www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/04/iraq/main547667.shtml
But a senior US official familiar wi th initial testing said the materials were believed to be explosives. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Divisio n, said the materials were found Friday at the Latifiyah industrial comp lex just south of Baghdad. CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports that the hu nt for weapons of mass destruction continues at sites where the US tho ught chemicals weapons might be hidden. "And although there are no reports of actual weapons being found, there a re constant finds of suspicious material," Martin said. "It obviously wi ll take laboratory testing to find out exactly what that powder is." The senior US official, based in Washington and speaking on condition o f anonymity, said the material was under further study. The site is enor mous and US troops are still investigating it for potential weapons of mass destruction, the official said. "Initial reports are that the material is probably just explosives, but w e're still going through the place," the official said. Peabody said troops found thousands of boxes, each of which contained thr ee vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare. He also said they discovered atropine, used to counter the effects of ner ve agents. The facility had been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agenc y as a suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons site. UN ins pectors visited the plant at least nine times, including as recently as Feb. The facility is part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosive s and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa. Troops also discovered what they believe is a training center for nuclear , chemical and biological warfare in Iraq's western desert, Brig. government says may have been used during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. The soldiers found only a small amount of the chemical, indicating the site was meant for training, not storing or deploying chemical weapons, Brooks said. "In that particular site, we believe that was the only sample," Brooks sa id. Our conclusion is tha t this was not a (weapons of mass destruction) site ... Photos of the site showed shelves of brown bottles with yellow labels. Br ooks said troops did not understand some of the labels and were collecti ng the bottles for examination by experts. On April 1, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, in a statement on I raqi television, repeated Baghdad's position that it had no weapons of m ass destruction. Referring to reports that gas masks and other chemical gear had been found elsewhere in the country, he said the coalition migh t plant weapons of mass destruction to implicate Iraq. "Let me say one more time that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destructio n," he said. "The aggressors may themselves intend to bring those materials to plant t hem here and say those are weapons of mass destruction," he said. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
US Special Forces alongside the Kurds say they have secured a compo und used for chemical weapons production controlled by suspected terrori sts, Ansar al-Islam, Allen Pizzey reports.
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