Chemical Arms Plants Harmless, Army Insists

The Army on Friday issued reassurances that it is not making or storing chemical weapons at all five sites the U.S. government would open up for inspection under a proposed international treaty.

And a spokesman reiterated that the current generation of American chemical weapons is designed not to become lethal until they reach the battlefield.

U.S. Ambassador Max L. Friedersdorf, chief of the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, listed the five sites Thursday in speech designed to encourage greater openness in negotiations toward a pact banning the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons.

The talks, involving 40 nations, have been going on for 20 years.

The Army issued a detailed statement seeking to sooth local concerns near the sites Friedersdorf mentioned: Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colo.; Pine Bluff Arsenal, Ark.; Muscle Shoals, Ala.; Newport Army Ammunition Depot, Ind., and Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

The Army says that the so-called binary chemical weapons it has been producing since December are harmless until containers of two separate chemicals are joined in an artillery shell just before it is fired.

Thus the Army is storing no chemical weapons which are by themselves lethal, unlike the earlier generation of so-called unitary chemical weapons, said spokesman Lt. Col. John Chapla.

“The binary program is such that you never have a complete weapon stored in any one place. The two chemicals are never kept together and they will not be mated until just before firing,” Chapla said.

Should a chemical weapons treaty be signed, said Chapla, all five sites would be subject to whatever provisions it may contain regarding the inspection or production of facilities.

“The context of Ambassador Friedersdorf’s statement is that at each of the locations he identified, facilities exist which are, or were at one time involved in the production of chemical weapons,” Chapla said, reading a statement.

“While all five of the facilities mentioned had some historical connection with production of unitary chemical weapons (using one rather than two chemicals), the U.S. has not been involved in the production of unitary chemical weapons since 1969,” the statement said.

“No chemical weapons production of any kind is going on at Rocky Mountain Arsenal or Newport Army Ammunition plant,” it said.

“The Army facilities at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, are involved in the production of a non-lethal component for the binary weapons system.”

“No chemical weapons are being produced at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Aberdeen was formerly connected with the production of unitary chemical weapons prior to 1969. Currently, facilities at Aberdeen are involved with the research, development and engineering of the components and precursor chemicals for the binary system.”

“No chemical weapons are being produced at Muscle Shoals,” the statement said.