Sat 18 October, 2003 16:48 BST
Dutch Defence Ministry spokesman Robin Middel said a munitions clearance team found a 130-millimetre shell containing an unknown substance in the southern al-Muthanna province of Iraq on October 8 and reported the find to their British commanders.
"There are standard procedures when munitions are found with unknown loads and they call for the worst case scenario. The shells were wrapped up and buried and British troops were called in to take a closer look," Middel said.
"I would not make a link with weapons of mass destruction... It could be a chemical load or the result of the shell having been exposed to the sun and heat in the desert for ten years, which would also have led to a chemical reaction."
Major Charlie Mayo, spokesman for the British-led multinational force in southern Iraq said investigators from the Iraq Survey Group would examine the shells handed over by Dutch troops.
"They decided the munitions needed further investigation and the relevant authorities have been informed in order to determine whether or not they are chemical weapons."
The Iraq Survey Group is a team of weapons experts sent to Iraq by the United States and Britain to search for weapons of mass destruction,
Middel said there were several dozen shells in total, some of which looked suspicious."
Washington and London cited former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of chemical and biological weapons as the main justification for their March invasion of Iraq. No such weapons have been found.
A British military spokesman in Baghdad said weapons caches were routinely examined before being destroyed.
About 1,100 Dutch troops are based in Iraq.
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