According to Dando, British and US research into hallucinogenic weapons such as the gas BZ encouraged Iraq to look into similar agents.
"We showed them the way," he said.
Dando added that the US was currently working on "non-lethal" weapons similar to the gas Russian forces used to break the Moscow theater siege. Those include "calmative" agents which are designed to knock people out without killing them.
"What happened in Moscow is a harbinger of what is to come," Dando said.
"There is a revolution in life sciences which could be applied in a major way to warfare. It's an early example of the mess we may be creating."
He added that Britain "is implicated as well," as the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has worked with British officers on its research.
Jonathan Tucker, a chemical weapons expert at the US Institute for Peace in Washington, said much of the work on non-lethal weapons was being carried out by an institute under the US Department of Justice but was funded by the Pentagon.
"They are trying to keep it at arms length, but it is problematic especially for military purposes. The chemical weapons convention makes a very clear distinction between riot control and incapacitants," he said.
While Tucker believes that such knock-out gases are explicitly banned under the treaty, Dando and Wheelis believe the Pentagon has exploited a loophole that allows for such weapons for "law enforcement purposes."
But by blurring the edges of the treaty, they argue the US is inviting other countries to do the same.
The US, Dando said, "runs the very real danger of leading the world down a pathway that will greatly reduce the security of all."
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