WMD rockets with chem warheads: Iraq

[wrbones]

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/iraq2003/index.html

U.S. Troops Find Possible Chemical Warheads Site
Soldiers with the Army's 101st Airborne Division discover what they believe to be an Iraqi storage site for chemical warheads, U.S. commander says. Describing the discovery as a potential "smoking gun," the official says soldiers found in a warehouse outside Baghdad about 20 medium-range rockets with warheads containing sarin and mustard gases. Hear NPR's John Burnett. April 7, 2003

[thedrifter]

Initial Tests Suggest WMD 'Cocktail' Found in Iraq
Mon April 7, 2003 01:06 PM ET
KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Preliminary tests on substances found at a military training camp in central Iraq suggest they contain a cocktail of banned chemical weapons, including deadly nerve agents, U.S. officers said on Monday.
Maj. Michael Hamlet of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division said the initial tests revealed levels of nerve agents sarin and tabun and the blister agent lewisite, Reuters correspondent Kieran Murray reported from a U.S. military post at Kerbala.

Hamlet said a team of experts would carry out further tests as early as Tuesday on the substances, discovered at the camp in Albu Mahawish, on the Euphrates river between the central Iraqi cities of Kerbala and Hilla, site of ancient Babylon.

"If tests from our experts confirm this, this could be the smoking gun. It would prove (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) has the weapons we have said he has all along," Hamlet said. "But right now we just don't know."

The United States invaded Iraq on March 20 to overthrow Saddam and prevent him using banned chemical weapons. Many other members of the United Nations opposed the attack, saying U.N. inspectors should be given more time to disarm Iraq.


Sempers,

Roger