OT: US Army finds massive cache of deadly nerve agents

[Killebrew]

Over 700,000 rockets weighing (in total) 2,254 tons and filled with Sarin were discovered and will be destroyed by the Army at a rate of 40 rockets per hour by next year. Sarin gas, also known as 'GB', is a nerve agent so deadly a drop on the skin can kill.

http://news.google.com/news?num=30&hl=en&edition=us&q=cluster:www%2ewsfa%2ecom%2fGlobal%2fstory%2easp%3fS%3d1395377%26nav%3d0RdEHNPO

[Swaggs]

Has this story been retracted? I don't see anything like it on the posted link.

I would think if it has been verified it would be breaking news on CNN/MSNBC/FoxNews.

[The Afoci]

No wonder the actual weapons of mass destruction are hard to find, I can't even find stories on them.

[QuikSand]

Maybe they were found not in Iraq, but in... Nevada?

[BreizhManu]

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=A5E84D00-BEE3-4901-AF79FAFC131B979C

[Killebrew]

There are hundreds of related stories at Google news, but for some reason that link always goes back to the main Google news page. Here are a few of the hundreds of related links though:
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/South/08/09/anniston.chemical.burn/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-08-09-chem-weapons_x.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,94299,00.html

[Fritz]

so whats the news?

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Fritz
so whats the news?

News is that my unfounded speculation above was basically right... this isn't abot Iraq, it's about a plan for destroying old weapons of our own. No wonder it's not getting any real ink - it's not newsworthy, really.

But I missed on the state, it seems - they're in Alabama. My bad.

[Killebrew]

Originally posted by Fritz
so whats the news?
I guess the fact there are over 700,000 Sarin chemical weapon payload rockets at a single munitions storage facility within the US might be news to some people, plus there is that annoying hypocrisy angle considering there are likely no chemical weapon payload rockets in a certain far away nation that was invaded for having WMD. I suppose it might also be newsworthy due to the fact the destruction of these deadly chemical weapons is incredibly dangerous and controversial. In Alabama the military is handing out protective hoods to the 35 thousand locals - gee, that is considerate of 'em.

BTW, I am defining the story as newsworthy due to the fact the Google newsbot sees it to be among the 3 top US stories for Saturday August 9th, 2003: http://news.google.com/ . The Google newsbots logic is based on the amount of different eMedia articles written about a story or event.

[QuikSand]

Sorry to lash out... I just felt like your thread title and blurb left the impression that this was taking place in Iraq. If that was inadvertent, I apologize. (I wasn't the only one who got that impression, obviously)

[Swaggs]

I agree. It is certainly newsworthy, but the title of this thread indicates that the army found them (I presumed Iraq). I hope we were aware of the fact that we had them in our country.

[WussGawd]

Originally posted by QuikSand
News is that my unfounded speculation above was basically right... this isn't abot Iraq, it's about a plan for destroying old weapons of our own. No wonder it's not getting any real ink - it's not newsworthy, really.

But I missed on the state, it seems - they're in Alabama. My bad.

Guess this means that Alabama joins Iraq, Iran & North Korea in the Axis of Evil. :)

[CAsterling]

Originally posted by WussGawd
Guess this means that Alabama joins Iraq, Iran & North Korea in the Axis of Evil. :)

Yes.

The evil Bush goverment is stock piling WMDs, and not allowing UN inspectors to view them - we need an alliance formed by the rest of the world to end this terrible behaviour.

I wonder how people will view it when France, Germany and Russia invade determined to end this evil :D :D

[BreizhManu]

Originally posted by WussGawd
Guess this means that Alabama joins Iraq, Iran & North Korea in the Axis of Evil. :)

Nuke them ! :p

[RendeR]

Originally posted by Killebrew
I suppose it might also be newsworthy due to the fact the destruction of these deadly chemical weapons is incredibly dangerous and controversial. In Alabama the military is handing out protective hoods to the 35 thousand locals - gee, that is considerate of 'em.



If you don't know anything about these weapons and how to dispose of them, please don't make assinine comments like this.


A) the destruction of sarin is actually quite simple and extremely safe, you incinerate it, it turns to harmless ash and water vapor, no dangers at all


B) the hoods are being distrbuted to protect the populace of by some chance there is an accident handling the weapons en route to the incicerator. This is assuming that

1: from the time the rockets are taken from a sealed underground vault to the truck, someone detonates it by adding a fuse and setting the timer on purpose.

or 2: somewhere in the 15 foot distance from the truck to the incinerator someone does the same thing.


2 trained monkeys fucking a football couldn't cause an accident with this stuff. Then again, the Busch administration has MANY more trained monkeys......

[Killebrew]

Originally posted by RendeR
If you don't know anything about these weapons and how to dispose of them, please don't make assinine comments like this.


A) the destruction of sarin is actually quite simple and extremely safe, you incinerate it, it turns to harmless ash and water vapor, no dangers at all


Do I ever feel stupid, I never realized there was an expert in the destruction of sarin payload chemical weapons right here on our very internet forum! All I knew from the news reports was that the reason it took so long to dispose of this massive amount of nerve agents was due to years and years of legal challenges. Those legal challenges I have read about, obviously wrong according to you, argued that the process was actually not safe. But as Homestar says, "yeah you're probably right". I don't know how I could have gone along with that obvious lie - destroying extremely deadly chemical weapons within 98 miles of a population center of 35,000 people does seem pretty safe after all:).

Hmmm but wait a second here, I don't think the military is even saying destroying this stuff is safe - their angle appears to be that it is much safer to destroy the weapons than to allow them to remain in storage so close to a civilian population. Also, according to these news stories they are not actually destroying the sarin chemicals until at least October. The stories say they are currently removing the deadly chemical fom the rockets and storing the actual sarin chemical in a holding tank.

I guess the moral of this here story is that if you don't know anything about these weapons or how to dispose of them, perhaps he should not make assinine comments like this.

[NoMyths]

Killebrew is the shizzle on my nizzle. :)

[Killebrew]

Originally posted by RendeR
A) the destruction of sarin is actually quite simple and extremely safe, you incinerate it, it turns to harmless ash and water vapor, no dangers at all


B) the hoods are being distrbuted to protect the populace of by some chance there is an accident handling the weapons en route to the incicerator. This is assuming that

1: from the time the rockets are taken from a sealed underground vault to the truck, someone detonates it by adding a fuse and setting the timer on purpose.

or 2: somewhere in the 15 foot distance from the truck to the incinerator someone does the same thing.

I have to also ask - if it is so safe why are they waiting until late October to destroy the actual sarin chemical payload in these rockets? Why go through the process you indicate is the most dangerous part - removing the sarin chemical from the rockets - and then not destroy the sarin chemicals?

Here a related quote from incinerator spokesman Mike Abrams. Abrams has said that the nerve agent VX and mustard gas are also are stored at Anniston, Alabama, but officials decided to begin with sarin rockets because nearly 800 of them are leaking.

Woot! I bet the fact they were leaking helped quash some of the legal battles regarding the dangers of destroying the chemicals:).

[CamEdwards]

hmmm.. I can't believe big bad Bush and his band of neo-cons are actually destroying this stuff. Isn't it funny that Bush is getting bashed for having (and destroying) these chemical weapons, while the liberal president gets a pass on having (and keeping) these chemical weapons.

ack. ack ack. ack ack ack.

[Killebrew]

Originally posted by Ronnie Dobbs2
Obviously this piece of news is extremely disconcerting to you. What is it that you are so upset about? That the way they're dismantling them is not safe to the populace there? Or is it more what you alluded to earlier, that you think the fact that the US has chemical weapons somehow makes us hypocrites with what happened in Iraq? I'm just trying to focus this conversation a little.
This story should certainly be disconcerting news to anybody, but that said, I am not upset. I just posted news that has been among the top 3 US news stories for two days now. I marked it as OT since it did not have anything to do with FOF, and the fact that hypocrisy may be involved is likely part of the reason it has been given the volume of media it has been given. If you need focus, that should be a consideration. When I first saw the news headlines I thought the same thing many people here thought - we are looking so hard for chemical weapons and whoa, here are 2000 tons of chemical weapons:).

Originally posted by Ronnie Dobbs2
I'm not glad we have them, but it's not like it's been a big secret that they exist. And in trying to compare the US to Iraq here (which is what you are doing), you leave out a few key points. We have never used them against our own people, or against anyone we were fighting against. We also have never been ordered to destroy them by the U.N., because it was obviously not seen as a threat to other countries.
I guess I am an idiot for not knowing the US Army had these chemical WMD's, and I thought perhaps not everyone else knew about them either, or at least how many there are, or the fact they are leaking. I am happy they were not used against US citizens of course, but unhappy the administration used the possibility of possesion of chemical weapons as a reason to attack another nation, regardless of how evil their leader happened to be. The hypocrisy angle for me is also in the fact that the US government was friends with Iraq and Saddam when he committed his most evil atrocities with chemical weapons, and it was in fact US supplied helicopters that dropped these chemicals on his people. If it was 1941 and FDR used a "you are either with us or against us" line what would he have done if Hitler joined the US side? When you influence your citizens to go to war due to evils that you contributed to, that seems somewhat hypocritical to me.

Originally posted by Ronnie Dobbs2
The missiles are Cold War relics. It's common knowledge that the U.S. had a chemical weapons program during the Cold War, as did the Soviets.
I thought that crap was disposed of long ago - I am relieved they are doing it now.

Originally posted by Ronnie Dobbs2
You've made little effort to hide that this somehow implies that we are wrong and bad. Would you care to explain how?
I guess I am naive, but initially I really did not know the US Army had massive amounts of these chemical weapons. I thought the fact that the madman in Iraq has (or had) chemical weapons was considered universally evil, and it is funny-strange that they have found none yet the US Army has enough on hand to kill a entire race of people.

To Cam:
I don't give a shit about which political parties stripes have passed through the oval office during the period of time (40+ years) there were (and are) massive amounts of chemical weapons being held in storage, in fact, I can't see how party policy has much to do with this story directly. Obviously we can all agree these things are bad, and it sounds like destroying them was on the agenda for a long time. The only delay being legal issues due to the fact many thought they should not be destroyed near built up civilian population. The fact that 800 of the rockets were leaking sarin probably had a major effect on hurdling the legal challenges. I guess if you find out this stuff is leaking out then destroying them on the spot is likely a safer choice than allowing them to continue leaking. So again, I doubt what party happens to be in office when these decisions are made has much to do with this, unless there is a massive pro-chemical weapons lobby I am unfamiliar with (hell there might be at that).