WARSAW, Poland, July 2 (UPI) -- The Polish military has said shells containing a chemical weapons agent found in Iraq date back to the Iran-Iraq war, Polish radio reported Friday.
Polish radio said 17 rocket shells and two mortar shells had been found by Polish forces in late June. Some are said to contain a chemical agent called cyclosarin, a substance several times more potent than sarin.
The report said the shells dated back to the 1980-88 period and were of a type that had been used against both Kurdish separatists and the Iranians.
The U.S. military is investigating.
The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was justified by the Bush administration as a necessary pre-emptive strike against Saddam Hussein's regime, which was believed to have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
No such stockpiles have so far been found.
