A question that's on everyone's minds these days is "will the insurgents in Iraq make
_ [fill in the blank with the WMD of your choice]?" Well, I'll talk about nuclear weapons, dirty bombs, and biological weapons another time. Today's lesson, Kossacks, is all about
nerve agents.
I started thinking about nerve agents when I read the Christian Science Monitor article about Fallujah sleeper cells. This article included the following passage:
In the course of locating seven weapons caches in a single block around a mosque in northeast Fallujah, an Iraqi platoon Wednesday found a suitcase full of vials labeled "Sarin," a deadly nerve agent.
While further analysis determined that the find was probably part of a Soviet test kit with samples, its discovery in a room with mortar shells appeared to indicate an intent to weaponize the material.
Well, being a chemistry nerd, this bothered me. How likely is it that they can or will make nerve agents like Sarin?
Well, IMHANVEO (in my humble and not-very-expert-opinion), I don't think it's that likely.
More below the fold.
First of all, a little background.
Compiled from references 1, 2 (PowerPoint presentation), 3, 4, 5, and 6 (pdf).
Nerve agents include Tabun, Sarin, Soman, and VX (NATO names are GA, GB, GD, and VX, respectively). They are from a class of compounds called organophosphates, and were discovered by the Germans and the British pre- and post- World War II, respectively.
They are called "nerve agents" because they work by inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. This is the enzyme responsible for breaking down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which causes muscle contractions. If your body can't break it down, muscle contractions won't stop, leading to the following symptoms: constricted pupils, eye pain, runny nose, respiratory distress (resulting in respiratory failure), seizures, heart arrhythmia, abdominal cramping, and a variety of other symptoms. Without immediate treatment (using atropine or oxime), exposure is usually fatal.
Now you're thinking "You suck for scaring me, Page!" Well, one more thing I was going to add: it takes a frighteningly small amount of Sarin (for example) to kill you. There's a graphic on page 6 of this pdf that shows it takes a drop of nerve agent about the size of the tip of a pencil to kill you.
Making nerve agents
Of course, if you're a terrorist, this is something you want to do. And unfortunately, it would be a prime weapon of choice if you're an insurgent in Iraq. Finding someone with the chemical expertise isn't the problem (remember, education in Iraq was quite respectable before the war).
The problem is that you need the facilities to make the stuff. Obviously, the final product is unbelievably dangerous. But the starting materials are incredibly nasty too. You have to have a pretty decent lab with good safety/containment facilities, or you're going to kill yourself in the process of making the nerve agent.
A very good illustration of the sophisticated laboratory facilities involved in making Sarin (for example) is the case of the Aum cult in Japan. They're the ones who released Sarin gas in a Tokyo subway on March 20, 1995. They had considerable financial resources, and basically built a $10 million lab in which they manufactured Sarin safely.
For the chemists in the audience, here's the structure of Sarin, linked to a Wikipedia entry describing its characteristics and its precursors:
Now, think about the current conditions in Iraq. Running water and electricity are pretty much non-existent in Fallujah. Conditions aren't much better elsewhere. It would be incredibly difficult, dangerous, and, as I see it, damned near impossible to make Sarin or any other nerve agent.
So, time for the other nerds out there to speak up. What do you think? And non-chemists, let me know what you think too. I'm a chemist, not a historian or political scientist, so I might have missed something important.
Recommendations are also welcome. There's too much confusion/misinformation out there about WMD's, and I hope I cleared some of that up.
(note: I posted this yesterday, and I didn't present it well, so I've rewritten part of it.)
