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A chemical weapon agent (CWA), or chemical warfare agent, is a chemical substance whose toxic properties are meant to kill, injure or incapacitate human beings.About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as chemical weapon agents during the 20th century, although the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has an online database listing 35,942 chemicals which ...
The chemical used in warfare is called a chemical warfare agent (CWA). About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as chemical warfare agents during the 20th and 21st centuries. These agents may be in liquid, gas or solid form. Liquid agents that evaporate quickly are said to be volatile or have a high vapor pressure.
During the interwar period, chemical agents were occasionally used to subdue populations and suppress rebellion. In 1925, 16 of the world's major nations signed the Geneva Protocol, thereby pledging never to use chemical weapons in interstate warfare again.
Chemical warfare does not depend upon explosive force to achieve an objective. It depends upon the unique properties of the chemical agent weaponized. A British gas bomb that was used during World War I. A lethal agent is designed to injure, incapacitate, or kill an opposing force, or deny unhindered use of a particular area of terrain.
The projectiles and mortars comprised about 8.5% of the country’s original chemical weapons stockpile of 30,610 tons of agent. Nearly 800,000 chemical munitions containing mustard agent were ...
Thousands of American soldiers were exposed to chemical warfare agents during Cold War testing programs (see Edgewood Arsenal human experiments), as well as in accidents. In 1968, one such accident killed approximately 6,400 sheep when an agent drifted out of Dugway Proving Ground during a test. [9]
Chemical weapons have been used in at least a dozen wars since the end of the First World War; [62] they were not used in combat on a large scale until Iraq used mustard gas and the more deadly nerve agents in the Halabja chemical attack near the end of the eight-year Iran–Iraq War. The full conflict's use of such weaponry killed around ...
The U.S. policy on the use of chemical weapons is to reserve the right to retaliate. First use, or preemptive use, is a violation of stated policy. Only the president of the United States can authorize the first retaliatory use. [80] Official policy now reflects the likelihood of chemical weapons being used as a terrorist weapon. [81] [82]