U.S. Response:  Ridge Plans to Issue Sweeping Safety Guidelines

The United States plans to establish new safety standards to protect against terrorism, and private industry must accept some of the cost, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said yesterday during an interview with reporters.

The homeland security office plans to have draft measures available by midyear, Ridge said.  The guidelines will cover ports, airlines, trains, food, drinking water and nuclear plants (see GSN, March 1).  Industry groups are expected to launch lobbying campaigns in response, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“My view has been that if it’s a private company, a profit-making enterprise, then the responsibility for enhanced security is really your responsibility,” Ridge said.  “That doesn’t mean that the federal government does not set standards.  We have been and will continue to do so.”

Representatives from some industries have already said companies might need assistance to meet government requirements.  The waterworks industry has already requested $2 billion in federal aid to improve safety, said Tom Curtis, a spokesman for the American Water Works Association (see GSN, March 18).

A bioterrorism bill that Congress is considering would require 7,500 water utilities to draft risk assessment plans at an estimated cost of $450 million, Curtis said.

“If utilities are going to be required to do this work and do it on a very quick schedule, many utilities will need some support,” said Curtis.

The American Chemical Council said it prefers that federal experts provide recommendations and then leave “it to private industry to spend the resources necessary to make that happen — with credible third parties verifying it was done,” said council spokesman Chris VandenHeuvel (see GSN, March 12).

Reorganizing Bureaucracy

Ridge told reporters that the 40 government agencies involved in homeland security create an “extraordinary bureaucratic maze.”  U.S. President George W. Bush has given Ridge authority to assess what changes should be made to the government system, and Ridge said he would “not recommend reorganization simply for reorganization’s sake.”

Alert Stays at Yellow

Despite increased violence in the Middle East (see related GSN story, today), there are no plans to increase the U.S. alert level from its current yellow status, the midpoint between the highest lowest alerts (see GSN, March 13), said Ridge (Megan Garvey, Los Angeles Times, April 4).

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U.S. Response:  United States Violates Security Treaties, Report Indicates

A new study indicates the United States has been increasingly weakening and violating a number of international security treaties, Reuters reported today.

The study, sponsored by the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, examined U.S. actions toward eight international treaties, including the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, according to Reuters.

“The United States has violated, compromised or acted to undermine in some crucial way every treaty that we have studied in detail,” said Nicole Deller, co-author of Rule of Power or Rule of Law.

The United States “not only refuses to participate in newly created international legal mechanisms, it fails to live up to obligations undertaken in treaties that it has ratified,” the report said.

The United States has undermined the NPT through its insistence that any nuclear weapons reduction agreement made with Russia provide for those reductions to be reversible and because the U.S. nuclear posture review increases the options available for using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, according to the report.

The United States and four other signatories are in violation of the CTBT, according to the report.  The United States and France are developing laser fusion research facilities to conduct thermonuclear explosions equivalent to 10 pounds of TNT, Reuters reported.  Great Britain is helping to fund the facilities and German and Japanese companies are providing the glass needed for the lasers, the report said.

“Nothing in the public record or in the language of the CTBT provides for exceptions allowing laboratory thermonuclear explosions,” the report said.

The report also criticized U.S. President George W. Bush’s announcement that the United States would withdraw from the ABM treaty because of national security concerns, according to Reuters.  The U.S. rationale “stretches credibility beyond the limit,” the report said.

“Over the long term, treaty regimes are a far more reliable basis for achieving global policy objectives and compliance with norms than ‘do as we say, not as we do’ directives from an overwhelmingly powerful state,” the report said (Reuters, April 4).

The report also criticized the U.S. stance toward the treaty to create an International Criminal Court that is expected to enter into force later this year, according to the New York Times.  The Bush administration opposes the treaty and is considering removing the U.S. signature from it, the Times reported. 

Jayantha Dhanapala, U.N. undersecretary general for disarmament affairs, said he was concerned that disarmament agreements were being disregarded in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I must warn against the sacrifice of disarmament and arms control norms in the battle against terrorism,” Dhanapala told an Arms Control Association meeting earlier this year (Barbara Crossette, New York Times, April 4).

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Iraq:  Middle East Conflict Upstages Iraqi Inspections Situation

Increased violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is endangering hopes Iraq will accept U.N. weapons inspectors and damaging potential support for U.S. military action against Iraq, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, April 3).

“The biggest winner of Israel’s aggression has been (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein,” said one diplomat (see GSN, March 14).

Despite hopes after a meeting in February that Iraq would cooperate with the United Nations, U.N. officials and other diplomats said they are far less optimistic about reaching an agreement to return weapons inspectors when U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan meets with Iraqi diplomats April 18-19 (see GSN, March 28).

While Israel reoccupies Palestinian cities and the death toll mounts, anger in Arab countries over U.S. support for Israel, in addition to Iraq’s success in gaining Arab support during last month’s Arab summit, have destroyed much of the hope for renewed Iraqi cooperation, according to the Times (see GSN, March 19).

“I think it’s likely Iraq, having gotten the agreement at the Arab summit, and seeing the U.S. somewhat preoccupied and uncertain, may feel under less pressure to comply,” a senior U.N. official said.

The Arab countries, however, also called on Iraq to cooperate with the United Nations, and diplomats said there is still a chance Iraq would continue with diplomatic efforts, according to the Times.

No Arab Support for U.S. Attack

Outrage over Israeli and U.S. policies in even the most moderate Arab states makes it nearly impossible for the United States to gain any regional support for an attack against Iraq, said analysts.

One senior diplomat, however, said Iraq should not feel it is completely safe from U.S. attack.

“The thing is, you just don’t know with this [U.S.] administration,” the diplomat said (Carola Hoyos, Financial Times, April 4).

Hussein Raises Ante

Meanwhile, Hussein is now offering $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers who attack Israel, up from $10,000.  Iraq will continue to give $10,000 to the families of Palestinians who die while fighting Israeli forces.

Hussein has promised to support the Palestinians and said they need weapons and money rather than peace proposals.

“I saw on Iraqi TV, President Saddam saying he will continue supporting the (uprising) even if it means selling his own clothes,” said Mahmoud Safi, leader of a pro-Iraq Palestinian group called the Arab Liberation Front.

Palestinians say suicide bombers are driven by motives other than financial greed (Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 3).

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Hussein’s monetary offer “gives you a sense of the problem that we’re dealing with here.”  Hussein is “the kind of person … that is willing to take $25,000 over and over again out of the mouths of people in that country under the oil-for-food plan and instead of using it for food, using it to hire and encourage and promote and facilitate terrorists to kill innocent people” (Defense Department transcript, April 3).

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Kazakhstan:  Parliament Approves Threat Reduction Agreement

The lower chamber of the Kazakh Parliament yesterday ratified a U.S.-Kazakh agreement that will enable officials to destroy former Soviet ballistic missile silos and clean up a former Soviet biological weapons research center (see GSN, Feb. 22).

The agreement is part of an effort to implement the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program in Kazakhstan, said Kazakh Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Vladimir Shkolnik (see GSN, March 20).  The agreement covers conversion of the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing ground, conversion of the Stepnogorsk biological weapons research center and the burial of spent nuclear fuel.

The United States — which has spent more than $180 million dollars for implementing CTR programs in Kazakhstan since the agreement was signed in 1993 — plans to train Kazakh specialists, fund implementation of the agreement and provide needed equipment, Shkolnik said.

The U.S. Congress has allocated $6 million for the destruction of six ballistic missile silos remaining in Kazakhstan (Interfax/BBC Monitoring, April 3).  The Kazakh parliament extended the agreement on destroying missile silos until Dec. 13, 2007, according to ITAR-Tass.

The United States and Kazakhstan are still working on measures for the conversion of the Stepnogorsk facility, due to disagreements over the best way of dismantling buildings at the site, according to Stepnogorsk officials (see GSN, April 3).  The United States has proposed detonating the buildings, which Kazakhstan opposes over fears of damage to the environment, ITAR-Tass reported (ITAR-Tass/BBC Monitoring, April 3).

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U.S.-Russia:  Negotiators Now Working From Bracketed Draft Accord

U.S. and Russian negotiators produced a bracketed draft agreement on strategic nuclear reductions at the Geneva talks between U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton and Russian Vice Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov, according to a senior U.S. official (see GSN, March 22).

“It’s a bracketed draft, but a draft agreement nonetheless,” the U.S. official said.

Any strategic arms control agreement that would be signed by the United States and Russia would be about twice the length of the agreed-to draft, said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.  There are several bracketed provisions in the draft on which it would be more difficult to agree, he said.

“There are other bracketed items where, you know, there’s negotiations,” Powell said.  “Sometimes you don’t give up something right away.  You wait and see what you can get for it.  So there’s some trading going on.”

The disputed provisions include verification issues and how to count missiles that can carry multiple warheads, Powell said (see GSN, Feb. 6).

Powell is scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov next week in Madrid (see GSN, March 28).  Bolton and Mamedov are expected to examine the draft agreement again during a meeting in Moscow April 23-24 (Agence France-Presse, April 3).

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NPT:  2005 Preparatory Committee to Meet April 8-19

The Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is scheduled to meet April 8-19 at U.N headquarters in New York, the United Nations announced yesterday.

The committee will address issues related to substance and procedures of the NPT and its review conference in 2005.  Henrik Salander of Sweden will serve as chairman-designate for the meeting, according to a U.N. press release.  The April meeting of the committee is the first of three scheduled before the review conference (U.N. release, April 3).

The United States yesterday denied suggestions that its recent Nuclear Posture Review indicates a possible withdrawal from the NPT.

“The United States remains unequivocally and firmly committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and there is absolutely no tension between the Nuclear Posture Review and the NPT treaty,” said Mark Groombridge, a U.S. State Department official.

U.S. efforts to create a nuclear weapons reduction agreement with Russia demonstrate U.S. commitment to disarmament, Groombridge said during a press conference at the end of a disarmament summit in Beijing hosted by China and the United Nations.

Some experts have said the Nuclear Posture Review indicates greater U.S. willingness to use nuclear weapons.

“The NPR explicitly endorses the utility of nuclear weapons — which will be a powerful stimulus to others contemplating their acquisition — and implicitly repudiates the NPT,” said U.N University Vice Rector Ramesh Thakur at the press conference.  “In consequence, we will live in a far, far more dangerous world and the United States will be much, much less secure.”

It is also important for nongovernmental organizations to be allowed to participate in disarmament debate, said Jody Williams, head of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

“In the new lexicon on today’s unipolar world … the definition of multilateralism reads:  ‘Either you are with us or you are against us,’” she said, criticizing the Bush administration.  “Negotiation means:  ‘You will accept my positions, my framework, my worldview, my bottom line — period.’”

“If an individual — or an entire country, for that matter — dares to question the underpinnings of this new reality, they are likely to be labeled ‘the enemy’ at best and ‘evil’ at worst,” Williams said (Robert Saiget, Agence France-Presse, April 4).

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North Korea:  Pyongyang Ready to Resume Talks With KEDO

In a further step toward dialogue with the United States, North Korea indicated yesterday it is prepared to resume talks with the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, an international consortium responsible for building two light-water nuclear reactors in the country, the New York Times reported (see GSN, April 3).

The U.S.-led organization is building the reactors as part of the 1994 Agreed Framework under which North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program.

North Korea postponed talks with KEDO last month, but North Korean and U.S. officials have made contact twice since the postponement to discuss resuming negotiations (see GSN, March 15).

North Korea has contacted KEDO about resuming talks, but no date for a meeting has been set, a KEDO spokesman told the Associated Press, according to the Times (James Dao, New York Times, April 4).

Inter-Korean Talks Are “Tough”

Meanwhile, a South Korean envoy to North Korea has found negotiations difficult.  South Korea’s Lim Dong-won and North Korean officials who began talks in Pyongyang yesterday held “candid talks on ways to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, but the overall mood was tough,” said a South Korean Unification Ministry official (Agence France-Presse, April 4).

Yesterday’s talks ended without progress, according to the Unification Ministry, and officials were expected to meet again today.

“North Korea again held South Korea and the United States responsible for tension on the peninsula,” said Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hong-je (Soo-jeong Lee, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 4).

During a meeting yesterday with Kim Yong Sun, secretary of the North Korean ruling Workers’ Party, Lim conveyed international concerns about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Lim asked North Korea to resume talks with the United States and Japan.  He also urged North Korea to restart stalled inter-Korean cooperation projects, such as resuming family reunions and connecting a railroad between the two countries (Shin Yong-bae, Korea Herald, April 4).

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U.S. Testing:  Construction Begins on Supercomputer Facility

Construction was scheduled to begin ceremonially today on two new buildings at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, including one that will house an advanced supercomputer which can be used to simulate testing of nuclear weapons (see GSN, March 26).

The $83 million Terascale Simulation Facility will be built next to the building that houses ASCI White, the world’s most powerful supercomputer, according to the Contra Costa Times (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2001).  The new facility is designed to support two supercomputers running 10 times as fast as ASCI White, allowing it to continue operating while the new supercomputer, ASCI Purple, is built.  The computer building will have a special raised floor so workers can stand and access cables beneath the supercomputers, currently kept in dozens of cases.

The facility also will have an adjacent building containing offices, an auditorium and a display room to assist scientists in visualizing data created by the supercomputers, said Randy Christensen, ASCI’s deputy director.  The new building will be the first at Lawrence Livermore designed exclusively to hold the supercomputers, he said (Andrea Widener, Contra Costa Times, April 4).

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United States:  Energy Must Revitalize W80 Warheads Soon, Official Says

The United States needs to begin a life extension program for the Boeing air-launched cruise missile’s W80 nuclear warhead soon, John Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said Tuesday, according to Defense Daily.

Representative Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) recently questioned whether the Defense Department plans to use the warheads in the future.  The Energy Department has requested funds to extend the life of the warheads by 30 years, which would also entail extending the life of the B-52 bombers that carry the weapons.

Gordon said the two departments are simply on different budget cycles.

“There’s a proposal that we would do the life extension of the ALCM warhead, the W80.  We’re on a budget cycle that we need to start that now,” Gordon said.  “We’re in a timeframe where we need to do some things on the weapon fairly soon that will result in a life extension to the weapons of 20 years or so.”

The U.S. Air Force “will decide on how to extend its weapons on a timeframe that comes some years later,” said Gordon.  “There’s nothing suggesting that the Air Force is not committed to doing it.  It’s just that their five-year budget cycle for that work comes at the end of this period, where we’re at the front end of it.”

Maintaining nuclear weapons is far less expensive than building news ones, Gordon said (Frank Wolfe, Defense Daily, April 3).

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India-Russia:  Nuclear Power Assistance Will Continue, Russian Says

Russia will continue to assist India with its nuclear energy projects, a senior Russian official said today (see GSN, Feb. 15).

“Moscow has no intention but to help its strategic partner (India) in this field,” Vladimir Roushailo, secretary of the Russian Security Council, said at a New Delhi press conference during a two-day visit to India.

Despite some opposition from other countries, Russia will continue to assist India with developing nuclear energy, Roushailo said.  He added that he hopes construction at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant will proceed on schedule.

“We know how important it is for India,” Roushailo said.

Russia plans to continue to try to convince India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, he said (Xinhua.net, April 24).  Russian and Indian officials also have discussed India signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Roushailo said (Bychkov/Marychev, ITAR-Tass, April 4).

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Anthrax:  Pay Marines for Capitol Cleanup, Senator Says

The U.S. Congress should pay the Marines for helping to clean up anthrax from the U.S. Capitol last fall, U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said last week (see GSN, March 7).  Mikulski said she would try to obtain $5 million for repayment.

“There’s no reason the Marines should have to pay for the cleanup of any Senate or U.S. government building,” Mikulski said during a demonstration of the Marine Chemical Biological Incident Response Force.  “So, we’re working on their reimbursement.”

Many of the Marine response team’s 380 members were deployed at the Capitol after the anthrax attacks and worked 18-hour days during the mission, which lasted about four months, according to the Washington Post (Grey/Reel, Washington Post, April 4).

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CWC:  War of Words Intensifies as OPCW Leader Fights to Save Job

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The dispute over the U.S. campaign to remove the head of a major international arms control organization continues to roil, with the State Department and the attacked official publicizing detailed papers making their opposing cases (see GSN, April 1).

U.S. officials have been trying to depose Brazilian Jose Bustani from his position as director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.  The organization implements the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered force in 1997, banning chemical weapons, and to which the United States and 144 other countries are party.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said last month U.S. opposition stems from Bustani’s management of the organization, which Boucher said has resulted in the international community losing confidence in Bustani.

U.S. officials otherwise were fairly tight-lipped in public forums about their case against Bustani until recently, as a paper they had prepared and provided to the OPCW’s Executive Council last month was circulated publicly.

The “Nonpaper”

The so-called “nonpaper,” a version of which the State Department has now published on its web site, provides an extensive list of criticisms of Bustani, ranging from his “polarizing and confrontational conduct” and “mismanagement issues” to his “advocacy of inappropriate roles for the OPCW.”  

Bustani’s performance has deteriorated to the point where “effective implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention — and political and financial support for the OPCW — is in jeopardy,” it said.

Last spring, the U.S. document said, Bustani threatened punitive industry inspections in five nations that had collectively complained to him about financial and verification issues.

“The director general sought to use the inspection regime that is at the very heart of the CWC for political ends, as a punitive tool to coerce member states into acceding to his demands,” it said.

Effective implementation of the treaty “will require departure of the director general without delay,” the document said.

Bustani survived a no-confidence vote of parties on the OPCW’s executive committee last month, but the United States is planning another vote in a few weeks at a special conference of all parties, and experts believe the United States will have the votes to oust Bustani.  At least half the 145 treaty parties need to be present and a two-thirds majority of those voting are needed to approve a change.

Rebuttal

Bustani’s spokesman Gordon Vachon this week e-mailed to advocacy organizations and reporters a 13-page rebuttal to the U.S. charges, which said “unsubstantiated allegations” were being levied against Bustani.

“Regrettably, the U.S. nonpaper has now found its way into the public domain, which only adds more fuel to the fire.  It does, however, provide an opportunity for the director general to insert his own commentary into the public domain, in the hope that a more balanced assessment will result,” wrote Vachon in his e-mail.

The rebuttal said insufficient U.S. funding of the organization, including approximately $1.4 million in U.S. arrears, has been a factor preventing the organization from fully implementing its program of work. 

“Inspections cost money,” it said.

U.S. Underpayment

Anticipated reductions in inspections this year, it said, are “the direct result of underbudgeting of the OPCW and of anticipated nonpayments by some member states,” the rebuttal said.

Bustani’s rebuttal said none of the organization’s other principal contributors has expressed “any concerns with regard to the nature of his relationship with them” and noted the United States had supported the Bustani’s reappointment in May 2000.

It added, “it is difficult to understand the allegation by the United States of financial mismanagement, since the chief financial and administrative officers … through to today, have been successive American directors nominated by the United States government.”

Bustani is not alone in criticizing U.S. activities regarding the treaty.

A 72-page report, prepared by the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies and other nongovernmental experts, said “although the United States played a leadership role during the CWC negotiations, it has set a poor example during the implementation phase.”

The United States was criticized for including unilateral exemptions to treaty provisions in its domestic implementing legislation, including a provision enabling the president to refuse a challenge inspection on national security grounds, submitting its industry declaration three years late and cutting off financial support for Russian chemical demilitarization (see GSN, March 20).

The report further said United States has accused Iran of violating the treaty, but has not called for a challenge inspection under the treaty to validate its allegation, which the report said “has weakened the credibility and deterrent value of this key verification measure.”

Despite those criticisms, the United States appears to have good reasons for being upset with Bustani, said the report’s editor Jonathan Tucker, director of Monterey’s Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program.

“I think there is plenty of ground for discontent. For one thing, he is a real prima donna,” said Tucker.

Tucker also said he has heard, though not independently verified, credible evidence of financial mismanagement.  The U.S. position, he said, is that “until OPCW gets its house in order, it won’t be in position to implement a challenge inspection.”

A senior State Department official said while the United States has not paid its full assessment for this year, 75 percent of the organization’s budget has not been paid, with other countries withholding as well.

The OPCW’s funding troubles stem, however, from mismanagement, he said.

“He has mismanaged and overspent vast amounts of money,” said the official.  “The organization is underfunded because of bad management.”

The official also said Bustani’s U.S. employees have been mistreated.

“There are some Americans working in the organization, most of whom he’s gotten rid of,” he said.  “This guy is virulently anti-American,” he said.

Any Underlying Grievances?

Observers show some uncertainty about whether a single issue has triggered the U.S. actions against Bustani.

While “mismanagement” is a central issue, “some of it has to do with defining the role of the organization and Mr. Bustani’s attempts to push it into areas and assume responsibilities that may or may not be appropriate for it,” said Michael Moodie, president of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in Washington.

Moodie, who contributed to the Monterey report, cited Bustani’s perceived advocacy of eliminating of the Australia Group export control regime and his efforts to encourage Iraq to accede to the treaty and submit itself to the required inspections, perhaps as an alternative to U.N. inspections.

The Australia Group is an informal arrangement of 30 countries that agree to restrict certain technology exports to states that might use them to develop a chemical or biological weapons capability (see GSN, Oct. 2, 2001).  Bustani endorsed a position favored by one bloc of “radical, nonaligned states” and opposed by the United States and other Western nations, said Moodie.

Allowing possibly less intrusive, non-U.N. inspectors into Iraq, some experts say, could undermine the U.S. case for military action against Iraq.

“I think suggesting there is an alternative using OPCW assets is both politically incorrect and inappropriate given the history here,” Moodie said.

“I think they feel that he has politicized his own office to an extent that is inappropriate, is trying to create the [OPCW] Secretariat as a power unto itself … rather than to serve the real members of the treaty,” he said.

U.S. officials may also be responding to a perception that OPCW inspections against U.S. facilities last year were too aggressive and intrusive, he said (see related GSN story, today).

Apparently aware of speculation about U.S. motives, U.S. Ambassador Donald Mahley in a March 19 statement to the OPCW Executive Council said emphatically the United States is not motivated by a lack of commitment to chemical weapons disarmament, citing, for instance, more than $10 billion he said was spent on chemical disarmament.

He said the United States and other states “have been troubled by the direction which Director General Bustani has taken the OPCW through ongoing financial mismanagement, demoralization of the Technical Secretariat staff and ill-considered initiatives.” 

Advocate Without Authority?

Bustani is not talking to reporters on the matter, his spokesman Vachon said.  In an e-mail to GSN, though, Vachon said Bustani “cannot help but wonder, however, if the real reason is that he is too evenhanded in the eyes of some, by applying the convention in as nondiscriminatory way as he possibly can.”

Bustani’s rebuttal said he cannot choose inspection targets himself, that he is one of four officials required to approve inspection plans, and that until recently three of the four branch heads in the verification division of the organization were from Western Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand or the United States, and the head of the industry verification branch is an American.

The rebuttal conceded the United States was subject to a “considerable number” of inspections in 2001, but said they were “a logical consequence of the three-year delay in its submission of the chemical industry declaration.”

Bustani has suggested allowing Iraq to accede to the CWC, but he said it was only a suggestion, and that it might be a way to persuade Iraq to allow chemical weapons inspections to resume.  In any case, the rebuttal said, Bustani “cannot impose anything on either the Security Council or Iraq, for that matter.”

Regardless of whether all the U.S. claims are valid, Monterey’s Tucker said Bustani should step down because he has apparently lost the support of the OPCW’s major funders.

Of the 40 executive council members, 17 voted to approve the U.S. no-confidence measure and they accounted for 75 percent of the organization’s funding, Tucker said.

Of the rest, 18 mostly Latin American members abstained and five voted for Bustani:  Cuba, China, Russia, Brazil and Iran.

“I think in this case the [U.S.] motive is to strengthen the convention,” he said.

“I have a feeling Congress will refuse to pay all of that money before he leaves,” said the senior State Department official.

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United States:  OPCW Inspects Rocky Mountain Arsenal Site

A team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which implements the Chemical Weapons Convention, is inspecting a former U.S. chemical weapons production facility this week, U.S. officials said yesterday (see related GSN story, today).

Officials at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado expect the OPCW team to complete inspections by the end of the week, said arsenal spokeswoman Ruth Mecham.  The OPCW has inspected the facility six times since the United States ratified the CWC in 1997, according to the Associated Press.

Crews are cleaning up the arsenal, now a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency superfund site, in preparation for converting it to a wildlife preserve, the AP reported.  Workers have found 10 canisters containing sarin nerve agent at the site in the past two years (Associated Press, April 4).

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