Early detection of chemical agents

Sociopolitical climate of chemical warfare

While the study of chemicals and their military uses was widespread in China, the use of toxic materials has historically been viewed with mixed emotions and some disdain in the West (especially when the enemy were doing it).

One of the earliest reactions to the use of chemical agents was from Rome. Struggling to defend themselves from the Roman legions, Germanic tribes poisoned the wells of their enemies, to which Roman jurists are recorded as declaring "armis bella non venenis geri," meaning "war is fought with weapons, not with poisons."

It is perhaps because of this view that in Europe, before World War I, the use of poisonous chemicals in battle was typically the result of local initiative, and not the result of an active chemical weapons program. There are many reports of the isolated use of chemical agents in individual battles or sieges, but there was no true tradition of their use outside of incendiaries 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 the World War I, the responsible authorities generally rejected the proposals for ethical reasons.

For example, in 1854 Lyon Playfair, a British chemist, proposed using a cyanide-filled artillery shell against enemy ships during the Crimean War. The British Ordnance Department rejected the proposal as "bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy."

This general concern over the use of poison gas manifested itself in 1899 at the Hague Conference with a proposal prohibiting shells filled with asphyxiating gas. The proposal was passed, despite the single dissenting vote the American representative Naval Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan, on the grounds that "the inventiveness of Americans should not be restricted in the development of new weapons."

After extensive use of chemical weapons in World War I, the popular view of chemical weapons grew from distaste to disgust, such that their use had become the ultimate atrocity in the minds of most people at the time. So much so, in fact, that in 1925, sixteen of the world's major nations signed the Geneva Protocol, thereby pledging never to use gas biological methods of warfare again. Notably, in the United States, the Protocol languished in the Senate until 1975, when it was finally ratified.

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, 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 enters into force, prohibiting the use of poison gas and bacteriological methods of warfare. As of 2004, there are 132 signatory nations.
• May 1991 : President George H. W. Bush unilaterally commits the United States to destroying all chemical weapons and to renounce the right to chemical weapon retaliation.
  • The U.S. Congress has since passed legislation requiring the destruction of the entire stockpile by December 31, 2004. Official U.S. policy is to support the Chemical Weapons Convention as a means to achieve a global ban on this class of weapons and to halt their proliferation.
• April 29, 1997 : The Chemical Weapons Convention enters into force, augmenting the Geneva Protocol of 1925 by outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons.

Chemical weapon proliferation

Main article: Chemical weapon proliferation

Despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them, some nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical weapon 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 China and Israel.

According to the testimony Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, it is very probable that China has an advanced chemical warfare program, including research and development, production, and weaponization capabilities. Furthermore, there is considerable concern from the US regarding China's contact and sharing of chemical weapons expertise with other states of proliferation concern, including Syria and Iran.

As of December 2004, Israel has signed but not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, and according to the Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service, Israel has significant stores of chemical weapons of its own manufacture. It possesses a highly developed chemical and petrochemical industry, skilled specialists, and stocks of source material, and is capable of producing several nerve, blister and incapacitating agents. In 1974, in a hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, General Almquist stated that Israel had an offensive chemical weapons capability.

History

Chemical warfare in ancient and classical times

Chemical weapons have been used for millennia in the form of poisoned arrows, but evidence can be found for the existence of more advanced forms of chemical weapons in ancient and classical times.

Dating from the 4th century BC, writings of the Mohist sect in China describe the use of bellows to pump smoke from burning balls of 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 arsenic-containing "soul-hunting fog", and the use of finely divided lime dispersed into the air to suppress a peasant revolt in 178 AD.

The earliest recorded use of gas warfare in the West dates back to the 5th century BC, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. 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: Solon of Athens is said to have used hellebore roots to poison the water in an aqueduct leading from the Pleistrus River around 590 BC during the siege of Cirrha.

The rediscovery of chemical warfare

During the Renaissance, people again began to consider the use of chemical warfare. One of the earliest such references is from Leonardo da Vinci, who proposed a powder of sulfide of arsenic and verdigris 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 mangonels, 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.

In the 1600s, it was a common practice during sieges to attempt to start fires by launching incendiary shells filled with sulphur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, saltpeter, and/or antimony. It was quickly observed that even when fires were not started, the resulting smoke and fumes would provide, at the very least, a considerable distraction. Although the primary function as fire starters was never abandoned, a variety of fills for shells were developed that were intended to maximize the effects of the smoke.

In 1672, during his siege of the city of Groningen, 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 French and the Germans concluded the Strasbourg Agreement, which included an article banning the use of "perfidious and odious" toxic devices.

In 1854, Lyon Playfair, a British chemist, proposed a cacodyl cyanide artillery shell for use against enemy ships as way to solve the stalemate during the siege of Sevastopol, a proposal backed by Admiral Thomas Cochrane of the Royal Navy. It was considered by the British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, but the British Ordnance Department rejected the proposal 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 War, a New York school teacher named John Doughty proposed the offensive use of chlorine gas, delivered by filling a 10-in. artillery shell with 2 to 3 quarts of liquid chlorine. When released, such a shell would produce many cubic feet of chlorine gas. Doughty’s plan was apparently never acted on, as it was probably presented to Brigadier General James W. Ripley, Chief of Ordnance, who was described as being congenitally immune to new ideas.

A soldier with mustard gas burns, ca. 1914-1918.

Chemical warfare in World War I

Main article: Use of poison gas in World War I

The first full-scale deployment of chemical warfare agents was during World War I, originating in the Second Battle of Ypres, April 22, 1915, when the Germans attacked Algerian troops with chlorine gas. Since then a total 50,965 tons of pulmonary, lachrymatory, and vesicant agents were deployed by both sides of the conflict, including chlorine, phosgene 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 Belgium and France. The French and Belgian governments have had to launch special programs for treating discovered ammunition.

Chemical warfare in the interwar years

After World War I, the United States and many of the European powers attempted take advantage of the opportunities that the war created by attempting to establish and hold colonies. During this interwar period, chemical agents were occasionally used to subdue populations and suppress rebellion.

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, the Ottoman government collapsed completely and the former empire was divided amongst the victorious powers in the Treaty of Sèvres. The British occupied Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and established a colonial government.

In 1920, the Arab and Kurdish people of Mesopotamia revolted against the British occupation, which cost the British dearly. As the Iraqi resistance gained strength, the British resorted to increasingly repressive measures, and Winston Churchill himself, in his role as Colonial Secretary, authorized the use of chemical agents, mostly mustard gas, on the Mesopotamian resistors. Mindful of the financial cost of suppressing the dissidents, Churchill was confident that chemical weapons could be inexpensively employed against the Mesopotamian tribes, saying "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes." [1] (http://www.informationwar.org/state%20terrorism/Britain_using_chemical_weapons.htm) Although opposition to the use of gas and technical difficulties prevented the gas from being used in Mesopotamia[2] (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/iraq/britain_iraq_07.shtml), the records of British consideration of poison gas, including Churchill's enthusiasm, were suppressed for many years until the records were released in 1980. [3] (http://www.countercurrents.org/chomsky2.htm).

Chemical weapons had caused so much misery and revulsion in World War I that their use had become the ultimate atrocity in the minds of most people at the time. So much so, in fact, that in 1925, sixteen the world's major nations signed the Geneva Protocol, thereby pledging never to use gas or bacteriological methods of warfare. While the United States signed the protocol, the Senate did not ratify it until 1975.

In 1935 Fascist Italy used mustard gas during the invasion of Ethiopia. Ignoring the Geneva Protocol, which it signed seven years earlier, the Italian military dropped mustard gas in bombs, sprayed it from airplanes, and spread it in powdered form on the ground. 15,000 chemical casualties were reported, mostly from mustard gas.

Chemical warfare in World War II

The chemical structure of sarin nerve gas, discovered by Germany in 1938.

During World War II, chemical warfare was revolutionized by Nazi Germany's accidental discovery of the nerve agents tabun, sarin and soman. The Nazis developed and manufactured large quantities of several agents, including the newly discovered nerve agents, but chemical warfare agents were not extensively used by either side. Recovered Nazi documents suggest that during that time, German intelligence incorrectly thought that the Allies also knew of these compounds, interpreting the lack of discussion of these compounds in the Allies' scientific journals as evidence that information about them was being suppressed. Germany ultimately decided not to use the new nerve agents against Allied targets, fearing a potentially devastating Allied retaliatory nerve agent deployment.

Although chemical weapons were not deployed on a large scale during World War II, there were some recorded uses of them by the Axis Powers, when retaliation wasn't feared:

• The Japanese used mustard gas and the recently_developed blister agent Lewisite against Chinese troops. During these attacks, the Japanese also employed biological warfare by intentionally spreading cholera, dysentery, typhoid, plague, and anthrax.
• In 1944, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, the senior Islamic religious authority of the Palestinian Arabs and close ally of Adolf Hitler, sponsored an unsuccessful chemical warfare assault on the Jewish community in Palestine. Five parachutists were supplied with maps of Tel Aviv, canisters of a German–manufactured "fine white powder," and instructions from the Mufti to dump chemicals into the Tel Aviv water system. District police commander Fayiz Bey Idrissi later recalled, "The laboratory report stated that each container held enough poison to kill 25,000 people, and there were at least ten containers." [4] (http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2003-03-chemical.php)
• The Nazis used the insecticide Zyklon B, which contains hydrogen cyanide, to kill large numbers of victims in concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Madajnek during the Holocaust.

Chemical warfare during The Cold War

After World War II, the Allies recovered German artillery shells containing the three German nerve agents of the day (tabun, sarin, and soman) prompting further research into nerve agents by all of the former Allies. Although the threat of global thermonuclear annihilation was foremost in the minds of most during the Cold War, both the Soviet and Western governments put enormous resources into developing chemical and biological weapons.

A UN working group began work on chemical disarmament in 1980. On April 4, 1984 U.S. President Ronald Reagan called for an international ban on chemical weapons. U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed a bilateral treaty on June 1, 1990 to end chemical weapon production and start destroying each of their nation's stockpiles. The multilateral Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was signed in 1993 and came into effect in 1997.

Developments by the Western governments

In 1952, researchers in Porton Down, England invented the VX nerve agent, but soon abandoned the project. In 1958 the British government traded their VX technology with the United States of America in exchange for information on thermonuclear weapons; by 1961 the US was producing large amounts of VX, and performing its own nerve agent research. This research produced at least three more agents; the four agents (VE, VG, VM, VX) are collectively known as the "V-Series" class of nerve agents.

Between 1967 and 1968, the U.S. decided to dispose of obsolete chemical weapons in an operation called Operation CHASE, which stood for "cut holes and sink 'em." CHASE disposal operations also included several shiploads of conventional munitions. As the name implies, the weapons were put aboard old Liberty ships that were sunk at sea.

During the 1960s, the U.S. explored the use of psychedelic incapacitating agents. One of these agents, assigned the weapon designation BZ, was allegedly used in the Vietnam War.

In 1969, 23 U.S. servicemen and one U.S. civilian stationed in Okinawa, Japan were exposed to low levels of nerve agent sarin while repainting the depots' buildings. The weapons had been kept secret from Japan, sparking a furor in Japan and an international incident. These munitions were moved in 1971 to Johnston Atoll under Operation Red Hat.

Developments by the Soviet government

Due to the secrecy of the former Communist regime of the Soviet Union, very little information was available about the direction and progress of the Soviet chemical weapons until relatively recently. After the fall of the Soviet Empire, a Russian chemist named Vil Mirzayanov publishing articles that revealed 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 of 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 the Soviet research into nerve agents toward the development of even more toxic 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 agents that were safer to handle, leading to the development of the so_called 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 life 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").

Chemical warfare in the Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War began in 1980 when Iraq attacked Iran. 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. Iraq and the United States government alleged that Iran was also using chemical weapons, but independent sources were unable to confirm these allegations.

About 100,000 Iranian soldiers were victims of Saddam Hussein'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. [5] (http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?/specialprojects/mideaststories/me1209.html)[6] (http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=39470)[7] (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0213-05.htm)

Despite the removal of Saddam and his regime by American forces, there is deep resentment and anger in Iran that it was Western companies (West Germany, France, US) 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 after war ended in 1988, the Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja 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. While it appears that Iraqi government forces are to blame, some debate continues over the question of whether Iraq was really the responsible party, and whether this was a deliberate or accidental act. (see Halabja poison gas attack).

During the Persian Gulf War 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 Schwarzkopf, suggested this may have been due to Iraqi fear of retaliation with nuclear weapons.

Chemical weapons and terrorism

For many terrorist organizations, chemical weapons are an ideal choice for a mode of attack: 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 Germans for the Holocaust. Three members of a Jewish 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 2000 prisoners, of whom more than 200 required hospitalization.

In July of 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 Am Terminal of Los Angeles International Airport 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 of 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 phosgene, and a drum containing 25 pounds of sodium cyanide. [8] (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3070093)

The first successful use of chemical agents by terrorists against a general civilian population was on March 20, 1995. Japan that believed it necessary to destroy the planet, released sarin into the Tokyo subway system killing 12 and injuring over 5000. 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 Matsomoto 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.

In 2001, after carrying out the attacks in New York on September 11, the organization Al Qaeda announced that they were looking 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 television network CNN in August of 2002 showing, among other things, the killing of three dogs by an apparent nerve agent.

See also

• Area denial weapons
• Biological warfare
• Chemical Weapons Convention
• USAMRICD
• Weapons of mass destruction

References

• CBWInfo.com (2001). A Brief History of Chemical and Biological Weapons: Ancient Times to the 19th Century (http://www.cbwinfo.com/History/History.html). Retrieved Nov. 24, 2004.
• Chomsky, Noam (Mar. 4, 2001). Prospects for Peace in the Middle East (http://www.countercurrents.org/chomsky1.htm). Lecture.
• Cordette, Jessica, MPH(c) (2003). Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction (http://www.want2race.net/hper/Chemical_Weapons_of_Mass_Destruction.ppt). Retrieved Nov. 29, 2004.
• E-Medicine. (Jun. 30, 2004). eMedicine Health – Types of Chemical Weapon Agents (http://www.emedicinehealth.com/articles/8733-2.asp). Retrieved Oct. 23, 2004.
• Heller, MAJ(P) Charles E., U.S. Army. (September 1984). Chemical Warfare in World War I: The American Experience, 1917 - 1918 (http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Heller/HELLER.asp). Retrieved Nov. 24, 2004
• Informationwar.org. (Mar. 9, 2003). State Terrorism: Documents (http://www.informationwar.org/state%20terrorism/Britain_using_chemical_weapons.htm). Retrieved Nov. 29, 2004.
• Korn, Benyamin (Mar. 2003). Arab Chemical Warfare Against Jews – in 1944 (http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2003-03-chemical.php). The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
• Robertson, Nic (Aug. 19, 2002). Disturbing scenes of death show capability with chemical gas (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/08/19/terror.tape.chemical/). CNN.
• Robertson, Nic (Aug. 19, 2002). Tapes shed new light on bin Laden's network (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/08/18/terror.tape.main/). CNN.
• Smart, Jeffery K., M.A. (1997). History of Biological and Chemical Warfare (http://www.usuhs.mil/cbw/history.htm). Retrieved Nov. 24, 2004.
• T Is for Terror (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3070093) (July 9, 2003). MSNBC News.
• U.S. National Library of Medicine. (Sep. 30, 2004). Classes of Chemical Agents (http://www.sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ChemWar.html). Retrieved Nov. 6, 2004.
• United States Senate, 103d Congress, 2d Session. (May 25, 1994). The Riegle Report (http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/riegle1.html). Retrieved Nov. 6, 2004.