Implications for the United States

The success and publicity of the Iraqi chemical weapons program probably will spark “renewed termination” by Thailand, South Korea, Pakistan, and India as well as other countries to develop chemical weapons. The Iraqi experience suggests that attempts to stop a chemical weapons program once facilities are built and most major production equipment or precursor chemicals are in place will be ineffective. Moreover, controls on shipments of precursor chemicals can be circumvented if the purchaser is willing to pay prices well above market rates [redacted]

To have stopped the Iraqi chemical weapons, it would have been necessary to take preventative action early in the process. The program probably could have been stopped in the middle 1970s when the Samarra and Salman Pak facilities were under construction. Intervention in 1981 or 1982, when the Iraqis were still acquiring the production equipment for the facilities, also might have been effective in at least slowing momentum of the program enough to prevent the establishment of the current production capability, if not the actual use of the agents against Iran. [redacted]

The publicity that West Germany received over the association of West Germany received over the association of West German private firms with the Iraqi program was instrumental in forcing Bonn and other West European governments to initiate controls. Similar publicity at an earlier stage of a chemical warfare program could play a useful role in stopping it.

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