U.S. biological and chemical weapons experts believe they may have found an Iraqi storage site for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). A military source said there were unconfirmed reports there could be sarin — a highly lethal nerve agent that causes death by suffocation — at the site. Iraq is believed to have used sarin against Kurdish Iraqis in the 1980s. "Our detectors have indicated something," said Maj. Ross Coffman, a public affairs officer with the U.S. 3rd Infantry. "We're talking about finding a site of possible WMD storage. This is an initial report, but it could be a smoking gun." The site was south of the central Iraqi town of Hindiyah. "It is not as if there is a cloud of gas hanging everywhere endangering soldiers lives. We're talking about a facility," Coffman added.
On Saturday, a U.S. officer said that first tests of a suspicious white powder and liquid found on Friday in thousands of boxes south of Baghdad indicated it was not a chemical weapon. Over the weekend, U.S. Marines in the central Iraqi town of Aziziyah began digging up a suspected chemical weapons hiding place at a girl's school. The dig began after U.S. forces received information from an Iraqi who described himself as a former special forces member. The informant told the Marines that a team of Iraqi officials broke through the wall of the school two months ago to truck in material and buried it under new concrete — about the size of two tennis courts — in the course of three nights. |