Chemical weapons 'not a serious obstacle' to well-trained forces

Saddam Hussein has much to lose and little to gain if he uses chemical and biological weapons against British or American forces, specialists in toxic warfare said yesterday.

Such weapons posed little threat to well trained and prepared soldiers, they said, but an attack would be a propaganda catastrophe for President Saddam.

Julian Perry-Robinson, professor of science and technology policy research at Sussex University, said Iraq's stocks of VX nerve agent were not a serious obstacle to Allied forces, even though in theory it takes only half a milligram of the poison to kill a person. "Half a milligram compared to hundreds of tons, that sounds really bad, but of course if you think about the number of people who can be killed by a box full of bullets, that's also really bad," he said.

"It sounds a bit flippant but in terms of lethal doses of poison, the militarily significant doses on a battlefield was reckoned to be a billion doses, that is the amount you'd need to attack one militarily significant target. The moment that sort of stuff lands on a military target, our doctrine requires a high protection level, with masks on. The moment an attack comes in then subsequently the effectiveness of this chemical has to cope with the high protection factors built in to the gas masks, built in to the protective suits. Once the element of surprise has been lost, once everybody is protected then these weapons are essentially harmless. A great deal of work and training has gone into this."

Alastair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at Leeds University, who was instrumental in drawing up the international treaty on chemical weapons, even doubted whether Iraq can use any of its banned weapons.

"We really have little idea about whether Iraq has useable biological or chemical weapons ... I think it is really unclear whether Iraq has useable munitions that it could use in a conflict.I'm not saying it hasn't but I'm saying it's unclear."

He added: "There is a need to demonstrate that Iraq does have these weapons and that they are in useable form and that has yet to be done. It's far from clear whether Iraq would want to run the risk of losing whatever support it has at the moment. It would do that if it used chemical and biological weapons so I think it's a very moot point whether in fact Iraq does indeed use these."

Brian Spratt, professor of molecular microbiology at Imperial College, London, said the same applied to the anthrax Iraq was thought to have hidden. On a battlefield it posed little threat against well trained and equipped troops.Used against an unprotected civilian population, anthrax posed more of a danger as a "weapon of mass disruption" because of the panic and fear of the "worried well" who are not infected but think that they are.