America plans to use banned chemical weapons in Iraq

The US is preparing to use the toxic riot-control agents CS gas and pepper spray in Iraq in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention, provoking the first split in the Anglo-US alliance. "Calmative" gases, similar to the one that killed 120 hostages in the Moscow theatre siege last year, could also be employed.

The convention bans the use of these toxic agents in battle, not least because they risk causing an escalation to full chemical warfare. [...]

The British aren't keen on this, firstly because they're one of the chief authors of the Chemical Weapons Convention and unlike the Americans still take their international agreements seriously, and secondly because of fears of escalation and retaliation:

Professor Julian Perry Robinson, one of the world's foremost authorities on the convention, said: "Legally speaking, Iraq would be totally justified in releasing chemical weapons over the UK if the alliance uses them in Baghdad."

Meanwhile, I'm just boggled at the sheer blatant hypocrisy involved here. Saddam is (rightly) demonised in the US press because he used chemical weapons against Iran and gassed his own people. There's a strong underlying theme that chemical weapons are a Bad Thing, period. And so the US is going to prove it by using them. Do they expect us not to notice?

Actually, given Fisk's recent article on planned media censorship, and the reports on how the media was controlled last time, they can probably guarantee it.