Word: poisoned
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...against their Iranian foes. Despite a 63-year-old international protocol that forbids the use of chemical weapons, the Iraqis have relied increasingly over the past four years on mustard gas, and possibly cyanide gas and nerve agents as well, to combat Iranian forces. Chemical weapons, dubbed "that hellish poison" by Winston Churchill, weighed heavily in Iran's abrupt decision last month to abandon the fight against Iraq and pursue a cease-fire. No matter when peace is finally achieved, the use of chemical weapons will remain a lasting legacy of the war, and its consequences will be debated...
...evidence of its goodwill, Iraq announced that the fighting would stop, and Iran issued a cease-fire order. One day later, however, the truce threatened to falter as charges were exchanged. Baghdad contended that Iran was still shelling Iraqi forces. Tehran charged that Baghdad was still using poison gas to dislodge Kurdish separatists from a mountain stronghold in the Erbil province of northeastern Iraq. Iran claimed that the two-week-old offensive had already injured 63 civilians in three villages and forced the evacuation of two other towns...
...investigating team meantime returned to New York from the battlefront with fresh evidence that Iraq is using chemical weapons. According to the experts, Iraqi forces fired poison-gas shells at Iranian troops before retaking the Majnoun Islands in June. The first symptoms in those affected were described as "burning in the eyes and various parts of the body." Last week Iranian officials claimed that Iraqi planes dropped mustard-gas bombs on towns and villages in northwestern Iran, injuring some 1,700 people. Iraq denied the allegations...
When such blights occur in coastal areas, the result can be devastating. Last November a red tide off the coast of the Carolinas killed several thousand mullet and all but wiped out the scallop population. Reason: the responsible species, Ptychodiscus brevis, contains a poison that causes fish to bleed to death. Brown tides, unknown to Long Island waters before 1985, have occurred every summer since; they pose a constant threat to valuable shellfish beds...
...Making this decision was more deadly than drinking poison," Tehran radio quoted him as saying. "I submitted myself to God's will and drank this drink for his satisfaction...