General Zinni on Sixty Minutes

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


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

First, let's note that I said or wrote none of which "George Z. Bush"
has posted here below the attibution header!

(Snip)

How about considering that we are quick to disavow the outrageous behavior of a
handful of our sadistic jailers as being representative of us as a nation, but
we deny the Iraqis the same right to disavow the existence of a single artillery
shell of dubious age filled with Sarin as being representative of an arsenal of
WMDs they would have used on us if they had existed.

One sadistic jailer doesn't mean that all of our jailers are sadistic any more
than one Sarin-filled artillery shell means that all of the artillery shells the
Iraqis had were filled with Sarin. It took us a whole year to find (or 'fess up
to) one of each.

George Z.


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

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?

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? 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?

C'mon George, confess that you didn't think it through when you wrote
that/


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

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.

In message , Ed Rasimus
writes
How many WMD rounds does it take to equal possession of WMD in your
convoluted logic?

To quote something I wrote earlier...

Let's - for the sake of simplicity - assume the munitions and facilities
have a trustworthy date stamp, however ascertained. Hard to do, but it
simplifies the terms.

1998 and earlier, I'm willing to accept a few (call it three, offhand)
"WME stockpiles" that are - for a rule of thumb - a pallet or less of
shells, 122mm rockets, or precursors each. 1991 or earlier, I'd raise
the bar quite a lot higher, because they prepared to fight a defensive
war and then lost it massively and that's where large amounts of kit go
missing. (We're still occasionally digging up buried caches of 1940s No.
76 grenades here in the UK, which is a problem because they're beer
bottles filled with a benzene, rubber and white phosphorous mixture -
not nice to accidentally put a spade through one)

Post-1998, "a pallet" of filled basic munitions or of filler for them,
or a single weapon that was a significant advance on their previous
capability, would be conclusive proof. Less than that would be a very
unwelcome surprise, though not decisive (we know they *wanted* to keep
their programs going, but the claim was that the programs existed and
were an immediate threat)



Opinion, assayed at $0.02 exact.

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

Let's - for the sake of simplicity - assume the munitions and facilities
have a trustworthy date stamp, however ascertained. Hard to do, but it
simplifies the terms.

1998 and earlier, I'm willing to accept a few (call it three, offhand)
"WME stockpiles" that are - for a rule of thumb - a pallet or less of
shells, 122mm rockets, or precursors each.

....that could be found, accidentally, by militias? When there are
*millions* of similar pallets of conventional weapons floating around in
Iraq right now?

The math is way against you here. Literally millions-to-one odds.

On the other hand, if there were a lot of unreported and uncatalogued
chemical weapons in the mix, you'd have a much better chance of someone
turning up one or two out of a random ammo dump. Which is what seems to
have happened.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In article , Chad Irby
wrote:

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

Let's - for the sake of simplicity - assume the munitions and
facilities
have a trustworthy date stamp, however ascertained. Hard to do, but it
simplifies the terms.

1998 and earlier, I'm willing to accept a few (call it three, offhand)
"WME stockpiles" that are - for a rule of thumb - a pallet or less of
shells, 122mm rockets, or precursors each.

...that could be found, accidentally, by militias? When there are
*millions* of similar pallets of conventional weapons floating around in
Iraq right now?

The math is way against you here. Literally millions-to-one odds.

On the other hand, if there were a lot of unreported and uncatalogued
chemical weapons in the mix, you'd have a much better chance of someone
turning up one or two out of a random ammo dump. Which is what seems to
have happened.


If more don't show up, I'd be inclined to suspect some participant in
the research program that took one, or a few, prototypes home for
safekeeping. We know this was done for some nuclear and biological
components. Said somebody may have decided he didn't want this in his
backyard, and gave it to insurgents, possibly with an explanation they
didn't understand.

In article ,
Howard Berkowitz wrote:

If more don't show up, I'd be inclined to suspect some participant in
the research program that took one, or a few, prototypes home for
safekeeping. We know this was done for some nuclear and biological
components. Said somebody may have decided he didn't want this in his
backyard, and gave it to insurgents, possibly with an explanation they
didn't understand.

But someone from the research program would know that this sort of round
needs to be fired so the chemicals would mix correctly, and wouldn't set
it off the way they did.

So it was someone *outside* of the program who had this one at hand.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In article , Chad Irby
wrote:

In article ,
Howard Berkowitz wrote:

If more don't show up, I'd be inclined to suspect some participant in
the research program that took one, or a few, prototypes home for
safekeeping. We know this was done for some nuclear and biological
components. Said somebody may have decided he didn't want this in his
backyard, and gave it to insurgents, possibly with an explanation they
didn't understand.

But someone from the research program would know that this sort of round
needs to be fired so the chemicals would mix correctly, and wouldn't set
it off the way they did.

So it was someone *outside* of the program who had this one at hand.

Or, someone inside the research program, first and foremost wanting to
get it out of his closet, and is anti-American, gives it to an insurgent
on the theory it MIGHT do something. Not everyone in a program fully
understands the details -- consider a cross between a Dilbertian
pointy-haired boss and Saddams second cousin's third cousin's
brother-in-law.

In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

Let's - for the sake of simplicity - assume the munitions and facilities
have a trustworthy date stamp, however ascertained. Hard to do, but it
simplifies the terms.

1998 and earlier, I'm willing to accept a few (call it three, offhand)
"WME stockpiles" that are - for a rule of thumb - a pallet or less of
shells, 122mm rockets, or precursors each.

...that could be found, accidentally, by militias? When there are
*millions* of similar pallets of conventional weapons floating around in
Iraq right now?

Yep. Note that this was apparently employed in a standard roadside IED,
as if it was just an ordinary HE shell - about as suboptimal an
employment as you can get, if you assume the insurgents knew what they
had.

The math is way against you here. Literally millions-to-one odds.

Thousands-to-one odds, anyway. The existence of that round is a pretty
good fact: so is the absence of any source for it, or any stockpile of
its brothers and sisters.

On the other hand, if there were a lot of unreported and uncatalogued
chemical weapons in the mix, you'd have a much better chance of someone
turning up one or two out of a random ammo dump. Which is what seems to
have happened.

Trouble is, that doesn't say "significant organised and controlled
stockpile", it just says "bad bookkeeping".

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , Chad Irby
writes

Yep. Note that this was apparently employed in a standard roadside IED,
as if it was just an ordinary HE shell - about as suboptimal an
employment as you can get, if you assume the insurgents knew what they
had.

The math is way against you here. Literally millions-to-one odds.

Thousands-to-one odds, anyway.

Nope. Millions. Out of the couple of dozen artillery rounds that have
been set as roadside IEDs, versus the tens of millions of rounds of
artillery shells they had available.

At worst, hundreds of thousands to one.

Not very much in your favor...

So which is more likely? That someone hid a pile of chemical weapons (a
medium-sized arsenal of the things would fit in a building the size of a
house) in a country the size of California, versus your contention that
they didn't have any and were complying with the UN sanctions?

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In article , Chad Irby
wrote:

....

So which is more likely? That someone hid a pile of chemical weapons (a
medium-sized arsenal of the things would fit in a building the size of a
house) in a country the size of California, versus your contention that
they didn't have any and were complying with the UN sanctions?

Or something in between. There were some prototypes hidden away, and one
or more was given to people setting up IEDs. We know prototypes or
samples of nuclear and biological components were hidden in residential
areas; why not chemical?