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Accordingly, biological agents are potentially useful as strategic deterrents, in addition to their utility as offensive weapons on the battlefield. [12] As a tactical weapon for military use, a significant problem with biological warfare is that it would take days to be effective, and therefore might not immediately stop an opposing force.
Biological agents, also known as biological weapons or bioweapons, are pathogens used as weapons. In addition to these living or replicating pathogens, toxins and biotoxins are also included among the bio-agents. More than 1,200 different kinds of potentially weaponizable bio-agents have been described and studied to date.
Following World War II, the United States biological warfare program progressed into an effective, military-driven research and production program, covered in controversy and secrecy. [11] Production of U.S. biological warfare agents went from "factory-level to laboratory-level". [12]
Anthrax weaponization is the development and deployment of the bacterium Bacillus anthracis or, more commonly, its spore (referred to as anthrax), as a biological weapon.As a biological weapon, anthrax has been used in biowarfare and bioterrorism since 1914. [1]
Collateral damage, including the infliction of incidental damage to non-combatant targets during an attack on or attempting to attack legitimate targets in war; Targeted murders or poisonings carried out with the use of biological agents, not for political or religious purposes; Plans that were not carried out
In recent years certain critics have claimed the U.S. stance on biological warfare and the use of biological agents has differed from historical interpretations of the BWC. [6] For example, it is said that the U.S. now maintains that the Article I of the BWC (which explicitly bans bio-weapons), does not apply to "non-lethal" biological agents. [6]
Strains of dual-use biological material from France also helped advance Iraq's biological warfare program. [4] From the United States, the non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control sold or sent biological samples to Iraq up until 1989, which Iraq claimed to need for medical research.
Purported Iraqi mobile weapons laboratories, actually for production of hydrogen to fill wind-sensing balloons. [1]During the lead-up to the Iraq War, the United States had alleged that Iraq owned bioreactors, and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle.