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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Russia:  Shchuchye Contractor Prepares Destruction Site

By Anne Marie Pecha
Global Security Newswire

U.S. engineering contractor Parsons has started preliminary building activities at Shchuchye, the site of a planned destruction facility for many of Russia’s chemical weapons, a project administrator told Global Security Newswire last week (see GSN, March 20).

Engineers are hoping the project will be finished by 2006, said Madeleine Rongey, Parsons deputy project manager for the facility.  Workers are clearing trees, leveling the ground and building temporary roads at the southwest Siberian site in Russia’s Kurgan oblast, she said.

“The project has progressed very well and is currently in detail design,” Rongey said. 

The winter at the Shchuchye site is “long and severe,” Rongey said.  “Construction during the winter is a challenge, [but] Parsons has experience in managing construction projects in remote areas and similar climates.”

Through a contract from the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the company is responsible for managing design and construction activities for the facility.  It is working with about a dozen Russian entities — such as the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology in Moscow — as well as some U.S. subcontractors, such as Science Applications International Corp. and Washington Group International.

The support companies provide detailed design, construction and operation services, Rongey said.

The complete facility will incorporate a unique two-step destruction process, developed by Russian and U.S. researchers, for destroying Russian VX nerve gas.  After separating toxic matter from the weapon hardware, engineers will first neutralize it by turning it into harmless salt.  They will then mix the product with a tar-like substance called bitumen, which can safely be used as landfill.

“Solid wastes are environmentally less hazardous,” Rongey said.

The total cost of the project will be nearly $890 million, according to Rongey.  Parsons’ contract covers $780 million, but U.S. lawmakers have frozen CTR funds for chemical weapon destruction until Russia can prove that it is serious about the endeavor (see GSN, Feb. 1).

“I only hope funding comes soon, because every day that passes is just one more day that the most deadly substances known to man will exist and have the chance to fall into the hands of bad, very bad people,” Rongey said.

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United States:  Oregon Governor Questions Neutralization at Umatilla

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber said he is not comfortable with U.S. Army plans to use water neutralization to dispose of more than 2,400 tons of mustard gas stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, March 25).

After touring the depot, Kitzhaber told Hermiston, Ore., community leaders that he is not inclined “to change horses now,” concerning the disposal method to be used on the gas agent stored at Umatilla.  The Army previously planned to burn the mustard gas and still plans to incinerate all other Umatilla chemical weapons, according to the AP.

Kitzhaber also said he would continue to pressure the U.S. Defense Department for aid for Umatilla and Morrow counties.

County residents are angry that the Defense Department has denied their requests for aid, while providing more than $40 million to Calhoun County, Ala., the site of a chemical weapons incinerator at the Army Anniston depot.  Kitzhaber said he does not want to make comparisons between Oregon and Alabama.

“I’m unwilling to blackmail” the Army in order to obtain impact aid, he said (Associated Press, April 3).

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CWC:  U.S. Hopes to Hold Conference to Oust Bustani

The United States is close to gaining enough support to hold a special conference of Chemical Weapons Convention parties in an attempt to force the director of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to leave his position, according to a senior State Department official (see GSN, March 25).

The official said the United States has so far garnered the support of 40 of the 145 CWC parties to hold the conference, adding the United States should easily win the support of the 48 states necessary.  The conference is tentatively scheduled for April 21 or 22 at The Hague. 

If the conference is held, the United States would need support from two-thirds of the states in a vote to oust OPCW Director Jose Bustani (Reuters/Yahoo.com, March 29).  The State Department plans to launch a major campaign to win support against Bustani, the U.S. official said.

The OPCW’s 41-state executive committee last week approved a no-confidence motion against Bustani, but he refused to leave.  “He has done no wrong, and he has nothing to hide,” said Bustani’s spokesman.

U.S. Complaints

The State Department has concerns about Bustani’s “confrontational conduct,” mismanagement issues and Bustani’s “advocacy of inappropriate roles for the OPCW,” a department summary said.

The United States also has said Bustani failed to properly manage funds and spending (George Gedda, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, March 29).

The United States was opposed to Bustani’s proposals to bring Iraq into the OPCW, although the State Department official said the Iraq issue is only part of U.S. objections.  “To get into the subject of Iraq was entirely unnecessary.  Mr. Bustani claims we are pursuing his ouster in aid of our plan to invade Iraq and that he alone stands in the way … This of course is silly but is an example of his inflated ego and distorted sense of his responsibilities,” the official said (Reuters/Yahoo.com).

“He has refused to resign, however, contrary to what any rational person would have done in this situation,” said a department document.

“Almost anybody would be better than this guy,” the State Department official said (Perth Sunday Times, March 31).

Bustani’s Response

Bustani said the United States never gave him any reasons why he should leave beyond problems with his administration style. 

“There is a fundamental principle to defend — my position as a director of an international organization should be immune to political interference and not passive to instructions from any government, however powerful,” Bustani said (Axel Bugge, Reuters/Yahoo.com, March 27).

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