More on the Sarin shell in Iraq

William Safire at the NY Times has an interesting op-ed on the Sarin shell found in Iraq.

You never saw such a rush to dismiss this as not news. U.N. weapons inspectors whose reputations rest on denial of Saddam's W.M.D. pooh-poohed the report. "It doesn't strike me as a big deal," said David Kay.

"Sarin Bomb Is Likely a Leftover From the 80's" was USA Today's Page 10 brushoff; maybe the terrorists didn't know their shell was loaded with sarin. Besides, say our lionized apostles of defeat, a poison-gas bomb does not a "stockpile" make. Even the Defense Department, on the defensive, strained not to appear alarmist, saying confirmation was needed for the field tests.

One note about the shell, it appears to be a binary shell, which means two relatively harmless chemicals are stored in separate containers in the shell separated by a membrane of some sort. When the shell is fired, the sudden acceleration causes the membrane to break and the spinning of the shell (due to the rifling of the barrel) mixes the ingredients and suddenly a toxic load is ready to be delivered at its destination. But if a shell is dropped or set off as a bomb, the two chemicals do not mix completely so the amount of gas produced is small or none.