Published on Jun 21, 2014
Description:
(CNN) — ISIS militants took control of a facility that Saddam Hussein once used to produce and store chemical weapons in Iraq Thursday.
The facility is “larger than the District of Columbia,” says David Kay, former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq.
But the State Department doubts that the Al Muthanna complex contains any material of “military value.”
“The materials in the bunkers, which date from the 1980s, are of little military value and would be very difficult to safely move,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday. But “the materials pose serious health hazards to anyone attempting to access the bunkers.”
Kay agrees, saying the chemicals in the facility are “much more dangerous to anyone who tries to get them, then they are to anyone they could possibly be used on.”
“Insurgents in 2004, 2005 tried to use a couple of these weapons as improvised roadside bombs. And indeed they killed no one, did no damage at all,” said Kay.
The former weapons inspector says he hopes militants try to get the chemical weapons, because “they’ll end up killing — probably more effective than anything else — ISIS fighters.”