"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

that another 100 rounds may be in the cache. No doubt some folks will
soon
be screaming that 36, or 136 for that matter, chemical rounds are not
indicitive of Saddam having had chemical munitions despite his
protestations
otherwise...

Always happy to oblige :-) Assuming these are indeed filled with a
blister agent, which still needs to be evaluated properly: Looking at
their condition, this hardly amounts to "having chemical ammunitions."
Surely the crime here is "having toxic waste". No remotely sane gun
crew is going to try to load and fire these rounds!

So because they were just *stupid* in how they stored those rounds
(reportedly wrapped in mylar and buried), that exhonerates Saddam of having
them....that does not sound very logical to me.


If this is your WMD standard, then I can tell Belgium must have a
larger WMD arsenal than Iraq: We have tons of leftovers from WW1,
in similar conditions. Farmers regularly unearth them while plowing
their fields. Usually they just drag them to the side and leave them
there until the collection truck comes round...

I was unaware the Belgians ever developed or fielded chemical munitions
(would have been a bit hard to do, since the German's were occupying them
through most of the war). And i suspect you really know that your analogy
here falls flatter than a pancake--the munitions in question were undeniably
Iraqi in origin.

Saddam was supposed to have (a) destroyed all of his chemical munitions, and
(b) accounted for same. It is obvious that in this case (a) any destruction
was unintentional (or why would they have wrapped them up before burying
them?), and (b) he did not account for them. That would put him in violation
of both the ceasefire agreements and the subsequent UN resolutions.

Brooks


--
Emmanuel Gustin