'US used hallucinogenic weapons against Iraq'
A South African chemical warfare expert claims the US used hallucinogenic weapons against Iraq in the Gulf War.
Dr Wouter Basson made the allegation as he testified about drugs bought by South African defence forces for possible use in crowd control during the Apartheid era.
He claimed film footage showed Iraqi elite troops affected en masse from the weapons during the Gulf War.
He said the drugs had left them drooling, their pupils enlarged and with no expression whatsoever on their faces, said reports.
As he told of the stocks of cocaine, Mandrax and ecstasy collected by South Africa forces, Dr Basson told an inquiry he believed the US used an hallucinogenic called BZ.
He said: "Analysis of video material showing surrendering troops emerging from their underground bunkers show that they had dilated pupils, were drooling and had vacant stares. It appeared like the clinical profile of a BZ variant.
"The variant was also tested in laboratory animals in South Africa but it was stopped because it caused permanent damage to the subject. I had good reason to believe that America used a BZ variant against Iraq during the Gulf War."
Dr Basson described BZ as a hallucinogenic which changed a person's ability to act rationally - either turning them totally passive or uncontrollably aggressive and likely to attack their own colleagues.
He claimed South Africa and the Swiss Military Intelligence Service had in 1992 negotiated a deal with the Russians to buy some 500kg of the drug Mandrax, which South Africa wanted to use as a crowd control weapon.
