CHEMICAL ARMS CURBS ARE SOUGHT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504850040-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 6, 2012
• Sequence Number: 40
• Publication Date: September 9, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504850040-9
AfTICLE APA
ON PAGE
Chemical
Arms Curbs
Are Sought
Officials Alarmed
By Increasing Use,
Of Banned Weapons
By Don Oberdorfer
Washington Poet Staff Writer
The dirty yellow cloud of poison-
ous gas has supplanted the atom's
mushroom cloud as a symbol of the
most pressing proliferation danger
facing the world, in the view of gov-
ernment officials from the United
States and several other countries.
While no nation has joined the A-
bomb club since India conducted a
nuclear test in 1974, the deadly
chemicals known as "the poor man's
atomic bomb" have been repeatedly
used in warfare in the 1980s, and in
ways that experts fear may pro-
mote their further use.
In an effort to stem the tide, of-
ficials and chemical specialists from
the United States and chemically
advanced Western European and
Asian countries held an unpubli-
cized meeting for several days last
week in Brussels, under the lead-
ership of Australia, to discuss ways
to prevent the production and use
of chemical weapons from spread-
ing to additional countries. This was
the second meeting since June of
this group, whose existence is so
sensitive with some governments
that it has not been given a name.
Secretary of State George P.
Shultz said earlier this year that the
United States thinks that at least 13
nations have chemical weapons,
compared with five in 1963, and
that additional nations are trying to
get them.
"The sad fact," Shultz said, "is
that a half century of widely accept-
ed international restraint on the use
or development of chemical weap-
ons is in danger of breaking down."
WASHINGTON POST
9 September 1985
Other U.S. officials have said that
at least 15 countries belong to the
"chemical weapons club."
"Proliferation is an enormous
problem," said a senior State De-
partment official who has been
deeply involved in low-key U.S. ef-
forts to limit them. "I'm afraid that
the number [of chemical weapons
nations] could double in the next
decade."
Since Iraq used mustard gas and
nerve gas against Iranian troops in
early 1984 and again this year, con-
cern has mounted, generating U.S.
interagency studies, chemical-ex-
port controls and unpublicized in.
ternational meetings with American,
allies to consider joint actions.
The most acute worry is that a
future Iranian offensive will trigger
another Iraqi poison gas attack and
that, in retaliation, major Iranian
gas attacks will be launched on the
battlefield or against civilian tar-
gets. Such an exchange would be
the first time since World War I
ttlat both sides have used chemical
weapons in a war.
Officials are also concerned that
if Iran uses chemical weapons it
might also supply poison gas to ter-
rorist groups.
Recent U.S. and international
discussions have covered such
items as restricting shipments of
"precursor chemicals" that could be
used in chemical weapons and cre-
ating "trigger lists" of chemicals
whose acquisition should set off
alarms in world capitals. The anti-
proliferation program in the chem-
ical-weapons field is in its infancy,
however, compared with the exten-
sive international drive to halt the
spread of nuclear weapons.
"Unless we in the West and oth-
ers get our act together soon to
stop the spread of chemical weap-
ons, we will pass up a good oppor-
tunity," said Kenneth L. Adelman,
director of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency. "We can pos-
sibly nip this looming threat early,
before chemical weapons become as
commonplace as hand grenades in
Third World armies."
Prof. Joseph Nye of Harvard Uni-
versity, who served from 1977 to
1979 as the key U.S. negotiator in
creating a "suppliers' group" of ad-
vanced nations working together
against nuclear weapons prolifer-
ation, said that the drive against
chemical weapons is "not even as
far along" and that it faces consid-
erably more difficult problems.
Nye said it is more difficult to
obtain a broad political consensus
against chemical weapons, which
lack the "species threatening" di-
mension of atomic weapons. For
example, the Soviet Union, which
has cooperated in the effort to con-
trol nuclear-weapons proliferation,
is considered a big part of the prob-
lem in the proliferation of chemical
weapons.
Moreover, chemical weapons are
much easier to manufacture-and
thus more difficult to control-than
nuclear weapons.
Particularly worrisome, Nye said,
are growing programs here and in
the Soviet Union to investigate bio-
engineering, especially the creation
of potent new biological substances,
as a weapon of war.
The fields of chemical and biolog-
ical warfare are governed by sep-
arate international agreements, but
are closely related. The distinction
is that biological weapons are living
organisms, while chemical weapons
are not. Falling in a middle ground
are toxins such as "yellow rain,"
described by the United States as a
chemical byproduct of biological
processes.
Mounting concern about the
spread of chemical weapons in
Third World nations comes as a 40-
nation conference in Geneva con-
tinues to work on a new worldwide
chemical weapons ban, without no-
table success, and as the United
States appears about to resume
production of nerve gas for its
chemical-weapons stockpiles.
Production was halted by Pres-
ident Richard M. Nixon in 1969, but
the Reagan administration has
waged a three-year battle to restart
it.
After a major fight, a House-Sen-
ate conference committee author-
ized resumption of poison-gas pro-
duction in July, and an appropriation
STAT
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504850040-9
to supply the money is pending on
Capitol Hill.
Resumed U.S. production of
chemical weapons "could well pro-
mote proliferation" by other na-
tions, said a 1984 study by the Con-
gressional Research Service, "but if
it does, it will be one factor among
many doing so."
The extensive use of gas warfare
in World War I generated world-
wide revulsion that led to the Ge-
neva Protocol of 1925 outlawing
the use of chemical and bacteriol-
ogical weapons. The protocol,
signed by 106 nations, does not out-
law the development or possession
of such weapons, only their use.
Nonetheless, it eased fears about
the weapons for most of the years
since.
The Japanese reportedly used
gas in Manchuria. And the Italians
were said to have used it in Ethiopia
in World War 11. Egypt is thought to
have used mustard gas against
Yemen in 1963 and 1967. These
attacks against unprotected troops
or populations were limited in their
international impact, however.
Chemical warfare drifted back
into the headlines in September
1981, when the Reagan administra-
tion charged the Soviet Union with
using poisonous "mycotoxins"-
popularly known as "yellow rain"-
in southeast Asia. Later the admin-
istration charged the Soviets with
supplying traditional chemical
weapons and "yellow rain" toxins
that were used in Afghanistan as
well as Laos and Cambodia.
The "yellow rain" charges were
and are disputed by a number of
private scientists, but the admin-i
istration continues to reaffirm
them. Last month, the State De-
partment said that after "extensive
review and analysis by independent
authorities in the field as well as
government experts ... our con-
clusions stand. Chemical and toxin
weapons have been used in south-
east Asia and Afghanistan."
U.S. officials said, however, that
reports suggest that use of chem-
hal weapons and "yellow rain" in
dose areas has greatly diminished
-or. stopped in the past year or two.
' Whatever doubt still exists about
"yellow rain," there is little doubt
about Iraq's use of chemical weap-
ons against Iranian ground troops in
February to April 1984, and again
this spring. In both cases, U.N. re-
ports and other independent studies
backed up the charges, and Iranian
soldiers suffering from poison-gas
attacks were treated at hospitals in
Western Europe.
"Iraq has gotten away with the
use of chemical weapons with minor
costs," said Brad Roberts, an expert
at the Georgetown Center for Stra-
tegic and International Studies. He
said this is likely to spur the acqui-
sition and use of poison gas by other
countries because "Third World de-
f nse planners can see that Iraq
turned back a major offensive by
Iran with chemical weapons" but
hasn't seemed to suffer for it.
Iran has threatened to retaliate in
kind. And on April 24, the State
Department said Iran "has been
seeking to develop a chemical-
weapons capability and may now be
in a position to use such a weapon.
Late last month, a U.S. official a
miliar with the intelligence said,
"Iran has the capability" to use
chemica weapons. few limited
chemical attacks attributed to ran-
ian forces in the past, he said, ap-
parently relied on Iraqi chemical
shells captured on the battlefield.
Because chemical-warfare capa-
bilities are shrouded in secrecy and
nations rarely admit that they pos-
sess such weapons, clear-cut, well-
confirmed facts are rare.
A February 1985 report in
Chemical and Engineering News,
which is said to reflect official in-
formation, listed four countries as
confirmed possessors of chemical
weapons: the United States, Soviet
Union, France and Iraq.
Eleven other countries were
listed as those "alleged to possess"
chemical weapons: Egypt, Syria,
Libya, Israel, Ethiopia, Thailand,
Burma, China, Taiwan, North Ko-
rea and Vietnam.
A September 1983 U.S. intelli-
gence estimate from CIA and other
sources, first ma a pu is y Jac
Anderson and Dale Van Atta in Au-
gust 1984, gave these details:
^ Egypt received Soviet chemical-
weapons training, indoctrination
and materiel in the 1960s while it
was the major Soviet client in the
Middle East.
^ Syria has "probably the most ad-
vanced chemical-warfare capability
in the Arab world" with the possible
exception of Egypt. As of 1983 no
Syrian production facility had been
identified and there was "no need"
in view of chemical agents and de-
livery systems reportedly flowing
from the Soviet Union and Czech.
oslovakia.
^ Libya met with "little success" in
obtaining chemical weapons plants
from Eastern or Western Europe
but may possess lethal chemical
agents for "experimental purposes."
? Israel undertook a chemical-
weapons program after capturing
large amounts of Soviet-supplied
equipment from its Arab foes in the
1967 and 1973 wars. Israel is
thought to have "at least" nerve
gas, mustard gas and riot control
agents with "suitable delivery sys-
tems" and to have tested its weap-
ons as early as 1976.
^ Ethiopia acquired "chemical
agents, munitions and decontam-
ination equipment" from its Soviet
ally. Reports of lethal Ethiopian at-
tacks against Eritrean insurgents
are "unconfirmed," although many
U.S. officials consider them cred-
ible.
^ Thailand, in response to a Viet-
namese chemical-warfare threat, is
"upgrading its capabilities" by im-
proving its research and acquiring
protective equipment from the
West. U.S. officials said recently,
however, they do not think that
Thailand possesses offensive chem-
ical weapons.
^ Burma has been seeking since at
least 1981 to produce mustard gas.
The Central Intelligence Agency
estimated -that Burma _Wo-urd-Te`
"self-sufficient" in chemical weap-
ons by the spring of 4, most
likely for use against internal insur-
gencies.
? China has a "small" offensive
chemical-warfare capability. China
is thought to have suffered gas at-
tacks in a skirmish with Soviet
forces in 1969 and Vietnamese
forces in 1979.
0420f
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for
^ t aiwan nas --an aggressive, nign-
priority program to develop both
offensive and defensive capabili-
ties." Taiwan has produced at least
mustard gas, the report said.
^ North Korea "reportedly" stores
and produces" crude chemical
weaponry, but the reports are "un-
substantiated.-Vietnam's chemical-weapons ca-
pability, with "a range of agents" in
addition to "yellow rain," is reported
by U.S. officials to have been
"transferred" to that country by its
increasingly close ally,-the Soviet
Union.
Soviet forces are thought to have
stockpiled chemical wea pons in a
number of Eastern European coun-
tries, and there is controversy in
t e . -intelligence community
about whether these nations have
their own production facilities. A
West German official said his ov-
ernment thinks that East Germany,
Czechoslovakia an o an are pro-
ducing chemical weapons.
Known to Reported to Reported
possess possess seeking to
(full members) mwwfflm possess
HM
Egypt
Syria
0
United States
Soviet Union
France
Iraq
Libya South Korea
Israel
Ethiopia
Burma
Thailand
China
Taiwan
North Korea
Vietnam
Release 2012/02/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504850040-9
A number of other nations, in-
cluding South Korea, are reported
to be interested in acquiring chem-
ical weapons. A proposal that U.S.
forces in South Korea be armed
with chemical weapons-in light of
reports that North Korea has
them-is under study in the Pen-
tagon.
reported to possess); U.S. officials (for seeking to possess)
BY LARRY fOGEL-THE WASHINGTON i(
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504850040-9