United States:  Pentagon Prepares to Build Pueblo Disposal Plant

U.S. Defense Undersecretary Pete Aldridge has approved a federal committee’s recommendation to use a water-based method to destroy almost 800,000 mustard gas munitions stored at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado.  The decision removes a final obstacle to beginning construction of the plant to destroy the chemical weapons, the Pueblo Chieftain reported Friday (see GSN, March 28).

“The contract for the work should be awarded by early September,” Pueblo County Commissioner John Klomp said.

Klomp is chairman of the Citizens’ Advisory Committee that lobbied national officials to use a water-based disposal method rather than incinerating the weapons.  The water-based process that Aldridge approved is “the safest, quickest disposal method that presents the least threat to the workers, community and environment,” Klomp said.  “We have to destroy the weapons.  This is the best process to do it” (Sword/Mora, Pueblo Chieftain, July 19).

For further information, see:

CDC List of Chemical Agents

Federation of American Scientists Information on Chemical Weapons

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CWC:  U.S. Official Optimistic About New OPCW Director

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The next director general of the organization that implements the Chemical Weapons Convention will probably be an improvement over his predecessor, a senior U.S. State Department official said yesterday (see GSN, July 17).  Following the April ouster of Jose Bustani, Argentina’s Rogelio Pfirter is expected to be formally approved tomorrow to head the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (see GSN, April 23).

In addition to supporting Pfirter, permanent U.S. representative to the OPCW Donald Mahley also said he expects the OPCW will soon need additional funds to support an expected “significant increase in its areas of responsibilities.”  He urged the agency to change how it conducts inspections.

“I think [Pfirter] is both well aware of his responsibilities and well aware of a number of concerns that a great number of states parties have expressed in the management operations of the former director general, and the United States has faith that he will not repeat some of those same mistakes,” Mahley told Global Security Newswire.

He also qualified his predictions about any changes.

“As far as what’s going to happen in the OPCW, the answer to that, I think, is yet to be seen.”

His comments came amid recent criticism from Bustani that member states, encouraged by the United States, are making changes that will reduce inspections of facilities in wealthy states such as the United States.

Views Expressed

Pfirter has already informed member states of his views on how the organization should be managed and is expected to receive overwhelming support when his nomination is considered tomorrow by all OPCW parties.  He earlier gained unanimous approval of the organization’s Executive Council.

Treaty parties have taken his comments to mean “he intends to run a transparent and consultative regime, in which he will do those things that are his responsibility to do, but will do them in careful consultation with states parties, who are, after all, the stakeholders in the organization,” said Mahley.

Unfair Changes Alleged

Former Director General Bustani has continued to criticize activity at the organization through interviews in the Brazilian press, most recently in an article published this week by BBC Brazil.

In it, he charged the OPCW with changing its policies to favor wealthy states that contribute most to the organization, namely the United States.  As a result, Bustani said, countries with vast chemical industries would be targeted less, while those in the Southern hemisphere would be targeted more.

Bustani’s allegations, experts said, probably target proposals to increase the focus of inspections on certain types of chemical facilities prevalent in the developing world, so-called Schedule 3 facilities and “discrete organic chemical” (DOC) facilities — those that could, but do not, manufacture chemical weapon precursors.

In General, Schedule 1 chemicals are closest to those used in chemical weapons; Schedule 2s are highly toxic but less useful, Schedule 3s, by far the largest subset, are less toxic but could be precursors.  DOCs are unscheduled chemicals that aren’t considered precursors. 

Bustani said changes were being made through alterations of the OPCW budget for 2003.  Prior to his dismissal, Bustani had drafted a budget that was not passed. The organization has been operating under a caretaker administration since Bustani was removed.

OPCW spokesman Peter Kaiser characterized Bustani’s assertion — that budgetary changes could impact where inspections are conducted — as “entirely inaccurate.”

“You can’t target particular facilities on the basis of the budget anyways,” Kaiser said.

Even if a greater proportion of Schedule 3 and DOC facilities were inspected, he said, the mathematical formula, or algorithm, developed during Bustani’s administration to ensure geographic proportionality of random inspections remains in use, he said.

The algorithm takes into account geography, a risk assessment, size of facility, and other factors weighted differently for emphasis.

Kaiser also said, though, there is a debate over whether a new algorithm should be adopted.

“There are a number of different algorithms that are in discussion, or have been in discussion.  And under his administration, they tried to work out one that ensured equitable geographic treatment.  And that’s one that is still being pursued,” he said.

New Budget, Changes May Be Considered

A new, substantively different budget has been prepared and will be considered by the Executive Council at its next meeting in September, according to Mahley.

The current proposal calls for “a real increase in the baseline budget, which I think all of the states parties are going to be prepared to support,” he said.  “But it’s an increase, which is carefully tailored to actual requirements that are going to come up, as opposed to something that is an aggrandizement that will suit the ego of the organization.”

Bustani, during his tenure, had the organization spend money on projects for which it was not approved, according to Mahley, prompting the United States and other countries to withhold dues.

“Certainly, the method of budgetary accounting and the method of budgetary operations under the previous regime were very seriously flawed, leading us into the kind of financial crisis we’ve had this year,” he said.

Mahley said he believes treaty parties should reconsider how sites for random inspection are selected.

“I think that there is a question that needs to be reviewed in terms of the algorithm for random selection of Schedule 3 inspections,” he said.

Many DOCs are in the developing world, said Daniel Feakes, a researcher with the Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Warfare Armament and Arms Limitation.

“The argument runs that such facilities do not pose a big risk to the CWC and that the OPCW’s resources would be better directed at Schedule 3 and DOC sites which, theoretically pose more of a proliferation risk,” Feakes said.

Feakes said he did not think there was a deliberate effort underway to shift inspections away from the developed world.

Bustani himself, he said, “is on record as calling for widening the geographic spread of inspections when he was director general and also called for a larger proportion of the 4,000 or so DOC sites to be inspected, many of which would be in the developing world.

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United States:  More Rockets Leak Nerve Agent at Anniston

Scientists verified Thursday that five M55 rockets were leaking the nerve agent GB at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, officials said last week.

Workers detected a leak in a storage bunker during a routine inspection Tuesday.  They identified the leaking rockets and planned to move them to a separate bunker, the Birmingham News reported Friday.  All leaking munitions at the depot are now stored in two bunkers, according to the News (see GSN, July 11).

No workers were exposed to nerve agent, and the leaks posed no threat to the surrounding community, Anniston Chemical Activity official Cathy Coleman said.

Workers have discovered 743 GB rockets with leaks since 1982, according to the News.

“They’re not all going to become leakers tomorrow because we have thousands of them,” Coleman said.  “But it’s just a trend that we’re watching and recognizing that’s going to grow and grow, and our workforce is aging and aging ... There aren’t a lot of people clamoring at the gates to work with these things.  It’s kind of a dying ... skill.”

The Anniston depot is slated to begin burning the facility’s chemical weapons in its incinerator later this year (Darryal Ray, Birmingham News, July 19).

For further information, see:

CDC List of Chemical Agents

Federation of American Scientists Information on Chemical Weapons

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