UPDATE 5-Iraq war chemicals found stored in UN office

(Adds background on inspectors, paragraphs 9-10)

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The United Nations found small amounts of a potentially lethal chemical warfare agent, removed from Iraq a decade ago, in offices near its New York headquarters but officials said on Thursday there was no danger.

The FBI and New York police were called and they had removed the substances by late afternoon on Thursday, said Marie Okabe, a U.N. spokeswoman.

The material was identified as phosgene, an older generation chemical warfare agent, which could have been lethal if it had evaporated, the officials said.

Phosgene was used extensively during World War One as a choking agent that attacks the lungs.

The phosgene was recovered in 1996 from a former Iraqi chemical weapons facility, al-Muthanna, north of Baghdad.

"It should not have come here," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, in whose offices the substance was found. Normally, such materials would be taken to a secure laboratory.

R.P. Eddy, executive director of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Policing Terrorism and a former U.N. adviser, agreed. "Did someone there make a stupid mistake that could have actually been catastrophic? Yes. Does that mean the U.N. is a flawed organization? No. This is one goofball error," he said.