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[cbclark4]

Vials of Dangerous Chemicals From Iraq Found
at United Nations Offices in NYC

Thursday, August 30, 2007

DEVELOPING STORY: Vials of dangerous chemicals found by weapons inspectors in Iraq more than a decade ago were discovered Thursday in a United Nations office building near the world body's headquarters in the heart of New York City.

No evacuations were ordered, and there was no immediate danger to the public, a U.N. spokesman said.

Hazardous materials personnel and the FBI were reported at the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission offices at 48th Street and 1st Avenue in Manhattan. The commission's offices are on the building's third and sixth floors.

The material was phosgene, a chemical warfare agent, U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe told a hastily gathered news conference.

The inspections unit said in a statement that the chemicals had been found last Friday as weapons inspectors were closing their offices, said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the inspectors.

Phosgene was used during World War I as a choking agent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The U.N. issued the following statement on the incident:


"On Friday 24th August 2007 in archiving UNSCOM files, UNMOVI staff discovered two small plastic packages with metal and glass containers (ranging in size from small vials to tubes the length of a pen) with unknown liquid substances. The archives are located at the UNMOVIC headquarters, 866 East 48th Street, 3rd and 6th floors.

"An initial investigation has revealed that these items were recovered from a former Iraqi chemical weapons facility, al Muthamma, by UNSCOM inspectors in 1996.

"It was only on 29 August, however, that the inspection report containing an inventory of the items was recovered. The inventory shows that one of the items may contain phosgene (COCL2) suspended in oil -- an old generation chemical warfare agent. The inventory also indicated that the other package contains Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) reference standards in sealed glass tubes. These standards are used to calibrate chemical analytical equipment.

"UNMOVIC has confirmed that normally such items would have been transported directly to appropriately equipped laboratories for analysis and not sent to UNSCOM/ UNMOVIC headquarters in New York. In the past, UNSCOM chemical samples were sent via military transport directly to Edgewood labs."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295238,00.html
[/b]

[cbclark4]

Dangerous chemicals found at UN

The vials were found in an office building near the UN's headquarters
Several vials of potentially dangerous chemicals have been found at a United Nations building in New York.
The material, said to include phosgene, is said to have been removed from Iraq during inspections of chemical facilities a decade ago.

The UN said the vials had been found by inspectors as they cleared out an office near the UN's headquarters.

The material "could be potentially hazardous", but did not pose any immediate risk, a UN spokeswoman said.

UN deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said the substances had been secured by experts at the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic).

The office area had been screened, she said, and no toxic vapours were found.

Choking agent

The metal and glass vials, stored in a sealed plastic bag, were discovered in the process of emptying Unmovic's office building in Manhattan.

"The only information we have of the contents of that bag is from an inventory of a 1996 inspection which indicates that one of the items may contain phosgene, an old generation chemical warfare agent," Ms Okabe said.

The US authorities have been called in to assist with the safe removal of the material.

Phosgene, a yellow-green gas smelling of swimming pools or newly-mown hay, was widely used during World War I as a choking agent. The Russian military has also claimed that it has been used in Chechnya.

Unmovic's inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq in March 2003 and in June this year the UN decided to end its mandate.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6971232.stm

[cbclark4]

August 30, 2007, 3:01 pm

Iraqi Chemical Agent Is Found at U.N.;
No Public Danger, Authorities Say
By Sewell Chan


Updated, 6:03 p.m.

Hazardous-materials specialists from the F.B.I. and the New York City Police Department went in to a United Nations building today to remove a chemical agent that had been recovered from an Iraqi munitions factory in 1996 and accidentally shipped to the United Nations, instead of the Army laboratory in Maryland where it was supposed to end up, officials announced today.

The authorities said there was no threat to the public. The toxic substance, known as phosgene, remained for more than a decade in the East Side offices of the United Nations agency that was responsible for overseeing the removal of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.
According to the United Nations, the materials were discovered on Friday, when employees at the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission were archiving files of the United Nations special commission that had been set up in 1991 to monitor the cease-fire that followed the first Persian Gulf War.

While filing the materials, the U.N. employees found two small plastic packages, with metal and glass containers ranging in size from small vials to the length of a pen. Inside the containers were �unknown liquid substances.�

An initial investigation determined that U.N. inspectors had recovered the items from the Al Muthanna chemical weapons plant in 1996. Chemical weapons experts sealed the packages and placed them in a safe on the sixth floor of the monitoring commission�s headquarters, at 866 United Nations Plaza, at East 48th Street. Experts tested the air around the package and �found no concentration of toxic vapors.�
Only today did United Nations officials locate the inspection reporting containing an inventory of the items. The inventory showed that one of the items �may have contained� phosgene and that one package contained nuclear magnetic resonance reference standards in sealed glass tubes.

�I�m sure that there are going to be a lot of red-faced people over at the U.N. trying to figure out how they got there,� the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said at an afternoon news conference.

Phosgene, or carbonyl chloride, is a highly volatile pulmonary agent that can cause suffocation and a deadly buildup of fluid in the lungs. At low concentrations, the compound has the odor of newly mowed hay; at higher concentrations, the substance gives off a more acrid, pungent odor. Phosgene became notorious as a chemical agent used in World War I, but modern military intelligence officials no longer consider it a major chemical warfare agent.

Additional material is below.

The Police Department�s statement (1:59 p.m.):

A joint F.B.I.-N.Y.P.D. Hazmat team responded today to the sixth-floor offices of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission at 866 U.N. Plaza at East 48th Street to remove small, gram-sized quantities of liquids including phosgene, a chemical warfare agent recovered by U.N. inspectors at an Iraqi chemical weapons facility in 1996. The phosgene was recovered along with another package containing nuclear magnetic resonance reference standards. The standards are used to calibrate chemical analytical material. The materials pose no threat to the public, and an evacuation will be limited to personnel occupying U.N. offices on the sixth floor of 866 U.N. Plaza, while the materials are removed.

The materials were discovered in two small plastic packages, with metal and glass containers, ranging in size from small vials to tubes the length of a pen.

Tests conducted by United Nations personnel found no toxic vapors in the area where the material has been stored, apparently since 1996 when it was inadvertently shipped to United Nations administrative offices, instead of a chemical laboratory.

The material was discovered Friday, Aug. 24, by United Nations staff who were in the process of archiving files. On Aug. 29, an inspections report containing an inventory of the items was recovered, according to the U.N. The inventory showed that one of the items may contain phosgene suspended in oil, an old-generation chemical warfare agent. The U.N. confirmed that normally such material would have been transported directly to laboratories equipped for analysis and not to its headquarters offices in New York.

Following the discovery, U.N. chemical weapons experts sealed the packages in a safe, which was isolated in a secure room on the same floor on which the materials were found. The experts also tested the environment surrounding the packages and found no concentration of toxic vapors in the air.

The material is expected to be removed later this afternoon to a military facility outside of New York.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/old-chemical-warfare-material-found-at-un/index.html?hp

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Wouldn't be suprised if there was a UN cover up. After all the UN was on Saddam's pay roll.

[endo]

[thepeel]

I don't know if that deserves a "ha". There was intense corruption in many of the agencies that dealt with SH. While the UN as a whole was not on his "payroll" many of the employees apparently were. It would not be out of the realm of possibility for some UN official to hide evidence, especially given the recent allegation that the UN was hiding/holding (depending on which story you believe) couterfit "supernotes" in North Korea.

That said, even if there were WMD's the war was still unjust and wrong. Final answer

[endo]

Alright if that is so then why does Joo ( I like the guy don't get me wrong) go after other conspiracy theories.


Why is it okay to believe one conspiracy ober another? If the conspiracy fits you ideological pattern than does it make it more plausable.



The Food for Oil program was certainly corrupt. But the belief that certain members of the UN took chemicle weapons and hid them in New York in order to protect Sadam Husein is just about as plausable as a secret group of non-Muslim elites playing puppet master behind the 9/11 attacks.

[keane]

I think the broader picture is being missed here: 1996.

Pretty irrelevant to anything going on today. There were no WMDs in 2003, and that is the only thing relevant to today.

But enjoy the one tiny shred of apologist-for-the-Bush-Cadre enabling info you do have.



kisses...

[endo]

The UN is a massive organization. A corrupt and inept one at that.


But I still have to laugh that two of you on this thread that read an article about a storage issue, came up with a plot to harm UN members or cover up Sadam's weapons program?

[Pligganease]

[SPINOZA]

Endo,

Saddam negotiated massive oil contracts with France and Russia - two permanent members of the UN Security Council (he assumed this guaranteed his regime's survival). Opposition to Iraq '03~ (said to be the moral side) was a filthy, greedy abomination.

No surprise to see the US annihilate this. Good for them. It was a horrible shower. And why the Russian hostility to US defence programs in Eastern Europe? Ooh, the mind boggles.

Mind you, to totally contradict myself, I opposed Iraq '03~ (and to contradict my contradiction, oppose pulling out) because Saddam was a genius who did a great job with Iraq. Iraq was like Britain - 3 or 4 races together as one, reasonably successfully (little fighting, hospitals, order).

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

I wonder if the UN really did everything it could to check Saddam's WMD programs. I wouldn't be suprised if some of his friends in the UN told their people hide evidence so Saddam would not get caught. IF they were already taking his money why not take it a step further?

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Manner of Speaking]