[Washington Post] Colum Lynch - UN weapons inspectors stumbled upon evidence of Saddam Hussein's elusive weapons of mass destruction: a vial of potentially lethal chemical gas that was stored in a UN shipping crate in midtown Manhattan, just a block from UN headquarters, more than 10 years ago and forgotten, UN officials announced Thursday. Experts from the UN Monitoring and Verification Commission - which is set to shut down in the coming months - found a small sample of phosgene, a choking agent. The chemical gas was recovered from Hussein's Muthanna chemical weapons facility in 1996, according to Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the UN commission. Svetlana Utkina, a Russian weapons expert who works for the commission, said that the phosgene, if exposed, could have been deadly. "Your lungs would collapse immediately if you inhale this substance," she said.
2007-08-31 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive