INSPECTORS FOUND EVIDENCE OF DEADLY GAS, REPORT SAYS.

Byline: Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

At the heart of the dispute between Iraq and the United Nations lies a deadly discovery: U.N. inspectors have uncovered evidence of a massive effort in Iraq to develop and hide its most toxic nerve gas yet.

During routine inspections this fall, U.N. monitors found evidence of VX nerve gas in Iraqi dumps, even though Iraq has denied ever producing the gas. The arms inspectors reported their findings last month to the U.N. Security Council.

The little-noticed report, in turn, precipitated Iraq's decision to bar American weapons inspectors, according to Clinton administration officials.

VX is a liquid compound that, on contact with oxygen, turns into a gas and blocks the transmission of impulses along the central nervous system, causing convulsions, respiratory paralysis and death.

Before the Gulf War, Iraq acquired 750 tons of chemicals needed to make VX, according to the U.N. inspectors' report, obtained this week by Knight-Ridder. The Iraqi government claimed that U.S. bombs during the war destroyed most of these chemicals, and that it destroyed an additional 212 tons on its own.

But during surprise inspections from April through October, U.N. monitors took chemical samples at dump sites, which led them to conclude that Iraq has in fact succeeded in making VX, according to the report.