User:ClockworkSoul/Chemical Weapon Proliferation

Despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them, many nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical weapon agents. To the right is a summary of the nations that have either declared weapon stockpiles, or are suspected of secretly stockpiling or possessing CW research programs.

China
According to the testimony Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, it is very probable that China has an advanced chemical warfare program, including research and development, production, and weaponization capabilities. Furthermore, there is considerable concern from the US regarding China's contact and sharing of chemical weapons expertise with other states of proliferation concern, including Syria and Iran.

Egypt
In testimony before the Subcommittee on Seapower, Strategic and Critical Materials in 1991, US Navy Rear Admiral Thomas Brooks identified Egypt as a "probable" chemical weapons possessor.

Additionally, in the 1960s Egypt supplied Syria and Iraq with chemical weapons, and used mustard gas in the Yemeni civil war.

India
In 1997, in compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Indian government declared that it possessed a chemical weapons stockpile and opened its related facilities for inspection. Also in compliance with the CWC, it has begun to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile. 

Israel
As of December 2004, Israel has signed but not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, and according to the Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service, Israel has significant stores of chemical weapons of its own manufacture. It posseses a highly developed chemical and petrochemical industry, skilled specialists, and stocks of source material, and is capable of producing several nerve, blister and incapacitating agents.

In 1974, in a hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, General Almquist stated that Israel had an offensive chemical weapons capability.

In 1992, an El Al Airlines plane bound for Tel Aviv crashed outside Amsterdam. In the course of investigation into the crash, it was revealed that among the plane's cargo was fifty gallons of dimethyl methylphosphonate, a chemical that can be used in the production of the nerve agent sarin, bound for the Institute for Biological Research in Nes Ziona, a top secret military installation outside Tel Aviv that was also responsible for producing the poison used in a September 1997 assassination attempt on a leader of the terrorist organization Hamas. According to Israeli officials, the substance was only for defensive research purposes, to test filters for gas masks.

In October 1998, The London Sunday Times reported that Israeli F-16 fighters were equipped to carry chemical weapons, and that their crews have been trained on the use of such weapons.

Resources

 * Senate Armed Services Committee, FY 1975 Authorization Hearing, Part 5, March 7, 1974
 * Uzi Mahnaimi, "Israeli Jets Equipped For Chemical Warfare," London Sunday Times, October 4, 1998
 * "Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East" web page at http://www.cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/israel.htm.