Russia lags in destroying chemical arms

This season, the Fox TV hit series "24" revolves around the threat of chemical terrorism. Thus far, a gang of Russian separatists has stolen pressurized canisters from the U.S. military containing "Sentox" nerve gas (presumably sarin) and planted them in the ventilation systems of a shopping mall and the Los Angeles office of the (fictional U.S. government) Counter-Terrorist Unit. The gang then triggered them by remote control, killing several dozen people. Now the terrorists have stashed 17 canisters of Sentox in a natural gas distribution facility in downtown L.A. and are planning to kill thousands — unless "24's" hero, Special Agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), can foil the plot in time.

Beyond a few technical quibbles, such as the fact that U.S. nerve agents are not stored in pressurized canisters with cipher locks but rather in rockets, bombs and artillery shells, the show seems all too plausible. Osama bin Laden has openly declared al-Qaida's intention to obtain weapons of mass destruction, of which chemical agents would be the easiest to acquire and use.

Nevertheless, the plot of "24" is misleading in one important respect: the source of the chemical weapons. The script has the terrorists stealing nerve-gas canisters that were secretly produced for the U.S. military and stored in an airport hangar. In fact, since 9/11, the Cold War stocks of chemical rockets, bombs and shells awaiting destruction at seven U.S. Army depots across the country have been well-secured, most in heavily protected concrete bunkers.

At much greater risk of theft are chemicals in depots in Russia, which has the world's largest stockpile of chemical weapons — about 40,000 metric tons. And Russia is also far behind on the timetable for eliminating them under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which the United States and Russia have signed and ratified.

To date, the United States, Canada and European Union countries have committed about $2 billion to help Russia destroy its chemical weapons, but the program has suffered repeated delays. Although the Russian government claims that all of the weapons will be eliminated by 2012, that date is probably unrealistic.

Only the smallest of Russia's stockpiles — 1,143 metric tons of the blister agents lewisite and mustard at Gorny — has been destroyed. A second blister agent destruction facility at Kambarka began operation recently

Two other storage sites, at Shchuchye on the Kazakhstan border and at Kizner, about 650 miles east of Moscow, contain millions of munitions filled with nerve agents. Destruction of those chemical weapons won't begin until December 2008 at the earliest.