Originally Posted by ian

weaponisation of the chemicals? I think I understand your meaning, no doubt. But these were not the WMD's that Iraq was supposedly invaded for despite the hysterical claims of some neo cons.

Originally Posted by Little-Acorn

The three different kinds of weapons universally acknowledged to be Weapons of Mass Destruction are Biological weapons (germs, viruses etc.), chemical weapons (poison gas deliberately released in the atmosphere, liquids put in food or water supplies, etc.), and nuclear weapons.

One of them has now been used deliberately as an offensive weapon In Iraq, in three different locations today. Chlorine gas, which was specifically outlawed after its use in World War I, has now seen a rebirth. It has also been used several other times by terrorists in Iraq in the last month or two.

The mainstream media, which was strident in its denunciations of the Bush administration for their insistence that Iraqi WMDs could fall into the hands of terrorists and be used against our toops and allies, have suddenly become extremely quiet, not mentioning the term "weapon of mass destruction" in any of their stories that I have seen about these attacks.

One wonders what excuse they will use now.

1.) "These gas attacks don't count as WMDs because the tanks they were in weren't specifically designed to be weapons."

2.) "They don't count because there's no proof Saddam had these particular tanks of chlorine before the invasion."

3.) "They don't count because there's no proof Saddam had these particular tanks of chlorine after the invasion."

4.) "Gee, I guess we were wrong about the danger of WMDs in Iraq. We take back all the things we said about Bush, and acknowledge he was right after all."

5.) "Chlorine has peaceful uses as well as wartime uses, so these don't count as WMDs."

...plus a host of even screwier ones. Which of the above excuses would you guess WON'T be used by the MSM and other leftists?

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FOXNews.com - Insurgent Chlorine Attacks Injure 350 Iraqi Sunnis; GI Killed in Baqouba - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Insurgent Chlorine Attacks Injure 350 Iraqi Sunnis

Saturday, March 17, 2007

BAGHDAD — Three suicide bombers driving trucks rigged with tanks of toxic chlorine gas struck targets in heavily Sunni Anbar province Friday, including the office of a Sunni tribal leader opposed to Al Qaeda.

The attacks killed at least two people and sickened 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops, the U.S. military said Saturday.

There is a mounting power struggle between insurgents and the growing number of Sunnis who oppose them in Anbar, the center of the Sunni insurgency, which stretches from Baghdad to the borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The Anbar assaults came three days after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, traveled there to reach out to Sunni clan chiefs in a bid to undermine tribal support for the insurgency.

The violence started about 4:11 p.m. Friday when a driver detonated explosives in a pickup truck carrying chlorine at a checkpoint northeast of the provincial capital of Ramadi, wounding one U.S. service member and one Iraqi civilian, the military said in a statement.

Two hours later a dump truck exploded in Amiriyah, south of Fallujah, killing two policemen and leaving as many as 100 residents with symptoms of chlorine exposure, ranging from minor skin and lung irritations to vomiting, the military said.

Iraqi authorities said at least six people were killed and dozens wounded when the truck blew up in a line of cars waiting at a checkpoint. The U.S. did not confirm the Iraqi report.

Ahmed Kuhdier, a 32-year-old taxi driver, said the blast sent up a plume of white smoke that turned black and blue.

"Minutes later, we started to smell nasty smells. I saw people coming form the explosion site and they were coughing and having trouble breathing," he said.

Another suicide bomber detonated a dump truck containing a 200-gallon chlorine tank rigged with explosives at 7:13 p.m. three miles south of Fallujah in the Albu Issa tribal region, the military said.

U.S. forces found about 250 local civilians, including seven children, suffering from symptoms related to chlorine exposure, according to the statement. Police said the bomb was targeting the reception center of a tribal sheik who has denounced Al Qaeda.

Four other bombings have released chlorine gas since Jan. 28, when a homicide bomber driving a dump truck filled with explosives and a chlorine tank struck a quick-reaction force and Iraqi police in Ramadi, killing 16 people.

Originally Posted by Diuretic

The fact that the insurgents are making and using these terrible weapons is sickening. But linking this behaviour to the missing/non-existent/degraded/destroyed/mislaid/"I forgot where I put them"/"oh we know they're buried in Syria" WMD allegedly possessed by the Saddam regime is, well, just a little bit silly.

Originally Posted by hairballxavier

Hussein apologists are like Nazi's, they denigrate jews and fuck themselves.

Start of "screwy reasons" list...

• Suggest that innocent benevolent truckers hauling swimming pools just keep mysteriously exploding
• It's not a chemical weapon because it can be made with "household" chemicals
• Canada has swimming pools too..why don't we invade them?
• We went there to go find chlorine, not WMD

Originally Posted by Slon

So hairball, do you actually have a reply to my argument, or are you going to continue parroting this over and over? Did you happen to read the IWR?

Originally Posted by Slon

If the presence of chlorine gas is enough to invade, then practically every nation should be invaded because almost anyone has the capability to make chlorine gas, not to mention that it is accidentally made sometimes when mixing pool chemicals.

Originally Posted by Little-Acorn

The mainstream media, which was strident in its denunciations of the Bush administration for their insistence that Iraqi WMDs could fall into the hands of terrorists and be used against our toops and allies, have suddenly become extremely quiet, not mentioning the term "weapon of mass destruction" in any of their stories that I have seen about these attacks.

One wonders what excuse they will use now.

1.) "These gas attacks don't count as WMDs because the tanks they were in weren't specifically designed to be weapons."

2.) "They don't count because there's no proof Saddam had these particular tanks of chlorine before the invasion."

3.) "They don't count because there's no proof Saddam had these particular tanks of chlorine after the invasion."

4.) "Gee, I guess we were wrong about the danger of WMDs in Iraq. We take back all the things we said about Bush, and acknowledge he was right after all."

5.) "Chlorine has peaceful uses as well as wartime uses, so these don't count as WMDs."