dead iraqis found with gas masks on...

*gasp*

AMERICAN'S are using WMD on Iraqi troops????!!!![/sarcasm]

Rampant guesswork and speculation.

Soooo.. They had gasmasks.. Do coalition soldiers use gasmasks? Hmmmmm???

Why would they do that?

(I am mostly criticising you <the original poster> for the lack of depth and information your post contains)

sure would be but is no proof of WMD nor does it prove that iraq gassed its own troops or if gas was even involved. keep in mind that iraq may be worried that the US and britian may use chemical or bioweapons too.without more information this off the cuff reporting does nothing but confuse the masses and arm the warmongers (on both sides) with more propaganda.

yes propaganda it is in full use on both sides and is why i trust none of the news out of this war.

the fact that they were supposedly found wearing them means nothing, but the US will do tests to figure out what did kill them.

this could be it...

The above poster has a point. There was widely discussed prior to the war the notion that the US might use recently developed non-lethal chemical weapons. These would be knock-out gases and the like. I doubt they planned on this, but some though they might. There were actually some new stories on whether this would be allowable under the Geneva convention. (One reason I don't think they'd do it in this particular conflict)

However Iraqi's have been found with full chemical suits, atropene and so forth. The US simply doesn't have VX nerve gas in quantities usable in war. The last of it was destroyed a few months ago at the chemical destruction site here in Utah. (There was a big concern during the Olympics, as you might recall, that terrorists might hit it) All that is left are mustard gas and other such things. Even the stores that were there weren't usable for the military since they were stored from the 60's. They were still dangerous, but not trustworthy enough to be a military weapon for the US.

Now paranoid conspiracy freaks might think the US still has VX or Serin. But all the evidence points against it.

Further most think that Sadaam has those agents. Finally if the report is true, then a bunch of dead Iraqis with gas masks on suggests that either a chemical depot was hit by the Americans or the Iraqis screwed up.

A few days ago there were many reports of scouts at the 3rd Infantry seeing Iraqis in full chemical gear unloading barrels.

The evidence seems to point to the Iraqis having chemical weapons.

The sad thing is that a lot of people (myself included) think that Gulf War sickness was due to small traces of chemical weapons that people were exposed to when depots were hit by allied bombing runs. The above suggests that many of our current soldiers will come down with it. Likely a lot of Iraqis will suffer from it as well.

my ex-girlfriends brother in law was on the front lines of the gulf war (even had his picture on the front page of Time mag) and he now has gulf war syndrome bad.

sick all the time, loses balance, everything.

not nearly enough media attention is focused on this at all

Just a couple of points on the topic.

I think it's misleading for people to continue to use WMD like a blanket term. WMD is a term usually reserved for not only a deadly agent (chem/bio/radio) but the delivery system as well. VX in water-balloons is NOT a WMD because the area of effect is unlikely to effect "mass destruction". Some would even argue that the term should also be reserved for when such a delivery system can cover great distances and therefore poses an extraordinary threat.

That might seem purely semantic, but I think the broad sense of the term has been misused largely to stir up purely emotional responses (fear) in over the question of Iraq's capabilities. To ignore the difference in how the term is used is to miss what largely divided the UN over this crisis.(See Robin Cook's resignation speech for an example of this.)

I think we can all agree that Iraq most likely has chem/bio munitions that could be used on the battlefield and the coalition is wise to take every precaution. It just bothers me that incidents that could indicate the presence of these battlefield munitions will be refered to as "WMD" and therefore strike fear in the hearts of people in Idaho for no apparent reason.

As clark pointed out, the US reports that it has largely (if not completely) destroyed it's chem/bio agents. However, since the US does NOT allow for independent inspections or verifications (even though the CWC treaty might present a legal demand for it depending on how it's interpreted) I don't think it's fair to say that anyone who questions whether or not the military is sincere or honest in those reports is just giving in to "conspiracy theory". It might be cynical, but it's not irrational to think the US still has such weapons.

It might be argued that the US could do itself a huge favor and bolster it's image by allowing for independent verification under the provisions of the CWC treaty. I'm not sure how it could hurt.

I'm glad people are talking about Gulf War Syndrome. I'm surprised it's not been a bigger issue leading up to this and during the war. I half expected that issue to be a major front on the anti-war movement but I don't think that has happened.

As I recall, the official military explanation is that the symptoms are too varied and quixotic to be the result of any one thing. They have suggested that there are a few legit reactions to something (not known) and the rest are suffering from something psychosomatic.

Among those critical of this dismissal, the chief culprits are believed to be some chem/bio agent, something given to troops to as a counter measure, or the effects of being exposed to DU munitions.

I know a few doctors have been claiming that the effects of DU have been massively underestimated and ignored (based on studies of childhood cancers and birth defects in Iraq after the war), but I don't think anyone has anything conclusive.

From what I've seen, the DU question has only be investigated by military contractors which just adds to the skepticism and suspicion. The military won't give out enough data on these munitions to anyone else to conduct the experiements.

The more i've read about Gulf War Syndrome, the more questions I'm left with. It's really hard to know what to believe.

Even if the US has indeed destroyed its chemical weapons, nerve gas, etc. It still retains nuclear weapons which would be far more destructive in any event.

I find it odd that people would necessarily breathe a sigh of relief in the belief that we have honestly destroyed such chemical and bioweapons. We may very have done so, but its bricks in the grand canyon compared to the nuclear weapons we retain.

this does not mean I think we should divest ourselves of nuclear weapons, just pointing out how odd it is not worry that we still have them if we stopped worrying about chem/bioweapons just because we said we got rid of them.

weird.

for the record, though, since no one has independently verified or even forced us to dispose of them, I doubt our government would see any strategic advantage to ACTUALLY disposing of them if they didn't really have to.

It is true that the coalition soldiers have gas masks as well, but if I was there and I came across 20 dead iraqis wearing gas masks I would be a little bit frightened. That's all I really meant. Next time i'll try for some more depth.

I think people worry more about bio or chemical weapons than nukes because it is somehow more conceivable that they will be used. I do find it really hard to imagine that any nuclear-capable country, even e.g. India vs. Pakistan, will actually push the button.

i hope those iraqi's with the gas masks kept the reciepts

Yeah, they should have gotten the large rat-edition gas masks. It'll fit them well

BTW, what happened to your old account snotnose? Your nose got better?

It doesn't mean anything. There are a million reasons why they could have worn then including they were told to do so by their leader.... Remember, they may have been told "possible WMD launched" towards them.

I don't think the gas masks mean much, if anything...

If it's even true. Wouldn't be the first time the media completely made up a story during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

well i have not watched the war channel lately (CNN) so i have not seen the reports to know if they even touched upon whether or not the americans SHOT these iraqis in battle and later discovered they were wearing chemical safety equipment. it seems that everyone has jumped to the conclusion that they were dead because of chemical weapons.

and of course i bet there was no confirming video of this claim. that is what i mean byh not trusting any media report especially by those reporters that are embedded. i don't trust the reporting and don't trust al jezeera either. with all the lies and propaganda that has been spread it will be a long time before anyone knows all or any of the truths of this war.

Not to rain on your parade, but we still have plenty of VX here. It's about 45 minutes away from me and I've driven by it a dozen times. My fiancee even interviewed for a job there for part of the destruction.

On the positive side, the VX stockpiles there be gone by 2007. On the negative side, instead of reducing the VX to a harmless salt which could be landfilled (the original plan, noted on the site), because there have been delays, in order to meet the CWC mandated 2007 deadline it'll instead be broken down to some other toxic chemical that will require storage and can't be transported out of the state. Hooray for bureaucracy. Plus, VX already mated to munitions apparently are not subject to the CWC mandates for destruction, so we could very well still have VX weapons. Just FYI.

--J

Edit: learned to spell bureaucracy from a book I'd been putting off reading. Convenient.

na, allergy season is comin up... hehehe. i was just getting up around 1000 posts as snotty and decided to run with a more fitting name. snotnose still works though so you guys might want to keep an eye out. hehe