CHAIR LASHOF: Thank you very much. Are there questions that anyone would like to direct? Mr. Turner?
MR. TURNER: Thank you. Gunnery Sergeant Grass, you discussed three separate incidents, and I would
like to walk through each of those three with you if I could. First, on February 22, 1991, while monitoring
minefields breaching operations, your unit detected small traces of nerve agent. Now that detection was
made with an air monitor; is that correct?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: We were present through minefield breaching.
MR. TURNER: Right.
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: We checked for either liquid or vapor contamination.
MR. TURNER: Was that a mass spectrometer reading that you generated in that particular detection?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir, it was. MR. TURNER: What happened with the tape
from that Did you print a tape?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: No, sir. There was not enough contamination present for us to run a background
check on it and print a ticket out as proof.
MR. TURNER: So you could just see it on the screen, but you couldn't actually produce the tape?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir.
MR. TURNER: Now no one at that point conducted a test with an M256 kit on this February 22, 1991
detection, did they?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir, that is correct.
MR. TURNER: Now, the second incident was a few days later. Can you help us fix that in time, the Al-Jaber
Airfield?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Actually, we went across the first and second minefield breaches, and it was
probably
after we went across the second minefield breaches because the first one we weren't having too much
resistance. The second one we had a whole lot of resistance, and they held us up a little bit. So it was
probably
the next afternoon.
MR. TURNER: So February 23rd is probably
your best estimate?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes.
MR. TURNER: And in that incident, at AlJaber Airfield, your Fox unit detected sulphur mustard; is that
correct?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir.
MR. TURNER: In that incident, you were able to print out a ticket with the mass spectrometer?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir.
MR. TURNER: What happened to that ticket? GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: What happened was it
blew through the air, and it first hit the alarm on the Fox is set off to go if there is any kind of lethal vapor
contamination. The alarm went off,
and we ran a background check on it, since it was in the area, and once that was done I contacted Division
or,
actually, 3rd Tank Battalion, since that was the immediate one and let them know that that was going on. The
next I passed it up the chain-of-command to Ripper so that they could notify all of the rest of the units that
were
possibly around Jaber Airfield with us. We ran the background check on it and everything and printed that
ticket
out.
MR. TURNER: What happened to that ticket? Did you submit that up your chain-of-command, also?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: I held onto that
ticket until I gave it to the people up there at Kuwait City at our final resting place.
MR. TURNER: So it did go up the chain-ofcommand as detection; is that correct?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir, it did. MR. TURNER: Are you confident that the
readings that you got at Al-Jaber were not produced by smoke from the oil field fires or other contaminants?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir. The oil fires were constantly on there. We had programmed into the mass
spectrometer a sample of what the oil fire vapors were looking like, whether it was a small concentration
where you could actually see somebody or the only way you could see somebody because it was so black
was if you actually had bodily contact. The vapors were still the same. They read nothing on the screen. We
put into there Unknown No. 1, so every time the oil fire vapors kept coming up, it ran Unknown No. 1.
MR. TURNER: So you were familiar with the spectrum that the oil fire smoke generated on your screen, and
you knew what that looked like.
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir. That was on there constantly.
MR. TURNER: Now, did anyone conduct an M256 kit test at this Al-Jaber incident?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: No. The reason that they didn't is because the Fox's program was 60 known
chemical agents in it, including S-MUSTARD and several others and the dusty mustard among others. The
M256 kit can only detect eight different chemical agents, and those are not part of the ones that can be
detected.
As a matter of fact, I sat next to people with the M256 kits, as they were preparing to perform selective
unmasking, after I had already shown them that there was nothing out there.
MR. TURNER: What response did you receive from your chain-of-command to the sulphur detection that you
had at Al-Jaber? What did they say caused that?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: At first they said--I was relaying information to Chief Warrant Officer Biedenbender,
and he was relaying information to Chief Warrant Officer Bauer, who was at Division, and I am not sure who
he was talking to, but as the conversation went on, I remember Chief Warrant Officer Bauer asking Chief
Warrant Officer Biedenbender if we had ran a mass spectrometer on it, and I explained to him that my
supposedly $800,000 computer system on there is a mass spectrometer, so I can't run that. But I told him,
yes, we did run a full spectrum on it, and they said it was from the oil fires, and we said, no, we already know
what that is. They said it was from the fuel or the vapors from the tanks, the five-ton humvees, the TOWs, all
of the rest of the vehicles that I come in contact with constantly throughout the ground war, and any type of
fuel vapor comes up fat oil wax.
MR. TURNER: So as a trained NBC officer whose commanding a Fox unit, you are confident that the
readings you got were not caused by diesel fuel or oil smoke or other environmental contaminants?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: That is correct. MR. TURNER: I would like to turn to the third incident that you
discussed, which I believe is 28 February 1991, and this is an Iraqi ammunition supply point outside of
Kuwait City; is that correct?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir.
MR. TURNER: Now, there your Fox unit detected not only sulphur mustard, but also HTMUSTARD and
BENZENE BROMIDE in a bunker that contained artillery shells. Is that your testimony?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: As we went into this ammunition supply area, it was next to the 1st Battalion 5th
Marines, this ammo bunker, just at this area most of the ammo storage area was wideopen space with dug-in
ammo bunkers. This particular area here had built up berms, meaning sand was built up around this thing,
and it wasn't easily accessible. I had to go off the road. As a matter of fact, it was probably within a quarter
of a mile or within that vicinity or maybe half a mile from Kuwait City. And, in order for anybody to get to this
bunker here, they had to go off the road through a path through an open field, up over a hill, around a
couple other hills and into an area.
Once you went into this area here, they had a dugin fancy looking Winnebago at the front of this
ammunitions storage area right here. Once you went into this area, there were gates. It was all bermed up
with sand all over the place. Once we went into this area here, we were looking for vapor contamination, and
it just happened to be that the 1st Battalion 5th Marine said we have an ammunitions storage area over
here. Why don't you come check it. That is the reason that we went out to that particular area. As we were
going through that area monitoring for vapor contamination, our alarm went off, and S-MUSTARD came right
across the screen in a full force, and the whole time that we were doing a background check on it, which was
different from back at Jaber Airfield, it was full the whole time. As a matter of fact, we had to turn the alarm
off because, if we didn't, it was going to continue
alarming.
As we were backing up to the bunker checking to make sure, pulling into the bunker and making sure our
systems were correct, sitting on top of the open boxes were artillery shells either from Jordan, Holland or the
United States that had a flat base plate just like an artillery shell would be, and they either had green bands
on it or whatever color bands that that country was going to use to mark for chemical weapons.
MR. TURNER: Now, you say those artillery shells were from Holland, Jordan or the United States. What leads
you to believe that?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: I sat there, and I read the boxes. I have also got some pictures of some
ammunition
right here, also.
MR. TURNER: You will provide those pictures to the committee?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir.
MR. TURNER: Mr. Ewing will take those if you would provide those to him. At this ammunition supply point
outside of Kuwait City, again, no 256 kit tests were conducted, were they? You didn't run a 256 kit, did you?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir, that is correct. The S-MUSTARD was not the only thing I found at that
ammunition supply point at this location.
MR. TURNER: At this last location, I believe you said that you also assisted an explosive ordnance demolition
team who came the next day to examine it. Did that team actually destroy the munitions that were at that
site, do you know?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: I watched everything that they did. The other three members of my crew went over
there and were more or less looking at the Winnebago, the gold, and pictures of Hussein and everything
else
that was over in the other area, couches, and those things. I watched everything that they did. They went in
there and got in their chemical protective equipment. They had clipboards. They had a little monitor, a little
hand-held kind of machine. I am not sure what that was, and went inside the area, and they walked around
the area that we showed them, and they were writing things down. When they got done, they
decontaminated
themselves and there was nothing destroyed while I was standing there.
MR. TURNER: Nothing while you were there. You said that the explosive ordnance demolition team members
acknowledged the presence of chemical munitions there. What did they say?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: They said, yes, you are right. There are chemical weapons stored out there. They
didn't specify, but they said there were chemical weapons stored there, but their job they were not sent up
there to verify that. They were up there to check the lot numbers on the ammunition that was stored up
there to verify that that ammunition, so they could turn it back to somebody else to see if those rounds were
coming after sanctions were imposed on Iraq. I used the lot numbers. That is the way that they track those.
MR. TURNER: Do you know who the members of that explosive ordnance demolition team were? Could you
give us some guidance on how to get in touch with them? Do you know a unit maybe?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: No, sir, I don't. MR. TURNER: Did you keep a log or notes
during your time that you were over in the Gulf? GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir, I have that
right here, too.
MR. TURNER: Would you provide that to Mr. Ewing so he could make a copy for the committee?
GUNNERY SGT. GRASS: Yes, sir.
MR. TURNER: That is all I have.