According to an armaments officer I know, who evaluated Iraqi weapons before Gulf War I, here's how these warheads for 122 mm short-range rockets, were designed to work -- The Iraqis used bi-polar chemicals, which had to be kept separate until the point of impact, when they mixed and created the deadly chemical result. Furthermore, the chemicals had to be kept refrigerated, or within a period of no more than 30 days, they would deteriorate.
I followed up with my source, and asked this question, "What would happen if a warhead was loaded with chemicals, and then allowed to sit?" He said the chemicals would deteriorate, would damage the mechanisms in the wqarhead, corrode the metal, and could not be effectively be cleaned out. In short, a "loaded" warhead sitting in a corner would be no more useful than a large rock, hurled by a medieval catapult.
The ONLY way these warheads are useful is if they are empty now, and the chemicals to load them are safely hidden and refrigerated until the war has begun and they are needed. Anything said to the contrary, in this article or anywhere else, is false as a matter of the chemistry of the potential use of such warheads.
Parenthetically, my source also told me that the chemistry was the reason such weapons were not used against American troops in Gulf War I, was the lack of electricity, causing deterioration of the chemicals in the weapons Hussein had ready to use at that time. The bombing campaign then cut off all sources of electricity at the front, and also the movement of any refrigerated trucks down the Basra Highway from Baghdad. The weapons were there -- but whether or not the order to fire them was given, the weapons were useless when the troops came in.
Congressman Billybob