against each other. The milestone I was referring to is the use of such weaponsin an insurrection or civil conflict. Sorry if I missed some examples of such from your reference. > [@](#): > > Now when AP calls these things “Dirty Bombs”, that’s worth a rolleyes or two. True enough; they’ve definitely changed the definition there. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/5 "2007-02-22T02:15:27Z")
_“The Chinese designed stink bombs of poisonous smoke and shrapnel, along with a chemical mortar that fired cast-iron stink shells.”_ Now I’m curious about whether this was intended to be used like tear gas, or if Chinese civilization really was that rarefied: “Oh no! Our soldiers are becoming stinkier than theirs! Retreat!” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/6 "2007-02-22T02:52:32Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > Now I’m curious about whether this was intended to be used like tear gas Doesn’t the mention of “poisonous smoke and shrapnel” make it sufficiently clear how it was intended to be used? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/7 "2007-02-22T02:57:50Z")
[QUOTE=El\_Kabong] The milestone I was referring to is the use of such weaponsin an insurrection or civil conflict. [/QUOTE] Ahh, sorry. The gases and such have only been around since WWI, so there’s not a lot of history to dig through for precedents. [However](http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:fLyNBu-RgZwJ:www.brooksidepress.org/Products/OperationalMedicine/DATA/operationalmed/Manuals/SeaBee/Fieldcombatopssection/MedicalEffectsofChemicalWeapons.pdf+%22war+gas%22+%22russian+revolution%22+chlorine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=firefox-a) > [@](#): > > 1919-1939 saw much U.S. and British technology develop and > human research continued. French, Italian, and Japanese programs initiated and secret German research proliferated. The Russian chemical corps was established. CW’s continued to see battle, used in the Russian revolution, by the British in India and by the Italians against the Abyssinians (led by emperor Haile Selassie). Unfortunately, there’s no mention _which_ agents were used. Wikipedia has a nice list of occasions on which Mustard gas was used > [@](#): > > ``` > * United Kingdom against Bolsheviks in 1919;[2] > * United Kingdom against rebels in Iraq in 1920;[3] > * United Kingdom against rebels in Afghanistan in the 1920s;[citation needed] > * Spain against Rif insurgents in Morocco in 1921-1927;[1][4] > * Italy in Libya in 1930;[1] > * Soviet Union in Xinjiang, China in 1934 and 1936-1937;[2][4] > * Italy in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in 1935-1940;[1] > * Poland against Germany in 1939 during an isolated incident, British product;[1] > * Germany against Poland and the Soviet Union in a few erroneous uses during the Second World War;[1] > * Japan against China in 1937-1945;[2] > * Egypt against North Yemen in 1963-1967;[1] > * Iraq against Iran in 1981 and 1983-1988;[1] > * Iran against Iraq in 1987-1988, possibly using captured Iraqi munitions;[1] > * Iraq against Kurds in 1988;[1] > * Possibly Sudan against insurgents in the civil war, in 1995 and 1997[1] > > ``` Some of these probably fit the requirements for an insurrection or civil war. The use of Chlorine as a CW agent is much harder to track down, as it has so many other uses. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/8 "2007-02-22T03:03:32Z")
[QUOTE=El\_Kabong] The milestone I was referring to is the use of such weaponsin an insurrection or civil conflict. Sorry if I missed some examples of such from your reference. [/QUOTE] Hell, it happened in Iraq. On March 16, 1988. Saddam gassed the Kurds in a place called Halabjah: _Iraq quickly found itself bogged down in one of the longest and most destructive wars of attrition of the twentieth century, with atrocities committed on both sides. During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists. On March 16, 1988 Iraqi troops, on orders from Saddam to stop a Kurdish uprising, attacked the Kurdish town of Halabjah with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents killing 5,000 people, mostly women and children. (see Halabja poison gas attack) Dissenting opinions dispute the numbers and have said the incident was actually a battle in the Iran–Iraq war where chemical weapons were used on both sides and a significant portion of the fatalities were caused by the Iranian weapons._ [http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Saddam\_Hussein](http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Saddam_Hussein) ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/9 "2007-02-22T03:13:42Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] Doesn’t the mention of “poisonous smoke and shrapnel” make it sufficiently clear how it was intended to be used? [/QUOTE] Well, fair enough, but then what’s the point of calling them “stink bombs,” instead of simply “poisonous shrapnel bombs” --or even just “bombs” for that matter? When I think of a “stink bomb,” I think of something sold next to the “itching powder” in the Johnson Smith Novelties catalog; poison and shrapnel don’t immediately spring to mind. Why choose to emphasize the “stink” aspect? Did the Chinese have the capacity to create stinkless poison shrapnel weapons, and just chose not to? Was the stink just their way of adding insult to injury? ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/10 "2007-02-22T03:24:35Z")
Operation Unforseen Consequences continues unabated, I see. (At least unforseen by anyone in the White House.) ---
**Author:** ![Fritz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Fritz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fritz)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/11 "2007-02-22T03:36:40Z")
[QUOTE=Frostillicus] Operation Unforseen Consequences continues unabated, I see. (At least unforseen by anyone in the White House.) [/QUOTE] Wait a minute - I thought it was Operation Enduring Denial. Did I miss a memo? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/12 "2007-02-22T03:46:11Z")
[QUOTE=Fritz] Wait a minute - I thought it was Operation Enduring Denial. Did I miss a memo? [/QUOTE] It’ll be Operation Infinite Victory soon enough. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/13 "2007-02-22T04:13:26Z")
And finally, it’ll settle on Operation Assigning Blame. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/14 "2007-02-22T05:18:26Z")
I’m leaning towards Operation Cure is Worse Than the Disease myself. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/15 "2007-02-22T05:26:56Z")
[Quote=Oakminster] Hell, it happened in Iraq. [/Quote] I’d thought about Halabjah, but it was carried out by the Iraqi army, and as the cite says, it’s considered part of the Iran-Iraq conflict, not to mention that one of the justifications of the US invasion was supposedly to prevent things like that from happening again. Close enough, though; I’ll accept it. I’m not gonna fight in a thread where I’m basically objecting to fighting to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/16 "2007-02-22T05:42:21Z")
[QUOTE=El\_Kabong] Close enough, though; I’ll accept it. I’m not gonna fight in a thread where I’m basically objecting to fighting to begin with. [/QUOTE] Your basic premise here is “this sucks”. I agree with you wholeheartedly. We never should have invaded. Once we toppled the existing government, an average 10th grade Western Civ student should have been able to predict chaos would ensue…yet somehow this eluded our Fuckwit in Chief. Now that one faction has used chemical weapons, the other sides will be more likely to return the favor. Clusterfuck any way you slice it. Plus, we continue to rattle sabers at Iran. Not really seeing how this ends well for anybody… ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/17 "2007-02-22T06:13:25Z")
[QUOTE=Squink] You fight with the weapons you can make. [/QUOTE] Not the weapons you wish you could make. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/18 "2007-02-22T07:55:29Z")
[QUOTE=El\_Kabong] …except that they probably didn’t exist prior to the US invasion. I don’t recall any previous civil conflicts that have resorted to chemical attacks on civilians; if so there’s a nice little milestone achieved. . [/QUOTE] Well, since Saddam used Nerve gas on his own people (the Kurds) not only did they exist prior to the US Invasion, but they were used in a “civil conflict”. You do know that after Operation Desert Storm, the UN found and destroyed tens of thousands of tonnes of WMD that Saddam had, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/19 "2007-02-22T09:54:18Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] Well, since Saddam used Nerve gas on his own people (the Kurds) not only did they exist prior to the US Invasion, but they were used in a “civil conflict”. You do know that after Operation Desert Storm, the UN found and destroyed tens of thousands of tonnes of WMD that Saddam had, don’t you? [/QUOTE] Yes, everyone knows that. Particularly as we gave them to him in the first place in the form of the means to make them and the precursors including, thanks to the USA, anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism. And a big shout out for the the UK for the chlorine factory to make mustard gas. But at the time he was our man and we didn’t give a flying fuck who he gassed so long as he kept fighting Iran. The crocodile tears came later when he slipped our leash. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172/20 "2007-02-22T14:39:21Z")
[Quote=DrDeth] Well, since Saddam used Nerve gas on his own people (the Kurds) not only did they exist prior to the US Invasion, but they were used in a “civil conflict”. You do know that after Operation Desert Storm, the UN found and destroyed tens of thousands of tonnes of WMD that Saddam had, don’t you? [/Quote] For the first part, I guess you missed the bit in my previous post where I said I’d accept Halabjah as an example. For the second part, you do know that after the invasion the US military apparently found no sign of any usable chemical weapons in Iraq, right? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-found-those-wmds-after-all/393172.md?page=2)