Subject: [CivilSoc] Chemical Weapons Destruction and Civil Society Development in Russia
From: Montgomery Elmer (monk.elmer@thedacare.org)
Date: Sat Jun 24 2000 - 08:20:59 EDT
Hello
I am a physician if Wisconsin who is part of a Sister City organization working in Siberia. We have had a relationship with the Kurgan region for the past 10 years. Two years ago we learned, at the same time that our friends did, that Kurgan holds a chemical weapons stockpile. The following text from a letter to the editor, describes the situation and some specific action that would be helpful toward eliminating these weapons of mass destruction. I appreciate anyone's assistance.
To the editor:
Picture any given Sunday in any football stadium in the country. Picture a terrorist smuggling in a backpack containing two VX shells wrapped with plastic explosives. Picture a detonation releasing 600,000 lethal doses (10 milligrams is fatal) of VX nerve gas. Now picture a stadium-sized morgue for 20,000. (Pictures courtesy of research from the Pentagon.)
Six thousand tons of human insecticide lies stockpiled near Shchuche in the Kurgan region of Russia. The Shchuche storage facility holds nearly 2 million artillery rounds, rockets and missile warheads containing the nerve agents VX, Soman and Sarin (the chemical agent used in the Japanese terrorist attack).
In 1992, Bush and Yeltsin signed the Cooperative Threat Reduction Agreement. The U.S. and Russian leaders pledged to dispose of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and committed U.S. assistance to build the first chemical weapons disposal plant in Shchuche. (Russian sites contain 40,000 tons of chemical agents, while the US has 30,000 tons.) Since then the Pentagon, in cooperation with Russia's Ministry of Defense has begun design and preparation for the Shchuche site. The Russians, committed to developing required infrastructure, fulfilled their part of the bargain last summer.
Last year, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) cited a GAO (Government Accounting Office) report predicting cost overruns and delayed timetables as reasons to scrap the funding. Despite Pentagon, Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Administration and European allies' recommendations to go forward, the (HASC) along with influential non-elected staffers, halted the funding for the year 2000. This year (HASC) disposal opponents want to kill the program forever, yet seek tens of billions for potential domestic terrorist chemical or biological attack response. These House members and staffers view the disposal program as a free Russian environmental cleanup, ignoring Pentagon concerns of the potential terrorist threat.
The Pentagon has projected a $685 million cost over a 7-year period for the Shchuche disposal program. The Cold War and arms buildup cost Americans $10 trillion.
Shchuche/Kurgan, are Sister Cities with the Fox Cities of Wisconsin. The Fox Cities, through community and regional development programs here and in Russia, (Sister Cities, Red Cross, Police, Healthcare) has worked to enhance community problem solving and civic responsibility that comprise the healthy social infrastructure that will support the chemical elimination project. For Russians who lived under "government will do it" Communism, these very foreign concepts are new, but ultimately empowering when adopted. The programs feature accountability/sustainability and are being replicated.
The funding issue comes up in congress in the next few weeks. It's time to jettison the "Cold Warrior" mentality that lingers in congress and put shovels in the ground. The Cold War is over. The Russians are not enemies. They are allies in the war against weapons of mass destruction. Write, call, and e-mail your Senators and Congressperson and demand that they support the SASC version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, section 1208 and 1305 authorizing funding for the Shchuche chemical weapons disposal facility.
The weapons are the enemy!
Monk Elmer MD
Fox Valley Physicians for Social Responsibility
Fox Valley/Kurgan-Shchuche Sister Cities Program
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