May 17, 2004

Sarin found in Iraq

This was pointed out in a number of sources. The NY Times has a good article on it: bq. An explosive containing sarin nerve gas was discovered by American troops in Baghdad and detonated, an American military spokesman there said today. bq. It was the first sarin shell the American military has found since the invasion of Iraq last year, the spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said in a televised news conference. It appeared to be the first confirmed finding of the sort of chemical weapons on which the United States built its case to go to war, according to Gary Samore, a nonproliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. bq. The explosive, a 155 millimeter artillery round, had been rigged as a roadside bomb, the general said. It was detonated before it could be defused, producing "a very small dispersal" of the gas, he said. The consensus is that the people who set the IED didn't know that Sarin was the payload. They were just looking for a bigger boom. They found it but it's a different kind of boom... Posted by DaveH at May 17, 2004 12:50 PM