III

We published an interim version of the 11th Marines narrative on November 5, 1998. This final report incorporates comments on the interim report by veterans and the Presidential Special Oversight Board. Tab H summarizes the new information and principal changes in this version.

During Operation Desert Storm, the 11th Marine Regiment was a reinforced artillery regiment supporting the 1st Marine Division. As we reviewed Gulf War documentation, we noted that the regiment recorded a relatively high number of chemical warfare agent (CWA) incidents in its units’ command chronologies, field message traffic, and operational logs. This narrative presents an analysis of possible chemical warfare incidents involving the 11th Marines. Ultimately, it seeks to address the likelihood that this regiment’s Marines and sailors may have operated in areas where CWA was present.

Unlike most of our other narratives, this paper does not focus on a single location or incident. Instead, it details the experience of a specific unit involving 17 separate incidents extending over more than 160 miles during a 45-day period, before, during, and after the Coalition ground campaign.

The 11th Marines, based in California during peacetime, was task organized or tailored for the Gulf War by adding elements of other regiments, particularly the 12th Marines based in the Pacific (Hawaii and Okinawa). As it entered the ground campaign, the 11th Marines had five artillery battalions. Not all batteries fought with the battalion to which they belonged in peacetime.

Figure 3 depicts the regiment’s organization as it entered the ground campaign.^{^[2]}

Each of these battalions, except the 5/11, had one headquarters plus three firing batteries, each with eight towed 155mm howitzers (Figure 4). The 5/11 with a headquarters and four firing batteries primarily provided general support for the 1st Marine Division. In addition to two batteries of six towed 155mm howitzers each, the 5/11 also had a battery of six self-propelled 155mm howitzers (Figure 5) and a battery of six self-propelled eight-inch howitzers (Figure 6).^{^[3]}

The 11th Marines also had various heavy trucks to carry ammunition and tow the artillery pieces, as well as numerous command and control and utility vehicles. Average battalion strength was about 650 Marines. Entering the ground campaign, the regiment had more than 3,600 Marines.

Tab C contains charts showing the organizational positions of the people we interviewed in investigating the 11th Marines case.

Except for the 5/11, 11th Marines battalions supported particular infantry task forces built around infantry regiments. Some of these pairings remained stable, but as the ground campaign unfolded, commanders adjusted artillery support missions based on the tactical situation. Unlike the 2d Marine Division, the 1st Marine Division used arbitrary code names for the infantry task forces rather than the core regiment’s unit designation. These task force names (Ripper, Papa Bear, Grizzly, etc.) appear in contemporary chronologies and logs as the principal maneuver elements. Tab B lists the 1st Marine Division units (other than the 11th Marines) and their compositions pertinent to this narrative.

To coordinate artillery fire support requirements, the 11th Marines maintained close contact with the 1st Marine Division’s primary maneuver elements through tactical radio networks and by placing 11th Marines forward observers and liaison teams with maneuver units’ command posts. With this dense, far-flung network, the artillery regiment had up-to-the-minute awareness of the situation across the division. The regiment logged and widely disseminated chemical warfare alerts originating from its own units and from other parts of the division. The 11th Marines commanding officer said senior commanders always liked to visit the artillery command post because, unlike other tactical units, the artillery had the big picture—it monitored many networks and actions.^{^[4]}

The geographic and temporal flow of the 1st Marine Division and 11th Marines during Operation Desert Storm provides a backdrop for analyzing the incidents described later.

In the weeks before the ground campaign started on February 24, 11th Marines elements logged several chemical warfare alerts, generally associated with reports of Iraq’s long-range Scud missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and Iraq’s artillery and unguided rocket fire below the border with Kuwait. As a precaution, some units donned protective gear in case Iraq had employed chemical warfare agents (CWA).

Beginning the night of January 20-21, 11th Marines elements began conducting occasional artillery raids against Iraq’s targets near the border.^{^[5]}On a typical raid, an artillery battery with supporting trucks and command elements would move with stealth to the Saudi Arabia-Kuwait border area. Under cover of darkness, they would receive the location of a priority enemy target (e.g., a multiple rocket launcher about to fire). The artillery unit would fire on the target and rapidly leave the area to avoid any return artillery fire.^{^[6]}

Figure 7 shows the general location of the 11th Marines and locations of artillery raids prior to the ground campaign.^{^[7]}

As the Coalition ground offensive began on February 24, the 11th Marines entered Kuwait from the south, moved north, and began crossing the two obstacle belts built by Iraq in southern Kuwait. The obstacle belts included anti-tank and anti-personnel mines as well as physical obstacles. Generally, artillery battalions moved in trail of the infantry task forces they supported. The 3/11, supporting Task Force Ripper, was the first artillery unit through the first obstacle belt.^{^[8]}Figure 8 depicts the situation.

On the ground campaign’s second day, most 11th Marine elements moved through the second obstacle belt and headed north to positions between Al Jaber Air Base and the Al Burqan oilfield. Figure 9 shows key unit locations. These units spent most of the day in intense pollution from burning oil wells. Some elements remained farther south between the obstacle belts.

On the offensive’s third day, all but Battery A, 1/12, moved north and east to establish positions to the south and west of Kuwait International Airport on the outskirts of Kuwait City. On the fourth day (February 27), the 11th Marines assisted the 1st Marine Division in consolidating its positions and establishing security. General locations appear in Figure 10. Over the following days, the 11th Marines returned to port areas in Saudi Arabia and eventually to their respective home stations.

At the time of Operation Desert Storm, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believed Iraq had CWA munitions in the Kuwait theater of operations. The US intelligence community^{^[9]}assessed that Iraq had chemical weapons capability, and had previously used chemical weapons against its own citizens, as well as against Iran.^{^[10]}

After the war, the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq, through its chemical and biological weapons inspections program, inventoried and in some cases supervised the destruction of Iraq’s CWA, chemical weapons, and delivery means. Table 2 summarizes Iraq’s CWA weaponization and delivery capability during the Gulf War. Further information on CWAs and their effects appears in Tab A. When assessing the 11th Marines’ chemical warfare incidents, we considered the post-war data on Iraq’s ability to deliver particular types of agents.

While we cannot discount uncoordinated small-scale chemical warfare attacks by Iraq’s forces, what we know about Iraq’s chemical employment doctrine does not support piecemeal use. Their doctrine became clear during their effective use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). Against Iran, Iraq used massed attacks on selected targets.^{^[11]}Such heavy attacks were easy to identify.

Table 2. Iraq’s Chemical weapon capabilities at the time of the Gulf War^{^[12]}

Agent	Means of Delivery	Comments
mustard (blister agent)	155mm artillery shells aerial bombs	Although unconfirmed reports said Iraq had mustard-filled mortar rounds, UNSCOM found none in their post-war investigations.
sarin (nerve agent)	122mm ground-launched artillery rockets
sarin and cyclosarin (nerve agent) mixture	122mm ground-launched artillery rockets Scud (mainly Al Hussein variant) surface-to-surface missiles aerial bombs	Some Scuds were filled with two alcohols to which an organophosphorus compound was to be added immediately before firing to produce in flight the sarin/cyclosarin by a binary process.

In 1996 and 1997 testimony before the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, UNSCOM and Central Intelligence Agency experts testified they believed Iraq did not deploy chemical weapons or agents into Kuwait before or during the war.^{^[13]}Because Coalition forces neutralized Iraq’s air force ground attack capability early in the war, lack of chemical warheads for forward-deployed shorter range systems would have limited Iraq to Scud missiles for CWA delivery^{^[14]}However, in investigating and analyzing the 11th Marines case we did not assume Iraq lacked forward-deployed chemical warfare capability.

Like the rest of US forces in the Gulf War, the 11th Marines responded to chemical warfare alerts by following the Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP) system. As the perceived chemical warfare agent (CWA) threat increased, Marines first donned two-piece chemical protective overgarments (MOPP Level 1), then vinyl overboots (Level 2), followed by protective hood and mask (Level 3), and finally butyl rubber gloves (Level 4).^{^[15]}Additional information on MOPP appears in Tab A. From the initial breach of Iraq’s obstacle belts to the end of the ground campaign, most of the 11th Marine wore at least MOPP Level 2 as a precaution. In response to a specific alert, the regiment’s affected elements generally donned full protection (assumed MOPP Level 4). The log records of these alerts and the directions to increase or decrease MOPP level represent much of the contemporaneous written record about the incidents we discuss.

The glossary at Tab A briefly describes the CWA detection equipment mentioned in this narrative, including the M256A1 Chemical Agent Detection Kit, the Chemical Agent Monitor (CAM), the XM21 Remote Sensing Chemical Agent Alarm (RSCAAL), the XM93 Fox Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle (Fox), and the M8A1 Automatic Chemical Agent Alarm. We assess this equipment’s performance in Section III.C.1. The CAM, RSCAAL, and Fox vehicle all were fielded with the 1st Marine Division just days or weeks before the ground campaign began.^{^[16]}Consequently, the equipment operators were less familiar with using these items than with their other detectors.

Most CWA detection devices available to the Marines could produce false positive as well as true positive readings in the presence of interferents such as oil well fire smoke.^{^[17]}The 11th Marines commanding officer said most of the Marines in his regiment did not clearly understand this as they entered the ground campaign.^{^[18]}

During our investigation we identified 17 separate possible chemical warfare incidents^{^[19]}involving the 11th Marines. Figure 11 shows the distribution of the 11th Marines incidents over time, beginning shortly after the air campaign started and continuing through the end of the 100-hour ground campaign and for a few days afterward. The first two lines represent January, February, and early March 1991. The remaining lines represent the first three days of the ground campaign. Each symbol represents one possible chemical warfare incident. The incidents are clustered at the beginning of the Coalition air campaign in the second half of January 1991 and during the ground campaign in late February 1991.

The amount and quality of information available about these incidents vary greatly. Some events we based on a single log entry. Witnesses often had difficulty recalling or discriminating among separate incidents once the ground war began. For a few incidents, the data uncovered was not always consistent.

In the incident descriptions that follow, we provide a map plotting unit and activity locations drawn from operational reporting and a unit location database maintained by the Department of Defense Armed Forces Center for Unit Records Research. Because wind can be important in assessing possible chemical warfare incidents, we note approximate wind direction and speed on each map, based on US Air Force historical data.^{^[20]}

Our assessment of each incident draws conclusions about the likelihood of CWA presence. In this narrative, we define presence to mean CWA was in the immediate area of 11th Marines elements.

In Tab D we briefly address events previously included in 1997 incident investigation plans submitted to the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses or included in the body of this report’s interim version and now set aside.

At 10:15 PM on January 17,1991, the day the Coalition began offensive air operations, the 3d Marine Regiment in Task Force Taro received incoming artillery rocket fire. At this time, 11th Marines units were based generally back from the coast and between Al Mishab and Manifah.^{^[22]}The 1st Marine Division went to Condition Red.^{^[23]}Among the units donning protective gear were the 3d Marines and the 1st Battalion, 12th Marines (1/12). The 1st Marine Division headquarters, the 11th Marines, and the 3d Marine Regiment’s headquarters sent out nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) monitor/survey teams that reported no indications of CWA. One or more Marines performed selective unmasking at the battery level in the 1/12 and were observed for symptoms. Normally this would lead to all clear decisions at the battery level. However, according to the 1/12 commanding officer (CO), the all clear came from the 11th Marine Regiment. The 1st Marine Division then returned to Condition Yellow.^{^[24]}Figure 12 shows approximate locations at the time.^{^[25]}

One of the NBC NCOs (nuclear, biological, and chemical non-commissioned officer) in the 1/12 recalled this as a Scud ballistic missile attack, but the unit’s CO, referring to personal notes from the time, recorded it as an artillery attack. The CO recalled no positive CWA detections, unusual detonation characteristics, or peculiar smells.^{^[26]}

Although false Scud attack warnings were circulated beginning on January 17, Iraq fired no Scuds at the Kuwait theater of operations until January 20.^{^[27]}The 1/12 CO said incoming rounds detonated like conventional high explosive ammunition. We could document no positive readings by monitor/survey teams and no casualties. The monitor/survey checks led to an all clear. Not a single item of evidence points to a chemical warfare attack other than the alerts, which we believe were precautionary.

We assess CWA was definitely not present in this incident. The witness who recalled an unremarkable artillery (rocket) attack relied on notes made at the time rather than only on memory. Contemporaneous evidence tends to be more reliable than recollections long after the fact. We know Iraq did not attack with Scuds on this date. There were no reported casualties. Units increased protective posture only as a precaution at a time of heightened vigilance and Iraq’s high explosive artillery attack.

On the air campaign’s second day (January 18), Marine command chronologies reported two 11th Marine battalions (the 1/12 and 3/11) noted incoming rounds at 5:25 AM (type not indicated). The 1/12 went to MOPP Level 4, but we found no indication the 3/11 did so. At the same time, unconfirmed accounts reported a Scud launch in the direction of Al Mishab. The 3d Marines instructed the 1/3 and 3/3 to send out monitor/survey teams in their areas. The 3d Marines log reflects negative survey results from the 1/3, the 1/12, and an unidentified NBC Det (detachment). The logs report no positive detections but they indicate units completed selective unmasking procedures. At 7:02 AM the logs report all clear.^{^[28]}Figure 13 shows approximate unit locations.

In a 1997 interview, the 1/12’s CO recalled the unit’s NBC officer sent out NBC survey teams. The CO did not believe the incident resulted from a Scud launch.^{^[29]}The CO recalled correctly. Iraq fired no Scuds toward Coalition positions until January 20. Widely reported Scud attacks on January 18 against the Dhahran area resulted from Patriot batteries automatically firing on false targets caused by radar interference.^{^[30]}

The 1/12 logs for this period are not available. We found no evidence indicating this incoming fire was other than high explosive. The 3d Marines and 1/12 performed selective unmasking without reporting symptoms. An all clear followed the selective unmasking.

We believe the evidence indicates CWA was definitely not present in the vicinity of either 11th Marines battalion. From the information available, we conclude incoming fire triggered the alert, called as a precaution.

At 9:10 PM on January 19, a 3d Marines operations log entry notes the 1/12 conducted a chemical warfare agent (CWA) monitor/survey and subsequently called all clear. The 3d Marines passed on these results, noting the all clear was based on M256 tests. We could not find this activity reported in any other contemporaneous documents or determine what triggered it. See Figure 14 for approximate unit locations at the time.

We uncovered no reports of casualties, incoming artillery or other delivery means, or evidence of readings by M256 kits.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence so we assessed the presence of CWA as indeterminate; there is insufficient information about this incident to make a less equivocal assessment.

This incident occurred during a nighttime artillery raid by 11thMarines elements firing against targets across the border in Kuwait on the night of January 20-21, 1991� the first ground action of Operation Desert Storm. A field radio operator on the artillery raid initially reported this incident to the DoD Persian Gulf Illnesses Task Force in 1995. We conducted a follow-up interview with this Marine. He reported M8A1 alarms went off beginning at 2:00-3:00 AM. Marines went to MOPP Level 4. He stated M256 tests were positive for nerve agent two or three times. According to him, the unit decided the alarms and M256 kits must have malfunctioned due to High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) exhaust or something from a nearby abandoned Bedouin camp called the Chicken Farm. He said the unit decreased protective posture after performing selective unmasking procedures.^{^[31]}A command chronology reported incoming artillery fire at 11:44 PM; "Gas attack, burning fuel fumes" at 1:33 AM; and "All clear; [M]256 [kit] negative" at 2:00 AM.^{^[32]}The 11th Marines command chronology, briefly noted the raid, but said nothing about incoming artillery or a gas attack. It stated, "Battery F, 2/12, from 1/12, conducted an artillery raid at 0315C [3:15 AM local]. They fired 84 rounds on suspected targets. No battle damage assessment available."^{^[33]}See Figure 15 for approximate unit locations.

Various witnesses recalled this incident’s details differently. According to one participant, the raid force included Battery F, 2/12, plus a 1/12 command post (CP) element, attached intelligence and security elements, and a mobile unmanned aerial vehicle downlink receiving station.^{^[34]}Battery F’s commander noted his battery and some of the security elements were positioned well forward of the CP area. An Egyptian tank platoon and some Marine infantry provided security for the battery.^{^[35]}One of the 1/12 operations officers estimated the CP location at five miles south of Kuwait’s border. He recalled the 1/12’s CP was behind and to the side of the gun line, which he estimated as 500-800 meters (up to half a mile) away. Subsequently, he deferred to the Battery F, 2/12, commander on this distance (almost four miles).^{^[36]}

Logs and personal journals agreed incoming artillery fire struck the general area of the 1/12 elements at 11:44 PM,^{^[37]}although the original interviewee located near the CP recalled the time as 2:00-3:00 AM and estimated the impacts at 1,500 meters (0.9 miles) to the front.^{^[38]}One of the operations officers in the CP estimated the number of incoming rounds at six. He thought impacts were about 2,000 to 2,500 meters (1� to 1� miles) to the front. This range also appeared in an incoming fire report filed at 11:44 PM.^{^[39]}A field radio operator was not sure the raid force was the target,^{^[40]}a view shared by the 1/12 commanding officer (CO), who commanded the raid. The CO referred to his contemporaneous notes when interviewed. He said the raid force did not operate a counter-battery (fire finder) radar that could have pinpointed Iraq’s firing location for the Marines but also could tip off Iraq’s forces. He recalled the Saudi Arabian King Abdul Azziz Brigade (not part of the raid force) maneuvered tanks, headlights on, to the left flank of the CP (he sent an officer to request them to stop this during the raid). He thought the Saudi unit’s noise and lights might have drawn Iraq’s fire. The CO remembered the sound of the incoming fire was like artillery shells, not artillery rockets.^{^[41]}The raid’s intelligence officer was sitting in his vehicle near the CP and recalls the incoming fire as perhaps half a kilometer (1/3 of a mile) away from him. He saw the flash but could not remember how many rounds detonated.^{^[42]}

The Battery F commander recalled when the incoming fire hit around midnight, it landed about 1,500 meters (0.9 miles) behind his rear security element and 3,000 meters (1.9 miles) behind the center of the gun line. He recalled four or fewer rounds of artillery fire, which he thought were probably 122mm rather than 155mm, based on the distinctive sounds the shells made passing overhead. He pointed out artillerymen often serve as forward observers or spotters and have experience with these sounds.^{^[43]}

Figure 16 diagrams the various raid elements’ approximate positions, based on testimony of the Battery F commander with the gun line and a 1/12 operations officer in the CP some distance to the rear.^{^[44]}Both officers reviewed drafts of this diagram and concurred it portrayed what they remembered (except the operations officer did not recall Egyptian tanks on the raid).

While the CP journal and a witness recorded a chemical warfare alert one hour and 49 minutes after the incoming fire, the same witness who recalled the detonations at 2:00 to 3:00 AM also believed 15 to 20 minutes separated the explosions and the alert.^{^[45]}

An intelligence officer on the raid said he initiated the alert after smelling what he described in an initial interview as sulfur (rotten eggs). He was standing outside in the CP area. In a later interview, he recalled sensing CS, a riot control agent used in NBC training; he said the substance both smelled and felt (irritated) like CS. He recalled no incoming artillery fire near the time of the smell. A communications officer standing with him smelled the strong odor of sulfur. He said they increased protective posture and passed the alert in the area of the CP.^{^[46]}

The senior operations officer with the CP recalls standing near the back of a HMMWV when suddenly he could not breathe. He recalled a choking sensation that did not taste like CS or smell like rotten eggs. He called CS kids’ play compared to the sensation he experienced. He said he gagged and coughed, but the symptoms slowly subsided after he masked. When the CP element unmasked, he said the irritant was gone. On return to base, a corpsman checked the witness’s pupils and throat and treated him for sore throat. He said his throat remained sore for up to a week.^{^[47]}

The 1/12 CO emphatically stated he smelled sulfur (rotten eggs) in the CP area but definitely not CS, expressing confidence he could tell the difference.^{^[48]}Another operations officer working the radios in the CP recalled that when he got the alert, the intelligence officer said he had smelled CS and experienced CS-like symptoms. This witness recalled a negative M256 test.^{^[49]}The 11th Marines NBC officer, who did not accompany the raid, remembers the incident definitely involved CS, and he reported it as such up the chain of command.^{^[50]}

The communications officer directed a driver and a communications technician to conduct M256 tests in the CP area. He remembered the first test was positive for nerve agent. He was almost certain a second test about 80 feet away registered negative. He recalled they performed selective unmasking using standard procedures and the all clear was sounded. He noted that the smell had disappeared by the time they unmasked.^{^[51]}

The original interviewee recalled several M8A1 alarms in the CP area during this raid. However, other witnesses believed the raid forces did not use M8A1 chemical alarm systems.^{^[52]}

The battery commander on the raid, located with the gun line forward and west of the CP, recalled the CP notified him by radio that somebody had smelled something. He said he did not order the battery to increase protective posture and did not know of anyone with symptoms. He stated he did not find out the CP, almost four miles away, had gone to MOPP Level 4 until the day after the raid.^{^[53]}

Finally, the raid participants were given a target in Kuwait, fired 84 rounds at 3:15 AM, and rapidly left the area.^{^[54]}Figure 17 summarizes the timing of the incident. The 1/12 commanding officer indicated that days after the raid, he recalled hearing Coalition aircraft had bombed an enemy site, and the sulfur smell resulted from this attack.^{^[55]}

According to intelligence and subsequent UNSCOM post-war investigations, Iraq’s ground forces had chemical warfare agent warheads only for Scud-type ballistic missiles (nerve agent), 155mm artillery (blister agent), and 122mm ground-fired rockets (nerve agent). Iraq could deliver CS riot control agent with 120mm mortar rounds. Unlike artillery projectiles, however, mortar rounds travel slower than the speed of sound and are essentially inaudible when passing overhead.^{^[56]}Iraq had the capability to deliver nerve and mustard chemical warfare agents and CS riot control agent in aerial bombs,^{^[57]}but effective aerial surveillance and Coalition air supremacy prevented aerial delivery during the Gulf War.^{^[58]}

Given these capabilities, if the raid battery’s commander correctly estimated the incoming artillery projectiles’ caliber as 122mm based on sound, the rounds did not contain chemical warfare or riot control agents. Several witnesses recalled positive M256 readings for nerve agent, but, as just noted, Iraq did not have nerve agent artillery shells. Most importantly, the witnesses described the attack as involving only high-explosive ordnance, which all but rules out delivery of chemical warfare or riot control agents.

Most witnesses recalled the wind during the raid blowing from the north.^{^[59]}One witness believed the winds were calm and mentioned dense fog,^{^[60]}and another thought there might have been a slight breeze.^{^[61]}The Air Force weather database for the war indicates the winds in the general area at the time of the incident came from the northeast at 5 to 10 knots (6 to 12 miles per hour).^{^[62]}This database lacks local precision, but relies on contemporary documentation. We believe this database more reliably captures prevailing conditions than personal recollection years after the fact.

Conservatively assuming a northerly wind at 6 miles per hour—and assuming the rounds landed about 2,500 meters (1� miles) northwest of the CP—any airborne residue from the rounds would have passed the CP about 1.1 miles to the west approximately 9 minutes later (about an hour and 35 minutes before the 1/12 Marines noticed strong smells). Northeast winds (Air Force database) and higher wind speeds would cause the airborne residue to increase range from the CP after detonation. The weather and the raid forces’ location make it unlikely the Marines on the raid would have detected or experienced any agent Iraq might have fired in the 11:44 PM artillery salvo. However, we recognize local conditions and normal variability could have caused some deviation from the prevailing wind direction and speed. We believe the time and distance separating the incoming artillery fire from the first notice of unusual smells suggest the two events were not directly related.

Several witnesses near the CP clearly experienced something strong in the air. The disagreement on the nature of the smell and its effects prevents a conclusion about what it was or from where it came. Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) smells like rotten eggs—the smell identified by the communications officer as well as the 1/12 CO who discounted the possibility of CS. No known chemical warfare or riot control agent smells like rotten eggs.^{^[63]}The intelligence officer strongly believed he smelled and felt CS, which has a pungent, peppery smell. The operations officer behind the HMMWV reported a choking sensation that caused a sore throat, but he was sure the cause was not CS. Despite getting a whiff of something strong, none of the witnesses reported experiencing the kind of serious symptoms expected from exposure to a chemical warfare agent (CWA). If its concentration caused it to smell strongly, casualties would ensue promptly (although most CWAs have little noticeable smell in field concentrations^{^[64]}).

Most witnesses indicated the raid elements did not set up M8A1 chemical agent alarms, despite one Marine’s testimony they went off repeatedly. Some Marines thought the system’s audible alarm could give away their position, although the 1/12 apparently took M8s on another artillery raid (see Incident E below), and this may account for the Marine’s confusion about this incident.

Witnesses' recollections about M256 test results also varied. One tester recalled several positive readings. The Marine who directed him to do the tests remembered only one positive indication. Others recalled no positives at all. The communications officer thought more than one survey team may have done M256 tests near the command post, a view supported by the varied recollections of test outcomes. In addition, the M256 detection kits cannot detect CS.^{^[65]}However, the kits could produce false positive indications for CWA in the presence of smoke, petroleum products, and other battlefield contaminants. See the Tab A glossary entry on M256A1.

The 1/12 commanding officer said someone told him the source of the smell was a Coalition air strike. We checked a classified database on Coalition air strikes to assess whether an attack on targets in Kuwait might have released industrial or other chemicals that could explain the strong smells. The database placed the closest (time and distance) attack using large bombs against an area target over 30 miles from the raid positions and more than six hours before the unusual smell incident.^{^[66]}Considering the wind data cited above and the locations, the center of any airborne residue from this attack would have passed more than 10 miles west of the command post position between about 10:00 PM and 1:00 AM. The later time (assuming six-mile-per-hour-winds) is half an hour before the smell was noted at 1:33 AM. We could not determine the exact nature of the air targets in the bombing area, but raids against area targets do not normally focus on fixed facilities. If hit, fixed facilities like industrial plants or weapons storage areas would more likely emit smells and gases than an area target (probably tactical units). In any case, the air strike seems too distant and too separated by time to sustain the substance concentration that the strong smell suggests, even if the command post had been located directly downwind. We considered the possibility the incoming artillery rounds might have excavated the Sabkha (see the Glossary in Tab A), releasing noxious sub-surface gases (such as H₂S) generated by decomposing buried organic residues, perhaps associated with the deserted Bedouin camp. These gases might have continued to escape for hours and eventually drifted over the CP location. However, we could find no factual basis to support or reject this hypothesis. Likewise, we wondered if release of Scud missile oxidizer (inhibited red fuming nitric acid) during spontaneous re-entry break-up of Iraq’s missiles could have deposited this pungent, noxious chemical on the raid party. Two Scuds directed toward Dhahran overflew the general area of the raid about 40 minutes before logs documented the strong smell.^{^[67]}However, the Scud trajectories’ timing and geometry make this explanation unlikely (it was still ascending on an unpowered ballistic trajectory near maximum altitude rather than re-entering the lower, denser atmosphere where most breakups occurred).

We could not definitively determine the cause of the reported positive M256 readings, the nature of the substance(s) smelled, or the source. However, on balance, we assess the likelihood of chemical warfare or riot control agent presence in the command post area as unlikely. This assessment rests primarily on the lack of evidence of a delivery means close to the time of the noxious smell, the absence of chemical warfare agent symptoms among initially unmasked Marines, key witnesses’ reports of an H₂S smell (not associated with any known chemical warfare or riot control agent), and several accounts that an environmental contaminant from vehicle exhaust, a nearby deserted camp, or burning fuel caused the incident.