Las Vegas SUN: Gulf War legacy Sun 4/14/97
* WARHEAD - [ Photo appeared here ] Wegner discovered this munition days after the Feb. 28, 1991, cease-fire. He believes it is a chemical round and said tests he and Czechoslavakian troops conducted confirmed his suspicions. A Pentagon chemical warfare expert said he could not determine if this was a chemical or conventional round based on the photograph.
The ground war ended Feb. 28, four days after it began. Enemy troops retreated or surrendered without a fight. But chaos gripped Iraq and Kuwait and pockets of resistance continued to attack.
Evidence of these final battles littered the desert: abandoned tanks, artillery, mortar pits. Wegner and a group of U.S. and Czechoslovakian soldiers were driving through the remnants of what looked like a tank battle when they jumped out to look around.
Wegner picked up an Iraqi uniform, a knife and nuclear, biological and mchemical gear. He taped the knife to his calf and hooked the gear around his waist.
Then the U.S. and Czech troops saw the intact warhead scattered among the junk.
"We used a 256 kit at that area and it came up dirty," Wegner said. "I took
a dirt sample, took
a picture and bailed out of there, because, in my opinion, this was an exploded
chemical weapon and anything around there was hot."
Wegner said Czech troops conducted their own tests, which also returned positive detection of chemical agents.
Based on an examination of Wegner's picture, a Defense Department chemical weapons expert could not determine whether the munition was a chemical or conventional round.
The weapons expert said it appeared to be 122mm munition that was either a "dud" that fired but did not explode or had not been fired. Such a munition is a common size for rockets and projectiles used by nations of the former Soviet bloc, he said.