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CNN Live Event/Special

The History of Chemical Warfare

Aired October 17, 2001 - 06:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We've been talking a lot about biological and chemical weapons, but what about the history behind this type of warfare?

Our Miles O'Brien joins us to tell us more about that -- good morning, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Kyra.

If I were to give you a quiz on this, you probably would not guess the answer. The question is: When is the first documented case when human beings used chemical warfare against each other? Most people probably might guess World War I, because that is, at least in modern warfare, the first time of documented use of mustard gas and chlorine gas.

But if you'll take a look at the map, it would give you a sense of the history of the use of chemical and biological weapons. Actually, the first place that we know of any usage of chemical weapons was in Greece. This was in 400 B.C. in the Peloponnesian War, Spartan Greeks used sulfur fumes against enemy soldiers, and that is the first documented case we know of. And ever since, in the history of warfare, there have been many interesting cases.

Now, the French and Indian War in 1745, the British used blankets laced with smallplox -- smallpox, I should say, to infect Indians who were allied with the French. That would be one of the first cases of biological agents being used.

In 1907, the Hague Convention outlawed chemical weapons. The U.S. was not a participant to that.

And then, in World War I, as troops dug into a long trench all along France, the Germans on this side, the allied troops on that side, chemical weapons were used. The Germans trying to break through that trench used chlorine gas, ultimately mustard gas. And it was a situation, where the chlorine gas caused many fatalities. The mustard gas caused severe burns and also many casualties as well.

After the war in 1928, the Geneva Protocol prohibited gas and bacterial warfare.

World War II: Germany, of course, in the Holocaust used chemicals to kill many civilians. And while the U.S. was researching offensive use of chemical weapons, World War II, for various reasons, perhaps because it was a more mobile war than that trench war, there were not a lot of documented cases of chemical or biological weapons used during that war.

Now, in 1962, the U.S. actually loaded some chemical weapons on planes to be used during the Cuban missile crisis, but that did not ultimately get used.

Now, in Russia, let me breeze by there -- back in 1979 in Russia, there was an accidental release of anthrax from a facility there, not used purposely, but caused some casualties among some of the Russian citizens.

Iran and Iraq: Their long, eight-year war in the early '80s, mustard and nerve agents were used by Iraq against Iran, and many, many casualties caused against them.

And then, in 1988, Iraq used nerve gas against Kurds in northern Iraq. The Iraqis, of course, well known to be developing programs using chemical and biological warfare. The United Nations has been trying to police that. No one on the ground there in Iraq right now looking at how they might be weaponizing, as is the term, chemical or biological agents.

Now, on the terrorist front, if you will, Aum Shinri Kyo, the group in Japan, released serin gas in the subways of Tokyo in 1995, causing several fatalities. They had also been trying to work and get samples of Ebola and anthrax and botulism to spread their brand of terror.

And finally, it brings us to present day in the United States, with cases in Washington and New York and Florida that we're tracking right now, cases which apparently are being sent through the mail.

Smallpox, just to bring you up to date on that, is stored in only two places in the world right now: the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. and in Russia, in Moscow, it is safely, we hope kept under lock and key -- has been eradicated from the planet, and the hope is that is where it will stay -- Leon.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you, Miles. We'll talk with you some more later on and throughout the morning for sure.

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