John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAMUEL OSBORNE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Germany obtained novichok nerve agent sample in 1990s, reports say
“Development could help explain how Britain was able to analyse poison it says was used to attack former double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter”
Oh, please, this suggestion is nothing more than a new distraction from one of the extreme implausibilities involved in the Skripal Affair. It is disinformation, based on a bit of real information, itself incomplete, and given no context.
The Czechs (and others) have made this stuff, as the government there has already told us.
Its formula was published years ago. I am sure military labs in many advanced countries, including Britain, have worked with it and have samples.
It is one of the jobs of military chemical labs is to investigate and classify the characteristics of potential chemical weapons, and the Porton Down facility, just a few miles down the road, cannot be any different in this respect.
You absolutely must administer an antidote for any nerve agent almost immediately - and there are many such agents, including Saran, VX, and Tabun. Saran, at least, is still heavily stocked in the arsenals of America and Israel.
You wouldn’t even know what antidote to administer at first, even if you suspected nerve agent, which no one did in the early period. And why would they?
The antidote must be administered in minutes, not a half hour or more later. It was that long until these people were discovered, sick on a bench, a place where still more time was consumed by emergency responders, including a local woman doctor who said she spent a half hour with the victims.
So then, the victims were eventually taken to a hospital, where they were treated how, no one having the least notion of such a poison?
And all the people handling the Skripals noticed nothing unusual in smell or appearance, and they themselves had no ill effects. One pin-point drop of nerve agent on the skin is lethal.
The Skripals are said to have been very sick, unconscious, with vomiting and diarrhea and breathing difficulties.
The emergency measures people strongly suspected a Fentanyl overdose. They are common in Salisbury.
Another strong candidate is food poisoning from the fresh shellfish pizza they had both eaten.
The whole story stinks to high heaven, still, after all this time, but the press makes no effort to investigate.
And, of course, it simply should not stink. All the facts could have been published quickly, but were not, and still have not been. Why not?
The British government simply blundered in, making public charges against a major government and taking punitive measures without one scintilla of anything a thinking person would call evidence. Almost laughable were it not such a serious matter.
And why can't even a relative talk to them? Why can't they be interviewed, under guard, if that is felt necessary? Bizarre.
The daughter left a whole world behind in Russia, including a fiancé, a job, and family, but no communication is allowed them?
Essentially, you are re-publishing government press releases.
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Response to another comment:
The entire business is a cover-up. Of just what? Who knows?
We don't have the least idea what actually happened.
And the press makes no effort to find out. None, at all.
See my detailed post above.
