Guerrillas have also used chemical weapons in insurgencies. In 2007, groups of Iraqi guerrillas detonated vehicular-borne improvised explosive devices that combined conventional explosives with chlorine gas in canisters. These attacks were not very effective against their targets–Iraqi security forces and civilians as well as coalition troops. They would have been much more deadly against unprotected civilians.
Terrorist targeting of chemical facilities is also a grave concern. Various U.S. government and non-government experts had identified the United States as potentially vulnerable to terrorist attacks against chemical plants or rail tankers transporting toxic chemicals such as chlorine. In its “National Planning Scenarios,” the Department of Homeland Security used one scenario involving the detonation of a chlorine storage tank that resulted in 17,500 deaths and more than 100,000 injuries.
The potential magnitude of such disasters are well-known to Asians, who can readily recall the December 1984 toxic gas release at the Union Carbide India pesticide plant at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, which exposed more than half a million people to methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals. Perhaps as many as 10,000 people died and many more have since suffered from their debilitating injuries. The Union Carbide Corporation claims a disgruntled worker sabotaged the plant. A terrorist could do likewise at many other chemical storage or production plants, which typically are not as heavily guarded as military, nuclear, or government facilities.
Although not as well-known as the gas attacks in Europe during World War I, Asian countries have used chemical weapons in their own conflicts. During the 1930 and 1940s, the Imperial Japanese Army that tried to conquer China abandoned hundreds of thousands of chemical munitions used for artillery shells on Chinese territory after Japan’s surrender. Following years of frustrating delays, China and Japan have only recently begun eliminating these weapons.
Japan has committed to paying all the elimination costs, including excavating the weapons, transporting them to a disposal point, and destroying them in an environmentally acceptable manner. But Japanese contractors have sometimes found working inside China on such a controversial issue challenging. The Chinese authorities arrested several of them on espionage charges in September 2010 to coerce the Japanese government into releasing the fishing boat captain who rammed several Japanese Coast Guard ships in the disputed waters of the East China Sea.
Although recent news coverage has focused on threats in the Middle East, North Korea is thought to have one of the world’s largest operational chemical weapons arsenals. General Leon LaPorte, former commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, said that North Korean military doctrine “is to use chemical weapons as a standard munition.”
The announcement a few years ago that South Korea had eliminated its own chemical weapons, like the earlier removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from ROK territory, had little impact on North Korea’s chemical weapons policy, partly because Seoul had always declined to publicize its chemical weapons holdings or elimination efforts.
Reddit
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
Technorati
Yahoo
Google
Plurk
denis the menace
There is a TON of evidence available on the Internet pointing to deep Amerikan complicity in the supply of chemical substances to Iraq but this information has been suppressed and censored by TheDiplomat. Speaks huge volumes about the lack of moral integrity about those claiming their right to hold the moral high ground and lecture other people. Man, what is the world coming to ?
Kanes
Some countries may need them for a MAD (mutually assisted destruction) defence. National security comes first for all countries, east or west.
ram
what about india
Washington’s Double Standards
Why does Western writers like to focus on Asia and not Europe and North America and Israel? As though they have no chemical weapons? Or the capacity to rapidly produce it when the a decision is made to make it? Which is just as culpable as having stockpiles of the chemicals itself. Why are the same standards not applied to the West?
The West are like the policeman who insisted on charging a woman reading a book in the middle of a lake on the basis that her boat had all the necessary equipment to enable her to conduct illegal fishing and that she could do it any second he was gone. The woman countered with a threat to sue the policeman for sexual harassment. "Why? Asked the shocked policeman. "I have not even thought nor entertained such an action". "Yeah," says the woman. "But you have all the necessary equipment to do it any second you want".
Kangmin Zheng
@Washington’s Double Standards,
The obvious double standards are CCP wants to bring Senkaku to UN Court but refuses to do the same for South China Sea.
Diverting Issue As usual
What has Senkakus got to do with what was commented, you bl**dy CIA troll? When rational and good points arremade, your standard tactic is to divert the issue and take potshots at your target. What a d*ckhead! Get an honest job, bud.
American Patriot
@ wumao trolls
There exists a double standard because the USA has been well-established for 70 years as the world's policeman and as such, it is our responsibility to ensure that chemical weapons do not get into the hands of irrational actors such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Without the US security umbrella the proliferation of WMD's would be much greater and pose a huge threat to the continuation of the current international order. It's a tough job to carry out but you should be thanking America for taking on such a noble role.
denis
There is a ton of irrefutable evidence on the Internet pointing to deep Amerikan complicity in the supply and usage of chemical weapons by Iraq yet this information has been deliberately and severely suppressed by the editors of TheDilomat. Speaks volumes about the lack of integrity here.zo
As for why this article in particular focuses on the Asia Pacific, I draw your attention to the fact that “The Diplomat is the premier international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region” (from the ‘About’ page).
VF89
You don't wanna know what kind of ingredients they used to make food from meat bun to 'fresh' egg.
Lnrds
The only chemicals I see in Asia is China's pollution and milk scandal.