Islamic State seizes ex-chemical weapons facility near Baghdad

Stars and Stripes ^ | July 9, 2014 | Edith M. Lederer

[Jet Jaguar]

Active Duty ping.

[nickcarraway]

Good times.

[doug from upland]

Hmmm, would these be considered those pesky WMDs Iraq did not have?

[Jet Jaguar]

These are chemical weapons. Not WMD.

[Viennacon]

“could contain mustard residues which can’t be used for chemical warfare but remain highly toxic.”

Are these people retarded? Anything that is ‘highly toxic’ can be used for chemical warfare.

[doc1019]

And chemical weapons can’t be WMD, tell that to the kurds.

[Jet Jaguar]

These are not toxic!

[lacrew]

WMD includes chemical weapons.

[Jet Jaguar]

See post 8

[justa-hairyape]

These are chemical weapons. Not WMD.

Time to stop the lies. Thousands of people are endangered now. The new Islamic State and new Caliphate in the middle east has WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. And there is no way DC can sweep that under the carpet with high school progressive semantics.

[Rainier1789]

So in 2003, just before the US invaded with the support of John Kerry, John Edwards, and the Clintons, the UN stated that Bunker 13 contained 2,500 sarin-filled chemical rockets.

Isn’t nerve gas (sarin) a WMD? Doesn’t the anti-war crowd insist there were no WMDs? And why the hell would any Sarin or Tabun still be there 10 years later?

[Jet Jaguar]

Post 8

[Jet Jaguar]

post 8.

[justa-hairyape]

And why the hell would any Sarin or Tabun still be there 10 years later?

Because the ISG sealed the entrance shut with concrete. And it was supposed to be guarded for decades. The real question is why did Obama remove US forces knowing these facilities could be overrun ?

[justa-hairyape]

Got ya. Good thing I cleaned up my response.

[VanShuyten]

The shells are contaminated and therefore toxic, but the mustard residue can’t be dispersed like standard mustard gas.

Don’t lick the shells and you should be OK.

[little jeremiah]

Placemark

[stanne]

There are no weapons of Mass destruction in Iraq.

Oh I guess they built them while we were there.

Yeah. THat makes sense.

Oh, well, we’re too busy now watching our own country be invaded to pay attention to this creation of a jihad state.

[Billthedrill]

More information on this story, for which I thank you. As I posted in another thread, if ISIS really wanted these sorts of weapons they just stole plenty of money to build them for themselves, which is much easier than attempting to scrounge them from a decade-old toxic waste dump.

The exception is VX. If that's involved all bets are off, but there is nothing in the news stories to suggest that it is. Perhaps no news is good news.

The irony is that after almost exactly a century of familiarity with these weapons, we've discovered their limitations - a force prepared with countermeasures is relatively safe - and their most effective use. That is as a weapon against an unprepared, i.e. civilian, population. That's what they're good for. They're terror weapons, they always were.