Were British Troops Exposed to Chemical Warfare Agents?
127. A careful consideration of the available evidence relating to the chemical alert in Al Jubayl on 19 January 1991 leads the MOD to assess that UK troops were almost certainly not exposed to Iraqi CW agents. This assessment is based on three facts. 128. Firstly, there is no evidence to suggest that any of the delivery systems that Iraq was thought to have available for chemical weapons were used against the FMA on that occasion. The MOD paper British Chemical Warfare Defence during the Gulf Conflict (1990-91) lists the CW agent delivery means that were thought to be available to Iraq. These included mortars, artillery shells and rockets, and bombs. Chemical warheads for SCUD missiles were considered to be probably available, and chemical cluster bombs and air to surface rockets possibly available. There were also suggestions that projectiles filled with CW agent could be fired from one or two Iraqi long range guns. 129. Al Jubayl was some 200 km from the nearest point on the Kuwaiti
