All news on this page courtesy of the The Telegraph Newspaper, London, UK

30/July/1997

Cloud of gas 'passed over Gulf troops'

By Tim Butcher, Defence Correspondent

POISONOUS nerve gas from Iraqi rockets blown up after the Gulf war passed over British troops, the Ministry of Defence admitted yesterday.

Dr John Reid, the Armed Forces minister, said that "a number of British units" were in the affected area although health experts said the concentration of the sarin gas was too low to cause significant health problems.

Nevertheless, Dr Reid said an urgent review had been launched to establish which units were in the area and to carry out research into the health of troops involved.

The announcement came when Dr Reid gave evidence to the new Defence Select Committee on the issue of so-called Gulf war syndrome. He referred to the admission by American officials that sarin rockets had been accidentally blown up during a routine demolition of an arms dump at Khamisiyah in Iraq on March 10, 1991, after the end of the war.

Most British troops were not in the vicinity and they were judged not have been affected as the Americans had originally said the plume of poisonous gas covered an area with a radius of 30 miles.

Last week the Americans increased their assessment of the size of the "footprint" after computerised weather maps showed that the cloud moved 190 miles in a south-east direction. The footprint moved over an area occupied by British troops, although in the aftermath of the war the exact location and number of units will take some time to establish.