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The New York Times reported yesterday that what began on Tuesday "as a hunt for an ancient Jewish text at secret police headquarters [in Baghdad,] wound up unearthing a trove of Iraqi intelligence documents and maps relating to Israel as well as offers of sales of uranium and other nuclear material to Iraq." Among the finds by the U.S. MET Alpha soldiers - the "mobile exploitation team" that has been searching for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Iraq for the past three months - were maps featuring terrorist strikes against Israel dating to 1991, another map of Israel highlighting...

US HUNT 'SMOKING GUN' The United States is testing materials found in Iraq that may have been used to make chemical weapons. Some reports say 14 unmarked drums showed the presence of nerve and blistering agents. Previous finds have proved to be false alarms. It comes as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld heads to the Middle East with the end of major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr Rumsfeld said the trip would take him to Afghanistan, but gave no other information on other countries he will visit. It is his first visit to the region since the fall...

<p>BAIJI, Iraq — Initial tests on a pile of 50-gallon drums found by U.S. troops near this small industrial town north of Baghdad came up positive for chemicals used to make weapons of mass destruction, military officials said.</p> <p>"We've confirmed that we have a cyclo-sarin agent also known as CF," said Lt. Valerie Phipps, a chemical and biological weapons specialist with a reconnaissance element of the Army's 4th Infantry Division.</p>

April 27, 2003 U.S. Plans to Add to Teams to Hunt for Iraqi WeaponsBy STEVEN R. WEISMAN ASHINGTON, April 26 — The Bush administration, concerned about the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, is moving to triple the size of the team searching for scientists and for incriminating lethal materials. Some officials are even saying that they are losing hope of finding actual weapons.Administration officials, some speaking publicly and some on condition of anonymity, insist that they remain entirely confident that evidence of illegal chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs — as opposed to the weapons themselves — will...

American-led forces have occupied a vast warehouse complex in Baghdad filled with chemicals where Iraqi scientists are suspected of having tested unconventional agents on dogs within the past year, according to military officers and weapons experts. The officers and experts declined to comment on the source of the information that led them to the warehouse, given the sensitivity of both the source and current operations. Weapons experts and officers who have seen the warehouse said it was heavily looted before members of Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha and other allied forces seized and secured it. They described it as filled with...

<p>April 22, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - An Iraqi scientist has led U.S. forces to a secret new trove of ingredients and equipment to make chemical weapons - the most promising discovery to date in the search for Saddam's banned weapons, it was revealed yesterday.</p>

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — An Iraqi scientist who claims to have worked in Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons program told a U.S. military team that Iraq destroyed and buried chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began March 20, a newspaper reported Monday.</p>

An Iraqi scientist claims Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment days before the war began, according to a New York Times reporter embedded with the 101 Airborne division. The scientist also claims Iraq transferred some illicit weapons to Syria and recently was cooperating with Osama bin Laden's terror network al-Qaida. According to Times correspondent Judith Miller, the scientist claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program. Officials consider him credible and describe the material unearthed over the last three days at sites to which he led them as precursors for a toxic agent that is banned by...

Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert By JUDITH MILLER [W] ITH THE 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION, south of Baghdad, Iraq, April 20 ? A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said. They said the scientist led Americans to a supply of material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, which he claimed to have buried...