Terror Math

[dude1394]

For all those who would downplay this finding, I offer the following lesson in “terror math”:

It takes 1 drop (1 mg) of sarin to kill an average person.

The artillery shell that was found contained 3 to 4 liters of sarin.

1 milligram (mg) equals 1 microliter (1/1000000 of a liter).

3-4 liters equates to 3-4 million drops, enough sarin to kill 3-4 million people.

Obviously, it would be impossible to distribute 3-4 million drops of sarin in an effective enough manner to kill millions of people. But consider this:

The artillery shell that was found contained enough sarin that it could be divided up into 1000 300mg doses.

Each 300mg dose could kill 3000 Americans, the number that died on 9/11.

From that single artillery shell, 1000 "new 9/11s” could be attempted.

Many, if not most, would likely fail. But how many would succeed? How many American deaths lay waiting in that one “WMD?” One shell, 1000 “9/11s”. Now ask yourself how many more deaths are waiting in shells that were “overlooked” or “misplaced?”

Everyone get the picture now?

[u2sarajevo]

From what I understood about the detonated munition that was found having sarin gas it was a binary munition. Which I didn't know what that meant until I looked it up.

From what I could gather.... a binary munition is a more complex warhead that contains two chambers, containing a different chemical in each chamber that in it's non detonated state is for the most part harmless. The way the bomb works is that when the munition is spun at high speeds the chemicals in the chambers are triggered to meet each other in a third chamber. When the chemicals meet they produce the toxic gas or chemical agent that is deadly.

The reason this bomb did not do more harm is because it was rigged as a roadside bomb.... which means that the most important part of making it a highly deadly weapon.... a "weapon of mass destruction".... did not occur. It was not spun, nor sent at a high speed therefore it rendered the weapon highly non-threatening in a WMD sense.

So I take it from that that the persons that detonated the bomb either didn't know how to properly deliver use the WMD, or they didn't know it was a WMD. Either one of those scenarios scares the living hell out of me.

I can only imagine the fear it might put in our troops knowing that surely it is only a matter of time before the correct use of such weapons is figured out by our enemy.

[madape]

They didn't know it was chemical because it wasn't marked as such. There is one obvious reason why it was not marked as a sarin gas bomb - to deceive the UN weapons inspectors.

[dalmations202]

Originally posted by: madape
They didn't know it was chemical because it wasn't marked as such. There is one obvious reason why it was not marked as a sarin gas bomb - to deceive the UN weapons inspectors.

The UN Weapons inspectors could have seen thousands of these, and never ever known it. That is the biggest problem with Biological weapons. If they weren't marked, you probably had better odds at winning the lottery, than them checking all the artillery shells.

[LRB]

Not the mention that the UN inspectors were only shown what Saddam wanted them to see. There could literally be hundreds of tons of WMD's hidden in Iraq and we'd have little chance of finding them without good human intel. Of course we could have killed everyone who knew where they are in removing Saddam from power. But you don't need hundreds of tons of WMD's to kill thousands or even hundreds of thousands of innocents. You only need a few pounds. That few pounds could have been in Iraq when we invaded, but could be pretty much anywhere now. That's scary. But at least we have made sure that Saddam won't be producing any more.