No More Chlorine Attacks?

I haven't heard much about the dreaded chlorine attacks in Iraq lately. Either the U.S. military has successfully interdicted stolen chlorine tanks, the Iraqi security forces are doing a better job guarding them, or the insurgents have figured out what I suspected all along - that these attacks are a waste of resources, considering their ineffectiveness. There's a good summary of the chlorine incidents here in the WMD Insights journal. I don't agree with much of its analysis, but it captures many of the events.

Conclusion

The Iraqi insurgents will probably continue to conduct chemical attacks against the Iraqi government, especially its police corps, and Iraqi civilians. Although of limited military effectiveness, the attacks have generated much publicity and are not difficult to mount. The escalation in Iraq will likely encourage other terrorist groups, and maybe even national governments, to evaluate further the use of chemical weapons.
         
The chlorine attacks in Iraq also underscore the negative consequences of the growing availability of such materials to violent non-state actors, materials previously used in concentrated attacks only by states. For this reason, the Iraqi incidents will also encourage further efforts by the world’s governments to strengthen their national precautions against chemical weapon attacks and to consider further modifications in existing international arms control regimes to address these novel threats.

Like many WMD enthusiasts and antiterrorism experts, the journal believes that we'll see more chlorine incidents - except that we haven't. The publicity has died down - these attacks are yesterday's news, and while they are not difficult to mount, their effectiveness doesn't pay off in the investment of explosives and personnel required. I really don't see any movement other than rhetoric from the OPCW to the point that anyone is suggesting modifying the Chemical Weapons Convention or "encourag[ing] further efforts" to strengthen precautions against chemical weapon attacks.

The attacks happened, they got some good press, the events got old because no one died due to the chlorine exposure, and there's been no escalation to more dangerous industrial chemicals (and certainly no chemical warfare agents). I suspect that some of my brethren in the Chemical Corps will, however, use these cases to continue to wave the flag about "how deadly toxic industrial chemicals/materials are" and how we need to treat them as seriously as nerve agents and blister agents. More fools, they.

Comments

[Tess]

General,

Even though chlorine is out of the picture, our favorite non-chemical is in the news again. This time the New York Times reports Iraqi civilian phosphorus casualties on National Public radio. See:

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Interviewer: It seems that if the civilians are there and the Al Qaeda fighters are blending in with them in Baaqubah, that could lead to another problem for the military which is a lot of civilian casualties as they try to find the fighters.

Gordon: Yeah, there have been civilian casualties. I was just talking to our photographer and he had seen people who are hurt by phosphorus shells.
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NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11259008

[James]

I've been rolling my eyes over the chlorine/chemical warfare/WMD story from Day One. They weren't effective; the tactical conditions that made chlorine even marginally effective on the Western Front didn't exist in Iraq; making people ill was a poor substitute for killing them.

All that having been said, a bombing campaign using industrial chemicals could be effective if it were pursued in a coordinated fashion. A wounded soldier is just as effective as a dead one as far as the insurgents are concerned, or even more so because it requires the enemy to organize an evacuation. It immobilizes part of the opposing force and, since US forces rely heavily on their mobility, this is obviously useful.

Moreover, a bombing campaign that utilized industrial chemicals as irritants in a systematic way would lead US forces to regard every bomb as potentially toxic. It's impossible to carry a chemical detector that covers every possible industrial chemical; there would be a bias towards caution and quick use of chemical hazard suits which would greatly reduce the effectiveness of the troops wearing them.

In short, the insurgents had a poor tactic that they never developed into a promising strategy. This is one of the downsides of their decentralized structure: poor coordination.

[NVH]

Yeah, poor coordination, lack of technical capability, and the fact that you can't weaponize industrial agents into bomblets that would be any more effective than just blowing up 55 gal lon drums in place. What do you think, that just b/c they can recruit doctors, lawyers, and engineers into their ranks to blow up airports in the UK that those same guys are the ones holed up in Baghdad just engineering the hell out of all their leftover shells? No, stupidity reigns, sometimes on both sides, except in this case, with this, we're reacting better and know what we're doing.

[Chemical Boy]

Hell, the Chemical Corps (err, Comical Corps) needs to find something to justify their existence besides doing the USR!

Chemical Boy

[Andrew R.]

From all accounts, Sattar et al have HumInt that is absolutely first rank. That leads me to think that AQI/ISI probably are still trying to make such attacks, but that they're having a hard time of it. Or it could just be that they're not terribly effective. Al Masri is a fairly canny fellow, after all, and wouldn't waste the planning, resources, etc. on a tactic of limited effectiveness.