The blast-proof bus has armour-plated glass and was thought to offer protection from chemical attack.
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Should such a treaty be concluded, this country will assuredly lose its ability to retaliate in kind against chemical attack.
The other difference is that there is no mistaking a chemical attack when it happens, because its victims die almost instantly.
Man overboard, fire, damage control, chemical attack, intruders, injuries, aircraft incident.
Last September, hundreds of emergency personnel were involved in a rescue operation during a simulated chemical attack at Bank Tube station in the City of London.
For example, Cabinet ministers in Jerusalem have been publicly squabbling over whether to issue protective masks and other equipment at once or only when a chemical attack is underway.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Holding our noses against gas attack
The next stage, currently still in the laboratory, is to develop coatings that change colour when they absorb toxic chemicals, thus alerting soldiers that they are under chemical attack.
For example, on April 26, ABC News aired part of a videotaped confession by suspected al Qaeda terrorist Azmi al-Jayousi, who was captured before he could unleash a devastating chemical attack in Jordan.
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Virtually unremarked in the extensive coverage accorded these controversies, however, is the quantum difference between the choices facing Israelis and those that would be available to the American public if confronted with a similar danger of chemical attack.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Holding our noses against gas attack
Still, both have a responsibility to understand that any hope this country has of deterring and, if necessary, of defeating chemical attack will lie not in wishing the threat away but in remaining prepared to deal with it -- both through defensive measures and through the credible threat to respond in kind.
Not long ago, the Bush administration quietly asserted that it might use nuclear weapons in a conflict first if the US suffers a biological or chemical weapons attack.
Anthony Loyd, a journalist for the Times newspaper, told the BBC about the aftermath of one suspected chemical weapons attack earlier this month in the northern city of Aleppo.
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While Ban told reporters at the United Nations he was aware of the rebel claims of a chemical weapons attack by the government, he did not say whether those claims will also be investigated.
But he has doubts about whether they would help in a chemical or biological attack.
Across the European Union, there is broad agreement that the 15 member states need to co-operate in preparing for a chemical or biological attack, but little progress has been made.
And in February 2003, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security advised Americans to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting so that they could seal their homes in the event of a chemical or biological attack.
Syria claimed rebels used chemical weapons in an attack Tuesday in Khan al-Asal in the northern province of Aleppo.
The Syrian government called for the United Nations to investigate alleged chemical weapons use by rebels in the attack that killed 31 people.
Illinois-based company Renew Power has said it has already come up with a fuel cell compatible with mobile phones, by using formic acid, the chemical sprayed by black ants on the attack.
Dow AgroSciences has come up with a novel way to attack termites by introducing small amounts of chemical bait into the ground that termites ingest and take back to their colony, which is then destroyed.
Charges that Assad's forces used chemical weapons surfaced months ago, but it was a March 19 attack in Aleppo that drew global attention.
Jordan, which shares a border with Syria, is tracking reports of the attack but couldn't confirm whether it involved a chemical weapon, he said.
In a separate development, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was waiting for the Syrian government to allow a team of chemical weapons experts into the country for an expanded investigation following an attack on a village outside Aleppo in March.
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And a U.S. military official directly familiar with preliminary intelligence analysis of the attack told CNN there were "strong indications" that no chemical weapon was used.
Before the attack in Aleppo on Tuesday, Syria's government had never alleged rebels had access to chemical weapons, only refuting rebel claims last year that it had used such weapons or ever would against its own people.
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