Asymmetrical Information

I heard that on NPR too. Of course it was in the second hour of news coverage this a.m. before they mentioned Fallujah as I recall. The passing of that "man of courage" (or words to that effect by Chirac) otherwise dominated the news. Poor old "insurgent."

Not too rfar fetched. English is the langurage of educated people in Middle East.

Wasn't Zarqwahi supposed to be working on chemical weapons in Kurdistan just before the war?
I also remember some being found in London a while back, and the bust of a factory in Czechoslovakia(IIRC). Sarin is very easy to make, and there could be lot around. So hard to deliver effectively it is almost pointless as a military weapon.

Ah ha! The evil agents of Karl Rove actually found WMDs before the election, but kept it quiet in order to prevent the inevitable backlash that would've occurred when people "questioned the timing"!

As they say in the Guinness commercials: "Brilliant...!!"

I think the larger question will be - why should we care? AFAIK, the only time sarin has been used in a terrorist action was in the Japanese subway system. It killed (IIRC) five people in good conditions. Two middle schoolers with access to a grandfather's gun cabinet put that many down in Arkansas about 5 years ago.

So, it would be great if someone could make a compelling argument about how dangerous chemical weapons are in terrorist hands that acknowledged (a) we have minimally heightened security about this stuff in places where it matters, (b) we might be able to stop fleets of terrorists from "crop-dusting" us here in the US, and (c) we are unlikely to stay still and wait to die in an enclosed space once the chemical weapons have been deployed.

I would be equally interested in any compelling arguments about why we should do away with either (a) grandfathers, or (b) Arkansas.

My only question is, if they had this stuff, why hadn't they used it in an attack? Was it:
(a) they just got hold of it the day before the offensive.
(b) it really isn't all that useful as a terror weapon
(c) it really isn't Sarin, just white powder left someplace they knew we'd find it.

'But if this pans out, it will seem to support the idea that Saddam had at least some WMD kicking around, for where else could the insurgents have gotten it?'

No it won't. It will be ignored as soon as possible by the MSM. No one who earlier said that WMD's didn't exist will acknowledge it and no one will retract they're earlier lies. You'll continue to hear the same lies from the talking heads. Dan Rather will come up with the documents showing that Karl Rove put them there.

Well, if someone *does* acknowledge them at all, then they'll either debunk them as fakes OR they will have some big story about how they were brought in from Afghanistan or some other place by people trying to assist the "freedom fighters" against the imperialist evil of America.

Organic chemistry time: I hope that they weren't vials of powder, because Sarin, like the other nerve agents, is a liquid. It's true that it's not particularly hard to make, from a chemistry standpoint, but it's a pain to handle and isolate (as you'd expect.) Basement-style material tends also to not be clean enough to be stable on storage. As for its use as a weapon of war, delivery is the key, as is the preparedness of the people on the receiving end.

That should have been the administration argument back in 2002 and 2003: "Saddam has a few vials of sarin."

Man, that would have been a GREAT battle cry for America. That would have *really* stirred up the blood for war with Iraq. No need to pretend that Saddam had tons of hydrogen bombs hanging in midair over major metropolitan centers of America and Israel. The truth was shocking enough all along. Wow, maybe this war was right after all!

Tim,

This isn't some stuff that you can avoid simply by leaving the room and/or not breathing. Simply put, Sarin is a contact nerve agent, and one drop on your bare skin will kill you.

In terms of total casualties, it isn't much, as one commenter pointed out referring to the attack in Japan. But in terms of terror, it is truly horrific. Delivery methods are key, but can you imagine the terror if someone armed with an aerosol spray of Sarin was roaming the subways of New York? Squirt! and you're dead. That's why people get really emotional when discussing chemical agents such as this one.

From everything I've read, chemical weapons aren't that lethal. They are fairly scary on some visceral level... being insidiously poisoned is just plain creepier than being shot or blown up.

I'm surprised we haven't seen a toxic-waste (PCBs, say) infested conventional bomb yet. Like a low-rent dirty bomb.

A highly transmissable biological weapon, on the other hand, seems like it would be easier to produce under secretive conditions than a nuclear weapon and possibly just as deadly. (But probably harder than a dirty bomb.)

I bet it came from one of Saddam's "Baby Milk Factories" from the first Gulf Ass Kicking.

Rex:

Thanks - good knowledge drop. I think I was the one that mentioned Japan.

As far as the fear factor goes - we've got to get a grip some time. Jeebus. What kills me is that people in the cities most likely to get hit are already acclimated - some times bad things happen. Suck it up and get on with life; there are risks. (Don't get me started on 1.5 hrs before take-off at the airport; there should be flights for people who accept the risk).

But as a result of this idiocy, we're going to get back to the military-industrial-government complex. All that lovely money pissed away. It's a bummer, but it's going to happen.

Better check back on the source, the word is that the vials are actually a Sarin testing kit, that is, for testing for the presence of sarin rather than the chemical itself. It may be a chance finding, they may have expected the US to use chemical weapons (don't ask why), they may have some and may use it, they might want to force the attacking forces to use chem protection gear, or it could simply be a feint. To little information to have any real idea.

Tim,

I wasn't aware that we had really gone away from the M-I-G complex. What has happened, though, is that there aren't anywheres near as many major players in the game as there used to be. Lots of minor players though; government contracting can be very lucrative for those who know how to wend their way through the paperwork.

But even as military costs were being cut drastically in the 90's, the majority of costs (or so it appeared) came from downsizing personnel rather than from cutting programs. Sure, some programs were cut, but people are pretty expensive. Of course, my take on this is very parochial, being a Marine, because both the Marines and Army suffer from high personnel costs (in the 60-70% of total budget range), unlike the Air Force, whose personnel costs used to be in the 5-6% range. Which explains why the Air Force always had better cold weather gear living in heated barracks than we did living in unheated tents!

So, we'll see what happens, but I don't share your pessimism that we'll see huge growth in the M-I-G complex. (But even if we do, I'd rather our tax money went to research and things actually made [think jobs] than to handouts to people who don't truly need or deserve a helping hand.)

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