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Environment

U.S. Can't Eliminate Arsenal Until 2017

Even with allowable five-year extension, U.S. won't be able to comply with treaty

by Lois R. Ember
April 24, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 17

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Credit: Department of Defense Photo
Credit: Department of Defense Photo

The U.S. has formally asked for the one-time, five-year extension to 2012, which is allowed under the chemical weapons treaty, for complete destruction of its 31,500-ton arsenal.

The original treaty deadline is April 29, 2007. But the U.S. has conceded that even with the extension, it will be in noncompliance because it will likely destroy only 66% of its stockpile by 2012 and will probably not eliminate it entirely until 2017 or beyond.

Meeting the 2017 target "will depend both on the willingness of Congress to continue funding the chemical demilitarization program despite increasing costs and on cooperation from the affected states and localities," says chemical weapons expert Jonathan B. Tucker, author of "War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to al-Qaeda."

On April 19, Eric M. Javits, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, formally asked OPCW's Executive Council for the extension. The next day, Dale A. Ormond, Army deputy assistant secretary for the elimination of chemical weapons, offered an informal technical briefing to the council to dispel concerns that the U.S. was not committed to destroying its stockpile as quickly and safely as possible.

The Executive Council will make a recommendation on the U.S. request to the full treaty membership, which then will make a decision at a plenary session scheduled for December.

At a briefing in Washington, D.C., a State Department official stressed, "The fact that we're asking for an extension does not mean in any way that the U.S. is not committed to full destruction of our stockpile." Under the terms of the briefing, State and Defense Department officials could not be named.

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Credit: Photo By Peter Cutts
Credit: Photo By Peter Cutts

As he was legally required to do, on April 10, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld informed Congress that the U.S. would not comply with the treaty's 2007 deadline. In response, Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), whose state houses some chemical weapons, signaled that he would hold the Pentagon's feet to the fire "to make sure that the [Pentagon] isn't using the treaty as a way to back out of its commitments."

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, is concerned that the schedule slippage "may translate into an unwillingness by the Pentagon to request or by Congress to provide adequate funding to vigorously execute the destruction program."

To date, the U.S. has destroyed nearly 39% of its stockpile. A Pentagon official said 100% elimination is now estimated to cost as much as $34 billion. Paul F. Walker, who follows the U.S. and Russian destruction programs as director of Global Green USA's Legacy program, says he has heard cost estimates "in the $40 billion range."

Two U.S. disposal sites have processed all their weapons. Destruction continues at five sites, and destruction facilities at two sites have yet to be built. One of the latter sites, in Blue Grass, Ky., will be the last operating site and will not destroy its weapons until sometime after 2017, a Pentagon official said.

Russia has destroyed less than 3% of its 40,000-ton arsenal but insists that it will complete destruction by 2012 (C&EN, April 17, page 27). In 2003, Russia requested an extension to 2012, which has been granted "in principle," an OPCW spokesman says.

Four nations in addition to the U.S. and Russia have declared small stockpiles. Of these, only Albania will meet the original 2007 deadline. For different technical reasons, India, Libya, and South Korea are each expected to ask for extensions of less than five years, a State Department official said. Japan will also ask for more time to destroy weapons it left in China at the end of World War II.

"What I think this illustrates," the State Department official said, "is that the business of destroying stockpiles is proving to be a lot more technically complex and politically complex than the drafters of the treaty imagined."

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