Another Translated Iraqi Document: Iraq Successfully Tested Nerve-Gas Detection Equipment In 2001

How does a country without nerve gas successfully test nerve-gas detection equipment?

Ummm...

A caveat: I don't know how discriminating this equipment is. Many nerve gases are chemically similar to pesticides; a lot of the early false-positive detections of "nerve gases" by US troops turned out to be detections of cyclocyanides (I think) found in pesticides.

So, it's possible the "successful test" really only detected the similar chemicals in pesticides, and was treated as successful for doing so.

But would that be a "successful test," really?

And why exactly was Iraq attempting to detect nerve agents at all?

Seems to me a country with nerve agents and the desire to deploy them would certainly want such a capability.

posted by Ace at 01:20 PM

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