STANFORD, Calif.— More than 100 hostages are dead after Russian authorities used an
unidentified gas to incapacitate terrorists holding 750 people in a
Moscow theater. Nearly all of the deaths were due to the gas, which
Russian authorities have so far refused to identify.
Press coverage has rightly emphasized grief and the question of why
antidotes were not immediately available. It has then focused on
whether the Russians' use of gas was a violation of the 1997 Chemical
Weapons Convention. But this focus, while important, risks overlooking
the big picture when it comes to Russian chemical weapons.
The Chemical Weapons Convention is a global treaty with more than
170 signatory nations. It bans the production, acquisition, stockpiling,
transfer and use of chemical weapons -- the first arms-control treaty
to outlaw an entire class of so-called weapons of mass destruction. It
also requires its signatories to declare and destroy, by certain
deadlines, the chemical weapons they possess.
Since the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and
biological weapons in war -- a reaction to gas attacks in World War I --
the world has struggled to ban these weapons. In part, this is because
of their indiscriminate nature.
After Sept. 11, 2001, it seems all the more important to eliminate
stocks of such weapons because access to them could confer such power to
terrorists. In a world with 70,000 metric tons of chemical weapons
agents, some of which may be vulnerable to terrorist theft, the verified
elimination of these weapons will be a step toward greater security for
all. This is true despite the disturbing fact that Iraq, North Korea
and certain other nations are not parties to the convention.
The weapons convention permits the production and use of
riot-control agents for law enforcement purposes. Until the Russians
inform us of the agent used, whether they were in violation of the
convention will remain uncertain. But renewed attention to Russian
chemical agents should focus on a more important issue. Russia retains
some 40,000 tons of chemical warfare blister agents and nerve gas. It is
required by the convention to destroy them, and the United States and
European nations have agreed to help. But American efforts under the
Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program are stalled in Congress.
The Cooperative Threat Reduction program began in 1992. It provides
expertise and funding to help the former Soviet Union secure and
destroy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials. Progress
with chemical and biological weapons has been especially slow, and the
Russians have too often been less than forthcoming.
Of particular concern has been the Russian stockpile at Shchuch'ye,
a town near the southern border with Kazakhstan. The Shchuch'ye
stockpile contains nearly two million artillery shells -- and hundreds
of missile warheads -- filled with nerve gas or other chemical weapons.
Although stockpile security has been upgraded with help from American
financing, the threat of insider theft remains real. Many of the shells
are in working condition, and they are small and easily transportable.
Cooperative Threat Reduction funds have paid to design a plant for
construction at Shchuch'ye to destroy these weapons securely and safely.
The Pentagon wants $130 million for construction in the new fiscal
year. Russia, its economy still weak, won't do this without American
assistance. But the program is currently stalled in a Congressional
conference committee due to a disagreement over granting the president
authority to proceed with the project.
The Bush administration's new national security strategy has
emphasized the destruction of weapons of mass destruction by pre-emptive
strikes if necessary. But at Shchuch'ye alone, the United States could
destroy more than 5,000 tons of ready-to-use weapons of mass destruction
through a different kind of pre-emptive strike -- action by a
Congressional committee.
