As Iraq destroys its stockpiles of al-Samoud missiles in compliance with U.N. regulations, the nation will probably maintain its wide arsenal of chemical weapons, chemistry professor Gordon Gribble said in a presentation on chemical warfare Friday.
Regardless of whether Iraq possesses the weapons, Gribble said, it may face technical difficulties in deploying them and would likely not use them in a war with the United States. Since many chemical weapons are volatile, they require the use of so-called binary agents -- dangerous gases synthesized from less volatile compounds as they are deployed -- a technique Iraq has probably not mastered.
"Saddam doesn't probably have this technology yet," Gribble said, adding that Iraq probably has the nerve agent sarin and possibly the far more deadly VX gas, which can be deployed without the use of binary agents.
Regardless of whether it can use chemical weapons, he said, the threat of retaliation may prevent Iraq from using chemical weapons at all. He said he suspects this was the reason the nation did not use them during the 1991 Gulf War.
Coalition troops both 10 years ago and today are likely safe from most chemical attacks, Gribble said. Standard equipment includes PAM, a chemical antidote to nerve gases that undoes the damage the chemicals cause, restoring the functions of the victim's nervous system.
Speaking to an crowd of around 50 students at Sigma Nu fraternity in a talk entitled "Chemical Warfare," Gribble also outlined the history of chemical weapons and the basics behind their function.
First used in combat by the French and others in the first days of World War I, the weapons grew progressively more deadly as the war continued. Ultimately causing 1.3 million casualties -- among them 91,000 fatalities -- several weapons including phosgene and mustard gas were released on opposing trenches and rained from above by artillery.
In the period between world wars, two German and British scientists independently developed the first nerve gases while researching insecticides. German researcher Gerhard Schrader handed over his findings to the Nazi government, which then generated thousands of tons of Tabun gas, ultimately captured by the Soviets at the war's end.
During World War II, the Germans used hydrogen cyanide, which they developed during World War I, in their extermination camps.
The Allies, while lacking nerve gases during World War II, did bring some chemical weapons to the European theater, though a German air strike sank the only known shipment of mustard gas in the harbor of Bari, Italy, Gribble said.
After the war, pesticide researchers developed V-agent gases -- V stands for the velocity at which the toxins work -- which require far less quantity to be lethal than did prior compounds. In addition to greater potency, many of the V-agents are less affected by environmental conditions like moisture and can remain in an area for days as opposed to hours.
The extreme power of the V-agents was demonstrated in 1968 when a military jet accidentally released some VX gas in Utah during a test, killing 6,000 sheep.
While the military never officially admitted to releasing the gas, Gribble said, "if conditions had been any different it could have drifted into Salt Lake City."
Since the formulas for the chemicals are easily obtained, it would be simple to create many of these substances with readily-available materials and knowledge of basic chemistry, Gribble said.
The 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, for example, was conducted with just such materials, he said.
Ironically, Gribble said, some of the most dangerous chemical weapons, including the odorless and colorless nitrogen mustard gases, are "now used to treat leukemia" and other forms of cancer.
