If the NPT collapsed how would we know?

I am wondering, exactly what would be the clear signs that the NPT centered nuclear nonproliferation regime had collapsed. After all collapse of the regime has been discussed for quite some time now. As best I can tell the general scenario for collapse seems to revolve around a “failed” review conference followed by mass withdrawals from the treaty which seems, to me at least, more than a little unrealistic.

Anniversaries and false consciousness

Nonproliferation is my work, and an interest, but there is more to life than the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and their means of delivery. My other interests include World War One, World War Two, and increasingly the period between the wars. This interwar period certainly does not get anywhere near enough attention, and in-so-far as it does get attention the story is a familiar one. The Depression, American isolationism, the rise of the dictatorships, the terrible crime that was appeasement, and of course the inevitability of the Second World War as nothing more than a renewal of the earlier conflict which had failed to resolve the fundamental dispute between Germany and its neighbors. To say that this version of the story is incomplete is to be rather too kind. Fortunately there is an increasingly strong body of work that focuses on the interwar period, not simply as an intermission between two halves of the same long war but rather as a period in its own right.

But for the purposes of this entry I will focus on WW2, which is not unreasonable given that this is a month of significant anniversaries.

June 4 – The Battle of Midway (1942).

June 5 – Rome is captured by Anglo-American forces (1944).

June 6 – The cross-channel invasion of France – D-Day (1944).

June 10 – Italy declares war and launches a failed attempt to invade France (1940).

June 14 – Paris is captured by German forces (1940).

June 19 – France requests an armistice from Germany, thereby acknowledging defeat (1940).

June 21 – End of the Battle of Okinawa (1945).

June 22 – France signs the armistice with Germany at Compiègne (1940).

June 22 – Hitler’s desperate and ill-fated invasion of the USSR – Operation Barbarossa – is launched (1941).

June 22 – Operation Bagration is launched, initiating the liberation of Belarus and the destruction of Army Group Center by Soviet forces (1944).

June 26 – The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco (1945).

Quite apart from the anniversaries listed above there are many additional events which I have refrained from noting.

Living in the United States I have noticed that WW2 history, to the extent that it exists at all in public discourse and the popular mind, essentially boils down to Pearl Harbor, Midway, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Patton, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Atomic Bomb and of course the Holocaust. I know some people who have lamented this rather limited view of one of the more significant conflicts in US history, but generally that is because insufficient attention is being given to their own country, be it Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the UK. Regrettably no one in the US appears to fully appreciate how such a limited understanding of the war short-changes their own country’s efforts.

Of course there are other high points in the public mind, the weakness and failure of France symbolized by the need for the United States to save them in two wars, the gallant determination of Britain and the epic alliance between Britain and the United States. But to return to the starting point: books. Over the last few years I have secured a variety of interesting books, all of them interesting, but some of them essential.

By any measure, the most important book on WW2 that I have bought and read since the late 1990s has to be Adam Tooze’s “Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy.” For those who are already reasonably well-read in WW2 history, and by this I mean that the reader has a firm handle on the basic policies and strategies of the major players, the course of events over the entire duration of the war and the way in which choices made in one theater affected events in another, this book is really indispensable. It cuts through much of the period propaganda that continues to shape popular understandings of the events of the 1930s and 1940s. It emphasizes the extent to which Germany was mobilized in the service of Hitler’s unique combination of social, political and military goals and the difficulties Germany encountered in pursuing that mobilization. It make clear to the reader, in a way it has not been previously, just how truly desperate a gamble Hitler was taking. It also highlights the extent to which many Nazi policies, including some of the most reprehensible crimes of the regime were in fact quite rational responses to the difficulties the regime experienced as it tried to square the circle of conducting a global war against almost the entirety of the industrialized world on the basis of an inadequately developed socio-economic base lacking reliable access to basic resources. Reading through this book attentively cannot help but change your appreciation of all other histories of WW2.

Gerhard Weinberg’s “A World At Arms” is easily the best single volume history of WW2 I have come across. It is far from being the first, and it is scarcely slim, but it really does make a great starting point for someone looking for an in-depth introduction to the war. It does not presume existing knowledge, is nicely arranged with a very satisfying balance of chronological and thematic chapters, and best of all makes a consistent and effective effort to constantly tie developments in one theatre to those in others. This last element is a major part of the book’s strength. By doing this Weinberg gives the reader a fuller grasp of the constant tradeoffs and cross-cutting demands acting on the various powers. As an example Weinberg effectively highlights the significance of the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily in a way I have not encountered previously. Contrary to Soviet criticisms of the Western war effort this invasion provided substantial assistance to the Soviet Union by compelling Hitler to break off the Battle of Kursk and withdraw several powerful units dramatically weakening the German ability to withstand the Soviet counter-offensive. At the same time he draws attention to the difficulties confronting the Anglo-American forces as they sought to train, equip and transport large armies across the Atlantic even as the struggle against the German submarine forces reached a final crescendo. Later he highlights the way in which the Western powers drew German forces away from the battle with the Soviet Union simply by posing a threat of invasion in France, Norway and the Aegean; all this long before any forces could actually set foot in France.

 Frieser’s “The Blitzkrieg Legend” and May’s “Strange Victory” should both be required reading for every person that feels justified in speaking out about the Battle of France. As a general rule public discourse about France in WW2 tends to describe the French as weaklings, cowards, or gross incompetents who never had a chance against the Nazi forces. The focus is usually on divisions in French society between the left and right, allegations of a general malaise thought to have arisen out of the dreadful bloodletting of WW1 that left French morale broken and the country primed for collapse at the first blow. In short the french had no desire to fight and folded like a cheap accordion at the first blow. As if this was not enough we also hear claims that the French army was completely out of touch with the requirements of modern warfare and had no chance in a battle with the modern forces of Germany, epitomized by the dash and verve of the Panzer divisions and their Blitzkrieg assault. The fact that France fell to Germany in a mere 6 weeks in 1940 whereas in 1914 the French army was able to fight the Germans to a standstill and then go on to win the war is held up as confirmation of this whole package.

These two books emphasize the weakness of the whole position. The truth of the matter is that in 1940 France was defeated on the field of battle in a series of hard-fought battles. The French did not simply give up, they were beaten. For the greater part of the Battle of France French forces fought alone, abandoned by their allies and stripped of their best units by an ill-conceived strategy that interacted with an unanticipated German gambit in the worst possible way. There was no concept of Blitzkrieg, this came later. German forces had some tactical and technical advantages but these would never have sufficed for the defeat of France if French leadership had made a point of maintaining an operationally useful reserve force and had refrained from adopting the disastrous Dyle Plan.

As a sideline it is worth noting that British forces made no substantial contribution to the Battle of France choosing to abandon the field by the 18th of May; only 1 week after the campaign opened. The giveaway is the almost complete lack of British fatalities in May and June 1940. British losses are hard to pin down but seem to be in the region of less than 2,000 which is astonishing for such a critical campaign. In contrast French losses in the 6 week campaign exceeded 60,000 killed plus tens of thousands more wounded.

Well that’s probably enough for today. I will refrain from delving into the disaster that was Dunkirk, the ceaseless misrepresentation of the role of fortifications in WW2 including the never-ending claims that the Maginot Line, the Atlantic Wall and the West-Wall were all total failures.

New Books – NP and related – 1st half 2010

For a variety of reasons the book acquisition process has been a lot less energetic so far this year. Of course that doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten anything at all, especially given that the friends of the library book-sale ran through May. Plus, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) continues to send me interesting material from time to time, all of which is free.

Although this time round the book-sale was on balance more than a little disappointing, for me at least, it still managed to yield a few items that were worth a couple of dollars each, or in some cases that I couldn’t say no to @ 25 cents each.

I’m particularly pleased at finding Pierre Gallois’ book. I’ve seen it referenced so many times in my readings but never actually had a copy in my hand. Colin S. Gray is usually a good read, if nothing else his writing is nice and clear. And Thomas Barnett’s book is more than worth the price at 25 cents. Sokolski’s book came from SSI for free but is well worth having. If nothing else it is nice to find a book that address the NPT and makes a point of emphasizing nonproliferation.

The Onion strikes the Bull

h/t to Total Wonkerr for this one. I have read more than my fair share of Chomsky’s political works over the years and this Onion piece nails it, right between the eyes.

Sitting down to a nice oatmeal breakfast, Chomsky picked up a copy of Time, a deceitful, pro-corporate publication that he said would normally infuriate him.

“Yes, this magazine may be nothing more than a subtle media tool intended to obfuscate the government’s violent agenda with comforting bromides, but I’m not going to let that get under my skin,” Chomsky said. “I mean, why should I? It’s absolutely beautiful outside. I should just go and enjoy myself and not think about any of this stuff.”

http://www.theonion.com/articles/exhausted-noam-chomsky-just-going-to-try-and-enjoy,17404/

NPT Fallout – Chemical Weapons

In between celebrating the results of the NPT Review Conference, or bewailing its failure, depending on perspective, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at a related issue that has now been firmly tied to the NPT through the device of the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East. Specifically Chemical Weapons nonproliferation and disarmament.

Section IV, para. 7.c (ii) of the Conclusions and Recommendations for follow-on actions (C&RFFA) of the draft final declaration of the NPT RevCon specifically invites the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to prepare background documentation for the proposed 2012 Conference on the establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

From the standpoint of the OPCW this is a significant development directly contributing to the Secretariat’s ongoing effort to achieve Universalization of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Given that Egypt, Israel and Syria are three of the most important CWC holdouts, and considering that all three are strongly suspected of maintaining CW arsenals this is especially true.

Under the leadership of its second Director-General, Ambassador Rogelio Pfirter, the OPCW Secretariat has made a substantial ongoing effort to advance ratification and accession to the CWC in the middle-east. The effort has been somewhat successful with Iraq being the most recent addition to the roster of regional members in February 2009. The OPCW has also co-hosted a series of regional workshops on universalization in 2005, 2006, 2008, and most recently in 2009 that have at times attracted government representatives from Israel and Syria and NGO representatives from Egypt. In addition Egyptian, Israeli and Syrian officials have all met with the DG on a number of occasions to discuss issues surrounding CWC accession, or at least that is how the meetings have been described. In all likelihood the meetings were probably more in the nature of the OPCW pitching the importance of CWC accession, and the officials politely demurring while expressing their appreciation for the work of the organization and the value of the Convention.

In a 2008 interview with Arms Control Today Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy expressed his country’s standard position on CWC accession. When asked about the likelihood that Egypt would revise its current policy of refusing to accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) Ambassador Fahmy said:

“Very little, if any. Not because we are against the CWC. Quite the contrary, we were the first to make proposals to pursue the prohibition of chemical weapons. If, on the other hand, we saw some movement on the Israeli side regarding the NPT or the zonal agreements, we would review our position quite quickly. We do not have a commitment to chemical weapons. We have a commitment to equal standards for all in the Middle East, and we don’t believe that this commitment has been respected by others.”

In the past the OPCW, through its DG has strongly rejected attempts to link CWC accession to other regional issues. Speaking before the UN General Assembly in October 2006 Ambassador Pfirter observed that Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Syria “have one way or the other allocated the responsibility for the inability to join” to the ongoing regional conflict. He went on to say that “I disagree entirely with that. I believe today there is no moral or strategic or legal excuse to remain outside the chemical weapons ban.”

So, to return to the starting point of this post, Section IV, para. 7.c (ii) of the draft final declaration’s C&RFFA may well be considered something of a success by the leadership of the OPCW. In a real sense it is; it puts the CWC on the agenda of a major regional conference intended to involve all of the remaining states not-party in that region. Furthermore the OPCW has managed to ensure that it is included in this conference despite the primary interest of all but one of the potential regional participants being the Israeli nuclear program. This achievement builds upon the long-standing efforts of the OPCW to ensure that it remains an important part of the international disarmament community; an effort that has also borne fruit in its regular attendance at, and reporting to, the UN General Assembly’s First Committee.,

Having said all of that there is a strong argument to be made that this inclusion in the NPT Final Document and the proposed 2012 Conference on the establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction is actually a substantial setback for the effort to achieve CWC universality.

The source of the setback is Section IV, para. 8 of the draft final declaration’s C&RFFA.

The Conference emphasises the importance of maintaining parallel progress, in substance and timing, in the process leading to achieving total and complete elimination of all WMD in the region, nuclear, chemical and biological.

In one fell swoop this declaration undermines any and all progress made to date by the OPCW in pursuit of regional universalization. Contrary to the OPCW position, the NPT RevCon’s Final Declaration has endorsed the position of Egypt and Syria that accession to the CWC is dependant upon Israel’s accession to the NPT. From now on whenever an effort is made to apply pressure to either of these countries on the issue of CWC accession they will be able to point to the 2010 NPT RevCon Final Declaration and subsequently the entirely predictable failure of the 2012 Conference on the establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction. At the same time this will relieve some of the pressure on Israel to ratify the CWC. 

It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that this is a serious diplomatic failure on someone’s part. Realistically there should have been some way to word the proposal that encouraged the conference without endorsing Egypt and Syria’s respective refusals to accede to the CWC. In contrast Egypt can feel quite satisfied that it has achieved a major diplomatic success. In addition to getting a commitment from the UN and the international community to convene a conference specifically intended to single out Israel and pressure it to give up its nuclear arsenal, Egypt has also managed to take some of the pressure off itself to ratify the CWC.

NPT Conference ends with “Success.”

The NPT Review Conference has concluded after adopting a final declaration that includes a large number of forward looking action items that will serve as the basis for future review conference assessments. The Conference’s outcome is already being hailed as a great nonproliferation success.

I am going to go out on a limb here and posit that it is in fact nothing of the sort. It is arguably a great success for the cause of nuclear disarmament efforts, but as I have contended more than once, disarmament ≠ nonproliferation. It never has and it never will. The two isues are potentially inter-related and measures to address them frequently overlap, usually as a result of political compromise, but they are not and never will be the same thing and should never be discussed in a manner suggesting that they are synonyms.

Part of the problem seems to be the very definition of success in the context of the NPT Review Conference. The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) swiftly published a press release that serves to highlight the problem.

After four weeks of public deliberations and private meetings and years of preparations, the states- party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty successfully produced a final document with specific substantive recommendations for future action. While the final language was not as sweeping as the landmark 1995 and 2000 treaty review conference, this year’s gathering succeeded in sustaining the momentum that developed after President Obama called last year in Prague for moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. [snip]

The success of the Conference comes at a particularly important time, as tensions mount on the Korean Peninsula, the UN Security Council is poised to consider another sanctions resolution on Iran, and the U.S. president seeks to advance an ambitious arms control and disarmament agenda before an increasingly skeptical Congress. It is difficult to assess precisely how the successful outcome of the 2010 NPT Review Conference will impact on these other developments.

The statement initially defines success as simply producing a consensus document; a fairly low bar at best. After all it is not so hard to reach consensus if you don’t press anyone to agree to anything that they might object to. Admittedly this low bar was not negotiated in 2005, but that could easily reflect an effort to actually introduce some substance as opposed to a more general unwillingness or inability to agree.

Moving on we see references to mounting tensions on the Korean penninsula, which won’t be addressed in the least degree by the NPT Review Conference’s consensus final declaration. After all, the mounting tensions have nothing to do with nuclears and everything to do with the North Korean sinking of a South Korean naval vessel. Equally the skepticsm of the U.S. Congress towards President Obama’s ambitious arms control and disarmament agenda is not predicated upon the success or failure of the NPT Review Conference, especially when it is primarily defined in terms of simply concluding a consensus document.

Having said all that, a quick review of the draft final document which was the basis for the final document adopted by the conference suggests that defining the conference as a success s highly dependant on your perspective. So, if disarmament is your primary issue at the NPT Review Conference then there is a great deal to be very excited about. Equally if Israel’s nuclear weapons are your number one concern then this is a singular day worthy of considerable satisfaction. If pressing for unrestricted access to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle is your area of interest the conference has also been a great success. If getting recognition of the nuclear terrorism (non) issue is what you obsess about, then once again, today is a proud day.

But if by chance you are a member of the shrinking community of people who are actually interested in the topic of actual nuclear nonproliferation I don’t see much, on a quick first-read, to be excited or even pleased about.

Flawed NPT reporting

The Independent is running a report on looming problems at the NPT Review Conference with the alarming title Iran sanctions ‘holding up nuclear treaty negotiations’. This report, which ran in today’s edition is a classic example of reporting that doesn’t help. It makes me wonder if the reporter, or perhaps his editor, fully understands the issues that they are writing about. Indeed it almost suggests that the reporter has an agenda that he is trying to push. The problem is not entirely the article, although there are problems, rather it is the relationship between the article and the headline.

Specifically, Iran sanctions “holding up nuclear treaty negotiations” implies, or at encourages the reader to infer, that the developing difficulties at the NPT Review Conference are a direct result of the U.S. government’s decision, which has indeed been criticized, to pursue a U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing tougher sanctions against Iran while the Review Conference is underway in the same building. Although this decision does seem more than a little odd the fact remains that there is very little content in this article to support the headline.

The first supporting element is a statement by a NGO representative speaking on behalf of an organization that has a long history of criticizing U.S. government policy and diplomacy in the areas of nonproliferation and disarmament. Although they do good work, criticism of the US. government from this source is hardly surprising. The quote:

The unveiling of the Iran sanctions resolution “has changed the atmosphere here”, noted Anne Penketh, programme director with BASIC, the British American Security Information Council, who is monitoring the view. The conference, she noted, “has been on a knife-edge from the get-go and I think it still is”.

The only other voice highlighting how this resolution is making a failure of the conference more likely is that of the Iranians. Specifically President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s senior adviser Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi who is quoted as saying that “[t]he draft being discussed at the UN Security Council has no legitimacy at all.” Not exactly earth-shattering and very much in the “well you would say that wouldn’t you” category.

The thing is, the first half of the report contains that actual meat of the issue and clearly indicates that the problem has nothing to do with Iran.

Egypt, backed by most of its Arab neighbours, is threatening to hold the so-called review conference in New York hostage to its demand that firm steps be taken towards establishing a nuclear-free zone for the Middle East, as promised in a special resolution at the end of the 1995 review. Unless some deal can be reached on moving forward on the plan, there is a “strong likelihood” the whole review conference will unravel, a senior Western diplomat said last night.

This development was always a danger at the conference and it is not the first time that the Egyptians, and the rest of the Arab bloc, have held a NPT Review Conference hostage over the issue of Israel. The U.S. failure at this point is nothing less than providing the Egyptians, and their cohorts, with a way to evade criticism for taking a position that threatens a failure of the NPT Review. The U.S. government could have chosen to wait a few more weeks before moving forward on the Iran sanctions resolution.

As an aside, yesterday, the Guardian ran a report addressing the exact same issues and concerns entitled US nuclear talks risk collapse over Middle East plan. In this instance the only problem is the claim that the NPT Review Conference represents U.S. nuclear talks rather than U.N. nuclear talks.

NAM pt. II

Apologies to any loyal readers out there. Unfortunately the real world has intervened in the form of outrageous demands on my time so that I have not been able to produce pt.II yet. It’s coming, and nothing has happened to undermine any of the basic thoughts I had formulated. If anything there is even more wood to add to the pile. The thing is, splitting logs takes time. So apologies, and I should have it up by the end of this weekend.

Legitimate comments may accelerate the process, spam, not so much.

NPT Statements: NAM Pt. 1

Now that the NPT Review Conference has begun in New York, we are beginning to see a parade of formal statements, some interesting, most rather anodyne in nature. While we wait for anything else to happen I am going to pick through a few of these and highlight some aspects that I find interesting, or significant, hopefully in a way that adds something useful to a discussion that all too often amounts to rote repetition of stock phrases and commonplaces.

So, first up is the statement by Indonesia of the common position of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). To begin with a cheap shot, it is amusing that the NAM statement speaks of the need to move beyond the Cold War even though the NAM itself represents nothing quite so much as an ossified organization whose very existence is defined by the Cold War.

Now, more substantial matters. The first thing I notice is that although the word nonproliferation is liberally salted throughout the document it is nowhere used in the context of recommending limits, restrictions or obligations on the activities of Non-Nuclear-Weapons States (NNWS). Instead the focus is solely on chastising Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) for cooperative relationships with states outside the NPT. Indeed the statement goes so far as to insist that:

there should be a firm and complete prohibition on the transfer of all nuclear-related equipment, information, material and facilities, resources or devices, and assistance in the nuclear, scientific or technological fields to the States that are not party to the Treaty in a manner consistent with the declaration on principles and objectives of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament adopted by consensus at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference and the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

Nowhere is the statement will we find a call for new or strengthened measures to make it more difficult for NNWS to acquire nuclear weapons. The example of Iran’s secretive efforts to acquire the nuclear fuel cycle draw no censure and appear not to warrant any changes in policy designed to prevent another state from going down the same road. Instead the NAM actually demands that less be done to prevent this sort of thing insisting that:

. . . the NAM State Parties do not see any room for reinterpretation or setting of conditionsfor the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The undue restrictions currently being applied to many developing countries Parties to the NPT are regrettable and should be removed.

The rest of the statement focuses at length on the need for realization of Article VI by the NWS, the importance of the 1995 Middle East Resolution and the need to achieve its implementation by doing something about Israel, and rejects any suggestion of further defining or reinterpreting the applicaiton of Article X on the right to withdraw from the NPT. 

It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that nonproliferation, as traditionally understood, is of little concern to the NAM members.

To be continued with implications for the stance f the U.S. and its supporters at the NPT.

Iranian CW Facilities: Damghan

I’m doing some work on this topic at the moment. The usual sort of thing; trawling through open-source material to find evidence of Iranian chemical weapons production facilities (CWPF). In this instance I am making an effort to confirm long-standing claims regarding the existence of particular facilities in particular locations.

Unfortunately this process is doing what can only be described as violence to established wisdom.

As an example, for more than 20 years the city of Damghan has been described as hosting a facility that either produces chemical warfare (CW) agents or fills missile warheads with agents produced elsewhere. The initial reports date back to 1988 with one source (Die Welt) claiming the existence of a filling facility, and another (The Observer) claiming a CWPF capable of producing as much as 5 metric tons of CW agent per month. The initial certainty with which this facility was described made its existence seem incontestable. In June 1995 a Jane’s Intelligence Review Special Report even took the trouble to print a (rather grainy) satellite image of the reported locality which they claimed illustrated the facility’s existence. This was accompanied  by a detailed description of the facility (unsourced of course, after all it is Jane’s). Specifically the facility in Damghan was suspicious because

“it has several characteristics of chemical weapon plants: isolation, links to transportation lines, and security. The facility at Damghan is hidden by trees, downwind of town, surrounded by fallow fields and linked to the railroad by a spur.”

The claims as to the facility’s existence were regularly repeated and duly picked up by the NGO community and nonproliferation analysts; examples being the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), the Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS) and of course the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) which was probably the most prolific purveyor of this claim, if only because of the large number of publications that CSIS produces on the topic.

In 2005  Anthony H. Cordesman’s Iran’s Developing Military Capabilities listed Damghan as a possible CWPF, a charge that was repeated in 2006′s Iran’s Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities, the same year’s Iran’s weapons of mass destruction: the real and potential threat, 2009′s Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Birth of a Regional Nuclear Arms Race. An interesting sidebar to this parade of books is that in 1999′s Iran’s Military Forces in Transition Cordesman suggested the reports of a CWPF at Damghan might not be true (p. 342-43); a position that was clearly abandoned.

The thing is, it seems in all these years no one has troubled themselves to take advantage of new tools such as Google Earth. If they had done they would have discovered firstly, that even if there was a rail spur leaving the main track just to the east of Damghan at the location indicated by Jane’s in 1995, there certainly isn’t now. They might also have encountered some difficulties actually locating a chemical factory of any sort in the area indicated, which appears to conform with the village of Varmarzan ( 36°10’46.53″N,  54°25’57.02″E).

Equally if anyone had bothered to actually dig down into the references for this purported facility they might have discovered that everything about this facility ultimately sources back to Die Welt, the Observer and the Iraqi News Agency (INA) all of which are listed in the indispensible Burck and Floweree. Unfortunately the wonders of modern technology are making it difficult for me to access the 1988 editions of Die Welt or the Observer, which makes it impossible to identify the sources for their stories. However, I would not be at all surprised to discover that they too ultimately track back to Iraqi sources.

So what are we left with. Essentially 22 years in which an assertion of potentially dubious origins has been endlessly repeated. In the course of those 22 years the various analysts or commentators that have repeated the story have themselves come to be seen as sources, meaning that the story seemed to have independent confirmation. But in truth there were never more than 3 source stories for the claim that Damghan was a CWPF or alternatively a facility for filling warheads with CW agents. And given the proximity* of the stories printed by Die Welt and the Observer I would not be at all surprised to discover they drew on the same source, meaning there were only ever 2 original sources.

*There is a problem with Burck and Floweree’s sourcing in this instance. Although the story by Die Welt is dated to March 1988 in their text (p. 255) the footnote for this item references a story published on 26 August 1988. Presumably one of these is incorrect. I am surprised that no one has ever, at least so far as I can tell, noticed this and remarked upon it in relating the story of the Damghan CWPF.