Barbelith Underground > Switchboard > Weapons inspection find: The plot thickens

UN inspectors find empty warheads in Iraq

Staff and agencies
Thursday January 16, 2003

Eleven empty chemical weapon warheads have been found in Iraq by UN arms inspectors in what may be the first evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime has been lying about possessing weapons of mass destruction.
The 122mm empty chemical warheads were found during a visit by inspectors to the Ukhaider ammunition storage area in southern Iraq, UN spokesman Hiro Ueki said in a statement tonight.

The warheads were described by as being in "excellent" condition. A US spokesman said the warheads had not been previously declared by Iraq, however the US and British ambassadors to the UN reacted cautiously to the news.

According to the Reuters news agency, Iraq has dismissed the report as a "storm in a teacup" over arms that had long passed their sell-by date.

"These are 122mm rockets with an empty warhead. There are no chemical or biological agents or weapons of mass destruction or linked to weapons of mass destruction," Reuters reported the head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, General Hussam Mohammad Amin, as saying.

"These rockets are expired ... they were in closed wooden boxes ... that we had forgotten about," he told a news conference. He challenged UN inspectors to disprove his claim and described the issue as a "storm in a teacup".

A 12th warhead also was found that requires further evaluation, according to a UN statement which said they were "similar to ones imported by Iraq during the late 1980s". The significance of the find will increase if further tests reveal any actual chemical weapons agents on the warhead.

The warheads were discovered as UN inspectors were looking at a large group of bunkers built in the late 1990s at the Ukhaider facility. The UN statement said the team used portable x-ray equipment to conduct a preliminary analysis of one of the warheads and collected samples for chemical testing, the statement said.

Giving his reaction to the discovery of the empty warheads, the US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, said it was too early to say if Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions banning it from having weapons of mass destruction.

Referring to the date when the UN inspectors are due to give an update to the security council and report on the cooperation they have received from Iraq, Mr Negroponte said: "We will just have to wait and see until January 27 and then we will take it from there."

Britain's UN ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, was also careful not to overstate the significance of the find. He said: "I think it signifies a certain tension in the air ... the lead remains with the inspector, that is the UK's view." He added: "I think every member of the [UN security] council wants the inspectors to do their job in an intensive way."

There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi side. President Saddam's administration has repeatedly denied still possessing chemical weapons, which Iraq has been repeatedly ordered to give up under United Nations security council resolutions dating back to the Gulf crisis of 1990.

Earlier this month, the UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told the UN security council that his team had yet to find any "smoking gun" or evidence of weapons of mass destruction but the US and Britain have remained adamant they are there.

Mr Blix today described the situation around inspections as "tense and dangerous" and urged Baghdad to cooperate to prevent a US-led war. Inspectors have complained that Iraq has failed to provide evidence of action it says it took to destroy stocks of banned weapons following the departure of previous UN teams in 1998.

Following a new security council resolution 1441, passed in November last year, UN inspectors returned to Iraq four weeks ago.

The United Nations has warned Iraq that a failure to observe its ban on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons will have "serious consequences". The United States is already massing forces in the region for a possible invasion to overthrow President Saddam.