Chemical Munitions Found by Polish Soldiers in Iraq Date Back to 1980s

Associated Press | July 2 2004

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Warheads believed to contain the deadly nerve agent cyclosarin that were found by Polish troops in Iraq date back to Saddam Hussein's war with Iran in the 1980s, authorities said Friday.

"Beyond any doubt, the warheads date back to 1980-88 and were used against the Kurds and in the Iraqi-Iranian war," said a statement from the Polish command.

Last month, Polish troops in south-central Iraq recovered 17 rockets for a Soviet-era launcher and two mortar rounds filled with chemical substances, said Lt. Col. Robert Strzelecki, a spokesman for the Polish-led force, in a telephone interview from Iraq.

"Laboratory tests showed the presence in them of cyclosarin, a very toxic gas, five times stronger than sarin and five times more durable," multinational force commander Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek told Poland's TVN24 at the force's Camp Babylon headquarters.

"If these warheads, which were still usable, were used on a military base like Camp Babylon, they would have caused unforeseeable damage," Bieniek said.

The tests were done by American experts in the United States and Iraq and are still ongoing.

The munitions were found in a bunker in the Polish sector.

In May, an artillery shell apparently filled with the sarin nerve agent was discovered at the side of the road in Baghdad by U.S. forces. Officials at the time stopped short of claiming the munition was definite evidence of a large weapons stockpile in prewar Iraq or evidence of recent production by Saddam's regime.