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Old Chemical Weapons Found in Iraq Ignite Debate on Risk, Threat and Political Agenda
The more than 500 chemical weapons found in Iraq since the 2003 invasion might have been prepared for use in that country’s war against Iran, a former U.S. weapons inspector said yesterday (see GSN, June 22). A report released Wednesday describes the types of weapons that have been located — mostly 155-millmeter shells with mustard gas or sarin nerve agent — and their approximate age. The report also warns that the old chemical weapons could be sold on the black market. David Kay, who led the search for unconventional weapons in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, said experts were in “almost 100 percent agreement” that the sarin nerve agent from the 1980s was degraded and would not be dangerous, the Associated Press reported. “It is less toxic than most things that American have under their kitchen sink at this point,” Kay said. He added that any mustard agent left in Iraq from the 1980s would not be lethal. One official said insurgents have been known to update conventional weapons and could possibly do the same with these. Insurgents are not yet known to have located such weapons. “They are weapons of mass destruction,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding about the danger the weapons could pose to U.S. troops. “They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found.” Representative Jane Harman (D-Calif.) voiced concern of the timing of the report. “What worries me is that the intelligence community, [National Intelligence Director John] Negroponte in particular, may be playing a partisan role in the 2006 election,” said Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) said the report is not a “smoking gun.” He pointed out that the report said the munitions could, in fact, be lethal. The chemical agents might have been inserted into the munitions more recently than the 1991 Gulf War, Hoekstra said. “David Kay says anything produced prior to 1991 is not lethal anymore, so what is the discrepancy here?” Hoekstra said. “I am 100 percent sure if David Kay had the opportunity to look at the reports that describe these things, he would agree with the finding that … these things are lethal and deadly.” The munitions were found over the years in small groupings, said intelligence officials. The weapons were not a threat to U.S. troops prior to the 2003 invasion, one official said. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein did not include them in an organized weapons program, AP reported (Katherine Shrader, Associated Press/Star Tribune, June 23).
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