The Secret U.S. and Iraqi Casualties of Hussein’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons

SPECIAL REPORT

Tuesday, October 14, 2014 9:44 PM EDT

The Secret U.S. and Iraqi Casualties of Hussein’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons

From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

The American government withheld word about the chemical weapons from both the troops it sent into harm’s way and from military doctors.

The United States had gone to war with Iraq declaring that it had to destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program, but instead, American troops found the remnants of long-abandoned programs built in close collaboration with the West — often in territory that is now controlled by the Islamic State.

READ MORE » http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?emc=edit_na_20141014