UPDATE: Material tests positive as surplus McDonald's "Shamrock Green Mint" milkshake residue.

UN inspectors express outrage, demand immediate thermonuclear sterilization of the area.

Mayor McCheese unavailable for comment.

As the US general in charge of the site said, could easily be pesticides

Lol. this is some twisted humor.../me likes it.
CNN = Communist News Network.

24 hours. Wait 24 hours and see if any WMD story still has legs. If so, then you can start believing. Right now, I am thinking that the embeds see sneezed snot on the ground and report WMD.

Initial tests were mixed (or positive), then they used a "Fox vehicle" which gave it a positive.

Gen. Freakly : Could be either a pesticide or a chemical agent, but not weaponized.

Fox vehicle could give false positive.

Is this the same Pentagon that buys $400 hammers?

Frequently, the scrolling red banners at the bottom of the cable news channels includes stuff that is 36 - 48 hours old.

When the 75th Exploitation Team announces that it has found WMD, that will be significant. Everything else is an unconfirmed rumor, no matter how many times it has been re-published.

More Hysteria:

Oh, they are hidden in holes!
Fact: Pesticides are best kept cool in hot desert countries.

Soldiers got sick!
Fact: US General in charge
"I am convinced that was heat stroke"

Why are pesticides there!
Fact: hmm, agricultural warehouse, next to mosquito laden euphrates. duh.

I think this story is looking so stupid (and it is what, the 30th such story?)

This is the Fox vehicle (with picture in article)

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/camp_mont2/tabe.htm

I think Iraq is trying to get around us.

We have been embargoing medicine to counter malaria in their children, and yet these sneeky bastages -- in one of the worst malaria belts in the world -- are trying to get around us by using pesticides! How dare they!

The Red Banner is from the website, at top, where latest info is placed.

> Oh, they are hidden in holes!
> Fact: Pesticides are best kept cool in hot desert countries.

Fact : US General there - The warehouse provides enough cooling, and the way these drums were concealed are suspicious. They had a netting and leaves over it to hide them.

Naysayers get it all in because when the cold hard truth of the matter smacks you in the face, you will have to justify your apologist attitude for the worst regime since Nazi Germany.

Andrew,

More than a dozen U.S. soldiers have been evacuated from an Iraqi military compound after tests by a mobile laboratory confirmed evidence of deadly sarin nerve gas, reports Knight Ridder News Service.

According to the report, members of the Army's 101st Airborne Division had been sent earlier for chemical-weapons decontamination after exhibiting symptoms of possible exposure to nerve agents.

A day of testing brought initial results of positive exposure, then negative; but a third round of sampling by an Army Fox mobile nuclear, biological and chemical detection laboratory confirmed the existence of sarin.

Sgt. Todd Ruggles, a biochem expert with the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne told Knight Ridder "I was right" that chemical agents Iraq has denied having were present.

Shipmates on USS Nimitz instructed on chemical suits, gas masks

Not only were soldiers sent for decontamination, but a CNN cameraman, a Knight Ridder reporter, and two Iraqi POWs were reportedly hosed down with water and bleach.

The suspect chemicals were discovered at two sites: an agricultural warehouse loaded with 55-gallon chemical drums, and a military compound.

Soldiers who were guarding the military compound reportedly began vomiting, and experienced dizziness and skin blotches – all symptoms of exposure to small amounts of nerve agent.

Knight Ridder says chemical tests in the warehouse "came back positive for so-called G-Series nerve agents, which include sarin and tabun, both of which Iraq has been known to possess."

Sounds like "snot" to me. Bwahahahaha.

> More than a dozen U.S. soldiers have been evacuated from an Iraqi military compound after tests by a mobile laboratory confirmed evidence of deadly sarin nerve gas, reports Knight Ridder News Service.

The General in charge says the soldiers were probably just suffering from heat and physical exhaustion. This was also at the site were they did conclude they were pesticides, not the one were they are not sure.

sorry Randy boy
US army is stating on the record the soldiers in fact were suffering heat stroke.

It's official, these chemical "smoking guns" are now 100 BS to 0 actual.

> It's official, these chemical "smoking guns" are now 100 BS to 0 actual.

The official word is that the best test they could muster from the Fox vehicle says it's chemical agents. They need further tests, as the vehicle can find false positives.

Why don't we stick with the facts?

There are missles as well in the mix--loaded with Sarin according to MSNBC

This may be another false alarm or it could be the real deal. Whenever the real stuff IS found....and it will be...I want the coalition/Pentagon to summon the best, most credible known biochem scientists from France, Germany, Russia, China, to perform on-site final testing, under the supervision/entertainment of top coalition generals. I also want Annan and Blix there, and cameras rolling from Al-Jazeera and Al-Reuterzeera during the proceedings, start to finish. Let them have the story first, as long as it's reported from the site, right then and there, live.

"There are missles as well in the mix--loaded with Sarin according to MSNBC"

these turned out to be conventional. Big
Surpise...nah.

>There are missles as well in the mix--loaded with Sarin according to MSNBC

This must be another site, because the Gen. on the ground was very clear that these are not weaponized agents.

On pesticides--posted on The Corner at NRO

"Pesticides ARE nerve agents. Cholinesterase inhobitors (nerve agents) were first developed in Germany as pesticides. This is the problem with non-proliferation efforts. So much of this stuff is dual use, it's hard to track legitimate use of WMD production material. Pesticide factory and pesticide ingrediants=Nerve Gas Factory Pharmaceutical plant involved in live agent vaccine or antibiotic manufacturing= Bioweapons plant. Machine tools used for computerized machining of metal to high tolerances= Nuclear weapons production facility. No wonder Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and other similar treaties are so hard to enforce, ANY modern or semi-modern nation has the inherent industrial base needed to produce WMD. All that is needed is the political will to do so. "

MSNBC : The missile find is being reported by NPR. It's another case.

Just one samll point. I was with the Peace Corp in India in the mid-1970's. Don't want to say whether these are weapons themselves...I don't know. I do know the use of powerful pestices is something the US pushed worldwide. But the storage looks quite common. People have been storing things, including wine, for thousands of years in covered holes and trenches in warm areas to keep them cool.

I was jarred by the story because I have seen legit chemicals stored with my own eyes this very same way. In the village I worked in pesticides were kept away from food storage areas and buried in holes in small sheds covered with the exact same straw mats described.

Not every poor country has refrigeration and an EPA.

"Frequently, the scrolling red banners at the bottom of the cable news channels includes stuff that is 36 - 48 hours old."

And even Fox loves to use the phrase "at this hour", which simply means that's what they're talking about right now, though it happened maybe several hours ago.

"So much of this stuff is dual use, it's hard to track legitimate use of WMD production material."

True of many products. There was once a rat poison taken off the market because they found it would be too harmful for children. Still has another use, though: they bleach sugar to that pretty white with it.

I checked NPR--they are still reporting the missle site as a possible chem site. Reese, where did you get the scoop that this was conventional?

FOG: Warfarin, useful blood thinner and also dries up rats to a crisp by causing all their fluids to leak out, leaving nothing behind to stink too much.

"There was once a rat poison taken off the market because they found it would be too harmful for children. Still has another use, though: they bleach sugar to that pretty white with it."

Urban legend promoted by anti-enviromentalists. "white" sugar is sugar with molassas removed. the process predates any rat poison.

Hmm, gonna re-check that, then.

Ok, how about minoxidil? HBP medicine found to also make some white boys look like peaches. I smell a conspiracy!

Or was it flour? Don't tell me anything was removed from it, 'cuz I buy UNBLEACHED flour.

There are currently three different sites. Knight-Ridder's Tom Lasseter reported about the barfing soldiers in Hindiyah, Dana Lewis reported "barrels of chemicals in an agricultural facility" near Karbala, and NPR's John Burnett reported on the missiles. (info is from a chem. roundup on MSNBC)

The first two may indeed be ordinary pesticides, but last I checked, nobody used missiles for crop-dusting.

Here's the link to the NPR report on sarin & mustard in warheads: http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1223246
You have to listen to Morning Edition for several minutes to get to the story; they do other news first.

When are we going to search the mosques?

These reports, and so many postings of the same story here on command post, trouble me. From a logical standpoiint there is nothing to suggest we are not looking at improperly stored pesticides (common enough in the states as well). People seem to be reaching. Every "suspicious" element looks innocous enough to me.

I can't help but note that the Army experts on the ground are pretty much saying these are pesticide storage. Could they be WMD froim the tests? Yes, but so could be s million barrels of pesticides anywhere else in the world. They are all going to show the same false reading.

The exception is the missile story. But as I pointed out this morning after hearing it on NPR, the weapons were identified as rockets with a "300 mile range." Ok, we know the system in question fires rockets with about five to 15 mile range. Conventionally this would be an older, legal and expected system in Iraq. Ergo this reporter doesn't seem to know anything about weapons. The only repetition of the story is really other news sources citing the NPR reporters' garbled facts, not independent confirmation.

Here is the way I see it. As we know Saddam didn't use his weapons either because: a) he doesn't have them ( marginally possible); b) he doesn't have them weaponized (why bother having them?); c)or because he figures the political disadvantages would be worse (possible).

I would rank the likely hood as c, a then b. Before anyone blows a gasket I do firmly believe proper investigation (which Blix could not have done) will show Saddam has engaged in forbidden research, aquisition, etc. I don't think thse research materials are in old drums in shacks though.

Friends, just as it would be very bad internationally for Saddam to use weaponized systems, it would be a profound and immediate advantage for us to show them if he did. Large numbers of lives would be saved as Saddam was shown to be false.
Hence I believe that the "rocket" find is an error. That is why it repeats nowhere even though it would be a huge huge story.

Before anyone says the Pentagon would keep it quiet, I would say no. In the US the polls support us no mater what, but look at Spain and our other allies. We would be holding back information that would be an immense and needed boost to those who stood with us. Moreover moving these systems and keeping them quite for any length of time would greatly lessen our credibilty when we showed them. We can't have them show up at a press conference and not have people think they are a plant.

I hope people consider this before posting any more stories on these "finds". Look what it will mean when we look at command post in a few months. CP will have a record of having more wrong stories than every "media" aoutlet people love to hate.

I am posting this on a few related threads. Sorry its long, sue me.

I think before open your yap, you should know that surgar isn' bleached.

nor is a rat poison used to bleach flour.

cinanide rat poison was banned in it's strong form, and it's not used to bleach "sugar"

How stupid have the city dwellers of american become?

Has America become so dumb they don't even know how real food is made?

I guess if it doesn't come from a drive through window, it's just not safe.

who buys "unbleached" flour, do you really know what that means?

whole wheat flower simply has the wheat germ in it.

thats about the only difference, beside your bread being yellow in color.

it is "bleached" by using an acholhol isotope not rat poison.

look it up, gooble works for everyone.

its a sad day when people don't even know how food is produced.