The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has seized a facility that produced chemical weapons under Saddam Hussein, but the site includes old and contaminated chemical weapons that U.S. officials said would be ineffective and hard to move.
Officials told the Wall Street Journal the weapons at the Al Muthanna complex are also hard to relocate, further complicating any effort by ISIS to use them in its offensive against Iraqi security forces.
Despite confidence that ISIS won’t be able to make the chemical weapons operational, the U.S. remains “concerned about the seizure of any military site" by ISIS, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told the paper. "We do not believe that the complex contains materials of military value, and it would be very difficult, if not impossible to safely move the materials." |