"Scott Weiser" wrote in message
...
A Usenet persona calling itself riverman wrote:


"Scott Weiser" wrote in message
...
He did. Evidence of Sarin was found on the battlefield, and numerous
Sarin-filled artillery shells were found.

Where is your source for this?

The "many" was a misstatement. Two WMD artillery shells were found, one
with
Sarin, the other with mustard gas. Both were probably parts of stockpiles
used during the Iran-Iraq war and on the Kurds which Hussein said had been
destroyed. Where there's one, there's most likely more.

It was barely reported by the major news media during the invasion, then
it
disappeared from the radar.

"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery
round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig. Gen. Mark
Kimmitt
(search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad.
"The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which
was
discovered by a U.S. force convoy."

Fox News, Monday, May 17, 2004

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html

Well, that's Fox news, who I think we can agree have traded off their
credibility for sensationalism and an openly confessed pro-Bush bias quite a
while ago. Nontheless, Fox and all the other news agencies reported that the
conclusion was that this bomb was an artifact left over from the Pre-1991
era, that the people who rigged it probably had no idea that it contained
binary Sarin, and in his later report, Duelfer concluded that the existance
of this bomb did not constitute evidence that there was any ongoing WMD
program.

If you are merely stating that some left over munitions exist, I don't think
anyone who ever shopped at an ArmyNavy store would disagree. If your
statement is that Saddam intentionally hid weapons from the pre-1991 era
from the inspectors with the intent to use them later, and the discovery of
these bombs are proof, then I refer you to Fox news again, and an excerpt
from Charles Duelfer's report:

"Duelfer, a special consultant to the director of Central Intelligence on
Iraqi WMD affairs, found Saddam wasn't squirreling away equipment and
weapons and hiding them in various parts of the country, as some originally
thought when the U.S.-led war in Iraq began, officials said. Instead, the
report finds that Saddam was trying to achieve his goal by retaining
"intellectual capital" - in other words, keeping weapons inspectors employed
and happy and preserving some documentation, according to U.S. officials."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134625,00.html

--riverman