Washington-AP --
Don't jump to any conclusions just yet. That warning comes from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, after the U-S military in Iraq announced that a roadside bomb containing sarin nerve gas had exploded near a U-S military convoy.
Rumsfeld told a Washington, D-C audience that the "field test" showing the presence of sarin may not be accurate. He says more analysis needs to be done -- and that it may take some time to find out just what the chemical was.
In Baghdad, officials said the bomb was apparently left over from the Saddam era. They said two members of a military bomb squad were treated for "minor exposure" -- but that there were no serious injuries.
One official says the shell apparently contained two chemicals that are designed to combine and create sarin -- but that they didn't mix properly.
This is not the 'weapons of mass destruction' that we were looking for. Experts believe that (if it is indeed one of the 14 year old shells) it is possible (according to UN records of what had been destroyed and iraqi records of what had been produced) that there are maybe 100 of these things scattered about Iraq. They would be incredibly degraded and don't pose a 'substantial' risk.
From what I understand, even the insurgents who had set it up weren't even aware what it was. They had rigged it as an explosive device, which could partially explain (aside from the obvious degradation) why it didn't cause any serious harm to the soldiers. If it had been potent and undegraded and properly rigged, it would have certainly killed anyone anywhere near it. (From what I understand.)
