Margaret Thatcher suggested threatening Saddam with chemical weapons

[BEagle]

An interesting piece on BBC News:

Margaret Thatcher suggested threatening Saddam with chemical weapons - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40667031)

The rumour we heard was that Saddam had been threatened that if he ever used CW against the coalition, then the likely retaliation would be a bucket of sun....

Fortunately all those wretched Scud attacks which came our way had HE warheads, most of which fell to bits anyway. But after one attack on KKIA, NBC Black was announced - a CAM had alerted. Luckily it turned out to be a false alarm caused by a truck exhaust...:\

[ex_matelot]

Always wondered why, when deploying in '97 to the gulf we had NBCD workup and jabs etc...then, in 2002...nothing whatsoever...despite the media at the time being fed the line he had a huge arsenal of Chems.

I speak from an RN point of view, any similar in crabs?

[ORAC]

I believe you misremember. The vaccinations were still available, but because if the uproar concerning "Gulf War Syndrome" after GWI the policy changed from mandatory to voluntary.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/publications/assetfiles/gulfwar/Murphy2006-ukarmedforcesresponses.pdf

"....In the build-up to the 2003 Iraq conflict the decision was taken to continue to provide protection against the threat of biological warfare. By this time the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had changed its general policy on the administration of the vaccine to explicitly offer it voluntarily based on informed consent. Whilst not accepting the epidemiological evidence reviewed above, it also as a precautionary measure decided to end the use of the pertussis/anthrax combination and give anthrax vaccine without any adjuvant........"

[BEagle]

Some accounts of the way these vaccinations / inoculations were administered can be read here: Inquiry into Gulf War illnesses - vaccinations, etc. (http://www.refusingtokill.net/disability/inquiryVaccinations.htm)

Also http://www.thepowerhour.com/news/vaccines_ignored.htm makes disturbing reading.

:uhoh:

[Evalu8ter]

Beagle,
On the eve of GW2 due to the attempted "decapitation strikes" Saddam lobbed a whole load of Scuds into northern Kuwait. We were in our laager with our helicopters waiting to conduct an assault that night when the NAIDs and CAMs went off, shortly followed by a "confirmation" of "nerve agent". A couple of very nervous hours passed before someone announced, in a muffled voice, that they "thought" it was a false alarm due to some off-gassing from a Scud that had been, probably, aimed at us but went long by a couple of miles. Next step was a sniff test. "Could we have two volunteers?" Errr, no. Reminiscent of the scene from The Fast Show when the officer tries to get two chaps to charge a machine gun nest....eventually two "canaries" were found.....rather them than me!

Ex-matelot, on the run up to GW2 we were on Ark and we conducted a serious amount of CBRN work-up, including AR5 NVG deck landings and low level Tac Formation, gunnery and dust landings. For once, we as Crabs actually felt quite military as our knowledge/capability was far in excess of the ship's crew. They just assumed "pre-wet" and "citadel" would solve all their problems.....

[BEagle]

One day I saw a small cage with little birds in it just outside the glass-walled 'air raid shelter' :rolleyes: at KKIA. I thought that some Army lads had obtained them as pets to brighten up their time, but was later told that they were actually there to detect CW agents. So much for the CAMs....

[Stitchbitch]

Pre GW2 work up on an SH Sqn certainly included putting up the porton liner and doing lots of AR5 walk throughs. We scrounged bits for our aircrew respirators from all over the place, the AAC gave up quite a lot of spares iirc. We expected to face chemical and bio stuff at some point and the crews spent the first few weeks in theatre with the AR5s aboard the cabs.

[ShotOne]

The Beeb headline is misleading. If you read what Mrs T actually said, it was nothing about threats, rather asking what our response was going to be in the event. Concerning that prior to that, this apparently hadn't been properly though out and certainly no conclusions arrived at. Bush's reasoning that "world opinion" would prevent Saddam using his CW seems a dangerous and lax assumption.

[Tashengurt]

I did a 'live' decontam drill of some crews during GW1 after they set off some kind of alarm on their return.
I can't recall the details but I think I claim a first for that.
It was a bizarre incident as no-one really believed there was any risk and other aircrew kept wandering into the LHA as we did it!

[Basil]

During WW2 we had decontamination facilities for the civil population - just in case.

[Fonsini]

The Beeb headline is misleading.

Strange, they are usually so unbiased :hmm: