Russia’s Covert Chemical Weapons Program Vindicates Jesse Helms’ Continuing Opposition to Phony C.W. Arms Control

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton
Administration’s campaign to railroad
Senators into approving the fatally
flawed Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
ran into a major new obstacle today: The Washington
Times disclosed that a report
published recently in the classified
Military Intelligence Digest confirms
that “Russia is producing a
new generation of deadly chemical weapons
using materials, methods and technology
that circumvent the terms of [that]
treaty it signed outlawing such
weapons.”

Word of this frightening development
was originally leaked by a Russian
scientist, Vil Mirzayanov,
who had been involved in the Kremlin’s
covert development of a new class of
chemical arms. In an article he
courageously published in the Wall
Street Journal on 25 May 1994, Mr.
Mirzayanov wrote about a new Russian
binary weapon [i.e., one which uses two
relatively harmless chemicals to form a
toxic agent after the weapon is
launched]:

“This new weapon, part of
the ultra-lethal Novichok [Russian
for “Newcomer”] class,
provides an opportunity for the
[Russian] military establishment
to disguise production of
components of binary weapons as
common agricultural chemicals
because the West does not know
the formula and its inspectors
cannot identify the
compounds.” href=”97-D19.html#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾

Now, More Details About
Moscow’s Ongoing CW Program

Excerpts
of the secret intelligence report that
appear in today’s Washington Times
provide considerable detail about
Russia’s efforts to maintain a deadly
chemical arsenal, irrespective of its
treaty obligations. According to the Times,
these include the following (emphasis
added throughout):

• “Under a program code-named
  ‘Foliant,’ a Russian
  scientific research organization
  has created a highly lethal nerve
  agent called A-232, large
  quantities of which could be made
  ‘within weeks’ through covert
  production facilities….”
• “A-232 is made from
  industrial and agricultural
  chemicals that are not lethal
  until mixed and that never
  had been used for poison gas.”
• “‘These new agents are as
  toxic as VX [a persistent nerve
  agent], as resistant to treatment
  as Soman [a non-persistent but
  deadly poison gas] and more
  difficult to detect and easier to
  manufacture than VX.'”
• “The report says A-232 and
  its delivery means have ‘passed
  Moscow’s rigorous military
  acceptance testing and can be
  quickly fielded in unitary or
  binary form.'”
• “Russia’s State Scientific
  Research Institute of Organic
  Chemistry and Technology created
  the agents and novel ways of
  making them to avoid detection by
  international inspectors. ‘By
  using chemicals not specified in
  the CWC schedules, the Russians
  can produce A-232 and its ethyl
  analog A-234, in unitary and
  binary forms within several
  chemical complexes.'”
• “The Russians can
  make the binary, or two part,
  version of the nerve agent using
  a common industrial solvent
  acetonitrile and an organic
  phosphate compound ‘that can be
  disguised as a pesticide
  precursor.’ In another
  version, soldiers need only
  add alcohol to form the
  agent, the report says.”
• “‘These various routes offer
  flexibility for the agent to be
  produced in different types of
  facilities, depending on the raw
  material and equipment available
  there. They also add
  complexity to the already
  formidable challenge of detecting
  covert production
  activities.'”
• “The Russians can produce
  the new nerve agent in ‘pilot
  plant’ quantities of 55 to 110
  tons annually,’ the report says.
  Several Russian plants are
  capable of producing the
  chemicals used in making A-232.
  One factory in Novocherboksarsk
  ‘is capable of manufacturing
  2,000-2,500 metric tons of A-232
  yearly.'”
• “Several pesticide plants
  ‘offer easy potential for covert
  production,’ the report says.
  ‘For example, substituting amines
  for ammonia and making other
  slight modifications in the
  process would result in new
  agents instead of pesticide. The
  similarity in the chemistry of
  these compounds would make treaty
  monitoring, inspection and
  verification difficult.'”

The Administration’s
Unconvincing Response: The CWC Will Solve
the Problem

The Clinton Administration’s
pollyannish response to these revelations
ought to be instructive to Senators
weighing the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Although the Russians are violating their
present obligation not to produce
chemical weapons and are doing so in ways
designed to circumvent the CWC’s
limitations and to defeat even on-site
inspection regimes, an Administration
spokesman told the Washington Times that
“the treaty would make it easier to
investigate such problems” since
“agents and components can be added
to the treaty’s schedule of banned
chemicals.” The National Security
Council’s David Johnson is quoted as
saying: “Without the CWC and the
verification tools it provides, you don’t
have the means to get at problems like
this. With CWC, you do.”

Such a statement is, at best, wishful
thinking. At worst, it is highly
misleading since, for reasons outlined
above, the Russian Novichok
weapons (and counterpart efforts likely
being pursued by other chemical weapons
states) are specifically designed
to thwart the CWC’s “verification
tools.”

A variation on this disingenuous theme
is being circulated in graphic form by
proponents of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. They offer two world maps,
one under the heading “The World
Without the CWC,” the other
“The World With the CWC.” The
former shows large areas of the world —
notably Russia, China, Iran, India and
Pakistan — with declared or suspected
chemical arsenals. The latter, though,
shows the entire world except for Libya,
Egypt, Syria, Iraq and North Korea as
being without either declared or
suspected chemical stockpiles.

It is deceptive to suggest that the
Chemical Weapons Convention will ensure
that Russia, China, Iran, India or
Pakistan will actually eliminate their
chemical weapons programs thanks to the
CWC. In fact, any country that is
wishes to retain even militarily
significant chemical stockpiles and is
willing to flout international law to do
so can be confident of its ability to
escape detection and sanction.
To his credit, one of the Convention’s
preeminent champions and distributors of
these maps — retired Lieutenant General
Tom McInerney — responded, when asked
whether he really believed that Russia
and China would give up their chemical
arms if they became parties to the CWC —
by saying: “Of course not.”

Enter Chairman Helms

As it happens, front-page treatment
was also given today to another aspect of
the Chemical Weapons Convention drama. A
29 January 1997 letter from Senator Jesse
Helms to Majority Leader Trent Lott
expressing the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee chairman’s strong opposition to
the present CWC was featured “above
the fold” by the Washington Post.
In this letter, Senator Helms
declares: “I am convinced that the
CWC, as it now stands, is fraught with
deficiencies totally inimical to the
national security interests of the United
States.”

Chairman Helms goes on to enumerate in
an attached memorandum specific
conditions that “are essential to
ensuring that the Chemical weapons
Convention enhances, rather than reduces,
our national security.” In
particular, he says preconditions are
needed to address six concerns which
“are best expressed in the letter
[Senator Lott] received on 9 September
1996 from Richard Cheney, William Clark,
Jeane Kirkpatrick, Alexander Haig, John
Herrington, Edwin Meese, Donald Rumsfeld,
Caspar Weinberger, 12 Generals and
Admirals and 47 [other] officials from
the Reagan and Bush Administrations” href=”97-D19.html#N_2_”>⁽²⁾:

• Russian elimination of chemical
  weapons and implementation of the
  1990 Bilateral Destruction
  Agreement (BDA);
• Inclusion of countries other than
  Russia believed to have chemical
  weapons;
• Certification by the U.S.
  intelligence community that
  compliance with the treaty can be
  monitored with high confidence;
• Specification of the actions that
  will be taken by the United
  States in the event of
  non-compliance;
• Establishing the primacy of the
  U.S. Constitution over all
  provisions of the CWC; and
• Protection of U.S. confidential
  business information (CBI).

Sen. Helms Rebuts the
Administration’s CWC Point Person

In addition, Senator Helms today sent
National Security Advisor Samuel
“Sandy” Berger a strongly
worded letter concerning correspondence
written by Dr. Lori Esposito Murray —
the Special Advisor to the President and
ACDA Director for the Chemical Weapons
Convention — to members of the Senate in
response to the Cheney et.al.
missive. Calling the Murray
correspondence “offensive,” the
Chairman offers his own, detailed
rebuttal of her claim that there were
“significant misinformation”
and “misstatements” in the
letter sent last fall by Secretary Cheney
and his colleagues.

Specifically, Senator Helms affirms
that (emphasis added throughout):

• “The CWC does not —
  in fact — effectively cover the
  types of chemicals used to
  manufacture chemical weapons.…Everything
  from Sarin and Soman to VX can be
  manufactured using a variety of
  chemicals which are not
  identified by the Schedules for
  the application of the
  verification regime.”
• “…The CWC will not
  do one thing to reduce the
  chemical weapons arsenals of
  terrorist countries and other
  nations hostile to the United
  States.…Not one
  country of concern to the United
  States has ratified this
  convention.”
• “…The CWC is not
  ‘effectively verifiable’
  and Dr. Murray should not have
  made representations to the
  contrary….Declassified portions
  from [a] August 1993 National
  Intelligence Estimate note:

“‘The
capability of the
intelligence community to
monitor compliance with
the Chemical Weapons
Convention is severely
limited and likely to
remain so for the rest of
the decade. The
key provision of the
monitoring regime —
challenge inspection at
declared sites — can be
thwarted by a nation
determined to preserve a
small, secret program
using the delays and
managed access rules
allowed by the
Convention.'”

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy commends
Senator Helms for his leadership in
insisting that the Chemical Weapons
Convention’s myriad, serious defects be
addressed and corrected before
the Senate is once again asked to give
its advice and consent to this treaty. It
looks forward to working with him,
Senator Lott and all others who share
Chairman Helms’ determination to ensure
that the CWC is only ratified if it
“enhances, rather than reduces”
U.S. national security.

– 30 –

1. See in this
regard Not ‘Good Enough for
Government Work’: Senate Needs to Hear
About Russian Chemical Weapons From Russian
Experts ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-D_100″>No. 94-D 100,
5 October 1994).

2. Copies of this
letter, which was originally circulated
by the Center for Security Policy last
fall, may be obtained by contacting the
Center.