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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector-Not that it matters much. But what prevents me from sending this to the list?
Bob, have you received it privately?I got a failure message.
Sunshine-project under the freedom of information act received "accidentally?" heavily censured documents that - as is claimed in the accompanying letter from the Marine Corps - should have gone to the Pentagon for evaluation first, and possibly never be released at all?"Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Project requested the documents from the US Marine Corps in September 2001. After delaying for more than two years, in late 2003 the Marine Corps responded in a letter stating that the documents, titled "Demonstration of Chemical Immobilizers", "Antipersonnel Calmative Agents", and "Antipersonnel Chemical Immobilizers: Synthetic Opiods", required a security review that the Marine Corps Systems Command could not perform. This status strongly suggested that the documents would be severely edited or not released at all. Inexplicably, in the same envelope as the security review letter, the Marines enclosed a complete set of the documents. The Marines also sent the Sunshine Project versions of the chemical weapons papers with large blocks of text blacked-out. These apparently were the Marines' view of what portions should remain secret. The circumstances suggest that the Marines sent the Sunshine Project the documents that were supposed to go to the Pentagon for security review."
Advanced Rioting Control Agent Device
"In 1992, the US Army's ARCAD program was supposed to have been terminated because of prohibitions in the Chemical Weapons Convention, which was then in late stages of negotiation. But it is now clear that elements of the program continued to operate under a new guise. As of 2002, ARCAD's legacy was being pursued with a new institutional base - the US Marine Corps-directed Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD). Weapons development deemed legally unacceptable in 1992 has found new life with the "non-R lethal" moniker, despite US ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention and attacks on states alleged to be developing chemical and biological weapons."
... "From here, the story gets murky" ...
Austin and Hamburg - 6 January 2004 - http://www.sunshine-project.org
The Return of ARCAD --------------------Accidentally-released documents reveal links between current 'non-lethal' weapons research and a Cold War chemical weapons program cancelled in 1992 because of its treaty-busting implications.Newly-released US government documents indicate that recent Pentagon research on so-called "non-lethal" weapons is a revived version of a weapons program that was cancelled due to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Elements of the decade-old program on incapacitating chemicals, called ARCAD (Advanced Riot Control Agent Device), have been re-initiated by the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. The links that Sunshine Project Freedom of Information Act requests have established between ARCAD and recent research underscore how and why the Pentagon's "non-lethal" weapons program threatens treaty controls on chemical and biological weapons.In 1992, the US Army's ARCAD program was supposed to have been terminated because of prohibitions in the Chemical Weapons Convention, which was then in late stages of negotiation. But it is now clear that elements of the program continued to operate under a new guise. As of 2002, ARCAD's legacy was being pursued with a new institutional base - the US Marine Corps-directed Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD). Weapons development deemed legally unacceptable in 1992 has found new life with the "non- lethal" moniker, despite US ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention and attacks on states alleged to be developing chemical and biological weapons.The Story: From ARCAD to Front End Analysis (and Beyond?) -------------------------- ------------------------------- Building on Cold War research, by the early 1990s, US Army weapons developers at Aberdeen Proving Ground (Maryland) were making headway in a quest for new incapacitating chemical weapons. Foreshadowing the Moscow Theater disaster a decade later, they reported in early 1992 that they had weaponized chemical cocktails of powerful opiates, such as fentanyl, mixed with supposedly safety- enhancing chemicals (opiate antagonists, similar to those used to treat heroin overdose). The weapons were designed to knock out groups of people, in battle and in other situations, presumably including "rioting" civilians.The Army was making headway in weapons design, but the collapse of the Soviet Union had turned political winds toward disarmament and decidedly against new chemical weapons. International momentum was building for a global ban on chemical weapons and, in September 1992, the text of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was completed. Anticipating the CWC's restrictions, in 1992 the Pentagon cancelled the Advanced Riot Control Agent Device (ARCAD) program. The decision, quoting an Army official in the recently-released papers, "because of multilateral treaty language restricting the use of riot control agents".But frustrated Army weapons developers were unwilling to let ARCAD die. Spurred on by a dispute that arose between experts about the extent of the CWC's prohibitions on use of incapacitating chemicals, they cited a Vietnam-era policy (Executive Order 11850, still standing) that conflicts with the CWC. They found interest in their chemical weapons research at the Non-Lethal Coordinating Cell, a small new Pentagon office with big plans and influential backers, including US military strategist Paul Wolfowitz. Impelled by the US military's disastrous deployment to Mogadishu, Somalia, the Coordinating Cell was looking for new ways to neutralize crowds of civilians. Later, the Coordinating Cell came under the administration of the US Marine Corps and was renamed the Joint Non- Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD).When the Coordinating Cell obtained research funding and put out a request for proposals, the Army chemical weaponeers saw their chance. In proposals written in 1994, they not only sought to restart ARCAD, they requested JNLWD support to move into aerosol testing of the opiate cocktails. They also proposed new ideas, such as studying weaponization of an experimental pharmaceutical suggested to the Army by a University of Utah anesthesiologist who had seen it used to tranquilize wild elk (Cervus elaphus). Also new were short-acting opiates being developed by Glaxo Pharmaceuticals (now GlaxoSmithKline). In its proposals, the Army group asserted that the military could legally use the chemical as weapons for "peacekeeping missions; crowd control; embassy protection; and counterterrorism."From here, the story gets murky; but important new detail is available. For five years, there was no public action by JNLWD on the (heretofore confidential) Army proposals. Despite JNLWD's denials that it is engaged in chemical weapons development, a contract released to the Sunshine Project under FOIA in 2002 states that, in 2001, the Directorate trained Marine Corps officers in the use of classified antipersonnel "non-lethal" chemical weapons.In light of the newly-released documents, it was in 2000 that the ARCAD program resurfaced publicly in the form of a Pentagon contract awarded to the Optimetrics, Inc. The Optimetrics studies parallel those proposed by the Army to JNLWD in 1994. Not coincidentally, the lead researcher was C. Parker Ferguson, an Aberdeen Proving Ground veteran who pushed JNLWD to revive ARCAD in 1994. By 2000, Ferguson had left for Aberdeen for Optimetric's nearby office in Bel Air, Maryland. Phase One of the Optimetrics contract was a "Front End Analysis" of Chemical Immobilizing Agents, including testing of "promising" chemical cocktails on animals. Phase Two moved into human testing.Not long after the Optimetrics contract issued, JNLWD launched a two year research program titled "Front End Analysis for Non-Lethal Chemicals" (FY 2001 and 2002). While this JNLWD program was operating (including during the Moscow Theater disaster), the Directorate vociferously, incorrectly denied that it was conducting research on incapacitating chemical weapons. Contradicting its own public relations officers, in early 2003 a short document describing the "Front End Analysis" program was briefly posted on the JNLWD website (and then rather quickly removed). The Optimetrics and JNLWD efforts appear to be linked; but the exact relationships remain unclear because both JNLWD and the Army deny that they are collaborating to develop new chemical weapons.With the recent release of papers, how JNLWD's research has come from the cancelled ARCAD program can finally be documented. The documents are the set of proposals made in 1994 by the Army and, interestingly, it is in these proposals that the term "Front End Analysis" first appears to describe phase one of ARCAD's revival. The totality of the circumstances, including specific terminology, personnel, preferred chemical formulations, and other materials obtained under FOIA (available on the Sunshine Project website), make clear that, after ARCAD was officially cancelled, at least part of the program was folded into the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. (What additional work has been conducted under classification is unknown.)The significance of the documents is far more than historical. ARCAD was terminated because, in 1992, the Pentagon determined that it would violate the Chemical Weapons Convention. But it is now clear that the weapons research did not end. As of 2002 ARCAD's legacy was being pursued with a new institutional base - the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. The research appears to have resulted in classified antipersonnel chemical capabilities, according the JNLWD contract to train Marine Corps officers. US chemical weapons development deemed legally unacceptable in 1992 has found new life with the "non-lethal" moniker.
(Apparently) Accidental Release --------------- ---------------- Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Project requested the documents from the US Marine Corps in September 2001. After delaying for more than two years, in late 2003 the Marine Corps responded in a letter stating that the documents, titled "Demonstration of Chemical Immobilizers", "Antipersonnel Calmative Agents", and "Antipersonnel Chemical Immobilizers: Synthetic Opiods", required a security review that the Marine Corps Systems Command could not perform. This status strongly suggested that the documents would be severely edited or not released at all. Inexplicably, in the same envelope as the security review letter, the Marines enclosed a complete set of the documents. The Marines also sent the Sunshine Project versions of the chemical weapons papers with large blocks of text blacked- out. These apparently were the Marines' view of what portions should remain secret. The circumstances suggest that the Marines sent the Sunshine Project the documents that were supposed to go to the Pentagon for security review. After study, the Sunshine Project determined to publicize the documents because they shed light on JNLWD's secretive chemical weapons research program and how it threatens international treaties.The documents mentioned above, as well as related materials on US research on "non-lethal" chemical and biological weapons may be downloaded from the Project website at { "http://www.sunshine- project.org"}http://www.sunshine- project.org
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