03 March 2003
U.S. Forces Said Prepared to Defend Against Chem-Bio Weapons
(Army official says U.S. forces much better prepared than Iraqis for chem-bio attack) (900) By Jacquelyn S. Porth Washington File Staff Writer Washington - A U.S. Army official says Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may have "some grave reservations" about ordering his troops to use chemical and biological weapons against U.S. forces in the case of an Iraq war because the capability of his troops to defend against their use "is extremely limited." Major General John Doesburg, who commands the Army's Soldier and Biological Chemical Command in Aberdeen, Maryland, told reporters at the Defense Department March 3 that U.S. forces are better prepared than are Iraqis to deal with chemical and biological agents on the battlefield. Even though U.S. defensive equipment "is world-class" and American soldiers "are trained and ready," Doesburg said no one should forget that Iraq has used these kinds of weapons before -- during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war against Iranian soldiers during a battle for the port city of Basrah and against Kurdish civilians in Halabja in 1988. During the Iran-Iraq war, he said, Iraq used a classic employment of chemical weapons by disbursing persistent agents along the front lines of combat and using non-persistent agents toward the rear area. Doesburg said he knows about this first hand because he was in Geneva negotiating the Chemical Weapons Convention when an Iranian diplomat showed him photographs of not only the Iranian soldiers who were exposed to Iraqi mustard agents, but also women and children who were caught up in the deadly attack. "I will never forget the Iranian diplomat who came forward with a picture book of exposures," he said. The most disturbing was the exposure of women and children to mustard gas, he added. Despite his assessment that Iraq might not use such weapons against a superior military adversary, Doesburg said "we have to be ready." And, he said U.S. forces are standing ready with an assessed capability that they are 100 percent better equipped than their Iraqi counterparts to operate in a contaminated chemical and biological environment. Saddam Hussein's forces, generally, "are not well trained" in chemical and biological defense, he said, although there may be pockets of the elite Republic Guard who are better prepared than others such as the irregular forces. Doesburg spoke in front of an array of U.S. military defensive gear that he described as "the best equipment in the world." Army Colonel Thomas Spoehr, who appeared at the briefing with Doesburg, pointed to the small decontamination kit carried by every soldier. The Army has 15,000 NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) specialists, with at least one assigned to each fielded unit, said Spoehr, who commands the Third Chemical Brigade. The Army is more than ready to operate successfully in an NBC environment, he said. Detection equipment has also improved by leaps and bounds since the 1991 Gulf war, the briefers said. Army Brigadier General Steve Reeves, the program executive officer for Chemical Biological Defense Systems, said there are now new stand-off detection units that can pick up agents from five kilometers away. That system -- also on display at the Pentagon -- is the "first in the world," he said. He also talked about a semi-automatic detector, known as a portal shield, which is deployed at fixed sites such as ports, airfields and bases throughout Southwest Asia. Elsewhere, at temporary military facilities, combinations of detection equipment have been deployed, according to Doesburg. The Army officials also talked about the post-war goal of identifying and securing Iraqi chemical and biological production or equipment storage sites. The notion is to inspect the facilities to be sure what kind of concoctions might be on-site before destroying them. This would obviate a problem that occurred during the Gulf war when coalition forces blew up Iraqi sites creating plumes of toxins that drifted downwind. Doesburg said considerable time has been spent studying incidents such as the destruction of Iraqi nerve agent-equipped rockets in Khamisya. "As we look at the potential of conflict with Iraq again," he said, "knowing that they potentially have chemical and biological agents in storage, we've looked at the methodology that we will use to, first, identify those sites, and then, two, secure those sites to eventually destroy the chemical and biological agents that might be there." He indicated that destruction technology and disarmament techniques have improved since the Gulf war, thanks in part to efforts by organizations such as the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. "We would like to secure a site, first," Doesburg said, "because we want to fully investigate it." Since the Iraqis experimented in the past with mixing agents at depots and storage sites, he said, "you don't want to make any mistakes" like assuming there are merely conventional munitions on-site, and, possibly, overlooking other toxic munitions. "You want to fully understand what's there before you take remediation measures," he added. The officials were also asked about possible planning to assist Iraqi civilians should the Iraqi regime order the use of chemical weapons. Specialized Army civil affairs units are ready to step in and provide humanitarian assistance to civilian Iraqis, including in the area of chemical and biological defense, Reeves said, "to the extent our capacity allows." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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