- UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)
-- U.N. arms inspectors have concluded that the 122 mm chemical rocket
warheads found in an Iraqi bunker earlier this month did not contain any
chemical agents, diplomats said on Wednesday.
-
- The inspectors had sent one of the warheads that appeared
to be filled to a laboratory for tests that turned out negative, chief
U.N. inspector Hans Blix told U.N. Security Council members, the envoys
reported.
-
- Iraq said the rocket warheads were overlooked from a
1991 batch of some 2,000 warheads. They were found at Ukhaider, an ammunition
storage area, 75 miles (120 km) south of Baghdad in a relatively new bunker,
which the inspectors said meant they were moved there in recent years,
-
- A few days later Iraqi officials reported another four
chemical rockets found at another storage depot.
-
- Blix in his critical report to the Security Council on
Monday said the discovery of a few rocket warheads did not solve the problem
of what happened to thousands of other warheads not accounted for in Iraq's
12,000-page arms declaration submitted to the United Nations on December
7.
-
- "The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs
to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate,"
he said in the report.
-
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