UNITED NATIONS -- A Sunni extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad, where remnants of 2,500 degraded chemical rockets filled decades ago with the deadly nerve agent sarin are stored along with other chemical warfare agents, Iraq said in a letter circulated Tuesday at the United Nations.
The U.S. government played down the threat from the takeover, saying there are no intact chemical weapons and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to use the material for military purposes.
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a letter that "armed terrorist groups" entered the Muthanna site June 11, detained officers and soldiers from the protection force guarding the facilities and seized their weapons. The next morning, the project manager spotted the looting of some equipment via the camera surveillance system before the "terrorists" disabled it, he said.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a militant group that controls parts of Syria and Iraq, has declared the establishment of an Islamic state in the land it controls.
Alhakim said as a result of the takeover of Muthanna, Iraq is unable "to fulfill its obligations to destroy chemical weapons" because of the deteriorating security situation. He said it would resume its obligations "as soon as the security situation has improved and control of the facility has been regained."
Alhakim singled out the capture of bunkers 13 and 41 in the sprawling complex 35 miles northwest of Baghdad.
The Muthanna facility was Iraq's primary site for the production of chemical weapons agents. After the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, U.N. weapons inspectors worked there to get rid of chemicals that could be used in weapons, destroy production plants and equipment, and eliminate chemical warfare agents.
The last major report by U.N. inspectors on the status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program was released about a year after the experts left in March 2003. It states that Bunker 13 contained 2,500 sarin-filled, 122mm chemical rockets produced and filled before 1991, and about 180 tons of sodium cyanide, "a very toxic chemical and a precursor for the warfare agent tabun."
The U.N. said the bunker was bombed during the Gulf War in February 1991, which routed Iraq from Kuwait, and the rockets were "partially destroyed or damaged."
It said the sarin munitions were "of poor quality" and "would largely be degraded after years of storage under the conditions existing there." It said the tabun-filled containers all were treated with decontamination solution and likely no longer contain any agent, but "the residue of this decontamination would contain cyanides, which would still be a hazard."
According to the report, Bunker 41 contained 2,000 empty 155mm artillery shells contaminated with the chemical warfare agent mustard, 605 1-ton mustard containers with residues, and heavily contaminated construction material. It said the shells could contain mustard residues which can't be used for chemical warfare but "remain highly toxic."
News of the facility's takeover came amid continued political uncertainty in Iraq, as leaders must agree on a new government that can confront the militant offensive that has plunged the country into its worst crisis since the last U.S. troops left in 2011.
Iraq's parliament on Tuesday officially set its next meeting for Sunday as it tries again to form a new government after a failed attempt last week.
The parliament's administrative office had told lawmakers Monday that there would be no session until Aug. 12. That announcement was met with dismay by the international community, which has been urging Iraq to act quickly to form a government that reflects the country's diverse and often hostile religious sects and ethnic groups.
Mehdi al-Hafith, Iraq's acting speaker of parliament said Tuesday that the body would meet Sunday because further delay would "jeopardize Iraq's security and democracy and will increase the suffering of Iraqis."
"I am calling on the political blocs, in this period, to agree on the necessary nominations to start the new parliamentary term and form the government," he said.
Growing opposition to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who Sunni Arabs and Kurds say has marginalized them in favor of sectarian policies, has forced a deadlock over the selection of a new leadership. Iraq's constitution stipulates that the prime minister be a Shiite, the president a Kurd and the speaker of parliament a Sunni.
But because the prime minister is nominated last, Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers, as well as some of al-Maliki's Shiite rivals, have said that he must step aside before the two other posts can be determined. Al-Maliki commands the largest bloc in parliament and has said he will seek a third term.
The first session of the new parliament, on July 1, ended in a walkout by Sunni Arab and Kurdish lawmakers.
Information for this article was contributed by Edith M. Lederer of The Associated Press; by Abigail Hauslohner and Khalid Ali of The Washington Post; and by Alissa J. Rubin of The New York Times.
A Section on 07/09/2014