Dozens died in Syria-Iran missile test

[mikenostic]

Chemical and biological warfare is the future.

It's the past too. Saddam used them in the Iran/Iraq war in the 80s. He also gassed the Kurds.
Germany used mustard gas in WW1.

[S.A.M.]

It's the past too. Saddam used them in the Iran/Iraq war in the 80s. He also gassed the Kurds.
Germany used mustard gas in WW1.

The Americans tested them on their own troops.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...825376086.html

And in Fallujah

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/no...chem-n11.shtml

[Oli]

Chemical and biological warfare are two legs of the NBC triad (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical).
If you can't have nukes then you go for chemical and/ or biological.
In many cases you go for all three.
But a number of countries have now given up the C and B aspects while retaining the N.

Well, I never expected this. I feel incredibley naive...and scared. Why would they have sarin gas??

Personally I would have been far, FAR more surprised to find out they didn't.

[S.A.M.]

But a number of countries have now given up the C and B aspects while retaining the N.

Which countries?

[Oli]

Which countries?

Got rid of C and B?
UK (officially), US (officially), Russia (officially), at least.

In the UK Porton Down (biological warfare centre) was closed (as far its main function was concerned) about a decade (two?) ago.
The chemical weapons industry never really got much limelight (okay, oxymoronic sentence, but you know what I mean) any way, but that's faded to obscurity also.
(By which I mean not out of sight to the public but gone from the radar more or less altogether as a weapon system).
Biological warfare is supposedly a no-no these days because it's, um, not sporting or something.
Chemical isn't far behind in its "bad cess old boy, just not on, what?" image either.
Nukes though... different kettle of fish somehow.

Except for general incapacitating agents of course, tear gas, a number of non-lethal systems (whose non-lethality depends upon concentration - indoors you could be dead, outdoors you get a bad cough and throw up).

http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk/ser...=1064571438673

To date, there are 145 States Party to the convention [Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) bans the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and requires their destruction], including all EU Member States. Other significant States that have ratified the Convention include the United States, Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Iran, Jordan and Serbia and Montenegro. The UK aims to achieve a Treaty with universal adherence, implemented on a world-wide scale in an effective manner. In order to reach this goal, as many countries as possible must ratify (or accede to) the Treaty. Adherence by States with significant nation chemical industries is of particular importance, as is adherence by States in regions of tension.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/bwc/text/joint.htm

Senior officials of the Governments of the United States and the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation met in Moscow on 10 and 11 September to address concerns with regard to compliance with the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. The U.S. Delegation was led by Under Secretary of State Frank G. Wisner, the United Kingdom Delegation by Assistant Under Secretary of State Paul Lever, and the Russian Delegation was headed by the Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Berdennikov. Senior Defense, Foreign Affairs, and other relevant officials also participated. The leaders of the United States and the U.K. Delegations were received by the Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev.

The three Governments confirmed their commitment to full compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention and stated their agreement that biological weapons have no place in their Armed Forces.

[S.A.M.]

Got rid of C and B?
UK (officially), US (officially), Russia (officially), at least.

I don't believe it.

[Oli]

I don't believe it.

Hypocrisy?
Call for and sign the conventions but then ignore them?
Possible.

I do know that the UK's biological warfare capability is virtually nil now and that the chemical ability is (last time I was in a position to check) a "shadow" of its former self.
Countermeasures are one reason some capacity is still extant - you have to have some of the gasses to find antidotes for example.

[Baron Max]

Hypocrisy? Call for and sign the conventions but then ignore them?

Oli, meet Sam!

Baron Max

[mikenostic]

I don't believe it.

We don't believe the vast majority of the crap you post on here either. So I guess that makes us all even?

[S.A.M.]

Hypocrisy?
Call for and sign the conventions but then ignore them?
Possible.

I do know that the UK's biological warfare capability is virtually nil now and that the chemical ability is (last time I was in a position to check) a "shadow" of its former self.
Countermeasures are one reason some capacity is still extant - you have to have some of the gasses to find antidotes for example.

You need to look into the "biodefence" programs.

[Oli]

Oli, meet Sam!
Baron Max

Surely you jest.
S.A.M. and I go waaay back.
Pfft, I remember her when she was just a sprog.

You need to look into the "biodefence" programs.

Er,

Originally Posted by Oli
Countermeasures are one reason some capacity is still extant

Saiyyadati??
I did put the condition (officially) in with those nations.
I do know that effort and funding has been drastically reduced. (I think SIPRI published something a couple, maybe 10 years back on reduced biowarfare budgets).
And:
http://www.fas.org/bwc/usbiodefense.htm

These projects,[3 named - Oli] whose lack of transparency only serve to heighten suspicions further, bring into question the US' compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention.

Oooh, a black project! Must be nefarious...
(At least one of them had very good reasons to be kept relatively quiet).

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...5AC0A9679C8B63

The experiment has been devised to assess whether the vaccine now being given to millions of American soldiers is effective against such a superbug, which was first created by Russian scientists.

[otheadp]

when JPost reported it i was skeptical (not because JPost is unreliable. just because it was a lone source). but now that Jane's reported on the same, i'm nervous.

they're planning an attack ("retaliatory" or not) with Sarin???

they better prepare for hell if they actually do that. if these unconventional weapons are used, you better believe that all bets are off.

[Oli]

when JPost reported it i was skeptical (not because JPost is unreliable. just because it was a lone source). but now that Jane's reported on the same, i'm nervous.

they're planning an attack ("retaliatory" or not) with Sarin???

they better prepare for hell if they actually do that. if these unconventional weapons are used, you better believe that all bets are off.

Depends on the target: military personnel have countermeasures, um, atropine ( Deadly Nightshade, in itself not nice) self-injected into the heart, IIRC, given enough warning.

[S.A.M.]

Surely you jest.
S.A.M. and I go waaay back.
Pfft, I remember her when she was just a sprog.

Er, Saiyyadati??
I did put the condition (officially) in with those nations.
I do know that effort and funding has been drastically reduced. (I think SIPRI published something a couple, maybe 10 years back on reduced biowarfare budgets).
And:
http://www.fas.org/bwc/usbiodefense.htm

http://www.biodefensestocks.com/BDS/..._Companies.asp

[S.A.M.]

when JPost reported it i was skeptical (not because JPost is unreliable. just because it was a lone source). but now that Jane's reported on the same, i'm nervous.

they're planning an attack ("retaliatory" or not) with Sarin???

they better prepare for hell if they actually do that. if these unconventional weapons are used, you better believe that all bets are off.

I don't think designing a weapon is automatic assumption for attack; more like deterrence. Imagine how nervous a nuclear Israel must make them, considering the tendency of Israel to indulge in secret raids and ground troop invasions.

[Buffalo Roam]

I'm assuming there are ways to control it, since it has been used before and there are plenty of people willing to die for their country.

Anyone who thinks the Iraq war and Afghanistan have created less angry people in the world are fooling themselves.

Vomit, yes S.A.M. returns to the Vomit, I wonder, WMD's?, Syria?, Iraq? Sadam?

Created less angry people in the world? Yes it would seem so, killing them removes them from the equation doesn't it? and what about all the angry people in the world before Iraq and Afghanistan? those angry people have been killing innocent people since 1948, and what have they accomplished? what has it got them or their children? more death, and more destruction, have they made any progress beyond killing themselves and their children and the Innocent Children, men, and women, of the world?

FOXNews.com - Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq ...
Saddam, when he was in power, had declared that he did in fact possess mustard-gas filled artilleries but none that included sarin. ...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html
FOXNews.com - Tests Confirm Sarin in Iraqi Artillery Shell - U.S. ...
The mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles that Saddam failed to ... Saddam's regime used sarin in mass amounts during an air attack on the ...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120268,00.html
Sarin - Council on Foreign Relations
Saddam Hussein used sarin on the Kurds in northern Iraq during a 1987-88 ... A year earlier, the cult killed seven people in a sarin gas attack in the ...
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9553/

[mikenostic]

Vomit, yes S.A.M. returns to the Vomit, I wonder, WMD's?, Syria?, Iraq? Sadam?

Created less angry people in the world? Yes it would seem so, killing them removes them from the equation doesn't it? and what about all the angry people in the world before Iraq and Afghanistan? those angry people have been killing innocent people since 1948, and what have they accomplished? what has it got them or their children? more death, and more destruction, have they made any progress beyond killing themselves and their children and the Innocent Children, men, and women, of the world?

FOXNews.com - Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq ...
Saddam, when he was in power, had declared that he did in fact possess mustard-gas filled artilleries but none that included sarin. ...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html
FOXNews.com - Tests Confirm Sarin in Iraqi Artillery Shell - U.S. ...
The mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles that Saddam failed to ... Saddam's regime used sarin in mass amounts during an air attack on the ...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120268,00.html
Sarin - Council on Foreign Relations
Saddam Hussein used sarin on the Kurds in northern Iraq during a 1987-88 ... A year earlier, the cult killed seven people in a sarin gas attack in the ...
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9553/

Buffalo,

Considering you have a great point there, expect Sam to try to discredit your post by saying your sources are from Fox news or something like that.

[S.A.M.]

US "biodefense" :

http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/Bio...ed/default.htm

http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/cbw/biodefense.pdf

NBACC is to contain four separate centers, buildings for each of which are being built
adjacent to the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). One
of the four centers, the Biothreat Characterization Center, according to Dr. Korch’s slides, will
carry out studies in some sixteen different subject areas, among which will be these:
• genetic engineering;
• susceptibility to current therapeutics;
• host-range studies;
• environmental stability;
• aerosol animal-model development;
• aerosol dynamics;
• novel packaging;
• novel delivery of threat;
• bioregulators and immunomodulators; and
• “Red Teaming,” which is to say duplication of threat scenarios.

Task areas for biothreat-agent (BTA) analysis and technical-threat assessment were
summarized as “Acquire, Grow, Modify, Store, Stabilize, Package, Disperse.” Classical,
emerging, and genetically engineered pathogens are to be characterized for their BTA potential.
Aerobiology, aerosol physics, and environmental stability will be studied in wet-laboratory and
computer-laboratory settings. “Computational modeling of feasibility, methods, and scale of
production” will be undertaken, and “Red Team” operational scenarios and capabilities will be
assessed. BTA use and countermeasure effectiveness will be studied “across the spectrum of
potential attack scenarios” through “[h]igh-fidelity modeling and simulation.” And so forth.3
The rapidity of elaboration of American biodefense programs, their ambition and
administrative aggressiveness, and the degree to which they push against the prohibitions of the
Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), are startling.

On April 28, 2004, at the conclusion of a year’s review, the Bush administration
disclosed details of the new National Biodefense Directive.5 Among them, reportedly, was that
“the US intelligence community is under orders to carry out studies examining the types of
genetically engineered ‘bugs’ terrorists could be working on to mount an attack.”6

[mikenostic]

US "biodefense" :

http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/Bio...ed/default.htm

http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/cbw/biodefense.pdf

NBACC is to contain four separate centers, buildings for each of which are being built
adjacent to the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). One
of the four centers, the Biothreat Characterization Center, according to Dr. Korch’s slides, will
carry out studies in some sixteen different subject areas, among which will be these:
• genetic engineering;
• susceptibility to current therapeutics;
• host-range studies;
• environmental stability;
• aerosol animal-model development;
• aerosol dynamics;
• novel packaging;
• novel delivery of threat;
• bioregulators and immunomodulators; and
• “Red Teaming,” which is to say duplication of threat scenarios.

Task areas for biothreat-agent (BTA) analysis and technical-threat assessment were
summarized as “Acquire, Grow, Modify, Store, Stabilize, Package, Disperse.” Classical,
emerging, and genetically engineered pathogens are to be characterized for their BTA potential.
Aerobiology, aerosol physics, and environmental stability will be studied in wet-laboratory and
computer-laboratory settings. “Computational modeling of feasibility, methods, and scale of
production” will be undertaken, and “Red Team” operational scenarios and capabilities will be
assessed. BTA use and countermeasure effectiveness will be studied “across the spectrum of
potential attack scenarios” through “[h]igh-fidelity modeling and simulation.” And so forth.3
The rapidity of elaboration of American biodefense programs, their ambition and
administrative aggressiveness, and the degree to which they push against the prohibitions of the
Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), are startling.

On April 28, 2004, at the conclusion of a year’s review, the Bush administration
disclosed details of the new National Biodefense Directive.5 Among them, reportedly, was that
“the US intelligence community is under orders to carry out studies examining the types of
genetically engineered ‘bugs’ terrorists could be working on to mount an attack.”6

What point are you trying to make with this post? Why wouldn't the U.S. want to have a biodefense agency established? We aren't the ones who use chemical or biological weapons, and never have.

[S.A.M.]

What point are you trying to make with this post? Why wouldn't the U.S. want to have a biodefense agency established? We aren't the ones who use chemical or biological weapons, and never have.

Hallelujah!

The United States exported $500 million of dual use exports to Iraq that were approved by the Commerce department. Among them were advanced computers, some of which were used in Iraq’s nuclear program. The non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the Centers for Disease Control sold or sent biological samples to Iraq under Saddam Hussein up until 1989, which Iraq claimed it needed for medical research. These materials included anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism, as well as Brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. Some of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program, while others were used for vaccine development.[12]

US admits to 50 secret tests of bio weapons on troops

July 1 2003

The Pentagon used potentially dangerous chemical and biological agents in 50 secret tests involving US military personnel in a decade-long project to measure the weapons' combat capabilities, according to Pentagon findings.

The tests were done between 1962 and 1973 and involved 5,842 service members. Many were not told of the tests, some of which involved releases of deadly nerve agents in Alaska and Hawaii.

The information released today disclosed eight new tests that primarily used non-lethal bacteria and in some cases caustic chemicals. It revealed for the first time experiments to find ways to use submarines to distribute biological weapons.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/cbw/cw.htm

The term non-stockpile chemical materiel describes a wide variety of chemical warfare materiel that is not part of the unitary stockpile as declared in 1986. This materiel exists in a variety of physical configurations that range from chemical agent identification sets once used to teach soldiers how to identify chemical agents to large former weapons-production facilities.

The Italian state television network, RAI, has broadcast a documentary that contains footage and testimony proving that the American military has used chemical weapons in Iraq, including in civilian areas. The film, titled Fallujah: the hidden massacre, specifically examined the use of white phosphorous, an incendiary and corrosive chemical agent, during the US assault on Fallujah in November 2004. Former US soldiers, Iraqi doctors and international journalists were interviewed, and graphic images were shown of Iraqi civilians killed by chemical weapons.

The filmmakers spoke with former army specialist Jeff Englehart, who participated in the Fallujah offensive. He was asked if US forces had used chemical weapons. “From the US military, yeah, absolutely,” Englehart replied. “White phosphorus, possibly napalm may or may not have been used, I don’t know. I do know that white phosphorus was used, which is definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, a chemical weapon.”

The former soldier, who is now strongly opposed to the war, described how he saw the corpses of those killed by phosphorous. “Burned. Burned bodies. I mean, it burned children, and it burned women. White phosphorus kills indiscriminately. It’s a cloud that will within, in most cases, 150 metres of impact will disperse, and it will burn every human being or animal....