Saturday, July 01, 2006

Raw Story: Inspector testifies that degraded pre-'91 chemical munitions found in Iraq constitute WMD but killed no one

The Raw Story has a report on David Kay's testimony about those old WMDs discovered recently: "The former top US weapons inspector testified at a House hearing on Thursday that close to 500 degraded chemical munitions found in Iraq, and revealed last week, constitute weapons of mass destruction, although they haven't 'killed a single American or Iraqi,' and that his report didn't note them because his team wasn't concentrating on pre-1991 weapons, RAW STORY has found.

Dr. David Kay, formerly First Director of the CIA Iraq Survey Group from 2003 to 2004, was testifying before the House Armed Services Committee which is investigating the results of the search for Iraq's WMD. But Kay also acknowledged that many alleged WMD in Iraq had not been found, when grilled by a Democratic Congressman at the hearing.

'It really should not be a surprise to anyone that chemical munitions produced in Iraq between 1980 and roughly 1991 have been found there during the course of Iraq -- Operation Iraqi Freedom,' said Kay. 'Such rounds continue to be found throughout the period that the UN was in Iraq from 1991 until it was kicked out in 1998; they were even found during Dr. Blix's brief period of return prior to the onslaught of Operation Iraqi Freedom.'

'Iraq has a great deal of weapons scattered throughout it,' Kay said.

But Kay dismissed the 500 degraded chemical munitions that have recently been reported about in comparison to what's killing Americans every day.

'What are the risks from these old chemical weapons?,' said Kay. 'We tragically know that Americans and Iraqis continue to be killed every day by RPGs, mines, 155-millimeter artillery shells, mortar rounds, HMX, RDX and other military-grade explosives, and on and on, that were not brought under control when the Saddam regime collapsed.'"

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