Hanzalik belongs to the Coastguard's Strike Force which responds to chemical and environmental emergencies.

The Strike Force was most recently called in to help manage hazardous debris after the space shuttle Columbia crashed last month, and was also called in during the anthrax scares in Florida and Washington following the September 11, 2001, hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.

"This is the first time in my knowledge that there's been an effort to respond to environmental terrorism due to oil spills during a war," Hanzalik told Reuters aboard the U.S. Coastguard Cutter Walnut in port in Manama, Bahrain.

The Walnut, based in Hawaii, is part of a range of Navy and Coastguard vessels which could be used to contain any oil spill if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein decided to turn on the taps, as Washington fears he may in the event of a war.

Chief petty officer Mike Jolly, another member of the Strike Force, said Iraq released millions of gallons of oil during the Gulf War in 1991 and this time U.S. forces were planning in advance how they will respond.

"We know we're not going to be able to contain it all, no one could, but I think we will be able to contain a good majority of it and minimise the impact," said Jolly, who is from Reidsville, North Carolina.

Allied forces said during the Gulf War that Iraq caused a huge oil slick by dumping some 11 million barrels of crude from storage tanks and ships at Kuwait's Mina al-Ahmadi terminal.

The slick polluted miles of sandy beaches on Saudi Arabia's northeast coast. A second slick also oozed from Iraq's Mina al-Bakr terminal near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

SOME POLLUTION INEVITABLE

The Walnut has special skimming equipment to pump oil into inflatable barges carrying up to 25,000 gallons each. Oil would then be transferred into ships to be taken away.

"You're not going to get it all. It's going to hit the beach, it's going to become weathered and some of it is going to sink. You get as much as you can as early as you can," Jolly said.

Cleaning up any spills will be complicated by conflict, with dozens of warships operating in the Gulf and by the risk of mines.

"We're not going to put the ship or the crew at risk for oil by going into a minefield," Jolly said.

"People are a bit nervous about it," said Lieutenant Commander Chris Smith, commanding officer on the Walnut, which is also capable of laying buoys and conducting search and rescue and law enforcement operations.

"We are used to operating in a fairly benign environment but we have done a lot of training for it," said Smith, from Idaho Springs, Colorado.