Making Poison Gas In U.S. Difficult
The televised sight of vast stockpiles of commercial chemicals being removed from the headquarters of the religious sect suspected of causing the Tokyo poison gas attack was a deeply troubling sight to all of us who work in the chemical industry.
But equally disturbing to me have been the glib words of some TV commentators that poison gas is as easy to make as a pipe bomb.
It’s not yet known how the religious group came to acquire the chemicals found in Japan. But here in the United States, it would be practically impossible to gather such an inventory without detection. That’s because the industry has a long history of working with law enforcement officials to detect and prevent illegal diversions of sensitive chemicals.
The chemical agent apparently used in the Tokyo attack has no commercial value and is not produced by any chemical company. But as the television pictures made clear, the poison is made from commercial chemicals that have important applications in areas like medicine and fire prevention.
Our job, as chemical manufacturers, is to preserve legitimate markets for our sensitive products while working with the government to prevent illegal diversions. We do that in a number of ways. The most important step is that we know our customers. In the case of the most sensitive dual-use chemicals, a small number of producers work closely with an equally small number of purchasers. They have long-established commercial ties, and the movement of these chemicals is tightly controlled.
When a new order for a sensitive chemical is placed, the manufacturer conducts a thorough investigation of the potential customer. Technical experts are dispatched to the customer’s site to certify that there is a legitimate need for the product and that the customer is properly trained and equipped to handle it. Suspicious orders are reported to the government.
The same holds true for chemical distributors, who usually sell smaller amounts of a product to smaller customers. When an order is placed, the buyer must justify the reason for the purchase. Records are kept, a paper trail is established.
That said, we are the first to urge that more be done to stop the threat of chemical weapons. The chemical industry has been an outspoken supporter of a United Nations treaty to ban the manufacture, use and possession of chemical weapons.
That treaty, known as the Chemical Weapons Convention, was completed in early 1993, after 24 difficult years of negotiation. It is the first arms control agreement intended to wipe out an entire class of weapons. The treaty has been signed by 159 countries but ratified so far by only 27.
Unfortunately, the United States has so far failed to act. Senate ratification was scheduled for last year but was stalled in the swirl of last-minute business and election year politics. Now there is no excuse for further delay.
There is no iron-clad guarantee that the CWC will prevent future poison gas attacks by terrorists, but it is the next best defense we have. Destroying all existing government stockpiles of chemical weapons agents will mean that those supplies cannot be sold or stolen.
But the convention also establishes a worldwide agency to record, monitor and verify the movement of sensitive chemicals around the globe and within nations. That means that anyone who produces a precursor chemical will have to account for it.
What’s more, the treaty has the most farreaching inspection requirements in history. Military facilities will be subject to inspection as with other treaties. But what makes this treaty different is that ordinary commercial chemical plants may also be inspected.
This is the treaty’s best deterrent. The unpleasant truth - last seen during the Persian Gulf War - is that commercial facilities in Iraq were used for military purposes. The best safeguard against that happening again is to make all commercial chemical plants subject to the scrutiny of international investigators. Honest businesses have nothing to fear. Anyone with other motives will run the risk of getting caught in the act. The treaty is the best means available to prevent legitimate chemicals from falling into the wrong hands.
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