Brits' Chilling Chem-nuke Find

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/72332.htm
BRITS' CHILLING CHEM-NUKE FIND

By DEBORAH ORIN
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WITCHES' POTIONS:
Nerve-gas simulators and other items used for training in biological and chemical warfare were seized in the raid.
- Simon Walker/Pool


March 31, 2003 -- British troops have made an eerie discovery in occupied Iraq - a facility filled with training equipment for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, according to British press reports.
The existence of the facility - packed with gear such as Geiger counters, nerve gas simulators, gas masks, protective suits and even a schematic of a nuclear mushroom cloud - flies in the face of Saddam Hussein's denials that his country is pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

One document at the facility - which was discovered near the key port of Umm Qasr - appears to give directions on sarin and other banned nerve gasses.

Top Pentagon officials say they believe the risk of Iraqi troops using chemical weapons will rise as coalition forces move closer to Baghdad. The enemy has been repeatedly warned that they'll be treated as war criminals if they use such weapons.



"There is no doubt that they have chemical weapons [and] means of delivery," said Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard Myers.

"Most of the chemical, biological sites that we're concerned with . . . are much closer to the Baghdad region, so I think it's going to take some more advance and for people to come forward and point out where these sites are."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told ABC's "This Week" yesterday that it's no surprise that U.S.-led forces haven't yet found the actual chemical weapons because most of them are near Baghdad and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

"The area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial," Rumsfeld said. "It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed."

Baghdad is defended by Saddam's elite Republican Guard, which is suspected by U.N. inspectors to be concealing information about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs. During the 1990s, inspectors were repeatedly denied access to Special Republican Guard facilities in Baghdad.

The British find makes at least three sites where Iraqi chemical weapons gear was found - U.S. Marines on Saturday found over 300 chemical protection suits and gas masks at a compound used by Iraq's 11th Infantry Division in Nasiriyah on the Euphrates River.

They also found injectors of atropine - an antidote for nerve agents - and chemical decontamination vehicles and devices, the U.S. Central Command reported.

Earlier last week, the Marines found more than 3,000 chemical protection suits - again with gas masks, decontamination devices and atropine injectors - at a supposed hospital in Nasiriyah that's now believed to have been a base for paramilitary Iraqi troops.

Myers yesterday said "we found some chemical suits in the north [of Iraq] as well" but gave no details.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that special operations teams had found no banned weapons at the 10 highest-priority sites believed to house chemical warheads and Scud missiles.

Myers and Rumsfeld said a search of a suspected poison factory in northeastern Iraq with possible links to the al Qaeda network would take some time.