stuffed with mustard gas, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The article, however, did not describe any evidence or indicators that he shells were made in Iran. The article quoted unnamed sources as saying the US had “serious concerns” that Iran made the shells and that the Americans were “investigating whether Iran supplied” them to the government of Moammar Qadhdhafi.
There was no assertion that Farsi markings were found on the shells or that the shells were of a design known to be Iranian or that documentation found at the storage site made reference to Iran—the kinds of evidence the US Army has cited in linking bombs found in Iraq to Iran. In fact, nothing in The Washington Post article explained why the US officials suspected Iran of being the source of the shells.
The article said the mustard gas itself was made by Libya. The only issue was the origin of the artillery shells that held the gas.
In recent months, the Islamic Republic has charged that Washington was a close ally of Qadhdhafi and was trying to save his regime. It also claimed to have long been opposed to Qadhdhafi.
Actually Iran has had a mixed relationship with Qadhdhafi over the years. The two long shared a hostile attitude to the United States. On the other hand, Iranians were long concerned that Qadhdhafi had killed or imprisoned the Iranian-born Shia cleric Musa Sadr, who traveled to Libya three decades ago to try to enlist its help in bringing the civil war in Lebanon to a close.
If the shells were in fact made in Iran, it would show a direct military-to-military relationship that was unknown before.
Libya sought to make peace with the West after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The next year, Qadhdhafi pledged to end his nuclear program and destroy all his chemical weapons. American observers watched as 3,500 bombs with chemical loads were destroyed. But no one suspected that Libya even had artillery shells with chemical loads and Qadhdhafi never acknowledged them.
An artillery shell, which is fired with an explosive, is much harder to fit with chemicals than a bomb, which is simply dropped from a plane.
No one suggested that Iran had supplied the shells recently, during the civil war of the last several months. One official speculated they were sold to Libya at the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war—although the basis for that speculation was not disclosed either.
The shells are now being guarded at the two sites in the Libyan desert where the rebels found them.
