Iraqi Warhead Find Sets Off Dispute

U.N. inspectors found 11 empty chemical warheads in "excellent" condition at an ammunition storage area in southern Iraq on Thursday, and the components were not reported in Iraq's declaration meant to account for all banned weapons, a U.N. spokesman said.

Iraq insisted the warheads had been included in its declaration. It was not immediately clear if discovery constituted a "material breach" of the U.N. resolution requiring Iraq to itemize all its weapons of mass destruction and their components.

While the artillery rockets are evidence of an Iraqi weapons program, they may not amount to a "smoking gun" unless some sort of chemical agent is also detected, said U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather asked former U.N. weapons inspector Stephen Black how significant was the discovery by weapons inspectors.

"I think the discovery is limited in its nature. It's an interesting find, but in and of itself it doesn't represent a significant weapons capability," said Black, who is a CBS consultant on Iraq.

Black tells Rather that it is possible these warheads were omitted from the declaration by mistake, as the Iraqis claim.

He says thay may be a case of "sloppy record-keeping in Iraq, particularly facilities that have sustained military damage. There's nothing unusual about that. My gut feeling is that that's what this is a case of."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the administration is still going over information coming out of Iraq and will be deliberate in reacting to it.

The 122 mm shells were found when inspectors searched bunkers built in the late 1990s at the Ukhaider Ammunition Storage Area, about 75 miles south of Baghdad, said Hiro Ueki, the spokesman for U.N. weapons inspectors in Baghdad, in a statement.

The team examined one of the warheads with X-ray equipment and took away samples for chemical testing, Ueki said.

Key questions with the new find are whether any chemical weapons were ever loaded into these warheads, and, if so, when, officials said.

Serial numbers on the rockets should tell inspectors where and when they were made, one defense official said.

Iraq produced thousands of these warheads two decades ago, and it is unclear whether those found Thursday are leftovers from that era, possibly forgotten, or newly manufactured.

Black tells Rather the warheads were used on six- to eight-foot-long rockets that were not considered strategic weapons, but were of low-tech design and for use on the battlefield.

The United States, which has begun a heavy military buildup in the Persian Gulf, has threatened war on Iraq if it is found to be hiding banned weapons programs. The Iraqi government says it no longer has any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and submitted a 12,000-page declaration to the United Nations last month that it said proved its case.

Ueki told The Associated Press that the shells were not accounted for in the report. "It was a discovery. They were not declared," he said.

But Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer to the inspection teams, said they were short-range shells imported in 1988 and mentioned in Iraq's December declaration.

He expressed "astonishment" over "the fuss made about the discovery by a U.N. inspection team of `mass destruction weapons.' It is no more than a storm in a teacup," Amin told a news conference hastily called after the U.N. announcement.

Amin said the inspection team found the munitions in a sealed box that had never been opened and was covered by dust and bird droppings.

"When these boxes were opened, they found 122-mm rockets with empty warheads. No chemical or biological warheads. Just empty rockets which are expired and imported in 1988," Amin said, adding similar rockets were found by U.N. inspectors in 1997.

Chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei have said Iraq's weapons declaration is incomplete — failing in particular to support its claims to have destroyed missiles, warheads and chemical agents such as VX nerve gas.

Another hot topic in Iraq in the debate about whether Iraqi scientists – and perhaps their families – could be taken outside Iraq to be questioned by U.N. weapons inspectors.

Exclusive CBS News video shows inspectors making a surprise "house call" today on two private homes -- searching through bedrooms, closets -- even the refrigerators-- of two Iraqi nuclear scientists.

After what appeared to be a heated discussion – one scientist was taken away for further questioning -- and late Thursday -- was still with U.N. inspectors.

But he isn't the only person of interest. The U.N. also asked to interview at least two more scientists today here at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

But those scientists refused -- agreeing only to be questioned at a neutral location and with an Iraqi official present.

Black says that there is nothing out of the ordinary about inspectors visiting the private homes of scientists, and, in fact it is a good bet for inspectors hoping to find a 'smoking gun'.

"Scientists have this wonderful habit of keeping everything they do. They keep records, copies of their old papers, copies of widgets they've made. And to go to their houses to look for these things, it's not a silly bet for the inspectors," he explains.

Blix and ElBaradei have stepped up demands that Iraqi improve its cooperation — including allowing private interviews with scientists — and are headed to Baghdad to meet officials Sunday and Monday and seek more information.

"Iraq must do more than they have done so far," Blix said in Belgium after briefing European Union officials. Iraqis "need to be more active ... to convince the Security Council that they do not have weapons of mass destruction."