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CounterPunch
September
25, 2002
US Violates
International Law
The Pentagon's Secret Chemical Weapons Program
by EDWARD HAMMOND
The Sunshine Project today accuses the US military
of conducting a chemical weapons research and development program
in violation of international arms control law. The charges follow
an 18 month investigation of the Department of Defense's Joint
Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD). The investigation made
extensive use of the US Freedom of Information Act to obtain
Pentagon records that form the primary basis of the allegations.
An array of documents, many of which have been posted on the
Sunshine Project website, demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt
that JNLWD is operating an illegal and classified chemical weapons
program.
Specifically, the Sunshine Project accuses
the JNLWD of:
1. Conducting a research and development
program on toxic chemical agents for use as weapons, including
anesthetics and psychoactive substances, in violation of the
Chemical Weapons Convention;
2. Developing long-range military delivery
devices for these chemicals, including an 81mm chemical mortar
round, that violate the Chemical Weapons Convention.
3. Pursuing a chemical weapons program
while fully cognizant that it violates the Chemical Weapons Convention
and US Department of Defense regulations;
4. Attempting to cover up the illicit
program by classifying as secret even its own legal interpretations
of the Chemical Weapons Convention and attempting to block access
to documents requested under US information freedom law.
These charges are detailed in the attached
Annex to this news release, in the accompanying map and fact
sheet, and the Sunshine Project's JNLWD documents web page, which
has full text of more than two dozen documents. Specific citations
are in footnotes below.
The Weapons: JNLWD's secret program is
not focusing on highly lethal agents such as VX or sarin. Rather,
the emphasis is on "non-lethal" chemical weapons that
incapacitate. JNLWD's science advisors define "non-lethal"
as resulting in death or permanent injury in 1 in 100 victims.(1)
JNLWD's Research Director told a US military magazine "We
need something besides tear gas, like calmatives, anesthetic
agents, that would put people to sleep or in a good mood."
(2) These weapons are intended for use against "potentially
hostile civilians", in anti-terrorism operations, counterinsurgency,
and other military operations.
The major focus of JNLWD's operation
is on the use of drugs as weapons, particularly so-called "calmatives",
a military term for mind-altering or sleep inducing chemical
weapons. Other agents mentioned as militarily useful in the documents
are convulsants, which are dangerous cramp-inducing drugs, and
pharmaceuticals that failed development trials due to harmful
side-effects. (3) This interest in so-called "calmatives"
has been discussed in previous Project publications. (4)
New documents prove the existence of
an advanced development program for long range delivery devices
for the chemicals, in particular a "non-lethal" 81mm
mortar round with a range of 2.5 kilometers and which is designed
to work in standard issue US military weapons (the M252 mortar)
(5). Photos of testing of this round and a gas generating payload
canister are posted on the Sunshine Project's website. (6) JNLWD
has recently asked the company building the gas canister, General
Dynamics, to develop methodologies to characterize the aerosols
it generates, and to calculate the ground area coverage of gas
clouds created by an airburst at different altitudes. (7) A chemical
mortar round with a 2.5 kilometer range has solely military applications,
and cannot possibly be justified for a US military domestic riot
control purpose.
The Solutions:
1) UN Inspectors into the US: The Sunshine
Project, while urging the United States to immediately halt this
chemical weapons program, also announces its intention to take
its allegations and evidence to the 7th Session of the Conference
of the States Parties of the Chemical Weapons Convention, scheduled
to start in The Hague on October 7th. There, the Sunshine Project
will present its case to governments and request tthe Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons send a UN weapons inspection
team to the US to investigate.
2) US Oversight: The Sunshine Project
calls upon the US Congress to investigate JNLWD's arms control
violations, to conduct public hearings, to hold JNLWD and its
superiors responsible for their actions, to freeze all JNLWD
funding, and to immediately declassify all JNLWD documents.
Escalation danger: JNLWD's chemical weapons
program not only violates international law, it presents an escalation
threat. Any use of chemical weapons in a military situation--even
if the agents are purported to be "non-lethal"--carries
the inherent danger of escalation into an all out chemical war
and heightened violence. If attacked with a chemical of unknown
nature with a fast incapacitating effect, victims may assume
that lethal chemicals, leading to heightened violence or even
retaliation in kind. This rapid escalation danger is one of the
key reasons why the Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the
use of even tear gas or pepper spray as a method of warfare.
The Road to a Chemical Arms Race: In addition, JNLWD's program
might easily be used to disguise lethal chemical weapons development.
Deadly chemicals are the former specialty of JNLWD's partner
in the program, the US Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground. Long range
delivery devices may easily be converted to use biological agents
or other chemicals, including lethal nerve gas. Design and development
of new delivery devices, production facilities or delivery experiments--all
key parts of a lethal chemical weapons program--might easily
be performed by the US or other countries if the buzz-word "non-lethal"
is used as a cover. If non-lethal chemical warfare programs are
not banned, the basic principles of the CWC could fall apart,
resulting in new full blown chemical arms race even before Cold
War stocks are destroyed.
Edward Hammond
is director of The
Sunshine Project, based in Austin, Texas. He can be reached
at: hammond@sunshine-project.org
ANNEX
An Outline of the Case Against
the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate
The charges made by the Sunshine Project
are supported by thousands of pages of US government documents,
many obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, and many
of which are available on our website. This news release and
annex are accompanied by a map and fact sheet on JNLWD's program.
This is available for download from our website. The charges
against JNLWD will be further detailed in a briefing for the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and diplomats
attending the October meeting of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
A brief outline is provided here:
1. JNLWD is conducting a research
and development program on toxic chemical agents for use as weapons
in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
JNLWD's desire for chemical weapons is
intense and widely documented. JNLWD has explicitly stated that
it is operating a program to develop "calmative" chemical
weapons (9). In May 1999, its Research Director told Navy News
and Undersea Technology "We need something besides tear
gas, like calmatives, anesthetic agents, that would put people
to sleep or in a good mood." In 2000, JNLWD's Commanding
Officer told New Scientist "I would like a magic dust that
would put everyone in a building to sleep, combatants and non-combatants."
(10) The Marine Corps Research University (MCRU), a major JNLWD
contractor, produced an October 2000 study that concluded "the
development and use of calmatives is achievable and desirable"
and urged "immediate consideration" of drugs like diazepam
(Valium). (11) The unit that produced the study is headed by
JNLWD's former commander. JNLWD currently has a secretive technology
investment program for incapacitating chemical weapons that is
being conducted in cooperation with the US Army's Aberdeen Proving
Ground. (12) It is urging academic and private institutions to
bring it new proposals for chemical agents (13) and has repeatedly
emphasized the need for the US military to develop a calmative
capability. In addition, it recently concluded a new request
for proposals that includes a call for "advanced riot control
agents", (14) a military synonym for drug weapons. In October
2001, it offered to equip US commercial aircraft with calmative-dispensing
weapons. (15)
2. JNLWD is developing long-range
military delivery devices for these chemicals that violate the
Chemical Weapons Convention and have no law enforcement application.
JNLWD has been funding the development
of chemical weapons delivery devices since the late 1990s. 1999
and 2000 photos of outdoor tests of chemical aerosol equipment
and wind tunnel tests at the US Army Soldier Chemical Biological
Command are included on the obverse side of the accompanying
map. JNLWD has funded a multi-year program to microencapsulate
chemical agents, specifically, anesthetics and anesthetics mixed
with corrosive chemicals to penetrate thick clothing. (16) In
2001, JNLWD accelerated this effort, developing a specification
for an 81mm "non-lethal" mortar round with a 2.5 kilometer
range. (17) The round can use chemical payloads and is required
to work in standard issue military M252 mortars. (18) Under this
program, in September 2001, JNLWD inked a deal with General Dynamics
that calls for building a "dispersion gas generator"
for this mortar round and to "identify analytical tools
that can be used in follow-on design/performance modeling of
droplet formation and dynamics" and to perform "preliminary
parametric estimates of ground area coverage versus payload volume
and height of burst." (19) The JNLWD team which developed
chemical microencapsulation methods and the Aberdeen Proving
Ground team which is participating in the chemical agents technology
investment program are both collaborating with JNLWD in the mortar
round design. (20)
3. JNLWD is pursuing this program
despite being fully cognizant that it violates the Chemical Weapons
Convention and US Department of Defense regulations.
The JNLWD program runs afoul of the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC), the global ban on the development and
use of all chemical weapons. And JNLWD is well aware of this
fact. JNLWD presentations in 2001 list the Chemical Weapons Convention
as a major "challenge" to its calmatives program. (21)
In 2000, JNLWD held a series of war games with British military
officials. JNLWD's report of the war games concludes "In
all three game scenarios, players espoused calmatives as potentially
the most useful anti-personnel non-lethal weapons" but that
"the principle concern was about the legality of the weapon
and possible arms control violationsS" Despite this, it
continues "The end result is that calmatives are considered
the single most effective anti-personnel option in the non-lethal
toolkitS" (22)
At the end of the wargames series, JNLWD
held a final, high-level meeting with UK officials. It included
the participation of five active duty US Marine Corps and Army
generals. British officials objected to the US calmatives program,
saying that it is illegal. JNLWD replied by saying but that it
would proceed anyway (quoting from the report): "a research
and development program with respect toS chemically based calmatives...
[will] be continued as long as it is cost-productive to do so."
In the same report, JNLWD acknowledges that its research and
development program violates Department of Defense regulations,
declaring its intent to evade the law: "DOD is prohibited
from pursuing [calmative] technologyS If there are promising
technologies that DOD is prohibited from pursuing, set up MOA
with DOJ or DOE." (DOD is the US Department of Defense.
DOJ is the US Department of Justice. DOE is the US Department
of Energy. MOA is a Memorandum of Agreement.) (23)
4. JNLWD is seeking to cover up this
illicit program by cloaking it behind US secrecy law.
JNLWD has made a systematic effort hide
its program from public view and to impede the Sunshine Project's
investigation. JNLWD asked the US Navy Judge Advocate General
(JAG) to perform a legal review of its "non-lethal"
chemical weapons; but then classified the JAG opinion, preventing
its release. (24) JNLWD has placed export control restrictions
on its 81mm "non-lethal" mortar specification. (25)
In 2002, JNLWD officials trained US Marine Corps officers in
its anti-personnel chemical weapons capabilities. It classified
the training "secret". (26) Interviewed by news media,
JNLWD officials deny developing chemical weapons; but have informed
the Sunshine Project in multiple telephone conversations that
they will deny release of documents requested under FOIA because
of "classified weapons development". With 18 months
elapsed since the Sunshine Project's first Freedom of Information
Act requests to JNLWD, almost two thirds of the documents requested
have not been released. JNLWD has ordered the US National Academies
of Science to halt release of documents it deposited in the public
record at that institution, (27) despite the fact that the National
Academies states that there are no security markings on the documents
requested, (28) and in apparent violation of US law.
CLICK HERETO DOWNLOAD THE MAP AND ILLUSTRATIVE
TEXT THAT ACCOMPANY THIS STORY:
NOTES
1) Kenny, J. The Human Effects of Non-Lethal
Weapons, presentation of the JNLWD Human Effects Advisory Panel
to the US National Academy of Sciences Naval Studies Board, 30
April 2001.
2) Susan LeVine, JNLWD Research Director,
quoted in Non-Lethal Programs Will Enhance Navy And Marine Warfighting
in Navy News and Undersea Technology, v. 16, n.19, 10 May 1999.
3) Lakoski J, Murray, W.B., Kenny J.
The
Advantages and Limitations of Calmatives for Use as a Non-Lethal
Technique, Applied Research Laboratory / College of Medicine,
Pennsylvania State University, 3 October 2000
4) See the Sunshine Project news release
Pentagon Program Promotes Psychological Warfare (1 July 2002),
the information brief The MCRU Calmatives Study and JNLWD: A
Summary of (Public) Facts (19 September 2002), and Sunshine Project
Backgrounder #8, Non-Lethal Weapons Research in the US: Calmatives
& Malodorants (July 2001). All available at the Sunshine
Project website.
5) See, for example, 81mm
Frangible Case Cartridge, Contract DAAE-30-01-C-1077 (June
2001), US Army TACOM and M2 Technologies
6) See side two of the accompanying
map and information sheet.
7) Liquid
Payload Dispensing Concept Studies Techniques for the 81mm Non-Lethal
Mortar Cartridge, Contract DAAE-30-01-M-1444 (Sept. 2001),
US Army TACOM and General Dynamics
8) Assessment
Report: US/UK Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW)/Urban Operations Executive
Seminar, JNLWD, November 2000.
9) ibid (and other documents)
10) Colonel George Fenton, USMC, JNLWD
Commanding Officer, quoted in War without tears, New Scientist,
16 December 2000.
11) Lakoski J, Murray, W.B., Kenny J.
The Advantages and Limitations of Calmatives for Use as a Non-Lethal
Technique (URL above).
12) The
US Department of Defense Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program, Program
Overview, April 2001.
13) See Fenton, G. To
The Future: Non-Lethal Capabilities Technologies in the 21st
Century, presentation to the University of New Hampshire's
Non-lethal Technology and Academic Research III symposium, November
2001.
14) Nonkinetic/limited
effects/non-lethal weapons for crowd control, US Department
of the Navy solicitation M67854-02-R-6064, 18 July 2002,
15) See Non-Lethal
Weapons Suggested to Incapacitate Terrorists in Airliners,
Air Safety Week, v. 15 n. 39, 15 October 2001. 6) Durant Y. White
Paper: Delivery of chemicals by microcapsules, Advanced Polymer
Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, 1998.
17) 81mm Frangible Case Cartridge, Contract
DAAE-30-01-C-1077 (June 2001), US Army TACOM and M2 Technologies,
URL above.
18) See Liquid Payload Dispensing Concept
Studies Techniques for the 81mm Non-Lethal Mortar Cartridge,
Contract DAAE-30-01-M-1444 (Sept. 2001), US Army TACOM and General
Dynamics, URL above.
19) Liquid Payload Dispensing Concept
Studies Techniques for the 81mm Non-Lethal Mortar Cartridge,
Contract DAAE-30-01-M-1444 (Sept. 2001), US Army TACOM and General
Dynamics, URL above.
20) Aberdeen Proving Ground: see Design
and Development of an 81mm Non-Lethal Mortar Cartridge, United
Defense LP, US Army Soldier Biological Chemical Command (SBCCOM),
US Army Research Laboratory, March 2000. University of New Hampshire:
see Durant Y, et al, Composites
material selection study for NL Mortar, presentation to the
University of New Hampshire's Non-lethal Technology and Academic
Research III symposium, November 2001.
21) Fenton, G. To The Future: Non-Lethal
Capabilities Technologies in the 21st Century, presentation to
the University of New Hampshire's Non-lethal Technology and Academic
Research III symposium, November 2001, URL above.
22) US/UK Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW) /
Urban Operations War Game Two Assessment, JNLWD, June 2000. The
wargame was held 13-16 June 2000 at the US Army War College,
Carlisle Barracks, PA.
23) Assessment Report: US/UK Non-Lethal
Weapons (NLW)/Urban Operations Executive Seminar, JNLWD, November
2000, URL above.
24) Response letter (3 September 2002)
from US Department of the Navy, Office of the Judge Advocate
General, International and Operational Law Division to Sunshine
Project Freedom of Information Request of 21 August 2002.
25) Several JNLWD-funded contracts indicate
this. See, for example, 81mm Frangible Case Cartridge, Contract
DAAE-30-01-C-1077 (June 2001), US Army TACOM and M2 Technologies,
URL above.
26)
Non-Lethal Weapons: Acquisitions, Capabilities, Doctrine, &
Strategy: A Course of Instruction, contract M67004-99-D-0037,
purchase order M9545002RCR2BA7, between the US Marine Corps University
(Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory) and
JNLWD, December 2001.
27) Letter from Col. George Fenton to
the National Academies of Science (NAS), 17 May 2002, text provided
in an e-mail from Mr. Kevin Hale, Director of the NAS National
Security Office to William Colglazier, Executive Officer, 17
May 2002.
28) Letter from Kevin Hale (NAS) to Col.
George Fenton (JNLWD), 17 May 2002. This letter and the e-mail
of note #27 were provided by the NAS Public Affairs office.
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