Biological And Chemical Weapons Essay Research Paper

Biological And Chemical Weapons Essay, Research Paper

The Development and Control of Chemical and Biological Warfare

The year, 600 BC. Solon, the legislator of the Athenians, contaminated the River Pleisthenes with hellebores (skunk cabbage) to give the defenders of Kirrha violent diarrhea leading to their defeat. This is the first recorded use of plants as a source of chemicals for warfare.

Although not very well known, chemical and biological warfare has been used for over 2000 years. Chemical and Biological warfare has made a vast change since 600 BC and has evolved into one of the most advance and destructive types of warfare known to man (Russell 1998).

There are many reasons why chemical and biological warfare is so effective. Throughout the medieval times, Cadavers were catapulted over castle and fortress walls. Disease would spread within the enclosed walls. Cadavers were also placed up stream and the inhabitants of the fortress would drink the deadly, microorganism infested water. Biological and Chemical weapons are very inexpensive. It does not take a very sophisticated industrial base to produce lethal chemicals. This makes it a viable means of warfare for Third World countries. The use of chemical weapons by Iraq and Libya in 1988 reinforces the danger that these weapons will spread (Cass 1996).

Not only are these weapons cheap, but they are very effective. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen held up a five-pound bag of sugar on national television last month to show how, with an equivalent amount of anthrax, Iraq could eliminate at least half the population of Washington. The US Law Enforcement Assistance Administration reported in March 1977 that a single ounce of anthrax introduced into the air-conditioning system of a domed stadium could infect 70-80,000 spectators within an hour (Hardy 1998). In January 1998, the Center for Disease Control declared that an epidemic hit Miami, Florida. Doctors have not yet diagnosed the specific cause of the disease, but the illness initially resembled a chest cold that progresses into pneumonia-like symptoms. It then progressed rapidly into fever and shortness of breath. What is especially peculiar about this epidemic is that all the patients who have sought medical attention attended the Orange Bowl football game on New Year’s Day. This could be an example of a terrorist attack on a dome stadium. And a 1972 study by the Advanced Concepts Research Corporation of Santa Barbara, California, postulated that an aerosol attack with anthrax spores on the New York City area would result in more than 600,000 deaths (Hardy 1998).

Biological warfare agents include both living microorganisms (bacteria, protozoa, viruses, and fungi), and toxins (chemicals) produced by microorganisms, plants, or animals. Writers on the subject have produced a long list of biological warfare agents that terrorists could potentially use. Among those mentioned have been: anthrax, escherichia coli, haemophilus influenzae, brucellosis (undulant fever), psittacosis (parrot fever), yersina pestis (the Black Death of the 14th Century), tularemia (rabbit fever), malaria, cholera, typhoid, bubonic plague, cobra venom, shellfish toxin, botulinal toxin, saxitoxin, ricin, smallpox, shigella flexneri, s. dysenteriae (Shiga bacillus), salmonella, staphylococcus enterotoxin B, hemorrhagic fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, histoplasma capsulatum, pneumonic plague, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, dengue fever, Rift Valley fever, diphtheria, melioidosis, glanders, tuberculosis, infectious hepatitis, encephalitides, blastomycosis, nocardiosis, yellow fever, typhus, tricothecene mycotoxin, aflatoxin, and Q fever (Hardy 1998). As you can very well see, the list is endless, and this is one reason that biological warfare is so dangerous. Some of these agents are highly lethal; others would serve mainly in an incapacitating role. Some authors have also speculated about the possible terrorist use of new, genetically engineered agents. These agents are designed to take out certain people such as a certain race for example.

World War 1 marked the first time that there was a large-scale use of gas in warfare. The Germans dispersed 168 tons of Chlorine gas from cylinders against the French Salient at Ypres. Total surprise was achieved, but the success of this attack was not very good (Graham 1998). This attack resulted in over 5,000 allied casualties, the loss or 60 guns and huge quantities of supplies. The Germans attacked the northeast part of the Ypres Slient where the French and British lines met. The French area to the right was held by a group of Algerians while the Canadians held the British area to the left. An excellent eyewitness account of this attack was documented in Maj. Gen. Amos Fries book, Chemical Warfare :

“Try to imagine the feelings and the condition of the colored troops as they saw the vast cloud of greenish-yellow gas spring out of the ground and slowly move down wind towards them, the vapor clinging to the earth, seeking out every hole and hollow and filling the trenches and shell holes as it came. First wonder, then fear; then, as the first fringes of the cloud enveloped them and left them choking and agonized in the fight for breath-panic. Those who could move broke and ran, generally in vain, to outstrip the cloud which followed inexorably after them (Fries 55).”

After the attack at Yp