Smoking gun, Exhibit C...

Quote: Weapons experts were called Saturday to an occupied northern Iraqi air base in Kirkuk to determine if a warhead discovered there is laden with a chemical agent.

On Friday, a former Iraqi air force colonel claiming to be the former base commander told U.S. military officials he knew of 120 missiles within about an 18-mile radius of the city -- 24 of them carrying chemical munitions, according to an Army intelligence posting at the airfield's military headquarters.

The man said he had been freed recently from an Iraqi prison, military intelligence said.

The warhead was found in a box Friday during routine operations to secure the airfield by the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade. It is about the width of a coffee can and marked with a green band that military sources said is the universal symbol for chemical weaponry.

Two initial "improved chemical agent monitor" (ICAM) tests showed trace amounts of a nerve agent on the baseball bat-length warhead -- at the rear and in the middle where there is a screwed-down circular area about the size of a quarter.

<a href='http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/12/sprj.irq.chemical/index.html' target='_blank'>http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/12/...ical/index.html</a>