The Libyan chamical warfare facility: the do’s and don’t of controlling the proliferation of chemical weapons

Over the next few days in Paris, leading members of the international community will consider a serious threat to world peace: the proliferation of chemical weapons (CW) and a growing willingness by nations to engage in their use. The latter has occurred in several parts of the Third World, notably in the Iran-Iraq war, in violation of the existing 1925 Geneva convention banning first-use of chemical weapons. The threat of still more widespread CW employment mounts as additional nations obtain ballistic missile and other technologies compatible with long-range delivery of lethal chemical agents.

Many of those participating in the Paris meeting — including the United States government — have embraced the view that the proper response to the violation of the present chemical arms control regime and the growing number of countries possessing chemical munitions is to adopt a new, global ban on production and stockpiling of these weapons. The conference is expected, as a result, to impart new impetus to the on-going multilateral negotiations in Geneva on a treaty imposing such a ban.

The meeting in Paris will also feature — if not be dominated by — discussions of the incipient capacity of Libya to produce large quantities of chemical weaponry. Ironically, the massive Libyan facility provides a prime example of the utter futility of a global chemical weapons ban.

What the Libyan Plant Demonstrates:

Recent public disclosures concerning the consultations the United States has had with allied and other nations on the character of and need to deal with the nearly completed Libyan chemical manufacturing complex reveal two key factors that render a global CW ban infeasible:

Verification: While the Libyan plant is a dedicated CW facility, Gadhafi’s protestations that it is a pharmaceutical complex nicely illustrates the problem: essentially any facility that actually is meant for production of civilian chemical products (for example, pesticides, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals) has the inherent ability to produce toxic chemical agents for weapons.

The length of time it might take a given country to convert its chemical plants from innocuous activities to lethal military ones could be exceedingly short. How short would largely depend upon the extent of advance preparations undertaken, subject entirely to the control of the government in question. Such considerations defy any known verification scheme — a point made starkly recently by representatives of the U.S. government in rejecting the Libyans’ invitation to perform an on-site inspection of their new complex.

In fact, the verification problem associated with a CW ban is made even more intractable by the fact that chemical agents (and biological and toxin weapons for that matter) can now be manufactured using commercially available systems that can be located at essentially any facility. There need not be any unique construction features or other signatures to such facilities that might assist in identifying and monitoring them for compliance with a global CW ban. The truth of the matter is that one is not likely often to have as abundant circumstantial evidence about the malevolent purposes to which a given production complex is devoted than is presently the case with the Libyan site — reportedly ringed by a 40 foot earthen wall, highly sophisticated air defenses and other security features.

Enforcement: The behavior of the international community to date in response to that astonishing evidence demonstrates the further problem one faces even where it is possible to make a strong case that CW activity is underway. Few countries are willing to endorse a conclusion certain to result in unpalatable choices: either living with the knowledge that a regime that aggressively sponsors and equips world-wide terrorist activities has the ability to produce the "Poor Man’s Atomic Bomb" or taking steps to eliminate that ability. Even where there is considerable reason to believe that nationals of allied countries have been directly involved in constructing and financing the Libyan CW complex — and, therefore, have first-hand knowledge of its capabilities — these allies recoil from accepting the obvious conclusions.

What is more, experience has shown that the more solemn the international commitment being breached by an activity, the more resistant third-party nations become to crying foul. The United States has encountered this phenomenon repeatedly in its effort to arouse allied ire over Soviet violations of various arms control accords, notably the clear-cut breach of the ABM Treaty by construction of an illegal radar at Krasnoyarsk. It is only reasonable to expect that it would be even more difficult to arouse international outrage over a suspected infraction of a newly signed CW ban than is the case at present with the Libyan plant — especially where the evidence is less compelling.

Policy Prescriptions:

The current crisis over the Libyan chemical weapons plant argues for adopting certain policies for contending with the Libyan and other episodes of chemical weapons proliferation:

The West should abandon the illusion that CW proliferation can be halted — or even meaningfully slowed — by an inherently unverifiable ban on production and stockpiling of chemical weaponry.

Western democracies must discard the notion, and the accompanying rhetoric, that an effective verification regime might be developed that would redress the intrinsic and unavoidable problems associated with such a treaty.

Doing otherwise is a formula for chemical disarmament only on the part of nations — like the United States — that live up to its international commitments.

Instead, the United States and its allies should be focussing on enforcement of the existing CW arms control convention — banning first-use of chemical weapons.

Establishing the willingness of nations to take specific, practical actions in response to such first-use would not only have a salutary effect insofar as it shored up the present inhibition to CW activities.

It would also provide an important bellwether of the willingness of the international community to demand compliance with future arms control accords.

The United States and other Western nations should also maintain modest, but effective stockpiles of chemical weapons — the only time-tested deterrent to the use of toxic CW by aggressors.

In this regard, Vice President George Bush — to his lasting credit — on several occasions since 1983 has played a politically courageous role in casting deciding votes in the Senate for the long-overdue modernization of the U.S. arsenal with binary chemical systems.

The United States (and, preferably, other allied nations) should not rule out the use of force against identified CW production capabilities of countries like Libya that actively support international terrorism and aggression.

As an immediate step, however, the United States should — at the Paris meeting and thereafter — press for specific economic and financial steps against Libya.

All contracts involved in the construction, equipping and operation of the new Libyan chemical production complex must be terminated at once.

Any foreign company found not complying with this demand forthwith should be subject to U.S. import controls under the Export Administration Act, with the effect of barring them from exporting to the U.S. marketplace.

All financing associated with the construction, equipping and operation of the Libyan CW complex must cease, for example all disbursements under existing loan agreements should be terminated and no new supplier credits offered.

Any foreign bank, company or consortium providing credit to the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank or other agencies of the Libyan government in connection with this facility found not complying with this demand should be subject to restrictions on their banking activities within the United States (e.g., the operations of their U.S. branches and subsidiaries).

All Western deposits in the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank should be immediately removed (through the interbank deposit market) pending the complete dismantling and elimination of the Libyan CW plant.

By forcing such enterprises to choose between the American market for their goods and services and that of Libya, a direct and therapeutic impact can quickly be had on the Libyan regime and the means by which it hopes to advance its anti-Western agenda.