Commander of Coalition Forces General Tommy Franks received an intelligence report on April 1, 2003, which claimed: “Marines clearing out Fedayeen [paramilitary fighters] barracks in As Samawah [Iraq] had found a shed with padlocked steel doors that held tons of munitions, many of the crates stamped with the stencil of Special Republican Guard units. The Marines also discovered more than three hundred chemical-biological protection suits and masks. This wasn’t some forgotten load of surplus equipment from the Gulf War twelve years ago. This was brand new gear, state-of-the-art, never used–enough to equip a reinforced company assigned to work with toxic weapons, such as nerve gas.”
– Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier, Pages 514-515