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May 17, 2004 WMD - but slow down The U.S. military says it has found the nerve agent sarin in an artillery shell in Iraq, the first announcement of the discovery of any of the weapons on which Washington made its case for war.Not many more details available at this point, but I'd caution against jumping to conclusions too quickly. After all, we knew he had old chemical weapons sitting around the country, though we assumed most had been destroyed. The problem Iraq always had was that they were unable to purify their chemicals sufficiently to make them last for a significant amount of time. So, a great deal of outdated, decomposed chemicals may have been lying about. They didn't matter a great deal. In short, finding some old duds lying about is not the same as finding stockpiles of more recently produced weapons. So....wait. And try not to make sweeping conclusions about the justification for war based on a single old artillery shell. UPDATE: I should point out one more thing: if the Sarin contained in the bomb was in sufficiently pure form to cause harm, that might seem to indicate that it was produced more recently. Which would be very interesting and hard to explain... UPDATE II: Captain Ed has more, and finds this BBC story, which has a "Senior Coalition Official" saying that "the round dated back to the Iran-Iraq war and coalition officials were not sure whether the fighters even knew what it contained". If it truly does date back to the Iran/Iraq war, the chemicals should be completely degraded by this point. According to this document at FAS, ... THE UNITARY FORM OF IRAQ'S SARIN - ITS PRINCIPAL NERVE AGENT - HAD A RELATIVELY SHORT SHELF LIFE DURING THE WAR WITH IRAN.Iraq began working on that problem after that war, and managed some improvements, but it seems doubtable that they ever made sufficient improvements to keep chemicals in an artillery shell for long periods. In other words, if the chemicals in this particular shell were stable, the Sarin was very likely produced - or, at least combined in binary form from precursor chemicals - within the last few years. UPDATE III: James Joyner has more.... I’d note that, although Drudge has this in small text atop his page and has therefore discovered the story, Alexandria Kerry’s breasts still dominate the page. That either says something about Drudge’s priorities or about the relative importance of the Sarin episode....or both. UPDATE IV: Good stuff in the comments, including information on the nature of binary sarin. Read. |
I don't see anyone doing that, Jon. This incident does raise some questions about where it came from, however.
If I recall right, GB requires some rather specific handling, and shells so equipped have a rather limited timeframe in which they're useful, particularly in the heat of such places as Iraq. The concept, therefore, of a rusty holdover shell someone's had stored in their root cellar for the last decade seems a bit of a stretch.
It'll be interetsing to see how this plays out.
Posted by: Bithead at May 17, 2004 10:43 AM
Jon,
Applying Occam's Razor:
Ammo stocks were dispursed prior to the war. WMD stocks were either intentially or unintentially dispursed as well.
It is unlikely that a 20 year old, pre-filled with binary Sarin precursors, 155 artillery shell AND mustard shell have just been used by accident. Have the insurgents been saving them for political or strategic reasons? Scrapping the bottom of the stockpile barrell?
Posted by: Tim at May 17, 2004 12:46 PM
Tim,
You're right that the presence of a mustard gas device makes this a bit more interesting.
We still don't have enough information, though, to make a significant judgement. We don't know if the chemicals were stable, or degraded.
We do know that it's a mighty interesting coincidence. But we also know that stockpiles of weapons were stored all over the country. And that some of their stockpile had gone missing on the way to destruction. So, we don't really know the genesis of the devices.
On the other hand, we also know the military is downplaying it, so...that seems to indicate something.
Posted by: Jon Henke at May 17, 2004 12:52 PM
On the other hand, we also know the military is downplaying it, so...that seems to indicate something
What it indicates is a government which is being methodical about things. They've seen how this stuff has gone down in the past, and is unwilling to allow it to do so again.
Posted by: Bithead at May 17, 2004 01:25 PM
Sarin is made from binary components, in other words, 2 components are in the shell but not allowed to touch. After the shell is launched the 2 mix and create a gas.*
The gas itself is short lived but (as I recall) the binary components have a fairly long life.
Paul
* Kinda like the CO2 fire extinguishers. They contain baking soda and vinegar ad when they are mixed they give off massive amounts of carbon dioxide gas.
Posted by: Paul at May 17, 2004 01:45 PM
Nobody seems to have the answer to the question of what is the shelf life of a binary sarin shell. So what is it?
Posted by: TM Lutas at May 17, 2004 02:10 PM
Regarding Joyner's comment:
A couple points, here:
(Yeah, I know, I know)
Drudge's priorities are about generating tits for his site... errr, sorry... HITS for his site. One certainly generates more traffic than the other.... errr... one story generates more traffic than the other.
I doubt the choice of photos, between the two... stories... is a matter of space, both the artillary shell and the subject of the pic running on Drudge being the same general shape and all... but I suppose there wasn't any photos of the artillary shell in question.
But I would suggest we now have some idea of what all the applause was about at the Moore showing.. it had nothing to do with Moore and more to do with what else was showing.
Though, on closer inspection of the photo being run by Matt I must conclude there's no accounting for taste. (Shudder.... John Kerry with somewhat depleted artillary shells...)
One more point (sorry)... Can you imagine the press on one of Bush's daughters wearing the like?
Posted by: Bithead at May 17, 2004 02:37 PM
On jumping to conclusions, yes by all means, let's demonstrate a little restraint. However it should be noted that those who peddle the "Bush Lied!" mantra have shown no such maturity and they get on that old Evening News, don't they? Yeah they do.
Posted by: megapotamus at May 17, 2004 02:44 PM
TM Lutas:
20 FEBRUARY 1991
CIA BELIEVES THAT A SUBSTANTIAL SEGMENT OF IRAQ'S NERVE AGENT STOCKPILE CONSISTS OF BINARY CHEMICAL WEAPONS--WHICH WOULD NOT BE SUBJECT TO DEGRADATION. CIA ALSO BELIEVES THAT THE SHELF LIFE PROBLEM WAS ONLY TEMPORARY AND THAT THE IRAQIS EVEN NOW MAY BE ABLE TO PRODUCE UNITARY AGENTS OF SUFFICIENT QUALITY BY ADDING A STABILIZER OR IMPROVING THEIR PRODUCTION PROCESS.
http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960705/73919_01.htm
Of course, you could have just googled "sarin binary life" yourself.
Posted by: Rus Steel at May 17, 2004 07:13 PM
Just for clarity, here;
Are we talking about *storage* in binary form?
This implies that the elements were combined as the weapon in question was deployed, which raises the bar on the whole deal,seems to me.
Posted by: Bithead at May 18, 2004 12:40 PM
I haven't seen a definitive answer on that, yet. If you see anything, let me know.
Posted by: Jon Henke at May 18, 2004 02:01 PM