Suspected WMD site in Iraq turns out not to be chemical weapons
... "well not the ones we wanted to find"
A military intelligence officer for the US 101st Airborne Division's aviation brigade, Captain Adam Mastrianni (no relation but still a bit of an Italian stallion) , told AFP news agency that comprehensive tests determined the presence of a compound known as 'KFC11'.
Initial tests had reportedly detected traces of sarin - a powerful toxin that quickly affects the nervous system - after US soldiers guarding the facility near Hindiyah, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, fell ill.
Captain Mastrianni (no relation but still better than being French) said a "theatre-level chemical testing team" made up of Stanislavsky trained biologists and chemists had finally disproved the preliminary field tests results and established that 'KFC11' was the substance involved.
He said that sick soldiers, who had become nauseous, dizzy and developed skin blotches, had all recovered. Head of the chemical testing team Colonel Harland Kevorkian said "it was an easy enough mistake to make as the symptoms of sarin exposure are almost identical to those experienced by people who have ingested KFC Honey BBQ Boneless Wings or KFC® Popcorn Chicken."
The turnaround was an embarrassment for the US forces in the region, which had been quick to say that they thought they had finally found the proof they have been actively looking for that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction.
A spokesman for the US army's 3rd Infantry Division, Major Ross Coffman, had told journalists at Baghdad's airport that the site "could be a smoking gun, could be a Mattel water pistol or could be a big hole in the ground where Saddam's poodles buried their bones ... could be we haven't got a fucking clue. We just know that this city is freakin' ours. So piss off, we've got some Stars and Stripes to hoist."
The fact that the coalition forces have come up with no clear evidence of WMD after capturing much of Iraq in 19 days of fighting has raised questions over the war's justification.
General Tommy Franks was quick to respond to this criticism and told the 3 surviving embedded reporters that, "even if we don't physically turn up the WMDs we have a paper trail which we can follow. Already we have turned up hundreds of boxes of invoices from USA companies.
Make no mistake the Saddam double we are currently huntin' down and smokin' out is an evil bastard. The real Saddam what we sold all those Acme Junior Chemistry Sets to back in the 80s was a really cool guy. Wouldn't have hurt a fly, unless of course you were an Iranian fly.
Now you can all go and get fucked, I don't give a flying conjugation about what you report. Have a nice day and you be careful out there."
The ROTW list of sites that provide hotlinking.