[saganite]

I believe critics would answer your question by stating that the training was defensive in nature because they expected an enemy to use the weapons against their own troops.

Was there anything in the documents to point towards protecting their own troops from the effect of their own use of those weapons?

[Eagle Eye]

Training documents THAT I HAVE SEEN showed how to deploy chemical weapons.

[jveritas]

Sure they were telling the troops that this was for defensive purposes but every army in the world will claim the same. In fact I read the Chemical training program of the year 1989 and the Iraqis were telling their troops that this training is for defensive purposes against an attack from Israel or Iran, when we know for fact that during this period of time the Iraqis used Chemical Weapons to attack Iranians and Kurds, in fact they have used Chemical Weapons more than any other army in history of warfare.

Please keep in mind that Iraq was absolutely prohibited from having any Chemical Weapons Agents no matter how small the quantity is and no matter whether it was for defensive or offensive purposes.

[Wristpin]

Key word here are "in the laboratory". If there were no active WMD programs why would they be worried about "laboratories"?