[CLUE-Talk] a new note in the usa/iraq tune

[G. Richard Raab]

On Saturday 2004 January 24 10:28 pm, Timothy C. Klein wrote:

> This is only partially true, to my mind.  Hiding modest stockpiles of
> chemical or bio weapons *might* be easy -- hiding infrastructure to
> produce said weapons would not be.  Not by a long shot.  We have
> exhausted pretty much all the posibilties on serious bio- or
> chem-weapons production facilties.  They didn't exist.  The nuclear
> weapons productions facilities would be even harder to hide -- we have
> found nothing.

Actually, Biological weapons production are trivial. Depending on how much 
your wish to produce, it can be done in a closet or a simple basement. the 
equipment itself is also very easy to make out of common stuff.

And yes, I have a background in this. My first degree was in microbiology and 
I was doing DNA work back in the early 80's.  But you do not need all that. 
If you go the library (or even the internet), you will find huge amounts of 
info for growing bacteria or viri. 

Consider the case of the anthrax that the government is keeping quiet about 
these days. It was obvious that it was Americans from the early gitgo on that 
one and that it required several ppl to do it (What is of interest is how the 
admin has responded, but that is for later ). The group most likely had 1 to 
2 ppl do the growth and sporing of it. I would also hedge a bet that they did 
it in their basement (it is possible that it was done in bio facilities, but 
I do not think so).

Most Chemical weapons will most likely involve the tell-tail buying of base 
chemicals. Ask any meth chemist how much work they have to do to hide their 
buying habits. Yet, they can create a lab in a kitchen with some large 
production. Of course, you might go for biological based chemicals such as 
ricin (from castor bean) or perhaps botulism (from C. Botulinim which only 
requires anarobic conditions to grow and produce). In fact, once you have a 
small vial of botulinum, you could dump it easily in several resevoirs in any 
major city and wipe out almost everybody. I have not stayed up on technology, 
but I doubt that a sensor has been developed for it. Hopefully it has.

-- 
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cheers
g.r.r.