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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:33
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Tests show no agent in Iraq mortar shells
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By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
Jan. 14, 2004 | CAMP EDEN, Iraq (AP) -- Tests by Danish and American experts indicate there is no chemical warfare agent in mortar shells unearthed last week in southern Iraq, but more testing is needed to confirm the findings, the Danish military reported Wednesday.
The preliminary findings cast doubt whether the suspicious shells will become the "smoking gun" proving that Iraq still maintained supplies of banned chemical weapons when the United States and its allies launched the war last March.
The U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group conducted tests on five shells and none of them showed traces of chemical agents, the Danish army said in a statement released in Copenhagen.
"Based on the tests, the experts conclude that none of the shells contain chemical warfare agents," it said, adding that more tests are needed for final confirmation.
It is believed the shells, discovered last week by Danish troops, are from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
"There is a certain relief that the shells do not represent a threat for the safety of the local population," the statement said, adding that soldiers expressed "some disappointment" because the hunt for chemical weapons was one of their top priorities.
Before invading Iraq, the United States asserted that Saddam Hussein's regime had stockpiles of mustard gas, a World War I-era blister agent that is stored in liquid form. The chemical burns skin, eyes and lungs.
U.S. intelligence officials also claimed Iraq had failed to destroy stocks of sarin, cyclosarin and VX in violation of U.N. resolutions. So far, however, no such materials have been found nine months after the collapse of Saddam's regime.
The Danish statement said the results of the tests will be sent to the Idaho National Environment Engineering Laboratory and the final verdict will be available in three to five days.
It said if the final results show there was no chemical warfare agents in the shells, they will be destroyed.
Capt. Kim Vibe Michelsen, the spokesman of the Danish army's Camp Eden in southern Iraq, said earlier Wednesday that Danish and British tests had come up positive for blister agent but American experts had concluded otherwise.
However, initial tests by troops in the field are designed to favor a positive reading, erring on the side of caution to protect soldiers. More sophisticated tests are often necessary.
The Danish troops initially found 36 shells, exposed by rain, in the ground outside a village near Qurnah in southern Iraq on Friday. Qurnah is about 250 miles southeast of the capital, Baghdad.
"This was a stash. They were stacked and ordered and wrapped in plastic. They weren't just lying in the ground," Michelsen told The Associated Press. He said they are probably a decade old if not older, and must have been buried at least 10 years ago.
Michelsen said the Danish troops have dug up a total of 50 shells so far and at least 50 more are believed under ground. Villagers told the troops that they had found about 400 or more some years ago and thrown them in the Tigris river, Michelsen said.
The flat muddy terrain where they were found was the scene of intense fighting during the Iran-Iraq war. The villagers told the Danes that one bloody battle was fought in the area in 1984 for seven days.
The villagers said they fled the area and returned after the battle to find all their cattle dead and the area littered with human bodies, Michelsen said. He quoted the villagers as saying that none of the carcasses or bodies bore gunshot wounds, but all were bleeding from mouth and nose.
"This is a clear indication of chemical weapons use," he said.
Michelsen said the 120 mm shells, which have no markings indicating the country of manufacture, "don't look like any known" mortars in the Iraqi arsenal.
Since the war ended, the U.S.-led coalition has found several caches that tested positive for mustard gas but later turned out to contain missile fuel or other chemicals.
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13-01-2004 10:50
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