US officials were last night investigating a large factory in southern Iraq, which reports suggested could have been used to make chemical weapons.
Two separate reports, from Fox News and the Jerusalem Post, said coalition forces had secured the site about 160 kilometres south of Baghdad, near the city of Najaf.
Fox cited unidentified Pentagon officials and said troops of the 1st Brigade 3rd Infantry Division had reached the site.
The Jerusalem Post report came from a journalist ”embedded” in the infantry unit. Its story said about 30 Iraqi troops, including a general, had surrendered to US forces at the site which it described as a ”100-acre complex surrounded by an electrical fence”, next to military barracks that ”resemble an abandoned slum”.
Proof of weapons of mass destruction would be a significant political victory for the US and British governments by offering proof that Saddam Hussein had lied to weapons inspectors. But US officials cautioned against jumping to conclusions.
The former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter told Sky News: ”If it’s true, it legitimises in one fell swoop the entire Bush administration position vis-à-vis Iraq.” He added that he found the reports convenient and was sceptical that a huge chemical weapons establishment would be located in a Shia area traditionally hostile to President Saddam.
Major Chris Hughes, a US forces representative in Kuwait, would not confirm the reports. He said there were ”sites of interest” that the military was eager to examine but declined to comment on whether anything suspicious had been found: ”A conclusion as far as chemical weapons are concerned is premature.”
At a news conference in Qatar, Lieutenant-General John Abizaid of US central command said senior Iraqi officers had been questioned about chemical weapons. ”We have two Iraqi general officers that we have taken prisoner and they are providing us with information.” – Guardian Unlimited Â