1

Interesting. How do you get 1mg = 1 microliter ?

2

Hey waf,

How do you get 1mg = 1 microliter ?

I multiplied the specific gravity of the substance by the number of milliliters, to obtain the weight in grams.

(Well, that's what I'd do if I knew how to do the conversion. Instead I just used a conversion chart. It's probably not exact but it should be pretty close.)

3

Good answer, Joe!

4

That's what has always bothered me about the search for "stockpiles" of WMDs.

It takes such a small amount of a chemical or biological agent to kill thousands of people.

Think about this next time you go buy your Super Size drink from your neighborhood convenience store. That very large soda would be equivalent to enough nerve agent to kill 1 million people.

Now try to imagine trying to find a large soda in a state the size of California (one that is very well hidden from you). Now imagine that they've taken that large soda and divided it up into several dozen small medicine bottles that could easily be consealed and transported out of the country or hidden indefinitely.

It's not difficult at all to see why we haven't found the "huge stockpiles" of WMD's that the left keep carping about. But just because we haven't found "it" doesn't mean that it does not exist. Nor does it mean that we will never find WMD's.

What I don't think will ever happen is finding enough WMDs to satisfy the left or the media.

5

Let's all agree that sarin is deadly, and let's all also agree that that is a different issue than the stated reasons we went to war and the quality of the pre-war "evidence" supporting those reasons.
What "the left is carping about" -and a growing chunk of the right, by the way - is the total worthlessness and, in many cases the fabrication, of that evidence.
Segments of the Bush administration put their uncritical faith in Chalabi and the INC and he sold them down the river, and has the gall to brag about it now.
Finding one sarin loaded artillery shell does not validate the administration's pre-war pronouncements. I fail to see what is so hard to understand about that.

6

The centrifuge in the rose garden with the plans to build more was enough for me to understand that Saddam had reasonable, active plans to incinerate me. We have now found the first of many sarin shells. What is more troubling is that the bad guys found it first. How many more did they find? I guess you are willing to bet your life, Bob. I am not.

7

Joe, I don't know the answer to this one, do you - what's the shelf life of sarin?

8

George, the thing had been buried under a rose bush for ten years - that hardly constitutes an active plan. From all gathered testimony there was no active plan, and that's on the record.

The bad guys found one sarin shell, although, in reality, I don't know yet if we have any information as to where it actually came from, or whether the bad guys had a clue what they had. Your claim of "many" is unsubstantiated speculation. Whether either of us is willing to bet our life is frankly irrelevant to what we know at this point.

9

Bob: Steven Kay's opening comments included the statement that his report "doesn't preclude the possibility that weapons were moved, sold or disassembled for later use." There was elevated activity along the border of Syria and Iraq confirmed by satellite surveillance. A decades worth of international intel confirmed the presence of WMD. Should the President have given the benefit of the doubt to a homicidal kleptocracy who had ethnically cleansed their own minority population with WMD? Instead he acted pre-emptively to take Iraq out of the weapons marketplace, if possible. This is the reason you're not getting your country back. You're too gullible, delusional and irresponsible.

10

"Should the President have given the benefit of the doubt to a homicidal kleptocracy who had ethnically cleansed their own minority population with WMD?"

Please remind when that ethnic cleansing occurred and please remind me what the status of our diplomatic relationship was with Iraq at that time.

"This is the reason you're not getting your country back. You're too gullible, delusional and irresponsible. "

Hahahhahhah. Yeah, right.

An artillery shell filled with sarin. And Iraq is the only place in the world where sarin can be made right? "Iraq: World's Strongest Sarin". People immediately think of sarin when you say Iraq, that's how closely the two are linked. You just can't find it anywhere else.

Except in Japan.

And all those memos discussing Osama's plans to drop sarin in the United States. I was so scared until Bush informed me that they weren't "actionable."

Thank God we invaded Iraq, killed all those people there, and humiliated hundreds more whom we didn't kill. I feel so much more confident that a religious nutcase will never use sarin to terrorize U.S. citizens. Praise Bush! Praise his unerring genius! Long Live American Might and Power! Death to backward Arabs! (c'mon Kevin, you know the words -- start singing!)

11

Imagine if, as the 9-11 commission so endorses, we had pre-emptively invaded Afghanistan and taken out the Al Qaeda camps in say, 1998. It is reasonable to think such a pre-emptive strike would have had a good chance of preventing 9-11.

The same chorus of criticism would have applied then...the instability within the country, the frustrations, the setbacks, the difficulties, the mistakes, and yes, even the inevitable misconduct among a few troops. I'll bet a story would have surfaced about rough treatment of Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.

Yet we most likely would have no idea of what we exactly prevented...we would have no images of 9-11 to hold up and say, "See, this is why we did this...this is what we prevented..."

The point is that any time one takes pre-emptive action one is by definition condemned only to see the negatives of that action, and not the positives. We will never know for sure what we saved ourselves from.

Whether Saddam had WMD stockpiles or not, who knows what would have happened in the coming years? We know Saddam had WMD programs, and certainly the resources. It's a good bet that the world's gaze would not have stayed on him indefinitely, and that after a suitable period of time he would be off the radar screen again. Perhaps then he would build up his WMD arsenal. Also, let's not forget his 2 evil sons waiting in the wings...when the Daddy passed away, we would get one of them as his replacement.

So leaving Saddam in power would have left a known threat with terrorist connections in place potentially for decades.

We may have prevented a tragedy that would have happened in a few years, in several years, or even in a few decades.

We will never know.

So with regards to the doctrine of pre-emption, we have 2 choices:
1) Stick with it, and accept the fact that we cannot look through a time machine and see the vindication of our strategy. We will only know the costs and never fully comprehend the benefits, and certainly never be able to prove the benefits to skeptics.
2) Abandon pre-emption and only strike at an enemy after they hit us. Of course, this would leave us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, but at least we wouldn't have the hand-wringing and controversy.

Another imaginary scenario: suppose when Hitler invaded the Rhineland in the 1930's that Great Britain and France had taken action against him...he was displaced as leader as Germany and WWII was prevented. But we never would have known just how much that would have saved the world. We only would have heard the appeasement-minded folks crow about how the region had been destabilized, and how now the Germans wouldn't like the French or British as much.

12

Nice job Joe. I will be linking you on this matter.

I just noticed that the press is now focusing on the Abu "cover-up" which will now make this sarin find ever more relegated to the back pages, if any page.

13

The point is that any time one takes pre-emptive action one is by definition condemned only to see the negatives of that action, and not the positives. We will never know for sure what we saved ourselves from.

Exellent, well-argued comment, AT! You are exactly right about the doctrine of preemption. (We could use more comments like this one.)

14

A small point but important. We didn't find WMD, it was used against our troops. Fortunately without success. The mustard gas had gone bad. This is likely only the beginning of more to come. Our enemy knows no rules.

15

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040321-101405-2593r.htm

As articles like this one show us, we really had no choice but to be proactive in this region. WMD can easily be a by-product of our ignorance if America turns it's head. The billions of dollars going to France, Russia, Sadam and the U.N. should be the focus of our involvement in the Middle East. Our fate lies in the balance.

16

Leah,
Concerning Kay's opening comments, are you aware of any evidence that any of the mentioned possibilities might have occured? I didn't think so.

We know what he had at some point in the past. We know what the UN inspectors found and destroyed. We know what was not accounted for after that. We kniow the shelf life of at least some of the compounds. We have the testimony of various scientists, officials, and functionaries in Saddam's government as to what was destroyed.

When this "homididal kleptocracy" was ethnically cleansing his own population, we were facilitating his acquisition of the weapons to do so. And when he was gassing Iranians we were providing him with information on their troop movements to facilitate the gassing.

You said, "A decade's worth of international intel confirmed the presence of WMD." I'd rather not respond to this till I know precisely what you're referring to - as previously noted, we know what he had at some point in the pre-invasion past.

Gullible, delusionable, and irresponsible? I'm trying to deal in facts here. I'd appreciate it iof you did the same.

17

Bob,
"When this "homididal kleptocracy" was ethnically cleansing his own population, we were facilitating his acquisition of the weapons to do so."

I'm trying to remember how many M1A1 tanks we sold to Sadaam. Also, how many F-15's, F-16's, B-1's, M-16's, rockets, artillery and ammo. Hmmm. Seems to me most of that stuff was made in Russia and France, and acquired before Gulf War I or with money from the "Oil for Weapons and Palaces" program run by the kleptocrats in the U.N.

Nice try.

18

While I think your point is good, I think that your numbers are a bit off. I did a little work on Google, and came up with two calculations that lead to similar results. The idea on such calculations is not to be precise (no point), but to try to get the right order of magnitude. In both calculations I put the figure two orders of magnitude lower than you (admittedly still a very scary number, especially if there are more such devices which I am afraid there likely are).

According to my searches, 100 mg of Sarin is enough to kill (and this is claimed at this site to about be a drop in size, but it is actually a bit more). So obviously using 100 mg instead of 1 mg, I got 100 times less lethal doses than you calculated. Since I also found out that Sarin is not much denser than water (I would have been surprised that it would be much different than water), the 1 mg=1 microliter that someone questioned is close enough. I do not know how you arrived at the 1 mg for lethality, but it can't be the weight of one drop (at least based upon the conversion that I got at some agricultural site--I did not even know that there was any standard for such a thing). Let's accept that one drop is the actual lethal dose (or precise enough for the work we are doing here). For water (and therefore close enough for Sarin) there are about .065 drops per ml. Since we are dealing with 3k-4k ml of Sarin, we have about 50k drops (again two orders of magnitude lower). I am curious where you got the 1 mg=1 drop=lethal dose.

19

Good math, bad engineering. Since the gas has to be present in some lethal concentration and people aren't going to bunch up in unventilated shower stalls for their doom(not yet), one artillery shell could only realistically kill about 10K folks if it landed in the right place. Your math is like saying every bullet fired will kill one soldier, maybe two, when in eality it takes about 10000 bullets or 100 artilery shells to kill an enemy soldier, statistically!

20

The shell was binary, meaning there were two different and relatively inert ingredients separated by some sort of barrier. I think one of the two ingredients is rubbing alcohol.

The barrier is designed to be broken when the artillery shell is fired from a cannon. The ingredients mix while the shell is traveling downrange, and the sarin gas then created is dispersed when a small amount of high explosive filler is set off by the impact fuse, breaking the shell open.

The shell was evidently left over from the late 80's, when it is known that the Iraqis fired a lot of them on the Iranians during the final year or two of the war. It was evidently unmarked, so it is doubtful that the "insurgents" who set it up as an IED knew it was a "binary". They probably thought it was a regular high explosive shell.

The reason the two Americans were only slightly poisoned is that the "mixing" effect needed to make the theoretically possible amount of sarin didn't occur. The filler explosion is designed to break open the shell and spread already-mixed sarin, not to mix the ingredients to create sarin.

An unknown is how potent the two inert ingredients remained, after presumably years of improper storage in the heat. We'd need a chemical weapons expert to tell us. Even if the stuff had been fresh, I wouldn't put any money on Iraqi chemical weapons quality control.

These theoretical calculations about how many thousands of people and doses are always laboratory-based worst case. In the "field", the practical effect of even the most potent chemical weapons is considerably reduced as the immediate dilution in the atmosphere and the weathering effect of wind and sunlight immediately begin to break down the stuff.

Even if you penned up 3000 people in a corral and then set off a fully potent binary sarin shell in the middle of them, many would survive as they would immediately run away from the burst. The casualties would occur in the immediate burst area of vapor and then downwind as the cloud began to drift and disperse.

The ultraviolet component of sunlight begins to break the stuff down immediately. In WWI, the two sides found they had to fire thousands of shells in a barrage to maintain a militarily effective dosage of chemical cloud for even a few hours (admittedly those were the far less potent "classical" chemical agents).

I agree with the arguments of those above who felt we needed to evict Saddam. We should have done it during the first few years of the Clinto administration. But it's important not to overstate the case. For those of you who remember what Saddam did with his airplanes during the first Gulf War, I think it is extremely likely that he moved whatever chemical/biological stockpiles he had to Syria; if there was any sizable stockpile left in country by now we would have found it.

It's likely this binary shell was a stray, left over in the massive pile of chaos that constitutes Iraqi military munitions storage. There may be more of them but if they are all unmarked I don't know how the "insurgents" are going to be able to find them and use them, any more than we can readily find them.

21

Bob Maurus:

Leah, [c]oncerning Kay's opening comments, are you aware of any evidence that any of the mentioned possibilities might have occured? I didn't think so.

I'm always amused when somebody asks a question, answers it himself, then uses the answer he just gave as a verbal weapon. Here is what Leah wrote to which you responded:

[David] Kay's opening comments included the statement that his report "doesn't preclude the possibility that weapons were moved, sold or disassembled for later use." There was elevated activity along the border of Syria and Iraq confirmed by satellite surveillance.

Sentence 2 is, in fact, evidence for sentence 1. It is not conclusive proof; but then, you didn't ask for that. So the statement of hers to which you demanded evidence contained the very evidence you demanded. Nice.

You went on:

We know what he had at some point in the past. We know what the UN inspectors found and destroyed. We know what was not accounted for after that. We kniow the shelf life of at least some of the compounds. We have the testimony of various scientists, officials, and functionaries in Saddam's government as to what was destroyed.

Let's break this down....

"We know what he had at some point in the past."

What Saddam had = A.

"We know what the UN inspectors found and destroyed."

What the UN destroyed = B.

"We know what was not accounted for after that." Well, we know what was not accounted for in the sense of knowing A - B; but we don't know what Saddam had that we never discovered, of course. So this number is actually larger than A - B. But let's run with the smaller number, to be on the safe side:

WMDs unaccounted for = C = (A - B) > 0.

"We kniow the shelf life of at least some of the compounds." True, but mostly irrelevant. In the case of sarin, fully assembled, it has a shelf life of about two years. But it was stored in the artillery shells in binary form, and that shelf life is more or less indefinite.

Still, let's suppose that 25% of C is no longer deadly.

Undegraded WMDs unaccounted for = D = 0.75 x C = .75(A - B) > 0.

"We have the testimony of various scientists, officials, and functionaries in Saddam's government as to what was destroyed." True but unverifiable. But let's suppose that a further 50% was legitimately destroyed, even though there is no hard evidence of such.

Usable WMDs left hanging around = E = 0.5 x D = .375 x C = .375(A - B) > 0.

Here is the important part:

Usable WMDs left in Iraq > 0.

...That's good enough for me! The war was justified on WMD evidence alone, let alone all the other major reasons we invaded Iraq.

Dafydd ab Hugh

22

Having not read all of the comments, I apologize if I repeat a point that has already been made. However, it would surprise me greatly if Iraq had no WMDs. We kept the receipts, after all. The larger point is that Hussein was clearly not a large threat to the US (or even to his immediate neighbors), and that terror activity (particularly the al-Qaeda variety) was virtually nonexistent in Iraq until after the US deposed Hussein (who considered al-Qaeda an enemy).

By invading an removing Hussein and leaving a power vacuum, the US created the conditions under which terrorists could move into Iraq.

People who tout the Sarin find also conveniently ignore the fact that Powell went before the UN and essentially claimed that we knew exactly how much Hussein had and exactly where he had it; both now known to be untrue claims.

Whether or not Hussein had WMDs became irrelevant a long time ago. What matters is that the degree to which he posed a threat was greatly exaggerated, and that the entire Iraq affair has been a liability in the larger war on terror. (Imagine, for a moment, if we had spent the time and money trying to stabilize Afghanistan...)

23

Mike Schwab,
Get your time frames in order. You're woefully off. Saddam was gassing Kurds during the Reagan/Bush administrations. We knew about it and politely asked him to please refrain. That was the extent of our objection.

To quote you, "Nice try."

24

Daffyd,
As a totally irrelevant aside, I have a special affinity for anything Welsh. Now to the issues.
Concrete evidence please, not conjectures.

Point one: There was elevated activity. What did that activity consist of? It's in your court.

We know what A-B is. Your next claim is a total conjecture. We have absolutely no information concerning whether or not he had anything else. Speculation and conjecture are wonderful things, but we must restrict ourselves to what we know.

Shelf life is not mostly irrelevant. Break down the unaccounted for munitions, establish shelf life for each, and readress this point.

Bottom line, let's proceed on what we know, not what we can claim to intuit through mathematical equations. We've found nothing to justify our pre-war claims. That temains the issue.

25

Pauil H.,
Thanks for the information.

26

Mike,

According to my searches, 100 mg of Sarin is enough to kill (and this is claimed at this site to about be a drop in size, but it is actually a bit more). So obviously using 100 mg instead of 1 mg, I got 100 times less lethal doses than you calculated.

You're absolutely right. I screwed up when I used 1mg when I meant 100mg (I thought the conversions were way too easy). I've corrected the post to reflect the changes. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. You spared me loads of embarressment.

27

Jeremy,

Since the gas has to be present in some lethal concentration and people aren't going to bunch up in unventilated shower stalls for their doom(not yet), one artillery shell could only realistically kill about 10K folks if it landed in the right place.

I was basing the figures on the sarin being extracted and used in other, more effective devices rather than used in the artillery shell. I appreciate your pointing that out, though. I've tried to change the post to make that point more clear.

28

Bullsh**, Bob M. and "tgirsh". You better be able to provide sources when you charge your country with providing WMD to Iraq, as**oles.

Mike S. is right. Far and away, the bulk of Saddam's military hardware came from the Soviets, the French and the Chinese. The German firm Karl Kolb and French firm Protec supplied the nasty chemicals.

The Iranians know where the stuff came from. Why don't you ask them?

29

Joe,

I agree with both your approach and your conclusions, but maybe not your math. To review your original numbers:

It takes 1 drop (1 mg) of sarin to kill an average person.

Each 300mg dose could kill 3000 Americans, the number that died on 9/11.

The 2nd statement does not follow from the first. According to your stats, a 300mg dose equals 300 drops. It can therefore kill approx 300 people, not 3000.

Right? Or have I messed up?

In any event, your real-world argument is in no way diminished regardless of whether there was enough sarin for 1000 9-11s, or merely 100. Either way, you made an excellent point.

30

Joe,

And I see that you already corrected your figures even as I was typing my comment. Great work!

31

Hey Ras,

The 2nd statement does not follow from the first. According to your stats, a 300mg dose equals 300 drops. It can therefore kill approx 300 people, not 3000.

Right? Or have I messed up?

No, your right. I had tinkered with the numbers and forgot to change that part. I've since changed it and simplified the wording a bit in order to reduce confusion (This math is giving me fits...)

Thanks for pointing that out.

32

"tgirsch" said some other stupid stuff, too:

The larger point is that Hussein was clearly not a large threat to the US (or even to his immediate neighbors)

Because we were patrolling his skies and maintaining the fast crumbling sanctions. How much longer were we obligated to do that? How much longer could we have done that?

and that terror activity (particularly the al-Qaeda variety) was virtually nonexistent in Iraq until after the US deposed Hussein (who considered al-Qaeda an enemy).

Rote repetition of the leftwing talking points. Nothing about Ansar al Islam (operating out of Iraq), nothing about Abu Abbas or Abu Nidal. Hussein considered Al Qaeda an enemy? What a quaint little notion. And, utterly groundless. In fact, Saddam had become increasingly cozy with the Islamists and was actively trying to coopt the jihadi struggle for his own. Part of that campaign included a construction initiative aimed at building ever larger and more elaborate mosques in Iraq and, openly proclaiming himself a direct descendent of the Prophet Mohammed:

But that changed over the years. Saddam has been presenting himself not only as a man of God but as a direct descendent of the Prophet Mohammed. He has insisted on being treated as a holy man. You can see it in the way his officers greet him.

I hate these ignorant fools who want to roll the dice with your's and my security on the basis of their total lack of first-hand knowledge.

33

Reid says

"ignorant fools who want to roll the dice with your's and my security on the basis of their total lack of first-hand knowledge."

To Reid and other scared little babies like him, the issue is not whether our security is improved if we destroy every country whose policies we disagree with. The issue is whether the COST and RISK of doing so outweighs the risks to us.

Let me tell what I think about 9/11: no big deal. We killed a hell of a lot more innocent Iraqis than were killed on 9/11 and guess what? Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

If you feel more secure now, Reid, than before we attacked Iraq, that is only because the White House has not been manipulating your emotions with worthless terror alerts as diligently as it was when it was making the case for attacking Iraq (which it did with evidence that turned out to be fake or totally distorted

34

Bob M.--

Don't you think if Saddam was still in power he would know where to get more Sarin if he needed it?

Maybe he even had a chemist on staff who could make it, eh? I mean after all, he had a microbiologist working on hemorrahgic fever and botulin toxin called "Dr. Germ." Why not a "Dr. Poison"?

Don't you think he would score some for his buddies in Al Qaeda, too?

"Cher Saddam! Would you mind sending one of your henchmen down to Crazy Omars to pick a couple of rocket launchers and some Sarin shells with the binary warheads. We're sacrificing an infidel tonight and...who knows...maybe the Jews will stop by. You know what I say: You can never enough party supplies!"

35

Reid,
Do your homework. Saddam was our "friend" during the Iraq/Iran war. Under Reagan we at the least facilitated his military acquisitions - there is also some evidence suggesting a third country shell game of transfers - and provided him with information on Iranian troop movemements. That's on the record.

As Vladimir has already noted, Ansar al Islam's camp was in the northern no-fly zone of Iraq, which makes any claim of Saddam's complicity problematic. And I assume you're aware that Osama bin Laden forbade any alliances with Saddam, and had nothing but harsh words for him.

Fresh Air, "what ifs," while fun, have litle if any place in a discussion of facts.

36

Bob - Source? You have none. At least, none reliable.

I know far more about this than you. Nothing we provided in the way of "shell games" was of any significance. Cluster bombs from Chile? Puh-leeze. Don't you realize it undercuts your argument that we were somehow complicit in the chem stuff? Why would we be trying to hook Iraq up with cluster bombs when chemical munitions do the same job much more effectively? And, since cluster bombs were not used to any great extent in the entire war, it's a moot question whether we had anything to do with it or not.

Did we provide non-lethal batttlefield intel to prevent Iran overrunning Iraq and changing the entire balance of power in the Middle East to the detriment of our interests? You bet, children! Iran is a charter member of the "Axis of Evil" too, you know!

No, Bob, you and Vlad E.H. above are the ones who have been manipulated to spew venom against your own country. You need an intervention. You need to grow up.

37

Just goes to show you. For these liberals, WMD's never mattered. 9/11 doesn't matter. World terrorism doesn't matter. They hate America. They truly believe that George W. Bush is more evil than Saddam Hussein.

There's no point in even responding to them. They are beyond reason.

38

Vlad-moron: Iraq had everything to do with 9-11. Read bin Laden's 1998 fatwah declaring jihad against the US. His top two reasons were A) US troops in the "holy land" (to guard against Saddam) and B) the devastation of the sanctions against the Iraqi people. His claim that millions (that's MILLIONS moron, you think Arabs weren't singularly pissed at us because of that?) of innocent Iraqis had died because of the sanctions was widely believed and even given backing from studies by the UN.

But, you don't give a rat's patootie, do you? You don't care if millions of Iraqis die, if you can just prop you fat feet up, pop open a Bud and watch the latest game on the tube. You pathetic, lazy, ignorant couch slime.

The sanctions were drawing recruits to Al Qaeda like flies to you. The situation had to change.

But, why bother telling you? You're too dumb to comprehend all this. Just go on back to your little insulated fantasy world and believe what you like, you cretinous exemplar of nescient non-thought.

39

"Thank God we invaded Iraq, killed all those people there, and humiliated hundreds more whom we didn't kill. I feel so much more confident that a religious nutcase will never use sarin to terrorize U.S. citizens. Praise Bush! Praise his unerring genius! Long Live American Might and Power! Death to backward Arabs! (c'mon Kevin, you know the words -- start singing!)"
--el Habib

"Let me tell what I think about 9/11: no big deal. We killed a hell of a lot more innocent Iraqis than were killed on 9/11 and guess what? Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11."
--el Habib

"Do your homework. Saddam was our "friend" during the Iraq/Iran war. Under Reagan we at the least facilitated his military acquisitions - there is also some evidence suggesting a third country shell game of transfers - and provided him with information on Iranian troop movemements. That's on the record."

"This kind of garbage makes me want to puke but it is absolutely typical of this Administration and its morals. Just so it's clear: George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, rather than kill Abu Musab Zarqawi, a known terrorist, decided to continue instead to spin their web of lies regarding WMDs. Two years later, we all get to enjoy watching Zarqawi slice another human being's head off (although we didn't get to see it enough to satisfy the winguts who salivated at the thought of how energizing it would be to Americans who had lost their bloodlust after the Abu Ghraib debacle).

Speaking of which, it is a sick joke to listen to alleged Christians blame the MEDIA for the devastating impact that Abu Ghraib has had on support for George Bush's stupid war. Abu Ghraib is a despicable scandal. The responsibility for what happened in Abu Ghraib rests FIRMLY on the administration. The fact that George Bush didn't know the details of what was going on there just shows how removed the guy is from the pile of crap he created in Iraq, a pile of crap that will take a generation to clean up, if not more."
-- (guess who?) El Habib again

40

Bob M, you said:

"An artillery shell filled with sarin. And Iraq is the only place in the world where sarin can be made right? "Iraq: World's Strongest Sarin". People immediately think of sarin when you say Iraq, that's how closely the two are linked. You just can't find it anywhere else."

Pushing your high school grade sarcasm aside, you miss the point. Per the terms of Hussein's surrender to the UN, the onus was on Hussein to account for and/or destroy any and all weapons of mass destruction within I believe six months. The existence of 16 (17?) UN reprimands spanning over more than a decade indicate the abject failure on Hussein's part to live up to the terms of his surrender. To sniff and simper about only one sarin gas shell is irrelevant to the point of absurdity- it was not our job to account for Hussein's weaponry, it was his. He failed, he was deposed. End of list.

Vladimir-

You're a saucy fellow. Calling us babies, and telling us to suckle from our mommies, what a tough talker are you. I also gather you don't care for President Bush all that much... why is that?

Regarding your assertions about the "web of lies" re: WMD in the year long rush to war. I guess all the claims about the sinister long reach of the Bush administration are true.... how else to explain their ability to get the ENTIRE Western world to go along with them in these lies? Or perhaps I missed it- which country in Europe or elsewhere was making the claim that Hussein did not have stockpiles of WMD previous to resumption of UN prescribed activities, outside of Hussein himself? Not France. Not Russia. Not Germany. I was there, as were you- nobody denied that Hussein had massive stockpiles of WMD. The point of contention was what was the best way to wrest them from this psychopathic freak. Your attempt at instant revisionist history by trying to ascribe all claims of WMDs to the distortions of the evil cabal in the White House is in your words, Pathetic.

And given recent revelations about the less than savory operation of the Oil-for-food program (10 billion stolen, and growing!), the "moral" justifications of those opposing Hussein being deposed as per the terms of his '91 UN surrender become increasingly smudged.

One last thought- believe it was in '98 that regime change in Iraq became official US policy. Who again was in the White House at the time?

41

Joe,

I am unclear on the delivery method using the shell. does everyone have to breath the sarin? what if there is a strong wind that day? seems very inefficient.

42

Anonymous poster [(guess who?) El Habib again]:

Thank God we freed Iraq. The Iraqi people are overwhelmingly in favor. Why don't you defer to them when it's their own country?

Considering no Iraqis died on 9-11, that statement is technically correct. How about adding up the numbers of Iraqis who would have been shredded or otherwise killed by Saddam or the sanctions had we not intervened? The Iraqi people are overwhelmingly in favor. Why don't you defer to them when it's their own country?

As I have stated above, A) we were not a significant source of military hardware B) to the extent we helped Saddam, it was to ward off fellow AOE member Iran.

Hearsay and trumped up evidence. You don't know what you are talking about.

Abu Ghraib is absolutely insignificant compared to the kind of real torture that goes on in the Arab world every day, and that went on under Saddam day and night. In three months, you won't even remember the name.

Thanks, Anonymous, for showing us once again how tunnel-visioned and stupid the guy who calls himself El-Habib is.

43

DNB,

I am unclear on the delivery method using the shell. does everyone have to breath the sarin? what if there is a strong wind that day?

Basically, the shell explodes, causing the chemicals inside to mix and sending a vaporous fog into the air. Breathing the mist or having it come into contact with the skin is the means by which it produces its harmful effects.

seems very inefficient.

You're right, it is an extremely inefficient method of delivering this nerve agent (the heat from the explosion, for instance, burns up much of the vapor). It is almost completely ineffective if precautions are taken (such as wearing gas masks and NBC suits) and if atropine is adminstered when contact is made. All of which makes it relatively useless for a military application.

Terrorists, on the other hand, could simply add it to the water supply and have a much more effective means of delivering the agent.

44

Regarding the meme that the U.S. supplied the chem weapons; if a previous administration creates a WMD threat, isn't it incumbent upon successive administrations to remove that threat? The summit at Yalta didn't prevent successive administrations from fighting communism; Clinton's gifts to N. Korea of 2 light-water reactors, fuel oil and food shipments haven't prevented us from taking an confrontational posture with Kim Jong Il. Churchill appeared before his Parliament to disclose Germany's violation of the Versailles treaty. Europe (typically) did nothing. 6 million lives later, the lessons of history demand that we enfore UN resolution 1441, Iraq's Versailles. Would that 800 US servicemen given their lives to interdict the rise of Nazism. . .

45

Bob: "When this "homididal kleptocracy" was ethnically cleansing his own population, we were facilitating his acquisition of the weapons to do so. And when he was gassing Iranians we were providing him with information on their troop movements to facilitate the gassing."

That's why I support the invasion of Iraq, in part. I feel we owe it to the people of Iraq to un-do the destruction we supported. My big question is whether or not we will abandon the enemy-of-my-enemy mentality. Am I naive in thinking we can?

46

Vladimir: "Let me tell what I think about 9/11: no big deal."

Wow. I appreciate your honesty. I'm a liberal who thinks it was a huge deal. For me it's a no-brainer. I support the war and don't think Saddam caused 9/11. The point is there is no doubt in my mind that he hated democratic and free countries far more than he hated Islamo Fascists. I've not seen one bit of evidence that has made me feel that he wouldn't have supported, financed, or provided shelter for anyone who hates the free world more than they hate him. His sons? Those are two sequels that I think you would also call "no big deal". They were so bad (and I'm so glad I can use past tense)they made Hussein look good. Islamo Fascists have a specific philosophical agenda for the world. Be open to the idea that you might be projecting your own frustrations with this country on to terrorists. That's a very dangerous thing to do. They aren't just mad at Haliburton. They want to shove a twisted brand of Islam down your throat or die while killing you- or your neighbor or child- for refusing to accept their version of Islam. They have forsaken this world for another. I didn't vote for Bush and probably won't be in the fall, but I'm going to say he's got it right when it comes to the war on terror.

47

'Terrorists, on the other hand, could simply add it to the water supply and have a much more effective means of delivering the agent.'

ive read that the concept of hippies putting lsd in the water system is imposible becasue there is so much water compared to the lsd it would take tankers of the stuff to pull it off and even then a lot of it wouldn't mix with the water, it would sink to the bottom.

wouldn't it be the same for sarin? or does it spread through the water and bond to the molecules or something?

does anyone know how sarin is made and what it is?

good post. thought provoking.

48

DNB,

ive read that the concept of hippies putting lsd in the water system is imposible becasue there is so much water compared to the lsd it would take tankers of the stuff to pull it off and even then a lot of it wouldn't mix with the water, it would sink to the bottom.

While I don't know for sure, I assume that sarin would be diluted in much the same manner. Just dumping it into the local reservoir probably wouldn't be all that effective.

A more effective approach would be to use the sarin to "contaminate" food or drink products in a localized area. Let's say, for example, that terrorists were able to infiltrate a local soft drink bottling plant. They could contaminate the soda before it is bottled, allowing it to be hermetically sealed and protected from exposure.

The sarin would not only be protected but also disseminated into a wide area. By the time the source of the sarin exposure was found and quarantined, hundreds or thousands could have died. Millions more would be in a panic and the soft drink manufacturer would be ruined.

49

The more information we have on just how deadly this stuff is, the better. Politics aside, Sarin is a horrible weapon if deployed correctly. It will kill Republicans just as effectively as it would kill Democrats, Independents, Greens, etc. It wasn't used properly this time, thank God. Unless we stop them, they will get it right eventually. Then our disagrements will be moot.

50

Either I'm missing something, or there are two significant problems with your analysis:

First, if one drop equals 1/10,000 of a liter, then 3-4 liters should translate into 10,000 times that amount, placing the total number of drops between 30,000 and 40,000, not "roughly 50,000." That amount, in turn, would be capable of killing roughly 30,000 to 40,000 people, not 50,000.

Second, if, as you concede, it is "obvious" that 50,000 drops of sarin cannot be distributed evenly enough to kill all 50,000 of its intended targets, isn't it equally obvious that any one of your 16 "doses" could not be distributed evenly enough to kill 3,125, or any other number close to 3,000?

51

"...we were facilitating his [Saddam's] acquisition of the weapons [of mass destruction] to do so" --- Bob M

Wow. I'd like to just make a couple of points regarding Bob's statement.

It is conceivable that an anti-terrorism czar like Richard Clarke may have come up with a limp-wrist response to Iranian terrorism --- possibly suggesting to Germany that they supply precursor chemicals to Iraq in order to gain advantage in the Iran/Iraq war. However, there is no evidence that "we" ever did. Richard Clarke had many dubious half-baked schemes for dealing with terrorism, like his idea to scare Muammar Quadaffi by buzzing his tent with an SR-71. But, the only basis for this strange scenario being remotely plausible is the fact that "we" had a motive --- a need to hit back against Iran.

However, when it comes to Saddam. Bob omnisciently states "Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11". This statement also lacks any evidence or facts to back it up. And, it runs contrary to the "motive = evidence" principle that Bob currently gives such credence to. Iraq had all the motive in the world to be involved in 9/11. We were blockading Iraq and bombing Iraq continuously for 12 years (both acts of war, and both sanctioned by the UN). There are even FACTS that substantiate a possible link between Saddam and 9/11. Yet Bob knows there was no link -- because, because, because, because...

Freeing 25 million people from oppression, AND giving them back their oil revenues (instead of buying palaces and lining the pockets of UN diplomats). It doesn’t take a wizard to see that these are good things.

Despite all of the circumstantial evidence and motivational “evidence” that Saddam was involved in 9/11, Bob doesn't do his typical “motive = evidence” thing because he imagines that George Bush is possessed by the ghost of Nixon's past (note I have no “evidence” for my claim here -- but why bother with “evidence” when we can judge facts entirely on assumed motives – or at least when we’re playing by Bob’s rules). So since we “know” Bob’s motives for his wild accusatory statements, we can say that he has wedded himself to a phantom image of Bush as Nixon/Satan. This makes Bob become more like the evil he wishes to denounce. When Bush is doing good, Bob must oppose it rabidly, thinking that nothing good can come from Satan.

Bob is simply trying to expose his image of a demon-possessed Bush. Yet this demonic-image exists mainly in Bob’s mind. Therefore, Bob is just wrestling with his own demons when he spouts wild assertions regarding the president. So, let's all have a moment of silence and think about Bob, and wish him well with his demons.

Or, maybe we should stop “knowing” things that are unknowable at this time. I admit that there are many normally lucid people casting wild aspersions on George Bush’s motives and embracing bizarre conspiracy theories about every aspect of the Iraq war. However, there were many otherwise lucid people who lived in Nazi Germany. The anti-war crowd has been whipped up into a frenzy by demagoguery. Unfortunately, this is causing them to speak up on behalf of terrorists and their sponsors. And at a minimum it’s undermining the strength and security of our soldiers and Marines deployed overseas. At worst, it’s directly inviting more 9/11 and Madrid-style attacks from the enemy.

52

First, if one drop equals 1/10,000 of a liter, then 3-4 liters should translate into 10,000 times that amount, placing the total number of drops between 30,000 and 40,000, not "roughly 50,000." That amount, in turn, would be capable of killing roughly 30,000 to 40,000 people, not 50,000.

The actual conversion comes out to a bit more than 1 drop = 1ml. I just rounded up to (1ml) for the sake of clarity.

Second, if, as you concede, it is "obvious" that 50,000 drops of sarin cannot be distributed evenly enough to kill all 50,000 of its intended targets, isn't it equally obvious that any one of your 16 "doses" could not be distributed evenly enough to kill 3,125, or any other number close to 3,000?

No, actually, I don’t. Given the choice, the 9/11 terrorists would have probably preferred to kill 50,000 rather than 3,125 people. But the smaller number was, naturally, more attainable. The lower the number, the more likely it is to be actualized.

Notice, though, that I said 16 “new 9/11s” could be attempted. We could look at this a couple of different ways. For example, 1 or more of the 16 attempts could be completely effective, killing 3,000 people. Or, more likely, a total of 3,000 people could be killed by a combination of the 16 attempts.

If it were applied effectively, the amount of sarin in the shell is enough to kill, at a minimum, 30,000 people. While I could be wrong, I think it is rather conceivable that if one of the shells were to find its way into the states, terrorists would be able to kill 10% of that number.

53

JIm,

"And at a minimum it’s undermining the strength and security of our soldiers and Marines deployed overseas. At worst, it’s directly inviting more 9/11 and Madrid-style attacks from the enemy."

Oh, here we go again! What a surprise. "How dare you dissent and question this war which will cost our country 100s of billions of dollars, which will result in the loss of hundred or thousands of U.S. troops, which will require our presence in Iraq for YEARS to come, and which won't make the U.S. any safer from terrorism. How dare you?"

Jim, that is the same attitude our media took when Bush ahd his stool pigeons, Rice and Powell, were selling lies and misrepresentations about Iraq's weapons programs to the American people.

Please take a moment to read this excerpt from May 2002 on Hardball: