XPost: alt.terrorism.world-trade-center, soc.culture.usa, alt.activism   
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   From: al953@xyz.com   
      
   WMD: A primer   
      
   Let's be clear on what is - and isn't - a weapon of mass destruction   
      
   By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor   
      
   02/15/04: (Toronto Sun) NEW YORK -- "Weapons of mass destruction." No term   
   has been more abused, or less understood. George Bush has made it his   
   personal mantra, and the slogan of his presidency.   
      
   An administration that may have concocted fake evidence to launch war on   
   Iraq may yet conveniently "discover" unconventional weapons there - before   
   November's U.S. elections. So let's define what such weapons are - and are   
   not.   
      
   Three types of unconventional arms are called WMD: nuclear, chemical and   
   biological.   
      
   Of those, the only true weapons of mass destruction are nuclear. The U.S.,   
   Russia, China, France, Britain, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea,   
   alone possess them. Japan could make nuclear weapons within 90 days.   
      
   Without specialized medium and long-range delivery systems (aircraft or   
   missiles), nuclear weapons are useless, even suicidal.   
      
   Last week, Bush warned of nuclear proliferation and called for a worldwide   
   ban on the trade of nuclear material. This when U.S. ally Pakistan has been   
   exposed as a major proliferator, Israel is covertly helping build India's   
   nuclear capabilities and the U.S. plans to deploy a new generation of   
   nuclear weapons designed to attack Third World targets.   
      
   Chemical weapons, which are not WMD, are blistering, choking, or toxic   
   agents. Mustard gas possessed by Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt and other nations   
   is World War I technology. Horrible as they are, these are strictly   
   battlefield weapons, requiring large, clumsy holding tanks, and depend on   
   favourable winds. Winston Churchill authorized using poison gas against   
   "primitive tribesmen" - Kurds in Iraq and Afghans - when he was British home   
   secretary. Benito Mussolini's Italy used mustard gas in Ethiopia and Libya.   
      
   Choking gas, like chlorine, is also a tactical battlefield agent. French   
   troops without gas masks defending a 4-km front at Verdun in 1916 were hit   
   by 60,000 chlorine gas shells, yet held their lines. So did Canadian troops   
   in Flanders, also without masks, who heroically fought off superior German   
   forces.   
      
   World War II vintage   
      
   Nerve gases, like Sarin and VX, are World War II vintage. Though deadly,   
   they, too, are tactical agents designed for area denial and neutralizing   
   high value targets. Using nerve gas requires specialized vehicles or   
   aircraft with highly complex dispensing systems. Gas is dependent on   
   temperature, humidity and wind. The Soviets tried various nerve agents in   
   Afghanistan, but found them ineffective and dangerous to their own troops.   
      
   Nerve agents would be extremely lethal if released by terrorists in a large   
   building, mall or airport but, again, they are weapons of localized   
   destruction, not mass destruction. In 1995, a Japanese cult released nerve   
   gas in Tokyo's subway, killing 12 people.   
      
   Nerve gas was not used during WW II because of its unreliability and lack of   
   wide area lethality. Many gases are unstable and have limited shelf lives.   
   Iraq and Iran used poison gas during the 1980-88 Gulf War - killing or   
   maiming many soldiers but achieving no strategic breakthroughs.   
      
   Biological agents, like anthrax, botulism, Q-fever, tularemia and plague,   
   are the most feared, yet least understood weapons. They are difficult to   
   produce, store, transport and deliver. Germ weapons have never been   
   successfully used in warfare. The USSR was secretly working on mutated,   
   drug-resistant forms of anthrax and plague when it collapsed.   
      
   In the 1930s and '40s, Japan used anthrax in bombs, and also released   
   plague-infected rats against Chinese civilian and military targets. These   
   attempts produced some localized casualties. The Japanese military ruled   
   their biological warfare campaign a failure.   
      
   Biowarfare agents are weapons of uncertain, limited destructiveness.   
      
   Conventional weapons can be as destructive as nuclear weapons. The two   
   atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945 killed 103,000 people. In one   
   night alone, U.S. firebombs incinerated 100,000 civilians in Tokyo.   
      
   Japanese sources say one million civilians were killed by U.S. bombing   
   raids. More than 100,000 German civilians were burned to death by the Allied   
   fire-bombings of Dresden and Hamburg.   
      
   Fuel-air explosives, or thermobaric weapons, used by Russia in Chechnya and   
   by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, can be as destructive as small,   
   tactical nuclear weapons. So can America's recently deployed 21,500-lb. MOAB   
   bomb. Larger versions are planned.   
      
   Given these facts, it's important to dissipate the hysteria and confusion   
   over WMD. Even if Iraq had chemical or biological weapons in 1993 - which it   
   did not - they were not true WMD. Iraq had no means of delivering them to   
   the U.S., and they could never have posed the threat Bush claimed.   
      
   No terrorist group is likely to sneak enough chemical or biological material   
   into the U.S. to cause more than localized damage. Attacks like those on the   
   World Trade Center may be horrible, but they are not mass destruction. Even   
   a small nuclear device would cause only limited destruction.   
      
   Ironically, the most lethal, yet most ignored, WMD faced by Americans   
   happens to be their beloved cars, trucks and SUVs in which some 43,000 die   
   each year in traffic accidents.   
      
   Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)