It's Not A Weapon of Mass Destruction

Wow, my television crashes on me, and I have to have my wife tell me that there are Iraqi chemicals in the news. Maybe it's better that I didn't hear the news first hand - ABC News ran the headline "Chemical Weapons Scare at U.N. Headquarters!" and initially misidentified phosgene as a nerve agent. Oh, what maroons.

United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous chemical warfare agent, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York, federal authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the White House had been notified at 10 a.m.

The vials were discovered at the headquarters of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which led the inspections of possible chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. The items were recovered from a former Iraqi chemical weapons facility, Al Muthanna, back in 1996, but just noticed on an inventory list yesterday, according to UNMOVIC.

A WMD investigative team and hazmat units are responding to the incident, according to a law enforcement source.

The FBI New York Field Office will be disposing of these vials.

Okay, not only are these few vials not WMDs (a fact that many on the right seem unable to comprehend), it barely qualifies as a chemical warfare agent. Phosgene hasn't been used in, oh, nearly 90 years as a major weapon of war (to include by Iraq). It's a standard industrial chemical. People have to get over this issue of calling toxic inhalation hazards "WMDs" merely because they were used in World War I. It is a Schedule III chemical under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which means that a plant has to report its production if the annual volume is over 30 tonnes a year. What they found in the UN headquarters was in the realm of grams. GET OVER IT, news organizations, right wing bloggers.

Of course, we have to go to a reputable news source in the United Kingdom to get the full AP article, which details much more facts than the breathless analysis in the United States.

When the material was discovered in a shipping container last week, Buchanan said U.N. experts followed their established procedure in dealing with unknown material - putting the material in double zip-locked plastic bags, and securing it in a safe in a room that is double-locked.

U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said there was no danger to the public and staff continued to work in offices of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or UNMOVIC, which are in the process of being shut down. The U.N. called in U.S. authorities to remove the material, she said.

Tests conducted by U.N. personnel found no toxic vapors in the area where the material has been stored, police said. The materials have been in UNMOVIC apparently since 1996 when they were inadvertently shipped to United Nations administrative offices, instead of a chemical laboratory, police said.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the chemical agents should have been transported to an appropriately equipped lab for analysis.

``I'm sure that there are going to be a lot of red-faced people over at the U.N. trying to figure out how they got there,'' Snow said.

No, Tony Snow"job", they really aren't red-faced. They're puzzled why American media and talking heads are getting so excited about such a little insignificant thing. The vials were part of an old UNSCOM mission, they weren't leaking, but had they leaked, the volume is so small that it's more than likely that no one would have noticed much more than a faint odor of freshly mowed hay. That is, if anyone knew what mowed hay smelled like.

And, to the New York WMD Civil Support Team that probably responded to the call, it doesn't count as a "WMD" - but I bet you all got really excited - just like the lonely Maytag repairman, waiting for that repair call...

Comments

[Sven Ortmann]

Phosgene is an intermediate product of polycarbonate production.
That's the stuff CD-ROMs and DVDs are made of.
Phosgene is just an industry chemical today, but it is in fact dangerous - one of the most toxic agents if you exclude nerve agents. Usable as chemical weapon in the less developed world, for sure.

But as you tell it this wasn't in Saddam's arsenal by 2003 anyway.

[James]

It's also used to fumigate grain shipments to kill weevils. I'm not sure why, but it probably has to do with the way it disperses through the grain and breaks down afterward. The barge in question has to be kept in an isolated spot for several days or more until the concentration drops to safe levels.

UNMOVIC should tossed the vials in the storm sewer and been done with it. And Tony Snow should keep his mouth shut when he is completely ignorant of the facts. But then he wouldn't have much to talk about, would he?

[NVH]

It's not a TUMOR! No really, I'm wondering how we can link this to Hezbollah and the current Iranian admin so we can authorize bombings ( slowly, maniacally rubbing my hands together ). Wait, shit I got it. The recent flood of adult DVDs and Western CDs is really a movement to supply insurgents and terrorists with a WMD phosgene capability to thwart the US presence in Iraq. They melt down the discs see, right there on the stove in the skillet, and then they just pour it thru the collander to get out the impurities and voila' we have our threat, just put it in a couple of mason jars on the shelf, find a US patrol to raid the apartment, mistake the Iraqi occupant for IRG informant, and boom, JDAMs to Tehran...WOW, it's almost too easy.

[Grandjester]

NVH, you forgot to put the perps ON AN AIRPLANE for maximum pants wetting hilarity.

[sglover]

Via one of the radio call-in shows (hey, I was in the car, and there wasn't much else on), I already heard what might be the Grand Unified Theory of Iraq war shilling: We never found Saddam's WMD's because they were removed by Blix' inspectors, and bundled off to UN HQ! As conspiracy theories go, ya sorta gotta admire the elegance and economy of this one.