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Polish army says Iraq shells had deadly cyclosarin
Fri 2 July, 2004 12:18
WARSAW (Reuters) - Artillery shells found by Polish troops in Iraq definitely contained the deadly nerve agent cyclosarin, Poland's military has said.
"The results of ... analysis confirmed that chemical agent GB-GF, cyclosarin, was found in the shells," the Polish-led unit of the multinational force in Iraq said in a statement on Friday.
"Beyond doubt these are shells from the 1980-1988 period, of the type used against Kurds and during the Iraq-Iran war."
Poland said on Thursday its soldiers found 17 Grad rockets and two mortar shells filled with chemicals in late June and that U.S. experts had carried out tests on the weapons.
U.S. officials confirmed late on Thursday that such shells were being tested but said further tests were continuing because initial findings could be misleading. U.S. officials were not immediately available to comment on the Polish statement.
"Some of those warheads were old but it could not be ruled out some could still be used," Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski told Poland's Zet radio on Friday.
The statement from the Polish headquarters at Babylon said the shells had been hidden and that chemicals had leaked from one but the threat had been dealt with. Local people said unidentified individuals had offered the shells for sale.
"If these shells had been used, in a mortar attack on Camp Babylon for example, the results would have been unthinkable," the Polish commander in Iraq, General Mieczyslaw Bieniek, told TVN24 television.
Iraq said it produced cyclosarin munitions in the 1980s to fight Iran but was committed to destroying stocks and ceasing production by U.N. resolutions following the 1991 Gulf War.
U.S. President George W. Bush accused then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of failing to give up chemical and biological weapons and invaded Iraq last year to depose him. Since then, occupying forces have found small quantities of banned weaponry.
