League of Terror

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The long Iran-Iraq war produced many evil side effects, not the least of which was reintroduction of nerve gas as a routine weapon in battle. Long after intelligence agencies determined Iraq was “equalizing” the war by using nerve gas against its numerically superior foe, gas continued to be dispatched in battle. Arab sympathizers with Iraq — faced with a similar problem of numerical inferiority in future wars — became intensely interested in acquiring the means of producing nerve gas. After the war, Libya — using West German technology and assistance — assembled a production facility to produce mustard gas. It was partially destroyed by sabotage in March 1990. Though use of lethal gas in warfare is proscribed by the Geneva conventions and subsequent protocols, both the United States and the Soviet Union continue to manufacture and stockpile nerve gas whose only use can be as weapons of war. There is evidence that nerve gas was used by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

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