WASHINGTON -- Iraq, a nation that once used blister and nerve agents in war and against its own people, yesterday joined the international ban on chemical weapons (see GSN, Dec. 1, 2008).
(Jan. 14) -
Iraqi workers under U.N. supervision recover chemical armaments bound for destruction after the 1991 Gulf War (Henry Arvidsson/U.N. Special Commission on Iraq).
Baghdad submitted its accession document to the United Nations and will become the 186th member nation to the Chemical Weapons Convention on Feb. 12. The treaty prohibits development, production, stockpiling or use of weapons that feature materials such as mustard gas or the nerve agents VX and sarin.
There are now only nine states that remain outside the convention -- Angola, the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia and Syria.
"Iraq's accession draws us closer to the convention's goal of the universal ban on chemical weapons, and we call upon those nine states that have not yet adhered to the convention to do so without delay," Rogelio Pfirter, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the verification body for the treaty, said in a prepared statement.
The Bahamas is likely to be the next state to join the pact, possibly in a matter of months, said OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan. He acknowledged the challenge of reaching treaty universality, particularly when it comes to the Middle East, where long-standing tensions have been exacerbated by recent fighting in the Gaza Strip.
"It's difficult. The equation in the Middle East transcends the particular issue of chemical weapons," Luhan told Global Security Newswire. "Certainly we hope that the accession of both Lebanon and Iraq will generate some fresh thinking on the convention [by Egypt, Israel and Syria] and perhaps create some sense of momentum. But ... with everything happening in the Middle East right now, our expectations are moderate."
Those three Middle Eastern nations are all believed to have had some history with chemical weapons activities, with Syria suspected of possessing a stockpile of blister and nerve agents.
More than 42 percent of the declared global stockpile of chemical warfare materials has been eliminated; work is complete in Albania and an unidentified nation generally known to be South Korea, while Libya, India, Russia and the United States are at varying points in the disposal process.
Iraq reportedly established an offensive chemical weapons program in the late 1960s that led to the production of warfare materials in the 1980s, according to an online time line developed by the Nuclear Threat Initiative. The Hussein regime employed mustard gas and tabun nerve agent against Iranian forces while the two nations were at war in the 1980s, and also killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds during crackdowns in that decade (see GSN, March 17, 2008).
Following the first Gulf War, U.N. inspectors or the Hussein regime itself verifiably destroyed nearly 700 metric tons of Iraqi chemical weapons agents, along with almost 90,000 munitions, 980 crucial chemical weapons production items and related material, according to NTI.
The U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq was conducted partly on the assertion that Baghdad was again stockpiling chemical weapons and conducting other WMD programs. However, inspectors in 2004 reported that while Saddam Hussein hoped one day to resume chemical warfare activities, his nation had eliminated its toxic arsenal in 1991.
Several hundred abandoned chemical weapons have been found in Iraq since the invasion, though they are believed to have been produced before 1991 and had deteriorated to the point of being unusable (see GSN, June 22, 2006). The weapons were being destroyed as they were located, the U.S. Defense Department said in 2006.
Iraq must within 30 days of becoming a CWC member state file a declaration with the Hague-based monitoring agency identifying any remaining chemical weapons stockpiles or production facilities.
"It's a given that there are no chemical weapons stockpiles that will be declared from Iraq," said Paul Walker, security and sustainability chief at the environmental group Global Green USA. However, buried or dumped chemical agents and weapons might still someday be found that would have to be dealt with, he added.
The Iraqi Embassy in Washington had not responded by press time today to a request for comment regarding details of its chemical declaration.
Any necessary "destruction process, as with every other possessor state, will be verified by OPCW," Luhan said. ""In Iraq's case ... depending on the [security] circumstances there, if Iraq does declare CW or production facilities, destruction could be in the presence of an inspection team or without the presence of an inspection team but with full documentation, meaning pictures, videos and so forth."