Sarin Nerve Agent Bomb Explodes in Iraq.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. Two people were treated for “minor exposure,” but no serious injuries were reported.

“The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq. “The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy.

”A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent,“ he said.

The incident occurred ”a couple of days ago,“ he said.

The Iraqi Survey Group is a U.S. organization whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in last year’s invasion.

The round was an old ”binary-type“ shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said.

He said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn’t know it contained the nerve agent, and that the dispersal of the nerve agent from such a rigged device was very limited.

”The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War,“ Kimmitt said. ”Two explosive ordinance team members were treated for minor exposure to nerve agent as a result of the partial detonation of the round.”

Countdown to the first sighting of a claim at Democratic Underground or Indymedia that the sarin was simultaneously: 1) not there at all, and 2) planted by the evil Bushitler’s stooges …