Monday, May 17, 2004
WMD Finally Found in Iraq?
Excerpts from an AP-based story by James Taranto in the May 17 WSJ www.OpinionJournal.com:
Iraq Insurgents Hit the Gas
....And our counsel of patience in the search for weapons has been vindicated, as the Associated Press reports today:
A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. Two people were treated for "minor exposure," but no serious injuries were reported.
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy.
"A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent," he said.
Sarin, developed by the Nazis in the 1930s (though apparently never used by them), is the same gas that the Aum Shinrikyo cult used in a 1995 attack on a Tokyo subway that killed 12. Fox News adds that "mustard gas was also recently discovered" in Iraq.
It shouldn't surprise us that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are beginning to turn up only now. After all, Baathist remnants in Fallujah were fairly quiet until last month, a year after Iraq's liberation. This isn't good news: If the enemy in Iraq is escalating its tactics to include chemical weapons, our soldiers are in even more peril, and there's a possibility terrorists have exported such weapons too....
Iraq Insurgents Hit the Gas
....And our counsel of patience in the search for weapons has been vindicated, as the Associated Press reports today:
A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. Two people were treated for "minor exposure," but no serious injuries were reported.
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy.
"A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent," he said.
Sarin, developed by the Nazis in the 1930s (though apparently never used by them), is the same gas that the Aum Shinrikyo cult used in a 1995 attack on a Tokyo subway that killed 12. Fox News adds that "mustard gas was also recently discovered" in Iraq.
It shouldn't surprise us that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are beginning to turn up only now. After all, Baathist remnants in Fallujah were fairly quiet until last month, a year after Iraq's liberation. This isn't good news: If the enemy in Iraq is escalating its tactics to include chemical weapons, our soldiers are in even more peril, and there's a possibility terrorists have exported such weapons too....
