Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Bush: We Found Weapons
I don't but this argument. Finding empty, sterilized mobile laboratories - no matter what they <EM><STRONG>MAY</STRONG></EM> have been for
do not constitute a weapon. A weapon is the finished product of a process or procedure.
A laboratory may be able to make a lot of things, bio-weapons being a <EM>POSSIBILITY,</EM> but without end item no threat.
There was some speculation of it being a <EM>'Just-in-Time'</EM> factory lab with a 45 minute preparation rate, but you can't
just cook-off a batch of Anthrax in a 45 minute session. From what I understand there is a minimun of 48 hours,
maybe as long as 72 hours for an organic batch preparation, then comes the drying down, and micro-milling that
would have to be accomplished to make the clumps of material dispersable.
Ricin is a Castor Bean plant dirivative, heat inactivates the toxin, so cooking it off nullifies the end product.
Serin, not sure how long the batch work-up takes, but the layout and design of these mobile labs would leave
the technicians dead on the floor of the trailer before the work was done - even in their suits.
Mustard gas is not a viable weapon in the atmospheric envelope of Iraq's desserts.
The mobile labs were most likely a fueling support vehicle for short range rockets and were equiped
to handle monomethyl hydrazine or nitrogen tetraoxide propellants. A lot of that stuff has been found.
Once again - if the mobile labs were a weapon it would be used to run over people standing on the road
when they came blazing by at 30 to 40 miles and hour. They are large - and underpowered vehicles.