Chemical warfare (
CW) involves using the
toxic propertiesIn the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism...
of
chemical substanceA chemical substance is a material with a specific chemical composition.A common example of a chemical substance is pure water; it has the same properties and the same ratio of hydrogen to oxygen whether it is isolated from a river or made in a laboratory. Some typical chemical substances are...
s as weapons to kill, injure, or incapacitate an enemy.
This type of warfare is distinct from the use of conventional weapons or nuclear weapons because the destructive effects of chemical weapons are not primarily due to their
explosiveAn explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...
force.
Chemical weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction by the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
, and their production and stockpiling was outlawed by the
Chemical Weapons ConventionThe Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
of 1993. The offensive use of living organisms or their toxic products is not considered chemical warfare but
biological warfareBiological warfare , also known as germ warfare, is the use of pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, other disease-causing biological agents, or the toxins produced by them as biological weapons ....
.
Definition
Chemical warfare is different from the use of
conventional weaponA conventional weapon or conventional arm is a weapon that is not forbidden according to conventions, such as the Convention on Cluster Munitions or the Ottawa Treaty...
s or
nuclear weaponA nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion...
s because the destructive effects of chemical weapons are not primarily due to any
explosiveAn explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...
force. The offensive use of living
organismIn biology, an organism is any living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole...
s (such as anthrax) is considered
biological warfareBiological warfare , also known as germ warfare, is the use of pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, other disease-causing biological agents, or the toxins produced by them as biological weapons ....
rather than chemical warfare; however, the use of nonliving toxic products produced by living organisms (e.g.
toxinA toxin is a poisonous substance produced by living cells or organisms ....
s such as
botulinum toxinBotulinum toxin is a medication and a neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, and is held to be the most toxic substance known to mankind with an LD50 of roughly 0.005-0.05 µg/kg...
,
ricinRicin is a protein that is extracted from the castor bean . It can be either a white powder or a liquid in crystalline form. Ricin is known to cause severe allergic reactions, and exposure to small quantities can be fatal.The U.S...
, and
saxitoxinSaxitoxin is a neurotoxin naturally produced by certain species of marine dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria Saxitoxin (STX) is a neurotoxin naturally produced by certain species of marine dinoflagellates (Alexandrium sp., Gymnodinium sp., Pyrodinium sp.) and cyanobacteria Saxitoxin (STX) is a...
)
is considered chemical warfare under the provisions of the
Chemical Weapons ConventionThe Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
. Under this Convention, any toxic chemical, regardless of its origin, is considered a chemical weapon unless it is used for purposes that are not prohibited (an important legal definition known as the General Purpose Criterion).
About 70 different chemicals have been used or
stockpiledIn military preparation, to stockpile is to move materiel, personnel, and command and control infrastructure to a suitable location in preparation for deployment, or to move such materials into the theatre of war in preparation for combat....
as chemical warfare agents during the 20th century. Chemical weapons are classified as
weapons of mass destructionThe term weapon of mass destruction is often used to describe a weapon that can kill large numbers of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general....
by the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
, and their production and stockpiling was outlawed by the
Chemical Weapons ConventionThe Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
of 1993.
Under the Convention, chemicals that are toxic enough to be used as chemical weapons, or that may be used to manufacture such chemicals, are divided into three groups according to their purpose and treatment:
- Schedule 1 – Have few, if any, legitimate uses. These may only be produced or used for research, medical, pharmaceutical or protective purposes (i.e. testing of chemical weapons sensors and protective clothing). Examples include nerve agents, ricin, lewisite
Lewisite is an organoarsenic compound, specifically an arsine. It was once manufactured in the U.S. and Japan as a chemical weapon, acting as a vesicant and lung irritant...
and mustard gasThe sulfur mustards, of which mustard gas is a member, are a class of related cytotoxic, vesicant chemical warfare agents with the ability to form large blisters on exposed skin. Pure sulfur mustards are colorless, viscous liquids at room temperature...
. Any production over 100 g must be notified to the OPCW and a country can have a stockpile of no more than one tonne of these chemicals.
- Schedule 2 – Have no large-scale industrial uses, but may have legitimate small-scale uses. Examples include dimethyl methylphosphonate
Dimethyl methylphosphonate, or methylphosphonic acid dimethyl ester , is a colorless liquid with chemical formula
393 or CH
3PO
2. It is combustible. It emits a distinct odor. It can be found in household radiators, especially those installed in...
, a precursor to sarinSarin, also known by its NATO designation of GB, is an extremely toxic substance whose sole application is as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
but which is also used as a flame retardantFlame retardants are materials that inhibit or resist the spread of fire. These can be separated into several categories:*Minerals such as asbestos, compounds such as aluminium hydroxide, magnesium hydroxide, hydromagnesite, antimony trioxide, various hydrates, red phosphorus, and boron compounds,...
and ThiodiglycolThiodiglycol, or bissulfide, is a viscous, clear to pale-yellow liquid used as a solvent. Its chemical formula is 4102, or HOCH2CH2SCH2CH2OH. It is miscible with acetone, alcohols, and chloroform...
which is a precursor chemical used in the manufacture of mustard gas but is also widely used as a solvent in inkAn ink is a liquid containing various pigments and/or dyes used for coloring a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush or quill...
s.
- Schedule 3 – Have legitimate large-scale industrial uses. Examples include phosgene
Phosgene is the chemical compound with the formula COCl2. This colorless gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I, and is also a valued industrial reagent and building block in organic synthesis. In low concentrations, its odor resembles freshly cut hay or grass. Some...
and chloropicrinChloropicrin, also known as "PS", is a chemical compound with the structural formula Cl3CNO2. This colourless highly toxic liquid was once used in chemical warfare and is currently used as a fumigant and nematocide.-History:...
. Both have been used as chemical weapons but phosgene is an important precursor in the manufacture of plastics and chloropicrin is used as a fumigant. The OPCW must be notified of, and may inspect, any plant producing more than 30 tonnes per year.
Technology
Chemical warfare technology timeline
|
Agents |
Dissemination |
Protection |
Detection |
| 1900s |
Chlorine
Chloropicrin
Phosgene
Mustard gas |
Wind dispersal |
Gas masks, urinated-on gauze |
Smell |
| 1910s |
Lewisite |
Chemical shells |
Gas mask
Rosin oil clothing |
|
| 1920s |
|
Projectiles w/ central bursters |
CC-2 clothing |
|
| 1930s |
G-series nerve agents |
Aircraft bombs |
|
Blister agent detectors
Color change paper |
| 1940s |
|
Missile warheads
Spray tanks |
Protective ointment (mustard)
Collective protection
Gas mask w/ Whetlerite |
|
| 1950s |
|
|
|
|
| 1960s |
V-series nerve agents |
Aerodynamic |
Gas mask w/ water supply |
Nerve gas alarm |
| 1970s |
|
|
|
|
| 1980s |
|
Binary munitions |
Improved gas masks
(protection, fit, comfort) |
Laser detection |
| 1990s |
Novichok nerve agentsNovichok is a series of nerve agents that were developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s and allegedly the most deadly nerve agents ever made, with some variants possibly five to eight times more potent than VX nerve gas, though this has never been proven...
|
|
|
|
Although crude chemical warfare has been employed in many parts of the world for thousands of years, "modern" chemical warfare began during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
- see
Poison gas in World War IThe use of poison gas in World War I was a major military innovation. The gases ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas and the severe mustard gas, to lethal agents like phosgene and chlorine. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the...
.
Initially, only well-known commercially available chemicals and their variants were used. These included
chlorineChlorine Chlorine Chlorine ( , from the Greek word 'χλωρóς' (khlôros, meaning 'pale green'), is the chemical element with atomic number 17 and symbol Cl. It is a halogen, found in the periodic table in group 17 (formerly VII, VIIa, or VIIb). As the chloride ion, which is part of common salt and...
and
phosgenePhosgene is the chemical compound with the formula COCl2. This colorless gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I, and is also a valued industrial reagent and building block in organic synthesis. In low concentrations, its odor resembles freshly cut hay or grass. Some...
gas. The methods used to disperse these agents during battle were relatively unrefined and inefficient. Even so, casualties could be heavy, due to the mainly static troop positions which were characteristic features of
trench warfareTrench warfare was a form of warfare in which both combatants occupied static fortified fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops were largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and were substantially sheltered from artillery. It has become a byword for stalemate in...
.
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, the first side to employ chemical warfare on the battlefield, simply opened canisters of chlorine upwind of the opposing side and let the
prevailing windsIn meteorology, prevailing winds are winds that blow predominantly from a single general direction over a particular point on the Earth's surface. The dominant winds are the trends in direction of wind with the highest speed over a particular point on the Earth's surface...
do the dissemination. Soon after, the
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
modified
artilleryArtillery is a military combat Arm that employs weapons capable of discharging large projectiles in combat. They are generally capable of adding considerable fire power to the military capability of an armed force...
munitions to contain phosgene – a much more effective method that became the principal means of delivery.
Since the development of modern chemical warfare in World War I, nations have pursued
research and developmentThe phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
on chemical weapons that falls into four major categories: new and more deadly agents; more efficient methods of delivering agents to the target (dissemination); more reliable means of defense against chemical weapons; and more sensitive and accurate means of detecting chemical agents.
Chemical warfare agents
A chemical used in warfare is called a
chemical warfare agent (
CWA). About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as chemical warfare agents during the 20th century and the 21st century. These agents may be in liquid, gas or solid form. Liquid agents are generally designed to evaporate quickly; such liquids are said to be
volatile or have a
high vapor pressureVapor pressure or equilibrium vapor pressure is the pressure of a vapor in thermodynamic equilibrium with its condensed phases in a closed container. All liquids and solids have a tendency to evaporate into a gaseous form, and all gases have a tendency to condense back to their liquid or solid...
. Many chemical agents are made volatile so they can be dispersed over a large region quickly.
The earliest target of chemical warfare agent research was not toxicity, but development of agents that can affect a target through the skin and clothing, rendering protective
gas maskA gas mask is a mask worn over the face to protect the wearer from inhaling "airborne pollutants" and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft tissues of the face. Some gas masks are also respirators, though the word...
s useless. In July 1917, the Germans employed mustard gas. Mustard gas easily penetrates leather and fabric to inflict painful burns on the skin.
Chemical warfare agents are divided into
lethal and
incapacitating categories. A substance is classified as incapacitating if less than 1/100 of the
lethal doseA lethal dose is an indication of the lethality of a given substance or type of radiation. Because resistance varies from one individual to another, the 'lethal dose' represents a dose at which a given percentage of subjects will die.The most commonly-used lethality indicator is the...
causes incapacitation, e.g., through nausea or visual problems. The distinction between lethal and incapacitating substances is not fixed, but relies on a statistical average called the
LD50In toxicology, the median lethal dose, LD50 , LC50 or LCt50 of a toxic substance or radiation is the dose required to kill half the members of a tested population...
.
Persistency
One way to classify chemical warfare agents is according to their
persistency, a measure of the length of time that a chemical agent remains effective after dissemination. Chemical agents are classified as
persistent or
nonpersistent.
Agents classified as
nonpersistent lose effectiveness after only a few minutes or hours. Purely gaseous agents such as chlorine are nonpersistent, as are highly volatile agents such as
sarinSarin, also known by its NATO designation of GB, is an extremely toxic substance whose sole application is as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
and most other nerve agents. Tactically, nonpersistent agents are very useful against targets that are to be taken over and controlled very quickly.
Apart from the agent used, the delivery mode is very important. To achieve a nonpersistent deployment, the agent is dispersed into very small droplets comparable with the mist produced by an aerosol can. In this form not only the gaseous part of the agent (around 50%) but also the fine aerosol can be inhaled or taken up by the skin.
Modern doctrine requires very high concentrations almost instantly in order to be effective (one breath should contain a lethal dose of the agent). To achieve this, the primary weapons used would be rocket artillery or bombs and large ballistic missiles with cluster warheads. The contamination in the target area is only low or not existent and after four hours sarin or similar agents are not detectable anymore.
By contrast,
persistent agents tend to remain in the environment for as long as several weeks, complicating decontamination. Defense against persistent agents requires shielding for extended periods of time. Non-volatile liquid agents, such as blister agents and the oily
VXVX, IUPAC name O-ethyl S-[2-ethyl] methylphosphonothioate, is an extremely toxic substance whose only application is in chemical warfare as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
nerve agent, do not easily evaporate into a gas, and therefore present primarily a contact hazard.
The droplet size used for persistent delivery goes up to 1 mm increasing the falling speed and therefore about 80% of the deployed agent reaches the ground, resulting in heavy contamination. This implies, that persistent deployment does not aim at annihilating the enemy but to constrain him.
Possible targets include enemy flank positions (averting possible counter attacks), artillery regiments, commando posts or supply lines. Possible weapons to be used are wide spread, because the fast delivery of high amounts is not a critical factor.
A special form of persistent agents are thickened agents. These comprise a common agent mixed with thickeners to provide gelatinous, sticky agents. Primary targets for this kind of use include airfields, due to the increased persistency and difficulty of decontaminating affected areas.
Classes
Chemical weapons are
inertIn English, to be inert is to be in a state of doing little or nothing.-Chemistry:In chemistry, the term inert is used to describe something that is not chemically active. The noble gases were described as being inert because they did not react with the other elements or themselves...
agents that come in four categories:
chokingA pulmonary agent is a chemical weapon agent designed to impede a victim's ability to breathe. They operate by causing a build-up of fluids in the lungs which then leads to...
, blister,
bloodA blood agent is a toxic chemical agent that affects the body by being absorbed into the blood. They are fast-acting, potentially lethal poisons that typically manifest at room temperature as volatile colorless gases with a faint odor. Blood agents are either cyanide- or...
and
nerveNerve agents, also referred to as nerve gases though these chemicals are liquid at room temperature, are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs...
. The agents are organized into several categories according to the manner in which they affect the human body. The names and number of categories varies slightly from source to source, but in general, types of chemical warfare agents are as follows:
There are other chemicals used militarily that are not scheduled by the
Chemical Weapons ConventionThe Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
, and thus are not controlled under the CWC treaties. These include:
- Defoliant
A defoliant is any chemical sprayed or dusted on plants to cause its leaves to fall off. A classic example of a highly toxic defoliant used for tactical purposes is Agent Orange, which was used widely by the U.S...
s that destroy vegetation, but are not immediately toxic to human beings. Some batches of Agent OrangeAgent Orange is the code name for a herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War...
, for instance, used by the United States in Vietnam, contained dioxins as manufacturing impurities. Dioxins, rather than Agent Orange itself, have long-term cancerCancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis...
effects and for causing genetic damage leading to serious birth deformities.
- Incendiary
Incendiary means "capable of causing fire". It may also refer to:* Incendiary device, a device designed to cause fires* Incendiary , a novel by Chris Cleave* Incendiary , a 2008 film directed by Sharon Maguire...
or explosiveAn explosive material is a substance that either is chemically or otherwise energetically unstable or produces a sudden expansion of the material after initiation, usually accompanied by the production of heat and large changes in pressure . This event is called the explosion...
chemicals (such as napalmNapalm is the thickener used to coagulate gasoline into a gelatine for military uses. Developed by Harvard chemists, headed by Louis Fieser, the thickener’s name, napalm, derives from the first letters of the names of the thickeners, coprecipitated aluminium salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids...
, extensively used by the United States in Vietnam, or dynamiteDynamite is an explosive material based on the explosive potential of nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth or another absorbent substance such as sawdust as an absorbent...
) because their destructive effects are primarily due to fire or explosive force, and not direct chemical action.
- Virus
A virus is an infectious agent too small to be seen directly with a light microscope. They are not made of cells and can only replicate inside the cells of another organism . Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
es, bacteria, or other organisms. Their use is classified as biological warfareBiological warfare , also known as germ warfare, is the use of pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, other disease-causing biological agents, or the toxins produced by them as biological weapons ....
. ToxinA toxin is a poisonous substance produced by living cells or organisms ....
s produced by living organisms are considered chemical weapons, although the boundary is blurry. Toxins are covered by the Biological Weapons ConventionThe Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the...
.
Designations
Most chemical weapons are assigned a one- to three-letter "
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
weapon designation" in addition to, or in place of, a common name.
Binary munitionsBinary chemical weapons or munitions are chemical weapons wherein the toxic agent is not contained within the weapon in its active state, but in the form of two chemical precursors, physically separated within the weapon...
, in which precursors for chemical warfare agents are automatically mixed in shell to produce the agent just prior to its use, are indicated by a "-2" following the agent's designation (for example, GB-2 and VX-2).
Some examples are given below:
| Blood agents: |
Vesicants: |
- Cyanogen chloride
Cyanogen chloride is an extremely toxic chemical compound with the formula CNCl. This linear, triatomic pseudohalogen is an easily condensed colorless gas...
: CK
- Hydrogen cyanide
Hydrogen cyanide is a chemical compound with chemical formula HCN. A solution of hydrogen cyanide in water is called hydrocyanic acid. Hydrogen cyanide is a colorless, extremely poisonous, and highly volatile liquid that boils slightly above room temperature at 26 °C...
: AC |
Lewisite Lewisite is an organoarsenic compound, specifically an arsine. It was once manufactured in the U.S. and Japan as a chemical weapon, acting as a vesicant and lung irritant...
: L
Sulfur mustard: H, HD, HS, HT |
| Pulmonary agents: |
Incapacitating agents: |
|
Phosgene Phosgene is the chemical compound with the formula COCl2. This colorless gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I, and is also a valued industrial reagent and building block in organic synthesis. In low concentrations, its odor resembles freshly cut hay or grass. Some...
: CG |
Quinuclidinyl benzilate3-quinuclidinyl benzilate , IUPAC name 1-azabicyclo[2.2.2]Oct-3-yl α-hydroxy-α-phenylbenzeneacetate, is an odorless military incapacitating agent. Its NATO code is BZ...
: BZ |
| Lachrymatory agents: |
Nerve agents: |
Pepper sprayPepper spray, also known as OC spray , OC gas, and capsicum spray, is a lachrymatory agent that is used in riot control, crowd control, and personal self-defense, including defense against dogs and bears.Although considered a less lethal agent,...
: OC
Tear gas: CN, CS, CR |
SarinSarin, also known by its NATO designation of GB, is an extremely toxic substance whose sole application is as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
: GB
VEVE is a "V-series" nerve agent closely related to the better-known VX nerve agent.Like most of the agents in the V-series , VE has not been extensively studied outside of military science...
, VGVG is a "V-series" nerve agent chemically similar to the better-known VX nerve agent. Tetram is the common Russian name for the substance...
, VMVM is a "V-series" nerve agent closely related to the better-known VX nerve agent.Like most of the agents in the V-series , VM has not been extensively studied outside of military science...
, VXVX, IUPAC name O-ethyl S-[2-ethyl] methylphosphonothioate, is an extremely toxic substance whose only application is in chemical warfare as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
|
Delivery
The most important factor in the effectiveness of chemical weapons is the efficiency of its delivery, or dissemination, to a target. The most common techniques include munitions (such as bombs, projectiles, warheads) that allow dissemination at a distance and spray tanks which disseminate from low-flying aircraft. Developments in the techniques of filling and storage of munitions have also been important.
Although there have been many advances in chemical weapon delivery since World War I, it is still difficult to achieve effective dispersion. The dissemination is highly dependent on atmospheric conditions because many chemical agents act in gaseous form. Thus, weather observations and forecasting are essential to optimize weapon delivery and reduce the risk of injuring friendly forces.
Dispersion
Dispersion is placing the chemical agent upon or adjacent to a target immediately before dissemination, so that the material is most efficiently used. Dispersion is the simplest technique of delivering an agent to its target. The most common techniques are munitions, bombs, projectiles, spray tanks and warheads.
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
saw the earliest implementation of this technique. The actual first chemical ammunition was the
FrenchThe military history of France encompasses a large panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas including modern France, greater Europe, and European territorial possessions overseas....
26 mm cartouche suffocante
rifle grenadeA rifle grenade is a grenade that uses a rifle based launcher to permit a longer effective range than would be possible if the grenade was thrown by hand...
, fired from a
flare carbineA flare gun is a gun that fires flares. They are typically used as a distress signal as well as other signaling purposes at sea and between aircraft and people on the ground.-Types:...
. It contained 35g of the
tear-producerA lachrymatory agent or lachrymator is a chemical compound that stimulates the corneal nerves in the eyes to cause tearing, pain, and even temporary blindness. Common lachrymators include CS, CR, CN, bromoacetone, phenacyl bromide, and xylyl bromide...
ethylbromacetate, and was used in autumn 1914 – with little effect on the Germans.
The
GermansWhile German-speaking peoples have a long history, Germany as a nation-state dates only from 1871. Earlier periods are subject to definition debates. The Franks, for instance, were a union of Germanic tribes; nevertheless, some of the Franks later identified themselves as Dutch, Flemish, French...
on the other hand tried to increase the effect of 10.5 cm shrapnel shells by adding an irritant – dianisidine chlorosulphonate. Its use went unnoticed by the British when it was used against them at
Neuve ChapelleThe Battles of Neuve Chapelle and Artois was a battle in the First World War. It was a British offensive in the Artois region and broke through at Neuve-Chapelle but they were unable to exploit the advantage.The battle began on 10 March 1915...
in October 1914. Hans Tappen, a chemist in the Heavy Artillery Department of the War Ministry, suggested to his brother, the Chief of the Operations Branch at German General Headquarters, the use of the tear-gases
benzyl bromideBenzyl bromide, or α-bromotoluene, is an organic compound consisting of a benzene ring substituted with a bromomethyl group. It can be prepared by the bromination of toluene at room temperature in air, using manganese oxide as a heterogeneous catalyst...
or
xylyl bromideXylyl bromide, T-stoff or methylbenzyl bromide, was used as a tear gas in World War I under the name Weisskreuz . It was a popular agent due to its easy manufacture...
.
Shells were tested successfully at the Wahn artillery range near
CologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants...
on 9 January, 1915, and an order was placed for 15 cm howitzer shells, designated ‘T-shells’ after Tappen. A shortage of shells limited the first use against the Russians at Bolimów on 31 January, 1915; the liquid failed to vaporize in the cold weather, and again the experiment went unnoticed by the Allies.
The first effective use were when the German forces at the
Second Battle of YpresThe Second Battle of Ypres was the first time Germany used poison gas on a large scale on the Western Front in World War I and the first time a former colonial force pushed back a major European power on European soil, which occurred in the battle of St...
simply opened cylinders of
chlorineChlorine Chlorine Chlorine ( , from the Greek word 'χλωρóς' (khlôros, meaning 'pale green'), is the chemical element with atomic number 17 and symbol Cl. It is a halogen, found in the periodic table in group 17 (formerly VII, VIIa, or VIIb). As the chloride ion, which is part of common salt and...
and allowed the
windWind is the flow of air or other gases that compose an atmosphere . On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air...
to carry the gas across enemy lines. While simple, this technique had numerous disadvantages. Moving large numbers of heavy gas cylinders to the front-line positions from where the gas would be released was a lengthy and difficult logistical task.
Stockpiles of cylinders had to be stored at the front line, posing a great risk if hit by artillery shells. Gas delivery depended greatly on
wind speedWind speed is the speed of wind, the movement of air or other gases in an atmosphere. It is a scalar quantity, the magnitude of the vector of motion....
and direction. If the wind was fickle, as at
LoosThe Battle of Loos was one of the major British offensives mounted on the Western Front in 1915 during World War I. It marked the first time the British used poison gas during the war, and is also famous for the fact that it witnessed the first large-scale use of new army or "Kitchener's Army"...
, the gas could blow back, causing friendly casualties.
Gas clouds gave plenty of warning, allowing the enemy time to protect themselves, though many soldiers found the sight of a creeping gas cloud unnerving. This made the gas doubly effective, as, in addition to damaging the enemy physically, it also had a psychological effect on the intended victims.
Another disadvantage was that gas clouds had limited penetration, capable only of affecting the front-line trenches before dissipating. Although it produced limited results in World War I, this technique shows how simple chemical weapon dissemination
can be.
Shortly after this "open canister" dissemination, French forces developed a technique for delivery of
phosgenePhosgene is the chemical compound with the formula COCl2. This colorless gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I, and is also a valued industrial reagent and building block in organic synthesis. In low concentrations, its odor resembles freshly cut hay or grass. Some...
in a non-explosive
artilleryArtillery is a military combat Arm that employs weapons capable of discharging large projectiles in combat. They are generally capable of adding considerable fire power to the military capability of an armed force...
shell. This technique overcame many of the risks of dealing with gas in cylinders. First, gas shells were independent of the wind and increased the effective range of gas, making any target within reach of guns vulnerable. Second, gas shells could be delivered without warning, especially the clear, nearly odorless phosgene there are numerous accounts of gas shells, landing with a "plop" rather than exploding, being initially dismissed as dud high explosive or shrapnel shells, giving the gas time to work before the soldiers were alerted and took precautions.
The major drawback of artillery delivery was the difficulty of achieving a killing concentration. Each shell had a small gas payload and an area would have to be subjected to saturation bombardment to produce a cloud to match cylinder delivery. A British solution to the problem was the
Livens ProjectorThe Livens Projector was a simple mortar-like weapon that could throw large drums filled with inflammable or toxic chemicals. In World War One, the Livens Projector became the standard means of delivering gas attacks and it remained in the arsenal of the British army until the early years of the...
. This was effectively a large-bore mortar, dug into the ground that used the gas cylinders themselves as projectiles - firing a 14 kg cylinder up to 1500 m. This combined the gas volume of cylinders with the range of artillery.
Over the years, there were some refinements in this technique. In the 1950s and early 1960s, chemical artillery rockets and
cluster bombCluster munitions or cluster bombs are air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapons that eject smaller submunitions: a cluster of bomblets. The most common types are designed to kill enemy personnel and destroy vehicles...
s contained a multitude of submunitions, so that a large number of small clouds of the chemical agent would form directly on the target.
Thermal dissemination
Thermal dissemination is the use of explosives or pyrotechnics to deliver chemical agents. This technique, developed in the 1920s, was a major improvement over earlier dispersal techniques, in that it allowed significant quantities of an agent to be disseminated over a considerable distance. Thermal dissemination remains the principal method of disseminating chemical agents today.
Most thermal dissemination devices consist of a
bombA bomb is any of a range of explosive devices that typically rely on the exothermic chemical reaction of an explosive material to produce an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. The word comes from the Greek word βόμβος , an onomatopoetic term with approximately the same meaning as...
or
projectile shellA shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage includes large solid projectiles previously termed shot...
that contains a chemical agent and a central "burster" charge; when the burster detonates, the agent is expelled laterally.
Thermal dissemination devices, though common, are not particularly efficient. First, a percentage of the agent is lost by incineration in the initial blast and by being forced onto the ground. Second, the sizes of the particles vary greatly because explosive dissemination produces a mixture of liquid droplets of variable and difficult to control sizes.
The efficacy of thermal detonation is greatly limited by the flammability of some agents. For flammable
aerosolsParticulates, alternatively referred to as particulate matter or fine particles, are tiny particles of solid or liquid suspended in a gas or liquid. In contrast, aerosol refers to particles and the gas together. Sources of particulate matter can be man made or natural...
, the cloud is sometimes totally or partially ignited by the disseminating explosion in a phenomenon called
flashing. Explosively disseminated
VXVX, IUPAC name O-ethyl S-[2-ethyl] methylphosphonothioate, is an extremely toxic substance whose only application is in chemical warfare as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
will ignite roughly one third of the time. Despite a great deal of study, flashing is still not fully understood, and a solution to the problem would be a major technological advance.
Despite the limitations of central bursters, most nations use this method in the early stages of chemical weapon development, in part because standard munitions can be adapted to carry the agents.
Aerodynamic dissemination
Aerodynamic dissemination is the non-explosive delivery of a chemical agent from an aircraft, allowing aerodynamic stress to disseminate the agent. This technique is the most recent major development in chemical agent dissemination, originating in the mid-1960s.
This technique eliminates many of the limitations of thermal dissemination by eliminating the flashing effect and theoretically allowing precise control of particle size. In actuality, the altitude of dissemination, wind direction and velocity, and the direction and velocity of the aircraft greatly influence particle size. There are other drawbacks as well; ideal deployment requires precise knowledge of
aerodynamicsAerodynamics is a branch of dynamics concerned with studying the motion of air, particularly when it interacts with a moving object. Aerodynamics is a subfield of fluid dynamics and gas dynamics, with much theory shared between them. Aerodynamics is often used synonymously with gas dynamics, with...
and
fluid dynamicsIn physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
, and because the agent must usually be dispersed within the
boundary layerIn physics and fluid mechanics, a boundary layer is that layer of fluid in the immediate vicinity of a bounding surface. In the Earth's atmosphere, the planetary boundary layer is the air layer near the ground affected by diurnal heat, moisture or momentum transfer to or from the surface. On an...
(less than 200–300 ft above the ground), it puts pilots at risk.
Significant research is still being applied toward this technique. For example, by modifying the properties of the liquid, its breakup when subjected to aerodynamic stress can be controlled and an idealized particle distribution achieved, even at
supersonic speedThe term supersonic is used to define a speed that is over the speed of sound . In dry air at 20 °C , the threshold value required for an object to be traveling at a supersonic speed is approximately 343 m/s, . Speeds greater than 5 times the speed of sound are often referred to as hypersonic...
. Additionally, advances in fluid dynamics, computer modeling, and
weather forecastingWeather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. Human beings have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, and formally since at least the nineteenth century...
allow an ideal direction, speed, and altitude to be calculated, such that warfare agent of a predetermined particle size can predictably and reliably hit a target.
Protection against chemical warfare
Ideal protection begins with nonproliferation treaties such as the
Chemical Weapons ConventionThe Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
, and detecting, very early, the
signatures of someone building a chemical weapons capability. These include a wide range of intelligence disciplines, such as economic analysis of exports of dual-use chemicals and equipment, human intelligence (
HUMINTHUMINT, a syllabic abbreviation of the words HUMan INTelligence, refers to intelligence gathering by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as SIGINT, IMINT and MASINT...
) such as diplomatic, refugee, and agent reports; photography from satellites, aircraft and drones (
IMINTIMINT, short for IMagery INTelligence, is an intelligence gathering discipline which collects information via satellite and aerial photography. As a means of collecting intelligence, IMINT is a subset of intelligence collection management, which, in turn, is a subset of intelligence cycle management...
); examination of captured equipment (
TECHINTTechint is a multinational group based in Argentina founded in 1945 by Italian industrialist Agostino Rocca, who had been a steel manufacturer in Milan. Techint currently holds stock in over 100 engineering, steel, oil, gas and service companies in more than 35 countries. Techint, with its...
); communications intercepts (COMINT); and detection of chemical manufacturing and chemical agents themselves (MASINT).
If all the preventive measures fail and there is a clear and present danger, then there is a need for detection of chemical attacks,
collective protection, and decontamination. Since industrial accidents can cause dangerous chemical releases (e.g., the
Bhopal disasterThe Bhopal disaster or Bhopal gas tragedy was an industrial disaster that took place at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in the Indian city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. At midnight on 3 December 1984, the plant released an estimated 42 tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate gas, exposing more than 500,000...
), these activities are things that civilian, as well as military, organizations must be prepared to carry out. In civilian situations in
developed countriesThe term developed country is used to describe countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria. Which criteria, and which countries are classified as being developed, is a contentious issue and there is fierce debate about this. Economic criteria have tended to dominate...
, these are duties of
HAZMATHazmat, HazMat and similar terms can refer to:* Hazardous materials and items: see Dangerous goods* Hazardous chemical classification and firefighting modes: see Hazchem* A hazmat suit is a type of protective clothing...
organizations, which most commonly are part of fire departments.
Detection has been referred to above, as a technical
MASINTMeasurement and Signature Intelligence, or MASINT, refers to intelligence gathering activities that bring together disparate elements that do not fit within the definitions of the major disciplines mentioned above....
discipline; specific military procedures, which are usually the model for civilian procedures, depend on the equipment, expertise, and personnel available. When chemical agents are detected, an
alarmAn alarm gives an audible or visual warning about a problem or condition.Alarms include:* burglar alarms, designed to warn of burglaries; this is often a silent alarm: the police or guards are warned without indication to the burglar, which increases the chances of catching him or her.* alarm...
needs to sound, with specific warnings over emergency broadcasts and the like. There may be a warning to expect an attack.
If, for example, the captain of a
US NavyThe United States Navy is the sea branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. As of 31 December 2008, the U.S. Navy had about 331,682 personnel on active duty and 124,000 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 283 ships in active service and more than...
ship believes there is a serious threat of chemical, biological, or radiological attack, the crew may be ordered to set Circle William, which means closing all openings to outside air, running breathing air through filters, and possibly starting a system that continually washes down the exterior surfaces. Civilian authorities dealing with an attack or a toxic chemical accident will invoke the
Incident Command SystemCenter of Excellence in Disaster Humanitarian Assistance describes the Incident Command System as, "a set of personnel, policies, procedures, facilities, and equipment, integrated into a common organizational structure designed to improve emergency response operations of all types and...
, or local equivalent, to coordinate defensive measures.
Individual protection starts with a
gas maskA gas mask is a mask worn over the face to protect the wearer from inhaling "airborne pollutants" and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft tissues of the face. Some gas masks are also respirators, though the word...
and, depending on the nature of the threat, through various levels of protective clothing up to a complete chemical-resistant suit with a self-contained air supply. The US military defines various levels of
MOPPMOPP is a military term used to describe protective gear, to be used in a toxic environment, i.e., during a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear strike:* Protective mask — Commonly referred to as a gas mask...
(mission-oriented protective posture) from mask to full chemical resistant suits; Hazmat suits are the civilian equivalent, but go farther to include a fully independent air supply, rather than the filters of a gas mask.
Collective protection allows continued functioning of groups of people in buildings or shelters, the latter which may be fixed, mobile, or improvised. With ordinary buildings, this may be as basic as plastic sheeting and tape, although if the protection needs to be continued for any appreciable length of time, there will need to be an air supply, typically a scaled-up version of a gas mask.
Decontamination
Decontamination varies with the particular chemical agent used. Some
nonpersistent agents, such as most pulmonary agents such as
chlorineChlorine Chlorine Chlorine ( , from the Greek word 'χλωρóς' (khlôros, meaning 'pale green'), is the chemical element with atomic number 17 and symbol Cl. It is a halogen, found in the periodic table in group 17 (formerly VII, VIIa, or VIIb). As the chloride ion, which is part of common salt and...
and
phosgenePhosgene is the chemical compound with the formula COCl2. This colorless gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I, and is also a valued industrial reagent and building block in organic synthesis. In low concentrations, its odor resembles freshly cut hay or grass. Some...
, blood gases, and nonpersistent nerve gases (e.g.,
GBSarin, also known by its NATO designation of GB, is an extremely toxic substance whose sole application is as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
) will dissipate from open areas, although powerful exhaust fans may be needed to clear out building where they have accumulated.
In some cases, it might be necessary to neutralize them chemically, as with
ammoniaAmmonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH
3. It is normally encountered as a gas with a characteristic pungent odor. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to foodstuffs and fertilizers...
as a neutralizer for
hydrogen cyanideHydrogen cyanide is a chemical compound with chemical formula HCN. A solution of hydrogen cyanide in water is called hydrocyanic acid. Hydrogen cyanide is a colorless, extremely poisonous, and highly volatile liquid that boils slightly above room temperature at 26 °C...
or
chlorineChlorine Chlorine Chlorine ( , from the Greek word 'χλωρóς' (khlôros, meaning 'pale green'), is the chemical element with atomic number 17 and symbol Cl. It is a halogen, found in the periodic table in group 17 (formerly VII, VIIa, or VIIb). As the chloride ion, which is part of common salt and...
. Riot control agents such as
CSCS gas is the common name for 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile , a "tear gas" that is used as a riot control agent. It is generally accepted as being non-lethal...
will dissipate in an open area, but things contaminated with CS powder need to be aired out, washed by people wearing protective gear, or safely discarded.
Mass decontaminationMass decontamination is the decontamination of large numbers of people, in the event of industrial, accidental, or intentional contamination by toxic, infective, caustic, polluted, or otherwise unhealthful or damaging substances....
is a less common requirement for people than equipment, since people may be immediately affected and treatment is the action required. It is a requirement when people have been contaminated with persistent agents. Treatment and decontamination may need to be simultaneous, with the medical personnel protecting themselves so they can function.
There may need to be immediate intervention to prevent death, such as injection of atropine for nerve agents. Decontamination is especially important for people contaminated with persistent agents; many of the fatalities after the
explosion of a WWII US ammunition ship carrying mustard gasThe Air Raid on Bari was an air attack on Allied forces and shipping in Bari, Italy by Nazi German bombers on December 2, 1943. In the attack, 105 German Junkers Ju 88 bombers of Luftflotte 2, achieving complete surprise, bombed Allied shipping and personnel operating in support of the Allied...
, in the harbor of Bari, Italy, after a German bombing on 2 December 1943, came when rescue workers, not knowing of the contamination, bundled cold, wet seamen in tight-fitting blankets.
For decontaminating equipment and buildings exposed to persistent agents, such as blister agents,
VXVX, IUPAC name O-ethyl S-[2-ethyl] methylphosphonothioate, is an extremely toxic substance whose only application is in chemical warfare as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
or other agents made persistent by mixing with a thickener, special equipment and materials might be needed. Some type of neutralizing agent will be needed; e.g. in the form of a spraying device with neutralizing agents such as Chlorine, Fichlor, strong alkaline solutions or enzymes . In other cases, a specific chemical decontaminant will be required.
Sociopolitical climate
ARMIS BELLUM NON VENENIS GERITUR
"War is fought with weapons, not with poisons" |
The study of chemicals and their military uses was widespread in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
and India. The use of toxic materials has historically been viewed with mixed emotions and moral qualms in the West. The practical and ethical problems surrounding poison warfare appeared in ancient Greek myths about Hercules' invention of poison arrows and Odysseus's use of toxic projectiles. There are many instances of the use of chemical weapons in battles documented in Greek and Roman historical texts; the earliest example was the deliberate poisoning of Kirrha's water supply with hellebore in the First Sacred War, Greece, about 590 BC.
One of the earliest reactions to the use of chemical agents was from Rome. Struggling to defend themselves from the
Roman legionThe Roman legion is a term that can apply both as a translation of legio to the entire Roman army and also, more narrowly , to the heavy infantry that was the basic military unit of the ancient Roman army in the period of the late Roman Republic and the...
s,
GermanicThe Germanic peoples are a historical ethno-linguistic group, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age...
tribes poisoned the wells of their enemies, with Roman jurists having been recorded as declaring "armis bella non venenis geri", meaning "war is fought with
weaponA weapon is a tool used to apply force for the purpose of hunting, attack, self-defense, or defense in combat.Weapons can be as simple as a club, or as complex as an intercontinental ballistic missile, and include those that damage individual or group morale.-Prehistoric weapons:Very simple weapon...
s, not with
poisonIn the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism...
s." Yet the Romans themselves resorted to poisoning wells of besieged cities in Anatolia in the second century BC.
Before 1915 the use of poisonous chemicals in battle was typically the result of local initiative, and not the result of an active government chemical weapons program. There are many reports of the isolated use of chemical agents in individual battles or
siegeA siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit"....
s, but there was no true tradition of their use outside of
incendiariesIncendiary means "capable of causing fire". It may also refer to:* Incendiary device, a device designed to cause fires* Incendiary , a novel by Chris Cleave* Incendiary , a 2008 film directed by Sharon Maguire...
and smoke. Despite this tendency, there have been several attempts to initiate large-scale implementation of poison gas in several wars, but with the notable exception of World War I, the responsible authorities generally rejected the proposals for ethical reasons.
For example, in 1854 Lyon Playfair, a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
chemist, proposed using a
cyanideA cyanide is any chemical compound that contains the cyano group , which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Inorganic cyanides are hydrogen cyanide salts in which cyanide is generally the anion CN
-. Organic compounds that have a -C≡N functional group bonded to...
-filled
artilleryArtillery is a military combat Arm that employs weapons capable of discharging large projectiles in combat. They are generally capable of adding considerable fire power to the military capability of an armed force...
shell against enemy ships during the
Crimean WarThe Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire on one side and an alliance of the British Empire, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the other. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
. The British Ordnance Department rejected the proposal as "as bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy."
Efforts to eradicate chemical weapons
- August 27, 1874: The Brussels Declaration Concerning the Laws and Customs of War is signed, specifically forbidding the "employment of poison or poisoned weapons."
- September 4, 1900: The Hague Conference
The Hague Conventions were international treaties negotiated at the First and Second Peace Conferences at The Hague, Netherlands in 1899 and 1907, respectively, and were, along with the Geneva Conventions, among the first formal statements of the laws of war and war crimes in the nascent body of...
, which includes a declaration banning the "use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases," enters into force.
- February 6, 1922: After World War I, the Washington Arms Conference Treaty prohibited the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases. It was signed by the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy, but France objected to other provisions in the treaty and it never went into effect.
- September 7, 1929: The Geneva Protocol
The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the first use of chemical and biological weapons...
enters into force, prohibiting the use of poison gas.
Chemical weapon proliferation
Despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them, some nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical warfare agents. To the right is a summary of the nations that have either declared weapon stockpiles or are suspected of secretly stockpiling or possessing CW research programs. Notable examples include
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
.
US Vice PresidentThe Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term...
Dick CheneyRichard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 in the administration of George W. Bush....
opposed the signing ratification of a treaty banning the use chemical weapons, a recently unearthed letter shows. In a letter dated April 8, 1997, then Halliburton-CEO Cheney told Sen.
Jesse HelmsJesse Alexander Helms, Jr. was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001...
, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that it would be a mistake for America to join the Convention. "Those nations most likely to comply with the
Chemical Weapons ConventionThe Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
are not likely to ever constitute a military threat to the United States. The governments we should be concerned about are likely to cheat on the CWC, even if they do participate," reads the letter, published by the
Federation of American ScientistsThe Federation of American Scientists is a non-profit organization formed in 1945 by scientists from the Manhattan Project who felt that scientists, engineers and other innovators had an ethical obligation to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on critical national decisions...
.
The CWC was ratified by the Senate that same month. Since then, Albania, Libya, Russia, the United States, and India have declared over 71,000 metric tons of chemical weapon stockpiles, and destroyed about a third of them. Under the terms of the agreement, the United States and Russia are supposed to eliminate the rest of their supplies of chemical weapons by 2012. But that looks unlikely the U.S. government estimates remaining stocks will be destroyed by 2017.
Ancient to medieval times
Chemical weapons have been used for millennia in the form of poisoned spears and
arrowsArchery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
, but evidence can be found for the existence of more advanced forms of chemical weapons in ancient and classical times.
A good example of early chemical warfare was the late
Stone AgeThe Stone Age is a broad prehistoric time period during which humans widely used stone for toolmaking.Stone tools were made from a variety of different sorts of stone. For example, flint and chert were shaped for use as cutting tools and weapons, while basalt and sandstone were used for ground...
(10 000 BC)
hunter-gathererA hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either...
societies in Southern
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
, known as the
SanThe indigenous people of southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Basarwa, Kung, or Khwe...
. They used poisoned arrows, tipping the wood, bone and stone tips of their arrows with poisons obtained from their natural environment. These poisons were mainly derived from
scorpionScorpions are predatory arthropod animals of the order Scorpiones within the class Arachnida. There are about 2,000 species of scorpions, found widely distributed south of about 49° N, except New Zealand and Antarctica...
or
snakeSnakes are elongate legless carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
venom, but it is believed that some poisonous plants were also utilized. The arrow was fired into the target of choice, usually an
antelopeAntelope is a term referring to many even-toed ungulate species found in the family Bovidae. The term does not refer to a monophyletic group, as not all members of Bovidae are considered antelope. Instead, the term refers to a ‘miscellaneous’ group within the family encompassing the species which...
(the favourite being an eland), with the hunter then tracking the doomed animal until the poison caused its collapse.
Ancient Greek myths about Hercules poisoning his arrows with the venom of the Hydra Monster are the earliest references to toxic weapons in western literature. Homer's epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, allude to poisoned arrows used by both sides in the legendary Trojan War (Bronze Age Greece).
Textual and Literary Evidence
Some of the earliest surviving references to toxic warfare are may appear in the
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
n epics
RamayanaThe Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon . The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being Mahabharata...
and
MahabharataThe Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the . The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa , and forms an important part of Hindu mythology....
.
The "Laws of Manu," a Hindu treatise on statecraft (ca 400 BC) forbids the use of poison and fire arrows, but advises poisoning food and water. Kautilya's "Arthashastra," a statecraft manual of the same era, contains hundreds of recipes for creating poison weapons, toxic smokes, and other chemical weapons. Ancient Greek historians recount that Alexander the Great encountered poison arrows and fire incendiaries in what is now Pakistan in the fourth century BC.
Sun Tzu's "Art of War" (ca 500 BC) advises the use of fire weapons. In the 4th century BC, writings of the Mohist sect in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
describe the use of bellows to pump smoke from burning balls of
mustardMustards are several plant species in the genera Brassica and Sinapis whose small mustard seeds are used as a spice and, by grinding and mixing them with water, vinegar or other liquids, are turned into the condiment known as mustard...
and other toxic vegetables into tunnels being dug by a besieging army. Even older Chinese writings dating back to about 1000 BC contain hundreds of recipes for the production of poisonous or irritating smokes for use in war along with numerous accounts of their use. From these accounts we know of the
arsenicArsenic is the chemical element that has the symbol As, atomic number 33 and atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250. Arsenic is a notoriously poisonous metalloid with many allotropic forms, including a yellow and several black and grey forms...
-containing "soul-hunting fog", and the use of finely divided lime dispersed into the air to suppress a peasant revolt in
AD 178-Roman Empire:* Commodus and Marcus Aurelius travel to the Danube to engage the Marcomanni.-Asia:* Last year of Xiping era and start of Guanghe era of the Chinese Han Dynasty.* In India, the decline of the Kushan Empire begins...
.
The earliest recorded use of gas warfare in the West dates back to the 5th century BC, during the
Peloponnesian WarThe Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 B.C., was an Ancient Greek war, fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...
between
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and
SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
. Spartan forces besieging an Athenian city placed a lighted mixture of wood, pitch, and sulfur under the walls hoping that the noxious smoke would incapacitate the Athenians, so that they would not be able to resist the assault that followed. Sparta wasn't alone in its use of unconventional tactics during these wars:
SolonSolon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and elegiac poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens...
of Athens is said to have used
helleboreCommonly known as hellebores, members of the genus Helleborus comprise approximately 20 species of herbaceous perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave its name to the tribe of Helleboreae...
roots to poison the water in an aqueduct leading from the Pleistrus River around 590 BC during the siege of Kirrha.
Chemical weapons were known and used in ancient and medieval China. Polish chronicler Jan Długosz mentions usage of poisonous gas by the Mongol army in 1241 in the
Battle of LegnicaThe Battle of Legnica , also known as the Battle of Liegnitz or Battle of Wahlstatt , was a battle between the Mongol Empire and the combined defending forces of European fighters that took place at Legnickie Pole near the city of Legnica in Silesia on April 9 1241.A combined force of Poles,...
.
Historian and philosopher
David HumeDavid Hume was a Scottish philosopher, economist, historian and a key figure in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, in his history of England, recounts how during early in the reign of
Henry IIIHenry III may refer to:*Henry III, Duke of Bavaria *Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor *Henry the Lion, Henry III of Saxony, *Henry III of England *Henry III, Margrave of Meissen...
(r.1216 - 1272) the English Navy destroyed an invading French fleet, by blinding the enemy fleet with "quicklime," the old name for
calcium oxideCalcium oxide , commonly known as burnt lime, lime or quicklime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic and alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature. As a commercial product, lime often also contains magnesium oxide, silicon oxide and smaller amounts of aluminium oxide and...
. D’Albiney employed a stratagem against them, which is said to have contributed to the victory: Having gained the wind of the French, he came down upon them with violence; and throwing in their faces a great quantity of quicklime, which he purposely carried on board, he so blinded them, that they were disabled from defending themselves.
Archaeological Evidence
There is
archaeologicalArchaeological science, also known as archaeometry, consists of the application of scientific techniques and methodologies to archaeology.Archaeological science can be divided into the following areas:...
evidence that the Sasanians deployed chemical weapons against the Roman army in 3rd century AD/CE. Research carried out on the collapsed tunnels at
Dura-EuroposDura-Europos
was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment ninety meters above the right bank of the Euphrates river....
in Syria suggests that the Iranians used
bitumenBitumen is a mixture of organic liquids that are highly viscous, black, sticky, entirely soluble in carbon disulfide, and composed primarily of highly condensed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons....
and sulphur crystals to get it burning. When ignited, the materials gave off dense clouds of choking gases which killed 20 Roman soldiers in the matter of 2 minutes.
Rediscovery
During the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
, people again considered using chemical warfare. One of the earliest such references is from
Leonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer....
, who proposed a powder of sulfide of arsenic and
verdigrisVerdigris is the common name for the green coating or patina formed when copper, brass or bronze is weathered and exposed to air or seawater over a period of time. It is usually a basic copper carbonate, but near the sea will be a basic copper chloride...
in the 15th century:
- throw poison in the form of powder upon galleys. Chalk, fine sulfide of arsenic, and powdered verdegris may be thrown among enemy ships by means of small mangonel
A mangonel was a type of catapult or siege machine used in the medieval period to throw projectiles at a castle's walls. The exact meaning of the term is debatable, and several possibilities have been suggested...
s, and all those who, as they breathe, inhale the powder into their lungs will become asphyxiated.
It is unknown whether this powder was ever actually used.
Earlier, in the 13th century, of Henry III the English Navy destroyed an invading French fleet, by blinding the enemy fleet with "quicklime," the old name for calcium oxide. (See Calcium oxide#use as a weapon)
In the 17th century during
siegeA siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit"....
s, armies attempted to start fires by launching
incendiaryIncendiary weapons, Incendiary devices or incendiary bombs are bombs designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using materials such as napalm, thermite, chlorine trifluoride, or white phosphorus.According to the...
shellsArtillery is a military combat Arm that employs weapons capable of discharging large projectiles in combat. They are generally capable of adding considerable fire power to the military capability of an armed force...
filled with
sulphurSulfur or sulphur is the chemical element that has the atomic number 16. It is denoted with the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Sulfur, in its native form, is a yellow crystalline solid. In nature, it can be found as the pure element and as sulfide and sulfate minerals...
,
tallowTallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton fat, processed from suet. It is solid at room temperature. Unlike suet, tallow can be stored for extended periods without the need for refrigeration to prevent decomposition, provided it is kept in an airtight container to prevent oxidation.Rendered fat...
,
rosinRosin, formerly called colophony or Greek pitch , is a solid form of resin obtained from pines and some other plants, mostly conifers, produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile liquid terpene components. It is semi-transparent and varies in color from yellow to black...
,
turpentineTurpentine is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin obtained from trees, mainly pine trees. It is composed of terpenes, mainly the monoterpenes alpha-pinene and beta-pinene...
,
saltpeterPotassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula KNO3. A naturally occurring mineral source of nitrogen, KNO3 constitutes a critical oxidizing component of black powder/gunpowder. In the past it was also used for several kinds of burning fuses, including slow...
, and/or
antimonyAntimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb and atomic number 51. A metalloid, antimony has four allotropic forms. The stable form of antimony is a blue-white metalloid. Yellow and black antimony are unstable non-metals...
. Even when fires were not started, the resulting smoke and fumes provided a considerable distraction. Although their primary function was never abandoned, a variety of fills for shells were developed to maximize the effects of the smoke.
In 1672, during his siege of the city of
Groningen||-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |}Groningen is the capital city of the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. With a population of 185,000, it is by far the largest city in the north of the Netherlands....
, Christoph Bernhard van Galen, the Bishop of Münster, employed several different explosive and incendiary devices, some of which had a fill that included belladonna, intended to produce toxic fumes. Just three years later, August 27, 1675, the
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and the
GermansGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
concluded the
Strasbourg AgreementThe Strasbourg Agreement of 1675 is the first international agreement banning the use of chemical weapons. The treaty was signed between France and the Holy Roman Empire, and was created in response to the use of poisoned bullets. The treaty was signed on August 27, 1675...
, which included an article banning the use of "perfidious and odious" toxic devices.
In 1854, Lyon Playfair, a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
chemist, proposed a
cacodyl cyanideA blood agent is a toxic chemical agent that affects the body by being absorbed into the blood. They are fast-acting, potentially lethal poisons that typically manifest at room temperature as volatile colorless gases with a faint odor. Blood agents are either cyanide- or...
artillery shell for use against enemy ships as way to solve the stalemate during the siege of
SevastopolSevastopol is a port city in Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451...
. The proposal was backed by Admiral
Thomas CochraneAdmiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, Marquess do Maranhão, GCB, ODM , styled Lord Cochrane between 1778 and 1831, was a senior British naval flag officer and radical politician...
of the
Royal NavyThe Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of HM Armed Forces . From the beginning of the 18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early...
. It was considered by the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, but the British Ordnance Department rejected the proposal as "as bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy." Playfair’s response was used to justify chemical warfare into the next century:
- There was no sense in this objection. It is considered a legitimate mode of warfare to fill shells with molten metal which scatters among the enemy, and produced the most frightful modes of death. Why a poisonous vapor which would kill men without suffering is to be considered illegitimate warfare is incomprehensible. War is destruction, and the more destructive it can be made with the least suffering the sooner will be ended that barbarous method of protecting national rights. No doubt in time chemistry will be used to lessen the suffering of combatants, and even of criminals condemned to death.
Later, during the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
school teacher John Doughty proposed the offensive use of
chlorineChlorine Chlorine Chlorine ( , from the Greek word 'χλωρóς' (khlôros, meaning 'pale green'), is the chemical element with atomic number 17 and symbol Cl. It is a halogen, found in the periodic table in group 17 (formerly VII, VIIa, or VIIb). As the chloride ion, which is part of common salt and...
gas, delivered by filling a 10
inchAn inch is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units. There are 36 inches in a yard and 12 inches in a foot...
(254 millimeter) artillery shell with 2 to 3
quartThe quart is an imperial and US customary unit of volume equal to a quarter of a gallon, two pints, or four cups. Since gallons of various sizes have historically been in use, quarts of various sizes have also existed...
s (2 to 3
liter
s) of liquid chlorine, which could produce many cubic feet (a few cubic meters) of chlorine gas. Doughty’s plan was apparently never acted on, as it was probably presented to Brigadier General
James Wolfe RipleyJames Wolfe Ripley was an American soldier, serving as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was instrumental in the early days of the war in modernizing the artillery's ordnance. However, Ripley also delayed the introduction of repeating rifles into U.S...
, Chief of Ordnance, who was described as being congenitally immune to new ideas.
A general concern over the use of poison gas manifested itself in 1899 at the
Hague ConferenceThe Hague Conventions were international treaties negotiated at the First and Second Peace Conferences at The Hague, Netherlands in 1899 and 1907, respectively, and were, along with the Geneva Conventions, among the first formal statements of the laws of war and war crimes in the nascent body of...
with a proposal prohibiting shells filled with asphyxiating gas. The proposal was passed, despite a single dissenting vote from the United States. The American representative, Navy Captain
Alfred Thayer MahanAlfred Thayer Mahan was a United States Navy flag officer, geostrategist, and educator. His ideas on the importance of sea power influenced navies around the world, and helped prompt naval buildups before World War I. Several ships were named , including the lead vessel of a class of destroyers...
, justified voting against the measure on the grounds that "the inventiveness of Americans should not be restricted in the development of new weapons."
World War I
The Hague Declaration of 1899 and the Hague Convention of 1907 forbade the use of "poison or poisonous weapons" in warfare, yet more than 124,000 tons of gas were produced by the end of World War I. The
FrenchFrench people can refer to:* The legal residents and citizens of France, regardless of ancestry. For a legal discussion, see French nationality law.* People whose ancestors lived in France or the area that later became France....
were the first to use chemical weapons during the First World War, using tear gas.
The German's first use of chemical weapons were shells containing
xylyl bromideXylyl bromide, T-stoff or methylbenzyl bromide, was used as a tear gas in World War I under the name Weisskreuz . It was a popular agent due to its easy manufacture...
that were fired at the Russians near the town of
BolimówBolimów is a village in Skierniewice County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It is the seat of the Gmina called Gmina Bolimów. It lies approximately north of Skierniewice and north-east of the regional capital Łódź. The village has a population of 930...
, Poland in January 1915. The first full-scale deployment of chemical warfare agents was during World War I, originating in the
Second Battle of YpresThe Second Battle of Ypres was the first time Germany used poison gas on a large scale on the Western Front in World War I and the first time a former colonial force pushed back a major European power on European soil, which occurred in the battle of St...
, April 22, 1915, when the Germans attacked French,
CanadianCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
n troops with chlorine gas. Deaths were light, though casualties relatively heavy.
A total 50,965 tons of pulmonary, lachrymatory, and vesicant agents were deployed by both sides of the conflict, including
chlorineChlorine Chlorine Chlorine ( , from the Greek word 'χλωρóς' (khlôros, meaning 'pale green'), is the chemical element with atomic number 17 and symbol Cl. It is a halogen, found in the periodic table in group 17 (formerly VII, VIIa, or VIIb). As the chloride ion, which is part of common salt and...
,
phosgenePhosgene is the chemical compound with the formula COCl2. This colorless gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I, and is also a valued industrial reagent and building block in organic synthesis. In low concentrations, its odor resembles freshly cut hay or grass. Some...
and mustard gas. Official figures declare about 1,176,500 non-fatal casualties and 85,000 fatalities directly caused by chemical warfare agents during the course of the war.
To this day unexploded WWI-era chemical ammunition is still frequently uncovered when the ground is dug in former battle or depot areas and continues to pose a threat to the civilian population in
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
and France and less commonly in other countries. The French and Belgian governments have had to launch special programs for treating discovered ammunition.
After the war, most of the unused German chemical warfare agents were dumped into the
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and the...
, a common disposal method among all the participants in several bodies of water. Over time, the salt water causes the shell casings to corrode, and mustard gas occasionally leaks from these containers and washes onto shore as a wax-like solid resembling
ambergrisAmbergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of sperm whales.Ambergris has a peculiar sweet, earthy odor...
. Even in this solidified form, the agent is active enough to cause severe contact burns to anybody coming into contact with it.
Interwar years
After World War I chemical agents were occasionally used to subdue populations and suppress rebellion.
Following the defeat of the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
in 1917, the Ottoman government collapsed completely, and the former empire was divided amongst the victorious powers in the
Treaty of SèvresThe Treaty of Sèvres was the peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Allies at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles was signed with Germany before this treaty to annul the German concessions including the economic rights and enterprises. Also, France, Great Britain and Italy...
. The
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
occupied
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
(present-day
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
) and established a
colonial governmentColonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole...
.
In 1920, the
ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
and
KurdKürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...
ish people of
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
revoltedThe Iraqi revolt against the British, or the Great Iraqi Revolution of 1920, started in Baghdad in the summer of 1920 with mass demonstrations of both Sunni and Shia, including protests by embittered officers from the old Ottoman army, against the policies of Sir Arnold Wilson. The revolt gained...
against the British occupation, which cost the British dearly. As the Mesopotamian resistance gained strength, the British resorted to increasingly repressive measures. Much speculation was made about
aerial bombardmentThe aerial bombing of cities began in 1911, developed through World War I, grew to a vast scale in World War II, and continues to the present day.-Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912:...
of major cities with
gas in MesopotamiaIt has been speculated that the British may have used toxic gas against the Kurds in Mesopotamia, during the Ath Thawra al Iraqiyya al Kubra or Iraqi revolt against the British in 1920, in the period of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.Henry B...
, with
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
, then-Secretary of State at the British War Office, arguing in favor of it. In the 1920s generals reported that poison had never won a battle. The soldiers said they hated it and hated the gas masks. Only the chemists spoke out to say it was a good weapon.
In 1925, sixteen of the world's major nations signed the
Geneva ProtocolThe Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the first use of chemical and biological weapons...
, thereby pledging never to use gas in warfare again. Notably, in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the Protocol languished in the
SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators,...
until 1975, when it was finally ratified.
The Bolsheviks also employed poison gas in 1921 during the
Tambov RebellionThe Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1921 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions against the Bolshevik regime during the Russian Civil War . The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and a part of Voronezh Oblast, less than 300 miles southeast of...
. An order signed by military commanders
Tukhachevsky and
Vladimir Antonov-OvseenkoVladimir Alexandrovich Antonov-Ovseyenko , real surname Ovseyenko, was a prominent Soviet Bolshevik leader and diplomat. Ethnically he was a Ukrainian, born in Chernigov into an officer's family....
stipulated:
"The forests where the bandits are hiding are to be cleared by the use of poison gas. This must be carefully calculated, so that the layer of gas penetrates the forests and kills everyone hiding there."
During the
Rif WarThe Rif War of 1920, also called the Second Moroccan War, was fought between Spain and the Moroccan Rif and J'bala tribes.-Early Stages:...
in
Spanish MoroccoSpanish Protectorate of Morocco was the area of Morocco under colonial rule by the Spanish Empire, established by the Treaty of Fez in 1912 and ending in 1956, when both France and Spain recognized Moroccan independence.-Territorial borders:...
in 1921–1927, combined
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
and
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
forces dropped mustard gas bombs in an attempt to put down the
BerberBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke various Berber languages, which together form a branch of the...
rebellion. (
See also: Chemical weapons in the Rif WarDuring the Third Rif War in Spanish Morocco between 1921 and 1927, the Spanish Army of Africa dropped chemical warfare agents in an attempt to put down the Riffian Berber rebellion led by guerrilla leader Abd el-Krim....
)
In 1935,
FascistFascism, , comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology developed in Italy. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in...
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
used mustard gas during the invasion of
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast. Its size is 1,100,000 km² with an...
in the
Second Italo-Abyssinian WarThe Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a brief colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...
. Ignoring the
Geneva ProtocolThe Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the first use of chemical and biological weapons...
, which it signed seven years earlier, the
Italian militaryThe Italian armed forces are under the command of the Italian Supreme Defense Council, presided over by the President of the Italian Republic. The total number of military personnel is approximately 308,000...
dropped mustard gas in bombs, sprayed it from airplanes, and spread it in powdered form on the ground. 150,000 chemical casualties were reported, mostly from mustard gas.
World War II
Despite article 171 of the Versailles Peace Treaty, article V of the Treaty in Relation to the Use of Submarines and Noxious Gases in Warfare
http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Washington_Treaty_in_Relation_to_the_Use_of_Submarines_and_Noxious_Gases_in_Warfare and a resolution adopted against Japan by the
League of nationsThe League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members...
on 14 May 1938, the
Imperial Japanese ArmyThe Imperial Japanese Army , or literally Army of the Empire of Greater Japan was the official ground based armed force of Imperial Japan from 1867 to 1945...
frequently used chemical weapons. Because of fear of retaliation however, those weapons were never used against Westerners, but against other Asians judged "inferior" by the imperial propaganda.
According to historians
Yoshiaki Yoshimiis a professor of modern Japanese history at Chuo University in Tokyo. Yoshimi is a founder member of the Center for Research and Documentation on Japan's war responsibility...
and Seiya Matsuno, the chemical weapons were authorized by specific orders given by Emperor Showa himself, transmitted by the
chief of staff of the armyThe as part of the Supreme War Council was established in 1893 to coordinate efforts between the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during wartime...
. For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the
battle of WuhanThe Battle of Wuhan , popularly known to Chinese as the Defense of Wuhan , and to the Japanese as the Capture of Wuhan , was a large-scale battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War...
from August to October 1938.
They were also profusely used during the
invasion of ChangdeThe Changde chemical weapon attack refers to the use of chemical and biological weapons by Japan during the Battle of Changde in the Chinese Province of Hunan in April and May, 1943....
. Those orders were transmitted either by prince Kotohito Kan'in or general
Hajime Sugiyamawas a field marshal who served as successively as chief of the Army General Staff, and minister of war in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II between 1937 and 1944. As War Minister in 1937, he was one of the principal architects of the China Incident or second Sino-Japanese War...
.
The
Imperial Japanese ArmyThe Imperial Japanese Army , or literally Army of the Empire of Greater Japan was the official ground based armed force of Imperial Japan from 1867 to 1945...
used mustard gas and the recently-developed
blister agentA blister agent is a chemical compound that causes severe skin, eye and mucosal pain and irritation. They are named for their ability to cause severe chemical burns, resulting in large, painful water blisters on the bodies of those affected...
LewisiteLewisite is an organoarsenic compound, specifically an arsine. It was once manufactured in the U.S. and Japan as a chemical weapon, acting as a vesicant and lung irritant...
against
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
troops and guerrillas. Experiments involving chemical weapons were conducted on live prisoners (
Unit 731was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II...
and
Unit 516Unit 516 was a top secret Japanese chemical weapons facility, operated by the Kempeitai, in Qiqihar, Manchukuo. The name Unit 516 was a code name of the Unit....
). The Japanese also carried chemical weapons as they swept through
Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
towards Australia.
Some of these items were captured and analyzed by the Allies. Greatly concerned, Australia covertly imported 1,000,000 chemical weapons from the United Kingdom from 1942 onwards
http://www.mustardgas.org
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23458220-5015730,00.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp1EFlngjKQ.
Shortly after the end of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, Germany's General Staff enthusiastically pursued a recapture of their preeminent position in chemical warfare. In 1923,
Hans von SeecktHans von Seeckt was a German military officer noted for his organization of the German Army during the Weimar Republic.-Early life:...
pointed the way, by suggesting that German poison gas research move in the direction of delivery by aircraft in support of mobile warfare. Also in 1923, at the behest of the
German armyThe German Army is the land component of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. Traditionally the German military forces have been composed of Army, the Navy, and an Air Force after World War I. It was reinstalled in 1955 as the West German Army and as a part of the newly formed...
, poison gas expert Dr. Hugo Stolzenberg negotiated with the USSR to built a huge chemical weapons plant at Trotsk, on the Volga river.
Collaboration between Germany and the USSR in poison gas continued on and off through the 1920s. In 1924, German officers debated the use of poison gas versus non-lethal chemical weapons against civilians. Even before
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, chemical warfare was revolutionized by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
's discovery of the
nerve agentNerve agents, also referred to as nerve gases though these chemicals are liquid at room temperature, are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs...
s tabun (in 1937) and
sarinSarin, also known by its NATO designation of GB, is an extremely toxic substance whose sole application is as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
(in 1939) by
Gerhard SchraderDr. Gerhard Schrader was a German chemist specializing in the discovery of new insecticides, hoping to make progress in the fight against hunger in the world. However, Dr...
, a chemist of
IG FarbenI.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
.
IG Farben was Germany's premier poison gas manufacturer during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, so the weaponization of these agents can not be considered accidental. Both were turned over to the German Army Weapons Office prior to the outbreak of the war.
The nerve agent
somanSoman, also known by its NATO designation GD , is an extremely toxic chemical substance. It is a nerve agent, interfering with normal functioning of the mammalian nervous system by inhibiting the cholinesterase enzyme. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the...
was later discovered by Nobel Prize laureate
Richard KuhnRichard Kuhn was an Austrian-German biochemist and Nobel laureate.-Early life:Kuhn was born in Vienna, Austria where he attended grammar school and high school. His interest in chemistry surfaced early; however he had many interests and decided late to study chemistry...
and his collaborator Konrad Henkel at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg in spring of 1944. The Nazis developed and manufactured large quantities of several agents, but chemical warfare was not extensively used by either side. Chemical troops were set up (in Germany since 1934) and delivery technology was actively developed.
Recovered Nazi documents suggest that
German intelligenceThe Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
incorrectly thought that the Allies also knew of these compounds, interpreting their lack of mention in the Allies' scientific journals as evidence that information about them was being suppressed. Germany ultimately decided not to use the new nerve agents, fearing a potentially devastating Allied retaliatory nerve agent deployment.
William L. ShirerWilliam Lawrence Shirer was an American journalist and historian. He became known for his broadcasts on CBS from the German capital of Berlin through the first year of World War II....
, in
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, writes that the British high command considered the use of chemical weapons as a last-ditch defensive measure in the event of a Nazi invasion of Britain.
On the night of December 2, 1943, German Ju 88 bombers
attacked the portThe Air Raid on Bari was an air attack on Allied forces and shipping in Bari, Italy by Nazi German bombers on December 2, 1943. In the attack, 105 German Junkers Ju 88 bombers of Luftflotte 2, achieving complete surprise, bombed Allied shipping and personnel operating in support of the Allied...
of
BariBari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
in Southern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, sinking several American ships among them , which was carrying mustard gas intended for use in retaliation by the Allies if German forces initiated gas warfare. The presence of the gas was highly classified, and authorities ashore had no knowledge of it which increased the number of fatalities, since physicians, who had no idea that they were dealing with the effects of mustard gas, prescribed treatment improper for those suffering from exposure and immersion.
The whole affair was kept secret at the time and for many years after the war (in the opinion of some, there was a deliberate and systematic cover-up). According to the
U.S. militaryThe United States armed forces are the overall unified military forces of the United States.The history of the United States armed forces dates to 1775, even before the Declaration of Independence marked the establishment of the United States...
account, "Sixty-nine deaths were attributed in whole or in part to the mustard gas, most of them American merchant seamen"
out of 628 mustard gas military casualties.
The large number of
civilian casualtiesCivilian casualties is a military term describing civilian or non-combatant persons killed, injured, or imprisoned by military action. The description of civilian casualties includes any form of military action regardless of whether civilians were targeted directly...
among the Italian population were not recorded. Part of the confusion and controversy derives from the fact that the German attack was highly destructive and lethal in itself, also apart from the accidental additional effects of the gas (it was nicknamed "The Little Pearl Harbor"), and attribution of the causes of death between the gas and other causes is far from easy.
Rick AtkinsonRick Atkinson is an American journalist and author whose contributions led to four Pulitzer Prizes.Atkinson was born in Munich. His father was an United States Army officer and he grew up at military posts. He earned his bachelor degree from East Carolina University in 1974 and a master of art...
, in his book
The Day of Battle, describes the intelligence that prompted Allied leaders to deploy mustard gas to Italy. This included Italian intelligence that
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
had threatened to use gas against Italy if the state changed sides, and
prisoner of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
interrogations suggesting that preparations were being made to use a "new, egregiously potent gas" if the war turned decisively against Germany. Atkinson concludes that "No commander in 1943 could be cavalier about a manifest threat by Germany to use gas."
North Yemen Civil War
The first attack took place on June 8, 1963 against Kawma, a village of about 100 inhabitants in northern Yemen, killing about seven people and damaging the eyes and lungs of twenty-five others. This incident is considered to have been experimental, and the bombs were described as "home-made, amateurish and relatively ineffective". The Egyptian authorities suggested that the reported incidents were probably caused by napalm, not gas.
There were no reports of gas during 1964, and only a few were reported in 1965. The reports grew more frequent in late 1966. On December 11, 1966, fifteen gas bombs killed two people and injured thirty-five. On January 5, 1967, the biggest gas attack came against the village of Kitaf, causing 270 casualties, including 140 fatalities. The target may have been Prince Hassan bin Yahya, who had installed his headquarters nearby. The Egyptian government denied using poison gas, and alleged that Britain and the US were using the reports as psychological warfare against Egypt. On February 12, 1967, it said it would welcome a UN investigation. On March 1, U Thant said he was "powerless" to deal with the matter.
On May 10, the twin villages of Gahar and Gadafa in Wadi Hirran, where Prince Mohamed bin Mohsin was in command, were gas bombed, killing at least seventy-five. The Red Cross was alerted and on June 2, it issued a statement in Geneva expressing concern. The Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Berne made a statement, based on a Red Cross report, that the gas was likely to have been halogenous derivatives - phosgene, mustard gas, lewisite, chloride or cyanogen bromide.
The gas attacks stopped for three weeks after the Six-Day War of June, but resumed on July, against all parts of royalist Yemen. Casualty estimates vary, and an assumption, considered conservative, is that the mustard and phosgene-filled aerial bombs caused approximately 1,500 fatalities and 1,500 injuries.
Cold War
After World War II, the
AlliesIn general, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose. In English usage, those who share a common goal and whose work toward that goal is complementary may be viewed as allies for various purposes even when...
recovered German artillery shells containing the three German nerve agents of the day (tabun,
sarinSarin, also known by its NATO designation of GB, is an extremely toxic substance whose sole application is as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
, and
somanSoman, also known by its NATO designation GD , is an extremely toxic chemical substance. It is a nerve agent, interfering with normal functioning of the mammalian nervous system by inhibiting the cholinesterase enzyme. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the...
), prompting further research into
nerve agentNerve agents, also referred to as nerve gases though these chemicals are liquid at room temperature, are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs...
s by all of the former Allies. Although the threat of global thermonuclear war was foremost in the minds of most during the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
, both the
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
and Western governments put enormous resources into developing chemical and biological weapons.
Developments by the Western governments
In 1952, researchers in
Porton DownPorton Down is an UK government and military science park. It is situated slightly northeast of Porton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. To the northwest lies the MoD Boscombe Down test range facility which is operated by QinetiQ...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, invented the
VXVX, IUPAC name O-ethyl S-[2-ethyl] methylphosphonothioate, is an extremely toxic substance whose only application is in chemical warfare as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
nerve agent but soon abandoned the project. In 1958 the British government traded their VX technology with the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in exchange for information on thermonuclear weapons; by 1961 the U.S. was producing large amounts of VX and performing its own nerve agent research. This research produced at least three more agents; the four agents (
VEVE is a "V-series" nerve agent closely related to the better-known VX nerve agent.Like most of the agents in the V-series , VE has not been extensively studied outside of military science...
,
VGVG is a "V-series" nerve agent chemically similar to the better-known VX nerve agent. Tetram is the common Russian name for the substance...
,
VMVM is a "V-series" nerve agent closely related to the better-known VX nerve agent.Like most of the agents in the V-series , VM has not been extensively studied outside of military science...
, VX) are collectively known as the "V-Series" class of nerve agents.
Also in 1952 the U.S. Army patented a process for the "Preparation of Toxic
RicinRicin is a protein that is extracted from the castor bean . It can be either a white powder or a liquid in crystalline form. Ricin is known to cause severe allergic reactions, and exposure to small quantities can be fatal.The U.S...
", publishing a method of producing this powerful
toxinA toxin is a poisonous substance produced by living cells or organisms ....
.
During the 1960s, the U.S. explored the use of anticholinergic deleriant
incapacitating agentThe term incapacitating agent is defined by the U.S. Department of Defense asLethal agents are primarily intended to kill, but supposedly nonlethal incapacitating agents can kill many of those exposed to them....
s. One of these agents, assigned the weapon designation
BZ3-quinuclidinyl benzilate , IUPAC name 1-azabicyclo[2.2.2]Oct-3-yl α-hydroxy-α-phenylbenzeneacetate, is an odorless military incapacitating agent. Its NATO code is BZ...
, was allegedly used experimentally in the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
. These allegations inspired the 1990 fictional film
Jacob's Ladder.
In 1961 and 62 the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy vegetation and food crops in
South VietnamSouth Vietnam refers to a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the State of Vietnam and later as the “Republic of Vietnam” . Its capital was Saigon...
. Between 1961 and 1967 the US Air Force sprayed 12 million US gallons of concentrated herbicides, mainly
Agent OrangeAgent Orange is the code name for a herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War...
(containing dioxin as an impurity in the manufacturing process) over 6 million acres (24,000 km²) of foliage and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam's land. In 1965, 42% of all herbicides were sprayed over food crops. Besides destroying vegetation used as cover by the NLF and destroying food crops the herbicide was used to drive civilians into
RVNSouth Vietnam refers to a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the State of Vietnam and later as the “Republic of Vietnam” . Its capital was Saigon...
-controlled areas.
In 1997, an article published by the Wall Street Journal reported that up to half a million children were born with dioxin related deformities, and that the birth defects in South Vietnam were fourfold those in the North. The use of Agent Orange may have been contrary to international rules of war at the time. It is also of note that the most likely victims of such an assault would be small children. A 1967 study by the Agronomy Section of the Japanese Science Council concluded that 3.8 million acres (15,000 km²) of land had been destroyed, killing 1000 peasants and 13,000 livestock.
Between 1967 and 1968, the U.S. decided to dispose of obsolete chemical weapons in an operation called
Operation CHASEOperation CHASE was a United States Department of Defense program that involved the disposal of unwanted munitions at sea from May 1964 into the early 1970s....
, which stood for "cut holes and sink 'em." Several shiploads of chemical and conventional weapons were put aboard old
Liberty shipLiberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...
s and sunk at sea.
In 1969, 23 U.S. servicemen and one U.S. civilian stationed in
Okinawais one of Japan's southern prefectures, and consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over 1,000 km long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan...
,
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, were exposed to low levels of the nerve agent sarin while repainting the depots' buildings. The weapons had been kept secret from
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, sparking a furor in that country and an international incident. These munitions were moved in 1971 to
Johnston AtollJohnston Atoll is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean about 1400 km west of Hawaii. There are four islands located on the coral reef platform, two natural islands, Johnston Island and Sand Island, which have been expanded by coral dredging, as well as North Island and East Island , an...
under
Operation Red HatOperation Red Hat was a U.S. military action taking place in 1971, which involved the movement of chemical warfare munitions from Okinawa, Japan to Johnston Atoll in the North Pacific Ocean.-Operation:...
.
A
UNThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
working groupA working group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers working on new research activities that would be difficult to develop under traditional funding mechanisms . The lifespan of the WG can last anywhere between a few months and several years...
began work on chemical disarmament in 1980. On April 4, 1984,
U.S. PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
called for an international ban on chemical weapons. U.S. President George H.W. Bush and
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
leader
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the second-to-last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991...
signed a bilateral
treatyA treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as: agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, exchange of letters, etc...
on June 1, 1990, to end chemical weapon production and start destroying each of their nation's stockpiles. The multilateral
Chemical Weapons ConventionThe Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
(CWC) was signed in 1993 and entered into force (EIF) in 1997.
In December, 2001, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, CDC,
NIOSHThe National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention within the U.S...
, National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL), along with the U.S. Army Research, Development Engineering Command Edgewood Chemical/Biological Center (ECBC), and the
U.S. Department of CommerceThe United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...
National Institute for Standards and TechnologyThe National Institute of Standards and Technology , known between 1901 and 1988 as the National Bureau of Standards , is a measurement standards laboratory which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce...
(NIST) published the first of six technical performance standards and test procedures designed to evaluate and certify respirators intended for use by civilian emergency responders to a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon release, detonation, or terrorism incident. To date NIOSH/NPPTL has published six new respirator performance standards based on a tiered approach that relies on traditional industrial respirator certification policy, next generation emergency response respirator performance requirements, and special live chemical warfare agent testing requirements of the classes of respirators identified to offer respiratory protection against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agent inhalation hazards. These CBRN respirators are commonly known as open-circuit self-contained breathing apparatus (CBRN SCBA), air-purifying respirator (CBRN APR), air-purifying escape respirator (CBRN APER), self-contained escape respirator (CBRN SCER) and loose or tight fitting powered air-purifying respirators (CBRN PAPR). Current NIOSH-approved/certified CBRN respirator concept standards and test procedures can be found at the webpage: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/standardsdev/cbrn/
United States Senate Report
A 1994 United States Senate Report, entitled "Is military research hazardous to veterans health?
Lessons spanning a half century," detailed the
United States Department of DefenseThe United States Department of Defense is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to national security and the military...
's practice of experimenting on animal and human subjects, often without their knowledge or consent. This included:
- Approximately 60,000 [US] military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940s to test the chemical agents mustard gas and lewisite
Lewisite is an organoarsenic compound, specifically an arsine. It was once manufactured in the U.S. and Japan as a chemical weapon, acting as a vesicant and lung irritant...
. "Mustard" section,
- Between the 1950s through the 1970s, at least 2,200 military personnel were subjected to various biological agent
A biological agent is a bacterium, virus, prion, fungus, or biological toxin that can be used in bioterrorism or biological warfare. More than 1200 different kinds of biological agents have been described and studied to date...
s, referred to as Operation WhitecoatOperation Whitecoat was the name given to a secret operation carried out by the US Army during the period 1954-1973, which included conducting medical experiments on volunteers nicknamed "White Coats". The volunteers, all conscientious objectors and many members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church,...
. Unlike most of the studies discussed in this report, Operation Whitecoat was truly voluntary. "Seventh" section,
- Between 1951 and 1969, Dugway Proving Ground
Dugway Proving Ground is a US Army facility located approximately 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah in southern Tooele County and just north of Juab County. It encompasses 801,505 acres of the Great Salt Lake Desert and is surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges...
was the site of testing for various chemical and biological agents, including an open air aerodynamic dissemination test in 1968 that accidentally killed, on neighboring farms, approximately 6,400 sheepThe Dugway sheep incident, also known as the Skull Valley sheep kill, was a 1968 sheep kill that has been connected to United States Army chemical and biological warfare programs at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah...
by an unspecified nerve agentNerve agents, also referred to as nerve gases though these chemicals are liquid at room temperature, are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs...
."Dugway" section,
Developments by the Soviet government
Due to the secrecy of the Soviet Union's government, very little information was available about the direction and progress of the Soviet chemical weapons until relatively recently. After the fall of the Soviet Union,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n chemist Vil Mirzayanov published articles revealing illegal chemical weapons experimentation in Russia.
In 1993, Mirzayanov was imprisoned and fired from his job at the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, where he had worked for 26 years. In March 1994, after a major campaign by U.S. scientists on his behalf, Mirzayanov was released.
Among the information related by Vil Mirzayanov was the direction of Soviet research into the development of even more toxic nerve agents, which saw most of its success during the mid-1980s. Several highly toxic agents were developed during this period; the only unclassified information regarding these agents is that they are known in the open literature only as "Foliant" agents (named after the program under which they were developed) and by various code designations, such as A-230 and A-232.
According to Mirzayanov, the Soviets also developed weapons that were safer to handle, leading to the development of the binary weapons, in which precursors for the nerve agents are mixed in a munition to produce the agent just prior to its use. Because the precursors are generally significantly less hazardous than the agents themselves, this technique makes handling and transporting the munitions a great deal simpler.
Additionally, precursors to the agents are usually much easier to stabilize than the agents themselves, so this technique also made it possible to increase the
shelf lifeShelf life is the length of time that food, drink, medicine and other perishable items are given before they are considered unsuitable for sale or consumption...
of the agents a great deal. During the 1980s and 1990s, binary versions of several Soviet agents were developed and are designated as "Novichok" agents (after the Russian word for "newcomer"). Together with Lev Fedorov, he told the secret Novichok story exposed in the newspaper
Moscow NewsThe Moscow News, which began publication in 1930, is Russia’s oldest English-language publication newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the now defunct Russian Moskovskiye Novosti.-History:...
.
Iran–Iraq War
Chemical weapons employed by
Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
killed and injured numerous
IraniansThe Iranian peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly on the Iranian plateau and beyond in central, southern, and southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. As a group of people, they are predominantly defined along linguistic lines as speaking the Iranian...
, and even Iraqis. According to Iraqi documents, assistance in developing chemical weapons was obtained from firms in many countries, including the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
West GermanyWest Germany is a common English name for the period of the Federal Republic of Germany between its' formation in May 1949 to German reunification in October 1990, when the German Democratic Republic was dissolved and the five states on its territory joined the Federal Republic of Germany,...
, the Netherlands, the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
.
The Iran–Iraq War began in 1980 when
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
attacked
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
. Early in the conflict, Iraq began to employ mustard gas and tabun delivered by bombs dropped from airplanes; approximately 5% of all Iranian casualties are directly attributable to the use of these agents.
About 100,000 Iranian soldiers were victims of
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
's chemical attacks. Many were hit by mustard gas. The official estimate does not include the civilian population contaminated in bordering towns or the children and relatives of veterans, many of whom have developed blood, lung and skin complications, according to the Organization for Veterans. Nerve gas agents killed about 20,000 Iranian soldiers immediately, according to official reports. Of the 80,000 survivors, some 5,000 seek medical treatment regularly and about 1,000 are still hospitalized with severe, chronic conditions.
Iraq also targeted Iranian civilians with chemical weapons. Many thousands were killed in attacks on populations in villages and towns, as well as front-line hospitals. Many still suffer from the severe effects.
Despite the removal of Saddam and his regime by
Coalition forcesThe Multi-National Force - Iraq is a military command, led by the United States, that is fighting the Iraq War against Iraqi insurgents or resistants. Multi-National Force - Iraq replaced the previous force, Combined Joint Task Force 7, on May 15, 2004. General Ray Odierno serves as Commanding...
, there is deep resentment and anger in Iran that it was Western companies based in the Netherlands, West
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, and the U.S. that helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal in the first place, and that the world did nothing to punish Iraq for its use of chemical weapons throughout the war.
Shortly before war ended in 1988, the Iraqi
KurdKürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...
ish village of
HalabjaHalabja , is an Iraqi town in a majority Kurdish area of Iraq about northeast of Baghdad and 8-10 miles from the Iranian border....
was exposed to multiple chemical agents, killing about 5,000 of the town's 50,000 residents . After the incident, traces of mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX were discovered.
During the
Persian Gulf WarThe Persian Gulf War , known also as the Gulf War, the First Gulf War,or often as the Second Gulf War and by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as The Mother of all Battles, or commonly as Desert Storm, for the military response...
in 1991, Coalition forces began a ground war in Iraq. Despite the fact that they did possess chemical weapons, Iraq did not use any chemical agents against coalition forces. The commander of the Allied Forces,
Gen. H. Norman SchwarzkopfGeneral H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. is a retired United States Army General who, while he served as Commander of U.S. Central Command, was commander of the Coalition Forces in the Gulf War of 1991.-Biography:Schwarzkopf was born Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr...
, suggested this may have been due to Iraqi fear of retaliation with
nuclear weaponA nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion...
s.
Falklands War
Technically, the reported employment of tear gas by
ArgentineArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
forces during the
1982 invasion of the Falkland IslandsOn 2 April 1982, Argentine forces mounted amphibious landings of the Falkland Islands . The invasion involved initial defence organised by the Falkland Islands' Governor Sir Rex Hunt giving command to Major Mike Norman of the Royal Marines, the landing of Lieutenant-Commander Guillermo...
constitutes chemical warfare. However, the tear gas grenades were employed as nonlethal weapons to avoid British casualties. The British claim that more lethal, but legally-justifiable as they are not considered chemical weapons under the
Chemical Weapons ConventionThe Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
, white phosphorus grenades were used. The barrack buildings the weapons were used on proved to be deserted in any case.
Terrorism
For many
terroristTerrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.At present, there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism...
organizations, chemical weapons might be considered an ideal choice for a mode of attack, if they are available: they are cheap, relatively accessible, and easy to transport. A skilled chemist can readily synthesize most chemical agents if the precursors are available.
The earliest successful use of chemical agents in a non-combat setting was in 1946, motivated by a desire to obtain revenge on
GermansGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
for
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
. Three members of a
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish group calling themselves Dahm Y'Israel Nokeam ("Avenging Israel's Blood") hid in a bakery in the Stalag 13 prison camp near Nuremberg, Germany, where several thousand SS troops were being detained. The three applied an arsenic-containing mixture to loaves of bread, sickening more than 2,000 prisoners, of whom more than 200 required hospitalization.
In July 1974, a group calling themselves the Aliens of America successfully firebombed the houses of a judge, two police commissioners, and one of the commissioner’s cars, burned down two apartment buildings, and bombed the
Pan AmPan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the "flagship" international airline of the United States from the 1930s until its collapse on December 4, 1991...
Terminal at
Los Angeles International AirportLos Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving Los Angeles, California, the second-most populated metropolitan area of the United States. It is often referred to by its airport code LAX, with the letters usually pronounced individually...
, killing three people and injuring eight. The organization, which turned out to be a single resident alien named Muharem Kurbegovic, claimed to have developed and possessed a supply of sarin, as well as 4 unique nerve agents named AA1, AA2, AA3, and AA4S. Although no agents were found at the time he was arrested in August 1974, he had reportedly acquired "all but one" of the ingredients required to produce a nerve agent. A search of his apartment turned up a variety of materials, including precursors for
phosgenePhosgene is the chemical compound with the formula COCl2. This colorless gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I, and is also a valued industrial reagent and building block in organic synthesis. In low concentrations, its odor resembles freshly cut hay or grass. Some...
and a drum containing 25 pounds of
sodium cyanideSodium cyanide is an inorganic compound with the formula NaCN. This highly toxic colourless salt is used mainly in gold mining but has other niche applications...
.
The first successful use of chemical agents by terrorists against a general civilian population was on March 20, 1995.
Aum ShinrikyoAum Shinrikyo, now known as Aleph, is a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways....
, an apocalyptic group based in
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
that believed it necessary to destroy the planet,
released sarin into the Tokyo subway systemThe Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995....
killing 12 and injuring over 5,000. The group had attempted biological and chemical attacks on at least 10 prior occasions, but managed to affect only cult members. The group did manage to successfully release sarin outside an apartment building in
MatsumotoMatsumoto is the 16th most common Japanese surname and the name of a city in Nagano Prefecture.People named Matsumoto:* Chizuo Matsumoto, a.k.a. Shoko Asahara, founder of Aum Shinrikyo...
in June 1994; this use was directed at a few specific individuals living in the building and was not an attack on the general population.
On 29 December, 1999, four days after Russian forces began assault of Grozny, Chechen terrorists exploded two chlor tanks in town. Because of the wind conditions, no Russian soldiers were injured.
In 2001, after carrying out the
attacksThe September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
on September 11, the organization Al Qaeda announced that they were attempting to acquire radiological, biological and chemical weapons. This threat was lent a great deal of credibility when a large archive of videotapes was obtained by the
cable televisionCable television is a system of providing television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting in which a television antenna is required...
network
CNNCable News Network, almost always referred to by its initialism CNN, is an U.S. cable news network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first network to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television network in the United States...
in August 2002 showing, among other things, the killing of three dogs by an apparent nerve agent.
On October 26, 2002, Russian special forces used a chemical agent (presumably
KOLOKOL-1Kolokol-1 is a synthetic opioid, developed for use as an aerosolizable incapacitating agent. Although the exact chemical structure has not yet been revealed, it is thought to be a derivative of the potent opioid fentanyl, most probably 3-methylfentanyl dissolved in halothane as an organic...
, an
aerosolTechnically, an aerosol is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas. Examples are smoke, oceanic haze, air pollution, smog and CS gas. In general conversation, aerosol usually refers to an aerosol spray can or the output of such a can...
ized
fentanylFentanyl — brand names include Actiq, Duragesic, Fentora, Onsolis, Sublimaze and Instanyl — is a synthetic primary μ-opioid agonist commonly used to treat chronic breakthrough pain and is commonly used pre-procedures...
derivative), as a precursor to an assault on
ChechenThe Chechen Republic , or, informally, Chechnya , sometimes referred to as Ichkeria, Chechnia, Chechenia or Noxçiyn, is a federal subject of Russia...
terrorists, ending the
Moscow theater hostage crisisThe Moscow theatre hostage crisis, also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege, was the seizure of a crowded Moscow theatre on October 23, 2002 by about 40-50 armed Chechen terrorists who claimed allegiance to the separatist movement in Chechnya. They took 850 hostages and demanded the withdrawal of...
. All 42 of the terrorists and 120 of the hostages were killed during the raid; all but one hostage, who was killed, died from the effects of the agent.
In early 2007 multiple terrorist bombings have been reported in
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
using chlorine gas. These attacks have wounded or sickened more than 350 people. Reportedly the bombers are affiliated with
Al-QaedaAl-Qaeda , alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida, is an Islamist group founded sometime between August 1988 and late 1989 and early 1990...
in Iraq and have used bombs of various sizes up to chlorine tanker trucks.
United Nations Secretary-GeneralThe Secretary-General of the United Nations, acronym UNSYG, is the head of the Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General also acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the United Nations....
Ban Ki-moonBan Ki-moon is the current Secretary-General of the United Nations succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before becoming Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he graduated from college,...
condemned the attacks as, "clearly intended to cause panic and instability in the country."
See also
- Area denial weapons
Area denial weapons are used to prevent an adversary from occupying or traversing an area of land. The specific method used does not have to be totally effective in preventing passage as long as it is sufficient to severely restrict, slow down, or endanger the opponent...
- Biological warfare
Biological warfare , also known as germ warfare, is the use of pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, other disease-causing biological agents, or the toxins produced by them as biological weapons ....
- Chemical Ali
- Chemical Weapons Convention
The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons...
- Exotic pollution
Exotic pollution is a general definition that includes attacks involving nuclear, chemical, or biological agents intended to cause harm or contaminate and make unfit for use....
- List of chemical warfare agents
- List of highly toxic gases
- Psychochemical weapon
- Saint Julien Memorial
The St. Julien Memorial is a Canadian war memorial and small commemorative park located in Saint Julien, Belgium. The memorial commemorates the Canadian First Division's participation in the Second Battle of Ypres of World War I and their defence against the first poison gas attacks along the...
- Sardasht
Sardasht is a city in Northwestern Iran. According to the 2006 census, its population was 37,115 southwest of Lake Urmia about 1,300 metres above sea level. It lies in the West Azarbaijan province...
(A town attacked with chemical weapons during the Iran–Iraq War.)
- Stink bomb
A stink bomb or stinkbomb is a device designed to create an unpleasant smell. They range in effectiveness from simple pranks to military grade or riot control chemical agents....
- USAMRICD
- Weapons of mass destruction
The term weapon of mass destruction is often used to describe a weapon that can kill large numbers of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general....
- Zyklon B
Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide infamous for its use by Nazi Germany against human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during the Holocaust....
- Ronald Maddison
Leading Aircraftman Ronald George Maddison was a twenty-year-old Royal Air Force engineer who died while acting as a volunteer human "guinea pig" while testing nerve agents at Porton Down in Wiltshire...
Further reading
- Leo P. Brophy and George J. B. Fisher; The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War Office of the Chief of Military History, 1959; L. P. Brophy, W. D. Miles and C. C. Cochrane, The Chemical Warfare Service: From Laboratory to Field (1959); and B. E. Kleber and D. Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service in Combat (1966). official US history;
- Gordon M. Burck and Charles C. Flowerree; International Handbook on Chemical Weapons Proliferation 1991
- L. F. Haber. The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War Oxford University Press: 1986
- James W. Hammond Jr.; Poison Gas: The Myths Versus Reality Greenwood Press, 1999
- Jiri Janata, Role of Analytical Chemistry in Defense Strategies Against Chemical and Biological Attack, Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry, 2009
- Benoit Morel and Kyle Olson; Shadows and Substance: The Chemical Weapons Convention Westview Press, 1993
- Adrienne Mayor, "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World" Overlook-Duckworth, 2003, rev ed with new Introduction 2008
- Geoff Plunkett, Chemical Warfare in Australia, Australian Military History Publications, 2007
- Jonathan B. Tucker
Dr. Jonathan B. Tucker is a prominent United States chemical and biological weapons expert.-Education:Tucker earned a B.S. in biology from Yale University and a Ph.D. in political science from MIT.-Career:...
. Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda (2006)
External links
- ATSDR Case Studies in Environmental Medicine: Cholinesterase Inhibitors, Including Insecticides and Chemical Warfare Nerve Agents U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
- Russian Biological and Chemical Weapons, about the danger posed by non-state weapons transfers
- Gaddum Papers at the Royal Society
- Chemical Weapons stored in the United States
- http://www.opcw.org The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons OPCW
- http://home.exetel.com.au/chemical_warfare/ Chemical Warfare in Australia
- Classes of Chemical Agents U.S. National Library of Medicine
- Chemical warfare agent potency, logistics, human damage, dispersal, protection and types of agents (bomb-shelter.net)
- "'War of Nerves': A History of Chemical Weapons" (interview with Jonathan Tucker from National Public Radio
National Public Radio is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to 797 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, signed into law...
Talk of the NationTalk of the Nation is a talk radio program based in the United States, produced by National Public Radio, and is broadcast nationally from 2 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time. Its focus is current events and controversial issues....
program, May 8, 2006