Sarin shell 'probably a stray': Blix

Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said today that a shell containing sarin nerve gas used in an attack in Iraq was probably a stray weapon that could have been dated from the first Gulf War.

Blix said the discovery of the nerve agent was not a sign that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed weapons of mass destruction before the war last year.

The US-led coalition used that claim to justify the invasion even though UN inspectors failed to make any significant finds before the war.

The former Swedish foreign minister said the 155-mm shell used to attack a US military convoy yesterday could have been part of a group of old, unused shells that were simply debris leftover from the war in 1991, adding the weapon could have been scavenged from a dump.

“It doesn’t sound absurd at all. There can be debris from the past and that’s a very different thing from having stockpiles and supplies,” he said in Stockholm. “Whether this may indicate something more … I think we need to know more about it.”

Blix said the weapon could have been scavenged from a dump that could have been dated from the first Gulf War.

Saddam’s regime was told to destroy any weapons of mass destruction under UN resolutions passed after the 1991 war. Blix reiterated that his inspectors found no such weapons in the run-up to the invasion.

“We found a dozen warheads that were intended for chemical weapons and they were empty,” he said.

His inspectors also found four other shells that were designed to carry chemical weapons, including the sarin used in the attack, but they, too, wear empty.

US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad that two soldiers were treated for “minor exposure” to sarin, but no serious injuries were reported. He said he believed that insurgents who planted the explosive did not know it contained the nerve agent.