Lost and Found: Phosgene at UNMOVIC — Aug 30th 2007

By James Marcus

Over the last 24 hours, representatives of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Unit (UNMOVIC) discovered dangerous vials of phosgene, a chemical warfare agent, in an old file cabinet. The samples had been seized from Iraq back in 1996, when UNMOVIC inspectors examined a former chemical weapons plant at Al Muthanna. The actual vials--metal and glass containers enclosed in two plastic packages--first came to light on Friday of last week, as employees prepared to close down the office on Manhattan's East 48th Street. But not until yesterday did inspectors study an inventory list and realize what they had on their hands.

At that point, UNMOVIC sealed the packages, placed them in a secure room, tested the air for contaminants, and called in the FBI. According to the UN statement quoted in this Reuters dispatch, such samples would usually have been shipped straight to a military lab: "UNMOVIC has confirmed that normally such items would have been transported directly to appropriately equipped laboratories for analysis and not sent to UNSCOM/UNMOVIC headquarters in New York. In the past, UNSCOM chemical samples were sent via military transport directly to Edgewood labs."

Despite this glitch in the filing system, no injuries have been reported. The FBI has removed the samples in a pair of sealed steel boxes, and plans to dispose of them at "a military facility outside of New York," reports Edith M. Lederer in the Guardian Unlimited.

As far as WMD goes, this isn't much of a story. Phosgene is an old-school chemical weapon, used extensively for gas attacks during World War I. It was part of the U.S. arsenal for much of the last century, usually delivered via mortar rounds or bombs--not until 1969 did our military dispose of its supplies. According to the Centers For Disease Control website, "At low concentrations, it has a pleasant odor of newly mown hay or green corn, but its odor may not be noticed by all people exposed. At high concentrations, the odor may be strong and unpleasant." The odor isn't the main problem--it's the capacity of phosgene to cause nausea, vomiting, pulmonary edema, and even death. Still, these particular vials sat in a five-drawer filing cabinet for more than a decade without inflicting any casualties.


Down on 48th Street, however, there was a mob of photographers and reporters, none of them allowed with spitting distance of the building's entrance. A block to the south, the glass rectangle of the United Nations glittered in the afternoon sun. And in distant Washington, DC, the Bush Administration--never a big fan of UNMOVIC's activities, nor of the unit's parent organization--took the opportunity to get in a few digs. "I'm sure that there are going to be a lot of red-faced people over at the U.N. trying to figure out how [the vials] got there,'' said White House spokesman Tony Snow (quoted in the Guardian Unlimited.) Perhaps they do need to fine-tune the interoffice mail system.

Tags: phosgene, United Nations, UNMOVIC

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