cqr chemical and biological weapons · 1054 cq researcher the issues 1055 • are chemical weapons...

Chemical and Biological weaponsCan they be eliminated or controlled?

The Syrian government’s use of nerve gas on rebel-

controlled Damascus neighborhoods this summer

focused renewed attention on the threat posed by

chemical and biological weapons. The attacks, which

killed up to about 1,400, led President Obama to threaten military

retaliation. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad responded by agreeing

to destroy his chemical arsenal. Chemical weapons have been out-

lawed since 1928, after the world saw the horrors of their effect

in world war I. After Iraq used chemical weapons to kill tens of

thousands of Iranians and Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s, a 1993 interna-

tional accord strengthened enforcement of the ban. The Syrian gas

attacks have spurred debate over whether chemical weapons are

worse than conventional arms. meanwhile, biological weapons also

are outlawed, but some experts fear they could be used by terrorists.

A student practices handling simulated waste at theChemical Demilitarization Training Facility at the

Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Mostof the world’s chemical weapons have been destroyed

under a 1993 treaty. However, several non-participants in the treaty, including North Korea,

maintain chemical weapons stockpiles.

CQ Researcher • Dec. 13, 2013 • www.cqresearcher.comVolume 23, Number 44 • Pages 1053-1076

RECIPIENT Of SOCIETY Of PROfESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AwARD fOR

EXCELLENCE � AmERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILvER GAvEL AwARD

I

N

S

I

D

E

THE ISSUES ..................1055

BACKGROUND ..............1062

CHRONOLOGY ..............1063

CURRENT SITUATION ......1068

AT ISSUE......................1069

OUTLOOK ....................1071

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..............1074

THE NEXT STEP ............1075

THISREPORT

Published by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. www.cqresearcher.com

1054 CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

1055 • Are chemical weaponsworse than other weapons ofwar?• Are biological weapons aserious threat to the UnitedStates?• Can the world rid itself ofchemical and biologicalweapons?

BACKGROUND

1062 Primitive AttemptsChemical and biologicalweapons were used in ancient times.

1065 World War ILethal gas attacks led to apostwar ban on chemicalweapons.

1065 World War IIThe Geneva Protocol aimedto ban chemical weapons.

CURRENT SITUATION

1068 Syria DisarmsPresident Assad agreed todestroy his chemicalweapons.

1068 Other EffortsSeveral other nations haveagreed to destroy theirchemical weapons.

1070 Bioweapons ThreatThe United States has severalprograms to protect againstbiological attacks.

OUTLOOK

1071 Complacency?Historical amnesia could leadto new threats, some expertswarn.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

1056 Most Chemical WeaponsHave Been DestroyedRussia and the U.S. have thelargest remaining stockpiles.

1057 North Korea Said to HaveLarge StockpileChina, Iran and Israel alsomay have chemical weapons.

1058 From Anthrax to MustardGasChemical and biologicalweapons have various characteristics.

1060 World War I Saw DeadliestChemical AttacksIraqi gas attacks killed orwounded up to 60,000 peoplein the 1980s.

1063 ChronologyKey events since 1915.

1064 Biological Weapons vs.Natural OccurrencesSometimes it’s difficult to tellthe difference.

1067 And the Nobel PeacePrize Goes to. . . .The Organisation for the Pro-hibition of Chemical weaponswon the 2013 award.

1069 At Issue:Does chemical weapons usewarrant military intervention?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

1073 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

1074 BibliographySelected sources used.

1075 The Next StepAdditional articles.

1075 Citing CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

CHEmICAL AND BIOLOGICAL wEAPONS

Cover: U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity

MANAGING EDITOR: Thomas J. [email protected]

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR: Kathy Koch,[email protected]

SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR:Thomas J. Colin

[email protected]

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: marcia Clemmitt,Sarah Glazer, Kenneth Jost, Peter Katel,

Reed Karaim, Barbara mantel, Tom Price,Jennifer weeks

SENIOR PROJECT EDITOR: Olu B. Davis

FACT CHECKERS: michelle Harris, Nancie majkowski

An Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc.

VICE PRESIDENT AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR,HIGHER EDUCATION GROUP:

michele Sordi

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ONLINE LIBRARY AND REFERENCE PUBLISHING:

Todd Baldwin

Copyright © 2013 CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Pub-

lications, Inc. SAGE reserves all copyright and other

rights herein, unless pre vi ous ly spec i fied in writing.

No part of this publication may be reproduced

electronically or otherwise, without prior written

permission. Un au tho rized re pro duc tion or trans mis -

sion of SAGE copy right ed material is a violation of

federal law car ry ing civil fines of up to $100,000.

CQ Press is a registered trademark of Congressional

Quarterly Inc.

CQ Researcher (ISSN 1056-2036) is printed on acid-

free paper. Pub lished weekly, except: (march wk. 5)

(may wk. 4) (July wk. 1) (Aug. wks. 3, 4) (Nov. wk.

4) and (Dec. wks. 3, 4). Published by SAGE Publica-

tions, Inc., 2455 Teller Rd., Thousand Oaks, CA 91320.

Annual full-service subscriptions start at $1,054. for

pricing, call 1-800-818-7243. To purchase a CQ Re-

searcher report in print or electronic format (PDf),

visit www.cqpress.com or call 866-427-7737. Single

reports start at $15. Bulk purchase discounts and

electronic-rights licensing are also available. Periodicals

postage paid at Thousand Oaks, California, and at

additional mailing offices. POST mAS TER: Send ad dress

chang es to CQ Re search er, 2300 N St., N.w., Suite 800,

wash ing ton, DC 20037.

Dec. 13, 2013Volume 23, Number 44

Dec. 13, 2013 1055www.cqresearcher.com

Chemical and Biological weapons

THE ISSUESA s soon as the first

rockets explodedaround 2:45 a.m. on

Aug. 21 in the Damascus sub-urb of Ghouta, in Syria, res-idents began experiencinghorrific suffering: frothing atthe mouth, fluid coming outof the eyes, convulsions andsuffocation. 1

Two hours later anotherround of rockets landed inthe nearby neighborhood ofmoadamiya. “we were pray-ing in the mosque near theTurbi area, 400 meters away,”an eyewitness later told theinternational advocacy groupHuman Rights watch. “weheard the strike and went tothe site to help the wound-ed . . . when we got theresomeone was screaming,‘Chemical! Chemical!’ Peoplecovered their faces with shirtsdunked in water. we didn’tsmell anything, but . . . ifanyone entered the buildingwhere the rocket fell, theywould faint.” 2

Human Rights watch andUnited Nations inspectors later said therockets carried sarin nerve gas. Onedrop of sarin fluid can make a per-son ill. 3 Estimates of the number ofSyrians who died in the attacks rangefrom the U.S. government’s figure ofmore than 1,400 — including 426 chil-dren and other civilians — to 355, re-ported by médicins Sans frontièrs (Doc-tors without Borders), the internationalhumanitarian organization. 4

Global outrage over the attackssparked a renewed debate about howthe world community should respondto chemical and biological weapons,and whether they are really any worse— morally or in their lethal effect —

than conventional wartime arms. Bothtypes of weapons kill people, someobservers say, so making a distinctionis meaningless. But others say chem-ical weapons are unique, in that theytarget defenseless civilians.

The rockets fired on Damascus hadalmost certainly been fired by the gov-ernment of President Bashar al-Assadagainst rebel forces in Syria’s ongoingcivil war, according to Human Rightswatch and the U.S. and french gov-ernments. Although chemical weaponssuch as sarin long have been prohibit-ed by international treaty, at the timeof the attacks Syria was one of fivenations that hadn’t signed the 1993

Convention on the Prohibi-tion of Chemical weapons,known simply as the Chem-ical weapons Convention(CwC), which went into ef-fect in 1997.

Although some evidenceindicated that Syria had usedchemicals weapons on a small-er scale earlier in the war, theGhouta attack representedthe first time a nation hadlaunched a significant chem-ical weapons attack sinceIraqi leader Saddam Husseinused them against Iran andIraqi Kurds in the 1980s.

The United States and muchof the global community quick-ly condemned Syria’s action.“This attack is an assault onhuman dignity,” said PresidentObama, adding that he wouldask Congress to support alimited military strike againstSyrian forces in response.“Here’s my question for everymember of Congress andevery member of the globalcommunity: what messagewill we send if a dictator cangas hundreds of children todeath in plain sight and payno price?” 5

Obama’s comments were intendedto reinforce a “red line” he had drawnearlier insisting that chemical weaponswere outside of the acceptable inter-national norms of behavior, even inwar. But some critics of Obama’s com-ment questioned the wisdom of takinga position that could require a militaryresponse.

“The lesson learned is: Never an-chor yourself by drawing red linesbecause then you take away other op-tions,” says Gary Guertner, a profes-sor at the University of Arizona in Tuc-son and former chairman of the Policyand Strategy Department at the U.S.Army war College.

BY REED KARAIM

AP

Pho

to/S

haam

New

s N

etw

ork

Civilians lie in a makeshift mortuary after being killed in asarin gas attack on Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 21, 2013.Syrian forces under President Bashar al-Assad launchedthe attack against rebel forces in the city, according to

Human Rights Watch and the U.S. and Frenchgovernments. More than 1,400 people were killed,

including hundreds of women and children, according to the U.S. government.

1056 CQ Researcher

Others observers, however, sug-gested Obama should have acted evenmore forcefully. “when it comes tosaying this is horrible, we need to con-tain it. we need to draw the line,” saysmichael Rubin, a resident scholar atthe conservative American EnterpriseInstitute and a former Pentagon offi-cial. “The president could have actedsymbolically by immediately targetingthe units that used the weapons.”

Obama asked Congress to approvelimited strikes on Syria in retaliation,but lawmakers from both parties indi-cated that Congress might not approvemore military action in the middle East.Nevertheless, facing even the possibil-ity of a U.S. military strike, Syria agreedto sign the 1993 convention and openits chemical weapons arsenal for im-mediate inspection and dismantling.(See “Current Situation,” p. 1068.)

Although the deal, largely brokeredby Syria’s key ally, Russia, meant theU.S. Congress never had to vote onwhether to authorize the use of force,the debate over the threat represent-ed by chemical and biological weapons— and how the world should respondto their use — has continued.

Chemical weapons have been con-sidered unacceptable by the globalcommunity since the widespread useof poison gases in world war I killedor wounded thousands of soldiers.(See “Background,” p. 1065.) TheGeneva Protocol banned them in 1928,and although scattered exceptions haveoccurred, the convention and theeven stronger 1993 accord have large-ly kept chemical weapons off theworld’s battlefields.

“It’s a real robust taboo that has de-veloped over time,” says Richard Price,a professor of political science at theUniversity of British Columbia in van-couver and the author of The Chem-ical Weapons Taboo. “what you sawin Syria, it’s the first time they’ve beenused in 25 years. That’s a remarkablerecord for a weapon of warfare.”

Biological weapons, which use dis-ease microbes or toxins to attack theirvictims, have received less attention butalso are outlawed by an internationaltreaty, the 1972 Biological weapons Con-vention, which went into force in 1975.Although biological agents rarely havebeen used in warfare, some analystsconsider them a greater potential threat,especially as a terrorist weapon.

Chemical and biological weaponsoften are discussed together, butweapons experts point out they re-quire different resources to build andpose different challenges to find andneutralize. Building a chemical weaponsarsenal requires a significant industrialcapacity, the ability not only to manu-facture large amounts of the chemicalagents but also to load them in rock-ets or shells that can be fired at theenemy. The large-scale industrial plants,resources and personnel required mean


Most Chemical Weapons Have Been Destroyed

Nearly 82 percent of the world’s declared chemical weapons have been destroyed since the Chemical Weapons Convention went into effect in 1997. Russia has the world’s largest remaining stockpile of chemical weapons, about three times more than the United States. At least six countries are thought to have had or to still have undeclared chemical weapons.

Note: Japan left 350,000 chemical munitions on Chinese soil during World War II. It is working with China to dispose of those weapons.

* When Iraq joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2009, it said an unknown quantity of chemical agents remained in bunkers that were bombed in 2003.

** A metric ton is 2,204.6 pounds.

Sources: Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons; “Chemical and Biological Weapons Status at a Glance,” Arms Control Association, October 2013, www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cbwprolif, and telephone conversations with Arms Control Association personnel

Amount of Chemical Weapons Declared, Destroyed and Remaining, by Country

(as of October, 2013)

Metric Tons** Percent Metric Tons**Country Declared Destroyed (as of) Remaining

Albania 16 100% (2007) 0

South Korea undisclosed 100% (2008) 0

India 1,000+ 100% (2009) 0

United States 31,500 90% (intends by 3,150 2023)

Russia 40,000 76% (pledged by 9,600 2015-20)

Libya 26.3 85% (planning by 3.95 end of 2016)

Iraq unknown* 0% NA

Syria 1,300 In process NA (first half of 2014)


chemical weapons are harder to hidethan biological weapons.

The 1993 Chemical weapons Con-vention established an inspection pro-cedure for chemical weapons sites andtimetables for destruction of chemicalarsenals. Nearly all nations with sig-nificant stockpiles of such weapons,including the United States and Rus-sia, have been proceeding with theirdestruction. (See chart, p. 1056.) TheOrganisation for the Prohibition ofChemical weapons, a Hague-basedagency that oversees implementationof the convention, says 81.7 percentof the world’s declared chemicalweapons have been destroyed. 6

Biological weapons, such as anthraxor smallpox, can be grown in a lab, sothey have a smaller “footprint” than chem-ical weapons, making them easier tohide. But many of the deadliest pathogensexist only in a limited number of re-search laboratories around the world.Thus, they are less available than thebasic materials of chemical weapons.

The United States and other nationshave boosted efforts to secure sup-plies of dangerous pathogens in re-cent years. The 1972 Biologicalweapons Convention, however, doesnot have the same strong inspectionmechanisms as the Chemical weaponsConvention, leading to greater con-cerns that these deadly agents couldbe secretly grown and weaponized.

As the world weighs options fordealing with chemical and biologicalweapons, here are some of the ques-tions under discussion:

Are chemical weapons worse thanother weapons of war?

Chemical weapons are one of thefew categories of weapons specificallybanned through international treaty. 7

But even during world war I, whenthey were used widely by both sides,they accounted for a relatively smallpercentage of overall casualties.

Up to 100,000 soldiers were killedby gas attacks in world war I — less

than 1 percent of the war’s fatalities, andmore than 1 million were wounded bygas, or about 2 percent of the total;many were blinded. 8 In the Syrian con-flict, 70 to 100 times as many peoplehave died from conventional weapons— 105,000 to 150,000 deaths — as diedin the gas attacks. 9

Such disparities lead some analyststo question whether chemical weaponsshould be considered worse than otherweapons. “There’s a sense people have

that somehow chemical weapons areworse — more horrifying. But if youlook at it coolly and rationally, it’s notobvious that they are worse than shellingor guns, which have killed many morepeople,” says Dominic Tierney, a po-litical science professor at SwarthmoreCollege in Pennsylvania.

Regardless of the casualty count,other analysts believe chemicalweapons have characteristics that makethem especially brutal.

Sources: Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons; “Chemical and Biological Weapons Status at a Glance,” Arms Control Association, October 2013, www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cbwprolif, and telephone conversations with Arms Control Association personnel

North Korea Said to Have Large Stockpile

At least six countries are thought to have had or to still have unde-clared chemical weapons, including North Korea, which is believed to have a large stockpile developed during a long-standing program.

Countries Suspected of Having Chemical Weapons

China — The United States alleged in 2003 that China had an “advanced chemical weapons research and development program,” but a 2010 State Department report said there was insufficient evidence to confirm China’s previous or current activities.

Egypt — Allegedly stockpiled chemical weapons and used them against Yemen in 1963-67; has never signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Iran — Denounces possession of chemical weapons; recent State Department assessments said Iran is “capable of weaponiz-ing” chemical agents in a variety of delivery systems.

Israel — Believed to have had an offensive chemical weapons program in the past, but there is no conclusive evidence of an ongoing program; has not ratified the CWC.

North Korea — Has a “long-standing CW program” and a large stockpile of weapons, according to a 2012 U.S. intelligence assessment.

Sudan — Unconfirmed reports say that Sudan developed and used chemical weapons in the past; United States bombed what was alleged to be a chemical weapons factory in 1998. A 2005 State Department report questions whether Sudan was ever involved in chemical weapons manufacture.

1058 CQ Researcher

“There is something unique aboutchemical weapons” because of “whothey most effectively destroy: babiessleeping in their cribs and innocentcivilians,” says Greg Thielmann, a se-nior fellow at the washington-basedArms Control Association, which sup-ports effective arm control policies.“And the people they’re least likely

to destroy are prepared soldiers be-cause soldiers can protect themselvesagainst chemical weapons much moreeasily than they can against high ex-plosives.”

Rubin, the American Enterprise In-stitute scholar, notes that chemicalweapons are less accurate than con-ventional weapons. “Conventional mu-

nitions have become more precise overtime — more lethal while also moreprecise,” he says. “The problem withchemical weapons is that they’re no-toriously imprecise — they’re at themercy of the wind, for example.” Thatmeans they can only be counted onto sow terror or kill indiscriminately,he adds.


A wide range of chemical and biological weapons have beendeveloped in the past century, although only a limitednumber have been used on the battlefield. The earliest

poison gases deployed in world war I were easily counteredby simple gas masks, but before the war’s end scientists haddeveloped mustard gas, a blistering agent effective enough thatit remained in chemical arsenals into the 21st century.

Chemical and biological weapons are outlawed today underinternational treaties. much of the world’s chemical arsenal hasalready been destroyed, and biological weapons are consideredunlikely to be used by nations because of their unpredictablenature. Still, some countries, including the United States andRussia, are still in the process of destroying their chemical ar-senals, and it is possible other hidden stockpiles exist. Bothchemical and biological weapons are also considered attractiveto terrorist groups because of the weapons’ ability to causewidespread destruction and panic.

Here are some of the main chemical and biological agentsthat have been or could be used in weapons: 1

• Mustard gas — Nearly odorless and hard to detect, sul-fur mustard gas damages the skin and mucous membranes oncontact. It is an organic chemical compound that derives itsname from a faint smell of the mustard plant that sometimesaccompanies it. Exposure can come through the skin, eyes,lungs or by drinking contaminated water. Death often occurswhen the lungs fill up with fluid after their linings are de-stroyed. No antidote exists for mustard gas.

• Sarin — One of the first “nerve agent” chemical weapons,sarin is an oily liquid that evaporates quickly into a vaporousgas. It can cause convulsions, constriction of the chest and suf-focation. It interrupts the operation of an enzyme that worksas an “off switch” for muscles and glands, which then becomeconstantly stimulated. Exposure by inhalation or touch can bedeadly. Even a drop of sarin on the skin can cause serious in-jury. Antidotes exist, but must be administered quickly.

• VX — The most potent of all nerve agents, vX acts uponthe body much like sarin does but more quickly. A minisculedrop can be fatal. An oily liquid that evaporates slowly, it lingerson surfaces for days and can kill within minutes. Early symp-

toms include blurred vision, chest tightness, drooling and ex-cessive sweating, nausea and small, pinpoint pupils.

• Anthrax — An infectious disease caused by a bacteriafound in soil, anthrax infects both domestic and wild animalsaround the world, often fatally, but rarely humans naturally.Anthrax is not contagious, but exposure to the miniscule spores,less than a thousandth of an inch in size, can lead to serioussickness or death. A person can become exposed by breath-ing in anthrax, ingesting contaminated food or liquids or throughan open wound. Anthrax can be treated with antibiotics, if di-agnosed quickly enough.

• Smallpox — A contagious and sometimes fatal disease thathas killed tens of millions of civilians throughout history. Somehistorians believe the British used smallpox-contaminated blanketsas a weapon against Native Americans in colonial America. Small-pox was eradicated in the 20th century through a worldwide vac-cination program. But the smallpox virus still exists in laboratorysamples and is considered a potential bioterrorism weapon today.Infection can come through face-to-face contact or by handlingcontaminated objects such as clothing, or breathing contaminat-ed air in closed spaces. The United States maintains a large sup-ply of smallpox vaccine in the event of an outbreak.

• Pneumonic Plague — A relative of the bubonic plague(“Black Death”) that wiped out a third to a half of Europe’spopulation in the middle Ages, the pneumonic plague can betransmitted from person to person. Symptoms of the poten-tially fatal disease usually include fever, weakness and rapidlydeveloping pneumonia. The United States has antibiotics thatcould be used to treat pneumonic plague. Like smallpox andother disease agents, it is considered most likely to be usedas a weapon by terrorists or individuals rather than by a mili-tary force.

— Reed Karaim

1 most of the information in this sidebar on chemical and biological agentscomes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. for morecomplete lists and further details, see “Chemical weapons Information,”www.cdc.gov/nceh/demil/chemical_agent.htm, and “General fact Sheets onSpecific Bioterrorism Agents,” http://emergency.cdc.gov/bioterrorism/factsheets.asp.

from Anthrax to mustard GasChemical and biological weapons have a variety of characteristics.


But other analysts say the relativemilitary ineffectiveness of chemicalweapons argues against the idea theyare worse than other weapons. “Be-cause they are hard to use in mostbattlefield situations, chemical weaponsare usually less lethal than non-tabooweapons like high explosives,” wroteStephen m. walt, a professor of inter-national affairs at Harvard Universityin Cambridge, mass. 10

And in a civil war such as the Syr-ian conflict, where President Assad hasregularly targeted civilian neighbor-hoods held by the opposition, waltasked, “Does it really matter whetherAssad is killing his opponents using500-pound bombs, mortar shells, clus-ter munitions, machine guns, icepicksor sarin gas? Dead is dead, no matterhow it is done.” 11

Rubin counters that chemicalweapons can cause particularly brutalinjuries, and that victims can sufferpermanently scarred lungs, nervedamage and other lingering disabili-ties. “The more relevant issue is nothow painful the death is, but whathappens to the walking wounded. Youhave a much greater chance of re-covering from a bullet or shrapnelwound than you do recovering frommustard gas or sarin,” Rubin says. “Oncethe hostilities end, you can really sufferthe effects of this much more acutelythan the effects of a bullet wound,often for the rest of your life.”

But Tierney believes drawing a linearound chemical weapons can have anunintended negative consequence. “If yousay chemical weapons are unacceptablein Syria, you’re implicitly saying that con-ventional weapons are acceptable,” hesays. “You have to be careful about draw-ing these lines because there’s a way inwhich you legitimize war on the otherside of the line.”

making the kind of weapon usedthe determining factor in one’s responseto a conflict, he says, misses a largerpoint. “what I’d like to see is less focuson the means by which leaders kill

and more on the ends: How many peo-ple killed? focus more on the amountof human suffering and the overall sit-uation and less on the specific means.”

The University of British Columbia’sPrice, however, says ruling chemicalweapons out of bounds has limitedthe potential for mass destruction inwar. when chemical weapons first cameon the scene, they were seen as po-tential weapons of mass destruction,he says. “People thought, ‘Oh my God,

you’re going to wipe out whole cities.’And that’s why there were efforts tocurtail them. Chemical weapons havenever lived up to that, . . . in part be-cause of the restraints we’ve imposed.”

Anything that gets the world to saysomeone has gone too far when itcomes to making war should be con-sidered a positive, he adds. “we oughtto be grateful that we have some ofthese thresholds, at least, that galva-nize humanitarian attention and re-sponse around the world,” he says.

But for others, lumping chemicaland biological weapons together with

nuclear arms as “weapons of mass de-struction,” as some U.S. policymakershave done, overstates their capacity fordestruction. “I’ve always had troublewith that trilogy,” says the University ofArizona’s Guertner. “Nuclear weaponsare in a category all by themselves.Neither chemical nor biological weaponsare going to cause mass casualties inthe sense that nuclear weapons are.”

Although chemical weapons are notas destructive as nuclear weapons,

Rubin says that doesn’t mean they’renot unusually cruel weapons.

“The real question is, do we saychemical weapons should become nor-mal in war? Ultimately, I would sayno. You risk opening a Pandora’s boxif you do,” he says. “You’re erasing aline that was drawn almost 100 yearsago, and then you have to debateabout where you draw the new line.”

Are biological weapons a seriousthreat to the United States?

A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, ter-rorist attacks on the United States, letters

Photographs of Iraqi Kurds gassed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein aredisplayed at a memorial in the Kurdish town of Halabja, in northern Iraq.

By some estimates 50,000-60,000 Iranians and Kurds were killed or woundedin Iraqi gas attacks during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, which led in part

to the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.

AFP

/Get

ty Im

ages

/Ali

Al-

Saa

di

1060 CQ Researcher

containing anthrax spores were mailedto offices of two U.S. senators and sev-eral news media outlets. 12 The Cen-ters for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) considers anthrax, an infectiousdisease that can cause sickness or death,“one of the most likely agents to beused in a biological attack.” 13

five people died and 17 became se-riously ill from the anthrax-contaminated

letters. The fBI eventually concludedthey were the work of one man, BruceIvins, an army scientist with access toanthrax in a government lab. Ivins, whocommitted suicide before he could becharged, had a history of psychologi-cal problems, and his alleged motivesremain obscure. 14

Still, coming on the heels of the9/11 attacks, the letters raised fears the

nation was vulnerable to a major bi-ological attack by terrorists. 15 Since2001, the government has spent morethan $71 billion to beef up its de-fenses against biological weapons bycreating better detection systems andincreasing stockpiles of vaccines andother treatments. 16 But there has notbeen a significant biological attack inthe United States in the 12 years since9/11, leading to a debate over the like-lihood of such an event.

A 2012 study by the Aspen Institute,a washington think tank, concluded that“the threat of bio-terrorism remains undi-minished,” in part because the bacteriaand viruses that could be used in abioweapon are found around the world.“Any nation with a developed phar-maceutical industry has the capabilityto produce potent ‘military-grade’bioweapons,” the study said. 17

while terrorists probably cannotbuild a weapon as sophisticated as aweapon of mass destruction, the re-port said, there is “considerable evi-dence” they could produce bioweaponsapproaching the standard of such aweapon. The study noted that alQaeda is now headed by Ayman alZawahiri, a former Egyptian surgeonwho earlier led the terrorist group’sefforts to develop a biological weapon,and al Qaeda still appears intent ondeveloping such a weapon. 18

A bioweapon attack is “a seriouspotential threat,” says Leonard Cole,an editor of the study and director ofthe University of New Jersey’s Programon Terror medicine and Security. Not-ing that smallpox killed an estimated300 million people in the 20th centurybefore it was eradicated, he says, “Any-body who fails to understand or ac-knowledge the potential for catastrophicconsequences of a biological releaseis not facing reality.”

But while they agree the conse-quences of an attack would be severe,other experts doubt the capability ofterrorist groups to build a bioweaponcapable of mass death. for example,


Sources: Javed Ali, “Chemical Weapons and the Iran-Iraq War: A Case Study in Noncompliance,” The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2001, pp. 43-58; Lina Grip and John Hart, “The use of chemical weapons in the 1935-36 Italo-Ethiopian War, SIPRI Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme, October 2009; “Chemical Weapons: Frequently Asked Questions,” Arms Control Association, October 2013; “The Shadow of Ypres: The history of chemical weapons,” The Economist, Aug. 31, 2013

World War I Saw Deadliest Chemical Attacks

Toxic gas dispersed first by Germany and then by both sides killed 100,000 people. It is unknown how many Chinese were killed by Japan’s 2,000 chemical weapons attacks in 1937-42 because Japan was dropping non-chemical bombs at the same time. In the 1980s, Iraq’s use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War killed or wounded up to 60,000 people, prompting a worldwide ban on the use of such weapons in 1993.

Casualties from Chemical Weapons Attacks

EstimatedYear Event What happened Deaths/ Casualties

1915-18 WWI Poison gas used, first by 100,000 Germany against the Allies deaths and then by both sides.

1935-36 Second Italo- Italy used mustard gas 15,000 Ethiopian War against the Ethiopians. casualties

1937-42 Japanese Japan used variety of unknown Invasion of chemical agents in 2,000 China attacks against the Chinese.

1962-67 Vietnam War U.S. used herbicides against unknown the North Vietnamese.

1980-88 Iran-Iraq War Iraq used various gases Up to 60,000 against Iran and the Kurds. casualties

1995 Terrorist Aum Shinrikyo cult releases 13 deaths Attack sarin gas in Tokyo metro.

2013 Syrian Government uses sarin gas Up to around Civil War against rebel forces. 1,400 deaths


they point to the failure of the Japan-ese cult Aum Shinrikyo, which man-aged to obtain a nonlethal version ofanthrax and another disease agent, butwas unable to create biological weaponsfrom them despite having a memberwho had done Ph.D. work in virology.The group later released sarin gas inthe Tokyo metro. 19

“Biological weapons are extremelyhard to develop. Even though lots ofingredients are available, it still takesa lot of skill and knowledge to con-vert a sample of anthrax into a bombcapable of causing widespread ca-sualties,” says George Koblentz,deputy director of the biodefensegraduate program at George masonUniversity in fairfax, va. “So far, we’venot seen a terrorist group capable ofdoing that.”

However, a bipartisan congression-al commission looking at terrorist threatsin 2008 concluded there was a highlikelihood terrorists would use aweapon of mass destruction in thenext five years, and “terrorists are morelikely to be able to obtain and use abiological weapon than a nuclearweapon.” 20 The commission painteda nightmare scenario: “A recent studyfrom the intelligence community pro-

jected that a one- to two-kilogram[2.2- to 4.4-pound] release of anthraxspores from a crop duster plane couldkill more Americans than died inworld war II (over 400,000).” 21

But two experts who examined thecommission’s scenario found severalholes in their example. Lynn Klotz, asenior fellow at the Center for ArmsControl and Non-Proliferation in wash-ington, and science journalist and Ari-zona State University journalism pro-fessor Edward J. Sylvester concludedit would take much more than fourpounds to cause mass casualties, andthere were significant challenges in get-ting the anthrax safely loaded into aspray plane and dispersed into the air.

“we decided this was very im-probable,” says Klotz. “These are sortof scare tactics. The way I look atthese things is, you have a big bio-defense effort underway and the moreyou scare Congress, the more likelyyou are to get funding.”

Given the technical hurdles, Klotzsays, “Any serious biological attackwould have to be launched by a stateprogram.” But, any country doing sowould likely face massive retaliation ifdiscovered, he adds. “It would haveto be a state willing to take a big risk.

That’s not to say that I don’t thinkthere is a risk [that bioweapons couldbe used], I just don’t think it’s as bigas people think there is.”

However, because biological pro-grams are relatively easy to conceal,nations, including those with ties tointernational terrorism, could maintainthem secretly, says Raymond Zilinskas,director of the Chemical & Biologicalweapons Nonproliferation Program atthe monterey Institute of Internation-al Studies at middlebury College invermont. “Does North Korea have abiological weapons program? Does Iranhave a biological weapons program?Does Syria have a biological weaponsprogram? All these are black boxes,”he says. “we don’t know what’s goingon inside them.”

He adds that Russia has three mil-itary microbiological institutes “still ac-tive and closed to all foreigners. Youhave to assume they have weaponizedagents waiting to go, if the decisionwas made.”

But Klotz says the indiscriminatenature of biological weapons — theypresent a danger to anyone usingthem and can’t be controlled once re-leased — makes them unattractive asweapons of war. He notes the U.S.

Soldiers wounded in a mustard gas attack walk toward an aid station in this large-scale 1919 oil painting by the American artistJohn Singer Sargent, now at Britain’s Imperial War Museum in London. During the “Great War,” some 100,000 troops werekilled — and more than a million injured, many of them blinded — by poison gas, used first by Germany and then by the Allies.

JSS

Gal

lery

.org

/Joh

n S

inge

r S

arge

nt

1062 CQ Researcher


government discontinued its biologicalweapons program in 1969, when Pres-ident Richard m. Nixon became con-vinced “the United States would besafer without biological weapons.”

Can the world rid itself of chem-ical and biological weapons?

The Convention on the Prohibitionof Chemical weapons is widely con-sidered an example of a successful dis-armament treaty. Now that Syria signedthe convention in September, only fournations — Angola, Egypt, North Koreaand South Sudan — have not signedit, and two others, Israel and myanmar,have signed but not ratified it. 22

The world’s other 190 nations haveratified the convention, which stipu-lates they will never use, develop, pro-duce, acquire, transfer or stockpilechemical weapons. Under the accord,nations that have chemical weaponsalso agree to destroy them and sub-mit to international inspection and ver-ification of their efforts. 23

The Organisation for the Prohibitionof Chemical weapons says more than80 percent of all existing weapons havebeen destroyed, including the bulk ofthe sizable U.S. and Soviet arsenals,where destruction is ongoing. Severalanalysts are optimistic the global com-munity will eventually rid itself ofthese weapons.

“It’s very realistic to believe it canbe done. It is being done,” says theUniversity of Arizona’s Guertner. world-wide revulsion, combined with the fact“the military doesn’t like them” be-cause they are imprecise and ineffec-tive against prepared soldiers providesmomentum to continue disarmament,he says.

But Swarthmore’s Tierney doubtsthe world will ever be free of thethreat. “You’re always going to findregimes that are going to try to usechemical weapons,” he says. “They’renot that difficult to produce, and theydo have shock value. In fact, an un-fortunate side effect of putting them

in a special category is that it mightmake them more attractive to groupslooking to have that shock effect.”

Thielmann, the Arms Control Asso-ciation fellow, says the world’s reac-tion to Syria’s chemical attacks increasesthe chances the holdouts to the con-vention could reconsider. “I don’t thinkanyone could watch what is happen-ing in Syria and say it would be safeto use chemical weapons,” he says. “Itcreates a real threat that the interna-tional community will come down onthem like a ton of bricks.”

while some analysts can envision aworld without chemical weapons, the sit-uation surrounding biological weaponsis more complex. Thielmann notes thatthe 1972 Biological weapons Conventiondoes not have the inspection and verifi-cation provisions found in the Chemicalweapons Convention, making it impos-sible to be sure what nations are doing.

Still, he says, “Diseases and plaguesare very hard to control. It’s just notthe kind of weapon that military forceslike to have. I think there is a possi-bility, even in our lifetimes, of seeinga time when both biological andchemical weapons won’t be part ofthe arsenals of any nation.”

Thielmann adds, however, that in-dividuals or terrorist organizations areanother matter. “There’s a much longertime that we will worry about a smallgroup of individuals using them as aterror weapon,” he says.

The Aspen Institute’s Cole believesthe world will never be rid of thethreat of biological weapons. “Howcan you? That would be the same asgetting rid of all biological agents, allpathogens,” he says. “It’s like sayingget rid of every micro-organism andyou’ll be rid of all biological weapons.”

The University of British Columbia’sPrice worries more about the prospectof a terrorist group or other “non-stateactor” acquiring a biological weaponthan about the possibility of such agroup building chemical weapons, be-cause a biological weapon has a greater

capacity to do widespread harm. But,he concedes, that very capability lim-its the attractiveness of such weapons.

“There’s a much greater risk of fallingprey to it yourself,” he says. “If somegroup unleashed a deadly plague, itcould just as well kill them. The extrabit of restraint that provides has al-ways proven very powerful in the caseof biological weapons.”

However, the monterey Institute’sZilinskas believes it is becoming in-creasingly likely that someone will usea biological weapon, as more peopleget their hands on deadly pathogens.

“The whole biological, technicalworkforce is growing all the time,” hesays. “Someone is going to get greedy.without any doubt, that’s going tohappen.”

BACKGROUNDPrimitive Attempts

C hemical and biological weaponsmay seem like modern inven-

tions, but primitive forms of both wereused in some of the earliest recordedinstances of warfare.

The ancient Scythians, fierce horse-men who came from an area aroundthe Black Sea, were known for theiruse of poison arrows, according to theGreek historian Herodotus, which mayhave helped them defeat Darius, theking of Persia, in 513 B.C. 24

About 750 years later, in 256 A.D.,a Persian army attacking the Roman-controlled city of Dara-Europos appar-ently used a chemical gas attack. Ac-cording to University of Leicesterarchaeologist Simon James, evidence fromthe site indicates the Persians added bi-tumen and sulfur to fires to create atoxic cloud in tunnels into the city thatkilled at least 20 Roman soldiers. 25

Continued on p. 1064


Chronology1915-1925 Wide-spread use of poison gas dur-ing World War I leads to grow-ing revulsion toward chemicalweapons.

1915Germans use chlorine gas againstthe french at Ypres, Belgium, infirst major chemical weapons attackof world war I (April 22). . . .British use chlorine gas in battleof Loos, france (Sept. 25).

1918Germans lob more than half amillion gas shells at allied troopsin final attempt to break throughallied lines in france in the SecondBattle of the marne.

1925Geneva Protocol outlawing chemicaland biological warfare is signed bymost nations, U.S. signs but doesn’tratify the treaty. Japan does not sign.

•

1940-1945Major powers build up theirchemical arsenals, but theprohibition against chemicalweapons largely holds onWorld War II battlefields.

1940Japanese drop rice and wheat mixedwith plague-carrying fleas over Chinaand manchuria, a primitive use ofbiological weapons against the civil-ian population.

1940-1945Germany, the United States, Britainand Japan accumulate stockpilesof deadly chemical agents butnever use them against each otherduring the war, partly in fear ofretaliation.

1947-1972As the Cold War heats up, theUnited States and the SovietUnion build chemical and biological arsenals.

1947Soviet Union begins building secretfactory in Zagorsk to producesmallpox for biological weapons.

1950United States begins building secretbiological weapons facility in PineBluff, Ark.

1969President Richard m. Nixon ordersthe unilateral end of the U.S. bio-logical weapons program.

1972Biological weapons Convention,which prohibits the research, use orstockpiling of biological agents, isnegotiated. U.S. is early signatory.

•

1983-1993 Iraqdefies prohibition on chemicalweapons without consequences.New international treaty seeksto eliminate chemical weapons.

1983-1988Iraq uses lethal mustard, phosgeneand hydrogen-cyanide gases inIran-Iraq war. Some 50,000 Iraniansdie from the attacks. world com-munity does not interfere.

1988Iraq uses hydrogen-cyanide andmustard gases against Kurds.

1993Chemical weapons Convention,calling for the elimination ofchemical weapons, is negotiated.

2001-PresentConcerns raised by 9/11 terror-ist attacks on United States givenew urgency to efforts to controland defend against chemicaland biological weapons.

2001Shortly after 9/11, letters containinganthrax are sent to news media of-fices and two U.S. senators, killingfive people and infecting 17 others.fBI identifies Bruce Ivins, a govern-ment scientist, as the culprit, thoughsome doubt his guilt; he commitssuicide before being charged.

2003Claiming Iraq still has chemical andbiological weapons, President Georgew. Bush pushes the United Statesand its allies to invade. It is later de-termined Iraq had no such workingweapons.

2012President Obama warns Syria thatuse of chemical weapons in thecountry’s civil war would cross anunacceptable “red line.”

2013Chemical weapons attacks in Dam-ascus by Syrian military kill morethan 1,400 people (Aug. 21). . . .President Obama says he will seekauthorization from Congress for alimited military response to theSyrian chemical attacks (Aug. 31).. . . As part of a deal negotiatedby Russia and the United States,Syria announces it will join theChemical weapons Convention andallow inspectors to enter the coun-try to identify and dismantle itschemical weapons (September). . . .Organisation for the Prohibition ofChemical weapons announces thatSyria’s most critical chemical weaponswill be removed from the countryby year’s end (November).

1064 CQ Researcher

An example of a primitive early at-tempt to use a biological weapon oc-curred in 1346, when Tartars besiegingthe city of Kaffa, in what is now Ukraine,catapulted plague-contaminated corpsesinto the city. 26

Evidence also suggests that Britishforces in the french-Indian wars in 1763

may have given blankets used by small-pox victims to hostile Native Americantribes with the hope of infecting them.Smallpox did ravage Native Americansaround the time. 27 There is also cir-cumstantial evidence indicating theBritish may have used the same strat-egy during the Revolutionary war. 28

By 1899, the potential of chemical

weapons was well enough understoodin Europe that most major world pow-ers agreed, in the Hague Convention,not to use “poison or poisoned arms”in warfare. 29 The treaty was the firstsignificant attempt to control chemicalweapons, but less than two decadeslater it would be ignored in the firstgreat war of the 20th century.


Continued from p. 1062

The use of biological weapons, which rely on diseaseagents, is not always easy to separate from natural oc-currences. A sudden outbreak of plague, for example,

could be caused by a weapon or a new, mutated version ofthe bacteria that causes the disease.

One of the strangest cases of confusion about a biologicalweapon and a natural occurrence may have occurred duringthe Cold war, when Secretary of State Alexander Haig publiclycharged Soviet-backed forces in Laos and Cambodia with wagingbiological warfare.

In a 1981 speech in Berlin followed by a detailed report toCongress, Haig said Hmong fighters and others resisting theSoviet-backed forces in the two Southeast Asian countries toldofficials they had been sprayed from the air with a yellow sub-stance, and that hundreds of casualties had resulted. 1

U.S. investigators interviewed Hmong refugees and obtainedsmall samples of the “yellow rain” to test. They concluded thesamples included potentially deadly mycotoxins derived fromfungi. If the samples were from a biological weapon releasedin the air, it would have violated the 1925 Geneva Protocoloutlawing the use of chemical or biological weapons. It alsowould have been the first significant use of such a weaponduring the Cold war. 2

But matthew S. meselson and Julian Perry Robinson, scientif-ic researchers from Harvard and the University of Sussex in Eng-land, respectively, wrote in 2008 that a scientist at the ChemicalDefence Establishment at Porton Down had determined in 1982that the principal component of the yellow rain was pollen. 3

Repeated tests later confirmed that finding, and subsequent re-search indicated that bees in the region sometimes engaged inmass “cleansing flights” in which they released large amounts ofyellow bee feces in the air. That was almost certainly what theAmericans had publicly charged was a dangerous biological weapon.

Although the U.S. government never formally renounced thecharges, the scientific evidence indicates the refugees either ex-aggerated their claims or confused the physical injuries causedby the effects of conventional arms — including from smokeinhalation and physical shock — with those caused by chem-ical weapons. The initial results indicating mycotoxins were also

found to be suspect by later researchers, although it is possi-ble that the bee droppings could have contained minisculeamounts of fungal material. 4

“The lesson is, if you’re going to investigate these type ofallegations you need to lean on scientists, not political types.The other lesson is you need to be skeptical of refugee ac-counts until you get first-hand information,” says Gary Guertner,

a professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson who previ-ously served as chairman of the Policy and Strategy Departmentat the U.S. Army war College.

— Reed Karaim

1 Jonathan B. Tucker, “The “Yellow Rain Controversy: Lessons for Arms Con-trol Compliance,” The NonProliferation Review, Spring 2001, http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/81tucker.pdf.2 Ibid.3 matthew S. meselson and Julian Perry Robinson, “The Yellow Rain Affair:Lessons from a Discredited Allegation,” in Terrorism, War or Disease? (2008),p. 76, http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18277/yellow_rain_affair.html.4 Tucker, op. cit.

Biological weapons vs. Natural OccurrencesSometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference.

Demonstrators at the Albanian Embassy in Skopje,Macedonia, hold a sign reading “Stop chemical weapons”

on Nov. 14, 2013. They oppose possible plans to destroy Syrian chemical weapons in nearby Albania.

AFP

/Get

ty Im

ages

/Rob

ert A

tana

sovs

ki


World War I

O n April 22, 1915, french andfrench-Algerian soldiers in the

allied trenches near Ypres, Belgium,saw a greenish-yellow cloud billowfrom the enemy lines and roll towardthem. The first significant chemical at-tack of world war I had begun. 30

German soldiers had opened thevalves on 6,000 cylinders of liquid chlo-rine, which formed a poisonous gaswhen it hit the air. Chlorine gas stripsthe lining from the lungs and bronchialtubes, leading to a buildup of fluid inthe lungs that causes the victim todrown in his own fluids. 31

“The effect of the gas was devastat-ing,” wrote historian martin Gilbert. 32

The french and Algerian troops had nogas masks, and as the gas reached themthousands fell dead in the trenches. Oth-ers fled. A four-mile gap was blown inthe allied lines, but the Germans, ad-vancing carefully through the cloud incrude masks of moistened cotton, wereunable to exploit the advantage. Theyhad launched the gas attack as an ex-periment but didn’t have sufficient re-serves in place to press on. 33

The attack and others that followed,directed at British-held parts of theline, caused widespread outrage inEngland and other nations sympatheticto the allied cause. British military of-ficers quickly asked for authority torespond in kind. 34 On Sept. 25, inthe battle of Loos, france, the Britishunleashed their own chlorine gas at-tack on German lines. It ended up il-lustrating the dangerously unpredictablenature of chemical weapons.

As the gas was about to be re-leased, the wind shifted along partsof the British lines. At least one offi-cer in charge of a gas canister decid-ed not to release his load of chlorine,but he was overridden by orders fromheadquarters far behind the lines. whenthe gas was released, some of it sim-ply hung in no man’s land between

the trenches and some drifted backinto British-held territory, gassing hun-dreds of British soldiers; confusionreigned on the battlefield. 35

Gas would continue to cause simi-lar problems for the rest of the war.As gas masks and other defensivemeasures improved, soldiers wouldbecome more used to dealing with itand holding their positions. In a dead-ly chemical weapons race, both sidestried to develop ever more deadlyweapons to gain an advantage. In 1917,the Germans introduced mustard gas,a blistering agent that could disable asoldier simply by getting on his skinor into his eyes, where it could causeblindness. 36 It also lingered in the en-vironment, presenting a danger longafter an attack.

The effectiveness of chemical weaponsin world war I is debated by historiansand chemical weapons experts. Consid-ering they caused only a small percentageof casualties and never led to a majorshift in fortunes, some analysts have dis-counted their significance.

But Edward Spiers, a British histo-rian and the author of A History ofChemical and Biological Weapons, says,“Contemporaries did not regard themas ‘relatively ineffective.’ In fact, theirproportion of usage grew with eachyear of the war.”

for the soldiers in the trenches,however, despite their having equip-ment and gaining experience that en-abled them to survive chemical at-tacks, the psychological impact of thechemical weapons did not dissipate.

“In the ordinary soldier there wasborn a hatred of gas that steadily deep-ened as the war progressed,” wroteRobert Harris and Jeremy Paxman inA Higher Form of Killing, a history ofchemical and biological warfare. 37

That revulsion only grew after thewar, as the public learned more aboutconditions on the battlefield and thelingering health problems faced bygassing victims, according to Spiers.“The psychological fears of gas . . .

magnified in some of the postwar im-agery of temporarily blinded victimsof mustard gas, coupled with fears ofits future development — and espe-cially aerial delivery over cities — allstoked the postwar reaction,” he says.

In 1925 in Geneva, at a disarma-ment conference held under the aus-pices of the League of Nations, theleading military powers agreed to “theProhibition of the Use in war of As-phyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases,and of Bacteriological methods of war-fare.” 38

Eventually, some 130 nations signedonto the so-called Geneva Protocol.But the strength of the prohibition soonwas severely tested.

World War II

T he prohibition against chemicalweapons largely held on the battle-

fields during world war II, the largestand deadliest conflict in history. Beforethe war, Italy used chemical weapons,primarily mustard gas, in a campaignagainst the Ethiopian army in 1935-36,a precursor to the larger war. 39 Japanalso used various forms of gas andother chemical and biological weaponsduring its invasion of China, but theactual death toll attributable to suchweapons is undetermined because theJapanese were using conventionalbombs simultaneously. 40 But the coun-tries fighting in Europe, including NaziGermany, refrained from battlefield gasattacks, and Japan and the UnitedStates never used chemical weaponsagainst each other in the Pacific.

The major powers had built up sig-nificant chemical weapons arsenals be-tween the world wars, but historianssay the Geneva Protocol largely held,for several reasons. Revulsion stem-ming from the world war I experi-ence partly explained the restraint. Inaddition, “President Roosevelt wasstaunchly against the use of gas,” saysthe University of British Columbia’s

1066 CQ Researcher

Price. “He personally found it abhor-rent and said we will not be the firstto use these weapons.”

In England, Prime minister winstonChurchill pressed his military com-manders to consider using gas if theGermans invaded. But the comman-ders, many of whom had first-handexperience with gas in world war I,rejected the idea. “Clearly, I cannot

make head against the parsons andthe warriors at the same time,” a frus-trated Churchill wrote. 41

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had beengased and temporarily blinded duringthe end of his world war I militaryservice. Historians have speculated theexperience may have contributed to hisreluctance to use chemical weapons onthe battlefield — although it did noth-ing to stop him from gassing to deathmillions in his concentration camps.

Experts suggest that fear of retalia-tion may explain why the most pow-erful combatants in the war never en-

gaged in chemical warfare. “Neitherside felt like they were ready to pre-vail if the conflict took that turn,” saysPrice. Despite stockpiles of chemicalweapons, he adds, “both sides felt theywere under-prepared.”

China, the only theater of war wherechemical weapons were used duringthe Second world war, also sufferedthe only significant deployment of bi-

ological weapons in modern warfare.Jeanne Guillemin, a senior adviser atthe massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy Security Studies Program, says theJapanese dropped disease agents fromthe air, contaminated water supplies andeven introduced plague-infected fleas.They also conducted experiments oncivilians and prisoners to measure theeffectiveness of biological weapons. 42

“The use of biological weapons in1942 as the Japanese were retreatingeast from central China was likelyquite extensive, although sorting outbiological weapons casualties from

victims of conventional weapons is dif-ficult,” Guillemin says. “Some have es-timated the victims at 200,000 or so.Anthrax, glanders [an infectious dis-ease], cholera, and typhoid were cer-tainly used.”

Japan’s biological warfare andhuman experimentation have gottenlittle notice, Guillemin says, becauseafter the war American officials sup-pressed information about the pro-gram in order to shield Japanese sci-entists and officials from prosecutionin order to take advantage of Japan’sgerm warfare experiences for the U.S.bioweapons program. If the programand its consequences had come fullyto light, Guillemin believes the futuremight have taken a different turn.“There was a critical juncture in late1945 [and] early 1946 at which bio-logical programs could have beenlegally eliminated,” she says, “but thatmoment passed.”

Instead, the United States and othernations continued to develop both bi-ological and chemical agents. “Unfor-tunately, a real arms race developedbetween the Soviets and the U.S. overwho could develop the most deadlychemical weapons. further laboratorydevelopment went on for more than25 years after world war II,” says Paulwalker, a longtime arms control ex-pert who runs the washington officeof Green Cross International, a glob-al environmental organization head-quartered in Geneva.

Despite the development andstockpiling of deadly chemical andbiological agents, only a few casesof relatively small-scale use were re-ported in the next few decades. Egypt-ian forces involved in a civil war inYemen used chemical weapons in the1960s, and the Soviet Union may havesupplied chemical weapons to fight-ers in Southeast Asia and Afghanistanin the 1970s. 43

However, in the 1980s, during theeight-year Iraq-Iran war, Iraqi leaderSaddam Hussein shattered the inter-


A chemical company technician in Münster, Germany, demonstrates how todispose of rocket-borne chemical warfare agents on Oct. 30, 2013. More thanthree-quarters of the world’s declared chemical weapons have been destroyedsince the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention went into effect in 1997. At leastsix countries are thought to have had, or still have, undeclared chemical weapons.

Get

ty Im

ages

/Pho

toth

ek/T

hom

as Im

o


national prohibition against the use ofchemical weapons when he made wide-spread use of them on the battlefieldagainst the Iranians and against Kurdishcommunities inside Iraq, which werein a loose alliance with Iran. An esti-mated 50,000-60,000 Iranians werekilled by a variety of chemical weapons,

and up to 100,000 continue to suffertoday from lingering health effects. 44

Unlike the Obama administration’soutrage at the gassing deaths of upto 1,400 Syrians earlier this year, theRonald Reagan administration wasmostly silent about the deaths of tensof thousands of Iranians and Kurds

due to Saddam’s chemical attacks. Infact, The Washington Post later foundthat the Reagan administration knewit was supplying materials to Iraq thatwere being used to make chemicalweapons, but the administration con-sidered stopping Iran’s forces a pri-ority. 45

O n Oct. 11, Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the NobelPrize Committee, stepped to the podium in Oslo, Nor-way, to announce that, to the surprise of many, the

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons (OPCw)had been awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

The OPCw had not been considered a favorite to win theworld’s most prestigious humanitarian award, but Jagland notedthat the organization has helped to define “the use of chemi-cal weapons as a taboo under international law.” 1

Combined with the OPCw’s recent investigation of Syria’schemical arsenal, the award brought international recognitionto an agency that has largely worked behind the scenes dur-ing most of its existence. Secretary of State John Kerry joinedthose praising the organization, saying the OPCw “has takenextraordinary steps and worked with unprecedented speed” torespond to Syria’s use of chemical weapons last summer. Kerrypraised the “bravery and resolve” of OPCw inspectors who hadtraveled through the country during wartime to verify that Syriahad used — and was shutting down — its chemical weaponsoperations. 2

The OPCw was created in 1997 to serve as the watchdogfor the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical weapons, aninternational accord outlawing the use, manufacture or posses-sion of chemical weapons. Since then, the agency’s 125 inspectorshave conducted more than 5,000 inspections in 86 countries,often under difficult or dangerous circumstances.

Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the OPCw is a relatively smallinternational agency, with an annual budget of about $100 millionand a staff of 500. But it oversees one of the largest disarma-ment efforts in history. Only six nations — Angola, Egypt, NorthKorea, South Sudan, Israel and myanmar — have either re-fused to sign or have not ratified the convention; 190 nationshave joined.

To date, 64,124 tons of chemical agents — nearly 82 per-cent of the global declared stockpile of chemical weapons —have been destroyed in compliance with the convention, ac-cording to the OPCw. Individual nations are generally respon-sible for destroying their arsenals, although they sometimes re-ceive outside assistance. OPCw inspectors monitor the progressto make sure nations are complying with the treaty. 3 most of

the remaining global arsenal is in the United States and Rus-sia, which are behind schedule in destroying their large chem-ical weapons stockpiles.

The delays have been attributed to the unexpected com-plexity of destroying the dangerous chemical agents in theweapons, according to James Lewis, a spokesman for the Cen-ter for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a washington-basedresearch organization. But both countries hope to done with-in the next 10 years.

— Reed Karaim

1 “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2013,” The Nobel Prize, Oct. 11, 2013, www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2013/press.html.2 John Kerry, “Statement on Awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Or-ganisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons,” U.S. Department ofState, Oct. 11, 2013, www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/10/215318.htm.3 “Demilitarisation: Latest facts and figures,” Organisation for the Prohibitionof Chemical weapons, Oct. 30, 2013, www.opcw.org/our-work/demilitarisation/.

And the Nobel Peace Prize Goes to. . . .The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons won the 2013 award.

Turkish diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of theOrganisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,

received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10, 2013.

Get

ty Im

ages

/Ana

dolu

Age

ncy/

Irfa

n C

emilo

glu

1068 CQ Researcher


The initial response among otherwestern nations also was muted, al-though Iran protested to the UnitedNations and sent victims of the attacksto Europe in an effort to build inter-national support for its cause. 46 “Theworld basically ignored the Iraqi useof chemical weapons against Iran,”says Thielmann, the Arms Control As-sociation fellow. “And the U.S., the mostpowerful nation in the world, decid-ed to assist Saddam Hussein, the per-petrator of these attacks. . . . That wasa terrible example of the world fail-ing to enforce the [1925 Geneva] banon chemical weapons.”

However, the attacks against Kur-dish civilians and growing concernabout Iraq’s behavior finally led theUnited States, the U.N. and other na-tions to speak out. 47 Iraq’s chemicalweapons use is thought to have spurredthe global community to adopt theConvention on the Prohibition of Chem-ical weapons in 1993, which containedstronger provisions than the GenevaProtocol had, allowing inspections andrequiring the destruction of weaponsstockpiles. 48

Until the Syrian civil war, the onlyother use of chemical weapons sincethe convention was enacted occurredin 1994-1995, when Aum Shinrikyo, aJapanese cult that believed it wasdestined to rule the world, launchedtwo sarin gas attacks in Tokyo. Inthe largest attack, Aum followers re-leased sarin gas in three differenttrains in the Tokyo subway system.About 5,000 people were injured anda dozen died. 49

The attacks raised concerns thatsimilar groups could get access tochemical weapons — fears that onlygrew after the 9/11 attacks. worriedthat terrorists or other rogue groupscould get their hands on chemicalweapons, governments around theworld have been dismantling theirchemical arsenals ever since.

CURRENTSITUATION

Syria Disarms

C hange in Syria’s chemical weaponsstatus is occurring rapidly. In Sep-

tember the Assad regime announcedit would submit to the Chemicalweapons Convention.

In mid-November, the Organisationfor the Prohibition of Chemicalweapons (OPCw) announced that themost critical chemical weapons in Syria’sarsenal will be removed from thecountry by the end of the year, whilethe rest will be removed by early feb-ruary. 50 Once outside Syria, the coun-try’s declared arsenal of nearly 1,300tons of chemical weapons will bedestroyed in the “safest and soonestmanner,” no later than the end of June2014, according to the OPCw Execu-tive Council. 51

Earlier in November, OPCw inspec-tors announced they had only one siteleft to check and had verified that Syriahad destroyed 22 of the 23 sites theSyrian government said had been usedto produce chemical weapons. 52 Aweek earlier, the OPCw announcedthat Syria said the equipment at all thesites had been rendered inoperable. 53

“This is much quicker than anyother state,” says Green Cross’s walk-er. “Everything I’ve heard from nego-tiators and inspectors has been verypositive. They’ve said the Syrian gov-ernment and military seem very com-mitted to following through on theirobligations under the Chemicalweapons Convention.”

James Lewis, a spokesman for theCenter for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, says the Syrians could behiding some facilities or weapons, butOPCw has 27 people in the country,

and the Syrian government has madeno effort to impede their investigation.He adds, “Syria runs a major risk ofgetting caught if it tries to cheat.”

Rubin, the American Enterprise In-stitute scholar, doubts the sincerity ofthe Syrian effort. But, he says, “whatI find most troubling is that if youhave chemical weapons, use them onceto the greatest effect and then cryuncle, you can escape [serious sanc-tions].” Syria is facing no significantretribution, he says, even though “hereyou have a thousand people killed.”

Other Efforts

A lthough the OPCw’s efforts inSyria have captured the world’s

attention, chemical weapons also havebeen dismantled and destroyed recentlyin several other countries.

The Chemical weapons Conventioncalls for nations to declare their arse-nals within 30 days of joining the ac-cord and have destruction facilities —usually special incinerators — readyfor testing by the second year; de-struction of the most dangerous chem-ical weapons should commence in thethird year and be complete within10 years after signing. 54

many nations that joined the ac-cord never developed chemicalweapons, while others certified theyhad previously disposed of their ar-senals. Albania, India and South Koreahave destroyed their chemical weaponsstockpiles and facilities under the ac-cord. Libya is very close to finishingits chemical disarmament effort. 55

Russia and the United States havethe world’s two largest chemical arse-nals and are significantly behind sched-ule in destroying their chemical weapons.But Lewis, of the Center for Arms Con-trol and Non-Proliferation, says the de-lays are due to the difficulty of de-stroying such large amounts of chemicalweapons.

Continued on p. 1070

no


At Issue:Does use of chemical weapons warrant military intervention?yes

yesPATRICK CHRISTYSENIOR POLICY ANALYST, FOREIGN POLICYINITIATIVE

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, DECEMBER 2013

w hen the use of chemical weapons by foreign entitiesthreatens America’s national security interests, militaryintervention is warranted. President Obama said as

much in August 2012, when he drew a “red line” against Syriandictator Bashar al-Assad’s use or transfer of chemical weapons inSyria. However, Obama’s failure to respond to Assad’s subsequentuse of chemical weapons was a mistake that has undermined ourvalues and harmed U.S. interests in the middle East and beyond.

Assad’s repeated use of chemical weapons in 2013 was anopen challenge to America’s moral values and national securityinterests. The regime has slaughtered more than 1,500 peopleusing chemical weapons in a conflict that has claimed morethan 115,000 lives. He has employed death squads, missilestrikes and chemical weapon attacks in his effort to terrorize theSyrian people into submission. These barbaric acts have helpedfacilitate the emergence of Islamist extremists in opposition-heldterritory, while Assad relies on Hezbollah and Iranian Revolu-tionary Guard Quds force fighters to transform an uprisinginto a regional conflict. This caldron of terror, regional instabilityand weapons of mass destruction directly threatens such U.S.allies as Jordan, Turkey and Israel.

Obama’s failure to adequately enforce his own “red line” onAssad’s use of chemical weapons undermines U.S. credibilityand has created a crisis of confidence in washington’s abilityto deter aggression. Secretary of State John Kerry was rightwhen he warned, “we will have lost credibility in the world . . .if we turn our backs today.”

Assad has gone unpunished for his crimes. The U.S.-Russianagreement on Assad’s chemical weapons has not removed himfrom power and does not guarantee that he will surrender hischemical weapons. If anything, it gave him a green light to con-tinue his indiscriminate violence against Syrian rebels and non-combatants, so long as he does not again use chemical weapons.

A U.S.-led military intervention in Syria would not havecreated Iraq 2.0. At a minimum, limited airstrikes to disablethe Assad regime’s chemical weapons delivery systems couldhave weakened its position. Indeed, since September 2007Israel has launched various airborne campaigns against theregime’s activities related to weapons of mass destruction orattempts to transfer advanced conventional weapons toHezbollah. without U.S. intervention, the killing continues,Assad remains in power and the growth of Islamist extremistsis on the rise.no

JOHN MUELLERPOLITICAL SCIENTIST, OHIO STATE UNIVER-SITY; SENIOR FELLOW, CATO INSTITUTE; AUTHOR, ATOMIC OBSESSION: NUCLEARALARMISM FROM HIROSHIMA TO AL-QAEDA

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, DECEMBER 2013

t hose who began the movement to ban chemical weaponsa century ago probably hoped it would eventually lead toelimination of all weapons and therefore the extinguish-

ment of war.But that hasn’t happened, and the chemical weapon ban has

been widely accepted, primarily because militaries generallyhave found them to be inferior weapons. After world war I,the largest armed conflict in which chemical weapons wereused extensively, a British military history concluded that suchweapons “made war uncomfortable . . . to no purpose.”

A nuclear weapon certainly is a “weapon of mass destruction,”because a single one can kill tens of thousands. But that doesnot hold for chemical weapons: Overall, chemical weaponswere responsible for less than seven-tenths of 1 percent ofworld war I battle deaths and, on average, it took a ton ofgas to register a single fatality. moreover, soldiers incapacitatedby gas usually returned to battle within a few days, whilethose wounded by bullets were frequently removed for muchlonger periods and were far more likely to die.

Those who insist it is morally reprehensible to kill peoplewith gas in wars should be asked, “How would you preferthey be killed?”

Deaths inflicted by bullets generally appear quick and pain-less on television or in the movies because most viewers havean aversion to seeing blood spilled. Indeed, films that showlots of blood are officially categorized as “horror” movies andcarry specific warnings for the viewer.

Admittedly, death by some gases can be painful. But it isdifficult to see why dying from chemicals is worse than bleed-ing slowly to death after being punctured by a bullet, havingan arm torn off by shrapnel or being repeatedly hacked by amachete — the weapon that has killed more people than anyother in recent decades due to its extensive use in the 1994Rwandan genocide.

Rather than leading to the end of war, the aversion tochemical weapons has helped trigger conflicts. Hostility to for-mer Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — because he had used,and was presumed to possess, chemical weapons — was akey justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The re-sult was the violent deaths of well over 100,000 people. Noneof them by gas.

1070 CQ Researcher

The United States, which originallylisted 30,000 tons of nerve gases andother chemical agents in its arsenal,has destroyed 90 percent of that stock-pile at an estimated cost of $28 bil-lion, according to the center. The Unit-ed States still has two facilities withchemical weapons — in Pueblo, Colo.,and Blue Grass, Ky. It plans to com-plete destruction of its remaining ar-senal by 2023 — 13 years past its orig-inal deadline. 56

Russia has destroyed about 75 per-cent of its declared stockpile of 44,100tons of chemical agents, according tothe center. It hopes to complete itswork between 2015 and 2020. 57

“The sheer volume of these materialshas been a problem, and [in the U.S.]there was a lot of backlash from theenvironmental community about howare you destroying this stuff,” Lewissays. “we had a limited number of lo-cations where we were burning it, andthen the decision was made that wewouldn’t do that anymore. we’re using

low-temperature destruction, which takesa long time.”

The United States originally hopedto incinerate its stockpile at three sites,but concerns about moving the mate-rial safely across the country eventu-ally led to creating nine disposal sites,according to Green Cross’s walker, whowas involved in the early establish-ment of the program.

The process proved more timeconsuming and complicated than thePentagon anticipated, he notes. As an

alternative to high-temperature incin-eration, the United States turned tousing chemical agents to neutralize thechemicals in the weapons and thenincinerating the final product.

“Both countries are behind,” walkersays. “But I must say that both countrieshave been fully committed.”

Bioweapons Threats

A merica’s effort to protect itself froma biological attack is proceeding

along several fronts. Two key pro-grams initiated after the 9/11 terror at-tacks are expanding the health caresystem’s ability to respond to an at-tack and developing an early warningsystem to detect dangerous airbornebiological elements.

The Biowatch detection system, es-tablished by President George w. Bushin 2003, now has sensors that analyzethe air for dangerous microorganismsin 30 U.S. cities and is used duringlarge spectator events. Plans also areunderway to expand Biowatch and in-stall new equipment, Biowatch Gen-3,but the program has been plagued bycontroversy, and some members ofCongress have questioned the wisdomof continuing the effort. 58

According to a Los Angeles Times in-vestigation, Biowatch has signaled falseattacks more than 100 times in variouscities. At the same time, experts famil-iar with test results say the system isn’tsensitive enough to reliably detect low,yet dangerous amounts of pathogenssuch as anthrax, smallpox or plague,according to The Times. 59

In a 2012 statement, “The Truthabout Biowatch,” Department of Home-land Security Chief medical OfficerAlexander Garza wrote that the pro-gram had never reported a false pos-itive. 60 But testifying before a con-gressional committee in the summerof 2013, Biowatch Program managermichael v. walter acknowledgedthere have been false reports but saidefforts to improve the program areunderway. 61

The United States also now has thepersonnel and supplies to deal witha biological attack. “we have huge na-tional stockpiles of antibiotics againstbacterial diseases, huge stockpiles ofvaccines against smallpox and suchdiseases. These things are pretty upto date,” says the monterey Institute’sZilinskas.

while biodefense efforts under Bushwere “tailored only to address the threatfrom biological terrorism and biological


Continued from p. 1068

Mohammad Zayed, a student at Syria’s Aleppo University, teaches local citizensto use gas masks on Sept. 15, 2013. An estimated 1,400 Syrians were killedlast summer when the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gassed rebel-controlled areas near Damascus. After President Obama threatened

military retaliation, Assad agreed to destroy his chemical arsenal.

AFP

/Get

ty Im

ages

/Jim

Lop

ez


weapons,” says George mason’s Koblentz,the Obama administration has broad-ened the effort to include threats topublic health “ranging from manmadeoutbreaks caused by terrorists to nat-urally occurring, emerging infectiousdiseases and pandemics.”

The broader effort includes a focuson developing multi-use antibiotics andvaccines, says the Center for ArmsControl and Non-Proliferation’s Klotz.“That, I think, is the way to go. Any-thing you develop for natural diseasewould most naturally have an appli-cation for biological weapons as well.”

Zilinskas believes the focus on ver-satile antibiotics reflects that the great-est public health threat still comesfrom a natural outbreak of a new,deadly disease strain. “what you’ve gotto keep in the back of your mind allthe time is that the biggest enemy weface in the biological area is nature,”he says.

But experts point out that biologi-cal defense presents another chal-lenge: The samples of pathogensneeded to study dangerous diseasesand prepare successful treatments andvaccines are the basic materials of theweapons. “Essentially, every countryhas culture collections that contain thepathogens that could be weaponized,”says Zilinskas. “They’re all dual use.”

U.S. labs bolstered their security ef-forts after the 2001 anthrax letters. ButKlotz says the expansion of biodefenseresearch still has had a paradoxical ef-fect. “most of the knee-jerk responseto the anthrax letters in 2001 waswrong,” he says. “we started this hugebiodefense program, most of it in se-cret. Before the anthrax attacks, theremight have been a few hundred peo-ple working on anthrax. After 9/11, thebiodefense sector blossomed to maybeup to 400 labs, with thousands of peo-ple working in them. If a terrorist wantsto get into a lab, it’s a lot easier. . . .we’ve increased the risk of theft, andthe likelihood something will escapethe lab by accident.”

OUTLOOKComplacency?

L ooking 10 or 15 years down theroad, many analysts profess opti-

mism that the world’s nations arelargely ready to abandon chemical andbiological weapons. They are less pos-itive about the ability of the globalcommunity to keep such weapons outof the hands of smaller groups of peo-ple determined to do harm.

The University of British Columbia’sPrice says the idea that chemicalweapons are “beyond the pale” hasdeveloped deep roots over the lastcentury. “we’re unmistakably at thepoint where we have what scholarswould call a quite robust internation-al norm. It’s a combination of the legalrestraints, the moral prohibition andjust the sheer tradition of non-use,” hesays. “Do people want to go whereeven Hitler didn’t go in world war II?”

Thielmann, at the Arms Control As-sociation, believes Syria’s agreement tosign the Chemical weapons Conven-tion could spur further movementamong the remaining holdouts, par-ticularly Egypt and Israel. “If we canpull this off with Syria, that’s going toput a lot of pressure on other coun-tries in the middle East not to retainthe option,” he says. North Korea islikely to remain unyielding, he be-lieves, “but if you can get to the pointwhere the only country in the worldthat retains the option for chemicalweapons is North Korea, you’ll reallyhave accomplished something.”

Green Cross’s walker shares his op-timism. However, he adds, even afterthe stockpiles have been destroyed, asignificant number of chemical weaponssites contaminated by leaking weaponswill remain, and cleaning those up couldtake many more years. The United Statesalone has more than 200 sites, he says.

“They were also dumped in everyocean,” walker says. “There is a long-time legacy issue about cleaning upold and abandoned chemical weapons.”

Biological weapons are more trouble-some, he says, “because of the potentialfor non-state actors to [use them to] gaina significant capability for destruction.”Price also worries about “the pushing ofgenetic research, in particular. That’s onearea on the cutting edge of science [that]could produce different things with enor-mous capacity to do harm to humans.”

The Aspen Institute’s Cole worriessomeone will develop a hybrid pathogen,“an organism that is highly contagious,highly virulent or lethal and also high-ly durable. That would be a nightmare.”

However, George mason’s Koblentzsays, “There has been this shrinkinglist of countries that appear to be in-terested in biological weapons. I’m op-timistic that we can eliminate theseweapons and focus everyone’s atten-tion on how to use these technolo-gies for beneficial purposes.”

But, warns the American EnterpriseInstitute’s Rubin, it’s important to re-member the damage caused by chem-ical weapons in world war I and otherconflicts, and the lethal effects of dis-eases such as smallpox and anthrax.

“The danger is historical amnesia,”Rubin says. The prohibitions have beensuccessful “because of the memory ofhow horrific these weapons can be.However, the success of these organi-zations has meant that memory has fadedwith time. what the international com-munity is facing is complacency.”

Notes

1 “Syria Chemical Attack: what we know,”BBC News, Sept. 24, 2013, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23927399. Also see“Attacks on Ghouta: Analysis of Alleged Useof Chemical weapons in Syria,” Human Rightswatch, September 2013, p. 4, www.hrw.org/reports/2013/09/10/attacks-ghouta-0.2 Ibid (Human Rights watch).

1072 CQ Researcher


3 “Report on the Alleged Use of Chemicalweapons in the Ghouta Area of Damascuson 21 August 2013,” United Nations mission toInvestigate Allegations of the Use of Chem-ical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic,www.un.org/disarmament/content/slideshow/Secretary_General_Report_of_Cw_Investigation.pdf. Also see “facts About Sarin,” Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention, may 20,2013, www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sarin/basics/facts.asp.4 “Government Assessment of the Syrian Gov-ernment’s Use of Chemical weapons on Au-gust 21, 2013,” The white House, Aug. 30,2013, www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of-fice/2013/08/30/government-assessment-syrian-government-s-use-chemical-weapons-august-21. See also “Syria: Thousands sufferingneurotoxic symptoms treated in hospitalssupported by mSf,” medicine Sans frontiers,Aug. 24, 2013, www.msf.org/article/syria-thousands-suffering-neurotoxic-symptoms-treated-hospitals-supported-msf.5 Aamer madhani and Susan Davis, “Obamaasks Congress to OK strike on Syria,” USAToday, Aug. 31, 2013, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/08/31/obama-makes-statement-on-syria/2751085/.6 “Demilitarisation, Latest facts and figures,”Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemicalweapons, Sept. 30, 3013, www.opcw.org/our-work/demilitarisation/.7 An international treaty that would ban anti-personnel landmines has been signed by 150nations, although not the United States. See:“Disarmament: Anti-Personnel Landmines Con-vention,” United Nations Office at Geneva, www.unog.ch/80256EE600585943/(httpPages)/CA826818C8330D2BC1257180004B1B2E?OpenDocument.8 “Brief History of Chemical weapons Use,”Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemicalweapons, www.opcw.org/about-chemical-

weapons/history-of-cw-use/; also see StevenErlanger, “A weapon Seen as Too Horrible,Even in war,” The New York Times, Sept. 6, 2013,www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/world/middleeast/a-weapon-seen-as-too-horrible-even-in-war.html.9 Ibid.10 Stephen m. walt, “weapons Assad UsesShouldn’t Affect U.S. Policy,” The New YorkTimes, Aug. 26, 2013, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/08/26/is-an-attack-on-syria-justified/type-of-weapons-assad-uses-shouldnt-affect-us-policy.11 Ibid.12 “Amerithrax or Anthrax Investigation,” fa-mous Cases & Criminals, federal Bureau ofInvestigation, www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/anthrax-amerithrax.13 “Anthrax: Bioterrorism,” Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention, Aug. 29, 2013,www.cdc.gov/anthrax/bioterrorism/index.html.14 Scott Shane, “Panel on Anthrax Inquiryfinds Case Against Ivins Persuasive,” The NewYork Times, march 23, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/us/24anthrax.html?_r=0.15 Joby warrick, “fBI investigation of 2001 an-thrax attacks concluded; U.S. releases details,”The Washington Post, feb. 20, 2010, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021902369.html.16 wil S. Hylton, “How Ready Are we forBioterrorism,” The New York Times Magazine,Oct. 26, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/magazine/how-ready-are-we-for-bioterrorism.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.17 “wmD Terrorism: An Update on the Rec-ommendations of the Commission on thePrevention of weapons of mass DestructionProliferation and Terrorism,” The Aspen Insti-tute Homeland Security Group, Nov. 15, 2012,www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/docs/hsi/AHSG%20wmD%20Paper%2011.15.12.pdf.

18 Ibid.19 Philip C. Bleek, “Revisiting Aum Shinrikyo:New Insights into the most Extensive Non-State Biological weapons to Date,” The Nu-clear Threat Initiative, Dec. 11, 2011, www.nti.org/analysis/articles/revisiting-aum-shinrikyo-new-insights-most-extensive-non-state-biological-weapons-program-date-1/.20 “world at Risk: Report of the Commissionon the Prevention of wmD Proliferation andTerrorism,” The Council on foreign Relations,Dec. 3, 2008, www.cfr.org/terrorism/world-risk-report-commission-prevention-wmd-proliferation-terrorism/p17910.21 Douglas mackinnon, “Top Threat, Ignored,”The Baltimore Sun, Dec. 4, 2009, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-12-04/news/0912030063_1_biological-weapons-crop-duster-bioterrorism. for full report, see www.pharmathene.com/CPwmD_Interim_Report.pdf.22 “member States and States not Party,” Or-ganisation for the Prohibition of Chemicalweapons, www.opcw.org/news-room/member-states-and-states-not-party/.23 “Overview of the Chemical weapons Con-vention,” Organisation for the Prohibition ofChemical weapons, www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/about-the-convention/.24 “Chronology of major Events in the Historyof Biological and Chemical weapons,” Jamesmartin Center for Nonproliferation Studies,August 2008, http://cns.miis.edu/cbw/pastuse.htm.25 Sharon Jacobs, “Chemical warfare, from Rometo Syria. A Timeline,” National GeographicNews,Aug. 22, 2013, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130822-syria-chemical-biological-weapons-sarin-war-history-science/.26 “Chronology of major Events in the His-tory of Biological and Chemical weapons,”op. cit.27 Jacobs, op. cit.28 Colette flight, “Silent weapon: Smallpox andBiological warfare,” BBC History, feb. 17, 2011,www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/pox_weapon_01.shtml.29 “Chronology of major Events in the His-tory of Biological and Chemical weapons,”op. cit.30 Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, A HigherForm of Killing, Random House Trade Paper-back Edition (2002), p. 3.31 Ibid., pp. 3-4.32 martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Com-plete History (1994), p. 144.33 Harris and Paxman, op. cit., p. 4.

About the AuthorReed Karaim, a freelance writer in Tucson, Ariz., has writtenfor The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Smith-sonian, American Scholar, USA Weekend and other publica-tions. He is the author of the novel, If Men Were Angels, whichwas selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writ-ers series. He is also the winner of the Robin Goldstein Awardfor Outstanding Regional Reporting and other journalism honors.Karaim is a graduate of North Dakota State University in Fargo.


34 Gilbert, op. cit., p. 145.35 Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That (1958),pp. 151-159.36 “facts about Sulfur mustard,” Centers forDisease Control and Prevention, may 2, 2013,www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sulfurmustard/basics/facts.asp.37 Harris and Paxman, op. cit., p. 17.38 “1925 Geneva Protocol,” United NationsOffice for Disarmament Affairs, www.un.org/disarmament/wmD/Bio/1925GenevaProtocol.shtml.39 Lina Grip and John Hart, “The use ofchemical weapons in the Italo-Ethiopian warof 1935-36,” SIPRI Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme, October 2009, www.sipri.org/research/disarmament/chemical/publications/ethiopiapaper/.40 Erlanger, op. cit.41 “The history of chemical weapons: TheShadow of Ypres,” The Economist, Aug. 31, 2013,www.economist.com/news/briefing/21584397-how-whole-class-weaponry-came-be-seen-in-decent-shadow-ypres.42 for more detail on Japanese biological ex-periments see: Jeanne Guillemin, BiologicalWeapons: From the Invention of State-sponsoredPrograms to Contemporary Bioterrorism (2005).43 Glenn Kessler, “Kerry’s claim that only threetyrants have used chemical weapons,” TheWashington Post, Sept. 5, 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/05/kerrys-claim-that-only-three-tyrants-have-used-chemical-weapons/.44 “The history of chemical weapons: TheShadow of Ypres,” op. cit. Also see Javed Ali,“Chemical weapons and the Iran-Iraq war:A Case Study in Noncompliance,” The Non-proliferation Review, Spring 2001, http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/81ali.pdf.45 michael Dobbs, “U.S. had Key Role in IraqBuildup,” The Washington Post, Dec. 30, 2002,www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1230-04.htm.46 Ali, op. cit.47 Ibid.48 “The history of chemical weapons: TheShadow of Ypres,” op. cit.49 Yasuo Seto, “The Sarin Gas Attack in Japanand the Related forensic Investigation,” Or-ganisation for the Prohibition of Chemicalweapons, June 1, 2001, www.opcw.org/news/article/the-sarin-gas-attack-in-japan-and-the-related-forensic-investigation/.50 “OPCw Executive Council adopts plan forthe destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons

programme in the first half of 2014,” Or-ganisation for the Prohibition of Chemicalweapons, Nov. 15, 2013, www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-adopts-plan-for-destruction-of-syrias-chemical-weapons-programme-in-the-first-half-of-2014.. Also see Alan Cowell, “Syriais said to Destroy all Chemical weapons Pro-duction Sites,” The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2013,file:///Users/rkaraim/Dropbox/Chemical%20weapons%202013/clips/Syria/Syria%20Is%20Said%20to%20Destroy%20All%20Chemical%20Arms%20Production%20Sites%20-%20NYTimes.com.webarchive.51 “OPCw Executive Council adopts plan forthe destruction of Syria’s chemical weaponsprogramme in the first half of 2014,” op. cit.52 Alan Cowell and Rick Gladstone, “Inspectorsin Syria Have Only One Site Left to Check,” TheNew York Times, Nov. 7, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/world/middleeast/syria.html.53 Anne Barnard, “Syria Destroys ChemicalSites, Inspectors Say,” The New York Times,Oct. 31, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/world/middleeast/syria.html.54 James Lewis, “fact Sheet: Chemical weaponsand their Destruction,” The Center for ArmsControl and Non-Proliferation, http://armscon

trolcenter.org/issues/biochem/fact_sheet_cw/.55 “Chemical and Biological weapons Statusat a Glance,” Arms Control Association, Oc-tober 2013, www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cbwprolif.56 Lewis, op. cit.57 Diane Barnes, “U.N. Chief Urges full Chem-ical Disarmament by 2018,” Global SecurityNewswire, April 9, 2013, www.nti.org/gsn/article/un-chief-demands-chemical-disarmament-years-ahead-us-schedule/.58 David willman, “Biowatch’s chief aim is offtarget, U.S. security officials say,” Los AngelesTimes, June 18, 2013, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/18/nation/la-na-biowatch-20130619.59 David willman, “Biowatch Stands at a Cross-roads,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 22, 2012,www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-biowatch-dec-22-2012-m,0,7371184.story#axzz2kvkqwKdK.60 Alexander Garza, “The Truth about Biowatch:The importance of Early Detection of a Bi-ological Attack,” U.S. Department of Home-land Security, July 12, 2012, https://www.dhs.gov/blog/2012/07/12/truth-about-biowatch.61 willman, “Biowatch’s chief aim is off target,U.S. security officials say,” op. cit.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONArms Control Association, 1313 L St., N.w., Suite 130, washington, DC 20005;202-463-8270; www.armscontrol.org. founded in 1971, the association promotespublic understanding of and support for effective arms control policies.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, 322 4th St., N.E., wash-ington, DC 20002; 202-546-0795; www.armscontrolcenter.org. Seeks to enhanceinternational peace and security in the 21st century.

Foreign Policy Initiative, 11 Dupont Circle, N.w., Suite 325, washington, DC20036; 202-296-3322; www.foreignpolicyi.org. Promotes an active U.S. foreign policycommitted to robust support for democratic allies, human rights and a strongAmerican military.

Office of Health Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, washington, DC20528; 202-254-6479; www.dhs.gov/office-health-affairs. Leads and coordinates thegovernment’s biological and chemical defense activities and provides medical andscientific expertise to support the department’s preparedness and response efforts.

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Johan de wittlaan32, 2517 JR, The Hague, Netherlands; +31 70 416 3300; www.opcw.org. Implementsthe 1993 Chemical weapons Convention, through which 190 nations have agreedto rid themselves of chemical weapons.

U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity, CmA Headquarters (Public Affairs Office),AmSCm-PA, E4585 Hoadley Rd., Aberdeen Proving Ground, mD 21010, 800-488-0648;www.cma.army.mil/home.aspx. Responsible for safely storing and destroying thenation’s chemical weapons in compliance with the Chemical weapons Convention.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

1074 CQ Researcher

Selected Sources

BibliographyBooks

Gilbert, Martin, The First World War: A Complete History,Henry Holt and Co., 1994.British historian Gilbert’s comprehensive history of world

war I includes the impact major gas attacks had, both onsoldiers and strategy.

Guillemin, Jeanne, American Anthrax: Fear, Crime, andthe Investigation of the Nation’s Deadliest Bioterror At-tack, Times Books, 2011.A senior fellow in the Security Studies Program at the massa-

chusetts Institute of Technology examines America’s most famousbiological terror attack and the investigation that followed.

Harris, Robert, and Jeremy Paxman, A Higher Form ofKilling: The Secret History of Chemical and BiologicalWarfare, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2002.A best-selling author (Harris) and a journalist look at the

development of chemical and biological weapons throughthe 20th century.

Spiers, Edward M., A History of Chemical and BiologicalWeapons, Reaktion Books, 2010.A professor of strategic studies at Leeds University in Eng-

land examines the development of chemical and biologicalweapons over time and how the international response tothese weapons also evolved.

Articles

“The history of chemical weapons: The Shadow of Ypres,”The Economist, Aug. 31, 2013, www.economist.com/news/briefing/21584397-how-whole-class-weaponry-came-be-seen-indecent-shadow-ypres.This short history of chemical weapons use from world

war I on includes estimated fatalities from different conflicts.

Erlanger, Steven, “A Weapon Seen as Too Horrible, Evenin War,” The New York Times, Sept. 6, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/world/middleeast/a-weapon-seen-as-too-horrible-even-in-war.html.The revulsion toward chemical weapons that followed

world war I and their sporadic use since is reviewed, alongwith the debate about whether they are really worse thanother weapons.

Plumer, Brad, “Everything you need to know about Syria’schemical weapons,” The Washington Post, Sept. 5, 2013,www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/05/everything-you-need-to-know-about-syrias-chemical-weapons.A wealth of background information on chemical weapons

is included in this summary, including what they do andhow the world has decided to deal with them.

Strunsky, Steve, “Bioterrorism remains real threat adecade after Anthrax attack, expert says,” (New Jersey)Star-Ledger, Nov. 15, 2012, www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/11/bioterrorism_threat_remains_re.html.The head of the Terror medicine and Security Program at

the University of medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey be-lieves the threat of a biological terrorist attack remains realbut that the nation has lowered its guard.

Willman, David, “BioWatch’s chief aim is off-target, U.S.security officials say,” Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2013,http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/18/nation/la-na-biowatch-20130619.America has invested more than $1 billion in a program

to detect large biological attacks, but some officials say theprogram is misguided, according to this report, part of aninvestigative series on the Biowatch program.

Reports and Studies

“Attacks on Ghouta, Analysis of Alleged Use of ChemicalWeapons in Syria,”Human Rights Watch, 2013, www.hrw.org/reports/2013/09/10/attacks-ghouta-0.The international human rights group says evidence strongly

suggests the Syrian government was behind the horrific chem-ical weapons attacks there, backing U.S. and french assertions.

“National Biosurveillance Science and TechnologyRoadmap,” National Science and Technology Council,Executive Office of the President, June 2013, www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/biosurveillance_roadmap_2013.pdf.This report updates the Obama administration’s effort to

coordinate efforts by federal, state and local governments,along with the private sector and international partners, toenhance the early detection of biological threats.

“Report of the OPCW on the Implementation of the Con-vention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production,Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their De-struction in 2011,”Organization for the Prohibition of Chem-ical Weapons, Nov. 27, 2012, www.opcw.org/index.php?eID=dam_frontend_push&docID=16013.The latest official report documents the progress that sig-

natories to the international treaty banning chemical weaponshave made in destroying their chemical arsenals.

Documentaries

“The Anthrax Files,” Frontline, Oct. 10, 2011, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files/.

“frontline,” mcClatchy Newspapers and ProPublica lookback at the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States andthe fBI’s conclusion that government scientist Bruce Ivinswas responsible.


Chemical Weapons

Khatchadourian, Raffi, “Operation Delirium,” The NewYorker, Dec. 17, 2012, www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/12/17/121217fa_fact_khatchadourian.The military’s leading expert in psychochemicals tells how

some chemical weapons can incapacitate without killing,which he believes is more humane than bombs or bullets.

Kordunsky, Anna, “Why Chemical Weapon Attacks are Dif-ferent,” National Geographic, Aug. 28, 2013, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130828-chemical-weapons-syria-attack-military-action-science-world/.Chemical weapons are inhumane, says the associate dean

and professor of epidemiology at the Saint Louis UniversityCollege of Public Health and Social Justice.

Disposal

Blanford, Nicholas, “The chemical weapons trail: Insidethe mission to destroy Syria’s arsenal,” The ChristianScience Monitor, Oct. 6, 2013, www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/1006/The-chemical-weapons-trail-Inside-the-mission-to-destroy-Syria-s-arsenal-video.A journalist looks at what the Nobel Peace Prize-winning

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons isdoing to eliminate Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons.

Lockette, Tim, “Toxic paradox: America still has one ofthe world’s biggest chemical weapons stockpiles. Why?”Anniston Star, Sept. 8, 2013, http://annistonstar.com/view/full_story/23562017/article-Toxic-paradox—America-still-has-one-of-the-world-s-biggest-chemical-weapons-stockpiles—Why-?instance=top_center_featured.Political and technological challenges have prevented the Unit-

ed States and other countries from meeting a treaty-imposeddeadline to eliminate their chemical weapons arsenal.

Sorcher, Sara, “How the U.S. Will Dispose of Syria’sChemical Weapons,”National Journal, Dec. 3, 2013, www.nationaljournal.com/defense/how-the-u-s-will-dispose-of-syria-s-chemical-weapons-20131203.A journalist explains how 500 tons of the most lethal chem-

icals in Bashar al-Assad’s arsenal will be neutralized.

Human Damages

Bajoghli, Narges, “Iran’s chemical weapon survivorsshow twin horrors of WMD and sanctions,”The Guardian,Sept. 2, 2013, www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2013/sep/02/iran-chemical-weapons-wmd-sanctions.Chemical warfare victims of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war are

still struggling with their wounds, while vital medicines arein short supply because of economic sanctions.

Weule, Genelle, “How do chemical weapons affect thehuman body?” ABC Science, Australian Broadcasting Co.,Aug. 27, 2013, www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/08/27/3834525.htm.A physician and senior lecturer at the Australian National

University explains how weaponized chemical agents, suchas sarin gas, can be detected and how they affect the centralnervous system.

Threat

Bodeen, Christopher, “US warns of North Korean chemicalweapons threat,”The Associated Press, Sept. 10, 2013, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-warns-north-korean-chemical-weapons-threat.The U.S. Defense Department says the “massive chemical

weapons arsenal” maintained by North Korea poses a threatto American troops and allies in East Asia.

Locker, Ray, “Pentagon seeking vaccine for bioterrordisease threat,” USA Today, Nov. 18, 2013, www.usatoday.com/story/nation/2013/11/15/q-fever-vaccine-search-continues/3527345/.A reporter reviews recent Defense Department contracts

and finds “the Pentagon remains intently focused on the po-tential threat of chemical and biological weapons.”

Maron, Dina Fine, “U.S. Bioterror Detection Program ComesUnder Scrutiny,” Scientific American, Aug. 17, 2013, www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-bioterror-detection.A government science panel concludes a 30-city, billion-

dollar bioterror early warning system produces too manyfalse alarms and needs more study before expanding.

The Next Step:Additional Articles from Current Periodicals

CITING CQ RESEARCHER

Sample formats for citing these reports in a bibliography

include the ones listed below. Preferred styles and formats

vary, so please check with your instructor or professor.

mLA STYLEJost, Kenneth. “Remembering 9/11.” CQ Researcher 2 Sept.

2011: 701-732.

APA STYLE

Jost, K. (2011, September 2). Remembering 9/11. CQ Re-

searcher, 9, 701-732.

CHICAGO STYLE

Jost, Kenneth. “Remembering 9/11.” CQ Researcher, Sep-

tember 2, 2011, 701-732.

ACCESSCQ Researcher is available in print and online. for access, visit yourlibrary or www.cqresearcher.com.

STAY CURRENTfor notice of upcoming CQ Researcher reports or to learn more aboutCQ Researcher products, subscribe to the free email newsletters, CQ Re-searcher Alert! and CQ Researcher News: http://cqpress.com/newsletters.

PURCHASETo purchase a CQ Researcher report in print or electronic format(PDf), visit www.cqpress.com or call 866-427-7737. Single reports startat $15. Bulk purchase discounts and electronic-rights licensing arealso available.

SUBSCRIBEAnnual full-service CQ Researcher subscriptions—including 44 reportsa year, monthly index updates, and a bound volume—start at $1,054.Add $25 for domestic postage.

CQ Researcher Online offers a backfile from 1991 and a number oftools to simplify research. for pricing information, call 800-818-7243 or805-499-9774 or email [email protected].

Upcoming Reports

In-depth Reports on Issues in the News

?Are you writing a paper?

Need backup for a debate?

Want to become an expert on an issue?

for 90 years, students have turned to CQ Researcher for in-depth reporting on issues inthe news. Reports on a full range of political and social issues are now available. followingis a selection of recent reports:

federal Reserve, 1/3/14 Sentencing Reform, 1/10/14 minimum wage, 1/17/14

Civil LibertiesReligious Repression, 11/13Solitary Confinement, 9/12Re-examining the Constitution, 9/12voter Rights, 5/12

Crime/LawRacial Profiling, 11/13Domestic violence, 11/13Border Security, 9/13Gun Control, 3/13Improving Cybersecurity, 2/13Supreme Court Controversies, 9/12

EducationHumanities Education, 12/13Law Schools, 4/13Homeless Students, 4/13Plagiarism and Cheating, 1/13

Environment/SocietyBig Data and Privacy, 10/13future of the Arctic, 9/13women and work, 7/13Telecommuting, 7/13Climate Change, 6/13future of the Catholic Church, 6/13

Health/SafetyLyme Disease, 11/13Domestic Drones, 10/13Regulating Pharmaceuticals, 10/13worker Safety, 10/13Alternative medicine, 9/13Assisted Suicide, 5/13mental Health Policy, 5/13

Politics/EconomyGovernment Spending, 7/13Unrest in the Arab world, 2/13Social media and Politics, 10/12

cqr chemical and biological weapons · 1054 cq researcher the issues 1055 • are chemical weapons...

Documents