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United States and weapons of mass destruction

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Weapons of mass destruction
By type
By country
Proliferation
Treaties

The federal government of the United States is known to possess three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and biological weapons. The U.S. is the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons in combat. The U.S. arsenal of weapons of mass destruction is among the largest in the world, along with Russia's, depending on the definition.

Biological weapons

E120 biological bomblet, developed before the U.S. ratified the Biological Weapons Convention

The U.S. cancelled its offensive biological weapons program by executive order in November 1969 and February 1970 and ordered the destruction of all offensive biological weapons by February 1973. The U.S. ratified the Geneva Protocol on January 22, 1975. In March 1975, the U.S. ratified the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

Negotiations for a legally binding verification protocol to the BWC proceeded for years. In 2001, negotiations ended when the Bush administration rejected an effort by other signatories to create a protocol for verification, arguing that it would interfere with legitimate biological research.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, located in Fort Detrick, Maryland, produces small quantities of biological agents, for use in biological weapons defense research. According to the U.S. government, this research is performed in full accordance with the BWC.

Through the non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. government under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush sold or sent biological samples to Iraq under Saddam Hussein up until 1989. These materials included anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism, as well as Brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and Clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. Some of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program, while others were used for vaccine development.

In late 2001 there was series of mysterious anthrax attacks aimed at US media offices and the US Senate. Five people died. The anthrax used in the attacks was the Ames strain, which was first studied at Fort Detrick and then distributed to other labs around the world. The attacks remain unsolved to this day. See 2001 anthrax attacks.

Chemical weapons

History

The U.S. was a major producer of chemical weapons which it utilized, among other countries, in the First World War. The U.S. had entered into the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 which banned aerial bombing and chemical warfare among other things but which were disregarded in actual combat.

In WWI, the U.S. produced its own munitions as well as deploying weapons produced by the French. The U.S. produced 5,770 metric tons of these weapons, including 1,400 metric tons of phosgene and 175 metric tons of mustard gas. This was about 4% of the total chemical weapons produced for that war and only just over 1% of the era's most effective weapon, mustard gas. (U.S. troops suffered less than 6% of gas casualties.)

After the war, the U.S. was party to the Washington Arms Conference Treaty of 1922 which would have banned chemical weapons but failed because it was rejected by the French. The U.S. continued to stockpile chemical weapons, eventually exceeding 30,000 tons of material.

Chemical weapons were not used by the U.S. or the other Allies, during World War II; however, quantities of such weapons were deployed to Europe for use in case Germany initiated chemical warfare. At least one accident occurred: On the night of December 2, 1943, German JU-88 bombers attacked the port of Bari in Southern Italy, sinking several American ships - among them John Harvey, which was carrying mustard gas. The presence of the gas was highly classified, and authorities ashore had no knowledge of it - which increased the number of fatalities, since physicians, who had no idea that they were dealing with the effects of mustard gas, prescribed treatment proper for those suffering from exposure and immersion. According to the U.S. military account, "Sixty-nine deaths were attributed in whole or in part to the mustard gas, most of them American merchant seamen" out of 628 mustard gas military casualties. Civilian casualties were not recorded. The whole affair was kept secret at the time and for many years after the war.

Honest John missile warhead cutaway, showing M139 Sarin bomblets (photo circa 1960)

After the war, the Allies recovered German artillery shells containing three new nerve agents developed by the Germans (Tabun, Sarin, and Soman), prompting further research into nerve agents by all of the former Allies. Thousands of American soldiers were exposed to warfare agents during Cold War testing programs as well as in accidents. One such accident in 1968, killed approximately 6,400 sheep when an agent, possibly VX drifted out of Dugway Proving Ground during a test.

The U.S. also investigated a wide range of possible nonlethal, psychobehavioral chemical incapacitating agents to include psychedelic indoles such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) and marijuana derivatives, certain tranquilizers like ketamine or fentanyl, as well as several glycolate anticholinergics. One of the anticholinergic compounds, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, was assigned the NATO code BZ and was weaponized at the beginning of the 1960s for possible battlefield use.

This agent was allegedly employed by American troops as a counterinsurgency weapon in the Vietnam War but the U.S. maintains that this agent never saw operational use. The North Koreans and Chinese have alleged that chemical and biological weapons were used by the United States in the Korean War; but, the United States denial is supported by Russian archival documents.

The U.S. began stockpile reductions in the 1980s, removing some outdated munitions and destroying its entire stock of BZ beginning in 1988. In May 1991, President George H.W. Bush unilaterally committed the United States to destroying all chemical weapons and to renounce the right to chemical weapon retaliation.

Treaties

The United States was a party to some of the earliest modern chemical weapons ban treaties, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and the Washington Arms Conference Treaty of 1922 although these treaties were unsuccessful. The U.S. ratified the Geneva Protocol which banned the use of chemical and biological weapons on January 22, 1975. In 1989 and 1990, the U.S. and the Soviet Union entered an agreement to end their chemical weapons programs, including "binary weapons". The United States ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention in April 1997. This banned the possession of most types of chemical weapons, some of which were possessed by the U.S. at the time. It also banned chemical weapons development, and requires the destruction of existing stockpiles, precursor chemicals, production facilities and weapon delivery systems.

Chemical weapons disposal

According to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, as of October 8, 2006, the United States has destroyed 40% of the original stockpile of nearly 31,500 tons of nerve and mustard agents declared in 1997. Of the weapons destroyed, 500 tons was mustard gas and the majority was other agents such as VX and sarin (GB) (86% of the latter was destroyed by April 2006).

About 7,500 tons of prohibited weapons had been destroyed by 2002 to meet the Phase II quota and deadline, about 22 percent of the U.S. chemical arsenal. The original commitment in Phase III required all countries to have 45 percent of the chemical stockpiles destroyed by April 2004. Anticipating the failure to meet this deadline, the Bush administration in September 2003 requested a new deadline of December 2007 for Phase III and announced a probable need for an extension until April 2012 for Phase IV, total destruction (requests for deadline extensions cannot formally be made until 12 months before the original deadline). This extension procedure spelled out in the treaty has been utilized by other countries, Russia and the unnamed "state party". Although April 2012 is the latest date allowed by the treaty, the U.S. also noted that even these deadlines may not be met due to environmental challenges and the U.S. decision to destroy leaking individual chemical shells before bulk storage chemical weapons.

The primary chemical weapon storage facilities in the U.S. are Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon, Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado, Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana, Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky, Anniston Chemical Activity in Alabama, Pine Bluff Chemical Activity in Arkansas and Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah. The largest facility is Deseret.

Disposal of chemical munitions is occurring at Umatilla, Anniston, Pine Bluff, Newport and the Tooele Chemical Demilitarization Facility (for Deseret). The Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Arkansas began operations on March 29, 2005 after completing in 1988-1990, destruction of munitions containing BZ, a non-lethal hallucinating agent. Newport began destruction operations in May, 2005. Pueblo and Blue Grass are constructing pilot plans to test novel methods of disposal but full plants may not open until 2011. The U.S. also uses mobile treatment systems to treat chemical test samples and individual shells without requiring transport from the artillery ranges and abandoned munitions depots where they are occasionally found.

Operations were completed at Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System where all 640 metric tons were destroyed by 2000 and at Edgewood Chemical Activity in Maryland, with 1,472 metric tons of agent destroyed by February 2006. Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada destroyed all M687 chemical artillery shells and 458 metric tons of binary precursor chemicals by July 1999. All DF and QL, chemical weapons precursors, were destroyed in 2006 at Pine Bluff.

Nuclear weapons

US nuclear warhead stockpiles, 1945-2002.
Main article: Nuclear weapons and the United States

Nuclear weapons have twice been deployed in wartime: two nuclear weapons were used by the United States against Japan in World War II in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Altogether, the two bombings killed an estimated 200,000 Japanese citizens and injured another 130,000. Though the two cities were military targets, the overwhelming majority of the casualties were civilian.

The U.S. conducted an extensive nuclear testing program. 1054 tests were conducted between 1945 and 1992. The exact number of nuclear devices detonated is unclear because some tests involved multiple devices while a few failed to explode or were designed not to create a nuclear explosion. The United States ceased atmospheric testing after 4 November 1962 before the Partial Test Ban Treaty. In 1976 the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to limit the size of tests to 150 kilotons. The last U.S. nuclear test was on 23 September 1992 before the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Currently, the United States nuclear arsenal is deployed in three areas:

The United States is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the US ratified in 1968. On October 13, 1999, the U.S. Senate rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, having previously ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. The U.S. has not, however, tested a nuclear weapon since 1992, though it has tested many non-nuclear components and has developed powerful supercomputers in an attempt to duplicate the knowledge gained from testing without the actual tests themselves.

In the early 1990s, the U.S. shifted out of the mode of developing new nuclear weapons and instead devotes most of its nuclear efforts into stockpile stewardship, maintaining and dismantling its now-aging arsenal. The administration of George W. Bush decided in 2003 to engage in research about a new generation of small nuclear weapons, especially "earth penetrators" . The budget passed by the United States Congress in 2004 eliminated funding for some of this research including the "bunker-busting or earth-penetrating" weapons.

The exact number of nuclear weapons possessed by the United States is difficult to determine. Different treaties and organizations have different criteria for reporting nuclear weapons, especially those held in reserve, and those being dismantled or rebuilt:

  • As of 1999, the U.S. was said to have 12,000 nuclear weapons of all types stockpiled.
  • In its Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) declaration for 2003, the U.S. listed 5968 deployed warheads as defined by START rules.
  • For 2004, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists listed the U.S. with about 7,000 operational and 3,000 reserve warheads.

In 2002, the United States and Russia agreed in the SORT treaty to reduce their deployed stockpiles to not more than 2,200 warheads each. In 2003, the US rejected Russian proposals to further reduce both nation's nuclear stockpiles to 1,500 each. The US has adopted a plan to modernise and update its allowed weapons as well as investigate the possibility of manufacturing "micronuclear weapons" for use on the battlefield and against bunkers.

Land-based intercontinental ballistic and cruise missiles (ICBMs)

The US Air Force currently operates just over 500 ICBMs at around 15 missile complexes located primarily in the northern Rocky Mountain states and the Dakotas. These are all of the Minuteman III ICBM variants. Peacekeeper missiles were being phased out in 2005. All USAF Minuteman II missiles have been destroyed in accordance to START, and their launch silos sealed or sold to the public. To comply with the START II most US multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, have been eliminated and replaced with single warhead missiles. However, since the abandonment of the START II treaty, the U.S. is said to be considering retaining 800 warheads on 500 missiles.

Sea-based ICBMs

The US Navy currently has 12 SSBN Ohio-class submarines deployed. Each submarine is equipped with a complement of 24 Trident II missiles. Approximately 12 U.S. attack submarines are equipped to launch, but do not currently carry, nuclear Tomahawk missiles. Sea-launch weapons make up the majority of weapons declared under START II rules. The U.S. keeps its 320 Tomahawk missiles at Bangor, Washington, and Kings Bay, Georgia.

Heavy bomber group

The US Air Force also operates a strategic nuclear bomber fleet. The bomber force consists of 93 B-1s, 94 B-52s, and 21 B-2s. The majority of these heavy bombers either are being or have been retrofitted to operate in a solely conventional mode. The Strategic Air Command which for decades had kept nuclear weapons aloft 24 hours a day was disbanded in 1992 and merged into the US Strategic Command.

In addition to this the US armed forces can also deploy tactical smaller nuclear weapons either through cruise missiles or with conventional fighter-bombers. The U.S. maintains about 850 nuclear gravity bombs capable of use by F-15, F-16, F-35 and Panavia Tornado fighter aircraft. Some 480 of these bombs are deployed at eight airbases in six European NATO countries; of these, 180 tactical B61 nuclear bombs fall under a nuclear sharing arrangement.

References

See also

  • Enduring Stockpile - the name of the United States's remaining arsenal of nuclear weapons following the end of the Cold War.
  • Operation Paperclip - the codename under which the US intelligence and military services extricated scientists from Germany, during and after the final stages of World War II.

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