Weapons of Mass Destruction

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 3:33 pm on 22 March 2005.

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Photo of Mr Malcolm Savidge Mr Malcolm Savidge Labour, Aberdeen North 3:33, 22 March 2005

And the same Deputy Speaker.

I also want to concentrate on the relevant section of the United Nations Secretary-General's high-level panel report, "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility", to which the Secretary-General responded yesterday.

I said in the debate on 18 January 2000 that I felt insufficient media attention was given to this subject, although it has received considerably more subsequently. Initially, that was in part due to the all-party group on global security and non-proliferation, which was established that same week.

The Foreign Affairs Committee, in a report that year on weapons of mass destruction, said:

"Media interest in nuclear weapons and arms control treaties was boosted in March 2000 when Michael Douglas, UN Goodwill Ambassador, urged Members of Parliament to encourage the Prime Minister to take a leading role in preserving arms control regimes."

It said also that while the British and international media coverage had "eye-catching headlines", it gave serious coverage to the issue, which was followed up in a further meeting that we had with the then UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, Jayantha Dhanapala.

More permanently, the issue has also featured highly as a result of the terrible events of 9/11. Although they did not involve WMD, they bought to our attention the threat of WMD and terrorism. It is a matter of common consent that they are a major problem and one about which our worries have increased since 2000.

As I have said before, it is important that we use careful definitions in relation to WMD and terrorism, particularly as they can be used as a pretext for war. As many people have said, the term "WMD" contains the danger that, although it is a useful phrase, it blurs the difference between the threats posed by different forms of weapon. The radiological weapon, or dirty bomb, is sometimes included in this area. As the high-level panel's report says, it should perhaps be described as a weapon of mass disruption in that it would probably cause comparatively few fatalities, but could lead to a large part of a city being uninhabitable for a while.

The vast majority of chemical and biological threats would also not cause mass fatalities. A lot of loose talk is used in relation to lethal materials such as ricin, which have not been put into a weaponised form that could be used to kill a large number of people at the same time. Similarly, it should be remembered that the worst case analysis of an anthrax attack on Washington was based on a highly sophisticated weaponised version of that agent being used.

However, one cannot rule out the possibility of serious biological attacks if, for example, someone wished to cause indiscriminate death on a large scale and distributed a virus in a hub airport. There is also the possible danger, as the report indicates, of biotechnology or genetic manipulation enabling things of a much more serious nature to occur. In general, it is true of nuclear weapons that we can say, as the report does, that any use would be catastrophic.

On terrorism, it is perhaps important to define the terms we use, because while all terrorism is heinous—the high-level panel correctly condemns all forms of terrorism—it is probably true that the majority of political terrorists would not find it in their own interest to cause massive fatalities. However, they might find that something such as a dirty bomb would be in their interests.

It is only the absolutist, unconditional, apocalyptic groups of the type that the Prime Minister described shortly after the events of 9/11 that would want to kill very large numbers of people. We think primarily of al-Qaeda, but we should not think just of Islamic fundamentalism, as can be seen from the examples of the Aum sect or Timothy McVeigh. We should also recognise that we cannot rule out the possibility that political terrorist groups can become absolutist terrorist groups, be it through fanaticism or frustration.

If we are to reduce chemical and biological terrorist risks, we need to get far better control of the stocks that exist, particularly in the former Soviet Union. As the high-level panel says, we need to apply the chemical weapons convention and set about trying to destroy all chemical weapons by the target date of 2012. We also need to seek to establish, through negotiation, a biological and toxic weapons convention with proper verification.