Earlier this month, some trace residue of mustard agent, an older type of chemical weapon, was detected in an artillery shell found in a Baghdad street, a U.S. official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The shell was believed to be from one of Saddam's old stockpiles and was not regarded as evidence of recent weapons of mass destruction production in Iraq. In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cautioned that the sarin results were from a field test, which can be imperfect and more analysis needed to be done. "We have to be careful," he told an audience in Washington Monday afternoon. Rumsfeld said it may take some time to determine precisely what the chemical was, what its presence means in terms of risks to U.S. forces and other implications. U.S. troops have announced the discovery of other chemical weapons before, only to see them disproved by later tests. Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said "the jury is still out" on whether chemical or other weapons of mass destruction remained in Iraq. The former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, said it was possible the shell was an old relic 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, speaking to the AP in Sweden, agreed the shell was likely a stray weapon scavenged from a dump and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles.?
No doubt because Rumsfeld is currently under-the-gun as never before, he has hastened to make his comments about the uncertain results of preliminary field tests -- something he has never, to my recollection, done before in relation to Iraq Survery Group findings, preliminary or otherwise.