http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/24-3-19103-0-47-6.html
Black Watch find cruise missiles in huge arms cache at heliport IAN BRUCE SCOTTISH troops from the Black Watch battle group yesterday discovered a huge cache of weapons which could show that Saddam Hussein's regime is in breach of UN sanctions. Two Al Harith anti-ship cruise missiles supplied last year by Russia and explosive components from a Hampshire firm were discovered at a bunker complex sited at the As Zubayr civilian heliport south of Basra, in southern Iraq. The soldiers found 24 reinforced underground bunkers and 48 arms storage sheds containing hundreds of thousands of rocket propelled grenades, landmines, machine gun am-munition, fuses, and detonators, as well as the missiles. Most of the site has been cordoned off until experts arrive to clear booby traps and use detectors to see if anything more sinister is hidden in the depot. One Al Harith, a long-range sea-skimming missile which could threaten allied warships in the Gulf, was on a stand awaiting the fitting of its rocket motor. Someone had drawn a shark's face on its warhead. Another was still in its crate in another bunker. Both weapons had Russian Cyrillic characters stencilled on their sides and were dated 2002. A strict UN arms embargo on Iraq has been enforced since 1991. The British-made explosive components, believed to be fuses for detonators, were in small boxes stamped "Wallop Industries Limited, Middle Wallop, Hampshire" and carried danger signs and a prohibition on the product being carried by air. There were no dates on the cases. In the bunker containing the exposed Al Harith, there was also a larger missile, between 30 and 40ft long, still in its shipping container. This was being left for bomb disposal teams. It also had Russian lettering. *more snipped* So, it *wasn't just concern for the feelings of Russia's 20 million Muslims that had President Putin so concerned about war with Iraq... not that the conduct of the war in Chechnya had me terribly inclined to believe that claim anyway. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
