WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION as reported by the DOD and US government
Defense.gov News Release: NOTIFICATIONS OF POSSIBLE CHEMICAL WEAPONS EXPOSURE TO BE MADE
From the DOD itself :
The Pit Area at Khamisiyah
In October 1991, the UNSCOM inspection team found 297 122mm rockets containing a mixture of the chemical nerve agents sarin (GB) and cyclosarin (GF) in the pit area. The mostly intact rockets were found in several heaps or piles, but some appeared to have been damaged or destroyed. At that time the Iraqis told UNSCOM that occupying coalition troops had destroyed chemical weapons at Bunker 73 earlier that year. UNSCOM reported that the rockets found in the pit area were apparently salvaged from that bunker. Iraqi statements however, were viewed with skepticism at the time because of the use of deception by the Iraqis against UNSCOM.
In March 1992, when the UNSCOM inspectors returned to Khamisiyah, they reported that they consolidated and destroyed a total of 463 nerve agent 122mm rockets found in the pit area, including the 297 they found during the October 1991 inspection. Approximately 300 additional intact rockets were found buried in the pit area which were sent to Al Muthanna, 100 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, for destruction. DoD and CIA are currently trying to determine how many rockets were destroyed in the pit.
In May 1996, UNSCOM inspectors returned to Khamisiyah and were told by Iraqi officials that some 2,160 122mm GB/GF rockets were moved into bunker 73 from Al Muthanna just prior to the air war. The Iraqis told the inspectors that these rockets began to leak and they moved approximately half of them from bunker 73 to the pit area. The movement of these munitions occurred prior to the 37th Engineer Battalion's arrival in early March 1991. At this inspection, the Iraqis also stated that occupying coalition forces destroyed the pit area rockets.
As part of the systematic destruction of the Khamisiyah ammunition area, the 37th Engineer Battalion destroyed stacks of crated munitions in the pit area on 10 March 1991 after these stacks were found by the battalion operations officer a day earlier.