Training equipment find raises fears Saddam may use banned weapons
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Your support makes all the difference.A stash of Iraqi training equipment for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare was discovered by British troops yesterday, including a Geiger counter, nerve gas simulators, gas masks and protective suits.
One of the chemicals found in the cache was marked ominously in Russian and English with the name sarin, a dangerous nerve gas that Saddam Hussein is suspected to have in his arsenal.
The chemical appeared not to be a sample of sarin but some sort of simulator used to test if sarin was in the atmosphere. Nevertheless it was marked "dangerous to humans if exposed for 10 minutes without a respirator".
Although the discovery did not provide "smoking gun" definitive proof to support Allied claims that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction, it represented a propaganda coup for Britain and America. It showed that nuclear, biological and chemical weapons training was available to Iraqi forces.
"Until further tests are carried out on the vials of chemicals we have found here we do not know exactly what the material is," Captain Kevin Cooney of the Joint Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Regiment said.
"To my eye it looks like training equipment to teach people how to identify if there is something like sarin in the air and what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.
"Further tests will have to be done and this is now a matter that has been passed up the chain of command."
The discovery was made in an Iraqi ordnance facility south of Basra in territory now controlled by coalition forces.
The equipment included relatively modern "Combo Pens", devices carried by troops who expect possible attack by nerve agents and which deliver a small but concentrated dose of antidote if punched against the thigh.
There were vials of atropine, the antidote for nerve-gas attack used by British and American forces. There were 13 large wooden cases, some marked "Ministry of Defence, Baghdad", containing gas masks, plastic suits and other materiel.
Perhaps the most worrying thing were two packets of thin, glass vials, each containing some coloured crystals, apparently with instructions on how to use them for detection of nerve agents, including "Sarin, Soman and V-Gases".
The directions indicated how the vials could be broken and vapour from them pumped into a small hand pump, which was then filled with the atmosphere that was to be tested. A colour change in the chemical indicator showed the presence of sarin.
There were also posters in the room, with Arabic writing, explaining what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.
The building in which the material was found was located in what appeared to be a military training establishment with examples of how to build trench systems and bunkers, and how to string out razor wire defences.
This is a pooled dispatch from Tim Butcher of The Daily Telegraph
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