Russia Moves to Destroy Nerve Gas Shells

By DOUGLAS BIRCH – Sep 6, 2007

SHCHUCHYE, Russia (AP) -- In the wheat fields of western Siberia, the United States is building a factory the size of a small town to destroy 2 million Soviet-era artillery shells filled with deadly nerve gas.

Former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn praised the project as "this noble effort" during a visit to the Shchuchye plant Thursday. But so far it hasn't been easy.

After more than a year of delay caused by a fruitless hunt for a Russian subcontractor to install key equipment at reasonable cost, U.S. officials a few months ago turned to Viktor Kholstov, deputy director of the Federal Industry Agency, who runs Russia's chemical disarmament efforts.

The U.S. gave Kholstov the job of awarding up to $200 million in contracts to complete the project -- part of the total $1 billion that the U.S. is contributing. U.S. officials said he swiftly found subcontractors willing to do much of the remaining work at fair prices and progress stepped up dramatically.

Shchuchye is the single most expensive effort under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program -- named after Nunn and Sen. Richard Lugar, who also visited the site Thursday.

Congress adopted the Nunn-Lugar program in 1992 shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed to finance a disarmament system that would keep Russia's stockpile of nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal from falling into the hands of rogue states and terrorists.

Under the program, former Soviet nations have deactivated 6,982 nuclear warheads, destroyed 653 intercontinental ballistic missiles and chopped up 30 nuclear submarines.

Russia is working with 13 other nations to build the Shchuchye facility, but the U.S. agreed to pay for the vast majority of its cost.

The 250-acre complex, now a little more than half completed, is intended to destroy what Paul McNelly, project manager for the Defense Department, said are "the most pilferable" nerve gas weapons in Russia's enormous stockpile of chemical arms.

Although the shells are decades old, McNelly said the poisons they contain are "in pristine condition." Nunn called the shells, three of which could fit in a suitcase, "a terrorist's dream."

Problems with construction last year led a U.S. General Accounting Office analyst to conclude "Shchuchye may no longer be a priority for the Russian government."

"Disagreements between the United States and Russia over the types of munitions to destroy and how to destroy them, negotiations to resolve outstanding issues, restrictions on U.S. funding, and difficulties with Russian subcontractors, among other factors, have delayed the Shchuchye facility's completion and increased its costs," Joseph A. Christoff told Congress.

James Reid, director of the Defense Department's Cooperative Threat reduction policy office, said Thursday most of the delay came as officials tried to meet stipulations set by Congress -- requiring, for example, that the agency clear up discrepancies in Russian statements about the size of its chemical arsenal.

Those stipulations were eventually waived by the White House to allow the project to go forward, Reid said.

The cost of the project rose mostly because of the ruble's growing value and rising prices in Russia, he added.

McNelly, the Defense Department's project manager, and other U.S. officials said that since Kholstov was allowed to sign contracts, the project has rapidly accelerated.

Russian officials, McNelly said, can be more flexible in awarding contracts because they don't have to follow U.S. bidding procedures. They also have better relations with contractors, because the contractors know they will have to do business with Russia's government again, he said.

The artillery shells are now stored like wine bottles on wooden racks in an isolated patch of forest. U.S. officials originally wanted to build the destruction facility next to that site. But local officials offered parcels elsewhere, making it necessary to build a $26 million, 10-mile railroad to move the shells.

Sergei Serbin, the project's senior Russian official, led Nunn and Lugar on a tour of the cavernous Building 101a, one of two concrete structures where soman, sarin and VX nerve agents from the old shells will be drained, neutralized and turned into a harmless, tar-like substance.

The Russians say they have already destroyed 28 percent of their chemical arsenal. The United States says it has destroyed more than 40 percent of its own stockpile.

Both the United States and Russia are required under international treaty to destroy their remaining stocks of chemical arms by 2012. The GAO predicted last year Russia would miss the deadline, but the Kremlin has ramped up spending and construction significantly over the past year.

The first shells are expected to be destroyed at Shchuchye in late 2008, U.S. officials said. Destruction of the huge stockpile is expected to take about four years.

"We are in the finishing stretch," Lugar, 75, an Indiana Republican, declared after the tour. "In a few months the Russians will be eliminating chemical weapons which could be a danger to Russia and the world."