Assessing chlorine gas bombs: a chlorine gas attack requires perfect conditions and a poor emergency response if it is to result in a high death toll.(Intelligence)(Editorial)

CHLORINE GAS has added a new twist to bombs being detonated by insurgents in Iraq. The question now is whether that tactic will be adopted by terrorists elsewhere.

Chlorine gas is an indiscriminate weapon. Heavier than air, it hugs the ground and disperses downwind immediately upon release. While small doses only irritate the eyes, skin, and respiratory tract, large concentrations of chlorine gas will "immediately overcome a person and kill within minutes," says Rose Ann G. Soloway, a clinical toxicologist at the National Capital Poison Center.

The chemical causes pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs, and the victims essentially drown to death in their own fluids.

It was first used by Germany at the Second Battle of Ypres during World War I. Due to the horror it caused, chlorine gas, along with other chemical agents, was outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Protocols and that was reinforced by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1992.

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