§ The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:
§ What were the mechanisms in place at the time of Operation Granby to confirm enemy use of chemical and biological warfare agents.
§ Lord GilbertStandard operating procedure for UK Armed Forces requires that all chemical or biological alarms be assumed in the first instance to be genuine. Follow up drills are then implemented. Chemical alarms in the Gulf War would have been followed up using equipment such as the residual vapour detector, the chemical agent monitor and detector papers to test further for chemical agents. The biological warfare detection equipment which was fielded involved a three stage testing procedure, the third of which was capable of identifying a number of biological warfare agents. Had any of these follow up procedures suggested that a genuine chemical or biological detection had occurred, arrangements were in place in theatre for information to be immediately passed to the chain of command and for samples to be taken from the air or ground and returned to CBD Porton Down for further testing and positive identification of the agent or agents involved.