Cyanide poor persistence

There are numerous other instances of cyanide poisoning that include illicit s)mthesis of phencyclidine, ingestion of nail polish remover (acetonitrile), use in terrorist attacks, use as suicidal, homicidal, and chemical warfare agents, and use in capital pxmishment. HCN was considered to be a notorious chemical warfare agent because of its rapid lethal actions. It was used as a war gas in World War I (Gee, 1987), in World War II (V tilliams and Wallace, 1989), and in the Iran-Iraq War (Lang et al., 1986 Heylin, 1988). Because of poor persistence of HCN in the environment and lack of delivery system, cyanides were not optimistically considered for future use in wars. However, its possible use in local... 

As it built its chemical arsenal, Iraq also manufactured hundreds of tons of nerve agents, including tabun, sarin, cyclosarin (GF), and VX. Iraqi tabun and sarin were of poor quality, containing impurities that gave them a shelf life of only 4 to 6 weeks. However, there is evidence that Iraq may have produced hydrogen cyanide gas with an additive to make this blood agent more persistent. 

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