Polish Troops Foil Attempt To Buy Chemical Rockets

[Aaron]

CBC

WARSAW - Polish soldiers in Iraq foiled an attempt by militants to buy chemical weapons, said the head of Poland's military intelligence on Friday.

The cache of rockets containing nerve agent cyclosarin were found by Polish soldiers last month.

U.S. military officials played down the impact such weapons would have in the hands of Iraqi insurgents

The rockets dated back to the 1980s, and U.S. officials said the nerve agent was so deteriorated that it would cause little or no harm in an attack.

In Warsaw, however, Gen. Marek Dukaczewski told reporters Polish troops had been looking for weapons in their sector of south-central Iraq when they learned that militants were looking to buy the rockets.

"We were mortified by the information that terrorists were looking for these warheads and offered $5,000 apiece," Dukaczewski said. "An attack with such weapons would be hard to imagine. All of our activity was accelerated at appropriating these warheads."

The rockets were bought for an undisclosed sum in late June.

A warhead containing sarin nerve gas exploded along a road near Baghdad in May, causing no real damage to any of the U.S. soldiers nearby.

Neither incident has been used by coalition officials as proof of a large chemical weapons arsenal in Iraq, or proof that Saddam Hussein's regime had an active program in place to produce them.

Chances are that the rockets Sarin warhead would have been inert by now. But still it's scary to think that there are people out there willing to use these weapons.

[Sarevok]

The rockets may have been inert but this is bad news. To think that there are insurgents willing to use chemical weapons is scary.

[Darth Raptor]

The rockets may have been inert but this is bad news. To think that there are insurgents willing to use chemical weapons is scary.

Was there ever any doubt?