War of Nerves

by Jonathan Tucker

  Although the Army reestablished the Chemical School at Fort McClellan in 1979 and began returning chemical units to active duty, the Carter administration deleted the Army’s funding request for binary-weapons production from the defense budgets in fiscal years 1979, 1980, and 1981. The U.S. national security agencies were divided over the issue of chemical modernization. Although the Joint Chiefs and the civilians in the Office of the Secretary of Defense were in favor of binary weapons, the State Department objected that the NATO allies had not been consulted, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the National Security Council staff worried that procuring the new weapons would undermine the chemical disarmament talks with Moscow. The result of this bureaucratic standoff was that the Carter administration requested funds for improved chemical defenses, including detectors, masks, and protective suits, but not for binary weapons.

  For its part, the Chemical Corps was increasingly impatient with the lack of procurement. Maintaining the existing chemical stockpile was far easier and cheaper than destroying it, but the continued viability of the old weapons came to be seen as an impediment to the acquisition of new ones. Once the Chemical Corps became committed to binary munitions, it failed to maintain the unitary stockpile adequately. By neglecting to clean rusty shells, restore identifying markers, and replace fuses, the corps hastened the deterioration of the existing stockpile and thereby increased pressures for its replacement.

  MEANWHILE, the détente in U.S.-Soviet relations had begun to sour. Rumors were filtering out of Southeast Asia that the Soviet military was helping the Communist government of Laos to launch attacks with an unknown chemical agent against the remote mountain strongholds of the H’mong tribesmen, who the CIA had recruited to fight on the American side during the Vietnam War. The U.S. intelligence community also concluded that a major outbreak of human anthrax in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk in April 1979 had resulted from the accidental release of processed anthrax bacterial spores from a clandestine biological weapons factory.

  In December 1979, superpower tensions rose dramatically when the Soviet Union sent five divisions into Afghanistan to prop up the shaky Communist government that had come to power in the 1970s and to protect their interests in Central Asia. The Soviets quickly occupied Kabul and installed Babrak Karmal as president. Afghan resistance fighters called mujahidin proclaimed a “jihad,” or holy war, against the Soviet invaders and were soon joined by militant Islamic volunteers from several parts of the Arab world. Although Soviet troops controlled the major Afghan cities, they encountered fierce resistance whenever they ventured into the mountainous hinterland.

  The Carter administration condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the strongest terms. Because of the new tensions between Washington and Moscow, the bilateral talks on chemical disarmament came to an end after twelve inconclusive rounds. Meanwhile, refugees fleeing Afghanistan alleged that Soviet aircraft and artillery had begun using chemical weapons against the mujahidin guerrillas. Although the reports were anecdotal, the U.S. intelligence community considered them credible.

  In May 1980, Representative Richard Ichord, a conservative Democrat from Missouri who served on the House Armed Services Committee, argued that Congress should respond forcefully to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan and its alleged use of chemical weapons by voting to modernize the U.S. chemical deterrent. Binary munitions were desirable, in his view, because they would “depoliticize” chemical weapons and make them more acceptable to the public and to military planners. To this end, Ichord offered an amendment restoring the Army’s request for a $3.15 million “down payment” on construction of the DF plant at Pine Bluff Arsenal. The amendment, only two paragraphs long, was buried deep in the FY 1981 Military Construction Appropriations Bill and was not even debated on the floor of the House, which approved the legislation by a large majority (308–19) on June 27, 1980.

  The Carter administration was stunned by how easily Ichord’s troublesome amendment had slipped through the legislative process in the House. Secretary of State Vance urged the Democrat-controlled Senate to block funding for the Pine Bluff plant, but Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a conservative Democrat from Washington State, agreed with Ichord that the Soviet Union enjoyed a “preponderant advantage” over the United States in chemical warfare capabilities. Jackson therefore introduced a similar amendment authorizing $3.15 million to begin construction of the Pine Bluff facility. Public anger over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led the Senate Armed Services Committee to defy the White House and vote 14–3 to recommend the amended bill to the full Senate.

  On September 16–18, 1980, the Senate conducted several hours of emotional debate on the Jackson amendment, even though it represented only a tiny fraction of the $160 billion Defense Appropriations Bill. Supporters of the amendment, such as Senator Jackson and Senator John Warner (R.–Virginia), argued that Congress had to respond in a forceful manner to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Approving a small down payment on the Pine Bluff plant would send a clear message to Moscow, even though it would take several years before actual production could begin. Senator Carl Levin (D.–Michigan) countered that for the United States to resume the manufacture of chemical weapons after a twelve-year moratorium would be “premature, unwise, and could ultimately be self-defeating from defense, diplomatic, and arms-control perspectives.” He argued that intelligence estimates of Soviet chemical warfare capabilities were uncertain and that the existing U.S. stockpile of unitary weapons constituted a “credible” deterrent. Moreover, a unilateral U.S. decision to deploy binary munitions in Western Europe without consulting the NATO allies would provoke a strong political backlash. Senator Gary Hart (D.–Colorado) proposed an amendment to delay partial funding of the DF production plant until after the completion of a top-level policy review, but his amendment failed by one vote, 46–47. The Senate then approved the Jackson amendment by a vote of 52–38 and the entire bill by 89–3. Given the large margin, President Carter did not attempt to veto the legislation.

  Six weeks later, the elections of November 4, 1980, caused a tectonic shift in the political landscape. President-elect Ronald Reagan was a former professional movie actor whose avuncular manner belied his far-right conservative beliefs. In sharp contrast to his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, Reagan was an avowed anti-Communist, a military hard-liner, and a strong supporter of U.S. chemical weapons modernization, which he believed was essential to counter the Soviet military threat. Ironically, because the Republicans had also gained control of the Senate, Mark Hatfield, the senior Republican senator from Oregon and a long-standing opponent of binary weapons, became chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, giving him considerable influence over the military budget.

  On November 21, the Senate passed a version of the Defense Procurement Appropriations Bill that included $19 million to equip the DF production plant at Pine Bluff Arsenal, but this item was deleted from the House version. When a conference committee convened in December to reconcile the House and Senate bills, Senator Hatfield exercised his new power by threatening a full-scale debate unless the committee excised the $19 million for DF plant equipment, leaving only the $3.15 million for site construction.

  Even so, by approving at least some money for the Pine Bluff facility, Congress had taken a small but significant step toward production. President-elect Reagan was determined to win the political battle over binary weapons, but the struggle would prove to be far more intense and protracted than anyone had imagined.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BINARY DEBATE

  IN DECEMBER 1980, a task force of the Defense Science Board, an elite group of scientific advisers to the Pentagon, issued a classified report on U.S. chemical warfare policy that had been prepared over the summer. Chaired by John M. Deutch, a professor of chemistry at MIT, this panel found that the existing U.S. chemical weapons stockpile was outdated and partly unusable, limiting its deterrent value. Upgrading chemical defenses alone would not be a suf
ficient remedy because gas masks and protective suits were awkward and uncomfortable for troops to wear, particularly in hot weather, causing a 30 to 50 percent decline in unit performance. If the Soviet Union could impose this handicap on the United States without fear of retaliation, it would gain a significant military advantage. The Deutch committee concluded that because the renewed production of unitary nerve agents would be “politically unacceptable,” the best option was to destroy the aging unitary stockpile and replace it with a smaller number of advanced binary weapons.

  On February 2, 1982, President Reagan formally requested more than $30 million to begin production of the M687 binary Sarin projectile, but the administration faced an uphill battle in persuading Congress to go along. A majority of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives was opposed to binary production, and the Republican-controlled Senate was split by the closest of margins. Nerve agents were the only weapon system that many liberals and conservatives found equally unpalatable. Not only did chemical arms lack a political constituency, but the public recognized that poison gas was indiscriminate and more likely to kill civilians than well-protected troops. Critics also had serious doubts about the military utility of binary chemical weapons for the defense of NATO and whether they would work as advertised.

  The fact that support for binary weapons correlated poorly with party affiliation and ideology made for some strange political bedfellows. On March 12, 1982, for example, twelve Democratic and Republican senators from across the political spectrum wrote a letter to Senator John Tower (R.–Texas), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, opposing production of binary weapons. Signatories included liberals such as Gary Hart, Edward Kennedy, and George Mitchell, and conservatives such as Thad Cochran and Nancy Kassebaum. The letter read in part, “The production of binary chemical weapons is not necessary for the national defense, nor is it necessary to deter Soviet first use. Our current stockpiles are adequate for that purpose. Our principal emphasis should be the acquisition of additional protective and defensive equipment for U.S. combat forces to reduce the effects of a chemical weapons attack.”

  During consideration of the FY 1983 Defense Authorization Bill, the Senate endorsed binary production by a narrow 49–45 vote. In the House, however, a political odd couple—Ed Bethune, an archconservative Republican from Arkansas, and Clement Zablocki, a liberal Democrat from Wisconsin—teamed up to defeat the legislation. When members of both chambers met in conference committee to reconcile the two versions of the bill, they agreed to support the House position against binary weapons.

  Despite Congress’s refusal to fund production of the M687 Sarin projectile, the Reagan administration moved ahead with site preparation for the DF plant at Pine Bluff Arsenal. Meanwhile, the development of the Bigeye VX bomb continued to be plagued with technical problems. When the two binary components (QL and sulfur) were mixed together, the reaction generated intense heat and pressure that sometimes caused the bomb to “cook off,” or explode. In one laboratory test in October 1982, a Bigeye prototype was deliberately tested to failure and ruptured, spewing hot nerve agent in all directions. For subsequent tests, Army scientists installed pressure-relief valves on the prototype bombs, even though the actual weapons would not be so modified. The Bigeye also failed to meet the technical specifications for the purity of VX.

  Yet another team at Edgewood’s Chemical Systems Laboratory was developing a binary warhead for the Army’s Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) that would generate a mixture of Sarin and an analogue of Cyclosarin with an added methyl group (CH3). This mixture was termed an “intermediate-volatility agent” because it evaporated more slowly than Sarin but faster than VX. On March 31, 1982, the Army awarded the Vought Corporation a contract to begin concept definition of the XM135 Binary Chemical Warhead for the MLRS.

  A mock-up of the Bigeye bomb, an aircraft-delivered binary weapon that was designed to produce VX by combining two relatively non-toxic precursors (QL and powdered sulfur). The bomb would glide to earth while spraying nerve agent over the target. Because of chronic technical problems, the Bigeye bomb was never produced.

  IN FRANCE, scientists at the Centre d’Études du Bouchet (CEB) were also working on binary chemical weapons. This effort had been inspired by the major Soviet investment in offensive chemical warfare capabilities, as well as by the U.S. binary weapons program. The CEB focused on developing a binary formulation of an intermediate-volatility nerve agent.

  During the mid-1980s, in an effort to work around the ban on live-agent testing at Dugway Proving Ground, Bill Dee arranged with the French Army and the CEB to conduct some small-scale outdoor trials of the American MLRS binary warhead at the Camp de Mourmelon near Reims. In return, the Americans shared with their French colleagues some aspects of U.S. binary technology, such as the warhead fusing mechanism.

  IN 1983, CONGRESS resumed deliberations over production of the M687 binary Sarin projectile. Although the local congressman from Pine Bluff supported the binary program because it would create new jobs, Arkansas Senator David Pryor placed his moral opposition to chemical weapons above the economic interests of his state. In February 1983, he wrote a letter to Senator Tower that stated, “My opposition to nerve gas production has never been parochial or entirely budgetary. Therefore, I do not want the activity transferred to another location in the country or the funds reprogrammed. . . . I also welcome the support of those, like myself, who oppose nerve gas production on military, diplomatic, and humanitarian grounds.”

  When the FY 1984 Defense Authorization Bill came up for a vote, the House decisively rejected funding for binary weapons production 256–161. The Senate split evenly, however, allowing Vice President George H. W. Bush to cast the tiebreaking vote in favor of production. In late July, a House-Senate conference committee met to reconcile the two different versions of the bill. Because the House was represented by hawkish congressmen, the conference voted narrowly to authorize binary weapons funding. The battle lines now moved to the Defense Appropriations Bill, which contained an administration request of $124.4 million for production of the M687 projectile. This legislation reached the Senate in the fall of 1983. During the floor debate, Senator Hatfield called the plan to acquire new chemical weapons “morally and politically indefensible.” But Senator Tower countered that the deteriorating unitary stockpile would soon become too dangerous for U.S. troops to handle. “Future adherence to a unilateral moratorium on the production of new weapons risks unilateral disarmament by obsolescence,” he said.

  The Senate vote came on November 8, 1983. During the roll call, Vice President Bush again took the presiding officer’s chair, ready to break a tie if necessary. Once again, the Senate split evenly (46–46), and the vice president cast the deciding vote for production. Bush was clearly uncomfortable with his two tiebreaking votes, which provoked sharp criticism from his mother. As Dorothy Bush told The Washington Post, “George knows that I disapprove of it. He knows how I feel. He said that we have to have it to deter other countries from using it. But George knows I would die if this country ever uses it.” In the end, the House voted against funding for binary weapons, and the House-Senate conference committee adopted the House position.

  AT THE SAME TIME that Congress was debating the production of new binary munitions, Iraq began to employ chemical weapons in its bloody war against Iran. The source of the conflict could be traced back to early 1979, when an aging Iranian cleric named Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had led a popular revolution that toppled the monarchy of Shah Reza Palavi and established a conservative Islamic theocracy in Tehran. After the revolution, tensions escalated between Iran’s new rulers and the secular Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq. A long-simmering border dispute between the two countries flared up over the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, which provided Iraq’s sole access to the Persian Gulf.

  In the turmoil that followed the Iranian revolution, Saddam saw a strategic opportunity to eliminate his long-standing rival fo
r regional hegemony. The Iranian Army had been weakened by the loss of its main weapons supplier, the United States, and by a major purge that had removed high-ranking officers who were corrupt or loyal to the shah. Believing that Iran’s internal disarray would permit a rapid Iraqi military victory, Saddam launched a surprise attack on September 22, 1980. The Iraqi invasion began with air strikes by MiG fighter-bombers and a blitzkrieg-style tank assault by six armored divisions. Although the Iraqi Army rapidly gained control of the contested Shatt-al-Arab waterway, Khomeini rejected a proposed settlement on Iraqi terms and launched a series of fierce counterattacks. Despite the fact that Iran had fewer tanks and artillery pieces and lacked spare parts for its American-made fighters and armored vehicles, it enjoyed a large advantage in number of troops. Iran’s population of 64 million people was more than twice Iraq’s 24 million and included many young men of military age. Accordingly, Iran began to use “human wave” infantry tactics to hold the line against Iraq’s armored assaults.