the Chemical Weapon Convention proposed inspections of potential sites
wthout warning, because the US would not tolerate them. It also forced
the
change of the head of the organisation because he did not realise that
the
US was above suspicison!

Most of the chemical weapons the US has I wouldn't even dare to put on
a plane if it were up to me. They're OLD. We were going to build
binary munitions but I think it got canned. Also a place where they
destroy them (Dugway) is a few dozen miles away and there for a couple
years it was ALWAYS in the local news.

I don't believe that the US has an active offensive chemical weapons
program. The issue was that the facilities to create pesticides and
chemical weapons are VERY similar (or even the same). The US view was that
it was totally presumptious for the rest of the world to SUSPECT that the US
might have such a plan, and that the inspection of US commercial chemical
production facilities was going to only be "industrial espionage".

This is similar to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, where there are no IAEA
inspections of any US nuclear facilities (comercial or military), and
ceratinly no snap inspections without warning. It is interesting to see the
US say that the Iranian's have no credible need of a commercial nuclear
power industry because they have natural gas and oil reserves, and
particularly no need of uranium enrichment facilities. If this logic is
applied to UK, Russia and USA (but not France and Japan) then the same
applies because of large fossil fuel reserves in those countries (oil,
natuaral gas, and coal). This is also an interesting position in light of
the US proposals to use commercial nuclear power to limit CO2 emmissions.

It is of note that the US has just embarked on a new large commercial
uranium centrifuge enrichment program (using EU technology) to repace its
old gaseous diffusion plants that date from the 1950s & 1960s. Under
current international agreements there will be no need for IAEA safeguards
on the new facilities.

The issue that I am raising is not that the US has undeclared active WMD
programs but the double standards used by the US in dealing with other
countries. There is a presumtion of guilt when dealing with states that the
US does not like, and a presumption of innocence when dealing with US
friends. The history of the last 50 years does not justify any such
presumptions. The international oversight process (through organisations
such as IAEA) should apply equally to all states, and when the US funds new
development into low yield tactical nuclear weapons (as is happening now) it
should have the same challenges as when North Korea is developing nuclear
weapons for a deterent program.

David