http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=78712By Scott Ritter
DELMAR, N.Y. v In the mid-1980s I served as the intelligence officer for a Marine artillery battalion. Stationed in Twentynine Palms, Calif., I would often find myself deployed in the field, on exercises where thousands of live artillery rounds were fired downrange.
<snip>
What makes this relevant now is the ongoing speculation about the source of the sarin chemical artillery shell that the US military found rigged as an improvised explosive device (IED) last week in Baghdad. If the 155-mm shell was a "dud" fired long ago - which is highly likely - then it would not be evidence of the secret stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that the Bush administration used as justification to invade Iraq.
<snip>
As a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, I know that the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the US-led unit now responsible for investigating WMD in Iraq, could quite easily determine whether this shell had been fired long ago or not.
<snip>
It's embarrassing to note that this article by former US Iraqi weapons inspector Scott Ritter-- arguably the most learned expert on the issue of Chem War artillery rounds--was not picked up by US media outlets. The article is running in English Pravda...which virtually guarantees that it will receive no mainstream media buzz.