Chemical and biological weapons

“ Biological weapons have massive, unpredictable and potentially uncontrollable consequences. They may produce global epidemics and impair the health of future generations. I have therefore decided that:
—The United States shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare. —The United States will confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures. —The Department of Defense has been asked to make recommendations as to the disposal of existing stocks of bacteriological weapons. ”

“ Effects of Chemical Weapons a. A chemical agent is a chemical that is used to kill, seriously injure, or incapacitate man because of its physiological effects. They can be disseminated by artillery, aircraft, rocket, or by nonconventional means used by terrorists. When first employed in combat during World War I, the chemical weapon (chlorine) was so effective that the attacking Germans were not prepared to exploit the success. ”

“ The United States has renounced these weapons, as have all civilized countries, by joining the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972. Scrupulous compliance with the obligations of that Convention and similar prohibitions against the use of chemical weapons are essential to the security of all mankind. ”

“ We know from intelligence that Iraq has continued to produce biological warfare agents. As with some chemical equipment, UNSCOM only destroyed equipment that could be directly linked to biological weapons production. Iraq also has its own engineering capability to design and construct biological agent associated fermenters, centrifuges, sprayer dryers and other equipment and is judged to be self-sufficient in the technology required to produce biological weapons. The experienced personnel who were active in the programme have largely remained in the country. ”

“ The importance of this second type of surprise lies in its peculiar potentialities. It may affect a given military result with an extraordinarily small expenditure of material, energy, and eventually human life, when compared with the older military weapons. Chemical warfare is a weapon, par excellence, to achieve this second type of surprise. ”

“ By permitting the individual soldier to retain the efficient use of his weapons in gas, the mask, or other form of individual protection, may render a costly counter-attack unnecessary. In this way protective methods in chemical warfare may be the determining factor in some strategic campaign or tactical activity. The distinction between tactics and strategy in chemical warfare cannot be made by grouping substances, or their methods of application to war, any more than one can say that certain infantry or artillery formations or weapons have a purely strategic or tactical function. ”

“ Medical requirements resulting from attacks with biological agents may be substantially different from those resulting from conventional, nuclear, or chemical combat. There would be no indication of the presence of biological agents in most tactical situations. Units downwind from an attack area may be unexpectedly exposed to biological agents. ”

“ Science can now reshuffle the genetic deck of micro- organisms to produce a theoretically unlimited number of combinations, each with its own unique blend of toxicity, hardness, incubation period, etc. In short, it is becoming possible to synthesize biological agents to military specifications. Thus, the world lies on the threshold of a dangerous era of designer bugs as well as designer drugs.
Biological weapons have been called the poor man's atomic bomb. They are relatively cheap to produce, and you get an appallingly big bang for your buck. ”

“ Yet three distinct features of this weapon make the disarmament need imperative.
In the first place, everything points to "chemical disarmament" as a key measure to control the large scale use of all other weapons. The aggressive agent in war is the chemical. All weapons, except the bayonet, depend upon it.
In the second place, chemical warfare is itself so overwhelmingly important that it is farcical to con-template any disarmament scheme which does not, first and foremost, tackle this question. ”

“ Assuming that means are found to protect satisfactorily the respiratory system, and the eyes, what other vulnerable points can the war chemical find in the human organism? Some more specific vesicant, some modification of mustard gas, might arise, limited in attack to certain portions of the human being. ”

“ The factories of the organic chemical industries are more silently converted into arsenals than any other type. It is true that, under normal conditions of warfare, the decisive success of a chemical campaign might be restricted by the use of other weapons, such as artillery. But, under conditions where the latter are seriously limited, the chemical weapon becomes, relatively, of much greater importance. One of the main trends in chemical warfare was the development of devices which would give long-range chemical effects without a complicated form of projector, or with none at all. ”

“ We learn [1] that the arsenal organisation comprised a huge chlorine plant, probably the largest in the world, various chemical plants for the manufacture of the chief chemical warfare substances adopted by the European belligerents, and shell-filling plant capable of filling a total of more than 200,000 shell and bomb daily. ”

“ While some of the chemicals developed for use in war prior to the Armistice have been made known to the world, a number of others have not. More than this, every nation of first class importance has continued to pursue more or less energetically studies into chemical warfare. ”

“ Restriction on development etc. of certain biological agents and toxins and of biological weapons. 1.— (1) No person shall develop, produce, stockpile, acquire or retain—
(a) any biological agent or toxin of a type and in a quantity that has no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes; or (b) any weapon, equipment or means of delivery designed to use biological agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict. ”

“ Before taking up in some detail the methods of projecting gas upon the enemy, it is very desirable to understand the fundamentals of chemical warfare, in so far as they pertain to poisonous gases. Following the first use of pure chlorine all the principal nations engaged in the war began investigations into a wide range of substances in the hope of finding others more poisonous, more easily produced, and more readily projected upon the enemy. ”

“ We cannot envisage advances in the use of explosives in shell or bomb to render them more humane. Explosives, if their development be pressed, can only become more violent, with a wider range of action. Chemical warfare may follow the same lines, but it has the unique possibility of developing on more humane lines. The vesicant action of mustard gas produced huge casualties with relatively little permanent harm. Chemicals may be found which temporarily influence human functions, enabling military objectives to be attained with a remarkably small amount of pain and death. ”

“ The chemical defense component has worked to develop an integrated force for nuclear, biological and chemical defense which operates both in peacetime and in war, combines civilian and military efforts, and integrates systems from various arms and services. It has developed enhanced permanent, multi-dimensional and multi-terrain defense capabilities against nuclear, biological and chemical threats. ”

“ Diphenylchloroarsine, used extensively by the Germans in high explosive shell, is more poisonous than phosgene, the most deadly gas in general use in the past war. In addition, it has the quality of causing an intolerable burning sensation in the nose, throat, and lungs, in extremely minute quantities. This material can be kept out of masks only by filters, whereas true gases are taken out by charcoal and chemical granules.
There is still another quality which helps make chemical warfare the most powerful weapon of war. ”

“ They hunted for the pinholes in the face masks. They lay in wait for days in the trenches for the soldiers' return as a cat watches at the hole of a mouse. The cannon ball could be seen and heard. The poison gas was invisible and inaudible, and sometimes even the chemical sense which nature has given man for his protection, the sense of smell, failed to give warning of the approach of the foe.
The smaller the matter that man can deal with the more he can get out of it. ”

“ As with other military personnel, HSS personnel must keep their immunizations current; use available prophylaxis against suspect CB agents; use pretreatments for suspect chemical agents; use insect repellents, and have antidotes and essential medical supplies readily available for known or suspected NBC effects. The best defense for HSS personnel is to protect themselves, their patients, medical supplies, and equipment by applying contamination avoidance procedures. ”

“ In fact, experts report that some of the supertoxins that have been developed in recent years are ten thousand times more potent than the nerve gases we are more accustomed to, which have been described as mere perfume in comparison to some of their biological competitors. The Office of Technology Assessment reports that some 15 nations, including Libya, North Korea, and Iraq, are suspected of having biological weapons development programs. ”

“ Since arsenic is well known as an insecticide in the form of lead arsenate, arsenic acid etc., and in pharmacy, specially in the form of salvarsan and neosalvarsan, it is not surprising that the Germans should have endeavored to discover an arsenic derivative which would be of value from the point of view of chemical warfare. ”

“ Remember that its use was barely four years old when the war closed, while the machine gun, the latest type of infantry weapon, had been known for more than one-third of a century. Chemical warfare developments are in the infant stage. Even those on the inside of chemical warfare when the Armistice was signed can see today things that are certain to come that were undreamed of at that time. This is bound to be so with a new weapon.
To sum up, gas is a universal weapon, applicable to every arm and every sort of action. ”

“ We want to keep biological weapons out of the hands of people who are intent on destruction. At the same time we can be prepared--if these germs and agents fall in the hands of a potential terrorist--by preparing an effective response plan. ”

“ Of course, it is prudent to take measures to prepare against the possibility of a biological weapons attack and concerted action across a policy continuum that extends from prevention through preparedness to consequence management is necessary. However, as we have demonstrated, any bioterrorism attack will most likely be one using a pathogen strain with less than optimal characteristics disseminated through crude delivery methods under imperfect conditions, and the potential casualties of such an attack are likely to be much lower than the mass casualty scenarios frequently portrayed. ”

“ Chemical Warfare Latest Development. Chemical Warfare is the latest development of war. So far as the United States is concerned, it is considerably less than four years old. It is the most scientific of all methods of fighting and also the most universally applicable to all other methods of making war. The use of poisonous and irritating gases in war is just as fundamental as the introduction of gunpowder. In fact, they have an even wider application to war than powder itself. ”

“ All of this has direct application to training with chemical warfare materials in peace. We believe that all opposition to chemical warfare today can be divided into two classes—those who do not understand it and those who are afraid of it—ignorance and cowardice. Our chemists at Edgewood Arsenal are every day toying with the most powerful chemical compounds; toying with mixtures they know nothing of, not knowing what instant they may induce an explosion of some fearful poisonous gas. But they have learned how to protect themselves. ”

“ When the shell burst, the diphenylchloroarsine was finely divided or atomized and produced a cloud of toxic particles. Since smoke particles are only slightly removed by the ordinary mask, this formed a very effective means of chemical warfare.
An analogous result was obtained by the use of poison gases, such as chloropicrin, in a smoke cloud produced from silicon or stannic chloride. Here, however, the toxic material was a real gas, and so the real result attained consisted in forcing the men to wear their masks in all kinds of clouds. ”

“ With no employment available in the former Soviet Union, those scientists have gone elsewhere in the world. We do not know where they all are, but we do know that they spent their entire professional life studying how to develop the boichemical weapons that threaten us today. ”

“ It is, therefore, our intention to present a reasoned account of the development of poison gas, or chemical warfare, during the recent war. But to leave the matter there would be misleading and culpable, for, however interesting the simple facts of the chemical campaign, they owed their being to a combination of forces, whose nature and significance for the future are infinitely more important. The chief cause of the chemical war was an unsound and dangerous world distribution of industrial organic chemical forces. ”

“ Large number of casualties resulted through the men being forced to remove their masks in an atmosphere filled with lethal gases. The gas had the additional and serious disadvantage of being a very difficult one to remove completely in the gas mask. The first American masks were very good when chlorine or phosgene was considered but were of no value when chloropicrin was used.
One of the interesting facts of chemical warfare is that few if any new substances were discovered and utilized during the three years of this form of fighting. Chlorine and phosgene were well known compounds. ”