C.W.C. Watch #4: Sudanese Factory Episode Illuminates Why Chemical Weapons Cannot be Effectively, Verifiably Banned

(Washington, D.C.): In the wake of last week’s U.S. cruise missile attack on a Sudanese
pharmaceutical facility, the Clinton Administration is facing second-guessing and mounting
criticism over its assertion that the Al Shifa plant in Khartoum was involved in the manufacture of
precursors for chemical weapons.

Jordanian suppliers of technology and expertise assert the plant had only civilian applications;
the
government of Sudan demands an apology and seeks an international investigation; Arab nations
and those seeking to curry favor with them — notably Russia and China — are denouncing the
U.S. action as unwarranted; and the UN is set to debate the matter with what will almost surely be
unsatisfactory results from the U.S. perspective. For its part, the American government is
sounding increasingly defensive, repeating its contention that precursors for deadly VX nerve gas
were being produced at the Khartoum factory but refusing to share sensitive intelligence that it
says confirms this judgment.

Welcome to the World of the Chemical Weapons Convention

In fact, this episode vindicates many of the criticisms of the notion that chemical weapons can
be
effectively and verifiably banned which were aired in the course of the U.S. Senate’s debate on the
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).⁽¹⁾ The following
illustrate the point:

• Chemical weapons capabilities are continuing to proliferate: Sudan is not
  a signatory of
  the CWC. (For that matter, neither are such other chemical weapon states as Iraq, Syria or
  North Korea.) Consequently, the treaty’s vaunted, intrusive inspection regime are irrelevant to
  proving the existence of chemical weapons there. This bears emphasizing since press reports
  suggest that the Sudanese have acquired two other chemical weapons manufacturing
  facilities,
  in addition to the one in Khartoum.

What is more, the Sudanese CW program is reputed to have the support of others
besides the financial support of Osama bin Laden. For example, Saddam Hussein is
said to have used Sudan as a place to hide some of his covert chemical weapons
capabilities from UN inspectors. Given Iran’s strategic ties to Sudan’s radical Islamic
regime, it stands to reason that Tehran and Khartoum are collaborating on weapons of
mass destruction, as well as other malevolent activities. Such cooperation is unlikely,
moreover, to be appreciably diminished by the fact that Iran has signed the CWC. In
fact, it can safely be predicted that some signatories of the Chemical Weapons
Convention will be as systematic in their pursuit of capabilities they have
promised to forego as will many non-signatories.

• Chemical weapons production sites are easy to conceal: Modern facilities
  designed to
  manufacture medicines or other pharmaceutical products, fertilizers or chemical products have
  the inherent capability to produce chemical weapons. Many can switch from one product line
  to another quickly and without leaving traces that would contaminate — or permit ready
  identification
  — of the first. As a result, even the sorts of on-site inspection permitted by the CWC may not
  prove illegal activities, confronting the U.S. with the same problem it currently faces:
  compromising sensitive intelligence sources and methods in the hope of persuading skeptics of
  the correctness of American claims about threatening chemical weapons activities.

In the politicized world of arms control, “proving” that chemical weapons have been
secretly produced is nearly impossible. The sort of international investigation Sudan is
now calling for will be subjected to even more intense political pressure than has
hobbled UNSCOM’s operations in Iraq.⁽²⁾ The sentiments
and modus operandi of the
majority of UN nations and bureaucrats make it very unlikely that a consensus
supporting the U.S. position on the Sudanese plant would ever emerge. The same
would be true of efforts to prosecute violations of the CWC in the institution created to
implement it, the multilateral Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

• Even Western companies will be implicated in — and seek to excuse — suspect
  activity:
  At a press conference in Amman, Jordan on Saturday, Ahmad Salem, who claims to
  have been
  the engineer responsible for putting together in 1993 the construction plan for the Al Shifa
  plant, said the factory was designed to produce more than 50 types of medicine for malaria,
  tuberculosis, antibiotics and other diseases in addition to veterinary drugs. Press reports quote
  Salem as saying: “There is no chance this factory could be used to produce chemical weapons,
  it was designed to produce medicine for people and animals.” For reasons discussed above,
  it
  is entirely possible (and, in the case of Sudan, a virtual certainty) that the same
  pharmaceutical technology could be used for both weapons and medicinal
  production.

The report adds that Salem declared that “some of the equipment used at the factory
were supplied by Swedish, American, Danish, Belgium and other foreign firms.” While
it cannot be determined that any of these countries nationals knowingly outfitted Sudan
with chemical manufacturing capabilities, there is ample precedent for those bent on
selling dual-use technology to turn a blind eye to the danger their products might wind
up being applied to weapons purposes. In some cases, such foreign firms have even
been accused of conspiring in the fabrication of cover stories used to facilitate these
transactions.⁽³⁾

The CWC will actually make this problem worse, insofar as it obliges signatories
to facilitate the transfer of technology with relevance to offensive and defensive
chemical weapons programs to other signatories (which include, in addition to
Russia and China, for example, Iran). Counterpart transfers undertaken pursuant
to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty have proven invaluable to those bent on
diverting technology to proscribed purposes. Early returns on the CWC suggest a
similar phenomenon. According to the Deputy Director of the Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, John Gee, there have been huge
discrepancies in reports concerning the transfer of Schedule 2 and Schedule 3
chemicals (i.e., chemicals that could be used to manufacture chemical weapons or
could be adapted to serve such a purpose.)⁽⁴⁾

The Bottom Line

The United States and other nations likely to face the threat of terrorists
wielding chemical
weapons would be well advised to focus their energies not only on prophylactic actions
like
the attack on Sudan’s suspect facility. They must also engage in a comprehensive effort to
provide protection for their populations against such deadly threats.

In the U.S. case, this will require: a repudiation of the policy of “assured
vulnerability” that
has been the legacy of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; the deployment of defensive
measures against ballistic and cruise missile attack; significant enhancements in both
human and technical intelligence needed to monitor these and other threats;
and
substantially greater investment in civil defense and other collective protective
capabilities.

Unfortunately, the false sense of security imparted by the Chemical Weapons Convention has
contributed to the deferral of action in at least some of these areas. In light of the CWC’s
palpable irrelevance to the future of chemical weapons attack, it must not be permitted to
continue to do so.

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1. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Truth or Consequences # 12: The C.W.C.’s
Technology Transfer Provisions Will Exacerbate the Chemical Weapons Threat
(No. 97-D 56,
22 April 1997) and C.W.C. Watch # 2: After First Six Months, Fears About
Treaty’s
Unverifiability, Unjustified Costs & Ineffectiveness Vindicated ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_163″>No. 97-D 163, 1 November
1997).

2. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Flash: UNSCOM Concludes Iraq is Still Cheating
— Proof that Toppling Saddam’s Regime is the Only Solution ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_118″>No. 98-D 118, 23 June 1998)
and Sen. Lott Shows How and Secures Means to Topple Saddam
(No. 98-D 73, 28 April 1998).

3. See Clinton Legacy Watch # 30: America the
Proliferator (No. 98-D 145, 14 August 1998),
What’s Good For Silicon Graphics Is Not Necessarily Good For America: Some
Supercomputer Sales Imperil U.S. Security ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_102″>No. 97-D 102, 21 July 1997) and Broadening
the
Lens: Peter Leitner’s Revelations on ’60 Minutes,’ Capitol Hill Indict Clinton Technology
Insecurity (No. 98-D 101, 6 June 1998). For
further information on American complicity in the
spread of dangerous weapons technologies around the world, see the Senate Government Affairs
Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services’ majority report,
entitled The Proliferation Primer via the Subcommittee for Government Affairs’ Web site (www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs). Please note that
if you “click” on this site, you will leave the Center’s World Wide Web site.

4. See “Implementing the CWC: The First Year,” The
Arena, July 1998.