Posted on 04/13/2003 12:41:16 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
IRKUK, Iraq, April 12 — American paratroopers tonight discovered what they described as suspicious warheads and rocket components outside the former Iraqi governor's office here, a tantalizing but inconclusive find on the first day of a large-scale American presence in the oil capital of northern Iraq.
The officers said the warheads appeared to be the lethal ends of surface-to-surface rockets, but they could not immediately determine if they were of a design prohibited by United Nations resolutions, or whether they were built to hold chemical or biological munitions or a simple explosive charge.
The cone-shaped warheads, each about 5 feet long and 20 inches thick at the base, were found in the darkness in the rear lot of the civilian governor's complex by paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The warheads were painted with a wide red stripe.
Two warheads were found in green wooden packing crates. Three other identical crates were not opened, but it was thought that they might hold warheads as well. The paratroopers also found cables and what they described as missile guidance systems in five separate crates.
The weapons were under guard tonight. Capt. Eric Baus, the commander of the airborne company that found them, said they would be examined on Sunday by Army and Air Force specialists.
"We'll have a team out looking at them tomorrow," the captain said. "We want to be sure what we're dealing with before anyone tries to move them."
The discovery came as the American military tightened its loose hold on this city of 600,000, making a visible show of its presence with paratroopers and beginning the assessment of civilian needs here.
Soldiers of the airborne brigade, who had been confined to Kirkuk's outskirts and airfields on Friday, moved into the city's center and began the first of their patrols.
Simultaneously, the few thousand Kurdish fighters who had been roaming the neighborhoods and sleeping in commandeered buildings began an orderly withdrawal in buses and trucks, ordered back to the Kurdish northern enclave by the Americans and Kurdish officials alike.
Their withdrawal was intended to ease local tensions among ethnic groups, and to calm regional concerns in Turkey, which sent a small team of its special forces soldiers into Kirkuk to assess its condition, said an American officer who accompanied the Turks.
Kurds insisted they were complying with the withdrawal orders, and an exodus, steady if not yet complete, was evident today.
"We are pushing all the fighters out," said Fairadoon AbdulQader, the minister of interior for the eastern Kurdish zone in northern Iraq, who has been serving as an interim administrator here until an official government is created.
Paratroopers of the 173rd Brigade were visible staffing checkpoints and in motorized patrols here by this morning. They were augmented by 500 Kurdish traffic and security officers, who were stopping cars containing stolen goods and forcing drivers to put their loot by the curb.
The dual movements — the arrival of larger numbers of American soldiers and Kurdish civilian authorities, and the departure of most of the irregular Kurdish fighters — brought the first sense of calm in many of Kirkuk's neighborhoods.
Arson continued today, as did looting, but the pace and intensity of both crimes were noticeably diminished. For the first time since the Iraqi Army gave up the city on Thursday, large numbers of women and children appeared outside, one tangible sign of public confidence that Kirkuk was becoming more secure.
In addition to the increased presence of American soldiers on security missions, an advance team of civil affairs officers toured the city and met with Mr. AbdulQader this afternoon to discuss priorities for restoring public utilities and services.
Maj. Dino Sarracino, commanding officer of Delta Company, 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, said civil affairs soldiers would be moving into the city soon to repair infrastructure and restore services.
"Our priority is to help the people get back on their feet," he said. "Power is the big thing right now, because that goes into water purification as well."
Aid organizations were also at work, including the Mines Advisory Group of Manchester, England, which had three 15-member demolitions teams canvassing roads and abandoned trenches and bases.
The teams were clearing mines and marking and destroying discarded Iraqi ammunition and an unexploded American bomb. More than 1,100 mines were pulled from the ground on Friday, and several ammunition depots were destroyed today, including one containing high explosives, said Michael Parker, who supervised the group's activities. "We found truckloads of cordite, truckloads," he said. "We've got mega ordnance here."
The effort to round up and destroy the explosives was intended in part to ensure that they would not be spirited away by any of several armed factions in the region, or stolen and resold on the international arms market or to terrorists.
"The race is on for us to get as much of this as possible, and to gain as much access as possible, in order that these items do not go into circulation," Mr. Parker said.
An American colonel also said tonight that a suspicious mortar round had been found on an air base here, and that it would tested to determine if it might be a chemical weapon.
American officers and civilian ordnance experts said they expected more reports of suspicious weapons to emerge, since there is a vast amount and variety of weaponry scattered about here.
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I believe this is the weapon shown on CNN Saturday; different & slightly more conventional looking than the one found with MSNBC types with 3 spigots on the back end. It (also) had Russian markings and a single tube leading along one side from near the end and some kind of plug area flush with the side metal - preliminary tests reportedly nerve agent. Same CNN reporter also said that after a nearby prison was opened one of the men who was freed from the torture chamber came right to the base and told the coalition troops currently stationed there that he knew where 24 chemical warheads were hidden amongst a total of 150 including conventional warheads underground in different places around the base. The troops were unsure / skeptical of what he was doing but said they were going to follow up on it.
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