30 SECONDS UNDER TOKYO: SUBWAY GAS ATTACK SHOWS FUTILITY, FOLLY OF TRYING TO ‘RID THE WORLD OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS’

(Washington, D.C.): This morning’s chemical weapons
attack against rush hour commuters in the Tokyo subway system
offers chilling affirmation of a number of truths that should be
self-evident:

• Chemical weapons (CW) like Sarin — the nerve
  agent believed to have been used to kill at least six,
  injure thousands of others and thoroughly disrupt Tokyo’s
  subway system and business day — can be manufactured
  by virtually anyone. No major facility is required
  for such production. It takes little in the way of
  technical skills or specialized equipment to produce
  sufficient quantities of such agents to pose a menace to
  civil societies or even to degrade the performance of
  military organizations prepared for chemical attacks. A
  terrorist organization — to say nothing of a closed,
  totalitarian state — can easily conceal chemical weapons
  production and manufacturing facilities from even the
  most intrusive forms of on-site inspection.
• It is, consequently, absurd to believe that the
  Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) now awaiting Senate
  advice and consent will, as advertised, “rid the
  world of chemical weapons.” What it will do,
  rather, is eliminate such weapons from the arsenals of
  law-abiding nations like the United States. Largely
  unaffected will be the covert CW production capability
  and stockpiles retained by those willing to flout
  “international norms” where they believe
  military, political and/or strategic benefits can be
  obtained by doing so.
• Worse yet, the mere fact that a global ban on chemical
  weapons is supposed to be in place around the world can
  leave those who may be victimized by such illicit
  stockpiles more vulnerable to CW attack. For
  example, in the years since the 1972 Biological Weapons
  Convention (BWC) entered into force — ostensibly banning
  biological weapons from the face of the earth — the
  United States investment in means to counter, or even
  detect, such weapons has essentially evaporated. Even
  though there is now abundant evidence that the BWC is
  being widely flouted, U.S. capabilities to defend its
  populace against this form of warfare are appallingly
  limited. The Nation’s capacity to deal with chemical
  attack on non-military targets is already inadequate; it
  can only deteriorate further if the threat of this form
  of warfare is mistakenly assumed to have been eliminated,
  or even attenuated, by arms control.

The Bottom Line

Today’s horrifying events in Tokyo give the U.S.
Senate further reason to take a hard look at the premises and
likely implications of the unverifiable, costly and ineffectual
Chemical Weapons Convention. Such a rigorous examination will
make clear not only the unavoidable defects in this sort of
utopian arms control agreement. It should also establish
forcefully that — in the area of chemical warfare, as in others
(notably, the threat posed by ballistic missiles that might
deliver chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to the United
States) — every effort should be made to enhance the United
States’ deterrence of such threats and its ability to
defend against them if deterrence should fail.