Sarin Discovery Deserved More than a Blasé Response

Thursday, May 20, 2004

(12:00 AM ET)

By Collin Levey

Seattle Times Editorial Columnist

Collin Levey writes Thursdays for editorial pages of The Times. E-mail her at clevey@seattletimes.com.

Like the memo informing the Bush administration that Osama bin Laden was maybe possibly thinking about using planes to ill effect, the discovery of a potential weapon of mass terror in Iraq is a warning we could regret missing in hindsight.

ST
We felt a little like we'd fallen down a rabbit hole this week on hearing that an artillery shell that tested positive for sarin had been discovered in a roadside bomb in Baghdad. It wasn't the nasty stuff itself that was curious — as Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld intimated, some stray chemical munitions could signify any number of things, or not much at all. The extraordinary part was the tizzy the media and various noteworthies were in to discount it.

It hadn't been but a few hours since the news broke when former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix grabbed a microphone somewhere to huff that the discovery meant nothing. Others briskly offered that the shell was more likely the bounty of a scavenger hunt by yahoos who didn't even know what they had.

Fair enough to be sure: At this point, none of us knows. But even forgetting the potency of one drop of liquid sarin, when did the prospect of the accidental use of loose WMDs become reassuring?

Fingers have been chewed to the quick around the world at this same prospect for years. Anyone old enough to drink has probably watched at least one show fretting over the whereabouts of vast stockpiles from the former Soviet Union. Given that Iraq's history of using sarin gas during the Iran-Iraq war and against the Iraqi Kurds is well-documented (Saddam Hussein listed some 800 tons in his possession at one point), a twinge of concern wouldn't be inappropriate.

Unlike the possibility that Saddam was deceived by desperate scientists into believing that they were having some success with the nukes project when they weren't, sarin isn't all that tough to come by. The Japanese cult Aum Shinrykyo famously cooked up a little batch just for a subway attack back in 1995, killing a dozen with its symptomatic paralyzing of the muscles around the lungs until it smothers its victims. Its ease of use and strength make it a commonly considered possibility for fringe groups with more bloodlust than resources.

Meanwhile, we have little right to feel so casual about it. New York City this week had its first major response drill for a chemical or biological attack in the city's subway system. Walking into a basketball arena or a graduation ceremony in New York these days may feel like a trip to Fort Knox.

And we agonize over the thoroughness of security screeners at our airports. But as the train bombing in Madrid made abundantly clear, public transportation and other places where nerve gases could percolate are almost totally accessible to terrorists.

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Dan