Rumsfeld: Finding WMDs is key
Early tests find no chemical weapons
NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
April 9 — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld indicated Wednesday that weapons of mass destruction in Iraq may have been moved out of the country and delivered into the hands of terrorist networks.
RUMSFELD EXPRESSED his concerns in response to questions from reporters about finding and destroying significant caches of weapons of mass destruction believed to have been stockpiled by Saddam Hussein’s regime — the original rationale of the U.S.-led campaign that began March 20.
“You bet we’re concerned about it,” Rumsfeld said at a news conference at the Pentagon. “And one of the reasons it’s important is because the nexus between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction — in this case, chemical and biological and nuclear technologies and knowledge — and terrorist groups and networks is a critical link. And the thought that as part of this process, some of ... those materials could leave the country and [be] in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is important to us to see that that doesn’t happen.”
“We are in the process of trying to liberate that country,” he said. “And at the moment [when] the war ends and the coalition forces occupy the areas where those capabilities, chemical and biological weapons, are likely to be, to the extent they haven’t been moved out of the country — it obviously is important to find them.”
TESTS YIELD NO CHEMICAL AGENTS
Rumsfeld spoke a day after U.S. military sources said tests on barrels found in central Iraq did not yield chemical weapons agents, as first suspected. More conclusive testing is still pending. Another suspicious find was also being investigated, while a third report dealing with rockets was discounted by a top U.S. military official.
“I’ve seen nothing in official reports that would corroborate that,” Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. He was referring to earlier news reports that Marines had found rockets, possibly packed with sarin and a mustard agent, at a warehouse outside Baghdad.
The barrels were discovered Monday by troops of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division and had been buried at a pesticide plant in Hindiya, 20 miles southeast of Karbala. The barrels initially tested positive for the nerve agents sarin and Tabun, as well as mustard agent, a blistering chemical first used in World War I.
NBC’s Dana Lewis said the 15 barrels appeared to have been recently buried in a pit and indicated that troops also found weapons in the pesticide plant, suggesting that it might have been a disguised military facility. He said the troops were led to the site by an Iraqi.
Later, more sensitive tests were negative, U.S. military sources officers said Tuesday.
BARRELS NEAR NAJAF
In a separate find, soldiers with the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne on Tuesday discovered an unknown number of barrels near Najaf, south of Karbala, NBC News reported.
Soldiers who opened one barrel experienced nausea, vomiting and a rash. Preliminary testing of the substances was under way.
Samples from the sites were being sent to the United States for more definitive tests. If any of the discoveries were confirmed, it would be the first find of chemical weapons during the war.
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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted Monday that first reports from the battlefield often were incorrect.
“We have to take our time and look at it,” Rumsfeld said, adding that getting samples back to the United States and completing testing could take days.
EARLIER FALSE ALARMS
Earlier reports about possible chemical weapons finds have turned out to be false alarms. Last week, for example, troops searching the Qaa Qaa military complex south of Baghdad found a white powder that was found to be an explosive.
Iraq acknowledged making 3,859 tons of sarin, tabun, mustard and other chemical weapons, though United Nations inspectors suspected Iraq could have made much more. Iraq used mustard and sarin against Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and is believed to have used the chemicals against Kurdish Iraqis.
Sarin and tabun are related nerve agents that kill when absorbed through the skin or inhaled as a gas. They kill by causing convulsions, paralysis and asphyxiation.
Mustard gas begins dissolving tissue on contact and is particularly harmful to eyes and lungs. It does not usually kill, but it causes painful injuries that can linger for a lifetime. Lewisite, another World War I-era creation, acts as a systemic poison, causing pulmonary edema, diarrhea, restlessness, weakness, subnormal temperature and low blood pressure. |
