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Toxins are poisonous substances usually produced by living organisms. Toxin warfare (TW) agents, or toxic weapons, are toxins used for hostile purposes.
CW agents, or chemical weapons, are chemical substances whether gaseous, liquid, or solid, which are used for hostile purposes to cause disease or death in humans, animals or plants and which depend on their direct toxicity for their primary effect.
TW agents, like all other CW agents, are inanimate and are incapable of multiplying. They are CW agents irrespective of whether they are produced by a living organism or by chemical synthesis or even whether they are responsible for the qualification of that organism as a BW agent.
Nevertheless, TW agents are often mistakenly considered to be biological weapons, and definitions of biological warfare (BW) occasionally include TW agents.
New chemical weapons agents, who are 5 to 10 times more dangerous than VX, the most dangerous toxic gas known today.
Effects
A one-megaton nuclear bomb, a study found, might kill 90 percent of unprotected people over an area of 300 square kilometers. A chemical weapon of 15 tons might kill 50 percent of the people in a 60 square kilometer area. But a 10-ton biological weapon could kill 25 percent of the people, and make 50 percent ill, over an area of 100'000 square kilometres.
These efficiencies assume, however, that chemical and biological agents can be spread over a large surface and reach the ground level, whereas nuclear weapons can be exploded at any predetermined altitude and on ground level with the desired efficiency. By their nature, chemical arms have a relatively limited range: they create regional rather than global security problems, and slow the tempo of operations. In this, they are militarily more akin to conventional arms than to nuclear or biological weapons.
The efficiency of chemical and biological weapons depends heavily on its dispersion, the upon the weather condition, determining the exposure and lethality for the combatants.
A presumptive agent must not only be highly toxic, but also 'suitably highly toxic', so that it is not too difficult to handle by the user. It must be possible to store the substance in containers for long periods without degradation and without corroding the packaging material. Such an agent must be relatively resistant to atmospheric water and oxygen so that it does not lose its effect when dispersed. It must also withstand the shearing forces created by the explosion and heat when it is dispersed. Transport of these agents by long-range missiles and efficient distribution will face enormous difficulties, causing their decomposition, mainly due to the heat development of the warhead at re-entry into the atmosphere.
Under ideal conditions 1 ton of Sarin dropped from an airplane could produce 3'000 to 8'000 deaths, however, under breezy conditions only 300 to 800. To obtain a sensible effect requires that airplanes fly at very low altitude (less than about 100 meters), and consequently the zone of lethality that could be covered remains small. Furthermore, agent particles larger than 10 micrometers do not reach the non-ciliated alveolar region in the lungs, and those, with a size of about 1-micrometer are exhaled. The optimal size is somewhere between 10 to 5 micrometers, which can not be obtained easily. Sunlight kills or denatures most biological agents. Anthrax efficiency may drop by a factor of thousand when the agent is used during a sunny day. Therefore, the agents have to be sprayed during nighttime.
History
As early as 300 BC the Greeks polluted the wells and drinking water supplies of their enemies with the corpses of animals. Later the Romans and Persians used the same tactics. In 1155 at a battle in Tortona, Italy, Barbarossa broadened the scope of biological warfare, using the bodies of dead soldiers as well as animals to pollute wells. The Greeks were alos the first to use chemicals weapons when using sulfur mixtures with pitch resin for producing suffocating fumes in 431 BC during the Trojan War.
During World War I an estimated 124'000 tons of chemicals were used in warfare by all parties. Mustard gas - "the king of battle gases" - was then used on both sides in 1917, killed 91'000 and injured 1.2 million, accounting for 80% of the chemical casualties (death or injury). Chemical weapons caused about 3 percent of the estimated 15 million casualties on the Western Front . To put these numbers into perspective, the total loss of Allied lives was ³ 5 million, of the Central Powers 3.4 million, and the total of all wounded soldiers 21 million. . In 1915, Germany was accused of using cholera in Italy and plague in St. Petersburg. There is evidence Germany used glanders and anthrax to infect horses (1914) and cattle, respectively, in Bucharest in 1916, and employed similar tactics to infect 4'500 mules in Mesopotamia the next year.
The inhuman aspect and suffering was soon recognized and the year 1922 saw the establishment of the Washington Treaty, signed by the United States, Japan, France, Italy and Britain. In 1925 the Geneva Protocol for the prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating poisonous or other gases and bacteriological methods of warfare was signed, and it had been a cornerstone of chemical arms control since then. The Geneva Protocol did neither forbid the stockpiling or the research on chemical weapons.
Despite the conventions, banning chemical weapons, Italians used them during the war 1935-36 in Ethiopia, the Japanese in China during World War II (1938-42), and they were used also in Yemen (1966-67). Various new chemicals were developed for use in weapons. Sarin, Soman, and VX followed Tabun, the first nerve gas, discovered in 1936.
During the Vietnam War (1961-1973), the US was accused of using lachrymatory agents and heavy doses of herbicides (defoliants) in much the same manner as chemical weapons. Some international organizations consider Napalm, its trade name, to be a chemical weapon, others put it on equal level with flame throwers, and consequently not falling under any of the articles of the CWC.
Sadism Hussein used chemical weapons against Iraqi civilians as well as against Iran soldiers between 1980 and 1988, with only a very small portion of total Iranian battle casualties. It is estimated that approximately 45'000 people were exposed to mustard gas in that war.
The Aum-Shinrikyo sect in Japan has spent more than $10 million in their effort to produce chemical and biological weapons.
However, Aum failed to produce either of two biological agents, Clostridium botulinum, to obtain Botulinum toxin, and anthrax, and also did not manage to "disperse" them. There are two well-publicized Aum attacks with chemical agents (Matsumoto, 3 kg of pure Sarin, 1994; Tokyo subway, 6-7 kg 30% pure Sarin, 1995), made under ideal conditions. Nevertheless, the Matsumoto assault killed only seven non-targeted innocents, and in Tokyo only twelve people died from direct contact with the liquid. Aum sprayed botulinum toxin over Tokyo several times in 1990, and conducted similar activities with anthrax spores in 1993, but without any known effects. Actually, the cult had used a relatively harmless anthrax vaccine strain and the aerosolizer had no sufficient efficiency.
Strategies
Compared with atomic bombs, bioweapons are cheap, simple to produce, and easy to conceal. They are also hard to control, although that unpredictability could appeal to a terrorist organization. John Leslie, a philosopher at the University of Guelph in Ontario, points out that genetic engineering might permit the creation of "ethnic" biological weapons that are tailored to attack primarily one ethnic.
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons And on Their Destruction (CWC) [6], signed as of May 1999 by 122 states-parties, entered into force in 1997 after deposit of 65 ratification documents. There are 46 non-ratifying signatories, and 22 non-states parties [7]. The CWC not only prohibits the use, production, acquisition and transfer of chemical weapons, but also requires the states-parties to destroy their existing weapons and production facilities. For the US the deadline is April 29, 2007. The CWC prohibits disposal by dumping into a body of water, land burial or open-pit burning, and requires that the chosen technology destroy the chemical agent in an irreversible manner that also protects the safety of humans and the environment.
The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibits bacteria such as salmonella being used against soldiers. It would permit bacteria, that eat petroleum or rubber for the destruction of equipment for peaceful purposes, but prohibits their use for hostile application.
Chemical weapons are buried on land, dumped into the sea and simply lost at many places on our globe. Finding, collecting and destroying them might be as difficult, dangerous and time consuming as those of land mines. Ensuring safety from biological and toxin weapons is a more complex issue than controlling chemical or nuclear weapons. This is due to the character of the relevant technologies. More than those, biotechnology is of dual-use, i.e. the same technology can be used for civilian and permitted military defensive purposes as well as for prohibited offensive or terrorist purposes.
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