From CNN 5/18/04:

"Chemicals in artillery shell tested

The Iraq Survey Group was conducting tests on an artillery shell believed to have been loaded with the chemicals needed to create the nerve agent sarin.

The 155 mm artillery shell exploded Monday before it could be disarmed. It had been found Saturday near the Baghdad airport.

Kimmitt said U.S. troops who found the device showed "minor traces of exposure" to sarin, but they were quickly treated and released.

The unmarked shell contained two inert chemicals meant to be mixed together when fired from a cannon. As an improvised explosive device, Kimmitt said, the weapon was "ineffective," and he said he doubted whoever had rigged it even knew it contained the potentially lethal chemicals.

No stocks of banned weapons have turned up since the U.S. invasion.

A Pentagon official told CNN that a single field test indicated the shell contained sarin and that a more definitive laboratory test had not been conducted. Initial field tests are often incorrect.

CNN military analyst Ken Robinson noted that more than 15,000 "false positives" for chemical weapons were registered during the first Gulf war."


Let's wait and see Brother Two Bears....