The Wall Street Journal reports ISIL extremists at a former Iraqi CW facility.\u00a0 The Muthana State Establishment was a huge facility where the Saddam government produced tons of anthrax and sarin.\u00a0 Most of it used against the Iranians in the 1980’s war. The UN weapons inspection team UNSCOM, inspected and destroyed all key equipment and munitions.\u00a0 However some of the precursor chemicals were too unstable to move safely to the incinerator and hydrolysis plant we operated from 1992-1994.\u00a0 So we placed barrels of this toxic waste and contaminated equipment in two huge bunkers on the facility, inventoried the contents and entombed them.\u00a0\u00a0 The contents are dangerous, but not as weapons.\u00a0 I have been in one of the bunkers but with a full CW protection suite including self-contained breathing source and a detector which was flashing warnings.\u00a0 Those bunkers will be very dangerous to anyone who tries to break into them (and people have, largely scavengers looking to extract re-bar metal).\u00a0 But the risk that the contents can somehow be used against others is minute.\u00a0 It is more akin to a toxic waste site than a weapons bunker.<\/p>\n
In fact, if the bad guys succeed in getting in, it may be one way of getting some of them off the battlefield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Wall Street Journal reports ISIL extremists at a former Iraqi CW facility.\u00a0 The Muthana State Establishment was a huge facility where the Saddam government produced tons of anthrax and sarin.\u00a0 Most of it used against the Iranians in the … Continue reading