'Ready to Be Used'
The small army outpost that serves as a holding cell for Albania's chemical stockpile is less than 25 miles from Tirana, the dusty capital of this mountainous country of 3.4 million people. But reaching it requires a treacherous journey over steep mountain roads better suited for goats than the four-wheel drive vehicles and ancient microbuses that regularly ply them.
Asphalt quickly gives way to narrow dirt trails hewn into the sides of the scrub-covered hills. Finally, a rutted path branches sharply to the right to reveal a cluster of bunkers, some of them cut into the mountain itself. The largest bunker, a flat-roofed brick structure no bigger than a volleyball court, is surrounded by a double curtain of wire fences, the inner one newly installed with U.S. aid and festooned with various sensors and cameras. It is here that Hoxha's chemicals are stored.
Albanian officers guard a depot outside the capital that houses 16 tons of chemical weapons imported in the 1970s, apparently from the Chinese military. The chemicals theoretically contain enough poison for millions of lethal doses.
(Joby Warrick -- The Washington Post)
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On a recent afternoon, a small cluster of young army guards, wearing green fatigues and toting Kalashnikov rifles, kept a wary eye on visitors to the compound while some of their comrades scoured the brush for firewood to ward off the December chill. Standing just outside the largest bunker, Albanian Lt. Col. Fadil Vucaj pointed out the multiple layers of security and explained, in the matter-of-fact language of a career military officer, why such unusual protections were needed.
"These chemicals stored here could be used as weapons of mass destruction," said Vucaj, a chemical weapons expert. "You could spray them from an airplane or use them in a bomb. They are ready to be used, just as they are."
Inside the building are row after row of containers and bottles of various colors and sizes. Most are red cylinders roughly the size of a propane tank. Numerals and, in some cases, Chinese characters are clearly visible on the outer casing. The Chinese writing identifies the contents of each container but not the origin. Altogether, the bunkers hold nearly 600 vessels containing about 16 tons of what is known in military jargon as "bulk agent."
The chemicals inside the canisters are products of an early generation of chemical weapons engineering. Yperite, a colorless or brown liquid with a garlicky odor, was the chief cause of death and injury from chemical warfare during World War I. Lewisite was the result of a U.S. attempt to improve on Yperite's lethality, but its invention in 1918 came too late for its use in the Great War. Other chemicals in the stockpile include a yperite-lewisite blend sometimes known as HL, as well as other chemicals designed to incapacitate, rather than kill.
The Albanian chemicals aren't nearly as deadly as more modern nerve agents, such as sarin and VX. But if released in a crowded stadium or subway car, they could cause scores or perhaps hundreds of casualties, U.S. and Albanian officials say. And, before their rediscovery by the Albanians, they would have been an easy target for thieves.
"The tanks are in good condition, they don't leak, and they are portable," Vucaj said. "To terrorists, they would have been very attractive."
A History of Isolation
Hoxha's intentions in acquiring the chemicals can be reliably deduced from his record as Europe's long-serving communist autocrat. After taking control of the country in 1944, the xenophobic Hoxha (pronounced HOE-djah) alienated one powerful ally after another as he led his impoverished country into extreme isolation.
An admirer of Joseph Stalin, Hoxha broke with the Soviet Union in the late 1960s after denouncing Nikita Khrushchev for straying from Marxist principles. He publicly applauded Mao Zedong's brutal Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, a move that briefly earned Albania special status as China's proxy at the United Nations and its chief ally in Europe. China rewarded Hoxha with massive amounts of economic and military aid, including large quantities of arms.
It was during this period, probably in the middle 1970s, that Albania acquired the chemicals, U.S. and Albanian officials say. To analysts, the Chinese pedigree of the chemicals is self-evident, given the Chinese labels on the canisters and the close military ties that existed between the two countries. China has acknowledged producing chemical weapons in the past, although it now says its stockpiles and production facilities have all been destroyed.
The Albanians are less willing to point fingers. "Where the material came from is a question for technicians to answer," said Pandeli Majko, Albania's 37-year-old defense minister and a former prime minister. "For us, the important thing is that it is being destroyed."
The arms pipeline between Albania and the Chinese military machine went dry in the late 1970s when Hoxha soured on his new partners, publicly scolding the Chinese for seeking to normalize ties with the West. By 1979, Albania was virtually friendless in the world, with a plummeting standard of living that already was the lowest in Europe.
To keep control over his population, Hoxha stoked fears of an imminent invasion by any of a number of foreign armies said to be plotting together to destroy what he called his "workers' paradise" -- a favorite phrase among communist leaders. He drafted legions of laborers for Albania's most ambitious public works project: the construction throughout the country of 750,000 military bunkers, one for every four Albanians living at the time.
