On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 21:56:56 +0100, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:

In message , Fred J. McCall
writes
"M.Hamer" wrote:
:But they weren't used. Why? Because they didn't exist!

By this reasoning, chemical weapons didn't exist in any of the
countries participating in WWII. Clearly specious reasoning.

No, because we've still got facilities at Porton we built to evaluate
and analyse captured German chemical weapons.

Although I'm not certain whether any of those original facilities at
Porton Down; all the test facilities I've seen there are more modern
(although they might be hiding them from us foreigners). Nonetheless,
Mr. Adam is quite correct in his overall point.

During the period 1945-1948, the US scuttled at sea approximately
32,000 tons of captured German chemical weapons. Smaller quantities
were dumped in the Gulf of Mexico and off our Atlantic Coast. There is
a well-known incident in which a trainload of captured German chemical
munitions leaked as it was being shipped from New Orleans,
contaminating a rather long stretch of rail line in Mississippi, and
another in which a Liberty ship full of captured munitions was
discovered to be leaking (I think it was in Baltimore, but I don't
have the reference handy). After the war, the British dumped
approximately 75,000 tons of chemical weapons from the captured German
stockpile. During 1955-56, the British dumped a further 17,000 tons of
captured German chemical munitions. There were several sites within
Germany where munitions were buried. I have no figures to cite, but
the Russians captured significant caches of German weapons, and
removed the entire production plant for Tabun and the Sarin pilot
plant for transport to the USSR.

There are ample, well-documented literature sources describing the
very large amounts of chemical munitions possessed by Germany. This is
not, at least as yet, the case for Iraq.

Regards,

George
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Dr. George O. Bizzigotti Telephone: (703) 610-2115
Mitretek Systems, Inc. Fax: (703) 610-1558
3150 Fairview Park Drive South E-Mail:
Falls Church, Virginia, 22042-4519
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