Sarin-ade

OK. So, I've been looking at the transcript in which Brig. Gen. Kimmett announces the finding of the sarin bomb in Baghdad. You can read it here. Now, there are two oddities to note here.

The first is that the munitions are discovered several days ago, yet the news only breaks one day AFTER Colin Powell makes big WMD-questioning headlines.

Q So it's less effective, then. I mean --

GEN. KIMMITT: It's ineffective.

Q It's ineffective --

GEN. KIMMITT: Virtually ineffective as a chemical weapon with the exception of the small trace that was found as they went up and detected it.

Q And it just -- the when and where, if you could be more precise.

GEN. KIMMITT: No. Again, in Baghdad a couple days ago.

The next thing to note is that when a reporter asks whether this finding is sufficiently worrisome (an attempted WMD attack INSIDE OF BAGHDAD) that a general alert should be circulated among Baghdadis, note the ferocity with which Kimmett minimizes the finding's consequence:

Q Evan Osnos, Chicago Tribune. If this is the first evidence or sign of a chemical munition in Baghdad, is there something -- a more broader guidance or advisory that you were planning to put out to the Iraqi people that perhaps there may be chemical munitions now floating around?

And also, does this change your posture in terms of looking for those sorts of weapons from an investigative posture, going back and looking at what Saddam may have been doing, to, in fact, a public security posture?

GEN. KIMMITT: Again, these are -- inside the round it's very hard. You can't sort of break this thing open and take these items and mix them together. You can take common household chemicals, mix them together and have somewhat the same effect. But to suggest that you've got two different chemicals laying about and putting them together makes sarin -- inside that artillery round they're probably safer than common household chemicals because of the integrity of that round, but these kind of questions I would defer to the Iraqi Survey Group to give you a full explanation on them.

Weapons of Mass Destruction? Or household chemicals in a warhead?

Now, lest you think I'm being flippant, please note that this transcript is dated 5/17 @ 10:30AM EDT. How is it that THE NEXT DAY we find Rumsfeld advocating skepticism about the finding?

Rumsfeld noted that the field test that detected the release of sarin "is not perfect".

"What we ought to do is get the sample some place where they can be tested very carefully before coming to a conclusion as to precisely what it was," he said at a question and answer session at a Washington think-tank.

Why does this matter? Well, check out this survey from LAST MONTH...

-- A 51% to 38% majority continues to believe that "Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction," virtually unchanged since February.

-- A 49% to 36% plurality of all adults continues to believe that "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda has been found." These numbers have scarcely changed since June 2003.

-- A 51% to 43% plurality continues to believe that "intelligence given before the war to President Bush by the CIA and others about Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction" was "completely" or "somewhat" accurate. In February a 50% to 45% plurality believed this.

-- While a 43% plurality believes that the "U.S. government deliberately exaggerated the reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to increase support for war," a 50% plurality (also virtually unchanged over the last eight months) continues to believe that the government "tried to present the information accurately."

Are you beginning to see why, after MONTHS of hearing NOTHING about WMD the odd coincidence of this one sketchy munition's discovery and Colin Powell's expressions of regreat about the Winnebagos of Destruction might smell... fishy?

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