Chemical Warfare

By Jill Smolowe

First, one detects an odd odor, something like the scent of garlic. Then the burning sets in, blurring vision as the eyes begin to smart and itch. Uncontrollable bouts of sneezing and coughing follow, often attended by nausea and vomiting. As the hours crawl by, the inflammation slowly spreads. When it reaches the respiratory tract, swelling the internal lining, the breath shortens and the chest tightens. The skin darkens to a sickly purplish color, the armpits and other cavities turning almost black. Excruciating blisters appear on the neck, chest and thighs, causing patches of skin to fall off. Large lesions discolor the genital area. For some, the blisters and the terror eventually fade, although they may be plagued by side effects like bone-marrow or gastrointestinal problems for years to come. Others perish quickly, the silenced victims of a silent killer.

Of all the horrors perpetrated during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, none have been more insidious than the routine use of mustard gas by the Iraqis against their Iranian foes. Despite a 63-year-old international protocol that forbids the use of chemical weapons, the Iraqis have relied increasingly over the past four years on mustard gas, and possibly cyanide gas and nerve agents as well, to combat Iranian forces. Chemical weapons, dubbed "that hellish poison" by Winston Churchill, weighed heavily in Iran's abrupt decision last month to abandon the fight against Iraq and pursue a cease-fire. No matter when peace is finally achieved, the use of chemical weapons will remain a lasting legacy of the war, and its consequences will be debated by the international community for years to come. Says Julian Robinson, an expert on chemical weapons at the University of Sussex: "The cork is out of the bottle."

Peace did seem closer last week after Iraq dropped its demand for direct talks with Iran before a cease-fire could be declared. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar successfully called upon the two countries to end all hostilities on Aug. 20. As evidence of its goodwill, Iraq announced that the fighting would stop, and Iran issued a cease-fire order. One day later, however, the truce threatened to falter as charges were exchanged. Baghdad contended that Iran was still shelling Iraqi forces. Tehran charged that Baghdad was still using poison gas to dislodge Kurdish separatists from a mountain stronghold in the Erbil province of northeastern Iraq. Iran claimed that the two-week-old offensive had already injured 63 civilians in three villages and forced the evacuation of two other towns.

The accusations came shortly after the release of a U.N. report that graphically documented the use of gas in Iraqi attacks earlier this summer. Even those reports of human suffering paled beside the horrific descriptions of Iraq's most brutal assault, the bombing last March of the village of Halabja in northern Iraq, then held by Iran, with mustard gas, cyanide and a nerve gas. When the deadly yellow and white clouds settled, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bloated Kurdish bodies littered the streets. Despite the incontrovertible evidence of a chemical onslaught, Iraq did not admit to the use of poison gas until July.

Since the Halabja carnage, reaction in diplomatic circles and the international media has been strangely muted. Iraq's flagrant violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol did not precipitate an enraged outcry from the 105 nations that have signed the ban on chemical weapons through the years, nor did it inspire any attempt to bring Iraq before the International Court of Justice. Despite "major acts of genocide," says Steven Rose, a neurobiologist at Britain's Open University, "the fact is, Iraq has got away with it."

The distressing silence is difficult to explain. Certainly, it is not for lack of evidence. Since 1984 six separate missions dispatched by the U.N. have documented instances of chemical warfare. The most recent team, two medical doctors, concluded that the use of chemical weapons "has been intensifying and has also become more frequent." Analysts speculate that Iran's pariah status may have engendered the silence. Neither Washington nor Moscow, they note, has been eager to impede Iraq's effort against Iran. Moreover, the war's seeming interminability has focused attention on the need for solutions, not more controversy. "In the interest of peace," concedes a U.N. staffer close to the cease-fire talks, "I doubt that we will hear much more about the issue."

Even if Baghdad escapes censure, the international community will have to face up to the reality that the taboo on the use of chemical weapons has been weakened, if not destroyed. There is evidence that Iran has used chemical weapons also, although to a far lesser degree than Iraq. As many as 20 countries are believed to possess chemical weapons or the capability to produce them. Nonetheless, besides Iraq, only the U.S. and the Soviet Union have admitted owning chemical arsenals. But the superpowers are not the real threat. Specialists worry about countries like Libya, Burma, Cuba, Peru, Ethiopia and Viet Nam, some of which are believed to have employed chemical weapons in battle. Even terrorist groups and drug runners can get their hands on poison gases. Warns Elisa Harris, a visiting research fellow at Britain's Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies: "Other Third World countries can now look at Iraq and think, 'If I find a situation in which chemical warfare will help militarily, I might go ahead because obviously I might not have to pay a high political price.' "

The proliferation of poison gases, while chilling, is not surprising. "Chemical weapons are the poor man's weapon," explains Etienne Copel, formerly deputy chief of staff of the French air force. "They are cheap, simple to use -- and very effective." The sad fact is that any country with a pesticide factory is capable of making deadly gases. Iraq, for example, produced some of its chemical weapons at a pesticide plant at Samarra. "It's a relatively low-tech option," says Graham Pearson, director of Britain's defensive chemical-warfare program at Porton Down. "And Third World countries appear able to obtain aircraft and bombs that they can then modify to deliver the chemical weapons."

Such activity violates the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which outlawed the use of all poison gases, but never forbade their production and stockpiling. More stringent precautions might have been advised, given the lengthy and sordid history of chemical warfare. Use of deadly fumes dates back to the Peloponnesian War, when tar pitch and sulfur were mixed to produce a suffocating gas. Twenty-three centuries later, chemical weaponry emerged as the ugly stepchild of the modern chemical industry. The great nations of Europe decided that such weapons were barbaric and outlawed them in the Hague Convention of 1899.

But the peculiar language of the document was easily skirted by the Germans, who used poison gas to devastating effect in World War I. In April 1915, German soldiers surreptitiously installed 5,730 cylinders of liquid chlorine in the trenches along a four-mile section of no-man's-land near the Belgian town of Ypres. Using a heavy artillery barrage, the Germans were able to shatter the cylinders and release the lethal gas. In a single afternoon, 5,000 French troops were killed and an additional 10,000 were injured. The carnage in Flanders was commemorated in a poem by Wilfred Owen:

. . . the white eyes writhing in his face

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues . . .

German chemists subsequently introduced the far deadlier mustard gas to the battlefield. By the end of the war, both sides had fired about 124,000 tons of chemicals, killing 91,000 soldiers and wounding 1.2 million more. But strategists were still divided about the effectiveness of gas. Advocates of chemical warfare produced statistics showing that gas caused far more casualties per round than explosives; opponents produced conflicting evidence that it took a higher tonnage of chemicals to control a given area. Some claimed that gas was a "humane weapon" because the incidence of fatal casualties was only 1 in 30, and even the wounded were not mutilated. Others argued that these figures were misleading and that gas should be outlawed forever.

At least one young German corporal who was temporarily blinded by a retaliatory blast of British mustard gas never forgot the experience. "My eyes," wrote Adolf Hitler, "had turned into glowing coals; it had grown dark around me." Hitler's memory, coupled with larger fears of retaliation, may help explain why the Nazis never unleashed their newly developed nerve gases on the battlefield in World War II, though they were applied in the gas chambers of the concentration camps.

It is precisely that deterrent effect that has persuaded some countries to pursue the development of chemical weapons. France, for example, argues that without a chemical arsenal, the only response to attack by poison gas would be nuclear retaliation. During the 1987 U.N. chemical-disarmament talks, France proposed that each country be allowed a stockpile of up to 2,000 tons, which, while minimal, would be significant enough to discourage assaults. When the U.S. resumed the manufacture of chemical weapons last December for the first time since 1969, deterrence was the rationale. While agreeing that first use of chemical weapons should be banned, the Reagan Administration contended that, given the wide proliferation of chemical agents, the U.S. had no choice but to maintain an ability to retaliate.

Other countries are emphasizing defensive measures. Israel, widely assumed to possess a chemical arsenal, has purchased gas masks for its entire civilian population of 4.2 million and stored them throughout the country. The Israeli army medical corps has developed an injection that neutralizes gases. The investment in time and money stems from a fear of Syrian chemical attacks on Israeli air bases and military installations. According to the Israelis, a military research institute north of Damascus code-named Sers is preparing a new warhead for Syria's Soviet-made Scud B ground-to-ground missiles, which have a range of 175 miles. If the project is successful, Syria would be able to use chemical weapons against Israel's cities.

Syria does not deny that it possesses chemical weapons. When Lebanese reports circulated 15 months ago charging that Syria had deployed Soviet-made katyusha artillery rockets outfitted with chemical warheads against Palestinian refugee camps in southern Beirut, the Syrians rejected the accusation but did not refute the suggestion that their arsenals included poison warheads. In fact, Syrians claim that they are developing chemical weapons to counterbalance Israel's nuclear capability. Israelis do not dismiss Syria's fears. "They know very well that our reprisal will be horrible, and for the time being that deters them," General Amnon Shachak, chief of Israeli military intelligence, told reporters last month.

In 1986 the U.S. and the Soviet Union renewed talks on limiting chemical weapons. "The Soviets are just as worried about proliferation of chemical weapons as the United States," says an American official. Last year, in a burst of glasnost, the Soviets admitted to stockpiles of "no more than 50,000 tons of chemical warfare agents." (U.S. officials estimate that the Soviets have stockpiles well in excess of that amount.) More significantly, Moscow acceded last August to U.S. demands for on-site inspections of chemical weapons depots. Two months later, the Soviets were host to a delegation of Western military officials, who toured a plant at Shikhany, supposedly the U.S.S.R.'s largest chemical-weapons facility.

Still, there have been rocky moments. Earlier this year Moscow charged that Washington's renewed production of chemical killers threatened to torpedo the talks. For its part, the U.S. has charged that the Soviets have been involved with the use of poison gases in Laos, Kampuchea and Afghanistan, allegations that the Soviets strenuously deny. Nonetheless, when the ninth round of bilateral talks concluded in Geneva last month, the U.S. described the negotiations as "cordial, very serious and nonpolemical."

On the other hand, debate by the 40-nation Conference on Disarmament over a 1984 U.S. proposal to ban possession and production of chemical weapons is proceeding at a sluggish pace in Geneva. A treaty, admits the U.S. delegation, is still "years away." Unresolved questions include who will pay for implementation of the terms of the agreement, how to ensure that stockpiles are not being concealed and how to monitor civilian chemical industries.

More important, diplomats have not yet settled on a common definition of chemical weapons. They cannot agree, for instance, on whether to include tear gas in that category. The issue is complicated by the fact that many of the chemicals and much of the equipment used in the production of chemical weapons are also used in the manufacture of legitimate agricultural and industrial products. The poorer nations complain that a ban on such chemicals would deprive them of agricultural fertilizers and ultimately of food. With that in mind, the Third World nations aim to insert a clause in the proposed treaty that would guarantee technical and economic assistance in exchange for their support.

Even if the 40 nations achieve consensus, the larger issue of global cooperation remains. Despite the more hospitable climate in which the superpowers have been able to negotiate reductions in nuclear forces, neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union is likely to surrender its chemical-weapon option if smaller nations continue to churn out poison gas. "It is an outstanding problem getting the Third World to recognize that it is better inside the chemical-warfare-disa rmament machine," says Research Fellow Harris. "If it can't be convinced, there won't be a treaty."

Treaty or not, one frightening conclusion seems valid: now that Iraq has used chemical weapons with impunity, at some point another war-weary nation will resort to hellish poisons.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: CATALOG OF DEATH

DESCRIPTION: Description of effects of several types of chemical weapons.

With reporting by Anne Constable/London and Glenn Garelik/Washington, with other bureaus