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http://www.alternet.org/world/trump-going-commit-next-great-american-catastrophe-syria
Russia and the Syrian government now suggest that there was perhaps a
stockpile of such weapons in Khan Shaykhun, which combusted perhaps by a
Syrian Air Force strike. There is no confirmed evidence of any such
warehouse, although the Russian Defense Ministry says that this
information is "fully objective and verified." Whether aerial
bombardment can have this effect on gas housed in a warehouse will need
to be investigated.
---
Like many people, Vijay imagines sarin gas housed in a warehouse along
the lines of what you might see in Home Depot with 10 gallon bottles of
industrial strength floor cleaner stacked on a pallet.
If you are going to write about such matters, you really need to have a
better grasp of the chemistry like Dan Kaszeta who writes for Elliot
Higgins's bellingcat and is is the managing director of Strongpoint
Security Ltd with 24 years experience in
Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear response (CBRN).
I posted a link to his article on the chemical and technical aspects of
this incident yesterday. I will now post the entire article that
illustrates how absurd the Home Depot analogy is.
---
The Chemical Realities of Russia’s Khan Sheikhoun Chemical Warehouse
Attack Claims
(https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/04/05/chemical-realities-russias-khan-sheikhoun-chemical-warehouse-attack-claims/)
In response to allegations of a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun on
April 4th 2017 the Russian Ministry of Defence made a statement where it
claimed a warehouse containing chemical agents was hit in the same town
as the attacks were reported to have occurred:
The Syrian Air Force has destroyed a warehouse in Idlib province where
chemical weapons were being produced and stockpiled before being shipped
to Iraq, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman said.
The strike, which was launched midday Tuesday, targeted a major rebel
ammunition depot east of the town of Khan Sheikhoun, Russian Defense
Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
The warehouse was used to both produce and store shells containing toxic
gas, Konashenkov said. The shells were delivered to Iraq and repeatedly
used there, he added, pointing out that both Iraq and international
organizations have confirmed the use of such weapons by militants.
From a technical chemical weapons perspective, it seems unlikely that
the Russian “warehouse/depot” narrative is plausible as the source of
the chemical exposure seen on April 4th. To date, all of the nerve
agents used in the Syrian conflict have been binary chemical warfare
agents, so-named because they are mixed from several different
components within a few days of use. For example, binary Sarin is made
by combining isopropyl alcohol with methylphosphonyl difluoride, usually
with some kind of additive to deal with the residual acid produced. The
nerve agent Soman can also be produced through a binary process. The
nerve agent VX has a similar binary process, although it proved to be a
more complicated process than merely mixing the materials.
There are several reasons why the Assad regime would use binary nerve
agents. Binary nerve agents were developed by the US military in order
to improve safety of storage and handling, so that the logistical chain
would not have to actually handle nerve agents. The US had developed
some weapon systems that mixed the materials in flight after firing.
These particular weapon systems were the M687 155mm binary Sarin
artillery shell, the XM736 8 inch binary VX artillery shell, and the
Bigeye binary VX air-dropped bomb. All were the product of lengthy
research and development efforts, and none of them worked terribly well
in practice, particularly the VX weapons. There is no evidence that the
Assad regime has ever made or fielded “mix-in-flight” binary weapons.
OPCW inspections after Syria’s accession to the CWC in 2013 revealed a
variety of fixed and mobile mixing apparatus for making binary nerve agents.
The other key reason for binary Sarin is that only a few countries
really ever cracked the technology for making “unitary” Sarin that had
any kind of useful shelf-life. The main chemical reaction that produces
Sarin creates 1 molecule of hydrogen fluoride (HF), a potent and
dangerous acid, for every molecule of Sarin. This residual HF destroys
nearly anything the Sarin is stored in, and quickly degrades the Sarin.
The US and USSR had devoted a huge effort to finding a way out of this
problem. They found different ways to refine the HF out of the Sarin
using very expensive heavy chemical engineering techniques which, for
obvious reasons, are best not described here. Syria either did not
develop such techniques or decided it was far cheaper, safer, and easier
to stockpile binary components for a “mix it as you need it” process.
Hence the “mobile mixing equipment” found by the OPCW. Nor did Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq, which had huge problems with the short shelf life of its
Sarin.
Even assuming that large quantities of both Sarin precursors were
located in the same part of the same warehouse (a practice that seems
odd), an air-strike is not going to cause the production of large
quantities of Sarin. Dropping a bomb on the binary components does not
actually provide the correct mechanism for making the nerve agent. It
is an infantile argument. One of the precursors is isopropyl alcohol.
It would go up in a ball of flame. A very large one. Which has not
been in evidence.
Another issue is that, if the Syrian regime actually did believe that
the warehouse stored chemical warfare agents, then striking it
deliberately was an act of chemical warfare by proxy.
Finally, we are back to the issue of industrial capacity. It takes
about 9 kg of difficult to obtain precursor materials to generate the
necessary steps to produce Sarin. The ratio is similar with other nerve
agents. Having a quantity of any of the nerve agents relies on a
sophisticated supply chain of exotic precursors and an industrial base.
Are we to seriously believe that one of the rebel factions has expended
the vast sums of money and developed this industrial base, somehow not
noticed to date and not molested by attack? It seems an unlikely chain
of events.
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