New discovery of gas protection kit raises Allied fears

The prospect of Iraqi gas attacks was raised again yesterday by the spokesman for US Central Command in Qatar, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, who announced the discovery of chemical protection suits and decontamination equipment in an Iraqi arms cache seized near Nasiriyah.

He said a chemical decontamination vehicle had also been found, but declined to declare it was evidence that Iraq had, or was intending to use, chemical weapons. "It's one more tile in the mosaic," he said. "We cannot determine what the regime will do."

The discovery was the latest in a series of finds of chemical warfare protection equipment well publicised by US and British spokesmen in recent days. On Sunday, British troops were reported to have uncovered protective suits, training materials and stocks of a nerve gas antidote, atropine, near Basra. A Geiger counter, gas masks and nerve gas simulators were also found.

Captain Kevin Cooney of the joint Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Regiment, said: "To my eye it looks like training equipment to teach people how to identify if there is something like sarin in the air and what to do in the event of a nuclear attack." He said further tests would be needed to reach a definitive judgement.

In a separate development, the US said that it had identified and destroyed "a massive terrorist facility" used by Islamic militants in northern Iraq over the weekend that could have been used to make chemical weapons, including the poison ricin. Traces of ricin were found earlier this year in a north London flat.

So far, however, only protection equipment has been found, not any of the lethal substances repeatedly cited by the US and Britain as one of the chief justifications for going to war. But the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said the weapons of mass destruction were more likely to be "in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north of it".

American, British and Australian specialists are reported already to have examined as many as 100 suspected sites, without finding any unlawful weapons. The inability of the UN weapons inspectors, led by Hans Blix, to establish the existence of banned substances was a source of deep frustration to the US.

Reports last week that a chemical weapons factory had been found at Najaf, south of Baghdad, originated inThe Jerusalem Post and have not been verified. Mr Blix said his inspectors had examined the plant, which was found to be a disused cement works.

The longer there is no proof to support the Allies' assertion that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, the higher the stakes become. Opponents of the war argue that if nothing is found, the whole reason for military action – launched to enforce UN resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm – risks being discredited. Clearly suspicious about possible deception, several countries, including France, have now approached the UN about providing independent inspectors to verify anything that may be found.

In the meantime, British and US officials have expressed confidence that weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq and warn that Saddam Hussein may have drawn a "red line" around Baghdad that will trigger the command to deploy chemical or biological weapons as a last resort. At her latest briefing, the Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clark showed gruesome pictures of some of the victims of Halabja gas attack in 1988 to illustrate how brutally the Iraqi regime has been prepared to act.