# WMD FOUND! Woooohooooooooo! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 17, 2004, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616 "2004-05-17T15:42:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/161 "2004-05-27T01:01:42Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > A) The chemical wasn’t ‘inert’. It wasn’t mixed properly, because it was designed to mix in flight due to the rotation of the shell. Had it been mixed properly, it would have been deadly. Of course, you can supply a chemical analysis of the two components of the shell. Otherwise I might think that you were talking out of your hat when you say that it would have been deadly if “mixed properly”. Do you know offhand the halflife of the chemicals making up the bomb? Do you know how long the bomb was sitting around after filling? Could the shell have been one of the duds described here ? > [@](#): > > UNSCOM accounted for 95% of Iraq’s WMD’s. Iraq admitted to making 170 sarin artillery shells, 20 of which were destroyed in lab testing. The rest … > And 150 of these shells, filled with sarin precursors, were live-fired at an artillery range south of Baghdad. A 10 percent dud rate among artillery shells isn’t unheard of - and even greater percentages can occur. So there’s a good possibility that at least 15 of these sarin artillery shells failed and lie forgotten in the Iraq desert, waiting to be picked up by any unsuspecting insurgent looking for raw material from which to construct an IED [Improvised Explosive Device]. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/162 "2004-05-27T01:18:10Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Two shells SO FAR. This shell is of a type that Iraq never declared. Therefore, we have no idea how many there are. Come on, [even Fox News doesn’t bend things _that_ much](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,121035,00.html). > [@](#): > > Iraq’s first field-test of a binary-type shell containing sarin was in 1988, U.S. defense officials have noted. Saddam’s government only disclosed that it was testing and producing sarin after Iraqi weapons chief Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Saddam’s son-in-law, defected in 1995. But Iraq never declared any sarin or shells filled with sarin remained. That article, you will note, includes an unambiguous quote from a nice fella at the Pentagon: > [@](#): > > Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the 155-millimeter artillery shell was made by the Iraqis before the 1991 Gulf War. > [@](#): > > It is also highly suspicious that this shell had no markings indicating it was a chemical weapon. That would suggest that the intent was to camouflage their nature from inspectors. Because it’s damned dangerous to have chemical shells that aren’t marked as such, and you’d need a good reason to do so. It might also suggest that the shells have been exposed to the elements for a decade or more. [It’s happened before, after all.](http://www.inel.gov/featurestories/8-99pins.shtml) > [@](#): > > In 1988, people in the Solomon Islands discovered rusty, World War II-era U.S. artillery projectiles. The markings on the steel casings were eroded and illegible. No one knew what was in them, but something inside sloshed. A team of explosives experts realized they were dealing with chemical weapons. [Mustard gas shells.] ---
**Author:** ![High\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8797f3/32.png) [@High\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/High_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/163 "2004-05-27T04:05:01Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > So SH’s “stockpile” consisted of _two_ artillery shells with chemical agents that pretty much became inert years ago. > > Whoooo, what a threat. :rolleyes: You make of the war and it’s sanctification what you need. I certainly don’t advocate the war or **any** of GB’s actions. We’re definitely in accordance thereto. But, regarding the title to your op… I haven’t heard or read the term stockpile in reference to the Serin find The reaction on both sides has been deadpanned…rightfully so. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/164 "2004-05-27T04:35:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Of course, you can supply a chemical analysis of the two components of the shell. Otherwise I might think that you were talking out of your hat when you say that it would have been deadly if “mixed properly”. It has been widely reported that the reason the shell didn’t produce large amounts of Sarin gas was because the mixing chambers were blown apart before the chemicals could mix. Nonetheless, two soldiers who were near the bomb were treated for symptoms of Sarin exposure. So much for it being ‘inert’. > [@](#): > > Iraq’s first field-test of a binary-type shell containing sarin was in 1988, U.S. defense officials have noted. Saddam’s government only disclosed that it was testing and producing sarin after Iraqi weapons chief Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Saddam’s son-in-law, defected in 1995. But Iraq never declared any sarin or shells filled with sarin remained. Details matter. The type of Binary shell that Iraq had in 1988 was NOT ‘mix in flight’. It was a shell that required the chemicals to be poured in by hand before firing - a process that killed more loaders than people on the other end of the shell. The shell here was clearly described as a “mix in flight” shell with dual chambers. The only shells of that sort Iraq ever declared were a small number of prototypes used for weapons research. It should be easy enough to tell if this shell was a prototype or a production model. > [@](#): > > Am I missing something? Is someone going to fire the shell into the ventilation system? That would be a pretty neat trick smuggling a huge ass artillery gun into downtown Chicago to shoot it. Huh? Come on, surely your imagination is better than that. How about - A) Drill one chamber and drain chemical. Put in thin bag. Drain other chamber. Put in thin bag. Place both bags in empty paint can. Throw in some tacks. Shake in paint shaker, puncturing both bags and mixing chemicals. Wrap in explosives. You now have a bona fide weapon of mass destruction you can detonate in a football stadium, a shopping mall, or a political convention hall. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/165 "2004-05-27T04:50:53Z")
Which demonstrates why the cunning and deadly Canadian terrorist is so feared. ---
**Author:** ![JDM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90db22/32.png) [@JDM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JDM)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/166 "2004-05-27T05:00:04Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > A) The chemical wasn’t ‘inert’. It wasn’t mixed properly, because it was designed to mix in flight due to the rotation of the shell. Had it been mixed properly, it would have been deadly. I’ll bet that somewhere in Baghdad there’s a broom closet with a bottle of ammonia and a bottle of Clorox. I still think Bush is a war criminal, though. JDM ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/167 "2004-05-27T05:31:54Z")
Chlorine gas is not as deadly as Sarin, by several orders of magnitude. Sarin kills on skin contact - Chlorine doesn’t. The amount of Sarin that can kill you is on the order of picoliters - the tiniest of drops. A couple of liters of Sarin, released as an aerosol in the ventilation system of a large building or sprayed on an open stadium would be devastating. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/168 "2004-05-27T05:39:57Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Details matter. The type of Binary shell that Iraq had in 1988 was NOT ‘mix in flight’. Yeah? So [Brigadier General Rodriguez is confused then?](http://www.ktok.com/script/headline_newsmanager.php?id=297868&pagecontent=nationalnews&feed_id=59) You’d better let him know. > [@](#): > > “That was a pre-Gulf War shell, a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group,” Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/169 "2004-05-27T05:51:35Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > It has been widely reported that the reason the shell didn’t produce large amounts of Sarin gas was because the mixing chambers were blown apart before the chemicals could mix. Nonetheless, two soldiers who were near the bomb were treated for symptoms of Sarin exposure. So much for it being ‘inert’. It was also “widely reported” before the war that evildoers had been caught trying to smuggle kilos of enriched uranium through Turkey and into Iraq. Despite the number of “reports” it turned out to be more like 50 grams of _unenriched_ material, and it’s not even certain that it was destined for Saddam. The widely reported reason the shell didn’t produce large amounts of Sarin gas is _plausible_, but that doesn’t make it right. If you stand in an open room and mix together some dimethyl methylphosphonate, phosphorus trichloride, sodium fluoride and ethanol, **you die**. You don’t need a fancy mixing apparatus to die, you just have to get some of each chemical into contact with the other chemicals. The two soldiers treated for symptoms of Sarin exposure were mildy affected. (Did they actually walk up to and touch the bomb?) **They did not die**. Sarin DID form, so mixing occured, still, only extremely small amounts of the nerve agent formed. Recall that the LD50 for sarin is on the order of 50 microliters of the liquid, and the bomb _should_ have contained several liters of fluid. This suggests to me that degraded precursors rather than “poor mixing” is the more plausible explanation for the bomb’s nonlethality. Believe what you will **Sam**. I just think that you, and the press, are wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/170 "2004-05-27T06:13:28Z")
Actually, I’m not taking a position on this. My position is that we do not have the information yet to make a determination of the nature of this shell. Maybe the military has the info, but haven’t released it. Basically, if this shell turns out to be a two-chamber mix-in-flight shell, and there is no evidence that it was previously fired, and it has tooling marks consistent with mass manufacturing, then we have a weapon in Iraq that is not supposed to exist. As I said, the only mix-in-flight shells Iraq declared were some 170 prototype test shells, all of which they claim were fired. It’s possible that this is a dud round from that batch, which would mean that it’s one-of-a-kind. That would be good news, because if it turns out that in fact this is part of a stockpile of, say, 500 of them, then this stuff is a big risk, both of being used in Iraq, and smuggled out of the country and used against other targets. To be honest, I have no way of assessing which is more likely. We just don’t have enough information yet about the shell. Hopefully, that will change. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/171 "2004-05-27T06:36:23Z")
…not that it stopped you from ominously scaring us with how Saddam came _that close_ to “killing thousands of people” just a few hours ago, **Sam.** :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/172 "2004-05-27T07:11:17Z")
Let’s get a bit of perspective here. At the risk of being nuanced, the invasion rationale was made up of 3 main parts: - Iraq continued to engage in covert production of WMD - Iraq had links to organisations engaged in global terrorism - There was a real chance Iraq would pass on it’s produced WMD to third party global terrorists for use against the domestic USA. Now we know none of these 3 are true. Discussion focussed on the “WMD” because it was the most obvious factual deceit in the administration’s case. Don’t forget now though that it was merely shorthand for the larger argument. The shell is statistically insignificant. One shell is well within the margin for error in reporting and destroying the designated weapons. Unless of course you allow no margin for error in Post-Gulf war Iraq. The discovery of a residual Sarin shell from 1991, doesn’t change a thing. None of the 3 parts above are made out by the discovery. To say otherwise is a bait and switch, not that this will stop Fox _et al_. They’re desperate. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/173 "2004-05-27T16:26:20Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > (Did they actually walk up to and touch the bomb?) **They did not die** Even better, they we’re treated and went _straight_ back to work. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/174 "2004-05-27T19:01:26Z")
[**Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War**](http://www.wokr13.tv/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=83E2BD4A-5F1C-4E84-9166-4E3A8E847643) "The 155-mm shells containing sarin gas that exploded in Iraq May 17 were manufactured before 1991, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. That was a **pre-Gulf War shell,** a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing. … “Rodriguez said the sarin shells were the **only ones of their kind found yet.** ” ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/175 "2004-05-27T19:23:16Z")
> [@Inigo Montoya](#): > > **Shodan** > Fair enough. But one nasty old round of Sarin (which could just as easily have been misplaced in some box under someone’s desk) God, I hate working in places like that. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/176 "2004-05-27T19:33:42Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > God, I hate working in places like that. Found a 25 year bottle of Nickel carbonyl lodged behind a fume hood once, and it seems that every old lab has a few dried up old paper bags of picric acid stashed in some forgotten cupboard. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/177 "2004-05-27T20:08:11Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > [**Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War**](http://www.wokr13.tv/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=83E2BD4A-5F1C-4E84-9166-4E3A8E847643) You know, I halfway expected _ **Sam** _ to ignore my two links to that story from yesterday, but… 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/178 "2004-05-27T20:09:30Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Even better, they we’re treated and went _straight_ back to work. As far as WMDs go, not much MD in this one. It’s barely a W. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616/179 "2004-05-27T21:20:20Z")
> [@sevastopol](#): > > Let’s get a bit of perspective here. At the risk of being nuanced, the invasion rationale was made up of 3 main parts: > > - Iraq continued to engage in covert production of WMD > - Iraq had links to organisations engaged in global terrorism > - There was a real chance Iraq would pass on it’s produced WMD to third party global terrorists for use against the domestic USA. Don’t forget the humanitarian reasons. We went into Iraq to liberate the Iraqis. Don’t forget the Domino Theory reason. We went into Iraq to show them Arabs what democracy can do for them and thereby win tWoT. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wmd-found-woooohooooooooo/245616.md?page=8)