Posted on 05/17/2004 8:20:19 PM PDT by yatros from flatwater
FORMER chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said that a shell containing sarin nerve gas used in an attack in Iraq was most likely a stray weapon possibly from the first Gulf War.
The US-led coalition used that claim to justify the invasion even though UN inspectors failed to make any significant finds before the war.
The former Swedish foreign minister said the 155-mm shell used to attack a US military convoy Monday could have been part of a group of old, unused shells that were simply debris leftover from the war in 1991, adding the weapon could have been scavenged from a dump.
"It doesn't sound absurd at all. There can be debris from the past and that's a very different thing from having stockpiles and supplies," he said.
"Whether this may indicate something more ... I think we need to know more about it."
Saddam's regime was told to destroy any weapons of mass destruction under UN resolutions passed after the 1991 war. Blix reiterated that his inspectors found no such weapons in the run-up to the invasion.
"We found a dozen warheads that were intended for chemical weapons and they were empty," he said.
His inspectors also found four other shells that were designed to carry chemical weapons, including the sarin used in the attack Monday, but they were also empty.
US Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad that two soldiers were treated for minor exposure to sarin, but no serious injuries were reported. He said he believed that insurgents who planted the explosive didn't know it contained the nerve agent.
Blix, former director of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, has sharply criticized the US and Britain for invading Iraq without UN approval. He retired last year and currently heads a new Stockholm-based independent commission on weapons of mass destruction.
Blix said today that the discovery of the nerve agent was not a sign that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction before the war last year.
Sheesh! How the heck did Saddam's lawyer get to be head of the UN inspection team?
Oh...okay...I wonder what he was supposed to be looking for then.
I guess it depends on what the meaning of IS is.
Sure thing Hans "Bagdad Bob" Blix ..
weapons of mass destruction are not evidence of weopons of mass destruction. rainfall is not evidence of rainfall either. i believe blix is senile...
we found 16 shells that were designed and manufactured to hold chemical weapons but we found no evidence of wmd.
i found 42 bongs and three roach clips but no evidence of a party...
Don't you just hate it when your plain old vanilla type 155mm shell gets cluttered with sarin? I know I do.
He wouldn't recognize a WMD if it hit him in the face....
Will Hans volunteer to be the Canary in the bird cage for our troops?
But it might help.
Blix is so irrelevant.
I say let's try it and see.
X=the amount of WMDs we find in Iraq.
X+1=The amount of WMDs we will have to find in Iraq to convince the left that Bush told the truth about WMDs.
These equations work for any value of X.
When we found none, the left said "we couldn't even find one." We find a few, and they say we have to find a few more for it to matter. This game could go on forever.
Brain not evidence of Intelligence: ME
Newsprint not evidence of facts: ME
His inspectors also found four other shells that were designed to carry chemical weapons, including the sarin used in the attack Monday, but they were also empty.
So many empty shells and this one was full.
Kind of makes one think, huh Blixie, or are you just an empty shell and a fool too?
Ignorance is Blix!
Ignorance is blix.
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