Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: nelson@ee.udel.edu (Mark Nelson) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait. Message-ID: <1990Aug14.034029.9501@cbnews.att.com> Date: 14 Aug 90 03:40:29 GMT References: <1990Aug9.020039.8873@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: University of Delaware Lines: 33 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Mark Nelson In article <1990Aug9.020039.8873@cbnews.att.com> mailrus!sharkey!amara!mcdaniel@uunet.UU.NET (Tim McDaniel) writes: >Suppose Iraq were to use tactical chemical weapons against U.S. >forces, be it Marines/Army or Navy. > >- Is the stuff actually usable in the area? (If the Army uses > rubberized suits, say, I rather have my doubts.) According to a report on CNN, the Army's chemical protection suits are made of cloth, impregnated with activated charcoal to absorb or neutralize the chemical agents. Of course, the head mask is rubber, and the soldiers wear rubber gloves. The normal helmet and boots are worn, with something over the boots (it wasn't specified what, but it did look awfully ungainly.) >- What, if anything, did Iran and Iraq use in their war? As far as the Iraqi chemical stockpile, they have mustard gas and one of the more primitive nerve gasses (I don't remember the name). Their nerve gas was originally developed in Germany during WWII, and is based on a common pesticide. Although mustard gas is not usually fatal, during the Iran/Iraq war and the Iraqi gas attacks on their own Kurdish minority, more fatalities were caused by mustard gas than by the Iraqi nerve gas. -- Mark Nelson ...!uunet!udel!nelson or nelson@udel.edu This function is occasionally useful as an argument to other functions that require functions as arguments. -- Guy Steele, Jr.