wu3u
05-18-2004, 12:44 PM
Both David Kay, the Bush Administration's former WMD hunter, and Hans Blix cast considerable doubt on the contention that Iraq had large stockpiles of WMD based on recent WMD "finds:"
Inspectors: Sarin possibly left over from pre-Gulf War
Associated Press
The former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, said it was possible a shell containing ingredients for sarin nerve agent that detonated Monday was a relic that was overlooked when Saddam said he had destroyed such weapons in the mid-1990s.
Kay, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, said he doubted the shell or the nerve agent came from a hidden stockpile, although he didn't rule out that possibility.
Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix agreed the shell was likely a stray weapon scavenged from a dump and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles.
Numerous arsenals and weapons depots were looted in the turmoil following the collapse of the regime last April. Some depots still are only lightly guarded. Many of the materials used for roadside bombs were believed to have been looted.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said he believed that insurgents who planted the explosive did not know it contained the nerve agent. The 155mm shell did not have markings to indicate it contained a chemical agent, a U.S. official said.
He said a U.S. military convoy discovered the round, which had been rigged as an explosive device. A detonation took place before soldiers could make the bomb inoperable, producing "a very small dispersal of agent."
U.S. officials believe that the shell was an experimental munition produced before the 1991 Gulf War, called a binary type -- a bomb carrying two separate chemicals that when combined in an explosion produce sarin.
It appears that two components in the shell that exploded Saturday did not properly mix upon detonation, the U.S. official said.
Blix, whose inspection team didn't make any significant weapons finds during months of searching Iraq before the war, said he and his team found 16 warheads that were tagged as used for containing sarin but were empty.
Saddam's government had disclosed binary sarin testing and production after the 1995 defection of Iraqi weapons chief Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Saddam's son-in-law. But Saddam's government never declared that any sarin or sarin-filled shells still remained.
Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonizing choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas, but that didn't stop other nations from stocking it.
Inspectors: Sarin possibly left over from pre-Gulf War
Associated Press
The former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, said it was possible a shell containing ingredients for sarin nerve agent that detonated Monday was a relic that was overlooked when Saddam said he had destroyed such weapons in the mid-1990s.
Kay, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, said he doubted the shell or the nerve agent came from a hidden stockpile, although he didn't rule out that possibility.
Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix agreed the shell was likely a stray weapon scavenged from a dump and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles.
Numerous arsenals and weapons depots were looted in the turmoil following the collapse of the regime last April. Some depots still are only lightly guarded. Many of the materials used for roadside bombs were believed to have been looted.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said he believed that insurgents who planted the explosive did not know it contained the nerve agent. The 155mm shell did not have markings to indicate it contained a chemical agent, a U.S. official said.
He said a U.S. military convoy discovered the round, which had been rigged as an explosive device. A detonation took place before soldiers could make the bomb inoperable, producing "a very small dispersal of agent."
U.S. officials believe that the shell was an experimental munition produced before the 1991 Gulf War, called a binary type -- a bomb carrying two separate chemicals that when combined in an explosion produce sarin.
It appears that two components in the shell that exploded Saturday did not properly mix upon detonation, the U.S. official said.
Blix, whose inspection team didn't make any significant weapons finds during months of searching Iraq before the war, said he and his team found 16 warheads that were tagged as used for containing sarin but were empty.
Saddam's government had disclosed binary sarin testing and production after the 1995 defection of Iraqi weapons chief Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Saddam's son-in-law. But Saddam's government never declared that any sarin or sarin-filled shells still remained.
Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonizing choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas, but that didn't stop other nations from stocking it.