Quote:
Originally Posted by tshore
Now, I did recall reading a couple of years back that there had been uncovered several mustard-gas shells that had fallen into the hands of insurgents, evidently because we had failed to secure the ammo dumps after our invasion. The shells dated from before the first Gulf War, and from what I read had deteriorated and were not usable. The key thing was this - the shells were MADE IN THE USA. We had sold Saddam chemical weapons back in the 80's, and a few of these shells were still kicking around, although evidently they were not dangerous enough to warrant preventing insurgents from walking into ammo dumps and gathering them up.
So is that it? Were old chemical weapons found that we had sold to Saddam back when he was our buddy? And was their existance so embarrassing to the administration that they didn't dare let the public know?
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Not quite accurate. I am in a similar situation as Snapper in having similar clearances, etc.
There media reports (2004). There mustard gas shells found, along with binary shells. None were of U.S. origin. Some were 1996 and some 1997 manufacture.
The reason for not loudly proclaiming the find should be obvious. The insurgents didn’t know what they had and used them for common IEDs with sub-optimal results. The Coalition obviously didn’t want to broadcast out “hey the munitions used at these particular IED attacks were chemical weapon (WMD) rounds”.
S/F, FOG