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| Nieuwe Oorlog 2004 / Ander Nieuws week 49 |
Hans Blix, former UN chief weapons inspector said that he will be "surprised" if a chemical laboratory found in Iraq was capable of creating weapons.Al Jazeera
November 26, 2004"Let's see what the chemicals are," Mr. Blix said, after an Iraqi minister claimed on Thursday that a chemical bomb factory was found in Fallujah. "Many of these stories evaporate when they are looked at more closely," he said. "If there were to be found something, we would all be surprised."
Mr. Blix, a former Swedish diplomat, was in charge of searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq 15 weeks before the U.S invades the country in March 2003.
On Thursday, an Iraqi minister claimed that a chemical weapons laboratory was found in Fallujah. "Soldiers from the Iraqi National Guard found a chemical laboratory that was used to prepare deadly explosives and poisons," Minister of State Kassim Daoud said. "They also found in the lab, booklets and instructions on how to make bombs and poisons. They even talked about the production of anthrax."
Also on Wednesday Marines said that they had found in Fallujah a banner of the militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a chemicals laboratory. However they couldn’t confirm that the lab was used to produce chemical weapons. They added that they’re not aware of any other laboratories being discovered in the city and raised doubts that an evidence had been found of the manufacture of chemical weapons.
Meanwhile U.S. military said on Thursday that they have found the largest weapons store in Fallujah. The U.S. military said that the weapons were found in Saad Abi Bin Waqas mosque, which U.S. forces claim it is a suspected safe house where rebel cleric Abdullah al-Janabi preached "anti-coalition rhetoric".
According to the U.S. military, Marines backed by Iraqi forces found a truck in the mosque compound that contains rocket-propelled grenades, grenades, mortar rounds, and rockets and bomb making materials. "Initial assessments indicate the truck may have been a mobile IED factory," it said, using the term for home-made bombs it calls improvised explosive devices.
Copyright 2004 AlJazeera Publishing Limited