Posted on 10/26/2004 11:45:25 AM PDT by Irelamb
"The US military says one sample was labelled "tabun" US troops say they have found thousands of boxes of unidentified white powder and some nerve agent antidote at an industrial site south-west of Baghdad. They also said they discovered documents in Arabic, which apparently explain how to carry out chemical warfare.
A special team has been sent to investigate the discovery at Latifiya - part of a large military complex frequently visited frequently by UN weapons inspectors before the war began.
US troops have also reportedly found a second site nearby containing vials of unidentified liquid and white powder.
The Iraqi authorities have not commented on the finds so far. The regime has denied hiding chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction from UN inspectors.
When hostilities finish, there will be huge pressure on the US and Britain to find Saddam's alleged chemical weapons - the supposed reason for going to war - BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says.
Investigating teams have so far only managed to reach fewer than 1% of all the suspect sites they are interested in, a British military source told the BBC.
Recent inspection
Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said the Latifiya complex was "clearly a suspicious site".
NERVE AGENTS
Iraqi protective gear - found at several sites
Chemical weapons: Nerve agents
But a senior US official familiar with initial testing said the white powder found at Latifiya was believed to be explosives, AP reported.
Latifiya is part of the large Qa Qa military complex, just one of a number of sites clustered around the capital where the Iraqi Government is thought to have developed chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, the BBC's Paul Adams says.
UN inspectors have visited the plant at least a dozen times, including as recently as 18 February.
Nerve agent
In a separate development, US military spokesman Vincent Brooks said troops in the western desert had found what they suspected was a training school for nuclear, chemical and biological warfare.
One bottle found at the site was labelled "tabun" - a nerve agent that the US Government says may have been used during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
"In that particular site, we believe that was the only sample," Brooks said.
"That's why we believe it was a training site. Our conclusion is that this was not a (weapons of mass destruction) site ... it proved to be far less than that."
Photos of the site showed shelves of brown bottles with yellow labels. Brooks said troops did not understand some of the labels and were collecting the bottles for examination by experts."
I question the timing : )
What month is this?
I question the timing : )
If it's true....I LOVE the timing!!!
/sarcasm
Yep, BBC releasing this in April 2003, smells like political timing.
Anything the BBC puts out, I question.
there's nothing surprising about nerve agents..
Iraq used 'em against Iran for 10 years..
we used to see news footage of mustard gasses iranian's quite frequently....
this seems un-exceptional
Old story from April. Dunno what the point was in posting it.
And why are you posting an article from April, 2003? You are aware that it is now October, 2004, are you not?
How much would each vial weigh if "thousands" of them added up to 380 tons, hmmm?
Let's do a bit of quick math. Let's be generous and say that there were a 100,000 vials. 380 tons is 760,000. That means each vial weighs 7.6 pounds.
That is one chunky vial, IMHO.
Hey, it fooled the New York Times, CBS and the Kerry Campaign!
I guess I should have explained. It was reported on FR that HMX is stored as a white powder. As this article in April 2003 states thousand of boxes of the "White powder" was found at the A Qaqaa site. Further the site was secured and being investigated by Army engineers. In addition it names a Col Peabody as a source for what was found. I assume he would be a lot more accurate than teh NYT
Interesting, but sadly not very relevant to the recent NYT report. (maybe you could explain why you posted it)
At any rate, I wonder what the follow up is on this report anyway? Was it verified that these nerve agents were found? Or was this yet another one of those "hyped" news stories that FoxNews was sadly guilty of, more than anyone else, during that time?
Fertilizer, no doubt!
> The Iraqi authorities have not commented on the finds so far.
I question the tense.
What is the date on this story?
If someone wants to revive ignored old WMD stories, they
can get Kerry to explain why the coalition forces
encountered thousands of fresh atropine kits in the
possession of Iraqi troops.
SOMEBODY thought Saddam had deployed chemical weapons.
Actually, this is very relevant to the NYTimes scandal. This article is talking about the 3rd ID screwing around with vials of stuff at al Qa Qa a week BEFORE the NBC News guy got there with the 101st Airborne.
actually, it may be relevant.
The article is dated 4/4/2003.
It would appear that the incident had to happen prior to 4/4/03.
And it shows the US troops had secured something at Alqaqaa....prior to 4/10/03.
try here for a FOX reported AP's take on the incident.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83252,00.html
The date of the story is 4 April 2003, 6 days before the 101st was there with their embedded reporter. The point is not the suspected nerve agent, it's that this was a contemporanious report at the time 380 pounds of HMX were allegedly being looted because the site.
To me it certainly looks like the site was being investigated. They found thousand of boxes of suspected nerve agent. Curiously however, they somehow missed 380 tons of HMX. That doesn't pass the smell test in my book.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.