I would agree that the amount of sheer dithering in terms of one-would-hope-have-their-stuff-together UK and EU arms-export controls is more worrisome than the chemicals themselves. Fluoride salts of trivially common metals are pretty unscary compounds (though, if memory serves, you do need a fluorine atom from somewhere to make sarin, though you have plenty of options since fluorine isn’t picky about what it reacts with).
If their story were ‘this isn’t a story because sodium fluoride is what keeps your teeth pearly-white FFS; and incidentally most of the developing world will sell you brutally nasty organophosphate pesticides by the ton, so trying to hunt down every last possible precursor is kind of a futile endeavor.’, I’d be less concerned. As it is, the story appears to be ‘Um, nothing is wrong because our prolonged process of bumbling ended up being irrelevant because the deal fell through on unrelated grounds.’ Which doesn’t fill one with confidence.
