Egypt and weapons of mass destruction

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Egypt had a history of weapons of mass destruction and used chemical weapons during the North Yemen Civil War. Although it has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it still remains one of only four countries not to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and has not ratified the Biological Weapons Convention.

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According to authors Gordon M. Burck and Charles C. Flowerree, cited by M. Zuhair Diab, Egypt provided Syria with chemical artillery shells in 1973 as a military deterrent against Israel before they both launched the Yom Kippur War. [1] Syria later developed its own chemical weapons program.

Chemical weapons program

Egypt's chemical weapons program is the most developed of its pursuit of developing a weapons of mass destruction program though it is thought this reached its peak in the 1960s. It also used chemical weapons during the North Yemeni Civil War. Phosgene and mustard gas were used against Royalist forces and civilians in Northern Yemen. [2]

Egypt has maintained a policy of not signing the Chemical Weapons Convention until questions regarding Israel's nuclear weapons program are answered. [3]

Use of chemical weapons during the North Yemeni Civil War

The International Red Cross hospital at Uqd. Red Cross at Uqd.jpg
The International Red Cross hospital at Uqd.

The first use of gas took place on June 8, 1963, against Kawma, a village of about 100 inhabitants in North Yemen, killing about seven people and damaging the eyes and lungs of twenty-five others. [4] This incident is considered to have been experimental, and the bombs were described as "home-made, amateurish and relatively ineffective". The Egyptian authorities suggested that the reported incidents were probably caused by napalm, not gas. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, suggested in an interview that Nasser would not hesitate to use gas against Israel as well. [5] There were no reports of gas during 1964, and only a few were reported in 1965. The reports grew more frequent in late 1966. On December 11, 1966, fifteen gas bombs killed two people and injured thirty-five. On January 5, 1967, the biggest gas attack came against the village of Kitaf, causing 270 casualties, including 140 fatalities. [6] The target may have been Prince Hassan bin Yahya, who had installed his headquarters nearby. [7] The Egyptian government denied using poison gas, and alleged that Britain and the US were using the reports as psychological warfare against Egypt. On February 12, 1967, it said it would welcome a UN investigation. On March 1, U Thant said he was "powerless" to deal with the matter. [8]

On May 10, the twin villages of Gahar and Gadafa in Wadi Hirran, where Prince Mohamed bin Mohsin was in command, were gas bombed, killing at least seventy-five. [9] The Red Cross was alerted and on June 2, it issued a statement in Geneva expressing concern. [10] The Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Berne made a statement, based on a Red Cross report, that the gas was likely to have been halogenous derivatives - phosgene, mustard gas, lewisite, chloride or cyanogen bromide. [11] The gas attacks stopped for three weeks after the Six-Day War of June, but resumed in July, against all parts of royalist Yemen. [12] Casualty estimates vary, and an assumption, considered conservative, is that the mustard and phosgene-filled aerial bombs caused approximately 1,500 fatalities and 1,500 injuries. [6]

Nuclear weapons program

Egypt is not known to have pursued a dedicated nuclear weapons program since the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. It began its nuclear program in 1954 which expanded to include Russian 2MW nuclear research reactor ETRR-1 that was opened by President Gamal Abdel-Nasser at Inchass in 1961. Further development in its nuclear program was stopped in 1967 after the Six Day War. [13] [14]

In addition, in 1992 Egypt acquired a more powerful 22MW multi-purpose research reactor ETRR-2 from Argentina. [15]

Egypt signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, which it did not ratify until 1981. It has since 1974 worked to make the Middle East a nuclear weapons free zone.

At the time of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt was reported by Aviation Week to have hosted Soviet crewed and controlled nuclear Scud surface to surface missiles to provide a local nuclear deterrent as part of its preparations to attack nuclear armed Israel. [16]

Biological weapons program

Egypt signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) on 10 April 1972, but has not ratified it.

Prior to signing the BWC, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made the following comment to a question about Israel and should they use biological weapons.

"The only reply to biological warfare is that we too should use biological warfare. I believe that the density of the Israeli population confined in a small area would provide the opportunity to reply with the same weapon if they should begin using it. Briefly, we have the instruments of biological warfare in the refrigerators and we will not use them unless they begin to use them." [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical warfare</span> Using poison gas or other toxins in war

Chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare, biological warfare and radiological warfare, which together make up CBRN, the military acronym for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear, all of which are considered "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs), a term that contrasts with conventional weapons.

The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts. It was signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925 and entered into force on 8 February 1928. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 7 September 1929. The Geneva Protocol is a protocol to the Convention for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War signed on the same date, and followed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical Weapons Convention</span> Multilateral treaty prohibiting the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), officially the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, is an arms control treaty administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an intergovernmental organization based in The Hague, The Netherlands. The treaty entered into force on 29 April 1997. It prohibits the use of chemical weapons, and also prohibits large-scale development, production, stockpiling, or transfer of chemical weapons or their precursors, except for very limited purposes. The main obligation of member states under the convention is to effect this prohibition, as well as the destruction of all current chemical weapons. All destruction activities must take place under OPCW verification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weapon of mass destruction</span> Weapon that can kill many people or cause great damage

A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill or significantly harm many people or cause great damage to artificial structures, natural structures, or the biosphere. The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives during World War II, it has later come to refer to large-scale weaponry of warfare-related technologies, such as biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear warfare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical weapons in World War I</span> Contains Chlorine, phosgene (a choking agent) and mustard gas

The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large-scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I. They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas, to lethal agents like phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century. The killing capacity of gas was limited, with about 90,000 fatalities from a total of 1.3 million casualties caused by gas attacks. Gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop countermeasures, such as gas masks. In the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished. The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of high explosives, gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as "the chemist's war" and also the era where weapons of mass destruction were created.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biological Weapons Convention</span> 1975 treaty that comprehensively bans biological weapons

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), or Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use. The treaty's full name is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States and weapons of mass destruction</span>

The United States is known to have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and biological weapons. The U.S. is the only country to have used nuclear weapons on another country, when it detonated two atomic bombs over two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. It had secretly developed the earliest form of the atomic weapon during the 1940s under the title "Manhattan Project". The United States pioneered the development of both the nuclear fission and hydrogen bombs. It was the world's first and only nuclear power for four years, from 1945 until 1949, when the Soviet Union produced its own nuclear weapon. The United States has the second-largest number of nuclear weapons in the world, after the Russian Federation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction</span>

The United Kingdom possesses, or has possessed, a variety of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The United Kingdom is one of the five official nuclear weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The UK renounced the use of chemical and biological weapons in 1956 and subsequently destroyed its general stocks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">France and weapons of mass destruction</span>

France is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons. France is the only member of the European Union to possess independent (non-NATO) nuclear weapons. France was the fourth country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon, doing so in 1960 under the government of Charles de Gaulle. The French military is currently thought to retain a weapons stockpile of around 300 operational (deployed) nuclear warheads, making it the third-largest in the world, speaking in terms of warheads, not megatons. The weapons are part of the national Force de frappe, developed in the late 1950s and 1960s to give France the ability to distance itself from NATO while having a means of nuclear deterrence under sovereign control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israel and weapons of mass destruction</span>

Israel is believed to possess weapons of mass destruction, and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The US Congress Office of Technology Assessment has recorded Israel as a country generally reported as having undeclared chemical warfare capabilities, and an offensive biological warfare program. Officially, Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical weapon proliferation</span> Prevalence and spread of chemical weapons

Many nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical weapon agents despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them. Most states have joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which required the destruction of all chemical weapons by 2012. Twelve nations have declared chemical weapons production facilities and six nations have declared stockpiles of chemical weapons. All of the declared production facilities have been destroyed or converted to civilian use after the treaty went into force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Germany and weapons of mass destruction</span>

Although Germany has the technical capability to produce weapons of mass destruction (WMD), since World War II it has refrained from producing those weapons. However, Germany participates in the NATO nuclear weapons sharing arrangements and trains for delivering United States nuclear weapons. Officially, 20 US-nuclear weapons are stationed in Büchel, Germany. It could be more or fewer, but the exact number of the weapons is a state secret.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australia and weapons of mass destruction</span>

Australia does not possess weapons of mass destruction, although it has participated in extensive research into nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the past.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Libya and weapons of mass destruction</span>

Libya pursued programs to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction from when Muammar Gaddafi seized control of Libya in 1969 until he announced on 19 December 2003 that Libya would voluntarily eliminate all materials, equipment and programs that could lead to internationally proscribed weapons. This included weapons of mass destruction and long-range ballistic missiles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syria and weapons of mass destruction</span>

Syria and weapons of mass destruction deals with the research, manufacture, stockpiling and alleged use by Syria of weapons of mass destruction, which include chemical and nuclear weapons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sweden and weapons of mass destruction</span> Cold War-era nuclear weapons strategy in Sweden

During the late 1940s and 1950s, Sweden had programs for both nuclear and chemical weapons. During the first decades of the Cold War, a nuclear weapons program was active.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical weapon</span> Device that uses chemicals to kill or harm individuals

A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a weapon "or its precursor that can cause death, injury, temporary incapacitation or sensory irritation through its chemical action. Munitions or other delivery devices designed to deliver chemical weapons, whether filled or unfilled, are also considered weapons themselves."

Chemical weapons were widely used by the United Kingdom in World War I. The use of poison gas was suggested by Winston Churchill and others in Mesopotamia during the interwar period, and also considered in World War II, although it appears that they were not actually used in these conflicts. While the UK was a signatory of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 which outlawed the use of poison gas shells, the conventions omitted mention of deployment from cylinders.

The United States chemical weapons program began in 1917 during World War I with the creation of the U.S. Army's Gas Service Section and ended 73 years later in 1990 with the country's practical adoption of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Destruction of stockpiled chemical weapons began in 1986 and was completed on July 7, 2023. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD), at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, continues to operate.

Chemical weapons have been a part of warfare in most societies for centuries. However, their usage has been extremely controversial since the 20th century.

References

  1. ↑ M. Zuhair Diab (Fall 1997). "Syria's Chemical and Biological Weapons: Assessing capabilities and motivations" (PDF). The Nonproliferation Review. 5 (1). Retrieved 28 August 2013.
  2. ↑ "Egypt | Country Profiles". NTI. Archived from the original on 2013-11-23. Retrieved 2014-02-03.
  3. ↑ "Chemical Weapons Program - Egypt". Fas.org. Retrieved 2014-02-03.
  4. ↑ Schmidt (1968), p. 257
  5. ↑ Schmidt (1968), p. 259
  6. 1 2 "Egypt Profile: Chemical Overview". NTI . August 2008. Archived from the original on October 27, 2011. Retrieved August 28, 2008.
  7. ↑ Schmidt (1968), p. 260
  8. ↑ Schmidt (1968), p. 263
  9. ↑ Schmidt (1968), p. 264
  10. ↑ Schmidt (1968), p. 265
  11. ↑ Schmidt (1968), p. 267
  12. ↑ Schmidt (1968), p. 268
  13. ↑ "Nuclear Weapons Program - Egypt". Fas.org. Retrieved 2014-02-03.
  14. ↑ "Egypt's Missile Efforts Succeed with Help from North Korea". Archived from the original on 2016-01-23.
  15. ↑ "ETRR-2". NTI Building a Safe World. James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Archived from the original on 12 February 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  16. ↑ "Soviet Nuclear Weapons in Egypt Poised to Strike Israeli Cities". 7 November 1973.
  17. ↑ Julian Perry Robinson, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare: Volume II: CB Weapons Today (Stockholm, SIPRI, 1973), p. 241.
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