Official Says Iraq May Have Land Mines That Release Nerve and Mustard Gases : Defenses: Many of the weapons could be made of hard-to-detect plastics.

Iraq may have combined two of the most dreaded forms of weaponry to lay a perilous gantlet for foot soldiers in an attack--land mines armed with deadly chemical weapons.

A U.S. military official said Monday that mines sown in southern Kuwait may contain nerve and mustard gases as a way of thwarting an allied attack on that front.

The official said the Iraqis have laid an estimated half a million mines along the Kuwaiti and Iraqi borders. Many of them, he said, may not only contain chemical weapons but also may be made of hard-to-detect plastics. They may have as little metal as that found in the spring of a ballpoint pen.

“We recognize the Iraqis were involved in mine warfare for nine years against the Iranians,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition that he not be identified. “They bought large quantities from everyone in the world who would sell them, and the mines they have include the most sophisticated they can buy.”

The official said the mines could well be armed with the same kind of chemicals used to kill both Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels in the conflict of the 1980s. The use of such chemicals in warfare has been banned by international law since World War I, but the Iraqis have consistently threatened to use them against the allies attempting to retake Kuwait.

The most common way of delivering the chemical weapons is by planes or artillery.

The use of chemical mines is but one problem facing allied troops as they attempt to advance on the Iraqi front lines.

The military official said that getting to the Iraqis would involve going through wire, trenches, berms and other obstacles, including burning ditches. The Iraqis learned their method of fashioning obstacles from the Soviets, who believe in a tiered system of defenses.

Ironically, the lineup of obstacles is one of the things U.S. officials believe is causing so few desertions across the line. They have speculated that Iraqi troops simply cannot get through their own deadly maze.

The official said that minefields stir such terror in troops that the fields can slow down a ground assault by hours, as soldiers gingerly make their way through the explosives.

He gave the example of two battalions of troops, both of which went through a minefield. But the one, not realizing there were mines because there was incoming mortar fire, made it through quickly; the other battalion took two hours and suffered heavy casualties.

While much of the technique of traversing a minefield has been around for decades, there are some new wrinkles, including such devices as fuel-air explosives. These bombs, dropped by parachute, deliver a spray of gasoline over a large area, which is then detonated, causing a high-pressure blast that can knock out some types of mines. The disadvantage, said the U.S. official, is that the parachute drops can be inaccurate and that not all mines are detonated.

Bombs dropped from airplanes can also detonate some mines. But, again, the shrapnel pattern may not get them all.

When the allies do go through a minefield, they will likely begin with what is called a mine-clearing line charge, which is a string of explosives fired across a targeted area.

That would be followed by heavy equipment moving across the minefield, digging up or detonating the explosives. The method of finding mines in some cases might also be as simple as a soldier with a mine detector.

“You can’t just use one system to get through a minefield,” the official said.

The official said American troops are prepared for possible chemical-weapon minefields. But he also said that having to go through such fields offers the worst scenario. The best way to get past a minefield, he said, is to go around it.

“I want to bypass it,” he said. “I want to use whatever method I can to bypass the obstacles.”