What are WMDs?

Question

Curiously, I had never before heard of "Weapons of Mass destruction" before Bush introduced them to the world. The terrorists were supposed to have them. But what were they? Nukes, chemical weapons or biological weapons?
As of yet, no terrorist has ever used any of the above, and neither is there proof that they have ever had any. But, apparantly WMDs are still being given by the Axis of Evil to the terrorists. Is the term "WMD" intentionally vague in such a way as to slink away from actually proving that such weapons exist?

So, weapons of mass destruction can kill only 5 people? Okay, I guess we are all weapons of mass destruction.

I had forgotten about the good ol' anthrax scare. People being afraid to open their mail. Ho-hum.

Answer 1

WMD is used to refer to ANY weapons that could cause mass destruction, just as the name suggests.

Answer 2

WMDs are weapons that can kill hundreds, if not thousands of people when deployed.

Examples are chemical agents such as sarin, VX, mustard, chlorine, Zyklon-B
Biological - anthrax
Nuclear -not just nuclear warheads but also "dirty" bombs that are explosives tainted with radioactive elements.

The scary truth is - it is only a matter of time before the terrorist lay their hands on a nuke warhead. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many nuke warheads have since disappeared & are still unaccounted for.

Remember the sarin gas attack in Tokyo a couple of years back? The Aum Shinriku cult had former soviet nuclear scientist in their payroll & were trying to develop their own nuclear bombed when hey were discovered & stopped by the Australians.

Answer 3

WMD's are aknowledged as being Chemical (Nerve Agents, etc...), Biological (anthrax, smallpox, etc...), Nuclear ( Atomic or Hydrogen Bombs), or Radiological (Dirty bombs).

And to you bush-hater slander-slinging idiots out there. No Bush did not coin the term. The term was first used in 1937. It has been around for decades but grew in popularity among the otherwise uninformed during the recent War in Iraq.

The term is not intentionally vague. Saddam DID have both Chemical and Biological weapons. HE was actively persuing Nuclear Weapons.

Answer 4

Saddam Hussein seems to have used some chemical agent like mustard gas during the Iran-Iraq war, so "WMDs" do exist.

I agree. Until Bush came along, we had biological, chemical, and nuclear (not nucular) weapons and NO WMDs.

I find it ironic that Bush labeled something he was never able to find! He even joked about it later by searching around under his desk on camera going "Where are they? I was sure they were around here somewhere.?

Seeing how many people voted for this guy TWICE, I really fear for the future of this country. :-(

Answer 5

WMD's, IED's, MRE's, IED: The first time I questioned the term WMD (what it was) was when Sean Penn referred to it when accepting his Oscar: "There were no WMD's."
IED is Improvised Explosive Device and Intermitent Explosive Disorder. An MRE is a Meal Ready to Eat.
Acronym are exploding. It is easier for us to remember 3 letters and associate with a concept than to understand in terms of the actual words and what they really mean. ADD, OCD, ADHD, SARS, AIDS, HIV, VD, VC, HUD, GOP, HOA, KFC...
Sadam actually used a WMD against the Kurds in the 80's. It was a chemical weapon I believe. Did nasty things. I think we did more to Iraq in both wars than they could have ever done to us with all their imagined WMD's. We carpet bombed them. Our air superiority and long range missiles are WDM's that we can deliver with precision and devastating impact. We are so proud of the effectiveness that we show the result on the evening news.

Answer 6

Weapons of mass destruction include nuclear, chemical an biological weapons

Answer 7

The "Weapon Of Mass Destruction" is a russian (soviet to be exact term) used to describe weapon with an "outstanding capacity to kill people", ie nuclear, biological or chemical.

WMD is a easy word used to describe any weapons that we don't want to see in the hand of mad men.

Answer 8

WMD is terms used to describe munitions with the capacity to indiscriminately kill large number of human beings. the phrase broadly encompasess several areas of weapons syntesis, include nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological weapons. today the term WMD means different things to different people.

Answer 9

the are four ( 4) types of WMD'S. Biological, Chemical, Nuclear and Radiation

Answer 10

It refers to any weapon capable of causing mass casualites.

And yes, they HAVE been used by terrorists, and inside the US. Remember the anthrax mailings in October of 2001? Those had the potential of causing hundreds of deaths. Luckily only 5 people died.