U.S. military experts are continuing to test suspicious substances found at captured Iraqi sites to determine if they are chemical weapons agents, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, April 8).

There has been no official confirmation of reports that U.S. troops found rockets filled with sarin and mustard gas, said Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, deputy director for operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Testing is still being conducted on substances recovered from other Iraqi sites, including an agricultural compound.

“For the other potential chemical and biological finds, we know that, in fact, there were some positive field tests (indicating chemical arms), but they were mixed,” McChrystal said.  “There were some positive and negative (test results) is my understanding.  And, in fact, we have taken samples out to get definitive testing.  So at this point, it is something we’re looking at closely, but no hard finding,” he said (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, April 9).

Samples taken from suspicious liquids found in drums at the captured agricultural compound have been sent to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland for further identification, defense officials said yesterday.

Testing at Aberdeen is expected to take 72 hours to produce a final result, according to the Baltimore Sun.  Initial field tests produced a high positive result for the presence of weapons agents, a defense official said.

“It warrants doing the second test,” the official said.  “The samples are going to … Aberdeen,” the official added (Tom Bowman, Baltimore Sun, April 9).

U.S. troops have begun searching miles of tunnels running under Baghdad and the surrounding area where Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might have hidden weapons of mass destruction, according to the Associated Press.

“For the type of regime we’re dealing with, the tunnels represent an ideal spot to conceal weapons and serve as a hideout and in some cases an escape route,” said U.S. Central Command spokesman Lt. Mark Kitchens.

Yesterday, about 150 soldiers from the Army’s 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, searched a 12-room complex inside a cave near the airport outside of Baghdad, AP reported.  Inside they found signs of recent abandonment by Iraqi forces, but no soldiers or weapons, AP reported.

“We’re going to have to try to figure out where they go,” brigade commander Lt. Col. Lee Fetterman said.  “There’s no telling,” he added (Robert Tanner, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 9).

The German magazine Stern is preparing to report tomorrow that a handbook was found at a camp of the militant Islamic group Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq that details chemical and biological weapons experiments, according to Agence France-Presse.  Stern reporters found the three-volume handbook, which details successful experiments conducted using ricin and various cyanide compounds, AFP reported.  It also contains information on failed experiments to produce mustard gas and VX (Agence France-Presse, April 9).

ElBaradei Asserts Continuing U.N. Role

U.N. inspectors should be allowed to verify any weapons of mass destruction discovered in Iraq, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said.  “Any test results would have to be verified by the United Nations weapons inspectors to generate the required credibility,” he said (Reuters/Washington Post, April 9).

WMD Existence May Not Matter to Public Opinion

Meanwhile, whether or not the United States finds any evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, it might not have an effect on public opinion domestically or internationally, according to experts.

In the United States, polls show that most people approve of the war and no longer consider finding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as essential to its success, according to the Christian Science Monitor.  The results are reversed, however, in most other countries, where opposition to the war has grown to a point where even the discovery of banned weapons would do little to change it, the Monitor reported.

Suspicions of U.S. motives for the war in Iraq have reached a point in many countries where the discovery of weapons of mass destruction would probably be questioned, experts said.

“Even if large amounts of these weapons were found, I could imagine the public in Germany and around Europe questioning whether the finds were true or simply planted evidence,” said Jens Van Scherpenberg, a security expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

The discovery, or lack thereof, of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could have a more significant impact on public support during the reconstruction phase, according to experts.

“At this point, (finding weapons of mass destruction) is not essential to the public’s continuing support,” said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.  “But it probably would be essential to a retrospective confidence that the war was necessary once we get into the more difficult postwar phase,” he said (Marlantes/LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor, April 9).

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