VREDESONDERZOEK INTERDISCIPLINAIRE PERIODIEK The 2nd Gulf War and the CBW Threat Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Chemical Warfare Edited by Jean Pascal Zanders Special Issue - November 1995 INTERFACULTAIR OVERLEGORGAAN VOOR VREDESONDERZOEK VAN DE VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL ISSN: 0776-9679 © November 1995 Series editor: Jean Pascal Zanders Centrum voor Polemologie Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 B-1050 Brussel België Tel. 32 (02) 6292228 Fax. 32 (02) 6292282 The 2nd Gulf War and the CBW Threat Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Chemical Warfare Edited by Jean Pascal Zanders Preface On 29 and 30 November 1991, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the Groupe de Recherche et d’Information sur la Paix (GRIP) organised the 3rd Annual Conference on Chemical and Biological Warfare on the theme: “The 2nd Gulf War and the CBW Threat.” Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait immediately raised the spectre of large-scale chemical and biological warfare. The Western-led response to the crisis was to a large extent determined by the threat. On the one hand, the West bore a lot of responsibility for feeding the Iraqi war machine, including its unconventional arsenal, on the other, crisis diplomacy and military preparations saw calculated measures to dissuade Baghdad from resorting to chemical warfare. In the end, Iraq - at least according to official Western accounts - employed no chemical or biological weapons, although the mystery of scores of soldiers suffering from the so-called Gulf-syndrome remains to be solved. The Second Gulf War - the previous one being between Iraq and Iran - came at one of these famous crossroads in history. The antagonistic rivalry between two social and political systems was ceding to a promise of closer collaboration in inter- national relations. The development allowed Washington and Moscow to reach bi- lateral compromises in the area of chemical disarmament, but as the thaw allayed the greatest fears regarding the respective chemical arsenals it also enervated the thrust towards global chemical disarmament at the Geneva talks. In a heinous way, the war propelled the negotiations towards their final end, the Chemical Weapons Conven- tion, signed in January 1993. Meanwhile, inspection teams of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), operating under Security Council Resolution 687, are still trying to uncover the full extent of Baghdad’s chemical and biological armament programmes. While the Convention still awaits sufficient ratifications to enter into force, the Gulf War had a significant impact on existing international regulations governing the use of chemical and biological weapons in war and on the United Nations role to monitor and even react against such violations. This third conference on chemical and biological warfare was in an important way also a continuation of the previous event - held at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on 16 March 1990 - that already focussed on the proliferation threats in the Middle East and the mechanisms behind the construction of the chemical-weapons plant at Rabta in Libya, which involved companies from the Federal Republic of Germany and Belgium. Almost five years after the end of Desert Storm, much of the speculation presented in the 1991 conference papers remains just as topical as then. Firm an- swers are still lacking and many an announced policy measure is slowly gathering dust. While the Centre for Polemology of the VUB and the GRIP were the conference’s main organisers, they received great material support from other Belgian and inter- national organisations, notably the Information Network on CBW (UK), the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR, Geneva), the Universitair Centrum voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking (UCOS - University Centre for Develop- ment Cooperation) of the VUB, and the Centre d’Etudes des Relations Internationa- les et Stratégiques (CERIS - Centre for the Study of International and Strategic Relations) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Financial support was pro- vided by the Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (National Fund for Scientific Research), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of the Flemish Community, the Ministry of Education of the Francophone Community, and the VUB. The logistical support by the administrative staff of GRIP and the Centre for Polemology, without which the conference would not have been possible, was much appreciated. Finally, with great sadness we learned that our good friend of several years, Rodney McElroy, suddenly passed away shortly before the conference was to take place. It is to his memory we wish to dedicate these proceedings. Jean Pascal Zanders November 1995 ii Dedicated to our friend Rodney McElroy “It is with sadness that I must now speak of the death last month of Rodney McElroy, who was a central figure in the Information Network on CBW, one of the sponsors of this conference, and who was to address you. He was a veteran of the Vietnam War, having served in the Special Forces of the United States Army from February 1966 to December 1968. Such service cannot but leave a heavy mark on people. Yet the Rodney McElroy we knew was the very opposite of the embittered and cynical veteran. We remember a warm, friendly and generous per- son; a person looking for ways in which his experiences could help. This took him into community service, initially among his fellow veterans and later wider circles as well, including the university world. He taught undergraduate courses and seminars at his own college, San José State, and then at Yale and Berkeley. When he died, aged 45, he was completing the dissertation needed for a doctoral degree from the University of Sussex, in England. His subject was War with Her- bicides and Tear Gas in Vietnam: The Evolution of United States Chemical War- fare Policy, and the Assimilation of Unconventional Weapons Technologies. When this dissertation is finally published, it will be regarded - so people at Sus- sex tell me - as a work both of practical application and of high scholarship. Rodney McElroy is survived by his partner Susan Schweik, professor of litera- ture of the University of California at Berkeley. He is survived, too, by their daughter Emma, who is now 11 months old. Our hearts go out to them.” From the opening address by Prof. Dr. J. Niezing Director Centrum voor Polemologie iv Table of Contents Preface . i Table of Contents . v Prof. Dr. R. Dejaegere, Rector, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Opening Address . 1 Johan Niezing After the Battle Is Over: Peace Research’s Agonizing Reappraisal . 3 Alastair Hay & Gwynne Roberts The Use of Poison Gas Against the Iraqi Kurds: Analysis of Bomb and Environmental Samples. 7 Findings 10 Comment 10 Jan Willems Appraising Iraq’s Chemical Warfare Capability and Use During the 1st and 2nd Gulf War from a Medical Point of View . 13 First Gulf Conflict 13 Second Gulf Conflict 16 The Aftermath of Both Wars 17 Jean Pascal Zanders The Chemical Threat in Iraq’s Motives for the Kuwait Invasion . 19 Economic motives for the Kuwait invasion 19 Political motives for the Kuwait invasion 27 Legitimising chemical weapons 30 Chemical weapons in Iraq’s declaratory policy 33 Concluding remarks 41 André Dumoulin The Non-Use of Chemical-Warfare Agents During Operation Desert Storm . 45 Gerald M. Steinberg The Iraqi Chemical Threat During the 2nd Gulf War: Israeli Perceptions and Reactions . 53 The Nature of the Chemical Threat to Israel 55 Chemicals As Strategic Weapons 58 The Israeli Dilemma: Deterrence Or Defence 59 Passive Defence: Gas Masks and Sealed Rooms 62 Active Defence: Patriots and Arrows 66 The Long Term Impact of the War and the Chemical Threat 67 The Impact on Israeli Policy 69 Arms Control Options 71 Concluding Observations 72 Arend Wellmann Western Perceptions and Reactions . 73 Official Statements Regarding Iraq’s CW Capability 73 Official Statements about the War Goals 75 Official Statements Concerning Specific Iraqi Preparations for A Deployment of Chemical Weapons 77 Conclusions 80 Julian P. Perry Robinson The Chemical Weapons of Desert Storm Forces and the Wider Implications of Tear Gas and Other Incapacitants. 83 US policy on chemical-weapons employment during the Kuwait War 83 The Presidential authorisation to use ‘riot control agents’ 86 The problem of misinformation 88 Dangers of legitimising military use of ‘riot control agents’ 92 vi A remedy 94 Joachim Badelt The German Involvement in Iraq's Chemical Warfare Production Programme and New Legislative Measures. 97 German deliveries to Iraq 98 Export policy of the Federal Government 100 New amendments 102 Germany’s Responsibility 104 Conclusions 105 Pierre Dabezies The French Approach to the Nonproliferation of Chemical Weapons . 107 Eric Remacle The Impact of the Second Gulf War on the Integration of the Security and Nonproliferation Policies of the European Community . 111 The revelations about the role of Europeans in Iraq’s chemical capability 112 Steps towards chemical nonproliferation taken by the Western world 115 Measures taken within the European Community: intergovernmental coordination versus communitisation 119 Prospects for a nonproliferation policy in the framework of a common foreign and security policy 120 Nicholas A. Sims Allegations of Iraq’s Possession of Biological Weapons and Measures for Strengthening the Biological Disarmament Regime125 Serge Sur The Geneva Protocol and the Two Gulf Wars. 145 Involving the United Nations in the defence of the Geneva Protocol 147 Features of UN involvement 148 Modes of involvement 151 The conditional reinforcement of the Geneva Protocol 156 Reinforcement 156 Conditional reinforcement 159 Return to the Geneva Protocol: The uniqueness of chemical weapons 161 Chemical and nuclear weapons: temptation and perversity of assimilation 161 vii Inaccuracy and supersession of assimilation 162 Herbert C. De Bisschop The Role of Anti-Chemical Protection in Deterrence and the Need for Protection after a Global Chemical Convention . 165 Peter Herby The Impact of the Two Gulf Wars on the Geneva Chemical Disarmament Negotiations: Developments since the 1989 Paris Conference .