- WASHINGTON (AFP) - Nearly
50 European chemical concerns are likely to face a class-action suit early
next year by more than 3,000 sick Gulf War veterans who accuse them of
complicity in Iraq's drive to acquire weapons of mass destruction, an attorney
for the plaintiffs said.
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- The potential case offers an unexpected glimpse into
a sensitive portion of an Iraqi weapons declaration that is being examined
behind closed doors by members of the UN Security Council and UN arms inspectors,
attorney Gary Pitts said Monday.
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- The lawsuit will be based on new documents provided to
the Houston, Texas-based law form of Pitts and Associates by the government
of Iraq, which listed a total of 56 international suppliers of equipment
and raw materials necessary to manufacture sarin, VX, mustard gas and other
chemical agents.
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- "It's the same list of people as in the most recent
(Iraqi) declaration," Pitts said in a telephone interview.
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- A spokesman for the US Central Intelligence Agency, which
is leading the US government's review of the Iraqi declaration, said he
could not comment on the list because of the need to maintain confidentiality.
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- But The New York Times, which broke the story on the
weekend, said its was able to confirm the document's authenticity through
its own sources.
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- The list, obtained by AFP, includes the names of 19 German,
10 British, four Swiss and two French concerns, as well as three companies
from the Netherlands, Austria and the United States that supplied materials
allegedly used in the Iraqi chemical weapons program through the 1980s.
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- Leading the roster is the German firm Preussag, which,
according to the document, supplied Baghdad with tonnes of precursor chemicals
for manufacturing nerve gas, helped it build chemical agent facilities
and sold it chemical agent production equipment.
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- Other German companies include Hoechst, who supplied
in 1982 10 tonnes of phosphorus oxychloride, a chemical used to manufacture
the nerve gas sarin, and Karl Kolb, who provided Iraq assistance in building
and equipping a plant used for chemical weapons production, the document
said.
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- Dutch KBS shipped to Iraq more then three thousand tonnes
of precursor chemicals between 1982 and 1984. At the same time, British
firms Lummus, Gallenkamp, Sigma, Oxoid and others provided laboratory equipment
that Iraqi weapons scientists used in perfecting their deadly agents, the
list indicated.
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