August 17, 2005

More "missing WMDs" found in Mosul

From the Washington Post: (Use Bug Me Not for login username and password if you need to.)
Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered
Post-Invasion Cache Could Have Been For Use in Weapons

.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.

Monday's early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad.

Combined, the chemicals would yield an agent capable of "lingering hazards" for those exposed to it, Boylan said. The likely targets would have been "coalition and Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi civilians," partly because the chemicals would be difficult to keep from spreading over a wide area, he said.
And the articles description of the "lab" scene:
U.S. military photos of the alleged lab showed a bare concrete-walled room scattered with stacks of plastic containers, coiled tubing, hoses and a stand holding a large metal device that looked like a distillery. Black rubber boots lay among the gear.
Here is the image in question:
mosul-lab.jpg
Click for full-size Image
OK -- there is an abrasive cutoff tool (the yellow saw-looking thing on the workbench). Now take a closer look at the "distillery":
mosul-lab-closeup.jpg
Specifically, the top part. Three things come to mind: #1) - this is not a distillery. My wife and I are starting a commercial alcohol business. Please tell me what part of the still this is. I sure can't. For information on what a still looks like, check out The Amphora Society This container has a conical bottom and a cooling jacket (the area labeled "bulge" -- there is a cooling-water fitting just above the text bubble I added. The conical bottom is used to concentrate solids. #2) - this may be a biological fermentation vessel. If it is, these people are doing a horrible job of basic lab sanitation. Not for themselves but for the stuff they may be trying to grow. Conical bottomed fermenters are the "holy grail" of brewers -- expensive but worth it as you can remove impurities as they settle to the bottom without loosing too much of your product. Since fermentation is an exothermic process and since you need to limit the temperature to where the yeast or bacteria thrive, cooling jackets are common. #3) - my first thought on this being a fermenter was tempered by the very heavy construction and thick walls of the vessel in question. Chemical reactions can also be exothermic and if one is making unstable chemicals (ones that "go BOOM" to phrase it technically), a modicum of chilling might be in order. High pressures are sometimes needed as well. The cutoff saw is another interesting clue -- it is used for cutting pieces of metal to length. If someone was making pipe bombs, this would be a needed tool. Also, for salvaging 'dud' munitions whose explosives had not discharged. My guess is a fairly sophisticated (for them) bomb factory with the possibility (with horrible implications) of chemicals being added to the IEDs. We all know what happened to the WMD's, they are in Syria and Iran now -- convoy after convoy were spotted leaving Iraq. We did find stores of WMDs, just very old ones or ones that had no payloads. We found a bunch of Russian MIG fighters buried under the sand. The weapons were there, just as the prisons, the rape chambers, the children's prisons, Uday Hussein's plastic shredder and the mass unmarked graves. We are doing good work there and need to continue. Posted by DaveH at August 17, 2005 11:03 PM