Chemical Weapons and the Ukraine

Recent reports about the possible use of chemical weapons in an attack on Mariupol (see here for example). The specter of chemical warfare always raises humanitarian concerns, but a close reading of these reports raises the potential of another concern, unintentional chemical warfare.

Background

Back in 1988 I wrote an article for the US Army Chemical Review on “Modern Chemical Warfare – Complicated by a Long List of Toxic Chemicals”. In that article I wrote about the problems associated with warfare in and around chemical facilities. Attacks on such facilities could easily result in the release of toxic chemicals that could have unintended consequences on the battlefield. The worst result, beyond the possibility of needless deaths and injuries in a combat zone, would be one side or the other mistaking an industrial chemical release for an attack with chemical weapons.

For example, by long-standing US policy dating back to Ronald Reagan, if American forces are attacked with chemical weapons, the US could consider that an attack with weapons of mass destruction and reply in kind. The only problem with that is that the only weapons of mass destruction in our arsenal are nuclear weapons. Thus, we could see a situation arise where an attack on an industrial facility defended by US forces could result in the release of toxic chemicals and the commander on the scene could assume and report that the resulting casualties were the result of a chemical weapons attack. In the fog of war, such a report could potentially result in the release of tactical nuclear weapons.

Or, say a world leader says that “if chemical weapons are used in this conflict, we will intervene…”, then an industrial chemical release could lead to a wider conflict.

The Reported Attack

The ‘attack’ that reportedly took place was described in the BBC article like this:

“One injured man described a "sweet-tasting" white smoke covering an area of the plant after an explosion. Another said he felt immediately unable to breathe and had collapsed with ‘cotton legs’.”

Obviously, both men survived the ‘chemical attack’. Now the Russian military has had a large number of problems during this attack on Ukraine, but I would be very surprised to hear that their chemical weapons did not work. They have a long history back through the Soviet days of developing and producing chemical weapons. So, if there were a Russian chemical attack on Ukrainian forces, I would expect to hear about a large number of casualties.

The attack took place at the Azovstal metals plant outside of the city. I’m not sure what kind of metals processing takes place there, but many such plants use strong acids like nitric acid and sulfuric acid for metal cleaning. White steam clouds are released when these acids react with water or even moist air. A wide variety of industrial chemicals interfere with breathing. One of the most common is cryogenic Nitrogen. Nitrogen is not toxic, but if the concentration is too high, there would not be enough oxygen present. People would pass out but would not die if the cloud blew through the area and an adequate oxygen supply became available quickly enough.

Other industries would have different chemical hazards. An interesting look at some of the chemicals associated with different industries can be found on the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) website. This page provides a series of Industry Fact Sheets discussing what DHS chemicals of interest (COI) are used by various non-chemical industry groups. They are certainly not comprehensive lists of chemicals used, but they do show how wide spread chemical use is in modern manufacturing environments.

Conclusion

To my mind, with my background in both the military and chemical manufacturing, this attack does not sound like a deliberate chemical attack. It sounds like the inevitable result of an attack on an industrial facility that uses hazardous chemicals on a routine basis. Tossing artillery rounds indiscriminately at such a facility is asking for a chemical release that might be mistaken for the use of a chemical weapon.

Anyone defending such a facility had better be prepared to conduct defensive operations in a chemical environment, with all of the difficulties that that entails.

Committee Hearings – Week of 06-14-15

This week both the House and Senate will be in Washington. Spending bills and the DOD authorization bill are still big priorities this week. There are a number of potentially interesting hearings this week that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog including the intel authorization bill, the OPM hack, surface transportation security, chemical warfare, and the DHS spending bill.

Intel Authorization

The House Rules Committee will be meeting this afternoon to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 2596; this was postponed from last week. There will only be limited amendments allowed during the consideration of this bill. A total of 27 have been submitted to the Committee to draw from.

Some of the more interesting ones (for readers of this blog) include:

∙ A report on FBI information sharing;

∙ Another attempt to limit NSA influence at NIST;

∙ A report on cyber-threat trends;

∙ Prohibit CIA and NSA from using software backdoors; and

∙ A report on the OPM hack.

 Assad’s Chemical Attacks

The House Foreign Affairs Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday about “Assad’s Abhorrent Chemical Weapons Attacks”. An interesting slate of witnesses, but no one from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. I don’t expect much more than hand wringing and condemnation from this hearing; certainly no action.

OPM Hack

We have been seeing all sorts of news over the weekend about the ‘data breach’ at the Office of Personnel Management. On Tuesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on the topic. It will be interesting to watch how the questions and answers slide right past each other in this hearing. There will be no new or insightful information here.

Surface Transportation Security

The Transportation Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on Tuesday on “Safeguarding our Nation’s Surface Transportation Systems Against Evolving Terrorist Threats”. The witness list includes:

∙ Stacey Fitzmaurice, Office of Intelligence and Analysis, TSA;

∙ Jennifer Grover, Homeland Security and Justice Team, GAO; and

∙ John Roth,  Inspector General, DHS

Anytime the witness list includes both an IG and GAO representative, there is going to be some bad news. I expect that these two reports may become available later today.

FY 2016 DHS Spending

On Tuesday the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee will be holding a markup hearing for the FY 2016 DHS spending bill. We will probably not be able to see the bill until the full committee; probably next week.

On the Floor

The Senate will finish work this week on the FY 2016 DOD authorization bill (HR 1735). That bill will have to come back to the House to determine if they will accept the extensive Senate amendments or whether a conference committee will be required; I expect the later.

The intelligence authorization bill is scheduled to make it to the floor of the House on Tuesday. The only other potentially interesting thing happening in the House is a potential War Powers resolution requiring the removal of US Forces from Iraq. It is unlikely to pass and is almost certainly a political move to pressure the President to more clearly define the role of those forces being employed against IS.