Sarin Confirmed in Bomb, Officials Say

Comprehensive testing has confirmed the presence of sarin, a nerve gas that Saddam Hussein produced in the 1980s, in the remains of a roadside bomb discovered this month in Baghdad, two officials said Tuesday.

The determination, made by a U.S. laboratory that the officials would not identify, verified that the bomb was made from an artillery shell designed to disperse the deadly nerve agent on the battlefield, the two said, speaking anonymously.

Finding the shell’s origin is a priority, a defense official familiar with the finding said.

Hussein’s alleged stockpile of illicit weapons was the Bush administration’s chief stated reason for invading Iraq, but U.S. weapons hunters have been unable to find those stockpiles.

Some analysts worry that the 155-millimeter artillery shell, rigged as a bomb that was found May 15, may be part of a larger cache of chemical weapons that insurgents can use. But no more have turned up, and several military officials have said the shell may have predated the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

United Nations records indicate that sarin produced during that period degraded quickly and should no longer be lethal.

It is not known whether the bombers knew the shell contained a chemical weapon.

No one was injured in the initial detonation, but two American soldiers who removed the round showed symptoms of low-level nerve agent exposure, officials said last week.

The explosion released only a trace amount of sarin, U.S. officials said. The shell was a binary type, designed to mix two relatively safe chemicals when fired.