Experts Say Much Work Needed To Finish Libyan Disarmament

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Despite Libya’s quick re-emergence into the international community, years of work remain to confirm the country’s disarmament and dispose of its remaining WMD stockpiles, according to chemical and biological weaponry experts.

Libya has shipped its nuclear technology to the United States, and claims it did not have a biological weapons program. But there is much work left in the area of chemical weapons.

Libya submitted its Chemical Weapons Convention declaration this month, and pledged to destroy all parts of a chemical weapons program that was apparently shut down in the mid-1990s (see GSN, March 5). The country has already destroyed its stockpile of 3,563 unfilled aerial bombs developed to disperse chemical weapons, and said it has no filled munitions, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which oversees the convention.

Remaining to be dismantled or destroyed are a production facility, 23 metric tons of mustard agent and more than 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals for nerve gas development.

The entire effort could take two years, but is not an overwhelmingly difficult challenge, said Paul Walker, director of the Legacy program at Global Green USA, an organization dedicated to eliminating weapons of mass destruction.

“Twenty-three tons isn’t much,” Walker said of the mustard gas. “In the United States, you’re talking about thousands of tons, and in Russia many more thousands of tons,” he said.

Libya submitted two options for destroying the mustard gas — incineration or neutralization, a U.S. government official said. The plans will be discussed this week at the OPCW executive council meeting.

“Whatever technology you do use, they have to be chosen in such a way as to not harm the environment or people living near the plant,” said OPCW spokesman Peter Kaiser.

Libya is expected to pay for the disposal, but can seek expertise and financial support from other convention member states, Kaiser said. Cost estimates will not be known until the method of destruction is known, the U.S. official said.

Walker estimated building a secured incinerator could take two years and cost $100 million, based on known costs for larger facilities in the United States. A neutralization center could be built in half that time and for $10 million to $50 million, he said, making it the most likely option for Libya.

Neutralization could be completed in a few weeks to a few months, Walker and the U.S. official said. Mustard gas would be manually or robotically drained from storage tanks into a container and mixed with hot water. It would then be piped to an adjoining structure for bioremediation, in which microbes would be added to the substance to decompose and digest the remaining toxic chemicals. Sludge left over from the process would have to be shipped to a landfill for toxic substances, Walker said.

“It’s not an enormously complicated process. Fortunately, it’s something that’s been done,” Walker said. “I bet you could do at least a ton a day,” he added.

Varying types of precursor agents will be incinerated, neutralized or mixed with cement, the U.S. official said.

Libya hopes to begin work on disposing of the precursors by the middle of this year, and move on to the mustard gas by late 2004 or early 2005, the official said.

OPCW inspectors will be present during all chemical destruction activities, Kaiser said. Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, Libya must have disposed of all chemical weapons material by April 29, 2007. “Our presumption is that that will definitely take place,” Kaiser said.

Libya also must dismantle its chemical weapons manufacturing equipment in the Pharma 150 plant at Rabta, the U.S. official said. The official estimated it would take two years remove and cut up the reactors and steel tanks used to develop the mustard gas and precursor agents. 

A 20-meter-tall berm of sandbags that surrounded the facility, used to protect it from air strikes, also must be removed, the official said.

Pharma 150 will be converted to produce pharmaceuticals for African nations and other developing countries. Pharma 150 was built as a dual-use facility in the mid-1980s, so the capability to make drugs was always there, the official said.

The United States and United Kingdom provided advice as Libya prepared its Chemical Weapons Convention declaration, and will similarly support the chemical destruction process, the official said.

There has been no discussion of financial assistance from the United States. Some economic sanctions would have to be lifted to provide funding through sources such as the Defense Department’s Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, officials told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last month (see GSN, Feb. 27).

Issues of human rights and Libya’s designation as a sponsor of terrorism, among others, must be addressed before sanctions can be lifted. That could happen by the end of the year, the U.S. official said.

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