UK Forces Chemical Warfare Agent Alerts

On 14 July 1997, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) published a policy statement setting out its strategy for addressing the health concerns that have been expressed by veterans of the 1990/1991 Gulf conflict. As part of this strategy, the Government pledged to review incidents during Operation GRANBY where veterans have suggested that they were exposed to Iraqi chemical or biological warfare (CBW) agents.

The first of these reviews concerned a tank of liquid found at the Kuwaiti Girls' School in Kuwait City in August 1991, and a draft case narrative was published jointly by the MOD and the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses (OSAGWI) at the US Department of Defense (DoD) on 11 March 1998. Another paper published by the MOD on 6 April 1998 reviewed the circumstances in which UK forces reported groups of dead animals during the Gulf conflict.