Saturday, July 03, 2004
Chemical Rockets Update: How To Blow a Story
Update on the Polish chemical discovery:
This Washington Post article, from Walter Pincus, reports that there were no chemicals found in the 16 122mm rockets recently obtained on the open market by Polish troops. But wait... two more rockets obtained by the Poles as recently as June 16th did, in fact, test positive for sarin.
I guess in the Washington Post's world, two rockets testing positive for sarin somehow produces the headline "Chemicals Not Found in Iraqi Warheads."
Dorks.
The article goes on to note that Hans Blix's team, in January of 2003, discovered a dozen 122mm rockets "designed to carry chemical weapons."
Ok, so we've established that there is a specific chemical variant of the 122mm rocket.
But the Post doesn't bother to figure out if the rockets discovered by the Poles were, indeed, that chemical variant. Gee, wouldn't that be relevant?
If they were the chemical variant, they were supposed to have been destroyed. If they were, and even if they tested negative, they would again demonstrate that Saddam was indeed in breach of the UN Security Council Resolutions.
So, having run the story under a flatly false headline, the Post makes a point of noting that the two rockets which tested positive for sarin were very degraded (not relevant), but totally misses the crucial question: were the rockets the chemical variant or not?
Further, the article also establishes that the munitions were found in former depots, mixed in with nonchemical munitions. Which in turn falsifies the claims made by some (including in my own email box) that these are just dud rounds picked up off the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war, and so could not reasonably be accounted for.
It also establishes that Saddam was failing to place adequate controls on his chemical inventory. Which is yet another reason to take him down.
All of this, of course, is totally lost on the Post.
Splash, out
Jason
P.S. I don't know what's causing the preliminary false positives. Either the M256 kits and the M9 paper swabs aren't reliable, or they accidentally grabbed the "pap smear" swabs.
This Washington Post article, from Walter Pincus, reports that there were no chemicals found in the 16 122mm rockets recently obtained on the open market by Polish troops. But wait... two more rockets obtained by the Poles as recently as June 16th did, in fact, test positive for sarin.
I guess in the Washington Post's world, two rockets testing positive for sarin somehow produces the headline "Chemicals Not Found in Iraqi Warheads."
Dorks.
The article goes on to note that Hans Blix's team, in January of 2003, discovered a dozen 122mm rockets "designed to carry chemical weapons."
Ok, so we've established that there is a specific chemical variant of the 122mm rocket.
But the Post doesn't bother to figure out if the rockets discovered by the Poles were, indeed, that chemical variant. Gee, wouldn't that be relevant?
If they were the chemical variant, they were supposed to have been destroyed. If they were, and even if they tested negative, they would again demonstrate that Saddam was indeed in breach of the UN Security Council Resolutions.
So, having run the story under a flatly false headline, the Post makes a point of noting that the two rockets which tested positive for sarin were very degraded (not relevant), but totally misses the crucial question: were the rockets the chemical variant or not?
Further, the article also establishes that the munitions were found in former depots, mixed in with nonchemical munitions. Which in turn falsifies the claims made by some (including in my own email box) that these are just dud rounds picked up off the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war, and so could not reasonably be accounted for.
It also establishes that Saddam was failing to place adequate controls on his chemical inventory. Which is yet another reason to take him down.
All of this, of course, is totally lost on the Post.
Splash, out
Jason
P.S. I don't know what's causing the preliminary false positives. Either the M256 kits and the M9 paper swabs aren't reliable, or they accidentally grabbed the "pap smear" swabs.
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