The Nation - News from Aug. 11, 1989

Developmental problems with the Bigeye chemical bomb remain unresolved, a congressional agency said. Tests in such areas as pressure buildup, purity and flash burning are incomplete, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in a report. The Bigeye bomb is a binary chemical weapon that the Defense Department plans to build to modernize the U.S. arsenal. In February, 1988, President Ronald Reagan certified the bomb as essential to national security, authorizing the Pentagon to spend $90 million to build production facilities. Binary weapons are composed of two chemicals kept separate until the bomb is dropped.