....LMB: "Better Living Through Chemical Warfare"....

April 16, 2002

The real news story that bothered me today was this one.

The short version is that the US government is trying to get Jose Bustani, head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) fired from his job. The OPCW is one of the most successful disarmament agencies in history and has done great things under Bustani's leadership. In the past five years he has overseen the destruction of 2 million chemical weapons, 2/3 of the world's chemical weapons facilities (I admit, that number seems a little fishy. Surely there are secret facilities that can't have factored into that statistic), and increased the number of countries who prohibit chemical weapons from 87 to 145. Sounds like the man is doing some great work. So why does the US want to get him fired?

Poor Bustani does not understand politics, or has chosen not to let political considerations influence his judgement. For example, made the ludicrous effort to send weapons inspectors to facilities in the US. While this is perfectly rational and egalitarian, the US government has shown time and time again that it feels that it is above the law and will not tolerate attempts to hold it accountable to international rules (for example, just last week the International Criminal Court came into being. The US opposed it because the Court would not make US citizens immune from its prosecution).

But Bustani is not under fire for his "arrogance" in expecting the US to live up to its part of the treaty agreements. You see, Bustani's agency is so well-known for its impartiality and fairness, it looks as though Iraq may agree to allow OPCW inspectors into the country to search for chemical weapons. If the inspectors can verify that there are no chemical weapons in Iraq, the US rationale for invading Iraq crumbles. For some reason, George W. seems hell-bent on invading Iraq and has trotted out the flimsy excuse that Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction." If Bustani and the OPCW can disprove that excuse, George W's evil schemes are foiled.

Of course, that's not how the US tells it. They accuse Bustani of a poor "management style," "financial mismanagement," "bias," and "ill-considered initiatives." The US seems to be the only country that feels this way though. The US asked Brazil to recall him; they refused. They proposed a vote of no confidence; they lost. In May 2000, Bustani was elected unanimously to continue his work of the OPCW. And yet the US may get its wish just the same.

Apparently, the US holds many of the purse-strings for the OPCW, and will force another vote on Bustani this coming Sunday. The US seems poised to demand that Bustani resign or it will allow the OPCW to wither and die. Sad. Sounds like Bustani was doing a good job of keeping Sarin, VX and mustard gases out of my lungs. The US makes my lungs a little more vulnerable, and some months from now will probably turn Iraq into an even smokier, more desolate hell-slum of doom. Granted, they might oust Saddam Hussein, but there's no guarantee that the new boss'll be any better than the old boss.

This seems like a good time to mention a little historical footnote. Remember back in 1998 when Saddam Hussein accused the UN weapons inspectors of being spies? And then the US used his expulsion of the inspectors as a pretense to bomb Iraq some more? Well guess what! It turns out that the weapons inspectors were spying on Iraq! (check the old article here. And the final icing on the cake in that story is that American journalists found out that the inspectors were spying on Iraq in October of 1998, but chose not to publish that information until January of 1999. If they'd printed the story when they first learned of it, the US might not have bombed Iraq again, and many people might not have died.