LONDON, (Reuters):
BRITAIN SAID yesterday it had made a significant discovery of protective chemical suits in southern Iraq that showed Baghdad was ready to use weapons of mass destruction.
Any proof of Iraqi intent to use so-called such weapons would be a propaganda coup for the United States and Britain, which went to war last Thursday after abandoning diplomatic efforts to rid Iraq of its weapons programmes.
Iraq denies it has any such banned weapons.
"We do have evidence that the Iraqi regime is prepared to use weapons of mass destruction," Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told reporters.
Military chiefs conceded there was nothing "offensive" in their find essentially a cache of 100-plus suits and documents abandoned by Iraqi forces as British forces over-ran positions to seize control of Iraq's oilfields in the south.
But they said it showed clear intent.
"British forces have made significant discoveries in recent days that show categorically that the Iraqi troops are prepared for the use of such horrific weapons," Hoon said.
Powers opposed to war have accused the US-British axis of failing to present evidence that Baghdad posed a threat to world security. Before war began, they had vainly urged the United States and Britain to give United Nations weapons inspections more time to comb the country and destroy banned Iraqi weapons.
WAR CHEST
Amid fears the war is not going as smoothly as many pundits had expected, Hoon insisted there was no need to boost the number of British troops from a current commitment of 45,000.
But the bill is already rising, with Britain forced to boost its war chest on Thursday to pay for combat and aid.
Finance Minister Gordon Brown allocated an extra £1.25 billion, bringing to three billion (US$4.7 billion) the total that Hoon can draw upon to wage war. Brown also set aside an extra 120 million pounds for emergency aid, with the first British shipments expected to dock today.
The first mishap of the aid effort became clear when officials said two men held by Iraq and shown on al-Jazeera television on Wednesday were not British soldiers but Kenyan drivers contracted to deliver food to Iraqi prisoners.
"The two men are civilian subcontractors delivering food to Iraqi POWs. They are drivers," a Defence Ministry spokesman said. "They should be treated as prisoners of war in their own right."
Since bombs began pounding Iraq last Thursday, US-led forces have been searching for any hard evidence of banned weapons in a push to vindicate war and win round sceptics.
Five thousand Kurds were killed in a poison gas attack by Saddam's forces in the northern town of Halabja in 1988 but Baghdad says it no longer has such weapons.
Hoon conceded the latest find of clothing and documents well short of an actual weapons find was neither conclusive nor offensive but said the suits were "obviously to protect his (Saddam's) own forces".
The British claim comes a day after the United States said its Marines had seized more than 3,000 chemical suits with masks at an Iraqi hospital being used as a "military staging area."
