US investigates possible chemical agent find

KERBALA, Iraq: US military officers said yesterday first tests on substances found in a central Iraqi town suggested the presence of banned chemical agents — but said they could turn out to be simple pesticides.

Major Michael Hamlet of the US 101st Airborne Division told Reuters that initial investigations of 14 barrels found at a military training camp on Sunday revealed levels of nerve agents sarin and tabun and the blister agent lewisite. He said the find could be the “smoking gun” which proved US and British charges that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been hiding banned weapons of mass destruction — the central plank of their case for military action to overthrow him. But General Benjamin Freakly, also of the 101st Airborne, said later that tests on substances at the camp and a separate agricultural site, both in the town of Albu Mahawish, could show they had a less sinister purpose.

“This could be either some kind of pesticide,” Freakly told CNN. “On the other hand it could be a chemical agent — not weaponised, a liquid agent that is in drums.” A team of experts would carry out further tests as early as today on the substances, discovered 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 (Saddam) has the weapons we have said he has all along,” Hamlet said. “But right now we just don’t know.”

The substances under investigation were found in three 55-gallon barrels and 11 25-gallon barrels, he said. “They look like cocktails. They look like they’ve all got a bit of each in them,” said another officer. Iraq is believed to have used sarin against Kurdish Iraqis in the 1980s. No chemical or biological weapons have yet been fired at US troops in 19 days of fighting, even after advance forces entered Baghdad in recent days. Some American soldiers have even been ordered to discard their chemical protection suits.

The US National Public Radio, reporting what appeared to be a separate discovery to the one in Albu Mahawish, said US forces found a weapons cache of around 20 medium-range missiles equipped with potent chemical weapons. NPR said the rockets, BM-21 missiles, were equipped with sarin and mustard gas and were “ready to fire”. It said the cache was discovered by Marines with the 101st Airborne Division, which was following up behind the Army after it seized Baghdad’s international airport. Officers from the 101st Division and the 3rd Infantry Division at the airport were unable to confirm the report. US Central Command headquarters in Qatar had no immediate comment.

On Saturday, a US officer said first tests of a suspicious white powder and liquid found on Friday in thousands of boxes south of Baghdad indicated it was not a chemical weapon. Over the weekend, US Marines in the central Iraqi town of Aziziya began digging up a suspected chemical weapons hiding place at a girl’s school.