The question was posed on another thread “Are chemical weapons really weapons of mass destruction?” well here’s my opinion:
It depends.
Now that may sound like a wishy, washy answer but a lot depends on the interpretation of “mass destruction”, if you mean mass casualties then with the right delivery system on a suitable target, certain chemical agents can produce large amounts of casualties. A scenario here may be a crop duster loaded with nerve agent ( almost any would do, sarin soman etc), spraying a busy city centre crowded with unprotected civilians, this however in todays heightened awareness of such possibilities is virtually impossible and any such aircraft would have experienced an unsuccessful race with an air to air missile long before they got to any large target area.
If you mean mass terror then this also applies to chemical weapons and has done so since their mass use during the first world war, as the news of these “terrible weapons” trickled back to the civilian populations a media hysteria made chemical weapons into the “nuclear weapons” of that time, this is best illustrated by the Lewisite story:
In 1917 the US american chemist Lewis discovered the compound 2-Chlorovinylarsine dichloride or as it became known Lewisite. The Americans, keen as they are, rushed straight into production of this new super weapon in the sure knowledge that it would strike a blow against the Hun.
Little did they know Lewisite had already been discovered in Germany, by the chemist Wieland and, after testing, was discarded as a possible chemical agent due to it’s high reactivity with water making it’s persistency in a normal environment much too short to be effective. The first shipment of Lewisite was on it’s way to Europe when the war ended so it was never used in combat, however when the media learned of this new secret weapon, it’s effects were blown out of all proportion and it acquired such chilling names as “Dew of death” (Todestau) I have seen reports from that time where scenarios such as a couple of small Lewisite bombs over New York being capable of wiping out large areas of the city are illustrated, demonstrations occurred in a similar way to those against nuclear weapons in the 70s and 80s which helped lead to the strengthening of earlier protocols regarding the use of chemical agents (1925 Geneva Protocol), although states still reserved the right to use them in retaliation. All this over a chemical that is inneffective as a weapon (although I can from experience say it hurts :lol: ).
Moving on to modern times and the use of chemical and biological weapons by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan. This group used chemical agents on 4 occasions and biological once in 1994 -1995 only 2 of these attacks producing large amounts of casualties those being the Matsumoto sarin attack (7 dead, 269 casualties total) and the Tokyo sarin attack (12 dead, 13 critical, 37 severe, 984 moderate, 4464 mild). These were uses of chemicals as weapons of mass terror/casualties and effective as they were for this purpose were not exactly weapons of mass destruction.
In military terms against a modern military equipped with protective equipment and trained to a reasonable standard chemical weapons are pretty much useless, against unprotected civilians whether used by military (Kurds in the 80s in Iraq) or terrorists (Japan 94-95) however they can still be effective. What does however have an impact is the psychological effect of the threat of chemical warfare largely due to the media and certain politicians blowing the effects of such weapons out of all proportion.
Ok any questions?
Edit: typo