Does Anyone Know? How Do Iraq Chemical Weapons Work? How Do You Deal With It? (vanity)

[GulliverSwift]

I'm worried, do any of you know how these chemical weapons work? If some troops are faced with poision and immediately put their suits on, how long before they can take them off?

Does the air eventually blow the stuff away? How do they make sure all poision is removed from the suits?

These are just a few of the questions I have, and I'm sure there are others.

[libbylu]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/848204/posts
there's your link, i am html challenged. reassuring.

[GulliverSwift]

That's great. Everything I wanted to know.

[Clara Lou]

Do a Google on each of the chemicals as you read about them. Some affect people through inhalation, some by skin contact, some both ways. They can be delivered in different ways. Google is your friend.

[45Auto]

Depends on what the substance is, its physico-chemical properties, its type of toxicity (nerve agents or simple respiratory incapacitants) weather conditions, etc, etc. Its very, very difficult to effectively employ chemical weapons over a large area and have them do exactly what you want without affecting your own troops. Its one thing to set up a crop-duster and spray crap over a population (like the Kurds) living in the open and not capable of shooting the damn plane down, and its quite another to catch a modern, technologically sophisticated military establishment in a position of vulnerability. One could use artillery or rockets with chemical warheads against infantry and armor, but there isn't going to be too many intact Iraqi gun emplacements left after the air war has been used to soften them up. If I was in the front, and that SOB used chemical weapons, every living thing that moved would become a legitimate target; it would make the Mogadishu rescue look like a picnic.

[LouD]

The other aspect of NBC warfare that isn't mentioned on that thread is that dispersal of agents, particularly chemical agents or radioactive fallout, can be predicted pretty accurately. It's a big part of what they teach in military Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Warfare defense courses. Once you know where the plume is, you can avoid it. Once you are attacked with NBC weapons, you are at a heightened protective posture, and responding to a new attack takes very little time.

[GulliverSwift]

rockets with chemical warheads against infantry and armor,

So how effective would these warheads be? If exploded, what is the range? Are they really just ineffective like the article said?

[U S Army EOD]

What the nerve agents do is they stop your muscles from relaxing. You basically tighten up all over and you are fianlally killed when the diaphram (the one in your chest not the other which can also cause problems if it quits working)quits working. You basically suffocate. There are several different types, some persistant some not. The non-persistant type evaporate soon but the persistant ones will linger for a while. The persistant agents such as VX can also be absorbed through the skin. There are treatments for it if you get hit. However the agent GD (Russian) is particuary nasty in that the body can not recover from it without lengthy treatment. More than likely, this is what Saddom has.

The other agent that is used is a blister type gas. This is mustard gas. It is also very nasty. I have a scar on my arm from mustard gas that is over 30 years old. It came from a drop of 10% strength the size of a pinhead. I have seen photos of people covered in this stuff and it wasn't pretty. (We had a guy working on a mustard gas mine that went off and got him) He was covered in blisters about the size of a silver dollar. I also does the same thing to your lungs, which is not good. He ofcourse died after about a week. This stuff stays around a long time. Infact there are lakes in France where mustard gas was dumped after WWI that are still contaminated at the bottom.

The best place to get during a poison gas attack is somewhere else. It can be a problem and I worry a lot more about it than the guy in the link.

By the way, we also test it on animals as I have witnessed several times.

[kcordell]

Nothing beats good old soap and water. Lots of water.

[irish guard]

bump

[GulliverSwift]

Don't worry, we're not PETA people. "WAAAAAAA"

I'm sure lots of knowledge was gained from testing on animals, knowledge that could save lives in Iraq.

[U S Army EOD]

Matter of fact the animals were given first aid. The same we use for people. And it actually worked---a few times. The reason I interject such a morbid cloud on this is the same reason why it was banned from the battlefield. It is actually that horrible. Which brings to mind the old joke of "Who killed more indians than John Wayne"? and the answer is "Union Carbide". Remember the tragady in Bopol, India? That wasn't even a war gas and it killed thousands. We had a chance to get rid of this stuff 10 years ago and our buddy Bill Clinton didn't have the courage.

[45Auto]

The most effective chemical warfare agents would be third generation binary nerve agents. These things are quite toxic and are effective by skin absorption. The deployment of such agents is, however, fraught with serious technical difficulties. There isn't going to be any Iraqi air force, Iraqi armored brigades, Iraqi missile sites (even the mobile scud platforms), or other sophisticated ballistic weaponry around for very long after this thing gets started. The greatest danger to American troops from chemical/biological weapons, in my opinion, is going to come from our own ordnance blowing up chemical/biological installations and spreading the crap around in limited areas. If the explosives used create a big enough area of heat (and everything we know suggests that is going to be the case) then most biologicals will be incinerated. If Saddam has binary nerve agents, or even the old fashioned kind, like some of the phosphodiesterase inhibitors, death from exposure could be minimized by the use of cholinergic antagonists administered in the field by the troops themselves by intramuscular injection.

[45Auto]

You wanna read about binary nerve agents? Go here.

Binary nerve agents

[Young Werther]

I worked for the successor of Union Carbide and they're anal about safety after the boo boo at Bopol. The agent released at Bopol was insecticide. If you look at the can you'll see that there might be .001% active agent with the rest being water or other inert material. What was released at Bopol was 100% insecticide which at that dosage level will kill any animal.

Many chemicals that you find under the kitchen sink or in the laundry room are potential chemical agents. Chlorine for example cleans your clothes and keeps the algae buildup from occurring in your pool. At weapons grade level it will burn the skin and if inhaled destroy lung tissue.

My great uncle was gassed during WWI and was fortunate enough to survive and live to a ripe old age but still collected his disability!

[Uncle George]

Go to http://www.ready.gov

[U S Army EOD]

Basically nerve agent is insecticide. You will get a positive test for VX with Raid. Glad your uncle made it as long as he did. Although my branch was Ordnance, our teams had to know how and did work with all chemical and biological agents. I always loved the motto of the Chemical Corp which is, "Up your ass, with bugs and gas".

[U S Army EOD]

Which caused us problems last time. The best way to get rid of the stuff is how we did it about 30 years ago. You hit one or two rounds with a small shaped charge (MK2) right in the middle of a very hot fire. If possible you pulled the buster out of the shell first. But this method takes forever.

When they blew the nerve agents after the last Gulf war, they didn't have a hot enough fire.

I don't think the Iraqis have any binary agents and what I saw was basically 122mm rockets and 152mm arty chemical munitions. Apparently they are trying to set up some of the SCUDS and FROGS as delivery systems with sub munitions.