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| Iraq |
| Update: Denmark Tests Chemical on Iraqi Shells |
| 2004-01-12 |
| EFL slightly Results are expected by the end of the week from a new series of tests to determine whether 36 shells found buried in the Iraqi desert contain a liquid blister agent. On Friday, Danish and Icelandic troops uncovered a cache of 120mm mortar shells, thought to be left over from the eight-year war between Iraq and neighboring Iran, which ended in 1988. Preliminary tests on the plastic-wrapped but damaged shells showed they contained a liquid blister agent. The shells were found near Qurnah, north of the southern city of Basra, where Denmark’s 410 soldiers are based. Initial tests by field troops are designed to favor a positive reading, erring on the side of caution to protect soldiers. More sophisticated tests are often necessary. Members of the Iraqi Survey Group, a U.S.-led group of intelligence analysts, interrogators and translators, were expected to arrive in Qurnah late Monday for more testing, said Maj. Kim Gruenberger of the Danish Army Operational Command. Gruenberger told The Associated Press that the second round of testing could begin Tuesday. "We hope to get results as soon as possible. A good guess is at the end of week," he said. Before the war, the United States asserted that Iraq still had stockpiles of mustard gas, a World War I-era blister agent that is stored in liquid form. The chemical burns skin, eyes and the lungs. Lung blisters are a nasty way to drown. U.S. intelligence officials also claimed Iraq had sarin, cyclosarin and VX, which are extremely deadly nerve agents. In the weeks after the Iraq war, the U.S.-led coalition found several caches that tested positive for mustard gas but later turned out to contain missile fuel or other chemicals. Other discoveries early in the U.S.-led occupation turned out to be old caches that had already been tagged by United Nations inspectors and were scheduled for destruction. In October, Dutch marines found several dozen artillery shells dating from the 1991 Gulf War in the southern Iraqi town of Samawah, but the shells contained no biological or chemical agents. In April, U.S. troops found a dozen 55-gallon drums in an open field near the northern Iraqi town of Baiji. Preliminary tests found possible evidence of the nerve agent cyclosarin and a blister agent that could be mustard gas, but later tests found that the contents were not chemical weapons. Because Iraq is so militarized, some of these weapons will be found accidently years down the road. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #8 A2U, many chemical agents have a short shelf life, but mustard gas lasts and lasts. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-1-12 9:32:40 PM |
| #7 But, but, how can this be? Surely whatever's in those warheads is not dangerous by now? I thought they had a short shelf life. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2u 2004-1-12 8:49:54 PM |
| #6 Icelandic troops ? Figure they're good.... but who knew? Hail Fredonia Happy Land! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-1-12 3:24:43 PM |
| #5 pdq332 yea and a black helicopter flew over your house last night..... everyone just get over the wmd case - yes they are in the middle east but it is not the main reason we went - we needed to inject ourselves right in the middle of our enemies. Unfortuneltly Bush stressed WMD because the left is too stupid to realize when our national security is truly jeopordised. |
| Posted by: Dan 2004-1-12 2:42:53 PM |
| #4 pdq332, I don't think Bush and company are holding anything back. It would have been too easy to plant weapons early on. When things got ugly with regards to uranium during the summer, a more "creative" administration would have gone into spin mode then. Even now it would still be easy to announce that the weapons are in Syria and capture some of Assad's stash and declare it Sadaam's. Instead Condi is still saying that we have no evidence that the weapons were moved. It would be interesting to know what type of clean-up effort the Russian representatives helped Sadaam out with prior to evacuating, but their too professional to have left a bunch of looses threads to track. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-1-12 2:38:20 PM |
| #3 I'll lay odds that we'll be finding scads of WMD in Iraq 14 to 21 days before the November 2004 election. It may explain why the administration doesn't jump on every single piece of WMD evidence coming out of Iraq like a pack of Deaniacs in the soybean products aisle. They're timing it. Heh heh heh. |
| Posted by: pdq332 2004-1-12 2:20:38 PM |
| #2 agree with you on every point there anonymous,the only way the anti war whacko's will realise there are chemical nastys there is if you dipped thier dumb face in a vat of the stuff,even then they'd claim its just 'funny' water.how i pity these people for thier blind blinkered vision. |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-1-12 2:20:18 PM |
| #1 1. Of course it's mustard gas 2. Already brushed off as relics 'buried 15 years ago during/after the Iran-Iraq war' 3. If they found a soccer stadium filled with nuclear warheads, the unconvinced would remain so. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-1-12 1:58:58 PM |