Quote:
Originally Posted by FOG
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
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Ok, well that explanation at least makes sense.
But the question must be asked...if these shells were indeed the much-ballyhood WMDs, were they really all that dangerous? Mustard gas has been around since WWI. Assuming the shells were 155mm, the range would have been, what, 20 miles? And they would only be effective in near-ideal wind/weather conditions. And readily countered by use of gas masks, even if mounted on longer range delivery systems.
Can such weapons properly be lumped in with, say, nukes, and labelled as "WMD"? The potential lethality of even several hundred such shells would not come close to that of a single nuclear weapon.
If the WMD the Bush admin was looking for were really just mustard gas shells, the war cannot be justified on that basis, even if the shells in fact existed.