Iraq refuses to explain VX findings

UN special commission (UNSCOM) chairman Richard Butler said on Monday that a two-day meeting of international experts confirmed US tests on Iraqi warhead remnants which found traces of VX.

One sample tested by a French military laboratory found a chemical that according to the experts could be degraded VX, or the nerve agents sarin or soman.

The French samples, and tests carried out by a Swiss military laboratory, also showed signs of a decontaminant that could have been used to cleanse the missile warheads of toxic gas.

As a result, Butler called on Iraq for information about the presence of decontaminants which could not be explained by the experts.

Hamdoon didnot refer to the issue in his letter. But he said that “hundred of pages” about VX had already been submitted to the UN weapons inspectors, “and there is essentially nothing new to add.”

“Iraq never produced VX in stable form to weaponise, and never weaponised VX agent,” he said.

The French experts had told the commission that it could have come from a detergent but the Americans disagreed, saying such a detergent has never been commercially produced.

“Therefore, 122 analytical results prove that there were no chemical weapon related chemicals and one sample shows a substance that could or could not be related to the chemical weapon material,” the statement said.

UNSCOM, it said, chose to seize on this sample against all other results and demanded an explanation from Iraq.

“This an obvious attempt to deflect attention from overwhelming evidence in support of Iraq’s declarations that no VX was stabilised and weaponised,” it added.

The report had said the existence of VX degradationproducts of conflicts with Iraq’s declaration that the unilaterally destroyed warheads had never filled with any chemical weapon agent.

“We do not find the international experts agreeing that the VX degradation products were found in the last three sets of analyses of one hundred twenty three samples,” the statement said.

Perhaps the reference, it added, was to the first set of analysis that were suspect from the very beginning and to which Baghdad had vigorously objected.

The tests by French and Swiss laboratories were conducted after Iraq questioned the results of the test by the American laboratory which found traces of VX agent on some fragments.