By Norm Dixon
Chemical weapons transported from Germany to Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific last year are to be kept in reserve and will be the last to be destroyed. This was revealed by the New Zealand branch of Scientists Against Nuclear Arms, based on newly released records from the US Congress containing testimony from a Defense Department official.
Dr Peter Wills, a physicist with the Peace Studies Centre at Auckland University, told Radio Australia that Pacific island nations have been deceived.
"When the public relations teams from the US army and military came around the South Pacific, they concentrated only on the trial destruction of the chemical weapons which has been taking place at Johnston Atoll ... They weren't prepared to discuss in any detail the fact that Johnston Atoll is a place where chemical weapons are stored available for deployment, where deployment is practised, where the weapons are held in reserve and, in fact, where weapons in the course of the past couple of years have been renovated ready for use."
Wills says the evidence has been produced in Congress: "We've got documents that come directly from the army stating what sort of exercises they have, the kind of training they give to troops when they bring them to Johnston Island and, just recently, we've got the statement that the weapons that they brought from Germany were brought to Johnston Island for the purpose of holding them there in reserve. The story [the US military told was] that they would be incinerated but that was going to be a long, long way down the line ... that is still the situation now."
The weapons may have been put on stand-by for use during the Gulf War, Wills said. "I've approached the US embassy here and I've asked them were weapons shipped out of Johnston Atoll to Diego Garcia during the war, particularly the bombs that would be used by the air force, and they've been absolutely tight-lipped. They won't even talk about the subject."