1. Manufacture date may have nothing to do with the usefulness of an item. Nations hold onto useful defense items. We had the same missles and rockets around for years. Did that necessarily make them any less useful? Should nations waste money by manufacturing identical new items, if the old ones are just fine?
2. If weapons and defenses are already in a useful place, they don't get moved. A hospital sounds like a fairly secure and easily reached location. And Saddam's enemies, if they were decent people like us, would probably try to avoid direct hits on hospitals. Were the items at the hospital for years, or moved there around the time the weapons inspectors were in Iraq, or moved there shortly after hostilities began?
3. The condition of the boxes may, or may not, be pertinent. It depends on how they got that way. Boxes don't break themselves.
I'm not curious enough to spend the time to find out if the boxes got broken and dusty shortly before they were found, or if they had been that way for years. Maybe you can help.
Were the boxes broken by fearful Iraqis who thought Saddam would use chemical or biological weapons this year or some time in the past? Were they broken because someone was moving things around? Was the damage and dust from recent hurried activity? Was the cleaning staff on strike?
Were the containers holding antidote broken, too?