MONTEREY, California More than a
decade after the U.S.-Russia Chemical Weapons Destruction Agreement of 1992
and seven years after entry into force of the global Chemical Weapons Convention
of 1997, progress on eliminating stockpiles of these arms held by the two
countries has become tangled up in disappointing terms like "public safety
concerns," "environmental controversies," "technological difficulties," and
"mind-boggling costs."
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Mounting problems
seem to have slowed a noble endeavor born at the end of the cold war, and
neither the United States nor Russia - owners of more than 95 percent of
the world's known chemical weapons tonnage - will meet the 2007 deadline set
by the Convention for full destruction. In fact, almost assuredly, neither
country will meet the soon-to-be-extended 2012 deadline.
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The original treaty
timetable called for almost half of the weapons to be destroyed by this time.
The reality is that the United States has done away with only a fourth of
its stockpile and Russia has barely begun elimination of its cache. The most
dangerous weapons lie further along the phantom timeline.
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Why? The explanation
is that the urgency of the original mission never topped prevailing political
agendas in Washington and Moscow, thus allowing wrangling over a variety
of issues at local, state, national and international levels to disrupt the
elimination of these legacies of the past century.
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Fortuitously, however,
as concern shifts to a more conventional issue - money - Congress now is
focusing much needed attention on the troubled state of this important mission.
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For the record, only
about 8,600 tons - 27 percent of the 31,500-ton American stockpile - have
been destroyed as of March 15, 2004. The General Accounting Office reported
to a House Armed Services Terrorism Subcommittee hearing in April that the
United States will ask for an extension of the final deadline to destroy
100 percent of the stockpile beyond 2007. "Unless the program resolves the
problems causing program delays," the report said, "the United States risks
not meeting this deadline, if extended."
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The originally estimated
cost of $2 billion to destroy the stockpiles has ballooned by more than 1,000
percent, is still climbing and may top $25 billion.The Russian program is
a quagmire. Russia has never met any destruction deadlines. Only 600 to 800
tons of older weapons - 1 to 2 percent of its 40,000-ton stockpile - has
been destroyed thus far. Meanwhile, U.S. commitments for the main Russian
destruction plant in Shchuchye have climbed to over $1 billion. Another GAO
assessment is that Russia has no credible plan for destroying its stockpile,
prompting the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter,
a Republican of California, to complain that "the United States could end
up throwing millions of taxpayer dollars down another black hole."
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The U.S. Congress
has just approved new legislation providing for chemical weapons demilitarization
in the coming fiscal year. But a House-Senate conference committee must now
work out sticky details amid congressional criticism of both programs. In
particularly stern report language, the House has already expressed pointed
concerns about Russian cooperation.
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Fortunately, the increasing
costs of weapons destruction have triggered healthy scrutiny of the chemical
weapons demilitarization program in Congress. Blunt articulation of congressional
frustrations - with both the U.S. and Russian programs - should signal to
domestic and worldwide observers the reality of serious, mounting problems
in ridding our world of the cold war's toxic legacy. These decaying weapons
increasingly jeopardize the communities they are in and the broader environment,
and fears are growing about their falling into the hands of terrorists, or
becoming a high-value target for a 9/11-type attack.
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In the interest of
nonproliferation and international security - not to mention homeland defense
- the mounting problems of chemical weapons destruction deserve urgent, collaborative,
constructive attention in Washington and Moscow. The world's still dangerous
chemical weapons must be abolished safely and efficiently now, not later.
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Glen Browder, a former
U.S. Congressman, is visiting professor of national security affairs at the
Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
