Quote:
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Originally Posted by Halx
This is very much the separate realities we are talking about. Those scraps that were found were old, decomissioned and nowhere near the intended *true* targets. If you wanna justify everything this country has gone through and the debt we are in now with *that* don't be surprised if a ton of people disagree with you.. vehemently.
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Here's the thing. This is taken from page 32-33 of this pdf:
http://www.foia.cia.gov/duelfer/Iraqs_WMD_Vol3.pdf
Quote:
In the 5 January 1999 Compendium, UNSCOM
assessed that Iraq had not adequately accounted for
550 mustard-filled artillery rounds it claimed to have
lost. This issue first surfaced in 1996 because of discrepancies
in Iraq’s accounting of weapons holdings, and was investigated but not resolved by UNSCOM
(see the January 1999 UN compendium for details).
ISG conducted extensive interviews with high- and
mid-level Iraqi officials to determine the final disposition
of the 550 mustard-filled rounds—which would
be highly toxic, even now—cited by the UN as an
unresolved disarmament issue, and found inconsistencies
in the story among witting high-level officials.
Most officials recounted the story of accidental
destruction in a fire in Karbala, reporting provided
to the UN after Iraq’s investigation of this issue prior
to 1998, while the former MIC director, Huwaysh,
claims the rounds were retained for future use.
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The italics are mine. They describe the rounds in question, they state that they would still be highly toxic, and as page 29 of the report states:
Quote:
Since May 2004, ISG has recovered dozens of
additional chemical munitions, including artillery
rounds, rockets and a binary Sarin artillery projectile
(see Figure 5). In each case, the recovered munitions
appear to have been part of the pre-1991 Gulf war
stocks, but we can neither determine if the munitions
were declared to the UN or if, as required by the UN
SCR 687, Iraq attempted to destroy them.
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Then, of course, you have this statement from page 35:
Quote:
Recent data indicate that the grand total will continue
to grow. Over the six-week period from the
end of July to mid-September, CEA discovered an
additional 291 caches with a total of 105,028 tons
of munitions—cache discoveries continued to the
time of writing. CEA estimates a total of 600,000
tons of munitions is the total tonnage, including
munitions destroyed during OIF and scattered about
the countryside. ISG believes this number is fairly
uncertain, and could go considerably higher in the
future as new caches are discovered. We regard
600,000 as a lower limit on total munitions. Using
this number, we estimate we visited about 8-12
percent (in round numbers, 10 percent), or less of
the total Iraqi munitions stocks.
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So, this commission found 53 WMDs, some of which they couldn't tell if they were declared or destroyed, and they've looked at 10% of the KNOWN stockpiles found so far.
Then you've got reports from captured Iraqis, such as this one on page 47:
Quote:
A high-level IIS source claimed that Adnan Abdul
Razzaq al-Ubaydi produced as much as 3.5 kg of
ricin in 1992, which was partially used by Doctor
Muhammad Abdul Munim al-Azmerli for assassinations
in the early 1990s. The source claimed that
he saw the ricin, and Razzaq personally informed
him about the amount produced.
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How hard would it be to hide less than 10 pounds of something in an entire country? Do you know how many people 3.5 kg of ricin could kill? The answer is more than 5.
Then skip on to page 78, where the report states:
Quote:
Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored
there. The most dangerous ones have been declared
to the UN and are sealed in bunkers. Although
declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be con-
firmed. These areas of the compound pose a hazard
to civilians and potential blackmarketers.
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There are some bunkers that are open, and they contained empty CW shells, et cetera (not part of the 53, these are separate, and there are bunkers filled with them, so how many there are we will not know until we get around to breaching them.)
then there's this, from page 81:
Quote:
A refuse area was exploited containing hundreds of
empty munitions intended for chemical or biological
agent filling. Warheads and peripheral hardware
for brass and recyclable metals are still being looted.
Old hardware destroyed under the auspice of the
UN agreement and thousands of pieces of chemical
weapons hardware that did not meet quality controls
lay waste in the refuse area
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These are the actually demilled weapons from the early 1990's. There were hundreds of them left after the site had been repeatedly looted for salvage. These are NOT included in the 53 WMD figures, since they had actually been rendered inert.
Then there's this from page 97:
Quote:
Beginning in May 2004, ISG recovered a series of
chemical weapons from Coalition military units
and other sources. A total of 53 munitions have been
recovered, all of which appear to have been part of
pre-1991 Gulf war stocks based on their physical
condition and residual components.
The most interesting discovery has been a 152mm
binary Sarin artillery projectile—containing a 40
percent concentration of Sarin—which insurgents
attempted to use as an Improvised Explosive Device
(IED). The existence of this binary weapon not only
raises questions about the number of viable chemical
weapons remaining in Iraq and raises the possibility
that a larger number of binary, long-lasting chemical
weapons still exist.
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That statement alone should raise a giant "WTF" in the minds of readers. A 40% sarin solution can kill you dead as hell in no time flat. Because they're binary, they have a much longer shelf-life than other types of pre-mixed chemical weapons. And it all comes back to "we don't know, and we've only looked at about 10% of KNOWN munitions destroyed, and we have no idea what else is still out there."
Anyhoo, I'm gonna stop there. Reading all that crap has given me a headache.