The World - News from Feb. 26, 1989

A chemical cleared by West German officials for export to Libya in recent days is vital to chemical warfare because it can be used to decontaminate areas where poison gas has been used, the weekly magazine Der Spiegel said. Because of fears it could be used to make poison gas, 17 containers of the chemical--hexamethylene-tetramine--were seized in the port of Bremerhaven and held up for a month before being cleared. But Der Spiegel quoted a West Berlin chemical weapons expert, Adolf-Henning Frucht, as saying the chemical “is one of the most important detoxification substances, without which chemical warfare could not be waged.”