General Zinni on Sixty Minutes

In article , Ed Rasimus
wrote:

On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 12:55:05 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .


By your rationale the only way a nation possesses WMD is if ALL of
their weapons fit the class? We've found one Sarin filled shell in a
country the size of California. Saddam had twelve years of experience
in hiding WMD from UN inspectors. He had a couple of years of warning
regarding build-up to invasion. He had almost a year after expelling
the UN inspectors to dismantle, export, hide or decommission WMDs.

Is Sarin a chemical weapon? Would the components of a binary weapon by
a chemical weapon if they were held in two separate locations?

Under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the Australia Group
agreements, and the US Militarily Critical Technologies list, unitary
sarin is definitely a chemical weapon, as are the phosphofluoro
precursors. The latter are in the same Class I category as GB (Sarin).
Plain isopropanol and elemental sulfur, the basic second components of
GB and VX, are only "dual use" by a generous interpretation --
isopropanol is common rubbing alcohol. A better binary precursor (OPA)
mixes diisopropylamine with isopropanol; if there is at least 30%
diisopropylamine, the mixture is considered a dual use material not
explicitly classifed by the Australia Group.

Is a
biological weapon only a biological weapon when it is employed,
otherwise it's just a case of the sniffles?

I would say that it has to be weaponized and associated with a plausible
disposal system. The same botulinus toxin used in medical Botox is a
weapon when in much larger quantities and associated with a dispersion
system.


I baby-sat a B-61 Y-1 at 345KT was that a WMD? If we only had Fat Man
and Little Boy (which is all we had) and then we dropped them on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did we then no longer have WMD? Or, since
those two weapons were only 20-25KT were they not even WMD at all?

For simplicity, any nuclear explosive should be considered WMD. That
being said, PGMs may be as or more useful for a given application as
were tactical nuclear weapons with much less accurate delivery.


The relationship between the jailers and WMD isn't a very rational
argument. How much Sarin will you allow to be deployed in New York
City before you take offense?

Let me speak to the more general case of cholinesterase inhibitors
("nerve gasses"). Diisopropyl fluorophosphate was one of the first such
agents considered by the US, but also has perfectly legitimate
applications in opthalmology. How much does the local distributor have
in its warehouse? I don't know.

Research laboratories may legitimately have small quantities of nerve
agent precursors or actual agents. Increasingly, there are licensing
and quantity restrictions. Certainly, any laboratory that needs to check
detectors needs some quantity, and a reference laboratory that confirms
particular agents will need samples. Quantity limits on biological
toxins are much more stringent.

Some sample regulations based on Federal regulations, this example from
the University of Pennsylvania:

The medical use of toxins for patient treatment is exempt.

The following select agent toxins are exempt if the aggregate amount
under the control of one principal investigator does not, at any time,
exceed:
- 0.5 mg of Botulinum neurotoxins
- 5 mg of Staphylococcal enterotoxins
- 100 mg of abrin, Clostridium perfringens epsilon toxin, conotoxin,
ricin, saxitoxin, shigatoxin, shiga-like ribosome inactivating protein,
and tetrodotoxin
- 1,000 mg of diacetoxyscirpenol and T-2 toxin

The following select agent organisms or toxins are also exempt:
- Any agent or toxin that is in its naturally occurring environment
provided it has not been intentionally introduced, cultivated, collected,
or otherwise extracted from its natural source.
- Non-viable select agent organisms or nonfunctional toxins.
- The vaccine strains of Junin virus (Candid #1), Rift Valley fever virus
(MP-12), Venezuelan Equine encephalitis virus vaccine strain TC-83

So, the bottom line is that an acceptable quantity is greater than zero.

Would it be more acceptable to use it in
Jerusalem? Would it be alright to spread three liters of Sarin in
Kuwait City?

How many WMD rounds does it take to equal possession of WMD in your
convoluted logic? Would two be better than one? Or will you hold out
for exclusive WMD rounds and no conventional? Then, one conventional
round would prove the non-existance of WMD, despite the other rounds?

Let us focus on the "mass" in mass destruction. Aside from the aspect
of fear (personally, I'd far rather die of sarin than napalm), to be a
WMD, the weapons have to be available in militarily significant
quantity, such that they cause more destruction/effect than an
equivalent quantity of conventional weapons. I'm certainly willing to
bend this rule to include active R&D or manufacturing programs.

The rule of thumb for a militarily significant amount of G-agents is in
the tons. Yes, with skilled dispersion, a chemical weapon can cause far
more casualties than conventional weapons. In our one terrorist example,
compared to the massive quantities used in WWI, Aum Shinryo managed
about a dozen deaths. Casualties numbered in the hundreds to low
thousands, but a significant proportion of cases were trauma caused by a
panicking crowd, or psychosomatic. Several Claymore mines on a subway
platform would almost certainly cause more casualties.