United States:  U.S. Military Studying Nonlethal Chemicals

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has initiated a plan to research and develop so-called nonlethal chemical agents for a wide range of possible civilian and military purposes, according to a Pentagon document obtained by Global Security Newswire.

Arms control experts say the plan could run afoul of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, to which the United States is a party (see GSN, Oct. 30).

The plan calls for demonstrating the feasibility of a “safe, reliable” chemical immobilizing agent or agents for nonlethal applications in appropriate military missions and law enforcement situations, according to the document, Chemical Immobilizing Agents for Non-lethal Applications, a solicitation for corporate bids to perform the research.

If proven effective and safe, such “incapacitating” agents might be used for a wide range of missions, including peacekeeping, embassy protection, and counterterrorism.

The agents might also be used for common law enforcement purposes ranging from “hostage and barricade situations” to close proximity encounters such as “bar fights and stopped motorists,” the document says.

A first phase of the program for initial research was contracted for in 2000 and has been completed.  The military has not commented on when or if the second of three planned phases might begin.

The program is a concern to some arms control experts, who say it could lead to violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention and more generally undermine the treaty and other international norms.

“I do see as very destabilizing the development of new nonlethal weapons, whether they’re riot control agents or not, being done by the military, for military purposes,” Mark Wheelis, a microbiologist at the University of California at Davis. 

It could “seriously erode the norm against military use of chemicals as weapons,” he said.

Research Contracted

Russian authorities used such an agent last month to incapacitate Chechen hostage-takers and rescue more than 600 hostages.  While knocking out the Chechens, the fentanyl-based agent also killed 118 hostages, authorities said (see related GSN story, today).

Without success so far, the U.S. military and Justice Department for years have sought to develop chemical incapacitants considered sufficiently potent and safe. 

During the 1960s, the U.S. military put a substantial amount of money into developing a delirium-causing agent called BZ.  By the mid-1960s, the U.S. Army had stockpiled and stored in military depots cluster munitions for delivering BZ. 

Those munitions were dismantled and the BZ destroyed according to U.S. government declarations and, according to a 1997 Army history, there were at that time no temporarily incapacitating munitions in the arsenal.  The history cited the inability to find an agent that would satisfy “practical and political concerns.”

Then the military, through a program dating back to the 1970s called Advanced Riot Control Device, conducted research on variants derivative of fentanyl — sufentanil and carfentanil — but found they could cause a halt in respiration in humans.  Subsequent research involved mixing or chasing it with an antidote naloxone to reduce the danger of respiratory failure.

The U.S. Army in May 2000 awarded a contract for the first phase of the plan described in the solicitation to the Michigan company Optimetrics.

Developing a safe chemical incapacitant is “a very, very difficult problem,” said Parker Ferguson, the primary researcher on contract.

“I think the event in Russia is fairly indicative of the problems that one would face in trying to do that,” he said.

Theodore Stanley, an anesthesiology expert at the University of Utah Medical School, said U.S. authorities have hesitated to develop chemical incapacitants in part because they can be controversial to use.

“Think about this, if you knew your government was conducting research and spending a significant amount of money so they could put something in the atmosphere and anesthetize an entire state or city in a minute, you might be upset with that,” he said.

He said, though, that that risk could be outweighed by the benefits.

“If you could do that safely, and you saved that for very special cases, something like this [the Russian crisis], you had that capacity, you were trained and you could handle this, people would pat you on the back and say you saved the day,” he said.

Indication of Scope

Ferguson declined to comment directly on the new research, citing a need to maintain confidentiality.  The Pentagon’s solicitation did provide some indication of the scope of the study and its goals.

If the technology is proven, potential military uses might include “meeting U.S. and NATO objectives in peacekeeping missions; crowd control; embassy protection; rescue missions; and counter-terrorism,” it said.

Potential law enforcement uses by domestic agencies, the solicitation also said, include: hostage and barricade situations; crowd control; close proximity encounters such as, domestic disturbances, bar fights and stopped motorists; halting fleeing felons; and prison riots.

The research would analyze “recent breakthroughs in the pharmacological classes such as anesthetics/analgesics, tranquilizers, hypnotics and neuromuscular blockers.”

“Recent pharmaceutical developments suggest that new approaches to safer chemical immobilizers with improved performance characteristics may be available,” it said.

Concerns Regarding the CWC

Arms control experts say regardless of how safe agents can be made, development and use of such agents by the military could run afoul of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, depending on their intended uses.

Fundamentally, the treaty prohibits using any chemical agents for warfare, while allowing for unspecified law enforcement use, and for riot control situations if the agent has only temporary side effects.

“The convention doesn’t ban chemicals, it bans purposes under which those chemicals are applied,” said Jean Pascal Zanders, project leader on chemical and biological warfare for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 

Experts see the administration’s plan potentially in conflict with the treaty with respect to such military purposes such as peacekeeping, counterterrorism, search and rescue and crowd control.

Wheelis contends the U.S. military has not publicly made the case that using chemical incapacitants for such activities would be legal.

“Not only do you have to show that this is not a means of warfare, you also have to demonstrate that this is law enforcement,” he said.  “My view is the Pentagon has to demonstrate proactively that this is legal.”

Using chemicals under such circumstances, he said, might be allowable if they were specifically authorized as law enforcement activity either by the country where they were used or by the U.N. Security Council.

Potential Conflicts

Two of the potential uses that might pose problems with respect to the treaty are peacekeeping and counterterrorism, said professor Matthew Meselson, co-director of the Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Warfare Armament and Arms Limitation noting the treaty expressly forbids chemical weapons use for warfare.

“You could imagine them in various flavors, some of which sound fine and some of which don’t,” he said. 

“In peacekeeping, if it is against an organized armed unit, that definitely would be warfare,” he said.

It is too soon to tell whether the program violates the treaty, Zanders said.  He added, though, another part of the document could point to a potential treaty breach.

The document said the Pentagon’s Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate found the technology falls under its broad core mission area of “incapacitating personnel” and could be used for “clearing of facilities” and “area denial.”

“These are some of the core purposes of using chemicals in military warfare,” he said.

There is little publicly available information explaining how the U.S. military views the constraints of the treaty on the use of chemical incapacitants.  A slideshow summarizing a Navy assessment presented in April 2001, however, suggested the Navy considers such agents allowable if incapacitation is temporary, for riot control in military operations other than war, and if it discriminates between civilians and combatants.

The slideshow, presented by a Marine Corps attorney-advisor, suggested chemicals might also be used “defensively,” such as against rioting prisoners, in situations where civilians are used as shields, for search and rescue, and for “rear areas security.”

The Pentagon solicitation itself tacitly acknowledged use of the technologies could pose a challenge to the requirements of the convention.

The second phase of the program requires research to “determine implications of the Chemical Warfare Convention (CWC) for proposed scenarios of use” of the chosen material and “select optimum scenario(s) of use.”

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Russia:  Moscow Death Toll Rises as Chechen Threatens More Attacks

The civilian death toll from the Moscow theater siege rose to 120 as a woman died of acute cardiac insufficiency, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 1).  Only two of the dead were killed by their captors, with the remaining 118 victims succumbing to the effects of the anesthetic chemical pumped into the theater by Russian authorities.

Four children are among the 148 freed hostages who remain hospitalized as of Monday (Interfax/Associated Press, Nov. 4).

Russian authorities freed hundreds of hostages and killed 50 Chechen extremists when they retook the theater Oct. 26, but experts have said that the Russians also caused civilian fatalities with “a huge overdose” of fentanyl, the London Independent reported.  The fentanyl was pumped through the theater’s ventilation system to incapacitate the Chechens.

Meanwhile, a Chechen military leader has claimed responsibility for the raid and announced that more devastating attacks will follow.

“The next time those who come won’t make any demands, won’t take any hostages,” Shamil Basayev said.  The main goal will be to destroy the enemy and exact maximum damage” (Fred Weir, Independent, Nov. 3).

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Russia:  Moscow Emergency Teams Were Prepared, But Not For Gas

A senior Russian health official has disputed accounts that emergency medical services were unprepared to address the casualties from a fentanyl-based aerosol used to subdue Chechen extremists in an early morning raid Saturday, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Oct. 31).

Crews from 450 emergency teams at the scene carried the antidote — Naloxone — but more was needed, said Igor Elkis, chief doctor of Moscow’s ambulance service.

“At the theater we were prepared to help people suffering from terrorists’ hands … we expected victims of explosion, gunfire,” Elkis said.  “When we learned that the gas was used, we sent more Naloxone to the site” (Steven Myers, New York Times, Nov.1).

On Thursday, the city’s hospitals still held 184 freed hostages, of whom eight were in serious condition (Moscow Times, Nov. 1).

Another health official said that confusion about the security situation might have led to a limited medical response.  Russian authorities had been listening to the Chechens’ phone conversations and believed a second attack might have been imminent.  Medical officials did not want to commit all their resources if another wave of patients was on the way, according to Irina Nazarova, head of the Russian Emergency Medicine Center.

“At any point they could blow up another building, and nobody knew how many victims there would be,” Nazarova said.  She also said the medical system acquitted itself well in the situation (Mark Mackinnon, Globe and Mail, Nov. 1).

Reports have continued to surface, however, of the secrecy that surrounded the use of the gas in the early morning raid last Saturday.  Rescue workers did not know how much of the antidote to administer, the Times reported today.  In interviews with a Russian newspaper, some said they used 5 cubic millimeters while others used 10.

The commandos who pumped the gas into the theater’s ventilation system and stormed the theater did not know what gas they were using, the Times reported.

A doctor who did not want to be named agreed that there was confusion in the medical response and said that hospitals expected gunshots, not gas.  Hostages also lacked key first aid assistance in the immediate aftermath of the raid, the doctor said.  The alleged confusion, however, was not intentional.

“It wasn’t an evil plot,” the doctor said.  “It was just a Soviet mess” (Myers, New York Times).

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United States:  Deseret Worker Altered Air Quality Tests, Authorities Charge

U.S. authorities have accused an employee at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah with tampering with important safety records, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Oct. 11).

David James Yarbrough has been charged in U.S. District Court with one count of making false statements to a government agency, according to AP.  He could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Officials have accused Yarbrough of falsifying data in work from June 29 to Aug. 16 at the Oquirrh Mountain Facility, where researchers test disposal methods for chemical agents.  According to authorities, he knew that systems were operating below approved levels but indicated that air monitoring units were performing at passing levels during baseline tests, AP reported.

Officials indicted Yarbrough after a routine data review indicated inconsistencies, depot spokeswoman Alaine Southworth said.  Neither the depot nor its surrounding residents were ever in danger and all air monitoring equipment has worked properly, Southworth said.

Yarbrough yesterday denied the allegations.  “I am innocent of the charges,” he said (Associated Press, Nov. 1).

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Russia:  Moscow Refuses to Identify Deadly Theater Gas

All but two of the hostages killed in a Moscow theater died from the gas that was used to incapacitate the Chechen separatists who had taken the building, a senior Russian health official said yesterday.  Russian officials would not identify the gas; some experts are saying it might violate the Chemical Weapons Convention.

More than 115 hostages died “from the effects of the gas exposure,” said Andrei Seltsovsky, head of the Moscow health department.  About 650 former hostages remained hospitalized yesterday, 45 of whom were in critical condition.

The gas was described as an incapacitating agent, used as an anesthesia, by Yevgeny Yevdokimov, chief anesthetist in Moscow (Glasser/Baker, Washington Post, Oct. 28).

Seltovsky said he did not know the name of the gas.

Russian authorities have been criticized for not releasing information on the gas, which was pumped in through the theater’s ventilation system early Saturday morning.  Russian officials turned away a request for information on the gas from the U.S. Embassy.

Chemical Speculation

Lev Fedorov, president of the Russian Union for Chemical Safety, said the chemical agent used in the raid was apparently a Valium-based military gas, developed during the Soviet era.

Vil Mirzayanov, a former colleague of Fedorov at the State Scientific and Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, said the Soviet Union had altered the molecular structure of the incapacitating agent BZ, and it proved effective as an anesthetic.  Mirzayanov suggested the gas used in the raid was an anesthetic.

The gas used in Saturday’s assault might violate the Chemical Weapons Convention but conflict with the treaty is unclear, some experts said.  The treaty bans the use of all lethal gasses.  It allows incapacitating gasses for domestic law enforcement, but the effects must diminish quickly.

Because the gas was pumped into the theater, without regard to dosage for children, the sick or the elderly, the move violates the intent of the convention, Mirzayanov said.

Fedorov disagreed, saying that other countries research similar agents (Steven Myers, New York Times, Oct. 28).

The gas might have been a version of sleeping gas Adamsite, and the refusal to identify it could be because undeclared stocks of the gas would be in violation of the convention, the Financial Times reported (Andrew Jack, Oct. 28, Financial Times).

Treaty Implications

Amy Smithson, a chemical weapons expert at the Henry L. Stimson arms research organization in Washington, said there many questions remained regarding Russia’s compliance with the chemical treaty.

“This is kind of like pornography, you know it when you see it,” Smithson said.  “There are going to be people on both sides who will argue that the treaty does not prohibit it.  But how it was used, I think, is going to make it a huge debate.”

Federov said Russian officials would probably never disclose the nature of the chemical.

“We are never going to know exactly what chemical it was because in this country the state is more important than the people,” he said (Glasser/Baker, Washington Post).

The fact that the hostages had been weakened by stress and hunger made the gas much more deadly, health officials said.  Fedorov agreed with this assessment.

“This weapon was developed to be used on healthy men who serve in the army,” he said.  “It was used here on some of the so-called risk groups — women, children, people with liver and kidney problems” (Myers, New York Times).

Russia Will Not Disclose Gas

Officials have come under criticism as well for not disclosing the agent to doctors who treated the hostages.  The doctors were themselves confused, according to a hospitalized former hostage.

“Some of the doctors were telling us it was nerve gas, some were saying it was tear gas,” said a freed hostage identified only as Natasha (Susan Glasser, Washington Post, Oct. 28).

None of the victims suffered symptoms associated with lethal — and therefore prohibited — chemical weapons.

Yevdokimov described the gas a “psychotropic.”

“It is safe if used as a general anesthetic, but large doses can affect basic functions of the organism, causing unconsciousness, respiratory and blood circulation problems,” he said.

A British doctor said the effect of anesthesia varies based on the subject.

“The range of human reaction to any anesthetic is very great,” said David Scott, an anesthesiologist at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.  “If, for example, 50 percent of the people in the auditorium were put to sleep, you would expect another 40 percent to be unaffected and 10 percent would die” (McGrory/Hartley, London Times, Oct. 28).

Russian authorities, meanwhile, are investigating a link between the Chechen militants and the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

“There were definitely Arab terrorists in the building with links to al-Qaeda,” a senior Western diplomat said.  “The Russians will now want to know how much help the Chechens received from [Osama] bin Laden’s organization” (Lab/Aris, London Sunday Telegraph, Oct. 27).

For further information, see:

CWC Text

OPCW Main Page

CWC States Parties

Pentagon Executive Summary of CWC

OPCW List of Other Chemical Conventions

Federation of American Scientists List of Chemical Weapon Agents

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CWC:  Budget Problems Have Thwarted Treaty Inspections

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in recent years was unable to conduct some inspections of chemical facilities for illicit chemical weapons production because of budget troubles, the U.S. General Accounting Office said last week (see GSN, Oct. 25).

Problems cited by the GAO included failures by some states to pay their annual dues and by certain states to reimburse the organization for monitoring the destruction of their declared chemical weapons. The organization also underestimated personnel expenses for the last three years, the report said.

States owe nearly $1 million in unpaid dues and, as of June, owed more than $2 million in reimbursements.

The OPCW was $2.8 million in deficit in 2000 and has a potential deficit of $5.2 million in 2002, the report said.

The GAO concluded, “Weak budgeting practices and budget deficits have affected the organization’s ability to perform inspection activities as mandated by the Chemical Weapons Convention,” noting it had to reduce the number of planned inspections for 2001 and 2002.

A U.S. State Department response included in the report said the GAO analysis does not take into account OPCW changes underway in recent months.  The GAO report was based largely on an audit of documents collected from the OPCW in May.

Changes Underway

The organization’s budgeting difficulties have been well known for some time.  The Bush administration until earlier this year had withheld some of its dues while publicly criticizing and pressing for removal of the previous OPCW director general, Jose Bustani (see GSN, April 12). 

There have been recent signs, however, of a turnaround.  A U.S. campaign to remove the official was successful last April.  A new director general, Rogelio Pfirter, took charge in July and is beginning a management review this week.  Washington has resumed payments, as have other key contributors, and has donated an additional $2 million to the organization for 2002. 

Treaty parties also voted this month to increase the organization’s $54 million 2003 budget by 10 percent and to allow OPCW to use its 2001 cash surplus and its working capital fund.

Pfirter in an interview last week with Global Security Newswire said the additional money would put the organization back on its feet for the near term and would provide for a substantial number of additional inspections, approved by the member states, in the coming year.

The GAO report did specify several changes made by OPCW under Pfirter, including creation of a more accurate and timely invoicing process for inspection reimbursements and exclusion of the dues assessments of states in arrears.  The State Department had hired a budgeting consultant to aid the organization, it said.

The GAO further noted Pfirter’s stated commitment to address the organization’s financial difficulties by ensuring that adequate funding be available for the 2003 budget.

Additional Changes Recommended

The report, however, concluded that some changes are still needed and recommended developing a comprehensive plan for dealing with the budgeting issues. 

“Although the organization and the State Department have taken some steps to address the budget problems, the organization has not developed a comprehensive plan to overcome its inherent budgeting weaknesses,” it said. 

The GAO assigned the overall blame for the budgeting shortfalls to the OPCW, as opposed to states.

“Unless the organization improves its planning, budget shortfalls will continue to affect its ability to conduct inspections,” the report said.

“The organization’s budgets (like those of other international organizations) are based on the presumption that all member states will pay their assessments in full,” it said.

Pfirter, last week, said the organization would be able to conduct the additional inspections voted for by member states for 2002 as long as members paid their dues in full.

“The member states worked out a compromise formulation whereas in which 60 DOCs [inspections of discrete organic chemical facilities] are anticipated and we will have the financing for that, if member states again comply with their assessed contributions,” he said.

The State Department said the GAO’s observation that “there is no coherent plan to address these problems, while accurately portraying the situation for the first part of 2002, does not reflect the current situation.”

It suggested a comprehensive plan was not needed, as the organization currently was addressing its budgeting issues in a comprehensive way, including by discounting expected income by one-sixth, based on historical experience, as opposed to already discounted expectations.

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