Edted for length.
A British defence firm has categorically denied supplying Iraq with boxes of rocket-propelled grenades bearing its name reportedly found near Basra. Hampshire-based Wallop Defence Systems told BBC News Online it had never produced anything with high explosives and had never sold anything to Iraq. The company, formerly called Wallop Industries, was responding to reports Scottish troops from the Black Watch regiment had discovered cruise missiles and warheads hidden in bunkers and cases of rockets, anti-shipping mines and other ammunition. One pile of boxes in a store housing rocket propelled grenades bore the name of Wallop Industries Limited, based in Middle Wallop. Company spokesman Matthew Smallwood said: "The company only makes things like smoke grenades and flares."
| Maybe they just put the high explosives in Wallop boxes, huh? |
He said the company had sold several thousand smoke grenades to the Kuwaitis in 1985. Six years later it was informed by the Ministry of Defence that some of these were found in an Iraqi arms cache. "It was concluded then as it is now that when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991 they got their hands on the smoke grenades. We are investigating these claims as best as we can in a highly fluid situation," he said.
| Uh-oh! I feel the benefit of the doubt kicking in here. One of the boxes — don't know if it was Wallop's — was stamped "Contract AS Navy. 5/1980 Iran"... |
Reports said British-made explosive components, believed to be fuses for detonators, were in boxes stamped "Wallop Industries Limited, Middle Wallop, Hampshire". They were said to carry danger signs and a prohibition on the product being carried by air. Major Nick Channer, second in command of Black Watch, which found the weapons arsenal at Zubayr civilian heliport south of Iraq's second city of Basra, said experts had been called in to examine the discovery.
| Perhaps Mr Wallop would like to stop by to examine them in person? |
Two Russian-made Harith long-range anti-shipping Cruise missiles dated 2002 were also among the weapons found in concrete bunkers. |