'Just in time' WMD

TownHall ^ | October 10, 2003 | Charles Krauthammer

[yoe]

WASHINGTON -- Rolf Ekeus, living proof that not all Swedish arms inspectors are fools, may have been right.

Ekeus headed the U.N. inspection team that from 1991 to 1997 uncovered not just tons of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, but a massive secret nuclear weapons program as well. This, after the other Swede, Hans Blix, then director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had given Saddam a perfectly clean bill of health on being non-nuclear. Indeed, Iraq was sitting on the IAEA Board of Governors.

Ekeus theorizes that Saddam decided years ago that keeping mustard gas and other poisons in barrels was unstable and corrosive, and also hard to conceal. Therefore, rather than store large stocks of weapons of mass destruction, he would adapt the program to retain an infrastructure (laboratories, equipment, trained scientists, detailed plans) that could ``break out'' and ramp up production when needed. The model is Japanese ``just in time'' manufacturing, where you save on inventory by making and delivering stuff in immediate response to orders. Except that Saddam's business was toxins, not Toyotas.

The interim report of chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay seems to support the Ekeus hypothesis. He found infrastructure, but as yet no finished product.

As yet, mind you. ``We are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapons stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone,'' Kay testified last week.

This is fact, not fudging. How do we know? Because Saddam's practice was to store his chemical weapons unmarked amid his conventional munitions, and we have just begun to understand the staggering scale of Saddam's stocks of conventional munitions. Saddam left behind 130 known ammunition caches, many of which are more than twice the size of Manhattan. Imagine looking through ``600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordnance'' -- rows and rows stretched over an area the size of even one Manhattan -- looking for a few barrels of unmarked chemical weapons.

And there are 130 of these depots. Kay's team has up to now inspected only 10. The question of whether Saddam actually retained finished product is still open.

But the question of whether Saddam was still in the WMD business is no longer open. ``We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities,'' Kay testified, ``and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002'' -- concealed, that is, from the hapless Hans Blix.

Kay's list is chilling. It includes a secret network of labs and safe houses within the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service; bioorganisms kept in scientists' homes, including a vial of live botulinum; and my favorite, ``new research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin'' -- all ``not declared to the U.N.''

I have been to medical school, and I have never heard of Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever. I don't know one doctor in 100 who has. It is an extremely rare disease, and you can be sure that Saddam was not seeking a cure.

He was not after the Nobel in physiology (Yasser Arafat having already won the peace prize). He was looking for a way to turn these agents into killers. The fact that he was not stockpiling is relevant only to the question of why some prewar intelligence was wrong about Iraq's WMD program. But it is not relevant to the question of whether a war to pre-empt his development of WMDs was justified.

The fact that Saddam may have decided to go from building up stocks to maintaining clandestine production facilities (may have: remember, Kay still has 120 depots to go through)

does not mean that he got out of the WMD business. Otherwise, by that logic, one would have to say that until the very moment at which the plutonium from its 8,000 processed fuel rods are wedded to waiting nuclear devices, North Korea does not have a nuclear program.

Saddam was simply making his WMD program more efficient and concealable. His intent and capacity were unchanged.

Moreover, for those who care about the U.N. (I do not, but many administration critics have a weakness for legal niceties), Resolution 1441, unanimously passed by the Security Council, ordered Saddam to make full accounting of his WMD program and to cooperate with inspectors, and warned that there would be no more tolerance for concealment or obstruction. Kay's finding of ``dozens of WMD-related program activities,'' concealed from U.N. inspectors, constitutes an irrefutable material breach of 1441 -- and open-and-shut vindication of the U.S. decision to disarm Saddam by force. Q.E.D.

[My2Cents]

Thank you for your valuable research!

[xzins]

Thank you. I've got to update the list with David Kay's report. I'll post again when I get that completed.

[hchutch]

The paleo-cons have got to be crying in their beer over this one. Wholesale violation of the UN resolutions, and we've only check 10 out of 130 caches.

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

I don't even see the Paleos on here, you've done good work hchutch.

[hchutch]

Too many facts for `em here. Their brains would probably short out.

(Now, there is an actress who would make MY brains short out, but she's got a boyfriend...)

[MrConfettiMan]

Kay's list is chilling.

Yes, well, unfortunately the list is only written word. Between you, me and tens of thousands of other freepers, we all know nothing short of a parade of WMD down the streets of Baghdad in broad daylight is going to convince the Democrats, the media and the majority of moderate Americans that Saddam actually had them in his possession when we went to war. Kay must produce something tangible and in large quantities. People (liberals) need to see things they know they can touch before they're willing to believe they really exist (in my opinion).

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

hchutch! I am NOT introducing you to Jennifer Love Hewitt, and no amount of pleading is going to change my mind!

[Ditto]

Biological Weapons --
Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever

As a biological warfare agent, the primary threat is delivery by aerosol release.
.
Symptoms Blood discoloring arm of CCHF patient	Common symptoms are fever, muscle pain, and prostration. Physical examination may reveal only conjunctival injection, mild low blood pressure, flushing, and petechial hemorrhages. The most dreaded complications are shock, multiple organ system failure, and death. Severe hemorrhaging is typical.
How does it spread? Ticks	Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a tick-borne disease that occurs in the Crimea and in parts of Africa, Europe and Asia. It can also be spread by contact with infected animals, and in healthcare settings. Patients generally have significant quantities of virus in blood and often other secretions so special caution must be used in handling sharps, needles, etc.
Diagnosis	Blood and other specimens from patients with signs and symptoms require lab analysis. (Sewage, bulk blood, suctioned fluids, secretions, and excretions should be autoclaved, processed in a chemical toilet, or treated with a 5% chlorine solution for at least 5 minutes in bedpan or commode prior to flushing.)
Treatment	Only intensive care will save the most severely ill patients. Management of bleeding is assisted by coagulation medications. Intramuscular injections, aspirin and other anticoagulant drugs should be avoided. The investigational antiviral drug ribavirin is available on a case-by-case basis. Specifics on treatment can be found here
Vaccine	There are currently no vaccines available for human use in the United States.
Mortality	Should the patient die, there should be minimal handling of the body, with sealing of the corpse in leak-proof material for prompt burial or cremation. Survivors may be left with long-term challenges such as blindness, hearing loss, and other neurologic and eye problems.
Sources: USAMRIID's Medical Management of Biological Casualties Handbood; Fourth Edition February 2001; pages 9-10; http://usamriid.detrick.army.mil/education/bluebook/bluebook.pdf Federation of American Scientists; http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/bw/agent.htm Virtual Naval Hospital: Treatment of Biological Warfare Agent Casualties; http://www.vnh.org/FM8284/index.html

All contents © 2001 Stan and Holly Deyo. All rights reserved.

This information may be used by you freely for noncommercial use only with
my name and E-mail address attached.
Holly Deyo, E-mail: hollydeyo@millennium-ark.net
URL: http://millennium-ark.net/News_Files/NBC/Bio.Bugs.Plague.html

[radu]

LOTS of info here to digest!! Thanks for the ammo!

Mass e-mailed to share the knowlege. :-)

[TEXOKIE]

Bump your post 7!

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[PhilDragoo]

Ignorant enemies of America, we smite thee with the Krauthammer.

CCHF would probably be delivered by aerosol if used as a BW agent.

The length of the incubation period for illness appears to depend on the mode of acquisition of the virus. Following infection via tick bite, the incubation period is usually one to three days, with a maximum of nine days. The incubation period following contact with infected blood or tissues is usually five to six days, with a documented maximum of 13 days. Typical cases present with sudden onset of fever and chills 3-12 days after tick exposure. There is severe headache, lumbar pain, nausea and vomiting, delirium, and prostration. Fatal cases are associated with extensive hemorrhage, coma, and shock. Mortality among cases recognized as hemorrhagic fever is 15-30%, with death occurring in the second week of illness. In those patients who recover, improvement generally begins on the ninth or tenth day after onset of illness. Convalescence in survivors is prolonged with asthenia, dizziness, and often hair loss.

[Grampa Dave]

There are so many ways to deliver these agents. I will not post any so the Islamokazis don't learn anything new.

Watch the new 24 series on tv when it starts. I think that they "borrowed" something that Carry Okie warned us about over a year ago.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks posting this reality check versus the dangerous spin/bs coming from the lying mediots of America.

[Grampa Dave]

Excellent indexing!

Thanks for your work and posting the results for us.

[Grampa Dave]

We will never convince the rats who would allow another 9/11 with WMDs to try and bring down our president.

Who needs to be convinced are the moderates who enable either the liberals or our side to be elected.

This data is and will have an impact of moderates with a brain, who are concerned about the survivial of their families.

[windchime]

Bump!

[xzins]

You're welcome. They're pretty much chronological right now. I want to organize by category and date.

[Grampa Dave]

Please freepmail me when you finish your list.

I want to use it as a link for those who try to lie about our progress.

Thanks

[MrConfettiMan]

This data is and will have an impact [on] moderates with a brain...

As you so wisely noted, the key are those moderates with a brain. :)