Related Resources:
Marines Request Censorship of Sunshine Project Website
Online Clearinghouse of "Non-lethal" (Bio)Chemical Weapons Documents
Sunshine Project Main "Non-Lethal" Weapons PageThe Sunshine Project
News Release
19 July 2004
Time for the Pentagon to Lift the Secrecy Surrounding its "Non-Lethal" Chemical and Biological Weapons
Sunshine Project Challenges the Defense Department to Release "Non-Lethal" Weapons Documents
(Austin - 19 July 2004) - Last week, when the Pentagon's lawyers insisted that the Sunshine Project remove documents about US Army chemical weapons research from its website, they called attention to the secrecy that surrounds US development of so-called non-lethal weapons. Belatedly realizing that censorship might backfire and draw more – not less - attention to "non-lethal" secrets, the Marine Corps tried to compensate with delay. It waited until 5:00 PM on Friday to respond to journalist's inquiries so as to try to ensure that the news cropped up outside of major US and international news cycles. Even then it said nothing of substance – it says it is investigating the matter.
The Pentagon has never been forthcoming about the extent of its "non-lethal" programs; but after the Sunshine Project and others began to take action against them at the Chemical Weapons Convention, secrecy has increased and the quality of disclosure under laws such as the Freedom of Information Act has plummeted.
For more than three and half years, the Sunshine Project has closely followed the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD), the coordinating body for US military "non-lethal" weapons research. In September 2002, the Sunshine Project went to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and called for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate programs to develop prohibited chemical weapons under the "non-lethal" moniker. In reply, the US State Department blocked the Sunshine Project’s accreditation to the meeting.
One month later, more than 120 innocent hostages were killed in the Moscow theater by the same kind of "non-lethal" chemical weapon. In 2003, it wasn’t the Sunshine Project that went to the CWC to request action, it was the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). But the result was much the same: The Bush administration again used backroom maneuvers to prevent the ICRC from speaking and to keep "non-lethal" chemical weapons off the CWC's agenda.
"Non-lethal" weapons are a hodgepodge of technologies ranging from simple, well-understood items such as police batons and shields, to the weirdest frontiers of weapons science, like the Navy researcher whose proposal is to permanently "pacify" people by chemically burning out the neurological systems that make humans capable of violence. (His paper was accepted for discussion at a JNLWD-sponsored conference.) With new technologies, such as directed energy, JNLWD plays up the "gee-whiz" factor, resulting in headlines such as "Set Phasers to Stun", although to many observers the various directed-energy devices remind them more of the electric chair than reruns of Star Trek.
When it comes to chemical and biological "non-lethal" weapons, which are prohibited by treaty, JNLWD has the most explaining – and disclosing – to do. To begin with, if all of JNLWD's programs are treaty-compliant and truly "non-lethal", as it insists they are, why operate these programs under high classification? It is difficult to understand why a purportedly non-lethal weapon for missions such as peacekeeping would need to be shrouded in secrecy like that applied to nuclear weapons technology.
Beyond the three documents that the Marine Corps has insisted that the Sunshine Project remove from its website, a world of recent and undisclosed JNLWD and other Pentagon chemical and even biological "non-lethal" weapons research exists. The outlines of these programs can be ascertained through the Freedom of Information Act, related laws, and open sources. It is time for JNLWD and its military partners to come clean and prove that these programs are treaty-compliant and "non-lethal".
To begin the process of adequate public disclosure and discussion, Sunshine Project challenges the Pentagon to release the following materials:
1. The unredacted reports of the project Chemical Immobilizing Agents for Non-Lethal Applications, conducted by Optimetrics, Inc for the US Army Aberdeen Proving Ground in 2000 – 2001, as well as those of all follow-on projects;
2. The unredacted reports of the JNLWD technology investment project Front End Analysis for Non-Lethal Chemicals, conducted in fiscal years 2001 and 2002;
3. The unredacted reports of the project Technical Assessment of Antimateriel Chemical and Biological Agents, conducted at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, in 2000;
4. The unredacted videotapes of late 1990s US Navy (Dahlgren, VA) testing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or "drones") equipped with "non-lethal" payload systems, requested by the Sunshine Project under FOIA a year and half ago, as well as documentation related to this program;
5. The unredacted reports of JNLWD's Loitering Non-Lethal Submunition program, as well the reports of Pentagon projects to develop "non-lethal" chemical missile payload systems, such as those for the ERGM (extended range guided missile) and the loitering "Tomahawk Tactical" cruise missile.
6. The full record of the lectures on antipersonnel "non-lethal" chemical weapons, classified "secret" and periodically given by JNLWD staff at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College since at least 2002.
7. All records deposited at the National Academies of Science for its JNLWD-sponsored non-lethal weapons study. (NAS has been refusing to release these records, at the behest of the Marine Corps and in violation of the Federal Advisory Committees Act, for a year and a half.)