Iraq Crisis: RAF unit set for gas alert

The Royal Air Force is to send chemical and biological-weapons experts to the Gulf to detect Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction. A 12-strong team from RAF Honington in Suffolk leaves tomorrow and will be based in Kuwait, where the RAF has eight Tornado aircraft, training for possible strikes on Iraq.

While Ministry of Defence officials said they hoped a diplomatic solution could be found to the crisis, the deployment shows British forces are preparing for the worst-case scenario.

As well as testing for the existence of chemical and biological weapons, the Honington team will co-ordinate defences and ensure that personnel are properly trained in protecting themselves from such weapons. The Honington team will work alongside a local chemical and biological-weapons alarm system which has already been set up in Kuwait.

During the last Gulf conflict there was controversy over the reliability of the chemical-weapons detection equipment used by allied forces. When the Iraqis launched Scud missiles on allied bases in Saudi Arabia on 19 January 1991, the alarms sounded. Troops were told the alarms had been falsely activated, although a team of Czech chemical-weapons experts working for the Saudis have since said that their equipment showed positive for mustard gas.

The MoD still maintains, however, that chemical weapons were not used during the Gulf war, although they were released during the destruction of an Iraqi weapons dump.

When the Khamisiyah pit was detonated by the Americans on 10 March 1991, gases from up to 500 Iraqi chemical rockets were wafted a distance of up to 450km. Military sources said last week that they did not expect President Saddam Hussein to use chemical and biological weapons in a conflict because of possible American response to such an action.

British forces have not been vaccinated or made to take tablets against chemical and biological attacks, although medication has been sent to the Gulf as an emergency measure.