OPCW Chief Presses Weapons Disposal Deadline

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The head of the monitoring body for the Chemical Weapons Convention yesterday lauded nations’ efforts to eliminate their toxic stockpiles, while reminding them that there is a finite amount of time to finish the work (see GSN, Dec. 11, 2006).

Rogelio Pfirter, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, acknowledged the difficulties facing Russia and the United States, which hold the vast majority of munitions covered by the treaty. 

However, he did not directly address the common understanding that neither country will have completed weapons disposal by April 29, 2012.

“We have a final deadline … which I as director general of the organization have to record as being a sort of sacrosanct commitment for all possessor states,” Pfirter said at a one-day conference here on the convention.  “From the perspective of the organization it is crucial that that deadline be met and that therefore no effort be spared for the accomplishment of the cause of the convention.”

The conference organized by the environmental group Global Green USA came one month before the 10th anniversary of the entry into force of the treaty banning the production, stockpiling and use of weapons containing materials such as mustard gas or sarin nerve agent.

Until recently, April 29 of this year was also the date at which all 182 treaty member nations were required to have fully destroyed their chemical arsenals.  Five of the six known weapons possessors obtained extensions during the December meeting of CWC states parties.  The treaty allows nations to extend the final destruction deadline by a maximum of five years.

Russia and the United States received full five-year extensions, as did the governments in Beijing and Tokyo for cleanup of weapons abandoned by the retreating Japanese army in China at the end of World War II.  India, Libya and South Korea requested and received lesser extensions.

As of 2007, weapons possessor states have destroyed 25 percent of the 70,000 metric tons of the world’s known “Category 1” agents — those considered most dangerous and which have no uses beyond weaponry. 

Russia by the end of April anticipates having eliminated 8,553 metric tons of its world’s-largest stockpile of 40,000 tons of weapons agent, thereby meeting the intermediate goal for disposal of 20 percent of the arsenal, said Vladimir Yermakov, senior counselor at the Russian Embassy in Washington.  One plant has finished work, two are operating and the final four are scheduled to open in 2008 and 2009.

Moscow this year plans to spend $960 million on chemical weapons disposal, and estimates the entire effort would cost $7 billion, Yermakov said.  He thanked the United States and 15 other nations for pledging $2 billion for the effort, but dinged them by saying that they had so far provided Russia with less than a quarter of that amount.

“The chemical weapons elimination is now in full swing,” Yermakov said during a panel discussion, giving no hint that there are any doubts in Moscow about Russia’s ability to meet the deadline.

Experts in the field have been less optimistic, given the size of the Russian stockpile, the relatively late start of disposal in 2002, and the lack of progress on finishing the plant at Shchuchye, which would process 5,400 tons of nerve agent.  The United States has allocated more than $1 billion for the project, which remains unfinished amidst a contracting dispute (see GSN, March 1). 

“It seems to me that neither Russia nor the United States will meet the 2012 deadline,” said Paul Walker, director of the Legacy Program at Global Green USA.  During a press conference today with Pfirter he announced his organization’s push for additional funding and cooperation to more rapidly eliminate the two nations’ stockpiles.

U.S. officials on the panel acknowledged the likelihood of missed deadlines.

“We will be a little challenged in meeting that, for a whole bunch of reasons, but we’re actively doing what we can to execute that mission,” said Dale Ormond, acting director of the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency.

The United States is on track to meet the December milestone under the new schedule for disposing of 45 percent of its nearly 28,000-ton agent stockpile, Ormond said.  It has already destroyed 1.8 million munitions, including all bombs containing sarin, and finished operations at two plants.

U.S. officials have cited a number of obstacles to meeting the final deadline, including the complexity of the work, scheduled and unanticipated work stoppages, delays in acquiring operating permits, and challenges in handling decaying munitions.

Ormond said he expected disposal at the five plants now in operation to be finished “in the ballpark” of April 2012.  The primary deadline challenges lie with facilities that have yet to be built at weapons depots in Blue Grass, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo.

Development of those chemical neutralization facilities was to be accelerated following the Sept. 11 attacks.  However, the designs proved too costly for the Defense Department, which ordered less-expensive redesigns.  The projects also had to overcome regulatory hurdles before moving forward.

The Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program submitted redesigns last year, and preliminary construction is under way at both sites.  After being on “caretaker” budget status in fiscal 2006, the program received $349 million this year and is due to see $351 million in fiscal 2008.  Figures for following years are not known, but ACWA deputy program manager Bill Pehlivanian said he was optimistic that the agency would continue to receive sufficient funding.

The program plans over the next two fiscal years to finalize designs of the plants and begin their construction.  The latest estimates call for weapons disposal at Pueblo to finish in 2020, and for work to be completed at Blue Grass in 2023.  “I think we can pull it back from 2023,” Pehlivanian said.

The only nation not to request a weapons disposal schedule extension last year was Albania, which is wrapping up incineration of 16 tons of materials including sulfur mustard and lewisite.  The project faced technical problems since beginning in May 2005, but is expected to finish in May, slightly beyond its deadline.

“The government is honored to declare that the process of destruction of chemical weapons will be successfully accomplished and Albania will be a country free of any kind of chemical weapons,” Aleksander Sallabanda, Albanian ambassador to the United States, said during the panel discussion.

The exact provenance of the weapons, found in November 2002 in a poorly secured bunker, remains something of a mystery given the absence of records from the communist regime in the 1980s, when the weapons arrived, Sallabanda said.  Walker pointed out that Chinese letters appeared to be printed on the containers in which the materials were stored.

Representatives from India, Libya and South Korea did not attend the conference to discuss weapons disposal in their countries.  India and South Korea — the latter of which OPCW officials never actually identify by name — have both eliminated 80 percent of their agent stockpiles, Pfirter said, while Libya has not begun destruction of 23 tons of mustard gas but is expected to meet its new deadline of 2010.

“It seems quite clear that the destruction of stockpiles is important not just for the country involved, but is important for the overall credibility of the convention to expect from the other countries … to also comply with their obligations in full,” Pfirter said.

The Argentinean diplomat declared that the organization’s challenges would not end when the six nations have destroyed their chemical stockpiles.  It would continue on as a “watchdog” against chemical weapons proliferation, he said.

There are still 13 nations to be brought into the treaty, including North Korea, Iraq and several other Middle Eastern states.  Some of these are suspected of stockpiling toxic agents.

Recent attacks in Iraq involving chlorine show that the potential threat of chemicals is not restricted to weapons held by states (see GSN, March 29).

The agency plans to increase its focus on inspections of the thousands of “other chemical production facilities” used by industry around the world, Pfirter said.  Twenty percent of these could be quickly converted from producing harmless chemicals to producing deadly materials.

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