ebook img

Toxic: A History of Nerve Agents, from Nazi Germany to Putin's Russia PDF

401 Pages·2020·2.315 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Toxic: A History of Nerve Agents, from Nazi Germany to Putin's Russia

TOXIC Toxic A History of Nerve Agents, From Nazi Germany to Putin’s Russia DAN KASZETA 3 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America © Dan Kaszeta 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 9780197578094 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Printed by Sheridan Books, United States of America CONTENTS Foreword by Eliot Higgins vii Preface and Acknowledgements xi Prologue xv  1.  Axis of Weevils: Germany, 1920s to 1939 1  2.  Otto’s Fortunes: Germany, 1939–45 23  3.  The End: Germany, 1944–45 45  4.  Dustbins and Paperclips 63  5.  Mites: VX, a British Nerve Agent 85  6.  Rocks and Shoals—Building a Stockpile that was Never Used: Alabama, Colorado, and Indiana, 1950–70 95  7.  Cribbing From the Wrong Notebook: The Soviets 115  8.  Coming Off the Rails: The USA: 1968–70 129  9.  Binary Decisions: The USA, 1970s to the 1990s 141 10. T he Newcomers: Russia, 1970s to the 1990s 157 11. W ars in Iraq and Iran 167 12. T he Tokyo Attack 185 13. T he Psychological Effects of Nerve Agents 201 14. T he Syrian War 211 15. A ssassinations 231 Conclusion 255 v CONTENTS Appendix 1: Technical Vignettes 261 Appendix 2: The Rest of the World 293 Notes 315 Select Bibliography 331 Index 349 vi FOREWORD August 21 2013 was a significant day in the history of nerve agent use. Through videos shared on social media the world saw first-hand the effects of a Sarin attack on civilians in rebel-con- trolled Damascus, the largest use of such weapons since the Halabja chemical attack of 1988. Over 200 videos showed the victims, among them children, suffering from the effects of Sarin, while the munitions used—locally made “Volcano” rockets and M14 140mm artillery favoured by Syrian government forces—were documented by activists and the UN team that investigated the attack.  Despite this evidence, those who would prefer to deny the Syrian government’s culpability in such attacks, from the Russian government to online conspiracy theorists, did all they could to cast doubt on the evidence and who was responsible for the atrocity.  This pattern was repeated in the hundreds of chemical weap- ons attacks in Syria that ensued, which occurred despite Syria having signed the Chemical Weapons Convention. The August 2013 attacks were followed by helicopter drops of chlorine cylin- ders, the aftermath of which was widely documented yet pro- voked little response from the international community. This vii FOREWORD prompted the escalating use of chlorine as a chemical weapon, and eventually a series of Sarin attacks in March and April 2017 against the towns of Al-Lataminah and Khan Sheikhoun, com- pelling the world to take notice.  Again the denialists and truthers challenged the evidence and those investigating the attacks, hoping to change the perception of what occurred, creating a false version of history in which the Syrian government’s use of nerve agents was spun as a series of false flag chemical strikes meant to draw external powers into the Syrian civil war.  It is not only conflict zones where nerve agents continue to be used. In 2018 in the cathedral city of Salisbury, Wiltshire, for- mer Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were exposed to the nerve agent Novichok, placed on his front door by operatives of the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU. As with the use of nerve agents in Syria, the Russian gov- ernment and online conspiracy theorists quickly spread false claims about the incident, peaking with the bizarre RT (formally Russia Today) interview in which the two suspects identified by British authorities claimed they were nothing more than simple sports nutrition salesmen who had travelled to Britain in order to see Salisbury cathedral and its “famous” 123m spire. Shortly afterwards, their real identities became known: Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga and Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin, GRU officers and recipients of the Russian Federation’s highest honorary title, Hero of the Russian Federation, bestowed person- ally by President Vladimir Putin.  The Salisbury attack was not an isolated incident. Further investigation of the Skripal attack revealed a third suspect, Denis Vyacheslavovich Sergeev, a GRU officer who had found himself in Bulgaria in 2015 at the same time Emilian Gebrev, a Bulgarian businessman, was poisoned by an as yet unidentified nerve agent. Local authorities had dismissed the poisoning, with the prosecu- viii FOREWORD tor general suggesting that Gebrev had fallen sick after eating a tainted rocket salad. With the revelations around the Skripal case and the third Skripal suspect’s travels to Bulgaria, the investiga- tion was reopened four years later, with more GRU officers iden- tified as having been in Bulgaria at the time of the poisoning, staying close to Gebrev’s place of work.  There is a growing interest in the history of nerve agents, not only how they are made and deployed, but how their use is denied by those pursuing their own political agendas. From Sarin to Novichok, the twenty-first century demonstrates that the use of nerve agents, far from being an unacceptable and unethical practice, is an increasing threat to civilian populations across the world, be it part of conventional wars or state sponsored assas- sinations. How we reached this moment should not be forgotten, and nor should that history be twisted by conspiracists pursuing their own agendas. Eliot Higgins London, January 2020 ix

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.