Polish Troops Find Sarin Warheads in Iraq
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, July 1, 2004
WARSAW, Poland Polish troops have found two warheads in
Iraq believed to contain a deadly nerve agent, but it is not clear
what period the weapons came from, the Defense Ministry said
Thursday.
The two warheads were found in early June in a bunker in the
area controlled by Polish forces, and they tested positive for
cyclosarin, a substance many times stronger than sarin, the
ministry said in a statement.
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"There is no doubt that the warheads contain chemical
weapons," Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski told TVN24. "The
problem is what period they came from, whether the Gulf
War or earlier, and whether they were usable, partly usable or not
at all."
Another dozen were found later in June and were being tested in
Baghdad and the United States, he said.
"Some of them are very corroded. They are probably not usable,
but are dangerous to the local environment," Szmajdzinski said.
In May, an artillery shell apparently filled with the sarin
nerve agent was discovered at the side of the road in Baghdad by
U.S. forces.
Officials at the time stopped short of claiming the munition was
definite evidence of a large weapons stockpile in prewar Iraq or
evidence of recent production by Saddam Hussein's regime.
Poland sent troops to the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein
and commands about 6,200 international troops, including about 2,400
from Poland, in south-central Iraq.
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