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2004-11-17 Iraq-Jordan
Sarin Found in Fallujah
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Posted by Frank G 2004-11-17 2:07:11 PM|| || Front Page|| [11136 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Could be wrong, but they look like the emergency stick-in-thigh-during-nerve-gas-attack antidote to me (disposable one-use syringes).

related story

Now *why* they'd need them, that's another matter...
Posted by Lux 2004-11-17 2:28:27 PM||   2004-11-17 2:28:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 The one on the left is in English! Of course we can't see the one on the right. It must be Phrawnch.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-17 2:39:11 PM||   2004-11-17 2:39:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 To judge by the typography (and Russian text) this should be East German... and why is the expiry date hidden?
The Charge Number looks like a date, which would mean it's from 1981 which sounds just right.
Posted by True German Ally 2004-11-17 2:46:31 PM||   2004-11-17 2:46:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 I've heard a senior officer saying that anything you can hit with chemical weapons, you can hit harder with explosives. My feeling is that unless we can find at least several forklifts worth of artillery shells, it's much ado about nothing.
Posted by Zhang Fei  2004-11-17 2:59:39 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com]  2004-11-17 2:59:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 In the beginning of the Fallujah fight, the Marines also found some nerve gas test kits with Sarin vials. They are probably used to calibrate the detectors. The total quantity is small and militarily insignificant (unlike the artillery shell found filled w/ 5 quarts of old Sarin). The terrorists may have wanted to fill a mortar shell with it, but that don't matter crap in the battle. A more ominous use would be to smuggle it into the west and release it into the ventilation system of a crowded concert.

A bigger question is where are the up to 500 tons of Sarin and 3.7 tons of VX (+ a LOT of Mustard + 38000 liters of Botulinum) the Iraqis admitted having after the GW1. The Sarin and VX were never verified as being destroyed.
Posted by ed 2004-11-17 3:06:03 PM||   2004-11-17 3:06:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 according to the caption, this was found in a briefcase located in a truck. Heard a Marine intel guy in a radio interview a couple of days ago. He found what he said were Sarin test kits in a briefcase located in a truck. He stated that he about pissed himself when he first saw it, but latter determined that they were tests for Sarin and not Sarin itself.

I suspect the photo is actually the test kits in question.
Posted by Psycho Hillbilly 2004-11-17 3:13:45 PM||   2004-11-17 3:13:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I vote for test kit, nerve agent specific. Other than SARIN (GB), it mentions SOMAN (VX), and "V Gases", which are exclusively nerve agents.
Posted by Anonymoose 2004-11-17 4:05:02 PM||   2004-11-17 4:05:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 yep - Powerline has updates from readers who know:


These are what we would call "Draeger Tubes" (a brand name, though several companies manufacture them... Draeger is possibly the biggest) commonly used in industry and other places (the military, too) for measuring airborne gas concentrations. Quite ingeneous little chemical reactors, which progressively change color along their as the chemical to be measured is drawn through the tube. A specified volume of air is sucked through the tube, and the length of the color change tells you what the concentration of the chemical is. They are actually quite accurate, as long as you don't have interferences to deal with.

In other words, no story here, other than the bad guys being prepared to measure gasses that might for some reason be present. Who knows... they might have been dumb enough to think that these tubes actually contained Sarin.
Posted by Frank G  2004-11-17 4:19:21 PM||   2004-11-17 4:19:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 the dammer rethugs stolen all my Anleitung can ich roller it?
Posted by half 2004-11-17 5:15:45 PM||   2004-11-17 5:15:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Oh for gosh sakes: The NYT, U.N., IAEA, WAPO, and John Kerry have assured us there were never any WMD in Iraq, the island of peace and stability pre-Bush.

/bs button off
Posted by Mark Z.  2004-11-17 5:46:53 PM||   2004-11-17 5:46:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 My feeling is that unless we can find at least several forklifts worth of artillery shells, it's much ado about nothing.

At this late stage in the game, any CW found would only be worth an I-told-you-so. The bigger purpose of this war (as I see it) goes beyond the WMD question, and I thought it was silly for the administration to have penned a lot of their case on WMDs.
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2004-11-17 6:27:26 PM||   2004-11-17 6:27:26 PM|| Front Page Top

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