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Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals
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The presence of Sarin proves absolutely nothing about Sadam's WMD's.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2948900.stm

Deadly Sarin 'easily available in UK'
Emergency workers in Tokyo helped 5,000 sarin victimsThe chemicals needed to launch a deadly terrorist attack are easily available in Britain, a BBC investigation has discovered.

Using a credit card and fake headed note paper, a reporter for BBC Radio 4's Today programme was able to buy a cocktail of ingredients which could be used to make sarin gas.

In 1995 members of a religious cult used sarin on the Tokyo underground, in a terrorist attack which killed 12 people and injured more than 5,000.

One breath of the nerve agent is enough to kill, with death often coming in less than a minute.

Export controls

The BBC investigation found that buying the chemicals needed to make sarin is simple.

There are stringent and rigorous import and export controls on them imposed by the government, but there are no laws restricting their purchase inside the UK.

The Today programme's reporter Angus Stickler was able to buy enough of the chemicals to make twice the amount of sarin used in the Tokyo attack.

Then, an umbrella was used to pierce a container filled with sarin wrapped in newspaper.

Some of these chemicals are dangerous so we're keeping them under lock and key
Angus Stickler
BBC correspondent
How I obtained Sarin ingredients

It took Angus Stickler three weeks to buy the four chemicals needed by simply faxing an order to two British supply companies.

The chemicals arrived within days.

"There's all the ingredients to make sarin here," said the correspondent.

"Some of these chemicals are dangerous so we're keeping them under lock and key but there's no law to keep anyone buying these."

A recipe describing how to manufacture the nerve agent was found on the internet.

Economic risks

The Chemical Industry Association, which operates a voluntary code of practice, says the issue is difficult to legislate because many of the chemicals involved have legitimate industrial, commercial or household use.

Therefore "legislating for them would be a kneejerk reaction", spokesman Steve Elliot told Today.

"It would impact on economic activity and potentially assist terrorists in some of their activities."

Legislating for (these chemicals) would be a kneejerk reaction
Steve Elliot, Chemical Industry Association spokesman
Chemical ban 'impractical'

He said it was up to chemical companies to remain vigilant, to monitor suspicious enquiries and control who they employed.

Shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin agreed providing foolproof security in an open society was "intrinsically difficult".

But he said currently nine government departments had some responsibility over chemical usage and it should be coordinated under a "single, heavyweight minister".

The investigation's findings follow growing concerns about the possibility of a terrorist attack in the UK.

Concrete barriers have been installed around Parliament to deter would-be suicide bombers and security has been stepped up at London airports.

Security has been stepped up at airportsThere have also been reports that undercover police squads watching suspected Islamic militants in London have been told they can shoot to kill if they think a suicide attack is being launched.

And the Sunday Times claimed that MI5 and Scotland Yard are hunting two men in Britain who have been trained as suicide bombers by al-Qaeda.

Detainees at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba reportedly told British and American authorities the men were members of a specially recruited squad of "martyrs".

Last weekend it emerged that 11,500 passports have gone missing over the last few years, prompting fears they may fall into the hands of terrorists.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Paul Burstow called for an immediate inquiry into the "scandalous" situation.


I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [j p o] [ In reply to ]
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"The presence of Sarin proves absolutely nothing about Sadam's WMD's. "



What it proves is being debated already in the other thread, but at drawing a correlation between the manufacture of some Sarin and the use of a 155MM artilllery shell seems like a stretch to me. You can make lots of horrible stuff with a bit of creativity, Ricin is super easy to make, but weaponizing and the use of those toxins in artillery are vastly different.

At the very least it proves that there are still shells floating around Iraq with this stuff. The idea it is the last one in Iraq is not plausible so the question is; Is there 2 more or 2000 more, where are they, and who has access to them?
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [j p o] [ In reply to ]
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Of course...We could find the entire stockpile and it wouldn't prove a thing...

Guess what..in the movie "The Manhattan Project" a high school kid makes a nuclear weapon out of salad bowls, d cell batteries, and photography equipment...
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [j p o] [ In reply to ]
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I love it. One shell containing Sarin Gas and *BAM* - We've Found WMDs!!!

Multiple incidents of Iraqi prisoner abuse and, uh, well, that doesn't really *mean* anything. They're just isolated incidents, you know? Not indicative of our Government or military.

Political logic at its finest.

Goddamnit. When do we get our cheap gas?
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [j p o] [ In reply to ]
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Another excellent (but *pathetic*) attempt at damage control from someone who (a) evidently belongs to a certain left leaning political party, or (b) shares a viewpoint that is typically wrong and therefore, in my view, does not align with my own self-righteous thought patterns.

(Vitus, this is too much. I'll just go back to calling them what they are)

*Pathetic* because even though Sarin is easy to make, does not mean it is any less deadly. Also because even though the Middle-East is not on the leading edge of any sort of technical sophistication, they do know how to IMPROVISE what already exists.

Did the article go on to instruct readers how to turn that nasty shit into an IED, or don't they do that at the BBC?


**All of these words finding themselves together were greatly astonished and delighted for assuredly, they had never met before**
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [j p o] [ In reply to ]
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Here's another take on the matter...


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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [j p o] [ In reply to ]
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Dude, there's a big difference between being able to get the necessary chemicals, and what was found in Iraq. I spent some of the best years of my life in the Field Artillery (The KING of Battle:) ), and can tell you that designing and manufacturing a chemical weapons projectile like the one they found is not something that can be done in a basement workshop. First it has to be built to exacting dimensions. Then it has to be survive being shot out of a cannon (100+ lb projectile, 20+ mile range, muzzle velocity of 600+ m/s) which involves some intense forces. Then it has to function when intended (air burst - which means a time fuze or proximity fuze). You don't do this stuff in a basement lab.

I know there's no arguing with the Bush-haters, but as was already mentioned, equating what was found in Iraq with a collection of chemicals like what was used in Tokyo is nuts.

Chris
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [jhendric] [ In reply to ]
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i like this post the most
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [mojozenmaster] [ In reply to ]
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Damage control???

What damage? Who was damaged by finding this shell?

Point is they found trace amounts of sarin, something you, me, or the high school kid down the street could cook up (we might kill ourselves in the process but we might also get it done). You certainly don't mean to say that we should invade every country that knows how to mix 4 common chemicals together do you? Quick, get the tanks somebody has bleach and ammonia, they could unleash deadly chlorine gas.

Sarin does not equal a WMD arsenal. Chances are this was a left over shell from the 80's, back when we were backing Hussein under the Reagan/Bush administration and his WMD's didn't bother us quite so much because he was using them against Iran. Whether that was good or bad is a whole other can of worms.

Since people advocating this war seem to like the Jack Nicholson from a Few Good Men attitude I will have to join in, "Please tell me you have more than this, these boys lives are at stake."

Do I "belong" to the Democratic Party, only because there is no viable party to the left of them. The final toll for the damage we have done ourselves in the way this war was conducted will not be known for years. I hope 20 years from now we can say it was worth it.

I typed up some name calling of my own but I just couldn't do it, don't know you from Adam and I just have a hard time being an ass to someone I don't know. Obviously you lack this type of moral compunction and for that I feel sorry for you.

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [triiowa] [ In reply to ]
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triowa,

Here is some more support from post #19 on the other thread.

Oh, by the way, they have just found another of these artillary shells with sarin gas. Since these rounds have no distinguishing markings to identify them from other similar rounds that they have found, they believe there may be many more of these chemical weapons that they have just stumbled upon. These shells are constructed such that the components of the sarin gas are separated in the unexploded shell. When the round is fired, the components are mixed as the round spins from the rifling in the cannon. Upon exploding, the gas cloud is then spread over a large area. This is not the type of technology that would be available to a terrorist organization such as al-Qaeda, unless it was supplied to them by a terrorist supportive government, i.e., Iraq.

The reason this exploding shell was not a bigger incident is that the components of the sarin gas were not combined before the explosion. The round was not fired in a cannon as it was engineered to be done. It was used in an attempt to make a roadside bomb. This is also why some terrorist organization did not manufacture this artillary round.

These shells are for a 155 mm cannon. That is a shell that is over 6 inches in diameter. A shell this size requires a rather substantial cannon to fire it. This cannon also requires some substantial vehicle to move it. This is not the sort of weapon that is suited for terrorist purposes. Yes, it has great destructive capablility, but it is too difficult to hide, move, too labor intensive to set up, fire, dismantle and hide again before they are caught by their pursuers



Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.
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Re: Oh Oh, Sarin gas can be made with 4 easily obtained chemicals [Wants2rideFast] [ In reply to ]
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You facts mean nothing! Don't you get it? Bush sucks! His daddy bought the election and he is trying to shut down Howard Stern! So don't come to me with facts that link any WMD to any country. You are just too stupid to see Bush sucks!

customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.
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