BAGHDAD, April 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - 19 days after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was launched to “disarm the Iraqi regime of weapons of mass destruction”, U.S. marines near Baghdad were ordered to shed their protective gear after being told they were in no danger, as a U.S. infantry unit in Iraq said Monday, April 7, it may have finally found a chemical weapons site.

In Qatar, the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) directing U.S.-led invasion forces, said it was still looking for definitive proof of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - the alleged existence of which triggered U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

"We don't have any extraordinary finds at this point while we're still looking," CentCom spokesman U.S. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He was speaking after a lower-ranking spokesman, Major Ross Coffman, said in Baghdad International airport that the U.S. army's 3rd Infantry Division had discovered a site near the city of Hindiyah, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad, that "could be a smoking gun."

Although Coffman refused to divulge details, he explained: "We are talking about finding a site of possible weapons of mass destruction."

The U.S. group Knight-Ridder Newspapers reported that U.S. soldiers had evacuated an Iraqi military compound in the same area after tests detected the presence of sarin, a powerful nerve agent.

It said the test was conducted by a military mobile laboratory after more than a dozen soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division guarding the compound came down with symptoms including vomiting, dizziness and skin blotches.

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Despite sending forces deep into Iraq prepared at any minute for a nuclear, biological or chemical attack, senior U.S. officers ordered forces in Baghdad Monday to shed their protective gear.

"It's great to have them off," Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla, commander of the 1st marines battalion, said after his troops stripped down to lighter camouflage garb.

Padilla said an order to take off the cumbersome and hot protection suits had come down from his superiors. "They made an assessment and they determined there was not a serious threat right now," he said.

The contradictory signals from and within the U.S. military, and the fact that the forces have come up with no clear evidence of WMD after capturing much of Iraq in 19 days of fighting raise questions over the war's justification.

But in Qatar, Brooks insisted that discoveries in coming weeks or months would bear out Washington's fears.

U.S. troops, he said, would be increasingly investigating suspected sites, both ones that have been identified beforehand, and others "that can be done on an ad hoc basis where we find some piece of information we didn't previously have - and frankly we expect there will be a lot of that."