NEAR NAJAF, 8 April 2003 — A facility near Baghdad that a US officer had said might finally be “smoking gun” evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons production turned out yesterday to contain pesticide, not sarin gas as feared.
A military intelligence officer for the US 101st Airborne Division’s aviation brigade, Capt. Adam Mastrianni, said comprehensive tests determined the presence of the pesticide compounds.
Initial tests had reportedly detected traces of sarin — a powerful toxin that quickly affects the nervous system — after US soldiers guarding the facility near Hindiyah, 100 kilometers south of Baghdad, fell ill.
Mastrianni said: “They thought it was a nerve agent. That’s what it tested. But it is pesticide.”
He said a “theater-level chemical testing team” made up of biologists and chemists had finally disproved the preliminary field tests results and established that pesticide was the substance involved.
Mastrianni added that sick soldiers, who had become nauseous, dizzy and developed skin blotches, had all recovered.
The turnaround was an embarrassment for the US forces in the region, which had been quick to say that they thought they had finally found the proof they have been actively looking for that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction.
A spokesman for the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, Maj. Ross Coffman, had told journalists at Baghdad’s airport that the site “could be a smoking gun”.
Senior US officers appeared unconcerned. Despite sending forces deep into Iraq prepared at any minute for a nuclear, biological or chemical attack, they ordered forces in Baghdad yesterday to shed their protective gear.
“It’s great to have them off,” Lt. Col. Fred Padilla, commander of the 1st Marines battalion, said after his troops stripped down to lighter camouflage garb.
Padilla said an order to take off the cumbersome and hot protection suits had come down from his superiors. “They made an assessment and they determined there was not a serious threat right now,” he said.
The Marines were pushing toward Baghdad from the southeast in a bid to complete the encirclement of the capital after US Army troops fought their way around the western edge to the north on Sunday.
The contradictory signals from and within the US military, and the fact that the forces have come up with no clear evidence of WMD after capturing much of Iraq in 19 days of fighting raise questions over the war’s justification.
