I assure youthat we could not find any WMDs at the U.N.
Posted on 09/01/2007 9:48:48 AM PDT by knighthawk
Okay, you can come out from under the bed now. The United Nations says the nerve gas stored - unmarked and unidentified - in one of its offices for about 10 years posed "no immediate risk or danger." Neither were "toxic vapors" found in the air. Is this not completely reassuring?
No one seems to know why the stuff - believed to be phosgene, which killed a lot of folks back in World War I and, due to Saddam Hussein, more recently in Kurdish villages - was at UN headquarters instead of locked away in a lab. Apparently it had been brought back from Iraq by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, whose name is significantly bigger than its brain.
In the same offices were glass tubes containing "nuclear magnetic resonance materials." No threat there, for sure.
That the organization managed after days and days to ID the chemicals - only a file number was on the containers, and there are billions of UN file numbers - and to notify the U.S. government of possible hazards in the city's midst is likewise comforting. You agree, we're sure.
Ping
Have we been told EXACTLY WHERE in the UN building it was located??
Phosgene is not nerve gas, is it?
BTW, I guess this is why Bill Clinton was so admant that Saddam’s WMD program needed to be taken out (though Clintoon hismelf was much too ball-less to take on any real enemy).
-—Phosgene is not nerve gas, is it?-—
It’s a choking agent that goes back to WWI.
I hate to think what we’d find in the filing cabinets at the IAEA.
No it isn't. Reporters are no more knowledgeable about these weapons than they are about firearms.
L
This isn't nerve gas either. NMR tubes contain water.
At the end of WW I A Hitler spent some considerable time in hospital recovering from a gassing in the trenches where he was a message runner. It might have been phosgene. He nearly didn’t make it. Tragic.
Let me get this straight: the UN was in charge of finding Saddam’s WMDs? Maybe HE put them in the UN Building!
Phosgene gas is what you get when you mix Ammonia and Chlorine.
Common household chemicals. Don’t mix them together to clean the toilet. It doesn’t help clean and if you stay near, you die.
P.S. (why do you think they don’t want everyone pissin in the pool? It’s not just for hygiene’s sake)
It wasn’t in the main headquarters building. They rent office space in another building (I believe it is on 48th Street). Their offices are on the 3rd and 6th floors.
It that what we called “blister agents” about 30 years ago?
Mustard gas is a blistering agent.
Yep! Army?
No. Blister agents are the mustard gases. Phosgene is a 'choking' agent. Excess exposure to phosgene and related compounds cause the lungs to fill with fluid and lead to what is known as 'dry land drowning'.
Not a pleasant way to go.
L
Wonder if the geniuses that thought having the UN in NYC ever considered that diplomatic immunity was just like a Trojan horse? Our enemies can slowly bring their soldiers and weapons into this country and there’s not much we can do about it. In the meantime I can’t take a bottle of water or shampoo into an airport. Go figure.
Ammonia and chlorine can't produce phosgene gas - phosgene contains an oxygen atom, and neither ammonia nor chlorine contain oxygen.
If you meant "household ammonia" and "chlorine bleach", that might possibly produce phosgene, since that combination contains oxygen atoms, but I suspect that what you would primarily get is chlorine gas - still nothing to sneeze at.
Phosgene is primarily manufactured by passing purified carbon monoxide and chlorine gas through a bed of highly porous carbon. It can also by produced by heating carbon tetrachloride in the atmosphere.
Yes....
Range Command, McGregor Range, New Mexico 79-81 and 293rd Combat Engineers (Heavy) Baumholder, Germany 81-83.
Yup, Lurker is correct. I incorrectly referred to phosgene on yesterday’s thread as a blister agent when in fact it’s a choking agent that attacks the lungs. It is the mustard gases that are referred to as blister agents.
Not true. Phosgene is carbonyl chloride, COCl2. Neither ammonia, NH3, nor chlorine Cl2, nor chlorine bleach, sodium hypochlorite, NaClO, contain carbon.
Bleach and ammonia make the various cloramines and ultimately hydrazine. All are poisonous, but none are phosgene. Phosgene has a C in it that neither bleach nor ammonia possesses.
Every fire department haz-mat team has many similar cylinders of all kinds of poisonous gasses to calibrate hazardous atmosphere and hazmat detection equipment.
This is a non-issue.
Also: Haloalkanes in copper tubing open to the environment can turn into phosgene gas after coming in contact with extreme heat, such as while brazing or in a fire situation. Other ways that phosgene can be created is by passing the haloalkane through an internal combustion engine, or by inhaling it through a lit cigarette, cigar or pipe. Phosgene is a substance that was used as a chemical weapon in World War I. Low exposure can cause irritation, but high levels cause fluid to collect in the lungs, possibly resulting in death.
Link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haloalkane
forest: former auto air conditioning mechanic.
I was typing too fast to remember that the first "C" in "COCl2" was carbon, not chlorine.
Phosgene cal gas is avalible from MSA safety products for $245.00 for a 19 liter cylinder.
As did I, then corrected myself with the symptoms and effects of phosgene.
The substance, a colorless liquid suspended in oil in a container the size of a soda can that was sealed in a plastic bag, was unmarked except for an inventory number, and nobody knew what it was, Mr. Buchanan said. A check of records indicated that the chemical was phosgene that had been taken by United Nations inspectors in 1996 from Iraq’s chemical weapons facility at Al Muthanna, near Samarra[snip]Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, spoke yesterday of a “potentially fatal chemical” at the United Nations. “The U.N. should know it’s a target,” he said. “They need to be even more careful than anyone else. The fact that a container of deadly poison from Iraq was found at the U.N. is a wake-up call that they better start living up to the higher safety standards of a post 9/11 New York.”
The vials were discovered at the headquarters of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which led the inspections of possible chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. The items were recovered from a former Iraqi chemical weapons facility, Al Muthanna, back in 1996, but just noticed on an inventory list yesterday, according to UNMOVIC. -ABC News
UNMOVIC--talk about irony.
Is the UN also storing the suitcase nukes that so many are talking about? I wouldn’t be surprised if they also harbored Osama bin Laden for future use.
And we continue membership in this Anti-American organization? What are we smoking?
Does it work on my neighbor’s dogs who think my front lawn is their private toilet?
On Guiliani’s watch I suspect!
Just one more reason to move UN Hqtrs from the uSA to Havana, or Baghdad, or...
The blurb made it sound like it was in an office. Not details though.
Copy:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/08/nerve-gas-scare.html
ABC reported on their website blog that United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous nerve gas, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York this morning, federal authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. The federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the White House had been notified at 10 a.m. New York police and fire officials said federal authorities had not notified them of any problem at the U.N. building, as of 11 a.m. A U.N. spokesperson said a statement would be issued shortly.
http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/S-2002-515.pdf
Phosgene is on the list of Chemicals that was allowed by the UN to be imported by Saddam regime and these chemicals can be used for manufacturing Chemical Weapons.
Let me take a guess....Hans Blix's former office?
United Nations says the nerve gas stored - unmarked and unidentified - in one of its offices for about 10 years posed “no immediate risk or danger.”
Because Syria is guarding it this week.
Wasn't Hans Blix the head of UNMOVIC at that time? Wonder if it was found in the bottom drawer of his desk?
Yes indeed he was.
I believe unMOVIC was closing down. It's 'usefulness' no longer needed, and came across the vials as they were dotting their 'i's and crossing their 't's.
I wonder, hmmm, since unMOVIC found wmd's will they still be shut down or if this will give them cause to continue to operate-sucking down our tax dollars? ;)
The HVAC text books warn that phosgene gas can inadvertently be produced by burning freon R12. I believe that phosgene is described as having the smell of freshly mowed hay.
That would be consistent with Post 26. Converting R12 to phosgene would require removing the fluorine atoms and adding an oxygen atom.
The last time I studied chemistry, Richard Nixon was president, but it seems reasonable.
It’s a shame those pompous bureaucrats have no sense of irony.
While you are right that mixing ammonia and chlorine is not a good idea, Phosgene is a compound made of carbon monoxide (CO) and chlorine (Cl). Phosgene is produced by passing purified carbon monoxide and chlorine gas through a bed of highly porous carbon, which acts as a catalyst. The chemical equation for this reaction follows:
CO + Cl2 → COCl2
The reaction is conducted between 50°C and 150°C. Above 200 °C, phosgene decomposes back into it's constituent gasses. The reaction is exothermic requiring the reactor be cooled to carry away the heat evolved.
Regards,
GtG
“Phosgene gas is what you get when you mix Ammonia and Chlorine.”
NH3 + Cl2 => COCl2 ????????
Then where does the carbon atom come from?
To say nothing of the oxygen atom.
Thank you.
(CO) and (Cl).
And can you tell me what is produced from Ammonia and Chlorine?
I would like to know the correct name for the gas.
You would think it would be something in the phos or flor compounds.
I am always amazed that we use Ammonia at 2% strength.
It is a powerful cleaner, but so dangerous. At household strength, it can almost take your breath away. Stronger, and it permanently takes your breath away.
I am mistaken.
That, to me, is one of the best assets of FREE REPUBLIC.
If you are wrong about facts, you will get responses trying to correct you.
I Thank every one that does so, especially in an informative way.
Can you tell me the name of the gas produced by the household cleaners?
Bleach and ammonia make the various cloramines and ultimately hydrazine. ;-)
And hydrazine is rocket fuel.
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