http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...5E2703,00.html

AS the US reeled from the death of nine marines in Iraq at the weekend, insurgents in Fallujah claimed to have obtained chemical weapons and threatened to use them in any battle for control of the rebel stronghold.

Rebel commanders said chemicals such as cyanide had been added to mortar rounds and missiles that would be deployed against coalition troops reported to be preparing for a major assault on the town west of Baghdad.

A military committee made up of former officers in Saddam Hussein's army, including experts on chemicals and guerrilla warfare, is said to have been organising forces in Fallujah and planning tactics.

The committee is understood to include members of all the main insurgent groups, including that of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader behind the beheading of several foreign hostages and a string of car-bomb attacks.

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

1/cyanide- is hardly your normal bio-war weapon... it's hardly on the WMD list!

2/ claim-reality.

Hey, but Catz....don't you know? Those were brought in AFTER the Iraqi invasion.

BTW, I guess the HSX and all the plastic explosives that El Baradei was warned back in 1995 to destroy, but CHOSE not to isn't a wmd either. Hmmm....considering it can bring down a commercial jet, I'd sure as heck call it a wmd.

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"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

http://www.totse.com/en/bad_ideas/gu.../cwhcinfo.html

Hydrogen cyanide is usually included among the CW agents causing general poisoning. There is no confirmed information on this substance being used in chemical warfare. However, it has been reported that hydrogen cyanide was used by Iraq in the war against Iran and against the Kurds in northern Iraq during the 1980's. Hydrogen cyanide has high toxicity and in sufficient concentrations it rapidly leads to death. During the Second World War, a form of hydrogen cyanide (Zyklon B) was used in the Nazi gas chambers.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclop...hemical-weapon

Iraq was forbidden from developing, possessing, or using chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons


The carefully-worded U.N. resolution put the burden on Iraq, not U.N. inspectors, to prove that they no longer had weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's weapons report which was filed with the U.N. leaves weapons and materials unaccounted for. According to reports from the previous U.N. inspection agency, UNSCOM, Iraq had 600 metric tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, VX and sarin, and nearly 25,000 rockets and 15,000 artillery shells, with chemical agents, that are still unaccounted for. In fact, in 1995, Iraq told the United Nations that it had produced at least 30,000 liters of biological agents, including anthrax and other toxins it could put on missiles.

In January 2003, United Nations weapons inspectors reported that they had found no indication that Iraq had a currently active program to make nuclear weapons, and that there was no credible evidence that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons.

Some former UNSCOM inspectors disagree about whether the United States could know for certain whether or not Iraq had renewed production of weapons of mass destruction. Robert Gallucci said, "If Iraq had [uranium or plutonium], a fair assessment would be they could fabricate a nuclear weapon, and there's no reason for us to assume we'd find out if they had." Similarly, former inspector Jonathan Tucker said, "Nobody really knows what Iraq has. You really can't tell from a satellite image what's going on inside a factory."

However, a UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said in late January 2003 that Iraq had "not genuinely accepted U.N. resolutions demanding that it disarm." [1]. He claimed there were some materials which had not been accounted for.

In the last quarterly report submitted by UNMOVIC before the invasion of Iraq the following statements are found:

"All inspections were performed without notice, and access was in virtually all cases provided promptly. In no case have the inspectors seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance of their impending arrival."

"More than 200 chemical and more than 100 biological samples have collected at different sites. ... The results to date have been consistent with Iraq's declarations."

"UNMOVIC has identified and started the destruction of approximately 50 litres of mustard declared by Iraq... This process will continue. A laboratory quantity of (1 litre) of thiodiglycol, a mustard precursor, ... has also been destroyed."

"[i]t was concluded that all variants of the Al Samoud 2 missile were inherently capable of ranges more than 150 kilometres and were therefore proscribed weapons systems."

"UNMOVIC has reported that, in general, Iraq has been helpful on "process", meaning, first of all, that Iraq has from the outset satisfied the demand for prompt access to any site, whether or not it had been previously declared or inspected. ... While such cooperation should be a matter of course, it must be recalled that UNSCOM frequently met with a different Iraqi attitude."

"During the period of time covered by the present report, Iraq could have made greater efforts to find any remaining proscribed items or provide credible evidence showing the absence of such items."

In the next quarterly report, after the war, the total amount of proscribed items destroyed by UNMOVIC in Iraq can be gathered. Those include:


50 deployed Al Samoud 2 missiles
Various equipment, including vehicles, engines and warheads, related to the AS2 missiles
2 large propellant casting chambers
14 155 mm shells filled with mustard gas, the mustard gas totalling approximately 49 litres and still at high purity
Approximately 500 ml of thiodiglycol
Some 122 mm chemical warheads
Some chemical equipment
224.6 kg of expired growth media
[/quote]

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

..."CLAIMED"....

Kinda like the bumper sticker that says... "This vehicle protected by a .357 Magnum three days of the week. You guess which three."

Ever heard of "bluffing"? It wouldn't have anything to do with the impending carpet-bombing and susbequent levelling of Fallujah would it?

Naah. Too simple....

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The last time this country mixed politics with religion, people got burned at the stake.

nonetheless, why do you think they picked this substance, a substance Hussein is suspected to have used on the Kurds and the Iranians? Also, did you catch the bit about these terrorists being advised by former Hussein weapons experts?

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

To make it seem more authentic?

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"Violence isn't always evil. What's evil is the infatuation with violence."
Jim Morrison