Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: chemical weapons

  • NAPF Congratulates Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) congratulates the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for receiving the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

    OPCW is the body that enforces the Chemical Weapons Convention, the international treaty that prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons. Since the Convention came into force in 1997, it has been ratified by 189 states and the OPCW has conducted more than 5,000 inspections in 86 countries. According to its statistics, 81.1 percent of the world’s declared stockpile of chemical agents has been verifiably destroyed.

    Syria is due to become the 190th member state to join the Chemical Weapons Convention on October 14, 2013. OPCW is the organization responsible for destroying its stockpiles of chemical weapons.

    Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, said in his announcement of this year’s peace laureate that the award is a reminder to other nations, including the United States and Russia, to eliminate their own stockpiles of chemical weapons, “especially because they are demanding that others do the same, like Syria.”  He added, “We now have the opportunity to get rid of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction… That would be a great event in history if we could achieve that.”

    The Norwegian Nobel Committee said, “The conventions and the work of the OPCW have defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law.” It also stated, “Disarmament figures prominently in Alfred Nobel’s will. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has through numerous prizes underlined the need to do away with nuclear weapons. By means of the present award to the OPCW, the Committee is seeking to contribute to the elimination of chemical weapons.”

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s vision is a just and peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons. The implementation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which would make the manufacture, testing, possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal under international law, would build on and expand what the OPCW has accomplished in enforcing the Chemical Weapons Convention, making the world a safer place.

  • Chemical Weapons, Then Nuclear Weapons

    David KriegerEveryone can agree that chemical weapons are terrible weapons.  When used, they kill indiscriminately and cause their victims to suffer and die horrible deaths.  The use of chemical weapons in Syria resulted in US threats to strike the Syrian regime with cruise missiles.  Fortunately, this response to the use of chemical weapons was averted, as it might well have caused even more death, injury and displacement for the Syrian people.  With pressure from their ally, Russia, the Syrian government agreed to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and turn over its stock of chemical weapons for destruction.

    Chemical weapons are dangerous and deadly weapons, but they are not the worst weapons created by humans.  By any measure, the worst weapons are nuclear weapons.  They kill by blast, fire and radiation, and they are capable of causing a nuclear winter and sending the globe into an ice age.  Even the two relatively small nuclear weapons (by today’s standards) used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki each thoroughly destroyed a city.  The nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima killed some 90,000 people immediately and 145,000 by the end of 1945.  The nuclear weapon dropped on Nagasaki killed some 40,000 people immediately and 75,000 by the end of 1945.

    People are continuing to die from the effects of the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also from the radiation released by the atmospheric and underground testing of far more powerful nuclear weapons subsequently.  The effects of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either time or space.  They are weapons that cause stillborn births and birth defects in succeeding generations, as well as genetic mutations.  Like chemical weapons, they are weapons that violate international humanitarian law, the law of warfare, because they cannot discriminate between soldiers and civilians and they cause unnecessary suffering.

    So, with last-minute collaboration by the US and Russia, the unexpected outcome was that Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons.  This demonstrates the power of the US and Russia working cooperatively on solving global problems.  Of course, there are many more such problems to work through, including pollution of the oceans and atmosphere, climate change, human rights abuses, starvation, epidemic diseases and the list goes on.  There is not a single serious global problem that can be solved by any one nation alone, no matter the strength of its military power.

    Further, the unexpected success in Syria opens the door to moving from chemical weapons to nuclear weapons.  There is an obstacle, though, with nuclear weapons, and that is that the foxes are guarding the nuclear hen houses.  The five permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, UK, Russia, France and China) are the initial five states to develop nuclear arsenals, to test these weapons and to threaten their use.  They are also the five nuclear weapon states designated in the Non-Proliferation Treaty that have agreed to negotiate in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.

    Understanding that the US and Russia aren’t pursuing their own nuclear disarmament obligations with the same vigor that they are pursuing Syria to give up its chemical weapons, it makes sense that they need pressure from below, from their citizens as well as from people throughout the world, to take the lead in ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity.  Join us at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in putting pressure on the US and Russia to lead the world in negotiating in good faith for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (similar to the Chemical Weapons Convention) to ban nuclear weapons and set forth a plan for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of all nuclear weapons.

    On the way to that goal, and as a follow-up to their success with Syria, it would be a large step forward for the US and Russia to throw their weight behind a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone, long a goal of the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    The possibilities for US-Russian cooperation for a more decent world order are exciting.  We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to fan these sparks of hope.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

  • Eliminating Nuclear Weapons is Just as Important as Eliminating Chemical Weapons

    Lawrence WittnerThe apparent employment of chemical weapons in Syria should remind us that, while weapons of mass destruction exist, there is a serious danger that they will be used.

    That danger is highlighted by an article in the September/October 2013 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Written by two leading nuclear weapons specialists, Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris of the Federation of American Scientists, the article provides important information about nuclear weapons that should alarm everyone concerned about the future of the planet.

    At present, the article reports, more than 17,000 nuclear warheads remain in the possession of nine nations (the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea). Over 90 percent of that inventory consists of U.S. and Russian warheads. These weapons, of course, are incredibly destructive, and almost all of them can massacre populations far more effectively than did the atomic bomb that obliterated the city of Hiroshima. Indeed, a single one of these weapons can slaughter hundreds of thousands of people.

    Although U.S., Russian, British, and French stockpiles of nuclear weapons have been declining since the end of the Cold War, those of the five other nuclear nations have been growing. Consequently, as Kristensen and Norris observe, with the possible exception of North Korea, all of these countries “have sufficient numbers of warheads and delivery systems to inflict enormous destruction over significant ranges with catastrophic humanitarian and climatic consequences in their regions and beyond.”

    Furthermore, many of these deadly weapons stand ready for almost instant use. As the authors state, “roughly 1,800 U.S. and Russian warheads are on high alert atop long-range ballistic missiles that are ready to launch 5 to 15 minutes after receiving an order.”

    But surely these terrible weapons are being phased out, aren’t they? After all, the major nuclear powers, plus most nations, have formally committed themselves to building a nuclear weapons-free world. And it is certainly true that the number of nuclear weapons on the world scene has dropped very significantly from the roughly 70,000 that existed in 1986.

    Even so, there are numerous signs that the nuclear disarmament momentum is slowing. Not only have nuclear disarmament negotiations between the United States (with 7,700 nuclear warheads) and Russia (with 8,500 nuclear warheads) apparently run aground, but none of the nuclear powers seems to take the rhetoric about a nuclear weapons-free world seriously. Kristensen and Norris note: “All the nations with nuclear weapons continue to modernize or upgrade their nuclear arsenals, and nuclear weapons remain integral to their conception of national security.”

    For example, the United States is modifying its existing nuclear warheads while planning production of warheads with new designs. Russia is phasing out its Soviet-era missiles and submarines and deploying newer missiles, as well as additional warheads on its missiles. France is deploying new nuclear missiles on its fighter-bombers and submarines. China is upgrading its missile force, while India and Pakistan are locked in a race to deploy new types of nuclear weapons. Although Israel is the most secretive of the nuclear powers, rumors are afloat that it is equipping some of its submarines with nuclear-capable cruise missiles. North Korea reportedly lacks operational nuclear weapons, but its hungry citizens can take heart that it is working to remedy this deficiency.

    In addition, of course, it is quite possible, in the future, that other nations will develop nuclear weapons, terrorists will obtain such weapons from national stockpiles, or existing nuclear weapons will be exploded or launched accidentally.

    In these very dangerous circumstances, surely the safest course of action would be to have the international community agree on a treaty requiring the destruction of all existing stocks of nuclear weapons and a ban on their future production. Nuclear disarmament discussions along these and other lines have recently been concluded by a UN Open Ended Working Group, and will be continued in late September by a UN High Level Meeting and later this fall by the UN General Assembly First Committee.

    But, to judge from past government behavior, it does not seem likely that disarmament discussions among government officials will get very far without substantial public pressure upon them to cope with the nuclear weapons menace. And it is a menace — one at least as dangerous to the future of world civilization as the existence of chemical weapons. So pressing world leaders for action on nuclear disarmament seems thoroughly appropriate.

    The alternative is to throw up our hands and wait, while power-hungry governments continue to toy with their nuclear weaponry and, ultimately, produce a catastrophe of immense proportions.

    This article was originally published by History News Network.

  • Learning from World War I

    David KriegerWe are approaching the 100th anniversary of the onset of World War I.  One of the lessons of that horrendous war was that chemical weapons cause inhumane suffering and death and that they are not reliable weapons.  Their effectiveness depends on which way the wind is blowing, a situation subject to change.  After the war, the use of chemical and biological weapons in warfare was banned by the Geneva Protocol of 1925.   More recently, the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force in 1997, and today 189 countries are parties to this treaty.

    But the deadliness and unreliability of chemical weapons were not the only lessons of World War I.  A far more important lesson is that a war can take on a life of its own.  No one expected that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Hungary would lead to a world war, but that is the way it worked out.  The assassination set in motion a chain of events leading to all-out war, in which national leaders felt bound to their allies and were unwilling to back down.  It was a war that no one wanted, but one that took four years to halt and resulted in 37 million casualties, including 16 million deaths.

    The Syrian civil war has been going on since spring 2011, but suddenly it has taken on new potential for morphing into a regional or global conflagration.  President Obama said that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government would be the crossing of a red line.  When leaders of superpower countries say such things, they are to be taken as warnings to less powerful states to behave accordingly or face serious consequences.  Someone in Syria appears to have used chemical weapons, and the US government is expressing certainty that it was the Syrian government.  Thus, for US leaders, the red line has been crossed.

    What does this mean?  It means, if true, that a tacit code of international behavior has been violated.  A weaker state, rather than accepting the warning of the superpower state, committed a prohibited act.  From the perspective of the superpower state, someone must be punished or the superpower’s credibility will be destroyed.  The crossing of red lines must be punished by military means, or so goes the argument of President Obama and his administration.  Are they right?

    There are serious problems with this argument.

    First, it is not confirmed that the offending party that used the chemical weapons was the government of Syria.  The Russian government has suggested that the chemical warfare agents were used by Syrian opposition forces.  President Obama was initially rushing to a US military attack and not taking the necessary time and caution to assure that the offending party was the party it warned.

    Second, if the US were to attack Syria with missiles, as President Obama initially intended to do, it would not be in accord with international law and would thus be illegal.  All countries have a responsibility under the United Nations Charter to act in accord with international law.  The Charter prohibits the use of force, such as missile strikes, except in self-defense against an actual attack, or unless authorized by the UN Security Council.  The proposed US missile attack against the Syrian government fits neither of these criteria.

    Third, it puts the perceived credibility of a superpower leader, no matter how ill-advised, ahead of the importance of maintaining peace or, as the UN Charter states, “ending the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind….”

    Fourth, US missile strikes against Syria are unlikely to improve conditions for the Syrian people and are likely to cause them serious harm.

    Fifth, there are other means of punishing the Assad regime for the use of chemical weapons (if this is proven) that do not require the use of military force.  One such means would be organizing an international boycott on the sale or transfer of military equipment to the government of Syria.  Another means would be to refer the evidence on the use of chemical weapons to the International Criminal Court, an institution that can impose criminal liability on national leaders for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

    Once acts of war are commenced, all promises become subject to being broken.  US leaders are promising “no boots on the ground,” but can they keep that promise or will they if things start to go very wrong?  What if a US attack on Syria results in a Syrian attack on US warships or US embassies in the region?  What if it results in a Syrian or Iranian attack on Israel?  What if it brings Russia into the war on the side of Syria, and pits the US and Russia, both nuclear-armed giants, against each other?

    Is it possible that attempting to assure the credibility of President Obama, a Nobel Peace Laureate, through military strikes, could lead to stumbling into a new world war?  No one knows what may happen.  The Middle East is a tinder box.  Throwing a lighted match or a missile strike into that incendiary environment for reasons of credibility is an act of hubris, which could have fiery and tragic consequences that no one wants and none of our experts or political leaders can foresee, just as was the case when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was stuck down by assassination in 1914.

    For now, we must consider it most fortunate that Secretary of State Kerry made a seemingly offhand remark to a reporter’s question about what could lead the US to refrain from a military attack.  Kerry responded that a US military attack could be avoided if Syria were to turn over its stocks of chemical weapons for disposal.  Russian leaders quickly pursued this course of action and convinced Syrian President Assad to commit to turning over his chemical weapons stocks.  Thus, diplomacy may have averted the far more dangerous and deadly resort to acts of war by the US and, at the same time, reinforced international law and prevented the possibility of future chemical weapons use by the Syrian government.  Such a path makes the march to an unintended world war far less likely.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

  • Another War Is Not the Answer

    The actions leading toward US involvement in the civil war in Syria have been moving at a rapid pace. US officials, starting with President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, have been strong advocates of a limited attack on Syria to punish the Assad regime for an alleged chemical attack on its own citizens. It is unlikely, though, that a limited US military attack on the Syrian regime will result in a positive outcome.  More likely, it will cause additional death and untold sorrow to Syrian civilians, make Syrian President Assad a hero in the region, increase the possibilities of a broader regional war, increase tensions between the US and Russia, further undermine respect for international law, and diminish rather than uphold US credibility in the region and beyond.

    Below is a sketch of the sequence of events leading to where we are now; important choice points for the Congress with implications for the president and the American people; and some conclusions and recommendations.

    Sequence of Events

    1. The president threatens to take military action if Syria uses chemical weapons. This was a deterrent threat — a threat meant to prevent the Syrian government from using chemical weapons.
    2. The deterrent threat apparently fails when chemical weapons are used in the Syrian civil war, although it is not known with certainty what party to the conflict actually used them.
    3. US leaders accuse the Syrian government of being the perpetrator of the chemical attack, which is believed by US leaders to have killed over 1,400 people, including over 400 children.
    4. The president indicates his intention to punish the Syrian government by initiating a missile attack on Syrian government forces. Other administration officials, including the secretary of state, publically support the president.
    5. Some commentators argue that a US attack is necessary to maintain US credibility in the world, despite the fact that in this case it will pit the US against Russia, with each country still maintaining some 1,000 nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert. That is, when the president makes a threat, even an ill-advised and dangerous one, it must be carried out so that US threats will be credible in the future.
    6. Other commentators point out that a US military attack on Syria would be illegal under international law since it is neither a military action made in self-defense nor one authorized by the United Nations Security Council. They also point out that US law requires Congress to authorize such an act of war.
    7. The president responds by ignoring concerns about the planned attack being a breach of international law, but says he will send the matter to Congress for consideration when Congress reconvenes, even though he believes that Congressional approval is not necessary for him to act as commander-in-chief.

    Congressional Choice

    1. Congress will have to make a choice to approve or not approve the president’s plan to initiate a US military attack on Syria.
    2. Even if Congress approves US military action, a likely possibility, a US attack on Syria will not be legal under international law.  Nor will such an attack be moral, in that it would likely kill large numbers of innocent Syrians and bring more suffering to the people of Syria. Nor would such an attack be prudent, with its potential to bog the US down in yet another war in the Middle East, at the expense of the people of Syria and US citizens at home.
    3. If Congress votes against approval of US military action, an unlikely possibility, the president will have to decide whether he bends to the will of Congress and backs down, or initiates the attack on his own authority with the potential to trigger a constitutional crisis in addition to all the other negative consequences of initiating an illegal war.

    Conclusions and Recommendations

    1. The American people should speak out against US military action that could involve the US in yet another war with unknown consequences and of unknown duration.
    2. Congress should say No to authorization of the president’s proposed military action against Syria.
    3. The president should back down on his threat to attack Syria. Following through on every presidential threat with military action is a dangerous game for the US, as well as for the world, particularly on threats that violate and undermine international law.
    4. The US should work with the United Nations, and specifically with Russia, on finding a peaceful settlement of the civil war in Syria and, in general, on resolving the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East that are poisoning the well of international relations.
    5. Those responsible for the chemical attack in Syria should be referred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution under international law. The US should also sign and ratify the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court and become a member of the Court.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

  • Defining Appropriate Action in Syria

    The horrific use of chemical weapons in Syria is a crime against humanity and demands an international response. President Obama states that the United States must take appropriate action vs. doing nothing. This is absolutely true. The problem comes in defining appropriate action. There are at least two options, military vs. non-military, the latter with a host of options.

    Framing that action in military terms guarantees the loss of additional innocent lives. Choosing a military option further fuels the sectarian strife spreading across the Middle East.  This will encourage the growth of anti-American sentiment rife in the region. Our trillion dollar war in Iraq has demonstrated that war is not the answer. Iraq is on the verge of falling into the worst chaos since the beginning of that conflict.

    This crisis does demand action ― non-military action.  Doing nothing is cowardly and not in keeping with the credibility or morals of the United States or any other country that professes to support the rule of international law and morality. This includes Russia, Iran and China.

    An international response is demanded. After 9/11 there was a brief period and opportunity when the world came together with a sentiment that the “whole world was American.” That feeling was quickly lost as the U.S. opted for bombing nation after nation, including a unilateral “pre-emptive” war against Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. We have paid and will pay the price of that war for generations.

    Today, in a similar vein, the entire world identifies with and is sickened and horrified by the images of children and innocent victims of these cowardly gas attacks. But the military intervention being debated is not intended to end the violent conflict that has killed more than 100,000 Syrians. It won’t help the nearly two million Syrian refugees return home or get the more than 6.8 million people in need access to humanitarian aid.

    Our leaders need to show courage against the tide of war. The perpetrators of these crimes must be brought to justice. There is an international arena for these crimes against humanity to be addressed. The International Criminal Court’s mission is to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. The International Court of Justice’s mission is to prosecute Nations that have committed crimes against humanity. These are just two methods by which perpetrators of these crimes can be held accountable. The United States has the opportunity to lead the way in empowering and supporting these international institutions in performing the role that they were established to do.

    This will take courage, strength, determination, vision and true international leadership―not bombs. This is the role that the United States can and must pursue if we hope to see an end to sectarian violence in this region and the world over.  We must call upon all nations and our own elected leaders complacent with arming the various sides in these conflicts to endorse and support this international peace keeping effort. This will demonstrate their true commitment to peace, international law and humanity.

    We must follow our moral compass. The United States and other world leaders should intensify their efforts to find a peaceful, political solution to end the bloodshed, not add more violence to a tragic civil war. The president needs to hear from us and be supported for his courage and willingness to pause and hear from the nation as we pursue the best hope for the ordinary men, women, and children of Syria.

    This article was originally published by HuntingtonNews.net.

  • Contra Attack Syria (Excerpt)

    The rationale for an American-led attack on Syria is mostly expressed as follows:

    –America’s credibility is at stake after Obama ‘red line’ was crossed by launching a large-scale lethal chemical weapons attack; doing nothing in response would undermine U.S. global leadership;

    –America’s credibility makes indispensable and irreplaceable contributions to world order, and should not jeopardized by continued passivity in relation to the criminal conduct of the Assad regime; inaction has been tried for the past two years and failed miserably [not clearly tried—Hilary Clinton was avowed early supporter of rebel cause, including arms supplies; recent reports indicate American led ‘special forces operations’ being conducted to bolster anti-Assad struggle];

    –a punitive strike will deter future uses of chemical weapons by Syria and others, teaching Assad and other leaders that serious adverse consequences follow upon a failure to heed warnings posted by an American president in the form of ‘red lines;’

    –even if the attack will not shift the balance in Syria back to the insurgent forces it will restore their political will to persist in the struggle for an eventual political victory over Assad and operate to offset their recently weakened position;

    –it is possible that the attack will unexpectedly enhance prospects for a diplomatic compromise, allowing a reconvening of the U.S.-Russia chaired Geneva diplomatic conference, which is the preferred forum for promoting transition to a post-Assad Syria.

    Why is this rationale insufficient?

    –it does not take account of the fact that a punitive attack of the kind evidently being planned by Washington lacks any foundation in international law as it is neither undertaken in self-defense, nor after authorization by the UN Security Council, nor in a manner that can be justified as humanitarian intervention (in fact, innocent Syrian civilians are almost certain to loom large among the casualties);

    –it presupposes that the U.S. Government rightfully exercises police powers on the global stage, and by unilateral (or ‘coalition of the willing’) decision, can give legitimacy to an other unlawful undertaking; it may be that the United States remains the dominant hard power political actor in the region and world, but its war making since Vietnam is inconsistent with the global public good, causing massive suffering and widespread devastation; international law and the UNSC are preferable sources of global police power than is reliance on the discretion and leadership of the United States at this stage of world history even if this results in occasional paralysis as evidenced by the UN’s failure to produce a consensus on how to end the war in Syria;

    –U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama has similarities to that of George W. Bush in relation to international law, despite differences in rhetoric and style: Obama evades the constraints of international law by the practice of ‘reverential interpretations,’ while Bush defied as matter of national self-assertion and the meta-norms of grand strategy; as a result Obama comes off  as a hypocrite while Bush as an outlaw or cowboy; in an ideal form of global law both would be held accountable for their violations of international criminal law;

    –the impacts of a punitive strike could generate harmful results: weakening diplomatic prospects; increasing spillover effects on Lebanon, Turkey, elsewhere; complicating relations with Iran and Russia; producing retaliatory responses that widen the combat zone; causing a worldwide rise in anti-Americanism.

    There is one conceptual issue that deserves further attention. In the aftermath of the Kosovo NATO War of 1999 there was developed by the Independent International Commission the argument that the military attack was ‘illegal but legitimate.’[1] The argument made at the time was that the obstacles to a lawful use of force could not be overcome because the use of force was non-defensive and not authorized by the Security Council. The use of force was evaluated as legitimate because of compelling moral reasons (imminent threat of humanitarian catastrophe; regional European consensus; overwhelming Kosovar political consensus—except small Serbian minority) relating to self-determination; Serb record of criminality in Bosnia and Kosovo) coupled with considerations of political feasibility (NATO capabilities and political will; a clear and attainable objective—withdrawal of Serb administrative and political control—that was achieved). Such claims were also subject to harsh criticism as exhibiting double standards (why not Palestine?) and a display of what Noam Chomsky dubbed as ‘military humanism.’

    None of these Kosovo elements are present in relation to Syria: it is manifestly unlawful and also illegitimate (the attack will harm innocent Syrians without achieving proportionate political ends benefitting their wellbeing; the principal justifications for using force relate to geopolitical concerns such as ‘credibility,’ ‘deterrence,’ and ‘U.S. leadership.’ [For an intelligent counter-argument contending that an attack on Syria at this time would be ‘illegal but legitimate,’ see Ian Hurd, “Bomb Syria, Even if it is Illegal,” NY Times, August 27, 2013; also “Saving Syria, International Law is not the answer,” Aljazeera, August 27, 2013]

    This is an excerpt from a blog by Richard Falk

    Richard Falk is Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and Senior Vice President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Even if Assad Used Chemical Weapons, the West has no Mandate to Act as a Global Policeman

    It is true that the UN security council is not a reliable global policeman. It may be slow to take action, or paralysed because of disagreement between members. But do we want the US or Nato or “alliances of willing states” as global policemen either? Unlike George Bush in 2003, the Obama administration is not trigger-happy and contemptuous of the United Nations and the rules of its charter, which allow the use of armed force only in self-defence or with an authorisation from the security council. Yet Obama, like Bush and Blair, seems ready to ignore the council and order armed strikes on Syria with political support from only the UK, France and some others.

    Such action could not be “in self-defence” or “retaliation”, as the US, the UK and France have not been attacked. To punish the Assad government for using chemical weapons would be the action of self-appointed global policemen – action that, in my view, would be very unwise.

    While much evidence points to the guilt of the Assad regime, would not due process require that judgment and consideration of action take place in the UN security council and await the report of the inspectors that the UN has sent to Syria – at the demand of the UK and many other UN members?

    We may agree with John Kerry, the US secretary of state, that the use of gas is a “moral obscenity”, but would we not feel that “a measured and proportionate punishment”, like striking at some missile sites or helicopter bases, is like telling the regime that “you can go on with your war but do stay away from the chemical weapons”? And what is the moral weight of the condemnation by nuclear weapons states of the use of gas as a serious war crime when they themselves will not accept a norm that would criminalise any first use of their own nuclear weapons?

    It is hard to avoid the impression that the political and military developments now in overdrive stem partly from pressure exerted by the rebel side to trigger an American military intervention – by trying to hold President Obama to an earlier warning to Assad that a use of chemical weapons would alter his calculation. Equally, if not more important, may be a need felt by the Obama administration to avoid criticism for being hesitant and passive – and appearing like a paper tiger to countries such as Iran that have been warned that the US will not allow them to have nuclear weapons.

    In 2003 the US and the UK and an alliance of “friendly states” invaded Iraq without the authorisation of the security council. A strong body of world opinion felt that this constituted a violation and an undermining of the UN charter. A quick punitive action in Syria today without UN authorisation would be another precedent, suggesting that great military powers can intervene militarily when they feel politically impelled to do so. (They did not intervene when Iraq used chemical weapons on a large scale in the war with Iran in the 1980s.)

    So, what should the world reaction be to the use of chemical weapons? Clearly, evidence available – both from UN inspectors and from member states – should be placed before and judged by the security council. Even if the council could only conclude that chemical weapons had been used – and could not agree that the Assad regime alone was responsible – there would be a good chance of unanimous world condemnation. Global indignation about the use of chemical weapons is of value to strengthen the taboo.

    Condemnation is not enough. With 100,000 killed and millions of refugees, the civil war itself is a “moral obscenity”. The council must seek to achieve not just an end to chemical weapons use but an end to all weapons use, by a ceasefire. As was planned not long ago by the US and Russia, the council must seek to bring about a conference at which relevant parties and states can form an interim authority. The alternative is continued civil war in Syria and worsening international relations.

    Is the ending of active hostilities totally unrealistic? Let us be clear that the government in Syria, as well as all rebel groups, depends upon a flow of weapons, munitions and money from the outside. Much is reported to come to the rebels from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey; and much is reported to come to the government from Russia and Iran. The supplier countries have leverage. Agreement should be sought, under the auspices of the security council, that all parties that have given such support demand that their clients accept a ceasefire – or risk losing further support.

    This article was originally published by The Guardian.

  • New US Nuclear Posture Under Fire

    Originally Published by the Inter Press Service

    A top U.N. disarmament official assailed Thursday U.S. proposals to deploy nuclear weapons against countries wielding biological and chemical weapons.

    “I don’t think it makes sense,” said Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala. “If somebody uses a basic weapon against you, you do not use the maximum weapon you have in your arsenal.”

    ”We know from scientific evidence that the use of nuclear weapons can destroy not only large numbers of human beings but also the ecological system that supports human life,” and that ill-effects from radiation are prolonged, Dhanapala added.

    Last week, the New York Times reported that the administration of President George W. Bush is planning a broad overhaul of its nuclear policy.

    As part of the proposed policy, it reported, the administration is planning to develop new nuclear weapons including so-called “mini” weapons suited to striking specific targets in countries such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Libya.

    All five countries have been accused by the United States of either developing or possessing weapons of mass destruction including nuclear, biological, and chemical arms.

    Arab officials have complained that the United States has remained silent, however, on Israel, which they say possesses large quantities of mass destruction weapons.

    There are five declared nuclear powers in the world: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, all of them veto- wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

    At least three other countries are generally considered “undeclared nuclear powers”: Israel, India and Pakistan.

    The United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons, when it bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

    In a report titled ‘The Nuclear Posture Review’ (NPR), the U.S. Department of Defence has said there is a need to resume nuclear testing and to develop new nuclear weapons to blow up underground bunkers where biological and chemical weapons may be in storage.

    Last week, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the only choice against adversaries using weapons of mass destruction is to make it clear in advance “that it would be met with a devastating response.”

    Dhanapala said the new U.S. policy “flies in the face of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty undertakings.” Under Article VI of the NPT, he said, states are expected to reduce nuclear weapons and ultimately eliminate them.

    “So this is to me a very serious contradiction of that, and will be a very major stumbling block, as we begin the process of preparing for the 2005 NPT Review Conference,” he said. These preparations are scheduled to begin next month.

    Dhanapala also warned that if the United States resumes nuclear testing or develops new nuclear weapons, it would encourage other countries to discard their obligations under the NPT and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

    “To go back on those treaties would amount to opening the flood gates, and regressing in the development of the norms that we have had,” he added.

    John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, told IPS the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances, including retaliation against a nuclear, chemical or biological attack, must meet the requirements of humanitarian law. These include necessity, proportionality, and discrimination between military targets and civilians.

    “Nuclear weapons cannot meet these requirements,” he said. “As the International Court of Justice said, their radioactive effects cannot be limited in space and time. Therefore their use is barred.”

    Burroughs added that one of the “disturbing aspects” of the NPR is that it signals the possibility of U.S. nuclear use against a non- nuclear country – and not in retaliation for a chemical or biological attack, but rather to pre-empt such an attack.

    The NPR also refers to “surprising military developments” as a rationale, taking the issue out of the realm of weapons of mass destruction, he added.

    Chris Paine, a senior analyst with the Natural Resources Defence Council, said only a massive and unusually lethal chemical attack on large numbers of non-combatants could conceivably justify a nuclear response.

    Biological weapons have a much greater inherent lethality against unprotected civilian populations, and the devastating consequences of such an attack could possibly render nuclear weapons a proportionate response – “but not necessarily a rational or moral one”, he argued.

    This is particularly so, if alternative military means exist for punishing the perpetrators, who may or may not be readily targeted, or even susceptible to identification.

    The policy of pre-emptive strikes is foolish and counter- productive on several levels, he said, because it encourages other nation’s to consider whether they will be able to sustain an adequate conventional deterrent to foreign military interference or invasion, and therefore to acquire the very weapons of mass destruction that Bush claims so vigorously to oppose.

    Paine said that such a policy also deprives the United States of the moral and political standing to oppose other nation’s weapons of mass destruction programmes, leaving military coercion as the primary instrument for “dissuading” foreign countries from competing with the United States in the realm of mass destruction weaponry.

    “The Bush administration’s stance reduces a once vigorous U.S. non- proliferation posture to rubble,” he added.

     

  • Chemical and Biological Weapons: Use in Warfare, Impact on Society and Environment

    1. Introduction

    Since the end of World War II there has been a number of treaties dealing with the limitations, reductions, and elimination of so-called weapons of mass destruction and/or their transport systems (generally called delivery systems). Some of the treaties are bilateral, others multilateral, or in rare cases universal. In the present paper only the chemical and biological weapons will be discussed, with emphasis on the Convention to eliminate them (CBWC).

    The term “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD), used to encompass nuclear (NW), biological (BW), and chemical weapons (CW), is misleading, politically dangerous, and cannot be justified on grounds of military efficiency. This had been pointed out previously by the author [1] and discussed in considerable detail in ref. [2]. Whereas protection with various degrees of efficiency is possible against chemical and biological weapons, however inconvenient it might be for military forces on the battlefield and for civilians at home, it is not feasible at all against nuclear weapons. Chemical weapons have shown to be largely ineffective in warfare, biological weapons have never been deployed on any significant scale. Both types should be better designated as weapons of terror against civilians and weapons of intimidation for soldiers. Requirements on their transport system differ vastly from those for nuclear warheads. They are able to cause considerable anxiety, panic, and psychosis without borders within large parts of the population. Stockpiling of biological weapons is not possible over a long time scale [3, 4]. Only nuclear weapons are completely indiscriminate by their explosive power, heat radiation and radioactivity, and only they should therefore be called a weapon of mass destruction.

    However, if one wants to maintain the term “Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)“, it is a defendable view to exclude chemical and biological weapons, but put together with nuclear weapons all those that actually has killed millions of people in civil wars since World War II. These are mainly assault rifles, like AK47s, handguns, and land mines, to a lesser extent mortars, fragmentation bombs, and hand grenades.

    This paper gives in Chapter 2 an overview on the history of chemical warfare, addresses in Chapter 3 the inventory of chemical weapons, discusses in Chapter 4 the elimination of chemical weapons and possible problems resulting for the environment (CW), reviews in Chapter 5 some non-lethal chemical weapons and chemical weapons which may be on the borderline to conventional explosives, and describes in Chapter 6 some of the old and new biological weapons (BW). Chapter 7 evaluates and compares the use of biological and chemical weapons by terrorists and by military in combat. The present status and verification procedures for the Chemical and Biological Weapons Convention (CBWC) are addressed in the conclusions in Chapter 8.

    2. Chemical Warfare, Its History [5]

    The Greeks first used sulfur mixtures with pitch resin for producing suffocating fumes in 431 BC during the Trojan War. Attempts to control chemical weapons date back to a 1675 Franco-German accord signed in Strasbourg. Then came the Brussels Convention in 1874 to prohibit the use of poison or poisoned weapons. During the First Hague Peace Appeal in 1899, the Hague Convention elaborated on the Brussels accord by prohibiting the use of projectiles that would diffuse “asphyxiating or deleterious” gases (Laws and Customs of Wars on Land). This Convention was reinforced during the second Hague conference in 1907, but prohibitions were largely ignored during World War I. At the battle of Ypres/Belgium, canisters of chlorine gas were exploded in April 1915 by Germany, which killed 5,000 French troops and injured 15,000. Fritz Haber, a Nobel price winner in 1919 for invention of ammonium fixation, had convinced the German Kaiser to use chlorine gas to end the war quickly. History taught us about a different outcome. During World War I all parties used an estimated 124,000 tons of chemicals in warfare. Mustard gas – “the king of battle gases” – then used on both sides in 1917 killed 91,000 and injured 1.2 million, accounting for 80% of the chemical casualties (death or injury). Chemical weapons caused about 3 percent of the estimated 15 million casualties on the Western Front [3, 6]. To put these numbers into perspective, the total loss of Allied lives was ³ 5 million, of the Central Powers 3.4 million, and the total of all wounded soldiers 21 million. Despite of its intensive use, gas was a military failure in WW I. The inhuman aspect and suffering was soon recognized and the year 1922 saw the establishment of the Washington Treaty, signed by the United States, Japan, France, Italy and Britain. In 1925 the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the use in war of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare was signed, and it had been a cornerstone of chemical and biological arms control since then. The Geneva Protocol did neither forbid the stockpiling or the research on chemical weapons.

    Despite the conventions, banning chemical weapons, Italians used them during the war 1935-36 in Ethiopia, the Japanese in China during World War II (1938-42), and they were used also in Yemen (1966-67). Various new chemicals were developed for use in weapons. Sarin, Soman, and VX followed Tabun, the first nerve gas, discovered in 1936.

    During the Vietnam War (1961-1973), the US was accused of using lachrymatory agents and heavy doses of herbicides (defoliants) in much the same manner as chemical weapons. Some international organizations consider Napalm, its trade name, to be a chemical weapon, others put it on equal level with flame throwers, and consequently not falling under any of the articles of the CWC.

    Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iraqi civilians as well as against Iran soldiers between 1980 and 1988. It is estimated that of the approximately 27,000 Iranians exposed to Iraqi mustard gas in that war through March 1987, only 265 died. Over the entire war, Iraqi chemical weapons killed 5,000 Iranians. This constituted less than one percent of the 600,000 Iranians who died from all causes during the war [6].

    The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons And on Their Destruction (CWC) [7], entered into force in 1997 after deposit of 65 ratification documents, and is signed as of May 1999 by 122 states-parties. There are 46 non-ratifying signatories, and 22 non-states parties [8, 9].

    3. The Inventory of Chemical Weapons

    Chemical weapons have been produced during the twentieth century by many countries and in large quantities. They are still kept in the military arsenals as weapons of in kind or flexible response. Old ammunition is partially discarded in an environmental irresponsible way.

    3.1 Military value of chemical weapons

    By their nature, chemical arms have a relatively limited range: they create regional rather than global security problems, and slow the tempo of operations. In this, they are militarily more akin to conventional arms than to nuclear or biological weapons.

    Even extended use of chemical weapons had no decisive impact on outcome of wars, had only local success, and made wars uncomfortable, to no purpose. For this and other reasons it is difficult to see why they are around in the first place. However, they had been produced in enormous quantities and mankind has to deal with their very costly elimination.

    Should scientists be held responsible for their invention, production, use, and also for the elimination of chemical weapons? Certainly not entirely, since military and politicians demanded their production. However, we need the help of scientists for the difficult job of neutralising or eliminating them.

    3.2 Classification of chemical weapons

    Binary munitions contain two separated non-lethal chemicals that react to produce a lethal chemical when mixed during battlefield delivery. Unitary weapons, representing the by far largest quantity of the stockpile, contain a single lethal chemical in munitions. Other unitary agents are stored in bulk containers. The characteristics of chemical warfare agents and toxic armament wastes are described in detail in ref. [10]. The reader is referred to this article, which summarises the chemical and physical characteristics of blister, blood, choking, nerve, riot control, and vomiting agents, as well as their effects on the human body.

    3.3 Abandoned Weapons

    The easiest – say cheapest – way to eliminate (?) chemical weapons in the aftermath of World War II appeared to dump them into ocean [11]. There had been a worry that, after their defeat in 1945, Germans could be tempted to use part of their arsenal, which totaled 296,103 tons. Therefore, the weapons were captured and dumped into the sea. There are more than 100 sea dumping of chemical weapons that took place from 1945 to 1970 in every ocean except the Arctic. 46,000 tons were dumped in the Baltic areas known as the Gotland Deep, Bornholm Deep, and the Little Belt. According to The Continental Committee on Dumping the total was shared by 93,995 tons from the US, 9,250 tons from France, 122,508 tons from Britain, and 70,500 tons from Russia.

    The US dumped German chemical weapons in the Scandinavian region, totaling between 30,000 and 40,000 tons, nine ships in the Skagerrak Strait and two more in the North Sea at depth of 650 to 1,180 meters.

    The Russians alone have dumped 30,000 tons in an area, 2,000 square kilometers in size, near the Gotland and Bornholm Islands.

    Between 1945 and 1949, the British dumped 34 shiploads carrying 127,000 tons of chemical (containing 40,000 tons mustard gas) and conventional weapons in the Norwegian Trench at 700 meters depth.

    The chemical weapons at the bottom of the Baltic Sea (mean depth of the Baltic Sea is 51 meters) and the North Sea represent a serious danger for the aquatic life. The shells of the grenades corrode and will eventually start to leak. The corrosion of these weapons is already so advanced that identification of the former owners is virtually impossible. Consequently, nobody can be made nowadays responsible for the ultimate elimination.

    The US is responsible for 60 sea dumping totaling about 100,000 tons (equal to 39 filled railroad box cars), of chemical weapons filled with toxic materials in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of New Jersey, California, Florida, and South Carolina, and near India, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Japan, and Australia.

    Some of the above figures appear to be not entirely coherent and do not add up well to the total, demonstrating among other things that no careful bookkeeping had been done during this inadmissible actions.

    During the 1950s, the US conducted an ambitious nerve gas program, manufacturing what would eventually total 400,000 M-55 rockets, each of which was capable of delivering a 5-kg payload of Sarin [11, 12]. Many of those rockets had manufacturing defaults, their propellant breaking down in a manner that could lead to auto ignition. For this reason in 1967 and 1968 51,180 nerve gas rockets were dropped 240 km off the coast of New York State in depths 1’950 to 2,190 meters, and off the coast of Florida.

    The CWC does not cover sea-dumped chemical weapons; in fact it makes a clear exception for them (CWC, Article III, § 2). The CWC does not provide the legal basis to cover chemical weapons that were dumped before 1985. They remain an uncontrollable time bomb.

    3.4 The existing arsenal

    The arsenal of chemical weapons has to be subdivided into two categories: (i) The “stockpile” of unitary chemical warfare (CW) agents and ammunitions, comprising the material inside weapons and chemicals in bulk storage, and (ii) The “non-stockpile” material, including buried chemical material, binary chemical weapons, recovered chemical weapons, former facilities for chemical weapons production, and other miscellaneous chemical warfare material.

    3.4.1 The stockpile of unitary chemical warfare agents and ammunition

    The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the US reports [13, 14]:

    Middle East

    Egypt: First country in the Middle East to obtain chemical weapons training, indoctrination, and material. It employed phosgene and mustard agent against Yemeni Royalist forces in the mid-1960s, and some reports claim that it also used an organophosphate nerve agent.
    Israel: Developed its own offensive weapons program. The 1990 DIA study reports that Israel maintains a chemical warfare testing facility. Newspaper reports suggest the facility be in the Negev desert.
    Syria: It began developing chemical weapons in the 1970s. It received chemical weapons from Egypt in the 1970s, and indigenous production began in the 1980s. It allegedly has two means of delivery: a 500-kilogram aerial bomb, and chemical warheads for Scud-B missiles. Two chemical munitions storage depots, at Khna Abu Shamat and Furqlus. Centre D’Etude et Recherche Scientifique, near Damascus, was the primary research facility. It is building a new chemical-weapons factory near the city of Aleppo.
    Iran: Initiated a chemical and warfare program in response to Iraq’s use of mustard gas against Iranian troops. At end of war military had been able to field mustard and phosgene. Had artillery shells and bombs filled with chemical agents. Was developing ballistic missiles. Has a chemical-agent warhead for their surface-to-surface missiles.
    Iraq: Used chemical weapons repeatedly during the Iraq-Iran war. Later it attacked Kurdish villagers in northern Iraq with mustard and nerve gas. Since end of Gulf War UN destroyed more than 480,0000 liters of Iraq’s chemical agents and 1.8 million liters of precursor chemicals.
    Libya: Obtained its first chemical agents from Iran, using them against Chad in 1987. Opened its own production facility in Rabta in 1988. May have produced as much as 100 tons of blister and nerve agents before a fire broke out in 1990. Is building a second facility in an underground location at Tarhunah.
    Saudi Arabia: May have limited chemical warfare capability in part because it acquired 50 CSS-2 ballistic missiles from China. These highly inaccurate missiles are thought to be suitable only for delivering chemical agents.

    Asia

    North Korea: Program since 1960s, probably largest in the region. Can produce “large quantities” of blister, blood, and nerve agents.
     

    South Korea:

    		 Has the chemical infrastructure and technical capability to produce chemical agents, had a chemical weapons program.
    India: Had CW stocks and weapons.
    Pakistan: Has artillery projectiles and rockets that can be made chemical-capable.
    China: China has a mature chemical warfare capability, including ballistic missiles.
    Taiwan: Had an “aggressive high-priority program to develop both offensive and defensive capabilities”, was developing chemical weapons capability, and in 1989, it may be operational.
    Burma: Its program, under development in 1983, may or may not be active today. It has chemical weapons and artillery for delivering chemical agents.
    Vietnam: In 1988 was in the process of deploying, or already had, chemical weapons. Also it captured large stocks of US riot control agents during and at the end of the Vietnam War.

    Europe

    Yugoslavia: The former Yugoslavia has a CW production capability. Produced and weaponized Sarin, sulphur mustard, BZ (a psychochemical incapacitant), and irritants CS and CN. The Bosnians produced crude chemical weapons during the 1992-1995 war.
    Romania: Has research and production facilities and chemical weapons stockpiles and storage facilities. Has large chemical warfare program, and had developed a cheaper method for synthesizing Sarin.
    Czechoslovakia: Pilot-plant chemical capabilities that probably included Sarin, Soman, and possibly VX.
    France: Has stockpile of chemical weapons, including aerosol bombs.
    Bulgaria: Has stockpile of chemical munitions of Soviet origin.

    USA:

    Has the second largest arsenal of chemical weapons in the world, consisting of ~31,000 tons of chemicals, and 3.6 million grenades [15]. The chemical weapons contain about 12,000 tons of agents, and 19,000 tons are in bulk storage. Details on composition and location are given in Table 1.
    Russia:

    An estimate of the Russian stockpile in 1993 puts it at ~40,000 agent tons, of which one-fourth is of pre-World War II vintage. A larger portion seems to be in bulk storage [16]. Out of the officially declared quantity 30,000 tons are phosphoric organic agents (Sarin, Soman, VX), the remaining 10,000 tons are composed of 7,000 tons lewisite (in containers ?), 1,500 tons of mixture of mustard gas and Lewisite (GB, GD, VX), and 1,500 tons mustard gas. Slightly different numbers on the composition of the arsenal are given in ref. [17]. Some independent analysts believe that the 40,000 tons formally declared by Russia is only a fraction of a total of 100,000 to 200,000 tons, the rest of which were probably disposed of in some manner [18].

     

    Locations of the US Unitary Chemical Stockpile
    Site Agent Agent Tons Percent of Stockpile
    Anniston Army Depot (ADAD), Anniston, AL GB, HD, HT, VX 2,253.63 7.4
    Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Edgewood, MD HD 1,624.87 5.3
    Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD), Richmont, KY GB, HD, VX 523.41 1.7
    Johnston Island (JI), Pacific Ocean GB, HD, VX 1,134.17 3.7
    Newport Chemical Activity (NECA), Newport, IN VX 1,269.33 4.2
    Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA), Pine Bluff, AR GB, HD, HT, VX 3,849.71 12.6
    Pueblo Depot Activity (PUDA), Pueblo, CO HD, HT 2,611.05 8.5
    Tooele Army Depot (TEAD), Tooele, UT H, HD, HT, GA, GB, L, TGA, TGB, VX 13,616.00 44.5
    Umatilla Depot Activity (UMDA), Herminston, OR GB, HD, VX 3,717.38 12.2
    Total 30,599.55 100.0

    Non-persistent nerve gas agents: Tabun (GA) and Sarin (GB) and their thickened products (TGA and TGB) Mustard agents (H, HD and HT) Lewisite (L) Persistent nerve agent (VX)

    Agents of the US Unitary Chemical Stockpile
    Agent Site Agent Tons Percent of Stockpile Total
    GA TEAD 1.41 0.005 1.41
    GB ANAD 436.51
    BGAD 305.64
    JI 617.48
    PBA 483.69
    TEAD 6,045.26
    UMDA 1,041.01 29.1 8,902.59
    H TEAD 319.77 1.5 319.77
    HD ANAD 456.08
    APG 1,624.87
    BGAD 90.63
    JI 164.86
    PBA 94.20
    PUDA 2,551.94
    TEAD 5,694.64
    UMDA 2,339.52 42.5 13,016.74
    HT ANAD 532.30
    PBA 3,124.55
    PUDA 59.11
    TEAD 181.51 12.7 3,897.47
    L TEAD 12.96 0.004 12.96
    TGA TEAD 0.64 0.002 0.64
    TGB TEAD 3.48 0.01 3.48
    VX ANAD 828.74
    BGAD 127.15
    JI 351.83
    NECA 1,269.33
    PBA 147.27
    TEAD 1,356.33
    UMDA 363.86 14.5 4,444.51
    TOTAL 100.0 30,599.55

     

    US Binary Chemical Stockpile
    Site Type Fill Component Total Tons
    APG QL 0.73
    DF 0.57 1.30
    PBA QL 48.21
    DF 126.51 174.72
    TEAD OPA 33.58 33.58
    UMDA OPA 470.59 470.59
    TOTAL 680.19

    Methylphosphonic difluoride (DF) Isopropyl alcohol and isopropylamine (OPA) Ethyl 2-diisoprpylaminoethyl methylphosphonite (QL)

    Tables 1. US Unitary and Binary Chemical Stockpiles

    The above tables give the location of the nine depots and the variety of chemical weapons stored, which is an indication for the complexity for their elimination or transport problems.

    The locations of the Soviet chemical weapons are spread over large parts of the West-European and Asian part of Russia at seven sites (Table 2 [18]). About 80 percent are weaponized and consist mostly of organophosphorus nerve agents. The remainder of the material is stored in bulk at two sites – Kambarka and Gornyi.

    Site % of Stockpile Agents
    Kambarka 15.9 Lewisite
    Gorny 2.9 Mustard
    Lewite
    Kizner 14.2 Vx
    Sarin
    Soman
    Lewisite
    Maradykovsky 17.4 Vx
    Sarin
    Soman
    M/L mix
    Pochep 18.8 VX
    Sarin
    Soman
    Leonidovka 17.2 VX
    Sarin
    Soman
    Shchuchye 13.6 VX
    Sarin
    Soman
    Phosgene

    Table 2. Russia’s chemical weapons storage sites [18]

    3.4.2 The non-stockpile material

    Data on non-stockpile material are scarce. Some estimates are available for the US [12]. All the material recovered in the US thus far contains only hundreds of tons of agent and could, in theory, be placed in a single 8-metre-by-25-metre storage building [12]. A considerable amount of money will be required for the destruction of all former facilities for chemical weapons production constructed or used after January 1, 1946.

    Abandoned chemical weapons do represent a safety risk. Between 1985 and 1995 Dutch fishermen reported more than 350 cases where chemical weapons, dumped into the Baltic Sea, were caught in fishing nets, some resulting in serious burns.

    In China during World War II the Japanese left 678,729 chemical weapons. Recent negotiations resulted in Japan’s agreement to collect and destroy these weapons.

    The most persistent agents – mustards and lewisite – can remain dangerous for decades. Even after lewisite breaks down, the resulting arsenic compounds can remain in soil and contaminate ground water [19].

    Recovery of ammunitions from World War I still continues. Annual collections by France amount to about 30-50 tons along the old front line, by Belgium to 17 tons (c. 1,500 items) [20].

    4. Elimination of Chemical Weapons

    The CWC not only prohibits the use, production, acquisition and transfer of chemical weapons, but also requires the states-parties to destroy their existing weapons and production facilities. For the US the deadline is April 29, 2007. The CWC prohibits disposal by dumping into a body of water, land burial or open-pit burning, and requires that the chosen technology destroy the chemical agent in an irreversible manner that also protects the safety of humans and the environment.

    4.1 Program, costs and status of the destruction of the existing active arsenal

    Since the weight of a typical chemical weapon is roughly ten times that of the agent it contains, and other nations may have as much as 10-15 percent of the combined Russian and US stockpile, the mass of the material to be destroyed comes to roughly 500,000 tons – nearly 100,000 truckloads of material.

    In general, the ignition part of ammunition has to be removed or inactivated prior to destruction. Then starts the main part of elimination of the weapon. The US choose high-temperature incineration and chemical neutralization as its preferred destruction technique, which has to destroy the chemicals together with the metal casing. The cost of this procedure can outrun the cost of agent destruction many fold – in some cases by 10-20 times.

    The process of elimination is a slow, tedious one, with rising costs as time passes by. A bilateral US – USSR agreement in June 1990 to destroy at least 50 percent of their stockpiles by 1999 and to retain no more than 5,000 tons of agent by 2002 is long outdated [21].

    Since 1985, the US Army’s cost estimate for the stockpile disposal program has increased from estimates in 1985 of $1.7 billion to $15.7 billion as of today, and its projected completion date has slipped from 1994 to 2007 [16, 12]. At the end of 1999 about 22 percent of its chemicals had been incinerated [8, 9].

    The destruction of the Russian arsenal faces both, financial and technical challenges [17] and is seriously behind schedule. The first deadline imposed by the CWC – destruction of 1 percent of stockpiles by April 29, 2000 – has already been missed. Under the revised program approved by the Russian government in July, this milestone will not be achieved until 2003, while the entire destruction process is scheduled to last until 2012. Russia does not want to copy the well-proven American incineration technology. Its own neutralization-bituminization program has not been developed beyond the laboratory bench, and therefore had destroyed only a few thousand weapons [22]. The idea of incineration of their chemical weapon arsenal by nuclear explosion is studied in Russia’s former weapons laboratories [23]. This procedure, even if it is feasible deep underground, is not compatible with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and will find also serious resistance from environmentalists.

    Most estimates for Russia’s costs are in the $6 billion to $8 billion range [18].

    4.2 The abandoned weapons

    Chemical weapons are buried on land, dumped into the sea and simply lost at many places on our globe [20]. Finding, collecting and destroying them might be as difficult, dangerous and time consuming as those of land mines.

    The non-stockpile disposal program is currently projected to cost $15.1 billion – nearly the cost of the stockpile disposal program – and will take until 2033 to complete [12]. There the major cost factor arises from the difficulties of detection of scattered chemical weapons, due to insufficient book-keeping, the necessity to design and built new mobile disposal systems, and last not least overcoming the public opposition of destruction or transporting lethal CW in the vicinity of habitats. The provisions in the CWC will not apply to weapons buried on its territory before 1 January 1977.

    4.4 A Comparison of chemical weapons agents with other waste

    Our civilization produces a great variety of waste products, with differing degrees of danger for the environment and people. They range from household waste, electronic waste from the information age, to toxic waste from chemical factories, by-products of the mining industry, coal and oil firing, and last not least to those from military and civil use of nuclear energy. Among these waste products is a largely unknown environmental hazard due to the one-to-two-hundred tons of Mercury, that have been discharged into nature during the manufacturing of nuclear weapons in the US (mainly at Oak Ridge, also at Hanford/Washington). Its impact on the food chain can become catastrophic on a regional level [24]. Even the most widely used propellant of weapons, Trinitrotoluol or TNT, is a threat to the environment because of its persistency and its ability to enter easily into ground water.

    A crude estimate of the importance of the chemical weapon waste relative to other human waste production can be made taking data from the annual production of waste in kilogram per inhabitant in France:

    Waste Kg/person/year
    Household (kitchen garbage, diverse domestic scrap) 360
    Agriculture (plastic, farming scrap) 7,300
    Industrial waste (metal waste, iron, non-iron, powders, technology waste) 3,000
    thereof classified as toxic waste 100
    Hospital waste 15
    Nuclear waste (packaged) 1.2
    Total waste 10,776

    Table 2 Annual waste production in kilogram per person in France [25]

    And by assuming that waste production per person in France (population 58 million) and the United States (population 267 million) is comparable (probably an underestimation of the US figures), the total waste of these categories can be estimated for the US in tons per year:

    Waste Tons/year
    Household 100· 106;
    Agriculture 2·109;
    Industrial waste 800·106
    thereof toxic waste 30·106
    Nuclear waste 320·100
    Chemical weapons waste 500·100
    Total waste 3·109

    Table 3 Crude estimate of annual waste production in the US

    It is assumed that the 30,000 tons of US chemical weapons material were accumulated over ~60 years, i.e. on the average 500 tons produced per year. The above order of magnitude estimate shows, that nuclear and chemical weapons wastes are in the same ball part, but are hundred thousand times smaller than the other toxic/dangerous waste. Due to the complexity of the toxic items, a qualitative comparison of present and future dangers for mankind and environment by taking only the quantitative aspects into consideration can and should not be made since it may lead to wrong conclusions.

    5. Non-lethal chemical weapons

    All weapons are made out of chemical elements, be it the metal shell of a grenade, sometimes made of depleted uranium, the explosive agent to propel it or the material filled into its encasing. The dangers of highly toxic, volatile rocket fuel on the delivery systems of nuclear warheads in Russia may be very high [26]. For this simple reason alone it is difficult to come up with an all-encompassing definition for chemical weapons.

    Are chemicals still material of weapons if they are used in very low concentrations? The latter point may be illustrated by the double use of Zyklon B (or Cyclon B in English), that is used as fumigant for the purpose of pest and vermin control. It had been applied in low concentration in a beneficial way in the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, while utilized in high concentration in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, it lead to one of the most criminal acts committed in the twentieth century [27].

    Dozens of technologies are being studied or developed under the elastic rubric of “non-lethal weapons” [28]. They include infrasound, supercaustics, irritants like tear gas, and all those that could be aimed at non-human targets – such as combustion inhibitors, chemicals that can immobilize machinery or destroy airplane tires. The text of the CWC does not give always an unambiguous answer or definition what is a chemical weapon agent. It could be asked if the following agents fall into the category of chemical weapons, some of them old as war [10], like (i) Military Smoke Agents, (ii) Incendiaries producing fires and burns of skin? Where do the recently used or newly developed ones belong, like (iii) Sticky Foam, Super Lubricants (“slickums and stickums”), or (iv) Pulsed Chemical Laser Beams? A special case takes (v) Depleted Uranium Ammunition, which can be considered a biological or a radiological weapon.

    The preamble to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious or To Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW), and less formally referred to as the “Inhuman Weapons Convention”, expressed the wish for amendments [30]. Among those was the elimination of laser weapons, which are now banned by the Protocol IV, which was adopted by the Conference of the States Parties to the Convention and entered into force on 30 July 1998 [28, 29].

    Other weapons are being negotiated, like submunitions in the form of bomblets assembled in clusters and delivered by aircraft or by artillery, rockets or guided missiles, be equipped with devices making them harmless if they fail to explode. One canister may contain 50 bomblets, or 600, or even as many as 4,700, depending on the model, and may cover a ground area from 100 to 250 meters in diameter. The bomblets, when fitted with delayed action fuses, are effective area-denial weapons. Usually about 30% fail to explode and remain as mines, like many in Kosovo after the 1999 war.

    Depleted Uranium (DU) [31], which draw a lot of public attention in the recent decade, is a by-product of enriching natural uranium – increasing the proportion of the U235 atom which is the only form of uranium that can sustain a nuclear reaction and is used in nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons. The remaining depleted uranium has practically no commercial value. The Department of Energy in the US (DoE) has a 560,000-metric-ton stockpile, with very limited civilian use as a coloring matter in pottery or as a steel-alloying constituent [32]. Depleted uranium is chemically toxic like other heavy metals such as lead, but can produce adversary health effects being an alpha particle emitter with radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years.

    In the 1950’s the US became interested in using depleted uranium metal in weapons because it is extremely dense, pyrophoric, cheap, and available in high quantities. Kinetic energy penetrators do not explode; they fragment and burn through armour due to the pyrophoric nature of uranium metal and the extreme flash temperatures generated on impact. They contaminate areas with extremely fine radioactive and toxic dust. This in turn can cause kidney damage, cancers in the lung and bone, non-malignant respiratory decease, skin disorders, neurocognitive disorders, chromosomal damage, and birth defects [33]. Depleted uranium weapons are proliferating and are likely to become commonly used in land warfare. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Thailand, Taiwan and Pakistan are possessing or manufacture depleted uranium weapons. Many NATO countries may follow suite. These weapons were used in large quantities first in the 1991 Gulf War [33, 34], and then again during the Kosovo War in 1999 [35]. The question can be asked if DU is mainly a chemical, or a radiological weapon? An immediate answer is not to be expected before classified material becomes available, and the medical reason for the Golf-War Syndrome is identified, which shows up in thousands of American soldiers. It appears that effect of the radioactive by inhalation of small doses will have only a small impact on risk to die of cancer, whereas the heavy metal effect seems to dominate [36]. Be it as it might be, depleted uranium is dangerous, but is pales in comparison with the other direct and indirect effects of war.

    Due to their double use properties, some chemical weapons may be masked as pesticides, fertilizers, dyes, herbicides, or defoliants. Between 1962 and 1971 more than 72 million liter herbicides were distributed over South Viet Nam [37], thereof more than 44 million liter were the defoliant agent orange, containing about 170 kg dioxin. American scientists developed a means of thickening gasoline with the aluminum soap of naphtenic and palmitic acids into a sticky syrup that carries further from projectors and burns more slowly but at a higher temperature. This mixture, known as Napalm, can also be used in aircraft or missile-delivered warheads against military or civilian targets. A small, high explosive charge scatters the flaming liquid, which sticks to what it hits until burned out. Is Napalm still only a herbicide even when used in too large a quantity, and then accidentally affecting humans?

    White phosphorous is used as a shell and grenade filler in combination with a small high-explosive charge. It is both an incendiary and the best-known producer of vivid white smoke. Small bits of it burn even more intensely than Napalm when they strike personnel.

    Herbicides are not covered by the Convention but they are banned under the Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD), adopted by the UN General Assembly on the 10th of December 1976 and entered into force the 5th of October 1978 [38].

    In order to curb the production of chemical weapons, require their identification, e.g. by trace elements in ammunition!

    6. Old and New Biological Weapons

    The use of biological agents as weapon has always an even more adverse world opinion than chemical warfare. A SIPRI Monograph describes among other topics the changing view of biological and toxin warfare agents, the new generation of biological weapons, the changing status of toxin weapons, a new generation of vaccines against biological and toxin weapons, and the implications of the BWC [39].

    Claims that biological agents have been used as weapons of war can be found in both the written records and the artwork of many early civilizations [40]. As early as 300 BC the Greeks polluted the wells and drinking water supplies of their enemies with the corpses of animals. Later the Romans and Persians used the same tactics. In 1155 at a battle in Tortona, Italy, Barbarossa broadened the scope of biological warfare, using the bodies of dead soldiers as well as animals to pollute wells. In 1863 during the US Civil War, General Johnson used the bodies of sheep and pigs to pollute drinking water at Vicksburg. The use of catapults as weapons was well established by the medieval period, and projecting over the walls dead bodies of those dead of disease was an effective strategy for besieging armies. In 1763 the history of biological warfare took a significant turn from the crude use of diseased corpses to the introduction of specific decease, smallpox (“Black Death”), as a weapon in the North American Indian Wars. This technique continued with cholera or typhus infected corpses. In 1915, during World War I, Germany was accused of using cholera in Italy and plague in St. Petersburg. There is evidence Germany used glanders and anthrax to infect horses (1914) and cattle, respectively, in Bucharest in 1916, and employed similar tactics to infect 4,500 mules in Mesopotamia the next year.

    The period 1940 – 1969 can be considered the golden age of biological warfare research and development. Especially the 1940s were the most comprehensive period of biological warfare research and development.

    The US had signed the Geneva Protocol, but the Senate voted only in 1974 on it. Detailed information on the history of the US Offensive Biological Warfare Program between 1941 and 1973 can be found in ref. [41].

    It has been reported recently that the US tested a Soviet-designed germ bomb and assembled a germ factory in the Nevada desert from commercially available materials, in particular to produce potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare [42]. It is debatable if such a research is consistent with the treaty banning biological weapons.

    The Former Soviet Union had an important biological weapons program, which might have extended well into the period after its dissolution [43].

    For a decade after 1972 there was hope that the problem of Biological Warfare was going to be eradicated. However, the last two decades have produced indications that some eight developing nations, in addition to China and Israel, have initiated biological weapon development programs of varying degrees.

    6.1 Definitions [39]

    Biological warfare (BW) agents, or biological weapons, are ‘living organisms, whatever their nature, or infectious material derived from them, which are intended to cause disease or death in man, animal, and plants, and which depend for their effects on their ability to multiply in the person, the animal, or plant attacked’. BW agents, however, might be used not only in wars, but also by terrorists. One should therefore refer to living organisms ‘used for hostile purposes’.

    The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibits bacteria such as salmonella being used against soldiers. It would permit bacteria, that eat petroleum or rubber for the destruction of equipment for peaceful purposes, but prohibits their use for hostile application.

    6.2 Toxic warfare agents and other chemical warfare agents

    Toxins are poisonous substances usually produced by living organisms. Toxin warfare (TW) agents, or toxic weapons, are toxins used for hostile purposes. TW agents unequivocally are types of chemical warfare (CW) agent. CW agents, or chemical weapons, are chemical substances whether gaseous, liquid, or solid, which are used for hostile purposes to cause disease or death in humans, animals or plants and which depend on their direct toxicity for their primary effect.

    TW agents, like all other CW agents, are inanimate and are incapable of multiplying. They are CW agents irrespective of whether they are produced by a living organism or by chemical synthesis or even whether they are responsible for the qualification of that organism as a BW agent.

    Nevertheless, TW agents are often mistakenly considered to be biological weapons, and definitions of biological warfare (BW) occasionally include TW agents. New chemical weapons agents, who are 5 to 10 times more dangerous than VX, the most dangerous toxic gas known today.

    The successful control of biological weapons is a daunting task [44]. Ensuring safety from biological and toxin weapons is a more complex issue than totally prohibiting chemical or nuclear weapons. This is due to the character of the relevant technologies. More than those, biotechnology is of dual-use, i.e. the same technology can be used for civilian and permitted military defensive purposes as well as for prohibited offensive or terrorist purposes.

    6.3 Biological Warfare against Crops

    Intentionally unleashing organisms that kill an enemy’s food crops is a potentially devastating weapon of warfare and terrorism [45]. All major food crops come in a number of varieties, each usually suited to specific climate and soil conditions. These varieties have varying sensitivities to particular diseases. Crop pathogens, in turn, come in different strains or races and can be targeted efficiently against those crop brands. This way it might be possible to attack the enemy’s food stock, but preventing damage to the own. However, such a strategy may not work for neighboring countries, where agricultural conditions are similar to the aggressor. The spread of those organisms holds the risk of worldwide epidemic, and the use of these weapons may very well be counter productive. Any such warfare would be directed primarily against the civilian population. Due to the delays involved it would not affect immediately the outcome of a war.

    Nevertheless, many countries developed during the twentieth century anticrop substances.

    Iraq manufactured from the 70s onward wheat smut fungus, targeting wheat plants in Iran. France’s biological weapon program by the end of the 1930s included work on two potato killers. During the Second World War the British concentrated on various herbicides. Germany investigated during the same period diseases like late blight of potatoes and leaf-infecting yellow and black wheat rusts, as well as insect pests, such as the Colorado beetle. Japan’s World War II biological weapons program is not too well known, but it contains pathogens and chemical herbicides. The American efforts were substantial. They centered on products attacking crops of soybeans, sugar beets, sweet potatoes and cotton, intended to destroy wheat in the western Soviet Union, and rice in Asia, mainly China. Between 1951 and 1969 the U.S. stockpiled more than 30,000 kilograms of the fungus that causes stem rust of wheat, a quantity probably enough to infect every wheat plant on the planet [45]. According to another source [46] 36,000 kilograms of wheat stem rust, and additional quantity of stem rust of rye, only 900 kilograms of rice blast were produced and stockpiled. The U.S., using the “feather bomb” and free-floating balloons developed ingenious distribution and transport systems.

    7. WMD: Warfare, Terrorism, Comparative Perspective

    The concept of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) should be revisited, as pointed out in the Introduction of this article. Physical efficiency and psychological effect of these weapons may differ considerably when they are used in warfare on soldiers or in peacetime by terrorists. Industrialized countries can develop reliable and sophisticated technologies, which may not be available to small groups.

    7.1 Weapons in Warfare

    The efficiency of weapons in warfare is closely related to the time parameter:

    • Number of enemy casualties in a given period,
    • Number of weapons employed to obtain the desired result,
    • Delivery time of weapons,
    • Possibility for stockpiling over extended periods,
    • Infrastructure affected by its use,
    • Avoidance of negative impact upon own troops and civil population,
    • End a war quickly,
    • No efficient defense against weapons on short or long term.

    Evidently, nuclear weapons are “superior” to any other weapons on all these points. Is a specific weapon category useful in conflicts between countries and/or in civil war? Can it serve as a deterrent? Does its use have long term effects on the crop area?

    The efficiency of chemical and biological weapons depends heavily on its dispersion, upon the weather condition, determining the exposure and lethality for the combatants. A presumptive agent must not only be highly toxic, but also ‘suitably highly toxic’, so that it is not too difficult to handle by the user. It must be possible to store the substance in containers for long periods without degradation and without corroding the packaging material. Such an agent must be relatively resistant to atmospheric water and oxygen so that it does not lose its effect when dispersed. It must also withstand the shearing forces created by the explosion and heat when it is dispersed. Transport of these agents by long-range missiles and efficient distribution will face enormous difficulties, causing their decomposition, mainly due to the heat development of the warhead at re-entry into the atmosphere. A few developed countries may already be capable to overcome these hurdles [47].

    Finding an answer to these questions can be facilitated by evaluation of previous wars.

    In World War I an average of one ton of agent was necessary to kill just one soldier. Chemical weapons caused 5 percent of the casualties. The use of chemical weapons did not end the war quickly as had been predicted. During the war between Iraq and Iran through March 1997 27,000 Iranians were exposed to chemical grenades, only 265 died. During the entire war between these two countries chemical weapons killed 5,000, out of the total 600,000 from all causes, i.e. less than 1 percent [6].

    The efficiency of chemical/biological weapons in future wars is difficult to predict. Estimates cover a wide range, as shown below.

    Under ideal conditions 1 ton of Sarin dropped from an airplane could produce 3,000 to 8,000 deaths, however, under breezy conditions only 300 to 800 [6]. To obtain a sensible effect requires that airplanes fly at very low altitude (less than about 100 meters), and consequently the zone of lethality that could be covered remains small. Furthermore, agent particles larger than 10 micrometers do not reach the non-ciliated alveolar region in the lungs, and those, with a size of about 1-micrometer are exhaled. The optimal size is somewhere between 10 to 5 micrometers, which can not be obtained easily. Sunlight kills or denatures most biological agents. Anthrax efficiency may drop by a factor of thousand when the agent is used during a sunny day. Therefore, the agents have to be sprayed during nighttime.

    Chemical weapons depend more than other armament upon atmospheric and topographical factors, whilst temperature, weather and terrain are important factors in determining the persistence of a given chemical agent. Chemical attacks can contaminate an area for between several hours and several days. Weight-for-weight, biological weapons are hundreds to thousands of times more potent than the most lethal chemical weapon [47. 48]. Contamination time is between several hours and several weeks.

    A Scud missile warhead filled with botulinum could contaminate an area of 3,600 square kilometers, or 16 times greater than the same warhead filled with the nerve agent Sarin [49].

    A United Nations study [50] compared the hypothetical results of an attack carried out by one strategic bomber using either nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. A one-megaton nuclear bomb, the study found, might kill 90 percent of unprotected people over an area of 300 square kilometers. A chemical weapon of 15 tons might kill 50 percent of the people in a 60 square kilometer area. But a 10-ton biological weapon could kill 25 percent of the people, and make 50 percent ill, over an area of 100,000 square kilometers.

    If a ballistic missile hits a city delivering 30 kilograms of anthrax spores in a unitary warhead against a city with no civil defense measure could result in lethal inhalation dosage levels over an area of roughly 5 to 25 square kilometers. With no treatment, most of the infected population would die within a week or two. For typical urban population densities this could result in the deaths of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people [51].

    Exaggerated, counterproductive, essentially incorrect, and even dangerous remarks by a US high-ranking official have been made. He claimed that about 2.5 kilograms of anthrax if released in the air over Washington, DC, would kill half of its population, that is, 300,000 people (TV, Nov.1997). In March 1988, four of the most qualified experts on anthrax serving in the US government published a paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine which used a different estimate: 50 kilograms of anthrax released over a city of 500,000 people could kill up to 95,000 people, and possible fewer, depending on urban atmospheric conditions. The first estimate was approximately 100 times higher [46, 52].

    These above efficiencies assume, however, that chemical and biological agents can be spread over a large surface and reach the ground level, whereas nuclear weapons can be exploded at any predetermined altitude and on ground level with the desired efficiency.

    7.2 Weapons for Terrorists

    There is a largely unjustified fear of the public concerning terrorist attacks with chemical or biological agents, their impact on daily life, their frequency, and number of people possibly affected.

    Between 1960 and 1980 there have been 40,000 international terror incidents (according to CIA), but only 22 out of them were performed with chemical or biological agents, showing a tiny ratio of 1/2,000. From 1900 till today there occurred 71 terrorist acts worldwide involving the use of biological or chemical agents, resulting in 123 fatalities, among those only one was American, hit by a cyanide-laced bullet. These acts produced 3,774 nonfatal injuries (784 Americans, 751 out of them by salmonella food poisoning by an Oregan-based religious sect). During the first nine decades of the 20th century there have been 70 biological attacks (18 by terrorists), causing 9 deaths [6].

    The Aum-Shinrikyo sect in Japan had about $1 billion (another source gives $1.2 to 1.6 billion) at its disposal for development of chemical and biological weapons.

    • Aum had appropriate equipment (even more than it was necessary).
    • Aum had used commercial front companies to buy the equipment.
    • Aum may have spent about $10 million in their effort to produce biological agents.
    • Several of the individuals had post-graduate degrees.
    • Aum had gathered a research library.
    • Aum had sufficient time – four years – for their attempts.
    • Aum had attempted to purchase expertise in Russia and obtain or purchase disease strains in Japan.

    However, Aum failed to produce either of two biological agents, Clostridium botulinum, to obtain Botulinum toxin, and anthrax, and also did not manage to “disperse” them. Despite its efforts, spending $10 million on the development of biological agents. Aum sprayed botulinum toxin over Tokyo several times in 1990, and conducted similar activities with anthrax spores in 1993, but without any known effects. Actually, the cult had used a relatively harmless anthrax vaccine strain and the aerosolizer had no sufficient efficiency [53, 54].

    There are two well-publicized Aum attacks with chemical agents (Matsumoto, 3 kg of pure Sarin, 1994; Tokyo subway, 6-7 kg 30% pure Sarin, 1995), the latter made in a confined area, limiting a detrimental effect of air current. Nevertheless, the Matsumoto assault killed only seven non-targeted innocents, and in Tokyo only twelve people died from direct contact with the liquid and not from fumes [54].

    A more detailed description of risk assessment by terrorism with chemical and biological weapons can be found in [54]. This article provides results from computer simulation for dispersion of chemical and biological agents under various atmospheric conditions and their impact parameters on human health.

    7.3 Comparative Perspective

    Analysts have defined Mass Casualty as anything between 100 and 1,000 individuals arriving at hospitals. The numbers in the previous section are related to deaths, and a factor of up to about ten has to be applied to encompass individuals suffering non-lethal injuries. Evidently, similar factors have to be used for victims of conventional weapons in war.

    In the discussion of biological agent terrorism as a potential mass casualty event it is quite revealing to look at the annual mortality in several public health sectors in the USA [53]:

    • Food-borne disease incidence: 76 million cases per year
    315,000 hospitalizations per year
    5,000 deaths per year
    • Medical error mortality: between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths per year
    • Hospital contracted infections: 20,000 deaths per year
    • The 1993 cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee (water pollution) sickened 400,000 people
    • Air pollution in the US results in 50,000 deaths per year
    • Firearms result in 35,000 death per year.

    Compared with these data, the impact of biological and chemical agents terrorism in the past is negligible and will remain probably (hopefully!) small.

    8. Implementation of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Convention and Conclusions

    Like most scientific and industrial developments there is the possibility to apply them for the good or for the bad. The responsibility of the scientists, as well as the politicians and military, is challenged. The production of the basic material for military or civilian application is closely intertwined. This makes any inspection and accusation of intended military use extraordinary difficult. In addition manufacturers fear for their patents and are worried about industrial espionage.

    Production of biological warfare agents can be done in any hospital or basement rooms in small quantities by qualified personal, for chemicals it requires larger plants. The 121 States Parties and 48 signatory states of the Chemical Weapons Convention have an implementation body, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is operational since two years from The Hague [7]. It performed already more than 500 inspections. The OPCW has about 500 staff members, consisting of 200 inspectors and 300 administrative staff. Out of these 300 administrators most are verification experts and inspection planers. Among the most important old issues are: guidelines for low concentrations, the usability of old and abandoned chemical weapons. As mentioned above the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) does not cover sea-dumped chemical weapons.

    There has not yet been progress in the establishment of an analogue organization for Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC). It might be placed in The Hague or in Geneva. Work on the protocol to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention, as well as the verification protocol is still in its initial state, and a success of the 5th BWC Review Conference to be held in Geneva in November 2001 is not at all assured [46]. Of the 141 States Parties to the BWC only around 60 send delegations to the Ad Hoc Group (AHG). Not all of the AHG accept the concept of random visits. The establishment of an international organization to oversee the implementation of the BWC protocol is estimated to consist out of a staff of 233 people and an annual cost of approximately $30 million. There might be eventually about 70 inspectors carrying out approximately 100 visits per year. One of the disputed topics is related to new forms of biological weapons, caused by the biotechnology revolution [38]. The delivery system or the efficiency of these new agents has not changed, but their capability to manipulate human life processes themselves. Biological weapons should now be seen as a global threat to the human species, but not as an efficient weapon in warfare.

    Inspections of biological agents will hit more resistance by the pharmaceutical and bio-technical industry than the one in the chemical industry.

    The dangerous leftovers from the chemical weapons race, like the ones from nuclear weapons construction, not to forget the land mines, will be still with us for a long time. Ethics, politics and international security should be closely interlaced to remove these inhuman weapons from Earth. There is an excellent opportunity for fruitful collaboration between defense conversion sector and the environmental community.

    The CBWC has certainly the beneficial effect in reducing the arsenal of old weapons, but will not give a guarantee that new, clandestine developments in various countries will go on unnoticed.

    The difficulty to use these weapons efficiently is in general underestimated, but their impact exaggerated. This combination causes unjustifiable fear of the public and leads policy makers to wrong conclusions, among them to designate them as WMDs and keep nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

    The critical, comparative assessment of the three types of weapons (one may want to include radiological weapons) presented in this article are not intended to slow down efforts for the elimination of chemical and biological weapons. The CBWC should remain an important treaty and negotiations on enforcement provisions should be accelerated, so that it can be eventually fully implemented. In particular, the arsenal of unused weapons, being in storage or “disposed” in the oceans or elsewhere, presents a considerable danger on short and long term for humans and the environment. Anybody killed by these weapons is one too much. However, we have to put these weapons and the ratified conventions in the right quantitative perspective.

    In the view of the author most of the conventional weapons, in particular small arms, are weapons of Mass Killing: According to a Red Cross inquiry [57] Assault Rifles, like AK47s, Handguns, and Land Mines, caused 64%, 10% and 10% of civilian casualties, respectively. The remaining 16% are almost equally shared between Hand Grenades, Artillery (including fragmentation and incinerating bombs), Mortars, and Major Weapons. During the 20th century these weapons had been used to kill 34 million soldiers in combat, 80 million civilians, plus soldiers who died from wounds, accidents or disease. The world was “fortunate” that only two nuclear bombs have been dropped in warfare until now. They killed “only” ~200,000 people. Nevertheless, the nuclear arsenal has to be on the top of the WMD-category, since it has the potential to erase humans from our planet in almost no time.

    Maintaining nuclear weapons by the Nuclear Weapon States (NWSs) to deter production and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons, mainly in countries of concern, can only be interpreted as an unjustifiable, unreasonable pretext to keep nuclear weapons indefinitely in stock. Is it politically wise to change the unfortunate, misleading definition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD = NW + CW + BW), repeated again and again in the media, and deeply engraved into the mind of people? Will a new definition distract from the importance of the two, universally ratified treaties? Might it be counterproductive to do so in a time, where scientists are under increasing scrutiny and attack?

    The author felt that informing the educated public and policy makers on a re-definition of WMD warrants the change and outweighs possible negative repercussions.

    Acknowledgements

    I like to thank Professor W.K.H. Panofsky for carefully reading a previous version of this article, and for valuable criticism and useful suggestions. Dr. Milton Leitenberg is thanked for providing a lot of relevant literature and sharing with me his profound knowledge and insight into the problem of biological warfare and terrorism. I profited much from participation in workshops in Como/Italy and Rome, organized by Professor Maurizio Martellini, and thank him for the kind invitation to these events. The opinion expressed in this article is those of the author and under his sole responsibility.

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