Gas Warheads Ready to Fire

[MORTARDUDE]

http://nypost.com/news/worldnews/72975.htmU.S. experts will study samples of suspected nerve gas found in 20 newly discovered Iraqi missile warheads that may be the "smoking gun" of Saddam Hussein's long-denied illegal arms cache, officials said yesterday.



Pentagon officials said reports of the ready-to-fire missiles found near Baghdad - as well as chemicals in huge metal drums hidden near Karbala - were the hardest evidence so far of the weapons of mass destruction that U.N. weapons inspectors failed to find.

The 20 missiles were discovered in a warehouse by troops making a sweep near Baghdad, said a National Public Radio reporter traveling with the soldiers.

The medium-range BM-21 missiles - which travel 15 miles - were equipped with sarin and mustard gas and were "ready to fire," U.S. officials said, according to NPR.

It said the cache was discovered by Marines on the move with the 101st Airborne Division, who were following up after the seizure of Baghdad's international airport.

There were no other details given and no immediate comment from coalition officials in the Mideast.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington that it would take "days" before sophisticated lab tests could confirm that site held lethal weapons-grade chemicals - and he warned that initial reports of such finds are often wrong.

But Pentagon officials privately were intrigued by the missile discovery - and by the 14 barrels found Sunday in the city of Hindiyah, 60 miles south of Baghdad.

Maj. Michael Hamlet of the 101st Airborne said initial tests showed the barrels held the nerve agents sarin and tabun and the mustard-gas-like lewisite.

But later, another officer, Capt. Adam Mastrianni, told Agence France-Presse that more comprehensive tests determined that the barrels only contained pesticides.

The barrels were nonetheless dangerous - some soldiers became nauseous, dizzy and developed skin blotches after contact with the three 55-gallon barrels and 11 25-gallon barrels.

All the soldiers recovered from their exposure, Mastrianni said.

Two of them were found to be suffering from heat exhaustion, not chemical exposure.

The barrels were found in a camouflaged pit near an agricultural compound.

There had been great interest in Washington in the discovery at Hindiyah.

"The chemical teams in the field are reporting this and treating this as the real deal," an Army official told The Post earlier.

U.S. officials said they were investigating a third report, by The Wall Street Journal, of sarin and mustard gas being found in a captured Iraqi military vehicle.

The report said soldiers from the 101st Airborne found the suspected chemicals in an Iraqi BMP armored personnel carrier. No other details were known.

If the new reports are confirmed, these would be the first chemical or biological weapons discovered since the fighting began.

U.N. weapons inspectors had no immediate reaction.