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


03/February/1998

Troops wait for vaccines

By Tim Butcher

BRITISH personnel serving in the Gulf have not received vaccinations against Iraqi biological or chemical weapons.

The issue is so sensitive that ministers have asked to be kept constantly informed about medical matters. A senior defence source said yesterday that medical issues arising out of the stand-off with Iraq were being dealt with at "ministerial level". At the moment there is no authorisation for any vaccination programme.

Ministers have insisted on keeping a tight control over health matters because of the problems that arose out of vaccinations used on British troops in the run-up to the 1990-91 Gulf war. The Ministry of Defence was alleged to have damaged the health of some troops by approving an untested cocktail of injections, pills and other drugs. The MoD denied this but later admitted it had lost thousands of health records.

The latest confrontation involves around 2,300 British personnel, mainly members of the Royal Navy in the battle group based around the aircraft carrier Invincible, the destroyer Nottingham and the frigate Coventry.

There are also a few hundred RAF personnel supporting the deployment of six Tornados bombers in Saudi Arabia and six Harrier GR7 bombers on the carrier.

When Gen Sir Charles Guthrie, Chief of the Defence Staff, delivered his Directive on Jan 20 authorising Operation Bolton he made it clear that ministerial permission was needed on any change of medical policy.

British military intelligence believes that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons, including anthrax, plague and botulinum toxin, as well as nerve gases such as sarin.

The size of Iraqi stocks of these weapons is unclear, but in the run-up to the Gulf War British planners took the threat seriously.

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