News from the Washington File

News from the Washington File U.S. Marines on March 26 found more than 3,000 chemical protective suits, gas masks, nerve agent antidotes and a tank at a hospital near An Nasiriyah that was being used by Iraqi irregular forces as a base of operations. Brooks said the discovery by British forces of several thousand more chemical protective suits in the Ar Rumaylah oil fields in southern Iraq strongly indicate "a certain knowledge in the Iraqi forces that chemical weapons will be used." Since coalition forces do not have chemical weapons, Brooks said, there may already have been an Iraqi decision to use banned weapons at some point.