WASHINGTON – Iraqi soldiers in chemical-protection suits were spotted unloading 50-gallon drums from trucks near U.S troop formations in the latest ominous signs that Saddam Hussein may use chemical weapons to thwart the U.S. assault.
Senior military officials said yesterday the alarming intelligence report came from the Karbala area where the Army’s V Corps is faced off against the Medina Republican Guard division in what is shaping up to be the critical battle of war so far.
The Iraqi shock troops were spotted between the U.S. and Iraqi lines wearing full chemical-protection gear as they unloaded several drums from trucks.
U.S. officials say they aren’t sure what’s in the drums but fear they may be some kind of elaborate booby trap that would spew chemical agents into the air if U.S. troops pass a certain position.
The intelligence report follows discoveries in the towns of Nasiriyah and Basra this week of hundreds of chemical-protection suits and doses of atropine – an antidote for VX nerve gas.
The Pentagon believes Republican Guard units protecting the Iraqi capital have orders to fire chemical weapons if U.S. troops cross a designated “red line.”
“We have seen indications that first orders have been given that at a certain point chemical weapons might be used,” Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said in Qatar.
Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration also rushed approval for a new skin lotion called RSDL that can minimize burns from a chemical attack.
Pentagon officials said U.S. Special Forces commandos and chemical-warfare specialists have raided suspect sites in western and southern Iraq in the past week, but have not yet found weapons of mass destruction.
Officials said there are several sites near Baghdad, still out of reach of U.S. forces, being closely monitored by intelligence agencies as suspect sites.
U.S. military officials have been contacting Iraqi commanders by e-mail and cell phone for months, warning them that they’ll be hunted down and treated as war criminals if they obey orders to use the banned weapons.
Intelligence officials believe that extremely loyal and fanatical units of the Special Republican Guard and the Special Security Organization under the command of Saddam’s son Qusay have been assigned the task of unleashing the deadly weapons if U.S. forces rout the Republican Guard – which shows no signs of surrender.
Meanwhile, the discovery of two bloodied U.S. military uniforms – including a woman’s – in a hospital in Nasiriyah that paramilitary forces had used as a headquarters raised the possibility the uniforms were those of two of the 12 ambushed Army mechanics, five of whom were taken prisoner and shown on TV and seven who were executed.