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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (87188)	3/28/2003 4:01:08 AM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 281500

Chemical weapon antidotes found in Iraqi base NewScientist.com news service newscientist.com US Marines say they have discovered drugs used by soldiers to counter chemical weapons and 3000 chemical protection suits at a hospital used by Iraqi forces in the town of An Nasariyah. The discovery has added to fears that Iraq might use chemical weapons against invading British and US troops. In particular, General Vincent Brooks, at US Central Command in Doha, Qatar, said on Wednesday that Marines had confiscated "nerve agent antidote auto-injectors" at the hospital. Chest containing atropine injectors reported by US Marines at An Nasariyah (Image: Capt. NV Taylor/US Marines/Getty Images) Many arms experts believe Iraq possesses nerve agents such as sarin and VX. These work by increasing levels of the neuromuscular transmitter acetylcholine, sending muscles into spasm. Atropine blocks acetylcholine. US and UK troops, as well as Israeli civilians, carry purpose-made self-injectors. These are 18 centimetres long and contain atropine and other chemical antidotes, which a person can administer to the thigh even when incapacitated. The US protested in December 2002 when Iraq ordered large quantities of atropine through the UN Oil for Food Programme. Iraq said it needed the drug for medical use. Clouds of chemicals The presence of chemical weapons defences in a forward battle position such as An Nasariyah suggests that Iraqi commanders were expecting nerve agents. They may have expected the US and UK forces to use them, however unlikely that idea appears to observers in those countries. But because clouds of chemicals can move unpredictably - or be released prematurely if enemy bombardment strikes a chemical munitions dump - it seems more probable that Iraqi troops were seeking protection against their own weapons. Any use of chemical weapons would graphically reveal Iraqi denials of their possession as lies, and justify the US and British reasons for their attack. But most weapons experts contacted by New Scientist expect that whatever weapons Iraq has will be used in any last-ditch defense of the regime. Human waves But how would they use them? Iraq first developed chemical weapons in order to counter "human wave" attacks during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Their use, which killed 20,000 Iranians, was "successful" because fewer than 15 per cent of Iranian troops had gas masks. But coalition troops carry full chemical protection. Moreover, the Iranians were not highly mobile. The main US defence strategy for any large attack with chemical agent is to detect it, and then simply go around it. So Iraq may not try such an attack, says Jonathan Tucker of the Institute of Peace, a Congressionally-funded think tank in Washington DC. "They would have to deliver literally tonnes of agent against the target for it to work," he says. "To do that they would need a massive artillery barrage, or aircraft." Coalition air power could easily destroy either before many chemical shells or rockets were fired. Instead, says Tucker, Iraq may coat certain areas with persistent weapons such as VX, or mustard gas - for which there is no antidote - to force invading troops onto terrain of Iraq's choosing. It used this technique against Iran. Worst of all, Tucker fears Saddam Hussein might direct a chemical attack on civilians to create a humanitarian emergency and distract his attackers. His regime released various chemical weapons against Kurdish towns in northern Iraq in the 1980s, killing thousands of civilians. Debora MacKenzie

To: maceng2 who wrote (87188)	3/28/2003 4:05:07 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

And Now, the Good News By MAICHAEL O'HANLON Editorial The New York Times March 28, 2003 WASHINGTON — Last week's euphoria over a quick start to the invasion of Iraq has now been almost entirely overtaken by gloom. Pentagon officials are on the defensive when discussing their war plan; images of sandstorms and black-masked Iraqi irregulars and American prisoners of war fill TV screens here and abroad; the looming battle for Baghdad has made many feel a deep sense of foreboding. Perhaps the Bush administration deserves it. It did not begin to emphasize the potential for a difficult war until hostilities began. Pentagon advisers like Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman have been promising a cakewalk to Baghdad for 18 months; in the late 1990's, Paul Wolfowitz, now the deputy defense secretary, argued that a small American force fighting in conjunction with the Iraqi opposition could quickly overthrow Saddam Hussein. But despite this week's proof that war is not always easy, the invasion is not going badly. As President Bush said at his news conference yesterday, "Coalition forces are advancing day by day in steady progress against the enemy." Here's why things are going well and why they will soon go even better: The battle of Baghdad will be quick. That's because coalition forces will probably not enter Baghdad until they have destroyed half the Republican Guard stationed on the city's outskirts. Mr. Hussein made a mistake putting several of his divisions outside the capital. That mistake helps the coalition, giving it more leeway militarily by reducing the potential for civilian casualties. The guard's Medina Division and other forces south of Baghdad have resisted Apache helicopter attacks, but they will not be able to fend off the combination of ground forces and helicopters and combat jets. The coalition won't enter Baghdad in a plodding fashion and then take it block by block. Instead, it will gradually learn where Iraqi forces have set up provisional headquarters and strong points, and then destroy or seize them in a nighttime operation akin to an urban blitzkrieg. There will probably be bloody street fighting, but with Iraq's command centers fractured, the opposition forces will be piecemeal and isolated. Crucial troops are on the way. Perhaps it was a mistake to begin the war without the Fourth Infantry Division or even the 101st Airborne Division fully in place, but it is a mistake from which the coalition will soon recover. The delays imposed by sandstorms and fedayeen militia resistance in the southeast may be a blessing in disguise, giving the Fourth, which had been waiting in the vain hope it could enter Iraq via Turkey, time to arrive in Kuwait. Saddam Hussein can't cause lasting problems in the south. He can intimidate populations with his fedayeen, but that group is limited in size and ability, and it will not be able to convince most Iraqis to fight with it. Sustained resistance has come only from the elite forces and fedayeen, not Iraq's conscript army, which constitutes three-quarters of the country's total military strength. As for Basra, in a worst case it could pose a challenge similar to Baghdad, but it would be on a far smaller scale. There tends to be a period of public impatience in modern wars, with Kosovo and Afghanistan being recent examples. Now we are going through our period of impatience, if not downright pessimism, during this operation. But the main elements of the strategy are sound, and the enemy is still basically weak. This war will cost a price in lives, and the administration should have done a better job to prepare the country for that sober fact. But it will be won, and won decisively. _________________________________ Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. nytimes.com

To: maceng2 who wrote (87188)	3/28/2003 8:53:36 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

>>What the soldiers have not been told is that about one in 10 of them are almost as sensitive to nerve agents as the pigeons. There is now mounting evidence that exposure to minuscule amounts of these chemicals can cause permanent brain damage in susceptible people<< Very interesting. Knocks out the DU theory, doesn't it? Parenthetically, I wonder if the same would be true for insecticides and pesticides - these are in the same family of chemicals as nerve agents.