Elisa D. Harris Statement -6 February 12, 2002 With respect to the CWC, we should: Make adherence to the CWC an explicit foreign policy goal: Libya's recent decision to join the CWC demonstrates that even in a complicated region such as the Middle East, there are opportunities for expanding membership in the treaty. It is not unimaginable that North Korea might agree to abandon its chemical weapons program and join the CWC as part of a broader security arrangement on the Korean peninsula. The U.S. should ensure that CWC adherence is a prominent issue in its foreign policy toward the remaining holdout countries. Use challenge inspections to pursue noncompliance concerns: In the initial years after entry into force of the CWC, the U.S. used the treaty's consultation provisions to try to resolve questions and concerns about a number of other Parties' declarations. Last month, Under Secretary of State Bolton described challenge inspections as a “flexible and indispensable tool” that can be instrumental in achieving the treaty's goals. The U.S. should be prepared to use challenge inspections to address serious compliance concerns, especially in countries where consultations were unsuccessful or not appropriate. Devote the resources necessary to meet the treaty's destruction deadlines: By the end of last year, both Russia and the U.S. had submitted documentation to the OPCW concerning their inability to meet the April 2007 deadline for destroying their chemical weapons. The U.S. should ensure that its technology and funding decisions allow it to complete destruction operations safely, and in time to meet the 20012 CWC extension deadline. The U.S. should also take the lead in creating an international consortium to assist Russia in meeting its CWC destruction obligations. Rectify the OPCW's budget problems: Partly because of the zero growth budget imposed on the OPCW over the past five years, the OPCW has begun another year millions of dollars short of what is required to carry out its implementation responsibilities. The U.S. should work with the OPCW and other Parties to ensure that there are sufficient funds to carry out all planned verification activities. Finally, we can further strengthen the BWC and the CWC by making it an international crime for individuals to develop, possess or use chemical or biological weapons. Both treaties impose legally-binding obligations on governments, but not on individuals, not to engage in prohibited activities. The U.S. should support the negotiation of a treaty like that proposed by the Harvard-Sussex Program that would make it a crime under international law for individuals to acquire or use chemical or biological weapons or to knowingly assist others in doing so. Prepared Statement Before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services 12 February 2002 Amy E. Smithson, Ph.D. Director, Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project In the aftermath of last fall's multiple terrorist attacks, much focus has been placed on taking the most immediate steps needed to protect this nation's safety and security in an era where terrorists seek to inflict widespread and indiscriminate harm on US citizens and interests. Emphasis has rightly been placed on strengthening intelligence capabilities so that future terrorist plots can be thwarted as well as on better training and equipping of the nation's emergency responders to contend with all manner of terrorist-caused calamities. Initiatives to stiffen airline and border security have also come to the fore in the past few months, among other proposals and programs. Adjusting policies and programs to address the threat of terrorism is not easy. I would like to thank this committee for convening a hearing that looks beyond the obvious, a hearing that examines the utility of international treaties in helping to assure this nation's well being. Some tend to dismiss treaties out of habit or lack of understanding of the role they can and should play in an overall strategy for reducing security threats to this country. Critics deride accords that ban categories of weapons as weak tools that governments can break with impunity. Yet, arms control critics would hardly advocate that US laws against murder be scrapped, even if those laws are broken with disturbing frequency. Rather, they would call for better enforcement of those laws. As lawmakers, you can appreciate that even a good law is only as effective as its enforcement. Member governments are the custodians of international arms control treaties. The United States, arguably the world's most powerful nation and always self-described as a champion of nonproliferation, has a special responsibility to lead efforts to enforce these treaties. One of the frequent refrains of the past few months has been how easy it is for terrorists to acquire and use chemical and biological weapons. This misleading claim has led many to believe that mass casualty unconventional terrorist attacks are imminent, if not inevitable. While it is true that technical advances have made some aspects of chemical and biological weapons proliferation easier, there are many technical obstacles to the acquisition of a mass casualty capability with these types of weapons. A case in point is Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released the nerve agent sarin in the Tokyo subway system on 20 March 1995. Aum Shinrikyo's sizeable corps of scientists figured out how to make small quantities of several chemical agents, as one might expect given how long both the formulas and the ingredients for such agents have been readily available. However, what stymied Aum Shinrikyo was the cult's inability to "scale up” its production of agent from a small quantity to the large amounts needed to inflict massive casualties. Aum's chemical weaponeers were unable to do this despite the advantages of a $10 million state-of-the-art production facility, considerable scientific expertise, and years to work out the kinks in their program. As for Aum's biowarfare program, the cult's scientists never managed to get their hands on virulent biowarfare strains, and their efforts to disperse their concoctions were complete and total flops. Perhaps for this reason, Aum Shinrikyo turned to the former Soviet chemical and biological institutes for assistance. Fortunately, the former Soviet weaponeers declined to help the cult with its chemical and biological weapons programs. Given Aum Shinrikyo's considerable resources, it stands to reason that sub-national actors will be seriously challenged in any attempt to build from scratch a mass casualty unconventional weapons capability. This statement is not intended as a guarantee that terrorists cannot overcome the technical hurdles involved. Aum Shinrikyo, the individual(s) behind the anthrax letters sent to Capitol Hill and several media outlets, and other groups have indeed made noteworthy progress. Rather, my point is that terrorists are likely to encounter technical hurdles that trip them up if their intent is to cause mass casualties with these weapons. Therefore, terrorists could well seek out help from governments, which have such vast resources they can become truly proficient in chemical and biological weaponry. Accordingly, one key to keeping unconventional weapons out of the hands of terrorists is to tackle the proliferation problem at the nation-state level. The committee has posed several questions that I will address in the passages that follow. First, I will discuss the differences between chemical and biological weapons proliferation and why the former category of weapons is somewhat easier to monitor than the latter. Then, I will discuss the impact that the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) can have on governments and sub-national actors. I will close my testimony with thoughts on the verification and enforcement of treaties and on the steps that the US government should take to enhance the utility of international treaties in the war against terrorism. Distinguishing Features of Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation Although chemical and biological weapons are often lumped into one category, they are distinct in several important ways. Chemical agents consist of man-made substances, namely the component chemicals known as precursors. The penultimate precursors for poison gas are often chemicals that are processed many steps beyond the basic chemical weapons building blocks of phosphorous, sulfur, and fluorine. Many precursor chemicals can have widespread and legitimate commercial uses. For example, thiodiglycol, a precursor for mustard gas, is used to make ballpoint pen ink. The quantities of precursor chemicals poured into the reactor equate roughly to the amount of agent that will result. In other words, three tons of precursor “X” mixed with one ton of precursor “Z” and one ton of precursor “Y” will make five tons of poison gas. In contrast, biological agents originate in nature. Anthrax, for example, is a disease of herbivores including cattle, sheep, and goats. Many strains of anthrax exist, as is the case for Clostridium botulinum, the causative agent of botulinum toxin. To make the most effective biowarfare agent, one must know which strains are most deadly to man or to the crop or type of livestock that is the intended target. In the case of Clostridium botulinum, there are over 675 variants. Biowarfare agents are made by injecting a virulent seed culture into the appropriate growth media. With the appropriate growth media (e.g., peptone, glucose, casein, augmented animal feeds), the seed culture cells replicate into a much larger amount of the biowarfare agent. Depending upon whether the agent is to be dispersed in a wet slurry or dry formulation, the quantity of resulting agent will vary. These fundamental differences between the way that chemical and biological agents are produced explain why the proliferation of biological agents is more difficult to track than the proliferation of chemical weapons. With considerable effort, the quantities of precursor chemicals being produced and traded can be monitored and inspections can ascertain whether facilities are using them to make commercial products. The production and sale of growth media and whether a particular pharmaceutical or biotechnology company is purchasing growth media appropriate for its product line(s) can also be watched. The monumental stumbling block in trying to hinder the spread of biological weapons is that an aspiring proliferator can acquire the seeds of destruction from a vast array of natural sources. Moreover, it would be extremely difficult, it not impossible, to catch smuggling of lethal seed cultures from country to country or from a government weapons program to terrorist groups. Lethal seed cultures can be found in an offensive bioweapons program, in biowarfare defense facilities, and in some five hundred registered culture collections in fifty-nine nations that serve as huge repositories of strains to support legitimate scientific research. Only a tiny drop of a virulent seed culture is needed to jumpstart the fermentation of a biowarfare agent. Of course, equipment is needed to produce chemical and biological weapons. Since the reactors and fermenters required for the task are employed to make everything from textile dyes, disinfectants, and toiletries to medications, yogurt, and beer, a proliferator can find these items for sale in the marketplace. Therefore, inspectors trying to identify illegal weapons production would have to look for telltale signs that a supposedly commercial plant was making chemical or biological agents on the sly. For example, use of Hastelloy reactors and glass-lined pipes would automatically catch the attention of chemical weapons inspectors if the plant were not making pesticides or another type of product that required corrosion-resistant equipment. An inspector looking to distinguish a genuine pharmaceutical plant from a covert biowarfare site might be tipped off by inappropriate levels of biosafety, an unusual set-up of production equipment or waste treatment facilities, or lack of post-production procedures suited for the product(s) purportedly being made at the site, among other factors. Manufacturers of reactors, fermenters, and other equipment needed for weapons programs (e.g., filling equipment, large capacity freeze dryers and aerosol inhalation chambers) can be identified. For the purposes of hindering proliferation, sales of such equipment tracked. However, these efforts would not be definitive since equipment can be resold or manufactured in a hidden plant with the appropriate machine tools and craftsmen. Nonetheless, the Australia Group an export control cooperative among the countries home to the major equipment, chemical, and growth media manufacturers includes on its control lists a lengthy roster of items that could be used in chemical or biological weapons production. The Australia Group had its origins in the mid-1980s, when supplier nations jointly recognized the need to harmonize export controls and share intelligence data on proliferation activities in order to cut off the supply of precursor chemicals to Iraq and Iran. Iraq not only used poison gas against Iranian troops during several battles in the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq also gassed its own Kurdish civilians in an infamous attack on the town of Halabja in mid-March 1988. Over the years, the Australia Group, which currently has 34 member states, expanded its control lists to include fifty-four precursor chemicals and numerous chemical and biological equipment items. On its core and warning lists, the Australia Group controls over one hundred human, plant, and animal viruses, bacteria, rickettsiae, toxins, fungi, and genetically modified microorganisms. Outside of classified reports, there is no way to know for certain how effective the Australia Group's export controls have been in frustrating the efforts of governments to acquire a chemical or a biological warfare capability. Arguably, any mechanism that makes the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction more expensive or cumbersome is well worthwhile. Threat Reduction Via International Treaties Of course, arms control treaties such as the BWC and the CWC apply first and foremost to nation states. According to the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, some sixteen countries were thought to be harboring offensive chemical weapons programs and thirteen believed to possess biological weapons capabilities. For the foreseeable future, such governmentrun weapons programs are likely to present the most serious unconventional weapons threats to this nation. If the complete panoply of tools that these treaties embody (e.g., inspection, multilateral export controls) is utilized fully, effectively, and with determination, nations can be compelled, one by one, to abandon these weapons programs. Moreover, it is important for the US government to push for full and effective implementation of these treaties because they can apply to sub-national actor security threats in several ways. First, the fewer governments that maintain chemical or biological weapons programs, the fewer places terrorists will have to turn for technical assistance in the form of weapons materials, cookbooks, or human expertise. Second, the CWC requires in Article VII that participating states pass legislation outlawing offensive chemical weapons activities, an approach that Article IV of the BWC permits but does not require. The intent of these domestic laws is to hold individuals, not just governments, accountable for a variety of activities associated with offensive weapons production and use. The CWC approaches its fifth anniversary with 145 ratified members, all now under treaty obligation to have enacted penal laws to prosecute corporations or citizens who break the treaty's prohibitions. A third important way that arms control treaties can block weapons proliferation is via the incorporation of export controls on proliferation-risk items. The BWC, negotiated in 1972, did not embrace such an approach. Rather, it was the CWC, completed in 1992, that trail-blazed the automatic imposition of export controls. Three years after the CWC was activated in late April 1997, participating states were barred from trading in fourteen so-called Schedule 2 chemicals with countries that had not joined the treaty. Schedule 2 |