US troops and Iraqi police were wounded by exposure to abandoned chemical weapons in 2004-11 in a series of incidents largely kept quiet by the Pentagon, a US newspaper has reported.
The New York Times said the weapons were built by Saddam Hussein's regime during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
Soldiers and police uncovered about 5,000 warheads, shells or bombs.
The Times based its report on dozens of pages of classified documents, and interviews with soldiers and officials.
The newspaper tracked down 17 US soldiers and seven Iraqi police officers who said they had been wounded during at least six separate incidents.
Some of the weapons were reportedly designed in the US and manufactured in Europe.They were filled with chemical agents produced in Iraq from ingredients purchased in some cases in the US.
In a statement to the BBC, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm John Kirby said Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel was "concerned by any indication or allegation that our troops have not received the care and administrative support they deserve" and had ordered a review of the military's health system and the military awards programme.
"While we cannot speak to individual decisions made by unit commanders or medical staff at the time - or the guidance they may have given their troops about the existence of chemical munitions in Iraq - the defence department made public its discovery of these munitions as far back as 2006 and acknowledged the likelihood that more could be found," Adm Kirby said.
Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29631829
The bolding is mine. Explains why the existence of the chemical weapons was kept rather quiet. Never secret, exactly, just not really talked about. It's an embarrassing secret to most of the Western governments, especially 4 of the big 5 nuclear powers, when sitting alongside Iraqi made weapons in a cache are neatly packed weapons, still in their protective layers, with American, British, Russian and French markings.
