At the desk 6:32 a.m.
Gosh, I thought everyone knew about VX. In fact, I thought everyone knew this exact story:
"VX was supposedly tucked away at the bottom of the ocean, but someone from the government, most likely the CIA, switched the loads in order to hold onto the chemical weapon. They sold the VX to foreign allies in order to finance various unpopular campaigns."
Those two sentences live in the landscape of my mind as just accepted fact. I mean, why were some people so absolutely certain there were "weapons of mass destruction" (i.e., VX) in Iraq? Doesn't everyone know that the Saddam sprayed the Iranians with VX? Or that 'Gulf War Syndrome' is supposedly due to being down wind from *ahem* "chemical weapons" depot demolition? Like the stuff whoever sold the Iraqis when they were our allies and we weren't friendly with the Iranians? Why did they shift to actually destroying the stuff instead of sinking it in ships? I mean, there's a YouTube video about VX.
Everyone has to know about VX. Or so I thought.
So I included VX in the Queen of Cool. Fort Worth is the home of the 370th Chemical Company, one of the few Chemical Companies in the country. VX came and went through Carswell Air Force Base (what is now the Naval Air Station). To me, it all read: "Chemical Warfare" <--that's a link to a Dead Kennedy's song. Don't click it if you're allergic to real punk music. They were talking about stealing some mustard gas' and spraying on the golf club crowd.
As turns out, however, no one remembers VX or the CHASE program or the potential that the CIA (or whomever) stole a bit for their own purposes or even that the Iraqi's were our allies or that the Iranians were our allies or Gulf War Syndrome or really anything about this whole entire mess.
How is it possible that I know all of this and a lot of people don't?
That's my puzzle for the morning.
Did you know about VX? it's link to Gulf War Syndrome? Saddam and VX?
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