European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 6, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                R Page 8 a a a the stars and stripes Friday july 6,1990 a a v. A Ltd it x v a s s of tsp s $ w in a it a $ x y a of tuft it to it we by. 1 nerve by Peggy Davidson Kaiserslautern Bureau p1rmasens, West Germany a the a withdrawal of nerve agents Sarin and vex from West Germany raises some chilling possibilities. What if one of the 100,000 artillery shells ruptures what if one explodes How Many people would die the answers depend on Many imponderables said Henry Dodds of Jane a defence weekly. Those imponderables include whether the agents leak from the shells or Are blasted into the environment. Furthermore the distance and Speed that nerve agents travel depend on wind,-.rain and the position of the weapon at the time of release. Dodds said that if one of the 8-Inch howitzer shells containing 14% pounds of Sarin detonates in an area without wind 50 percent of the people within a 990-Square-foot area 22.5 acres would die. Maj. John curd a 59th Ord brigade spokesman said the Chance of such a Nightmare explosion is Small because the shells will not be transported with their fuses. Accordingly curd other army officials and Dodds insisted there is minuscule danger to the civilian population from an explosion along the truck and train routes. A a it a almost not a reality that that would happen. You a have to have a massive explosion to affect the civilian population a curd said. Nonetheless soldiers involved in the operation have trained for the possibility that one Shell would explode. Dodds said the civilian population should not worry about the safety of the weapons since the army is going to such lengths to move them securely. But he added a i done to think you can overdo Protection when you re talking about chemical weapons. I done to think you can be too  another troubling possibility is leakage of the nerve agents. An weapons. The steel shells will be pack in steel boxes. These vapor sealed boxes then win be packed in steel trailer like containers called military vans. A in the Case of a vehicle Accident causing spillage it would be contained within the steel containers within the military Van a he said. The shells also Are equipped with a specially designed valve that fits in the top of the Container and allows for testing the air inside without breaking the Seal. The air monitoring devices will be read constantly by soldiers. In Case of a leak curd said the soldiers in the Convoy would face the most danger. All members of the Convoy team will be equipped with full chemical warfare gear including Gas masks. Each person also will Sarin and vex the two nerve agents being withdrawn in this Summers peacetime operation Are designed to inflict Waves of casualties in War. On the Battlefield artillery Crews would tire the shells it enemy positions. White hurtling through the air the shells would blow apart sending a Shower of deadly Mist and vapor onto enemy positions. Effects of Sarin and vex a causes improper transmission of nerve impulses a a s a a a causes paralysis of the respiratory system and cardiovascular complications a a lethal dosage of either inhaled will kill within 15 minutes absorbed through the skin it proves fatal within one to two hours. Sources chemical weapons by Harrison Donnelly. Chemical warfare by Edward m. Spiers a . Array fact sheets amps Susan Harris be equipped with nerve agent antidote kits. Each kit includes two milligrams of atropine in Auto injectors. Atropine counteracts the effects of the nerve agents relieving muscle spasms and convulsions. An injector of 600 milligrams of Plalido Zime Chloride which prevents the chemical agents from latching onto nerve endings also is in the kit. A Soldier who came in Contact with the chemicals would Jam die Auto injector into his or her thigh. A pressure activated coiled Spring mechanism would then shoot a Needle into the soldiers body. In addition four . Medics and two teams of four German medics will be in each Convoy. Anyone exposed to the chemicals would be kept at the site until medical personnel had removed the contaminated clothing and washed the exposed parts of the body with household liquid bleach and water. This cleaning is designed to ensure that contamination would not leave the Accident scene. To further prepare for possible casualties 40 physicians and nurses have taken a classified two Day course at the lands Tull army regional medical Center. These people received a High tech training Quot said Dave Stewart Budiu loj ple _ _ a Dave Stewart Public affairs spokesman for 7th medical  of chemical warfare started in Wei by Mary Neth staff writer the . Nerve agents being withdrawn from West Germany Are sinister spinoffs of German chemical research. The grim Specter of chemical weapons became a reality in 1915 when a thin Blue White Haze Rose from German trenches on a Spring Day during world War i. On that april 22, Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn chief of the German general staff decided to launch his secret weapon along the French belgian Border. There men of the French and algerian divisions fighting the Battle of Ypres watched curiously As the Haze turning into an acrid Green fog drifted toward them. In seconds soldiers were clutching their throats and fighting for air. Faces turned Blue. Lungs ruptured. Two French divisions were immobilized by chlorine Gas a byproduct of a process developed in Germany for synthesizing fabric dyes. The results of the attack left a Gap four Miles wide in the Ypres  eight months later the germans launched a second Gas strike. This time they used phosgene an agent 18 times More powerful than chlorine. Then in july 1917, three months after the United states entered the War there was a third strike. This time it was with Mustard Gas which dwarfed the horror of earlier attacks. From then until the end of the War there was More and More use of Gas by both sides. By the end of the War about 1.3 million people had become Gas casualties. Only 7 percent died but untold numbers were disabled for a lifetime. Public outcry against the use of chemical weapons and military indecision about their value led to the Geneva protocol a 1925 agreement that banned the use of chemical weapons except in retaliation. It was signed by 28 nations but proved generally ineffective. Germany for instance began rebuilding its chemical stockpile in the mid-1930s a adding increasingly deadlier chemicals. In 1936, or. Gerhard Schrader a German scientist in search of a pesticide to eliminate lice discovered the nerve agent Tabun. The chemical proved 20 times More deadly than the Mustard Gas used in world War i. A amps l. Esmoil id wis or. Trucks haul a simulated Load of chemical weapons during a practice run last april dear Clausen West Germany. Then in 1938, the germans discovered Sarin which was 10 times As toxic and in 1944, they discovered Soman which was even More toxic. Nerve Gas was widely produced by both sides during world War ii but not used in Europe. In 1942, was producing 3,000 tons of nerve agents per month at a factory in Western Poland by mid-1943, it had a score of factories producing up to 12,000 tons of various toxic agents a month. After the War the Pentagon convinced that nazi know How had Given the soviets a chemical munition advantage began setting up its own nerve Gas production program. The exact amount of the present . Stockpile is not known but the american chemical society estimates it is sufficient to kill everyone on Earth 5,000 times. Much of the stockpile is scattered among eight different Sites in the United states and on Johnston atoll a . Possession in the South Pacific. About 400 tons were shipped to . Bases in West Germany reportedly in 1967. The stockpile in West Germany is composed of Sarin and vex a deadly descendant of Sarin. Now according to the Pentagon some of these stockpiles average age 31 Are leaking. The worst offender is the m-55 rocket a 6-foot aluminium tube armed with an explosive burster to make an aerosol of the agent. The rocket is packed with highly volatile solid fuel that also becomes corrosive As it decays. According to the defense department Only 28 recent of the current supplies Are usable. The superpowers have not used Gas on each other since world War i but other countries have. Italy used Mustard bombs followed by Aerial spraying against Ethiopia in 1935. In 1937 and after the japanese extensively used Poison Gas against the chinese. In recent years Iraq seems to have used chemical weapons the most. The United nations says it has conclusive evidence that the country used them during its War with Iran. But the iraqi government denies doing so. Today there is realization that the merger of simple missiles with lethal chemicals also makes the superpowers vulnerable. Such weapons can be made and stored in Small Sites throughout a country. All this is leading Western military planners and diplomats to conclude that the Geneva talks should consider not just Banning use of chemical weapons but also their Possession