Barton Gellman Quotes

The sarin gas is a very primitive gas. You can have it done in the backyard of a house ; it's a very primitive gas. So, it's not something complicated.

Chemical and biological attacks are scary and will kill a lot of people but don't rise to the level of nuclear.

What we know from World War I is that some of our troops had acute symptoms of exposure to chemicals, had bad health and died because of chemical exposure in World War I.

Every day you use dozens of products that have strong chemicals in them, but remember, the only difference between poison and medicine is dosage.

When we faced a possibility here in New York of chemical and biological attack, three days after September 11, I called in all of the experts, academic experts, Nobel Prize laureates, and doctors who had dealt with anthrax, doctors who had dealt with various forms of chemical and biological attack.

Saddam Hussein has openly admitted to the rest of the world that he had weapons of mass destruction. He used those weapons to kill his own people.

Although every step must be taken to protect against a chemical or biological attack in America, our nation would survive the use of those weapons as we did when anthrax was mailed to our Capitol and other targets.

If the Bush Administration cannot ensure Americans that they will be safe from the flu, how will they protect our country against a possible bio-terror or chemical attack? The American people deserve better.

And they will tell you unequivocally that if we have a chemical or biological attack or a nuclear attack anywhere in this country, they are unprepared to deal with it today, and that is of high urgency.

First of all, I don't think that America is truly prepared for a biological or a chemical attack. However, we are moving in the right direction.

During the morning rush hour on March 20, 1995, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo placed packages on five subway trains converging on Tokyo's central station. When punctured, the packages spread vaporized Sarin through the subway cars and then into the stations as the trains pulled in.

At first the English were very surprised by our disregarding the Hague Convention. But from 1916 onward they used at least as much poison as we did.

Under Saddam Hussein, the nation of Iraq possessed and used chemical weapons against both their own Kurdish population and Iranian military forces.

No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. And there's no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: the Syrian regime.

I'd like people to listen to our soldiers. They were there. They heard the alarms go off. They tasted the substance in the air. They spit up blood. They had rashes on their bodies. They got sick.

Chemical weapons are something that scares everybody.

All I know is that these two gases both had a quite extraordinary effect, and that there was no respirator, and no protection against them that we knew of. So the soldiers would have been unable to protect themselves against this gas in any way.

Most people who have encountered mercury have done so after breaking a mercury thermometer. And many of us who saw the liquid balls of mercury scatter across a floor or countertop considered the element the most beautiful on the periodic table.

If we get hit again, with a biological or chemical attack, we will become a much less liberal society.

We have neglected to develop an offensive capability in chemical war and have no defense worthy of the name.... In biological warfare we have neither an offensive nor a defensive capability.

I do not contend that driving people crazy even for a few hours is a pleasant prospect. But warfare is never pleasant... would you rather be temporarily deranged... by a chemical agent, or burned alive...?

If one single chemical warhead falls on Israel, we’ll hit Iraq with everything we have got.... look at your watch and forty minutes later an Iraqi city will be reduced to ashes.

Peace begins in the womb. The newborn reflects this truth. Order is transferred from cell to tissue, to organs, to organisms, to families, communities, and nations. Unfortunately, when development is violated in the womb by man-made chemicals, the newborn is compromised. For animals in the wild, their survival is threatened. They can disappear without our ever knowing why. For humans, such exposure can lead to reduced intelligence, discontent, failure, and the inability to socially integrate. Man-made chemicals deprive societies of responsible leaders and thinkers. The social and economic impacts are incalculable. Widespread loss of security in the womb can lead to loss of stability at the national and international level.

I haven’t lived in a world where chemical weapons are routinely used, and I would not want to live in such a world.

The chemical massacre of Damascus, should not, and shall not go unpunished.