flynn23 wrote:
] ] It was also a prime example of how private companies
] ] violated the embargo that the U.S. and the United Nations
] ] imposed on Iraq more than a decade ago.

This is still a big question in my mind. Especially with all the news reports about the thousands of gas masks and chemical protection suits that are being found in Iraq.

I've been scouring the news and blog sites for more information about those masks, but have yet to find one particular key piece of information: Who made the gas masks? Let alone who sold them to Iraq, or whether or not a well-equipped army or hospital *should* have gas masks on hand (I see it as a reasonable measure), I am still extremely curious as to who made those thousands of gas masks and protection suits, and how they found their way into Iraq. Were they locally produced? American-made? Russian imports? Czechoslovakian-knockoffs? Serbian surplus? None of the articles say, which I find as extremely curious, since the origins of nearly everything else *are* mentioned -- Russian weaponry, Syrian shipments of night goggles, Chinese-made silkworm missiles, etc. But the *thousands* of gas masks are still "origin unknown".

There *has* been mention in a couple places that the expiration date on some of the masks was clearly visible as 2007. So we know that they're new, and there's some type of documentation with them, in some readable language (or at least the numbers are readable), but we still don't know what the "Made in _____" tag says.

Maybe this means something, and maybe it doesn't. But one of the things I'm good at is spotting patterns, and this pattern still bothers me.