This is typical in my opinion, not WMD, but still quite a large cache. The real problem is this:ZUWAD KHALAF, Iraq — As the piles of missiles and rockets dug from the desert floor grew, smiles on soldiers’ faces turned to scowls of serious concern.
Working on a tip from an informant, soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division on Tuesday dug up more than a thousand aging rockets and missiles wrapped in plastic, some of which had been buried as recently as two weeks ago, Army officials said.
“This is the mother lode, right here,” Sgt. Jeremy Galusha, 25, of Dallas, Ore., said, leaning on a shovel after uncovering more than 20 Soviet missiles.
As the sun set Tuesday, soldiers continued to uncover more, following zigzagging tire tracks across the desert floor and using metal detectors to locate weapons including mines, mortars and machine gun rounds.
But the growing piles of missiles and rockets were of primary concern for the soldiers in Iraq, where bombs made with loose ordinance by insurgents are the preferred method to target coalition forces.
The articles makes mention of munitions that had inspection details from 1984, those that are aging. The real problem was the new munitions in plastic, of origins that came from the 3 nations that where most apposed to the Iraq war.Still, the plastic around some of the rockets — of Soviet, German and French origins — appeared to be fresh and had not deteriorated as it had on some of the older munitions.
Just food for thought.
