General Zinni on Sixty Minutes

In article , Chad Irby
wrote:

In article ,
Howard Berkowitz wrote:

If more don't show up, I'd be inclined to suspect some participant in
the research program that took one, or a few, prototypes home for
safekeeping. We know this was done for some nuclear and biological
components. Said somebody may have decided he didn't want this in his
backyard, and gave it to insurgents, possibly with an explanation they
didn't understand.

But someone from the research program would know that this sort of round
needs to be fired so the chemicals would mix correctly, and wouldn't set
it off the way they did.

So it was someone *outside* of the program who had this one at hand.

Or, someone inside the research program, first and foremost wanting to
get it out of his closet, and is anti-American, gives it to an insurgent
on the theory it MIGHT do something. Not everyone in a program fully
understands the details -- consider a cross between a Dilbertian
pointy-haired boss and Saddams second cousin's third cousin's
brother-in-law.

"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 12:55:05 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

First, let's note that I said or wrote none of which "George Z. Bush"
has posted here below the attibution header!

(Snip)

I took out all of an exchange you were having with someone else which was
irrelevant to what I wanted to say. No need for you to be so defensive
about
it....it just wasn't pertinent, so I deleted it.

How about considering that we are quick to disavow the outrageous
behavior of
a
handful of our sadistic jailers as being representative of us as a
nation,
but
we deny the Iraqis the same right to disavow the existence of a single
artillery
shell of dubious age filled with Sarin as being representative of an
arsenal
of
WMDs they would have used on us if they had existed.

One sadistic jailer doesn't mean that all of our jailers are sadistic
any
more
than one Sarin-filled artillery shell means that all of the artillery
shells
the
Iraqis had were filled with Sarin. It took us a whole year to find (or
'fess
up
to) one of each.

George Z.


By your rationale the only way a nation possesses WMD is if ALL of
their weapons fit the class? We've found one Sarin filled shell in a
country the size of California. Saddam had twelve years of experience
in hiding WMD from UN inspectors. He had a couple of years of warning
regarding build-up to invasion. He had almost a year after expelling
the UN inspectors to dismantle, export, hide or decommission WMDs.

WMD is an acronym for Weapons of Mass Destruction. That is "weapons"
(plural)....and One of anything does not make it plural. You want to make
a
federal case out of finding one artillery shell after a year of intense
looking
by thousands of troops, go right ahead. I'll just rest my case on the
theory
that one weapon does not an arsenal make, and you can pooh-pooh me if it
makes
you feel better.

You keep forgetting that other reported mustard round, the ricin program,
etc. That should satisfy your shaky resort to the "weapons" vs. "weapon"
debate.


Is Sarin a chemical weapon? Would the components of a binary weapon by
a chemical weapon if they were held in two separate locations? Is a
biological weapon only a biological weapon when it is employed,
otherwise it's just a case of the sniffles?

Of course it's a chemical weapon. But one artillery shell does not
constitute a
threat that warrants embarking on an active war over. Not only that, but
we
didn't even know for a fact that they had that one weapon when we started
the
war....we apparently started it on some Mickey-Mouse intelligence
information
that it took us a year to find out wasn't accurate.

One artillery weapon constitutes a violation of 687. Two weapons constitutes
a violation of 687. Two weapons, a ricin development program, the hiding of
cultures, equipment, and documents related to other WMD programs is also a
violation. 687 codified the requirements of the ceasefire agreement from
ODS--the Iraqis were in violation of it. They were also in violation of the
NFZ requirements, and the limitation on maximum range of surface-to-surface
missile systems. They further were in violation of the requirments of the
"oil for food" program. Add to that one attmpted assassination of a former
US President, continuing support for terrorists, to include financial
support to the families of suicide bombers and providing refuge to a couple
of rather nasty terrorist types, one of whom was directly implicated in an a
ttack that left one US citizen dead. But you think *all* of these
allegations are *wrong*?


By your logic, we probably ought to be at war with half the world if those
nations possessed one chemical or biological weapon that they might
someday
consider using against someone for some reason somewhere down the road.
Tell me
the Chinese don't have one or more, or the Pakistanis (who, you will
recall,
sold nuclear know-how to the Libyans), or the Russians, or the Israelis
or, for
that matter, even the Saudis. Numerous countrys, many of whom we have
disagreements with, have WMDs, but we don't go to war with them because of
it.

Strawman--nice try, but it won't fly.


I baby-sat a B-61 Y-1 at 345KT was that a WMD? If we only had Fat Man
and Little Boy (which is all we had) and then we dropped them on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did we then no longer have WMD? Or, since
those two weapons were only 20-25KT were they not even WMD at all?

Sounds like you want to refight WWII because we had and used nukes.
That's a
bit more nonsensical that I care to bother with. Or are you suggesting
that we
were the bad guys because we developed them and used them?

The relationship between the jailers and WMD isn't a very rational
argument. How much Sarin will you allow to be deployed in New York
City before you take offense? Would it be more acceptable to use it in
Jerusalem? Would it be alright to spread three liters of Sarin in
Kuwait City?

How many WMD rounds does it take to equal possession of WMD in your
convoluted logic? Would two be better than one? Or will you hold out
for exclusive WMD rounds and no conventional? Then, one conventional
round would prove the non-existance of WMD, despite the other rounds?

When all is said and done, your arguments are sophomoric and thoroughly
unconvincing. They're not worthy of individual responses.

Better than your's, which are based upon knowing half-truths (unless you are
going to profess you had heard nothing of other reported WMD/WMD program
finds, which would be a bit startling given that they have been discussed at
length in this and other forums you have visited of late--one of which you
even dared to use your *real* name in--talk about "Shock and Awe"!). If the
latter is your claim, you are just very dim-witted.

Brooks


C'mon George, confess that you didn't think it through when you wrote
that/

Ed, it's all in the eye of the beholder, and I like to think that my
arguments
were more logical and convincing than your efforts to belittle them.

You'd be *very* wrong.

Brooks


Perhaps it's one of those times when we need to agree to disagree and
simply
move on.

George Z.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message . net,
Steven P. McNicoll writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...

One shell, apparently dated pre-1991 - this isn't a clear and present
danger. (The production facility for it would be - no signs so far)

Didn't the Iraqis claim they never had any Sarin at all?

No, they claimed that they'd had a fair amount pre-1991 and had since
destroyed almost all of it, apart from some odds and ends that had gone
adrift in the course of two wars, a short sharp shower of ****e and a
prolonged game of hide-the-programs.

The inspectors who audited their claims found some discrepancies, like
the alleged binary shell R&D program that *may* have produced this round
and thirty to forty like it, for further study: however, the further
study was pre-empted.

Where do you get that from? Based upon what i read of the UNSCOM report,
there was no mention of *any* production of true binary weapons, and the R&D
effort was mentioned only in passing with no figures like "thirty to forty"
included. Which of course takes you back to the argument of what constitutes
a violation--one round, two rounds, forty rounds? An ongoing ricin
development program? Various cultures and equipment hidden away and *never*
discovered by UNSCOM?

Brooks

snip

In article ,
(WalterM140) wrote:

Conveniently overlooking the recent Sarin discovery in Iraq and the
presence of Al-Zawaheri at the beheading of Nick Berg.

Are you serious?

That's -one- round in -one- year. It's a non-story.

....out of the millions of rounds to go through, versus the number that
have been set off, it's a *huge* story. Struck by lightning or needle
in the haystack time.

Especially since it's of a type that, according to the inspectors,
wasn't supposed to exist at all outside of a terminated research program.

So the folks who told us it didn't exist in the first place are now
telling us that even though it *does* exist, it's not a problem. And
when more turn up, you'll tell us that they aren't problems either...

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In article . net,
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
om...

In article et,
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
om...

They supposedly only did "research" on binary sarin rounds, and that
*after* 1991.

Well, Mr. Adam says they had a "fair amount pre-1991 and had since
destroyed almost all of it". At least one of you is wrong.

The "wrong" person is the one who doesn't know there are different kinds
of "binary" rounds (i.e., you).

Hmmm..., how can I be wrong about something I did not comment on?

Original comments restored to show just how dishonest you are.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In article , Chad Irby
wrote:

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , Chad Irby
writes

They supposedly only did "research" on binary sarin rounds, and that
*after* 1991.

"36. However, it was not possible to verify the full extent of several
R& D projects carried out by Iraq from 1989 to 1990, due to the absence
of sufficient data from documents and other verifiable evidence. Those
include the research on new chemical warfare agents, BZ and Soman.
These
also include Iraq's efforts to develop new delivery means for
CW-agents,
such as special warheads other than for Al-Hussein missiles, i.e. FROG
missile, and real binary artillery munitions and aerial bombs. Evidence
of such studies was found in the documents from the Haider farm. On the
other hand, the Commission did not find evidence that Iraq had reached
the stage of industrial production of these materials and items.

http://cns.miis.edu/research/iraq/ucreport/dis_chem.htm is the first
source to hand.

So we found one of your production rounds. 155mm sarin. Thanks.

How do you know, one way or the other, that round was production or a
shop-made prototype?


The UN inspectors screwed up.

If it was a prototype, they might not have. Are you sure you aren't
stretching the limited data to assume incompetent inspectors? I can
generalize too -- I know one person who was on the UNSCOM team, and
since Jack is thoroughly competent, everyone must be, right?

Given a bunch of chemically hazardous fragments, the technical
intelligence people aren't going to have a complete analysis of this
round overnight.

What a shock, coming from the same folks
who told us that Libya didn't have a nuke program, and that Iran doesn't
have one (while the Iranians admit they do to everyone *except* the UN
inspectors)...

In article , Chad Irby
wrote:

....

So which is more likely? That someone hid a pile of chemical weapons (a
medium-sized arsenal of the things would fit in a building the size of a
house) in a country the size of California, versus your contention that
they didn't have any and were complying with the UN sanctions?

Or something in between. There were some prototypes hidden away, and one
or more was given to people setting up IEDs. We know prototypes or
samples of nuclear and biological components were hidden in residential
areas; why not chemical?

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
om...

Original comments restored to show just how dishonest you are.


Actually, that's a quote of Mr. Adams' comment.

"Kevin Brooks" wrote

Various cultures and equipment hidden away and *never*
discovered by UNSCOM?

If they could bury an entire MiG-25 (found only by the shifting sands
revealing a tail), what else is buried out there?

Pete

Pete wrote:
"Kevin Brooks" wrote


Various cultures and equipment hidden away and *never*
discovered by UNSCOM?


If they could bury an entire MiG-25 (found only by the shifting sands
revealing a tail), what else is buried out there?

I dunno--a couple of P-39s, maybe?

Cheers

--mike


Pete