Weapons: Coping with Chemicals

By Lisa Beyer

Just one whiff of mustard gas can sear the lining of a soldier's lungs and cause large, painful blisters to form on his face and body. Only a tiny drop of the nerve gas Tabun will make a stricken combatant twitch and convulse; then his lungs will fill with liquid, and his diaphragm will collapse, causing suffocation. A dose of inhaled anthrax spores will bring on hemorrhaging, then shock and very likely death.

Such is the hell of chemical and biological warfare. Like most nightmares, however, an unconventional Iraqi assault on the allied forces might not be quite as ghastly as its potential victims imagine. The last major experience American and European troops had with poison gas was gruesome enough: in World War I, both sides used it, causing 91,000 deaths, many of the victims dying miserably after coughing up mouthfuls of yellow fluid. Since then, chemical weapons have grown more sophisticated, but so have the techniques to combat them. Says Lieut. Colonel Glenn Tripp, a doctor at MedBase America, a medical evacuation center in the Saudi desert: "The chemical threat is overrated."

Allied commanders assume that as soon as the ground war begins, Saddam Hussein will make good on his threat to gas their troops. "If there's a ground war, it's virtually certain," says Matthew Bunn, editor of Arms Control Today. Chemicals have worked for Saddam before. Many experts believe Tehran's reluctant acceptance of a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war was prompted by its 45,000 chemical casualties. But the allies, unlike the Iranians, are well prepared for a dirty fight. While chemical strikes will slow the coalition down, "they will not win the war for Saddam," says a senior British official. "They will not cause mass casualties in the front line, nor a re-enactment of the horrors of World War I."

Saddam's chemical wallop has been limited by the bombing campaign, which the allies contend has completely destroyed the country's chemical-weapons plants. Baghdad is thought to have as much as 4,000 tons of toxins stockpiled in Kuwait and Iraq, but that number sounds more impressive than it really is. A high degree of saturation is required if an attack is to be effective; 26 tons of mustard gas, for example, is needed to cover a single square mile for perhaps a few days.

The best way to blanket an area with toxins is by flying overhead and either spraying them crop-duster style or dropping them in bombs. These are the means by which Saddam gassed his own Kurdish minority in 1988. But any plane that Saddam would send up against the allies would probably get shot down in short order. Thus, the Iraqis are more likely to deliver their noxious poisons using artillery shells, missiles and rockets. It would take a terrific barrage of any of these to soak enemy troops thoroughly, and once the blasting started, allied bombers would furiously attack the culprits. "Once they're out in the open," says an American pilot, "they're dead meat." The Iraqis might also load mines with chemicals, but these would deliver an isolated punch.

By their very nature, chemical weapons are unreliable. They require ideal weather: not too hot, or the stuff will dissipate; not too windy, or the gases will disperse or possibly blow back onto the attacker. Of course, Saddam will seek to maximize the conditions, probably by using poisons late at night or early in the morning, when the temperatures are cooler. Because nerve gases like Sarin and Tabun disperse within minutes or, if enhanced with oil thickeners, within hours, Saddam is expected to lob these agents close to the front lines. He is likely to aim persistent toxins like mustard gas, which linger for days, deeper into allied ranks.

Even when delivered successfully, chemicals may not be as deadly as imagined. In World War I, notes Matthew Meselson, a professor of biology at Harvard, "shell for shell, there were more deaths from conventional munitions." Only about 5% of the Iranians gassed by the Iraqis died; the figure might have been even lower if all the Iranians had been beardless, thus allowing for a tight fit of their gas masks.

While the Iranians were ill prepared for a chemical attack, the allied forces are ready. Automated alarm systems deployed along the front will warn of chemical emissions. Any allied advance into Kuwait or Iraq will be accompanied by German-made vehicles called Fuchs. These bizarre-looking rovers, which have chemical probes sprouting from their armor, will move ahead of the troops, sniffing for trouble.

By now, U.S. soldiers, who carry their chemical gear at all times, are well rehearsed in donning their protective suits quickly. Some soldiers can get their masks on in four seconds. If a soldier gets gassed before he suits up or suffers ill effects despite the garment, which does not offer 100% protection, he can inject himself with antidotes. Combined with prophylactic pills given to troops facing a chemical danger, these can cut the lethality of an exposure by four-fifths.

Saddam's primary objective in a chemical strike would probably be to break | up, disorganize and delay charging forces. Troops cannot move fast in those awkward suits without getting overheated. Soldiers would have to pause frequently to sip water, kept in sealed containers, through straws attached to their masks. Communications are also complicated. The masks have a microphone attachment, but the sound is poor. And because it is difficult to tell one suited soldier from another, commanders are not easily recognized.

Nevertheless, allied forces are prepared to "fight dirty" if necessary, that is, to continue an attack even if gassed. This poses logistical problems. Once a vehicle is contaminated, it must be kept away from clean ones, lest it pollute them too. With each round trip, resupply trucks that move from the front and back would have to be thoroughly cleansed, which can take up to 2 1/ 2 hours. The same goes for vehicles transporting casualties. Gas victims must be isolated from other patients and given a thorough bathing in a hydrochloric-acid solution before being tended to by medical personnel.

Biological weapons are a far greater threat than chemical agents. Iraq is thought to have a limited capability to attack with biological agents, which pound for pound are deadlier than any other weapon, except for nuclear bombs. U.S. officials maintain that the masks handed out to the troops will also filter out most airborne germs. Yet there is no easy way to know immediately when such elements are present. All front-line combat troops have been inoculated against anthrax, which is considered Iraq's most likely germ choice, but not against many other potential diseases like tularemia and plague.

To some extent, Saddam doesn't actually have to use these deadly arms to achieve a large part of their power, which is to terrorize his opponents. "Chemical weapons are mind altering," says a Western official in Dhahran, "and they alter the mind before they're used." Just threatening to introduce them frightens troops, and that may subtly erode morale.

With reporting by Frank Melville/London, Dick Thompson/Dhahran and Bruce van Voorst/Washington