IMPACTS OF

CHEMICAL
WEAPONS ON THE
ENVIRONMENT.
BY YACINE BAKO

VIETNAM WAR
Study case
Approximately 19 million gallons of Agent Orange were used by the US military in
southern Vietnam between 1962 and 1971. An aggressive herbicide which defoliates
trees, it was used on a large scale in Vietnams jungles to enable US troops to spot
Communist troops more easily. It eradicated around 15% of South Vietnams
vegetation, and gave rise to serious health problems for the soldiers, civilians and
local wildlife that were exposed to it. Agent Orange contains dioxin, a highly toxic
substance that is still detected in the bodies of Vietnamese people today. It
contaminated the soil and rivers and, through the food chain, passed into fish - a
staple of the Vietnamese diet.

Agent
orange
Apart from the serious human health effects of Agent Orange - which
include cancer and birth defects - the rapid loss of vegetation that it causes
leads to severe soil erosion. This contributes to a major drop in species
population due to habitat degradation. High concentrations of dioxin persist
in the land, and ecosystems have suffered irreversible damage.

Chemical weapons

Chemical weapons have shown to be largely ineffective in warfare, chemical

weapons have never been deployed on any significant scale. These should be
better voted as weapons of terror against civilians and weapons of intimidation for
soldiers. Requirements on their transport system differ vastly from those for
nuclear warheads. They are able to cause considerable anxiety, panic, and
psychosis without borders within large parts of the population. Stockpiling of
biological weapons is not possible over a long time scale. Only nuclear weapons are
completely indiscriminate by their explosive power, heat radiation and
radioactivity, and only they should therefore be called a weapon of mass
destruction.

EFFECT ON CROPS
Intentionally unleashing organisms that kill an enemys food crops is a potentially
devastating weapon of warfare and terrorism All major food crops come in a
number of varieties, each usually suited to specific climate and soil conditions.
These varieties have varying sensitivities to particular diseases. Crop pathogens, in
turn, come in different strains or races and can be targeted efficiently against those
crop brands. This way it might be possible to attack the enemys food stock, but
preventing damage to the own. However, such a strategy may not work for
neighboring countries, where agricultural conditions are similar to the aggressor.
The spread of those organisms holds the risk of worldwide epidemic, and the use of
these weapons may very well be counter productive. Any such warfare would be
directed primarily against the civilian population. Due to the delays involved it
would not affect immediately the outcome of a war.

TOXINS

Toxins are poisonous substances usually produced by living organisms. Toxin

warfare (TW) agents, or toxic weapons, are toxins used for hostile purposes. TW
agents unequivocally are types of chemical warfare (CW) agent. CW agents, or
chemical weapons, are chemical substances whether gaseous, liquid, or solid,
which are used for hostile purposes to cause disease or death in humans, animals
or plants and which depend on their direct toxicity for their primary effect.

DEPLETED URANIUM
Depleted uranium (DU) is easily ingested by humans because it turns into
radioactive dust on impact. As a result, hundreds of thousands of civilians and
soldiers have been exposed to a highly toxic, radioactive substance and have
suffered the numerous effects of this. In fact, the World Health Organization
suggests that young children in particular are at great risk because typical handto-mouth activity of inquisitive play could lead to high DU ingestion from
contaminated soil. At least 600,000 pounds of DU and uranium dust were left in
the Middle East after the Gulf War. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the health
effects of DU will be a long-term problem.

PRODUCTION
Currently the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, India, Israel and
Pakistan possess nuclear weapons. Iran and North Korea are acquiring the
technology to build them and there is the possibility that other countries will follow.
The manufacture and testing of nuclear weapons also damages eco-systems. Large
areas of land have been contaminated in the states of Nevada and New Mexico in
the USA, and in French Polynesia, South Australia, and parts of Russia and China.
There are waste disposal problems from the manufacture of nuclear weapons in
both the USA and Russia.

WASTE
Russia has a large number of discarded nuclear-powered submarines. Most
belonged to the Russian Navys Northern Fleet at the Arctic Circle in the Barents
Sea, with others once part of its Pacific Fleet at Vladivostok. Russia built its first
nuclear-powered submarine in 1959 but the race to build more submarines during
the Cold War overtook the construction of facilities to handle the spent nuclear fuel
and radioactive waste. Most of this was stored at naval maintenance yards or at
submarine bases. Some of the waste went into the Barents and Kara Seas. In 1980
there were about 120 submarines but, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1991, there are now only 40 in operation. The unused submarines are laid up and
deteriorating, with the increasing risk of radioactive material leaching out. Russia
has been promised assistance by the Group of Eight (G8) countries.