Chemical weapon

“ We are not slow to judge and act on the value of a new ship, tank, or machine-gun. The chemical arm is even more specialised and demands the same combination of scientific and military thinking and training. Whatever international disarmament decisions may be forthcoming, unless they seriously dismember the Defence Ministries, we should ensure that the pre-war position is corrected and that our staff conception and organisation covers the chemical weapon. ”

“ In the future Gas Troops will put off the majority of all cloud gas attacks even with toxic smoke candles.
Necessity for Training in Peace. This is an outline of the subject of chemical warfare. As stated in the beginning, the fundamental underlying principles for the successful use of poisonous gas is necessarily the same as for any other war materials. The necessity for continuous training in peace is just the same with chemical warfare as with the rifle, the machine gun, with field artillery or any other weapon of war. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A chemical agent, substance, or weapon refers to a toxic chemical and its precursors or a munition or device, specifically designed to cause death or other harm through toxic properties of those chemicals that would be released as a result of the employment of such munition or device, and any equipment specifically designed for use directly in connection with the employment of such munitions or devices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A good deal of abuse has been showered on chemical warfare methods by those who understand very little about them. It has been claimed by such that gas is particularly atrocious. Feeling on the matter has been so strong in certain quarters that the fact that all war is particularly vile and atrocious seems to have been completely lost sight of. Let us take up this matter in a rational way. In the first place, what do we mean by the atrocity or inhumanity of a weapon? ”

“ As to non-combatants, certainly we do not contemplate using poisonous gas against them, no more at least than we propose to use high explosives in long-range guns or aeroplanes against them. The use of the one against non-combatants is just as damnable as the other and it is just as easy to refrain from using one as the other.
Gas Cannot be Abolished. As to the abandonment of poison gas, it must be remembered that no powerful weapon of war has ever been abandoned once it proved its power unless a more powerful weapon was discovered. ”

“ Biological agents are easy to disperse on the battlefield without immediate detection; however, their effects on exposed troops can change the course of the battle. Some nations consider chemical weapons as a component of their munitions for the battlefield. As more nations enter the arena of developing biological and chemical weapons, their potential effects on our troops will increase. The enemy's use of TIMs as weapons or collateral damage to TIM storage faculties can severely affect the unit personnel's ability to continue the mission. ”

“ The great case and rapidity with which the German dye factories mobilised for poison gas production on a super-industrial scale has already been demonstrated. It took forty years and more to develop those factories. Yet forty days saw many of their plants producing huge tonnages of poison gas, and as many hours were sufficient for others. In some cases, indeed, they were already producing eventual munitions long before the outbreak of war. We must not remain insensible to the double-edged nature of this industrial weapon. ”

“ President, no treaty is 100 percent watertight, but the strength of the international monitoring regime, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, makes the manufacture of chemical weapons difficult to conceal, and the punishment provides a strong deterrent to developing this class of weapons.
Among all weapons of mass destruction--biological, chemical, and nuclear--chemical weapons are the most plausible and potent threat available to terrorists. These chemical weapons are relatively easy to make, and a dosage that can kill thousands is very easy to conceal. ”

“ The production of a protective appliance, the gas mask, was vital. This development will be considered later. Allied chemical warfare organisations arose, to become an important factor in the later stages of the war. The history of Allied gas organisation is one of the gradual recognition that chemical warfare represented a new weapon with new possibilities, new specific uses, and new requirements from the rear. Its beginnings are seen in the English and French Scientific Advisory Committees appointed to examine the new German method. ”

“ This House stands united in its revulsion at the reports of the use of chemical weapons being deployed against innocent men, women and children in Syria. The use of chemical weapons is not just deplorable ”

“ Notes that the use of chemical weapons is a war crime under customary law and a crime against humanity, and that the principle of humanitarian intervention provides a sound legal basis for taking action ”

“ Even during World War II, the vast majority of nations observed the Geneva Protocol, which banned the first-use of chemical weapons in war. However, the use of chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein against Iran and the Iraqi Kurdish population forced the world community to realize the danger of these weapons. The production of chemical weapons by nations facilitates the proliferation of these weapons to state sponsored terrorist groups. ”

“ Chemical agent: production capabilities
Intelligence shows that Iraq has continued to produce chemical agent. During the Gulf War a number of facilities which intelligence reporting indicated were directly or indirectly associated with Iraq’s chemical weapons effort were attacked and damaged. Following the ceasefire UNSCOM destroyed or rendered harmless facilities and equipment used in Iraq’s chemical weapons programme. ”

“ As we have been explicit throughout and as the Prime Minister said at the outset earlier this afternoon, this is solely about the deterrence and discouragement of the further use of chemical weapons. Chemical weapons have been banned worldwide, and we as a nation have played an instrumental role in installing that ban since the 1920s, because of the atrocities of the first world war. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Chemical warfare, however, has introduced a method of blocking out chosen areas of the battle-field in such a way as to prevent their effective use for military defence, communications, or other purposes. It is now possible, by chemical means, to give a normal piece of country the same value as a natural obstacle, or one organised for defence by formidable engineering construction, and manned by rifles and machine-guns. This can be achieved by the use of a highly persistent dangerous gas or war chemical of which, so far, mustard gas is the most effective example. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If, then, there be developed industries for manufacturing these gases in time of war, and if the training of the army in chemical warfare be thorough and extensive, the United States will have more than an equal chance with any other nation or combination of nations in any future war.
It is just as sportsman-like to fight with chemical warfare materials as it is to fight with machine guns. The enemy will know more or less accurately our chemical warfare materials and our methods, and we will have the same information about the enemy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Solid Mustard Gas and Long-Range Guns. We will come to use chemical warfare materials just as high explosives and bullets are used today, even though at times we do suffer an occasional loss from our own weapons. Our Artillery in long-range guns where we want destruction will fill each shell with say 15 per cent gas and 85 per cent high explosive. We have a solid mustard gas that may be so used. We have tremendously powerful tear gases and irritating gases that may be so used. Being solids they do not affect the ballistic qualities of the shell. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we think of the millions of shell and of the huge quantities of explosives turned out by our own factories to fill them, and when we realise that for a large number of gun calibres the Germans used as many shell filled with gas as with explosive, some idea of the importance of gas in the recent war and of its future possibilities can be obtained. Further, when we realise that the production of explosives can be controlled and inspected during peace, but that no such control can exist for chemical warfare products, the significance for the future stands revealed. ”

“ In fact, one can hardly conceive of a situation where gas or smoke will not be employed, for these materials may be liquids or solids that either automatically, upon exposure to the air, turn into gas, or which are pulverized by high explosive, or driven off by heat. This varied character of the materials enables them to be used in every sort of artillery shell, bomb or other container carried to the field of battle. ”

“ 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. ”