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Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Sarin Shell: It Can't Be Surplus. And a Goof from the LA Times. 
Some good reporting from Overpressure.com reveals that this shell could not have been simply some leftover Iran war surplus that was lying around. According to the author, the Iraqis did not have the capability to manufacture "G" nerve agents such as sarin until the 1993. And did not pursue binary technology until 1995.

The blogger also catches the Los Angeles Times in a goof:

From the article:

Kimmitt said the chemical munition appeared to be left over from the 1980s, when Baghdad secretly produced hundreds of tons of poison gas. United Nations records show that the sarin Iraq produced in the mid-1980s degraded quickly, however, and was no longer lethal by the early 1990s.


But Blaster (the bloggers nom de "boom", links to Kimmitt's press conference and notes that nowhere does General Kimmitt, nor Mr. Senor, ever date the round to the 1980s, but only to the former regime. The 1980s idea is purely the invention of the Times editorial staff.

The difference is pretty big. If the round dates to the 1990s rather than the 1980s, it indicates the failure of the inspection regime all through that time, as it demonstrates that Iraq was still manufacturing or importing those weapons, under the very noses of the UN inspectors.

Splash, out

Jason

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