Soldiers battle storms and rising temperatures

British and American troops massing close to the Iraqi border are struggling against dust storms and rising temperatures as the political wrangling over a strike against Saddam Hussein continues.

While Washington and London insist their soldiers can fight in all weathers, military planners would prefer to launch a strike before temperatures soar in as little as six weeks. As such, the ideal window of opportunity for action is fast closing.

A huge storm ripped through the isolated desert camps about 50 miles north of Kuwait City on Wednesday night, rattling tents and engulfing tens of thousands of troops in a blinding dust cloud. One British soldier said: "You had to take a compass to go to the loo. Seriously – visibility was down to about five yards. In those sorts of conditions you can't see anything." The soldiers' armoured vehicles have been specially equipped to deal with the sand and dust. Challenger tanks have had additional filters fitted.

For the soldiers it is a lot less simple. "It's pretty bad," said Ben Lawlor, 19, from Coventry, a tank crew member with the 7th Armoured Brigade. "Especially at night. The sand gets everywhere. We have the goggles, but it does affect you. When I first got out here two weeks ago it was the worst."

Temperatures in the Gulf region are already approaching 30C and in just a few weeks they will have soared to truly inhospitable levels. Kuwaiti residents say that last summer the temperature reached 53C.

"When it's hot outside, it's real hot inside, maybe 10-degrees hotter,'' Timothy Hodgson, of the US 3rd Infantry Division and a member of a Bradley armoured vehicle crew, said.

British soldiers said the Challengers do have air conditioning, which they hope will keep them cool as the summer progresses. But a heavily perspiring British tank commander whose crew had taken a wrong turn during an exercise yesterday afternoon, admitted that inside the tank and with the engine running the temperature was "stifling".

Senior officers say that acclimatisation and specific training can help overcome most of the problems posed by high temperatures. At the same time, with soldiers already carrying body armour, equipment, weapons and gas masks that can weigh a total of 100lbs, fighting at the height of summer would be much more of a challenge.

Military planners had hoped it would be possible to take advantage of the full moons of early March to launch any attack. That opportunity has now passed. Out in the desert camps, the soldiers now wait for their orders – hoping the wait is not too long.

"No, I'm not nervous," said Matthew Malkin, 20, a Challenger driver, whose cramped seat at the front of the tank allows him a view of any action playing out in front of the tank. "The Iraqis don't have anything that can touch this."