Response to Iraqi Gas Attack

I was in a field hospital not too far from the Kuwaiti border which during the war had several SCUDs hit nearby and air raid warnings almost every night during the war. You went EVERYWHERE with your gas mask and chem suit ready to put on. In the ORs we had our gas masks hung up where we could grab them in a moment. All the patients had gas masks at there "bedside" and the medical staff was practiced in being able to help them put them on.
 
If Saddam had used Chemical weapons against coalition forces in the Gulf war, how would we have responded? Would Bush have retaliated with nuclear weapons or would we have retained conventional tactics and switched strategies to destroy stockpiles of chemical weapons?
I've heard one plan of action was rather then use Nukes, the US Navy would launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This would have placed Baghdad under four feet of water, and cause massive damage to the Iraqi capital.
 

Pangur

Donor
I've heard one plan of action was rather then use Nukes, the US Navy would launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This would have placed Baghdad under four feet of water, and cause massive damage to the Iraqi capital.
That massive damage would include a huge number of dead civilians. It was as I understand hard enough to keep the coalition together as it stood, oiling civilians in response to a chemical attack on a military unit would not have been acceptable
 
Top