US finds suspected chemical weapons

PRELIMINARY tests on substances found at a military training camp in central Iraq suggest they may contain a cocktail of banned chemical weapons, including deadly nerve agents, US officers said last night.

Major Michael Hamlet of the US 101st Airborne Division said the initial tests revealed levels of nerve agents sarin and tabun, as well as the blister agent lewisite.

Hamlet said a team of experts would carry out further tests today on the substances. They were discovered at the camp in Albu Mahawish on the Euphrates river, between the central Iraqi cities of Kerbala and Hilla, site of ancient Babylon.

"If tests from our experts confirm this, this could be the smoking gun. It would prove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has the weapons we have said he has all along," Hamlet said. "But right now we just don't know."

The United States invaded Iraq on March 20 seeking to overthrow Saddam and prevent him from using banned chemical weapons. Many other members of the United Nations opposed the attack, saying UN inspectors should be given more time to disarm Iraq.

A military source who declined to be identified 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 Major Ross Coffman, a public affairs officer with the US 3rd Infantry.

"We're talking about finding a site of possible WMD (weapons of mass destruction) storage. This is an initial report, but it could be a smoking gun," he said, adding that 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.

Military sources said that experts were looking at three 50-gallon barrels and 11 25-gallon barrels found at the site.

As well as sarin, they may also have found phosgene, a choking agent that causes fluid buildup in the lungs, he said.

The US news station National Public Radio, reporting what appeared to be a separate discovery, said US forces found a weapons cache of around 20 medium-range missiles equipped with potent chemical weapons.

NPR said the rockets, BM-21 missiles were equipped with sarin and mustard gas and were "ready to fire".

It said the cache was discovered by marines with the 101st Airborne Division, which was following up behind the Army after it seized Baghdad's international airport.

Officers from the 101st Division were unable to confirm the report and US Central Command headquarters in Qatar had no immediate comment.

UN weapons inspectors returned to Iraq after a four-year absence last November to look for banned chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Inspectors had not found any such weapons when their search came to an abrupt end as when US-led troops attacked Iraq on March 20.

On Saturday, a US officer said 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.