The Israeli public is highly vulnerable to a chemical-weapon attack because the government has made a "continuing mess" of plans to collect and maintain aging supplies of gas masks and other materials, lawmakers said in an annual report yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 20, 2008).
In 2004, Israel opted to gather protective materials its had distributed in 1990 and care for the supplies at central sites. The government failed to complete the plan, though, leaving many Israelis in possession of outdated gas masks, filters or nerve gas treatments contained in the kits, the Associated Press reported.
"The low incidence of functioning protection kits will not allow the provision of protection to most of the citizens of Israel in the event that the country is attacked," says the report prepared by the State Comptroller's Subcommittee of the Israeli legislature.
Neighboring Syria is believed to possess a chemical-weapon stockpile while Iraq under the Hussein regime used chemical warfare materials against Iran when the two nations went to war in the 1980s. Israel and the United States suspect Iran of maintaining such weapons agents, but that has never been publicly proved (Steve Weizman, Associated Press/Google News, March 2).