WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL TO PLANT THEM IN 2003:

Suspected Chemical Weapons Plant Uncovered in Mosul: Military Believes Insurgents Intended to Use Dangerous Agents Against U.S., Iraqi Forces (Ellen Knickmeyer, August 13, 2005, Washington Post)

U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical-weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.

Monday's early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad.

Combined, the chemicals would yield an agent capable of "lingering hazards" for those exposed to it, Boylan said. The likely targets would have been "coalition and Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi civilians," in part owing to the difficulty anyone deploying the chemicals would have had in keeping the agents from spreading out over a wide area, he said.