Chemical Weapons
Iran's chemical weapons (CW) program was launched during the Iran/Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 through 1988. Both Iran and Iraq are parties were parties to the 1925 Geneva Protocol which prohibited the use of Chemical weapons.
There was never any doubt that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran. Iran reported in 2003 that Iran sustained 100,000 known victims to the use of different types of chemical agents (nerve agents, blistering agents and mixed agents), 35,000 of them were considered serious, due to suffering from long effects of chemical weapons deployed by Iraq (especially mustard gas).
In a declassified report from 1990 [DST-1620S-464-90 15 March 1990], the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that “Iran used chemical weapons late in the war, but never as extensively or successfully as Iraq.”
Reports that Iran used chemical agents to respond to Iraqi chemical attacks on several occasions during that war are controversial. Iraq presented chemical casualties to visiting UN chemical experts in 1987 and 1988. But these individuals may have been victims of Iraq’s careless use of its own chemical munitions. On 14 May 1987 the UN Security Council stated that Iraqi military personnel had sustained injuries from chemical warfare agents, without actually affirming that Iran used chemical weapons against them.
Skeptics argue that the only evidence for the claim that Iran used chemical weapons during the war were unsubstantiated claims of the US government. There were allegations by the US Government at the time that Iran had used chemical weapons against the Kurdish village of Halabja in March 1988. Subsequently, these attacks were attributed by the US Government to Iraq alone.
As reported by Islamic Republic News Agency, on October 19, 1988 [two months after the war had ended], Parliamentary speaker (and future president) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani declared that “ … chemical bombs and biological weapons are poor man’s atomic bombs and can easily be produced. We should at least consider them for our defense…. Although the use of such weapons is inhuman, the war taught us that international laws are only drops of ink on paper.”
Iran was believed to have manufactured weapons for blister, blood, and choking agents; it was also believed to be conducting research on nerve agents. Iran's stockpile of CW was believed to include nerve and blister agents. Iran is working on developing a self-sufficient CW production capacity that includes more effective nerve agents. Along with its shell and bomb delivery systems, Iran may also be producing CW warheads for its Scud missile systems.
Its production capacity was estimated at as much as 1000 tons a year, with major production facilities located at Damghan, 300 km east of Tehran. Other facilities were believed to be located at Esfahan, Parchin and Qazvin. The Iranian chemical weapons infrastructure is very poorly characterized in the open literature, and given the reported scope of this program some had suggested that as many as a dozen other facilities had some significant chemical weapons development, production, storage or training activities.
With extensive foreign assistance, Tehran obtained technology, chemical agent precursors, production equipment, and entire production plants. Although Iran made a concerted effort to attain an independent production capability for all aspects of its CW program, especially, its nerve agent program, it remained dependent on foreign sources for some chemical warfare-related technologies. China as well as Russia were important suppliers of technologies and equipment for Iran’s chemical warfare program.
Since the early 1990s, Iran appeared to have placed a high priority on its CW program because of its inability to respond in kind to Iraq’s chemical attacks, and the discovery of substantial Iraqi efforts with advanced agents, such as the highly persistent nerve agent VX.
Iran signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (in 1993 and 1997 respectively). Under the Chemical Weapons Convention [CWC], Iran was obligated to eliminate its chemical program over a period of years. In approving the Convention, the Majlis accession statement included the notation that “Accusations by States Parties against other States Parties in the absence of a determination of non-compliance by OPCW will seriously undermine the Convention and its repetition may make the Convention meaningless.”
According to Article VII of the CWC, each State Party shall designate or establish a National Authority to serve as the national focal point for effective liaison with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW] and other States Parties The Iranian National Authority was established immediately after the ratification of the CWC. It is under the Supreme National Security Council. The Council which includes the ministers and heads of the following organizations, plays the role of policy making organ. The Council members are: The Ministries of Industry, Agriculture, Construction Jihad, Defence, Health, Petroleum, Trade and Customs being involved in the CWC.
The Regional Seminar on National Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which was hosted by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and organized by the Iranian National Authority (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) with the cooperation of the Secretariat, took place in Tehran from 22 - 25 April 1996. Participants attended a trial inspection at the Shahid Razakani multipurpose chemical plant in Tehran. The Iranian National Authority, facility management, and the Secretariat jointly prepared for this inspection. In accordance with the inspection scenario prepared and distributed to participants well in advance, a non-scheduled chemical product of the facility had been simulated as a Schedule 2 chemical for trial inspection purposes. The inspection was preceded by a pre-inspection briefing and a post-inspection summing-up as stipulated in Article VI and in the relevant paragraphs of the Verification Annex to the Convention.
Iran did not meet the declaration timetable specified by the Convention. Iran's initial declaration was considered incomplete by the OPCW Verification Division, and Tehran subsequently filed an amended declaration. In 1999, Iran informed the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) it could be added to a list of countries previously possessing CW. Tehran claimed that it’s CW stockpile was destroyed before it became a state party to the CWC, and thus not verifiable by the OPCW.
Iran did declare two former CW production facilities. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has since verified that at least one of the Iran’s CW production facilities had been eliminated. The Chemical Weapons Production Facilities declared by Iran have been fully inactivated and verified by OPCW inspectors.
In 1997 the Iranians claimed that their CW capabilities had already been destroyed. In November 1998, Iranian ambassador Mohammad Alborzi’s presentation to the 3rd Conference of States Parties (CSP) to the CWC in The Hague included the admission that Iran had sought to chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, but "Following the establishment of the cease fire (in July 1998), the decision to develop chemical weapons capabilities was reversed and the process was terminated.."
At the First CWC Review Conference , held April and May 2003, the delegate of the Islamic Republic of Iran: H.E. Dr. G. Ali Khoshro Deputy Foreign Minister of Legal and International Affairs. stated that “I have to recall the fact that due to the lack of reaction by the international community against Iraqi chemical weapons attack during the 8 year imposed war, in the last phase we got the chemical capabilities, but we did not use it, and following the cease fire we did decided to dismantle. We did destroy the facilities under the supervision of the OPCW inspectors and we got the certificate of the destruction of CWPF.”
It is intended that destruction and/or conversion activities was to be completed within 10 years of the Convention entering into force in 1997. The Convention provided for the possibility of a one-time extension of the final chemical weapons destruction deadline by up to five years, to 2012. In 2007, Albania became the first State Party to complete destruction of its entire CW stockpile. This achievement was confirmed by the OPCW on July 11, 2007.
On 8 December 2000, a statement by the Director-General of the OPCW said in part, that “the Secretariat wishes to reiterate that it has no reason whatsoever to question Iran’s full compliance with the CWC, and that the application of verification measures in Iran is strictly in accordance with the Convention. There are no grounds for any concern or ambiguity in this regard. Furthermore, all verification activities in the Islamic Republic of Iran have been conducted in an atmosphere of openness and transparency, and with the full cooperation of the Iranian Government. Equally, none of the 140 other States Parties has raised any such concerns within the OPCW, which is the sole competent and legitimate authority to verify compliance with the Convention.” The United States has publicly accused China, Iran, Russia, and Sudan of violating the CWC, but has not pursued these allegations through challenge inspections through the CWC.
According to the CIA’s first of two Unclassified Report to Congress on the acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions (Sect. 721 reports) in 1997 “Iran already has manufactured and stockpiled CW, including blister, blood and choking agents and the bombs and artillery shells for delivering them.” The DoD in the Proliferation: Threat and Response of the same year confirmed the CIA’s findings and also concluded that Iran was researching various nerve agents as well.
In the first half of 2000, according to both the Director and the Deputy Director of the Director of Central Intelligence’s Nonproliferation Center, Iran was estimated to have an inventory of several thousand tons of various agents. These agents included sulfur mustard, phosgene, cyanide, and nerve agents, both weaponized and bulk. In the second of the Sect. 721 reports in 2000 said only that Iran “probably” had nerve agents.
From 2003 to the latest reports in 2007 the U.S. intelligence community seems to have been softening its view on the extent of Iran’s chemical weapon’s production and stockpiles. The first Sect 721 report of 2003 claimed Iran “likely has already stockpiled blister, blood choking, and probably nerve agents “. The Sec. 721 report, publicly released in May 2006, but covering activities in 2004, made no reference to stockpiles and delivery systems. What remained was a statement that Iran “continued to seek production technology, training, and expertise from foreign entities that could further Tehran’s efforts to achieve an indigenous capability to produce nerve agents.” The 2007 report stated that “Iran has a large and growing commercial chemical industry that could be used to support a chemical agent mobilization capability.
The February 2008 testimony to the SSCI by DNI Mike McConnell stated that: "Tehran maintains dual-use facilities intended to produce CW agent in times of need and conducts research that may have offensive applications. We assess Iran maintains a capability to weaponize CW agents in a variety of delivery systems."
The reasoning behind the change in the intelligence community’s stance is not known, but two theories have been suggested. It is possible that since 2003 there has been evidence which required that a change in the projected size and scope of Iran’s CW program. It is also possible that the consequences of the problematic intelligence from the CIA concerning Iraq prompted a second look at the chemical weapon intelligence that has been collected.
As Iran became more self-sufficient at producing chemical agents, there was a potential that it could become a supplier to others trying to develop CW capabilities. Iran supplied Libya with chemical agents in 1987. In an January 14, 2008, interview before the Israeli Knesset the Israeli Military Intelligence research chief Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser said that “the possibility certainly exists” for Iran to supply chemical weapons to Hezbollah. This suggests that Israeli intelligence holds open the possibility either that Iran has covertly retained undeclared stocks of chemical weapons, or that such agents could be quickly [and possibly covertly] manufactured.
