Chemical Weapons: Weapon Inspection Team

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Weapons Inspection Team
Knowing the history of chemical weapons and their devastating effects will help explain the reasoning for the development of weapons inspection team and why their success is vital to world peace. This paper will provide a small amount of history on chemical weapons, discuss the history of the weapons inspection teams and explain how the members are selected and trained. Incidents of the use of weapons of mass destruction will be mentioned which explain the reason for the development of the weapons inspection teams.
History of Chemical Weapons
Chemical warfare has been used in war for thousands of years as a means to lethally fight the battle. Just to give a few examples of the devastation, chlorine and phosgene gases were used during World War I and were dispensed from canisters causing around 90,000 deaths and over one million casualties during war (Mass, 2013). Apparatus for dispensing these weapons developed tremendously during the first half of the twentieth century, increasing these weapons’ alarming ability to kill. The United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War maintained massive stockpiles of chemical weapons enough to eliminate a large amount of the human race and animal life on Earth. In 1980, Iraq used chemical weapons on Iran during war and in 1988; Iraq used mustard gas and nerve agents on the Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq. Pictures of the horrific attack on the Kurdish civilians were released and the world was stunned by the horrendous devastation.
These past events sped up negotiations in Geneva on the Chemical Weapons Convention which had already been in negotiation for 12 years. The world was terrified of the potential threat of chemical weapons being used by terrorists ...

... middle of paper ...

...t biological science and technology can be developed safely and securely – so that they bring benefits, not danger” (Secretary-General, 2011).
Secretary-General's remarks at the Seventh Review Conference of the BWC, 5 December 2011

Works Cited

Gregory, S. (2002). Who Are Those Inspectors?. Time, 160(25), 26
Mass, H. (2013). A Brief History of Chemical Warfare. Retrieved from http://theweek.com/article/index/249224/a-brief-history-of-chemical-warfare Wittlaan, J. (2014). Biological Weapons Convection. Retrieved from http://unoda-

web.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/BWC_Fact_Sheet_Apr_2014.pdf

Wittlaan, J. (2014).Brief History of Chemical Weapons Use.Retrieved from http://www.opcw.org/about-chemical-weapons/history-of-cw-use/
Wittlaan, J.(2014).Fact Sheet.http://unoda-web.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-

content/uploads/2014/04/SGM_Fact_Sheet_March_2014.pdf

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