CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTIONSENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE APRIL 1997
CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION
S. Hrg. 105-183
CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION
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HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Remarks by President Bill Clinton and Others at the White House,
April 4, 1997.................................................. 321
False Promises, Fatal Flaws: The Chemical Weapons Convention
[Prepared by Empower America].................................. 326
Letters and Other Material Submitted in Support of Ratification
of the Chemical Weapons Convention:
American Ex-Prisoners of War................................. 329
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S.......................... 329
Reserve Officers Association of the United States............ 329
Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A............................. 330
Prepared Statement of Brad Roberts, Institute for Defense
Analyses................................................... 331
Letters Submitted in Opposition to Ratification of the Chemical
Weapons Convention:
Sterling Chemicals........................................... 335
Small Business Survival Committee............................ 335
Statement by Ronald F. Lehman Before the U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, June 9, 1994.............................. 337
__________
Remarks by President Bill Clinton and Others at White House, April 4,
1997 Chemical Weapons Convention Event
Also Speaking: Vice President Al Gore, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Former Secretary of State
James Baker, Former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker (R-KS)
Vice President Gore. Please. Be seated, ladies and gentlemen.
On behalf of the President it is my pleasure to welcome all of you
on this beautiful spring day to the White House.
I'm very pleased to be here this morning with a most distinguished
group of Americans joining the President here today: the Secretary of
State, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of
Commerce, our U.N. Ambassador, other members of the Cabinet and the
administration; leaders from the legislative branch, Senators Biden and
Levin and others; former government officials and current ones,
Democrats and Republicans; wise patriots like General Colin Powell and
former Secretary of State Jim Baker; Paul Nitze, other strategists; Ed
Rowny; leaders in our strategic thinking in America over the years;
former Senators Warren Rudman and Nancy Kassebaum Baker and David
Boren; General John Shalikashvili and other military leaders; and, I'm
sure, a bunch of others that I may have accidentally overlooked, but
this is quite a distinguished bipartisan gathering--Dick Holbrooke, the
negotiator of the Bosnia accord, and quite a few others.
You look at this group, and you go down the list, and you see
individuals--men and women in different political parties, different
points on the ideological spectrum--and you think immediately of dozens
of important issues that have faced America where these individuals
have argued with one another and been on different sides, passionately.
But on this issue, every single one of them is in agreement
because, looking at this from whatever point of view you want to look
at it, these individuals have concluded this is very definitely in the
best interest of the United States of America. The time has come to
ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.
From the killing fields of the Ardennes in World War I to those of
Halabja in Iraq, to Tokyo's subways and beyond, over all that distance,
chemical weapons have traced an insidious path of unspeakable horror
through our century. It's been a long time since World War I. Allow me
to say that the oral history of my own family teaches lessons about
what happened there. My father's older brother went from the hills of
middle Tennessee as a teenager to join the Army and served with our
troops in World War I in Europe. He came home a broken man because he
had been a victim of poison gas. He lived for a long time--coughing,
wheezing, limited in his ability to move around. He had one lung
removed and part of another. And his life--he made a lot of his life,
but it was very nearly ruined by that experience.
So many millions of families around the world came into personal
contact with the horrors of poison gas in World War I that the world
arrived at a rare moral consensus that chemical weapons ought to be
forever banned. And it lasted for a while, but then that consensus
started to erode. And when some started using these terrible weapons
again, as is always the case when memories had faded, the world said,
``Now, wait a minute, how should we react to that?'' Those who focused
on it clearly spoke up and said, ``We've got to react strongly, this is
awful, this should be condemned.'' Others were busy with other things,
and it's a natural process.
But now the world has focused again. The time has come to
reestablish that moral consensus. And as always, the world looks to the
United States of America for leadership, and we provided leadership,
starting in former President Reagan's administration when this was
begun. And then it was concluded in the negotiating phase in former
President Bush's administration. And now, in President Clinton's
administration, the cup passes to the Congress.
But our whole country has a chance to say to the Congress: Do the
right thing. Now is the moment, because now, on the cusp of a new
century, we can join in common cause to end this scourge. As we've done
with pride and conviction so many times this past century, we can once
again here in the United States lead the international community on a
new path toward safety and security. This is an opportunity to help
ensure that the 20th century is the first and last century in which our
soldiers and our citizens will live under the dangerous clouds of the
threat posed by chemical weapons. This is our chance to act in a manner
befitting a strong nation and a wise people, so that we can say
confidently to future generations that here in our time, we came
together across party lines, and we did everything we could to control
these weapons of mass and inhumane destruction. On this we must be
clear, bold, and united.
Now it is my pleasure to introduce the individual in the
President's Cabinet who is leading the charge on behalf of the
President to seek confirmation of this important agreement: our
Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright.
Secretary Albright. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President.
The presence of so many distinguished backers of the treaty here
today demonstrates support that is broad, bipartisan, and growing.
There are some people who say the treaty is flawed because we
cannot assume early ratification and full compliance by outlaw states.
This is like saying that we should not pass a law against drug
smuggling, because we cannot assume full compliance by drug
traffickers. We cannot allow the rules of the international system to
be set by the enemies of the international system.
As Secretary of State and as an American, I'm also concerned about
our leadership in the fight to stop the spread of weapons of mass
destruction. If the Senate were to reject the CWC, we would be isolated
from our allies and on the same side as countries such as Libya and
Iraq. The problem countries will never accept a prohibition on chemical
weapons if America stays out and keeps them company and gives them
cover. We will not have the standing to mobilize our allies to support
strong action against violators if we ourselves refuse to join the
treaty being violated.
The time for Senate action is now. The treaty has been pending in
the Senate for 180 weeks.
It's been the subject of more than a dozen hearings and hours of
briefings. And we have supplied more than 1,500 pages of testimony,
reports, correspondence and answers for the record concerning it.
In summary, this treaty is a test of our ability to follow through
on commitments. It reflects existing American practices, and advances
enduring American interests. It is right and smart for America, and it
deserves the Senate's timely support.
Thank you. (Applause.)
Secretary Cohen. Thank you very much, Secretary Albright. As we
have all seen, you continue to throw the ball straight and hard and
right down the middle. (Laughter.)
Ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, I believe, is
indeed a critical test of American leadership, but as Secretary of
Defense, I want to urge the Senate to ratify the treaty for another
important reason. Quite simply, this treaty is critical to the safety
of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. The Chemical Weapons
Convention is needed to protect and defend the men and women in uniform
who protect and defend our country. We live in a world today in which
we find regional aggressors, third-rate armies, terrorist groups and
religious cults who may view lethal chemical agents as the cheapest and
most effective weapon against American troops in the field. Our troops,
in fact, may be in greater risk of a chemical attack today than in the
past. Because America's forces are the world's most powerful,
adversaries are more likely to try to challenge us asymmetrically
through the use of nonconventional means such as chemical weapons.
So, to protect against this threat, we've developed an array of
tools, ranging from protective suits to theater missile defenses. By
limiting the chemical weapons threat, the CWC strengthens these tools
and our ability to protect our troops and our nation from chemical
attack. And that's why our military leaders who stand before us stand
firmly behind America's ratification of this treaty. They understand
that we can far better protect our nation working to abolish chemical
weapons from the world rather than stockpiling and threatening to use
them. They believe, as I believe that ratification of the CWC is
critical to America's security. And I am pleased to introduce someone
who has played a major role in negotiating this vital treaty, former
Secretary of State Jim Baker. (Applause.)
Mr. Baker. Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, distinguished guests,
ladies and gentlemen: As we've heard, the Chemical Weapons Convention
was negotiated under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
The argument that some have used against ratification of the CWC is
that it would somehow undermine our national security. Frankly, the
suggestion that George Bush and Ronald Reagan would negotiate a treaty
detrimental to this nation's security is outrageous.
Ratification of the CWC is at its core really a test of American
leadership. If we fail to ratify this treaty, we will forego the
influence we would otherwise have had in the continuing international
effort against chemical weapons. If we fail to ratify this treaty, we
will postpone indefinitely any progress on a ban against the equally
dire threat of biological weapons. And if we fail to ratify, we will
also isolate ourselves from our friends in the international arena, and
we will, as the Secretary of State has just told you, throw in our lot
with the rogue states which oppose this treaty.
But most importantly of all, my friends, if we fail to ratify the
CWC, we will be sending a clear signal of retreat from international
leadership, both to our allies and to our enemies alike. This is a
message we should never, never send. Instead, we should send another
message; we should send a message that the United States of America is
a nation aware of our international responsibilities and a nation
confident enough to assume them. In a word, we should send a message
that America is prepared to continue to lead. And that is why all of us
are here--Republicans and Democrats alike. And that is why the Senate
should immediately ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Now its my distinct privilege to introduce to you my kissin'
cousin, the former Senator from Kansas, Nancy Kassebaum Baker.
(Laughter, applause.)
Ms. Baker. Thank you. Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and to
distinguished friends who are gathered here today, many of whom played
a key and important role over the years in the negotiations and debates
regarding the Chemical Weapons treaty, I'm sure that I would be
expressing on the part of most of the American people a deep sense of
appreciation and gratitude for your dedication which has brought us to
this point today.
As a former member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 16
years who strongly supported President Reagan's efforts to negotiate
this treaty, President Bush's efforts to complete it, and President
Clinton's efforts to ratify it, I can attest to the strong bipartisan
support for this convention over the years.
Our success in meeting the challenge of stopping the spread of
chemical weapons will depend on our vigilance. No treaty can have
perfect verification. No treaty will be 100 percent successful in
eliminating a threat. But if we hold out for perfection, we will
squander the opportunity, as has been said by all the speakers, to join
with a growing number of nations to deal now with this serious
challenge to our security.
Over the 4 years that the convention has been before the Senate,
valid concerns have been raised. There have been 13 hearings to date,
many questions answered, and numerous reports written. While to a
foreign observer our internal debate may seem confusing, it is in fact
the essential ingredient to forging a consensus. Our democratic
traditions provide the foundation on which U.S. Leadership is built.
I must commend President Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Trent
Lott for the intense and productive negotiations which have been
undertaken to this date to address the concerns that have been raised.
I'm confident that these efforts will lead to a successful ratification
of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and continued U.S. Leadership on
this issue.
As David Boren, Brent Scowcroft, and myself recently wrote the
President, and I quote, ``We believe that the real issue at stake is
American leadership, not only on this critical issue of chemical
weapons proliferation, but also with ramifications far broader--on a
far broader array of issues which directly affect our interests.
It is for these reasons that we urge you, Mr. President, not to
waiver in your efforts to win ratification in the U.S. Senate.''
It's now my honor to introduce a colleague who came at the same
time as I did to the U.S. Senate, in 1978. We've worked together on
many issues. He now is the president of Oklahoma University. But his
leadership over the years in the U.S. Senate has been central to our
efforts to forge bipartisan consensus on such important issues as the
one before us today. David Boren.
Mr. Boren (Former U.S. Senator (D-OK)). Thank you very much,
Senator Kassebaum Baker, and it's a privilege to have another
opportunity to work with you on an important bipartisan cause for our
country.
During the 6 years that I chaired the U.S. Senate Intelligence
Committee, time and time again our intelligence experts came before our
committee to warn us that the greatest threat to our national security
and to the next generation is the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, including chemical weapons. This threat is intensified as
these weapons become available to some of the least responsible nations
in the world and to the terrorist groups which they shelter.
The decision we must soon make about the ratification of the
Chemical Weapons Convention is one of those decisions on which history
will judge us, and I am proud to stand with those gathered today to
urge its ratification.
At the end of World War II, America faced a new world situation
with the beginning of the cold war. We provided as a nation the crucial
leadership through NATO, the Marshall Plan and other measures which
helped make this world a safer place for decades. Now, almost exactly
50 years later, with the end of the cold war, we once again face a
totally new world situation, with growing fragmentation and the spread
of dangerous weapons to rogue states. American leaders in the 1940's
met the test of history. Members of the U.S. Senate in the 1990's must
not fail it.
Congress, as has been said, has had 13 major hearings on the
convention for over 3 years. The issues are clearly understood. It is
time to act.
With the treaty due to take effect very soon, the United States
will make a mistake which we will long regret if we sit on the
sidelines with states we have criticized as being dangerous and
irresponsible.
We will lose our ability to play a major role in assuring
compliance with the weapons ban. But above all, we will lose the moral
basis of our leadership on an issue of urgent importance to our
national security.
As has been said, this is not a partisan issue. This is a question
of American leadership, as has been said by Secretary Baker. This is a
question of meeting our responsibility to the next generation. Earlier
leaders did not fail our generation, and we must not fail those who
will follow us.
And now it is my great privilege to present one who has called us
as a nation to meet our leadership responsibilities on this vital
issue. His effort deserves our strong bipartisan support. Ladies and
gentlemen, the President of the United States. (Applause.)
President Clinton. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Senator Boren, for your words and your
presence here today. We were laughing before we came out here--Senator
Boren and I started our careers in politics in 1974 together, but he
found a presidency that is not term-limited--(laughter)--and I want to
congratulate him on it.
Mr. Vice President, Secretary Albright, Secretary Cohen, Secretary
Baker, Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, General Shalikashvili. Let me
thank all of you who have spoken here today for the words you have
said, for you have said it all. And let me thank all of you who have
come here to be a part of this audience today to send a clear,
unambiguous, united message to America and to our Senate. I thank
Senator General Colin Powell and Senator Warren Rudman; former arms
negotiators Paul Nitze, Edward Rowny and Ken Adelman; so many of the
Congressmen who have supported us, including Senator Biden and Senator
Levin, who are here; the truly distinguished array of military leaders;
leaders of businesses, religious organizations, human rights groups;
scientists and arms control experts.
Secretary Baker made, I thought, a very telling point, which others
made as well: This is, in the beginning, a question of whether we will
continue to make America's leadership strong and sure as we chart our
course in a new time. We have to do that, and we can only do that if we
rise to the challenge of ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention.
We are closing a 20th century which gives us an opportunity now to
forge a widening international commitment to banish poison gas from the
Earth in the 21st century. This is a simple issue at bottom, even
though the details are somewhat complex. Presidents and legislators
from both parties, military leaders and arms control experts have bound
together in common cause because this is simply good for the future of
every American.
I received two powerful letters recently calling for ratification.
One has already been mentioned that I received from Senator Nancy
Kassebaum Baker, Senator Boren, and former national security advisor
General Brent Scowcroft. The other came from General Powell, General
Jones, General Vessey, General Schwarzkopf, and more than a dozen other
retired generals and admirals, all of them saying, as one, America
needs to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention, and we must do it
before it takes affect on April 29th.
Of course, the treaty is not a panacea. No arms control treaty can
be absolutely perfect, and none can end the need for vigilance. But no
nation acting alone can protect itself from the threat posed by
chemical weapons. Trying to stop their spread by ourselves would be
like trying to stop the wind that helps carry their poison to its
target.
We must have an international solution to a global problem.
The convention provides clear and overwhelming benefits to our
people. Under a law Congress passed in the 1980's, we are already
destroying almost all our chemical weapons. The convention requires
other nations to follow our lead, to eliminate their arsenals of poison
gas, and to give up developing, producing and acquiring such weapons in
the future.
By ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention, as Secretary Cohen
said, we can help to shield our soldiers from one of the battlefield's
deadliest killers. We can give our children something our parents never
had--broad protection against the threat of chemical attack. And we can
bolster our leadership in the fight against terrorism, of proliferation
all around the world.
If the Senate fails to ratify the convention before it enters into
force, our national security and, I might add, our economic security
will suffer. We will be denied use of the treaty's tools against rogue
states and terrorists; we will lose the chance to help to enforce the
rules we helped to write, or to have American serve as inter-
national inspectors--something that is especially important for those
who have raised concerns about inspection provisions of the treaty.
Ironically, if we are outside this agreement rather than inside, it
is our chemical companies, our leading exporters, which will face
mandatory trade restrictions that could cost them hundreds of millions
of dollars in sales.
In short order, America will go from leading the world to joining
the company of pariah nations that the Chemical Weapons Convention
seeks to isolate. We cannot allow this to happen. The time has come to
pass this treaty, as 70 other nations already have done.
Since I sent the Chemical Weapons Convention to the Senate 3\1/2\
years ago, there have been mom than a dozen hearings, more than 1,500
pages of testimony and reports. During the last 3 months, we have
worked very closely with Senate leaders to go the extra mile to resolve
remaining questions in areas of concern. I want to thank those in the
Senate who have worked with us for their leadership and for their good-
faith efforts.
Ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention, again I say, is
important both for what it does and for what it says. It says America
is committed to protecting our troops, to fighting terror, to stopping
the spread of weapons of mass destruction, to setting and enforcing
standards for international behavior, and to leading the world in
meeting the challenges of the 21st century.
I urge the Senate to act in the highest traditions of
bipartisanship and in the deepest of our national interests.
And let me again say, the words that I have spoken today are
nothing compared to the presence, to the careers, to the experience, to
the judgment, to the patriotism of Republicans and Democrats alike and
the military leaders who have gathered here and who all across this
country have lent their support to this monumentally important effort.
We must not fail. We have a lot of work to do, but I leave here
today with renewed confidence that together we can get the job done.
Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America. (Applause.)
__________
False Promises, Fatal Flaws: The Chemical Weapons Convention
Prepared by Empower America as part of its Ideas for the Next Century--
International Leadership Series, March 1997
False Promises, Fatal Flaws: The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
``The CWC is not global since many dangerous nations have not
agreed to join the treaty regime. * * * The CWC is not effective
because it does not ban or control possession of all chemicals that
could be used for lethal weapons purposes. * * * The CWC is not
verifiable as the US intelligence community has repeatedly acknowledged
in congressional testimony.''
--From a letter to Senator Trent Lott signed by Former National
Security Advisor William P. Clark, Former Secretaries of Defense Caspar
Weinberger and Richard Cheney, and Former US Ambassador to the UN Jeane
Kirkpatrick
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) purports to ban the
development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons, as
well as the destruction of existing arsenals and weapons production
facilities. Various degrees of controls on and prohibitions against
production of and trade in certain chemicals are to be phased in over
several years. The alleged benefits of the CWC, however, are illusory
and obscure serious harm to US strategic, economic, and civil
interests.
While claiming to reduce and even eliminate chemical
arsenals, the CWC actually does nothing to remove such weapons
from those states most likely to use them--including Iraq,
Libya, North Korea, and Syria.
The CWC creates a mechanism that could lead to the
proliferation of chemical weapons technology among parties and
their client states.
The CWC's enforcement provisions would impose serious costs
and economic risks on US businesses, even those not directly
involved in defense industries, and pose serious challenges to
rights protected by the Constitution.
The Empty Threat of ``Being Left Behind''
``[T]he chemical weapons problem is so difficult from an
intelligence perspective that I cannot state that we have high
confidence in our ability to detect non-compliance, especially on a
small scale.''
--Former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey
The CWC is due to enter into force on April 29, 1997. The dire
warnings of the Clinton Administration and others that failure to
ratify the Convention before that date will exclude the US from
involvement in the initial organization of the CWC's institutions and
subject US companies to trade sanctions are misleading.
Failure to participate in the organization of an inherently
ineffective regime is of questionable concern.
Failure of the US to join the CWC would inhibit trade only
to a limited degree. Even the administration's estimate of
potential losses to US companies totals only $600 million
annually, far less than the cost CWC compliance.
Selected Chemical Weapons Programs
Countries with declared programs: Iraq, Russia, US
Countries with undeclared programs: China, Egypt, India, Iran,
Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Syria, Taiwan, Vietnam,
Ethiopia, Myanmar/Burma
*NOTE: Countries in bold either have or are developing ballistic
missiles.
False Promises
``The CWC would likely have the effect of leaving the United States
and its allies more, not less, vulnerable to chemical attack. It could
well serve to increase, not reduce, the spread of chemical weapons
manufacturing capabilities. Thus we would be better off not to be party
to it.''
--James Schlesinger, Caspar Weinberger, and Donald Rumsfeld,
Former Secretaries of Defense
The Clinton Administration and other supporters of the CWC
acknowledge that the Convention is ``no panacea'' in addressing the
threat of chemical weapons. The truth, however, is that the CWC is far
more ineffective than supporters contend.
Several of the states most likely to pose a chemical weapons
threat, including Iraq, North Korea, Libya, and Syria, have no
intention of becoming parties to the CWC. Even states that have
signed the CWC, most notably Russia and China, are unlikely to
respect its provisions--least of all rid themselves of their
current arsenals--if they indeed ratify it. Russia alone has
already developed chemical programs designed to evade
inspections or utilize agents not addressed by the Convention.
The CWC does not ban most chemical weapons agents, because
most agents are used extensively for non-military purposes.
Indeed, chemical weapons remain the easiest weapons of mass
destruction to develop and produce in significant quantities
without detection, largely due to the widespread non-military
use of their ingredients.
US intelligence officials have acknowledged that significant
difficulties exist in detecting covert chemical weapons
programs. As a National Intelligence Estimate concluded in
1993, ``The capability of the intelligence community to monitor
compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention is severely
limited. * * * The key provision of the monitoring regime--
challenge inspections at declared sites--can be thwarted by a
nation determined to preserve a small, secret program using the
delays and managed access rules allowed by the Convention.''
Procedures exist for producing ready-to-use chemical agents
within so short a time that inspections prior to a conflict or
crisis could be meaningless. A recent Pentagon report details
Russia's development of chemical agents that could be produced
in a matter of weeks.
The CWC's provisions for punishing violators are
exceptionally vague. The UN Security Council would be charged
with addressing violations. In addition to the traditional
ineffectiveness of sanctions and other punitive actions ordered
by the Security Council, Russia and China could be expected to
limit or veto outright punishment of their client states and
allies.
While the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) supports
the CWC, it represents only a small fraction of the companies
that would be affected by the Convention. Indeed, thousands of
companies potentially affected are not even aware of their
exposure to CWC provisions.
The Chemical Manufacturers Association's support is likely
based on hopes for increased trade in dangerous chemicals due
to the elimination of restrictions in accordance with the
materiel and technology sharing mandated by the Convention.
Fatal Flaws
``The United States is abandoning * * * one of the most effective
deterrents to chemical use against itself and its allies: the right to
an extant and mature offensive chemical weapons program. * * * [T]he
Senate should understand that it will contribute to the weakening of
deterrence, not to its strengthening, by eliminating the ability of the
United States to respond in kind to chemical attack. A weakening of
deterrence means * * * that American * * * soldiers are more, not less,
likely to be attacked with chemical weapons.''
--J.D. Crouch, Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Beyond the ineffectiveness of the CWC in meeting its purported
goals, its provisions would actually do great harm to the strategic and
economic interests of the US.
The CWC requires materiel and technology sharing with states
that would otherwise be denied such assistance; the CWC would
actually spread chemical weapons know-how to parties, such as
China and Iran, and their client states. Similar arrangements
regarding nuclear technology have contributed to the
development of nuclear weapons programs across the globe.
The CWC would require the US to destroy its entire chemical
weapons arsenal, while leaving untouched the substantial
arsenals of rogue states like Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and
Syria, which are not party to the treaty. Even potential
parties such as Russia have persistently violated chemical
weapons reduction requirements of past agreements and are
already engaged in programs designed to defy and evade the CWC.
The US relies upon a strategy of retaliation to deter
chemical attacks. The CWC, however, would limit US options to
costly conventional operations or a nuclear strike. Contrasted
with a limited in-kind chemical-for-chemical exchange, these
two options are politically difficult to pursue and therefore
not very credible deterrents to a would-be aggressor.
As interpreted by the Clinton Administration and
Congressional backers of the Convention, the CWC would prohibit
the use of non-lethal chemicals such as tear gas, leaving US
troops with no effective response other than bullets to
threatening crowds or the use of civilian shields--such as
occurred in Somalia.
Almost 8,000 US businesses, even non-defense industries
utilizing potential chemical agents, would have to shoulder
significant reporting and other compliance costs and expose
themselves to the well-precedented risk of industrial espionage
during inspections. Realistic yearly costs related to CWC
compliance run as high as $200 million in government
expenditures and perhaps billions in costs to businesses. In
addition, Russia has already begun to link its ratification of
the CWC to billions of dollars in economic assistance, some of
which would be only tangentially--if at all--connected to
compliance with the Convention.
The inspection provisions of the CWC could lead to serious
violations of the Constitution's protection of due process and
privacy as international teams attempt to investigate private
US companies and their employees.
The well-precedented tendency of governments to ignore or
downplay violations of arms control agreements so as to
preserve the overall regimes, as well as the extensive
political and diplomatic capital that has been invested thus
far in the CWC, are likely to inhibit enforcement of the
Convention and the pursuit of more effective initiatives.
__________
Letters and Other Material Submitted in Support of Ratification of the
Chemical Weapons Convention
American Ex-Prisoners of War,
Watauga, Tennessee,
February 20, 1997.
Hon. Trent Lott,
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC 20510.
Dear Senator Lott: As National Commander of the American Ex-
Prisoners of War, I wish to express my support for the ratification of
the Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty. This is an important step in
reducing the price that Americans who serve their country on the field
of battle must pay in defense of our freedom. Those captured in prior
wars know all too well the enduring price of those sacrifices even
without chemical weapons and their life-long disabling consequences.
While there may, of course, be some risk in adopting this treaty,
Americans must play a leadership role in international efforts to
reduce this price to the extent possible. These risks have been
thoroughly weighed by Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all have supported this treaty.
Sincerely,
Wm. E. ``Sonny'' Mottern,
National Commander
______
News Release,
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S.,
Washington, DC 20002.
for release: vfw supports chemical weapons treaty
Washington, DC, February 13, 1997.--The Veterans of Foreign Wars
today announced its support for ratification of the Chemical Weapons
Convention Treaty which would halt the manufacture, stockpiling and use
of chemical weapons.
VFW Commander in Chief James E. Nier, of El Paso, Texas, in calling
for support for the treaty's ratification said, ``The treaty will
reduce world stockpiles of such weapons and will hopefully prevent our
troops from being exposed to poison gases as we believe happened in the
Gulf War.''
Noting the support of three Presidents for the treaty--it was
initiated by President Reagan, negotiated by President Bush, and
submitted for ratification by President Clinton--and that the treaty is
supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Nier said the VFW would support
efforts calling for the treaty' ratification.
``There are risks in adopting this treaty. However, the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes the advantages outweigh the
shortcomings and Defense Secretary Cohen has assured me these risks can
be greatly reduced with the ongoing improvements in the defense posture
of our troops against chemical warfare,'' Nier said.
The VFW leader noted that, ``As combat veterans we support this
treaty, but in the future if we perceive that this treaty puts our
country and our troops at a disadvantage, we will be out front and lead
the way in calling for withdrawal from the treaty.''
______
Proposed Resolution No. 97-TS4
Reserve Officers Association of the United States,
Washington, DC.
chemical weapons convention
WHEREAS, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which would ban the
development, production, and stockpiling, as well as the use and
preparation for use of chemical weapons was negotiated by both the
Reagan and Bush administrations; and
WHEREAS, 65 countries, including virtually all of our friends and
allies, have already ratified the CWC; and
WHEREAS, under a law signed in 1985 by then-President Reagan, all
U.S. chemical weapons (many of which are nearly 50 years old) are to be
destroyed by the year 2004; and
WHEREAS, the Congress has repeatedly refused to authorize the funds
necessary to modernize our chemical weapons arsenal, leading us to
abandon that effort in 1991; and
WHEREAS, the CWC will go into force, with or without United States'
ratification, on April 29, 1997; and
WHEREAS, United States' failure to ratify the CWC will place us
among the great outlaw states of the world, including Libya, Iran, and
North Korea; and
WHEREAS, United States' ratification of the CWC will enable us to
play a major role in the development and implementation of CWC policy,
as well as providing strong moral leverage to help convince Russia of
the desirability of ratifying the convention;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Reserve Officers
Association of the United States, chartered by Congress, urges the
Senate to quickly ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Attest:
Roger W. Sandler,
Major General, AUS (Retired),
National Executive Director
Note: This is not an official ROA resolution until adopted by the
National (Convention/Council).
______
News Release,
Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A.,
Washington, DC 20004.
for immediate release: jwv supports ratification of chemical weapons
treaty
Washington, DC, February 5, 1997.--The Jewish War Veterans of the
U.S.A. (JWV) calls for the ratification of the Chemical Weapons
Convention (CWC) which was signed during the Bush Administration. The
need for the treaty is more critical today than ever before.
JWV National Commander Bob Zweiman stated, ``The events related to
the Gulf War Syndrome revealed that when it comes to chemical warfare,
there may either be an incapacity to recognize the dangers to our
troops in the field or, once shown to exist, there can be a penchant to
cover up the embarrassment for the failure to so recognize. But for the
actions of the Veterans Administration, our Gulf War veterans would
have found themselves without any current avenue of possible relief
and, even now, we must still be concerned with claim time limitations.
``While the CWC may not be perfect in all terms, it provides an
aura of international cooperation into the arsenal of the United States
protecting our national interests without compromising our freedom of
action. There are meaningful provisions in the CWC which will afford
and opportunity to impose economic restrictions and sanctions against
those who develop chemical weapons or deal with the threat of or use of
such chemical warfare.
``As is readily recognizable from the U.N. monitoring of the Iraqi
facilities, there can be no assurances for a security or for a real
defense capability against the use of chemicals by rogue nations or
terrorists without controls as may additionally be made available to us
by the CWC. We are honor bound to protect our Nation and our troops by
minimizing the chances from all obvious or hidden means of chemical
attack in the future.''
Founded in 1896, JWV is the oldest, active national veterans'
organization in America and is known as the ``Patriotic Voice of
American Jewry.'' JWV is currently celebrating its centennial year
which included JWV's hosting of Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington
Cemetery on November 11, 1998.
__________
Prepared Statement of Brad Roberts, Institute for Defense Analyses
In hearings before this committee a year ago, I had the opportunity
to address a number of specific concerns about the benefits, costs, and
verifiability of the Chemical Weapons Convention and, in so doing, to
argue that the U.S. national interest is well served by ratification of
the Convention and U.S. participation in the new regime. Rather than
again offer a defense of the Convention, I would like to take the
opportunity to help to bring into better focus the nation's stake in
the pending CWC vote. Toward that end, I would like to describe five
messages that would be sent by your rejection of the CWC.
The first message would be that America's elected officials remain
firmly in the grip of the Cold War when it comes to arms
control
The current debate about the CWC was in fact scripted in the early
1980s, when most of the protagonists staked out their positions
(although at that point the treaty itself was nothing more than a
glimmer in the eye of negotiators). On the one hand were those who saw
arms control as a dangerous delusion--a sell-out to the Soviets. On the
other were those who saw any arms build-up as a dangerous folly--a
false remedy to Cold War confrontation. For each, the CWC was but one
front in the larger ideological battle. Today, CWC opponents savage the
treaty as fatally flawed, while administration supporters defend it as
useful for ridding the world of evil weapons. Moderates in both
parties, on the other hand, seem for the most part to have lost
interest and to have anticipated U.S. ratification as a ``no-brainer.''
The antipathy to CW arms control in the Cold War had much to do
with the specific strategic context in Europe. With NATO forces
overmatched by Warsaw Pact forces, if war came it seemed likely that
the West would have to rely on early use of its tactical nuclear
weapons. The Soviets quite possibly could have denied NATO a carefully
considered and effective use of its nuclear weapons with chemical
warfare. Sustained chemical attacks on NATO forces without fear of
reprisal would have enabled the Warsaw Pact to maintain high tempo
attacks with conventional forces and without themselves suffering the
consequences of chemical warfare--namely the cumbersome work of
fighting inside gas masks and chemical protection suits. Hence NATO
needed some in-kind retaliatory capability for the Soviet chemical
threat, which was provided by the United States with its chemical
arsenal. Hence the opposition to a chemical ban because of the belief
that even small-scale cheating on any such ban could have been sharply
destabilizing not just in Europe but to the central strategic balance.
But that strategic landscape is gone. Today, no country of
proliferation concern has the ability to deliver the quantities of
chemical agents with precision for days and weeks against U.S. forces
or to exploit the tactical circumstances created by their use to
inflict operational or strategic defeat on U.S. military forces. It
would take a great deal of cheating to create a chemical arsenal with
potential military significance when used against well-protected U.S.
forces, a scale of cheating that is beyond the reach of these states so
long as they must keep the program secret and underground. Even if they
were somehow able to create a massive chemical arsenal despite
international inspections, none of these states has the Soviet-vintage
capacity to overwhelm U.S. forces by conventional means or to escalate
to tactical and strategic nuclear attack. Their chemical attacks would
have nuisance value--perhaps high nuisance value--but they do not
promise to create the strategic predicament created by the Warsaw Pact.
Thus the United States need not concern itself with detecting any and
all acts of noncompliance by parties to the CWC, but only with
militarily significant cheating--so long as it sustains strong
antichemical defenses. Of course, it will not rely on the CWC to
understand the CW capabilities of potential enemies--that's why a great
deal of money is spent on proliferation-related intelligence
capabilities.
Moreover, the United States does not need to stoop to chemical
retaliation to punish the use of chemical weapons against its forces.
In the current environment, U.S. military interests are best served by
minimizing the role chemicals might play on the battlefield, so that
the superior conventional weaponry of the United States can be used to
best advantage. In fact, the United States has forsworn the right to
use chemical weapons under any circumstance, even in retaliation, in
the wake of the Persian Gulf war. Norman Schwartzkopf is only the
latest of many military commanders to say that the United States does
not need a chemical deterrent for the chemical threats it faces in the
proliferation era. This makes it possible for the United States to
trade its aging stockpile of chemical weapons, the vast majority
produced in the 1950s and 1960s, for a global ban.
This points to the conclusion that the critics' case against the
CWC has been made on the wrong national security criteria. Cold War
thinking says that only the strictest verification and compliance
standards are suitable for arms control and that chemical disarmament
weakens deterrence. Both judgments are wrong for the post-cold war era,
so long as the arms control in question does not touch on the
fundamentals of strategic nuclear stability. The CWC is neither panacea
nor folly. It is not a substitute for all of those other things that
must be done to meet the proliferation challenge. It does not eliminate
chemical weapons nor the risks of cheating. But it does meet strict
national security criteria. And it helps to keep the CW problem
manageable while adding new political tools to the arsenal of
political, economic, intelligence, and military measures that must be
used synergistically if the proliferation threat is to be kept in
check.
I for one am grateful that the debate on the CWC has not turned out
to be a ``no-brainer'', for we now have the chance to rise above the
tired debate of the past and to think through the larger questions of
arms control standards, national interests, and U.S. leadership in
terms suitable for the post-Cold War era. If the administration and the
Congress cannot come to a clearer agreement on these issues, the
national interest seems likely to suffer badly. At the very least,
disagreement will doom the six other arms control measures currently
awaiting U.S. ratification--and with them, some of the few tools
available to the United States for building future political
coalitions.
A second message is that the United States does not understand what is
at stake in stopping the proliferation of chemical weapons.
Chemical weapons proliferated dramatically in the 1980s, to more
than 20 countries. They have appeared, moreover, in precisely those
regions where the United States offers security guarantees and in the
hands of those states that sponsor terrorism. Stemming their
proliferation is essential to dealing with the more general problem of
the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons, missile delivery
systems, and advanced conventional weaponry. If rogues can use NBC
weapons as trump cards against U.S. military action, or to conduct
attacks on American civilians, our world will change fundamentally--and
for the worse. If the end of the Cold War is what made the CWC
possible, proliferation is what made it necessary.
It would be nice if the CWC were to rid the world completely of
chemical weapons, but it won't (at least, as long as renegade states
exist). So what other interests might it serve vis-a-vis the
proliferation problem? The United States has an interest in preventing
the continued proliferation to ever more states. It has an interest in
getting out of the chemical warfare business those who are only
dabbling (intrigued by Iraq's use of chemical weapons in its war
against Iran). It has an interest in keeping the stockpiles of those
who remain in the business small and unsophisticated. It has an
interest in isolating by political and economic means those states that
remain in the business. And it has an interest in not being isolated
politically when it comes time to deal militarily with those
chemically-armed states that pose real and immediate military dangers.
The CWC will do a good job of safeguarding these interests. Its
verification provisions are sufficient to deter all but the most
committed CW producers. The charge that the CWC will be ineffective
because some important CW possessors are non-signatories misses an
essential point--by self-selecting out of the regime, these states
identify themselves as problem cases and make themselves objects of
suspicion and trade restraints. In each of these ways, the CWC promises
a tangible benefit to U.S. security (which is an answer to those
critics who allege that the CWC offers no such benefits for the United
States).
A third message of non-ratification is that the United States is going
to be irrelevant to the international effort to stem CW
proliferation.
Treaty opponents have offered up a number of substitutes. One is
``reinvigoration'' of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, whose signatories
agree not to use chemical weapons (although some states have reserved
the right to use such weapons in retaliation). The Protocol is
certainly in dire need of help--it was dealt a crippling blow by the
failure to respond to Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons
throughout the 1980s in his wars against both Iranians and Iraqis.
Reinvigoration would presumably entail the addition of compliance and
verification provisions--just like those that turned the Protocol into
the CWC! Reinvigoration would also presumably entail some renewed
political commitment to the Protocol. But the United States can hardly
expect others to line up with it behind the Protocol as an alternative
to the CWC when even its closest friends and allies are moving on to
the CWC. Moreover, the United States carries the added burden of
lingering international resentment over its particular failure to
uphold the Protocol in the 1980s because of its grievances against
Iran.
Their second alternative is to supplement the protocol with a new
treaty analogous to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NPT is
unique in the history of multilateral arms control measures in that it
grants to a set of states certain rights that are denied to others--in
this case, the right to possess nuclear weapons. Under the proposed
chemical parallel, the United States and presumably Russia would be
allowed to keep their chemical weapons while they try to police other
states from acquiring their own. But no countries would join with the
United States in this endeavor--all see U.S. and Russian disarmament as
essential to the political bargain embodied in the chemical control
regime. To suggest that a new treaty could be made without this
cornerstone, or simply imposed, is either naive or disingenuous.
Their third alternative is reliance on unilateral, domestic
measures, such as those detailed in SB495. In fact, most if not all of
those measures would be necessary adjuncts to CWC implementation. But
as a substitute for the CWC, SB495 leaves much to be desired. One
noteworthy, example is in the area of export controls: the United
States can anticipate growing friction with its partners in the
Australia Group process, most of whom will be among the original states
parties to the CWC, if it attempts to rely on economic sticks and
carrots while sitting aside from the CWC. Another example is in the
area of CWC compliance challenges: by walking away from the CWC, the
United States leaves its allies and other prospective coalition
partners to fend for themselves when it comes to dealing with
noncompliance by states parties to the CWC. The United States may be
there when the chips are down militarily, but for circumstances short
of war it will leave its friends and allies to manage largely on their
own the political and economic instruments of risk management. Despite
its many merits, SB495 is little more than window dressing on American
retreat from the CW proliferation problem. Its primary short-term
benefit would probably be in making some Americans feel good about
walking away.
In short, these alternatives are not viable. To reject the CWC is
to consign the United States to irrelevance to the international effort
to manage the CW proliferation problem. This is a course of action of
dubious political merit. The notion that somehow America should sit
aside while others do the hard work of dealing with proliferation will
be an insult to many Americans. Americans are not bystanders. But
rejection of the CWC will marginalize U.S. influence and turn us into
free-loaders on the efforts of others to implement the CWC despite our
having walked away. This is an insult to Americans rightly proud of the
nation's historic role of a power with both military strength and a
vision of a better world--and the will to lend its political prestige
to bring it into being. It is also an insult to the integrity of
American diplomacy--having given our word to participate as a party to
the convention, in the form of then-Secretary Eagleburger's signature,
non-ratification will erode the strength of American political promises
more generally. Others will rightly ask how America can expect to hold
others to their promises when it breaks its own?
A fourth message that would be sent by non-ratification is that America
is going to dish out some vigilante justice when it comes to
dealing with CW-armed proliferators.
Whether or not the United States ratifies the CWC, it enters into
force as international law on April 29. By walking away from the law it
helped to create, the United States will be relegating itself to the
role of vigilante whenever it chooses to undertake military actions
against CW-armed states--as one who professes a commitment to the rule
of law, but places itself above the law when it comes to dealing with
outlaws. By working from outside rather than inside the CWC normative
framework, the United States will turn military acts against
chemically-armed states into solitary exercises of U.S. military
prowess, rather than coalition campaigns to punish transgressors. The
United States will have no one to blame but itself for the political
isolation it will suffer.
This too is a course of action of dubious political merit. America
does not belong above the law--indeed, central to our national
conception is a belief in the moral basis of our politics and power,
and our mission to expand the rule of law. In our de facto role as
``world's policeman,'' will others think of us as a respectful steward
of the common weal or an unreliable bully whose lip service to the rule
of law is cynical and abandoned when it does not suit his needs? To
reject the CWC is to put us on the wrong side of history, especially
our own, and on the side with Iraq, Libya, and North Korea.
A fifth message is that America does not trust itself--more
specifically, that the Senate does not trust itself to do its
oversight job.
One of the arguments used by CWC opponents to persuade freshmen
Senators to join their cause is the so-called lulling effect of arms
control. The argument runs as follows: tyrants will get the better of
arms control with democracies because de-
mocracies want to believe that others are Good and will go far to
delude themselves that the tyrant is living up to his promises. This
delusion paralyzes democracies, which then ignore real military
vulnerabilities and, by looking duped, embolden the tyrant. By this
logic, arms control may lead to war.
This is a view of arms control derived from a rather peculiar
interpretation of the genesis of fascist aggression in the 1930s, one
which flies in the face of the experience of the Cold War when
democracies stood firm against totalitarianism for half a century.
Anyone who today thinks that chemical arms control will lull a sleepy
republic must overlook the huge sums of money invested annually in
chemical preparedness, the existence of an intelligence community
charged with monitoring arms control compliance, and a host of
``friendly critics'' who scrutinize arms control implementation.
For Senators to align themselves with a point of view that is
distrustful of democratic process would be especially odd. Should we
infer that they themselves believed that they are dupes--that they are
not confident that they can or will perform their oversight
responsibilities, by asking the right questions at the right times
about U.S. military readiness and compliance findings by U.S.
intelligence?
Like it or not, this is what the Senate will signal to the world--
and to the American voter--if it rejects the CWC. America as nostalgic
for the Cold War. America as ignorant of its special stake in stopping
NBC proliferation. America as free-loader. America as dupe of foreign
tyrants, timid and unreliable. An America enjoying unparalleled
military strength, but unable to bank on its strengths to take small
risks for large payoffs. An America that says no to change, that has
lost its bearings and its mission to promote the change that makes a
better world possible.
In short, the vote on the CWC comes down to a vote about U.S.
leadership. It presents the Senate with a basic choice. The United
States can lead, by safeguarding common interests and protecting U.S.
national interests by exercising a political-military influence
commensurate with the nation's weight and moral compass. It can follow,
by freeloading on the efforts of others while pretending that domestic,
unilateral measures are enough to meet its needs. Or it can get out of
the way, as a new wave of proliferation occurs and fuels the ambitions
of those who would try to use their weapons of mass destruction to
intimidate U.S. allies and to veto the use of U.S. military power to
honor its security guarantees.
Many on this panel had the privilege to serve with one of the great
American leaders of this century. Ronald Reagan's special gifts as a
leader, it seems to me, were his intuitive understanding of the
American public myth--our view of ourselves as a people with a certain
historic mission and a strong moral compass--and his ability to
translate the decisions of current moment into this larger framework.
He understood that Americans expect their country to stand tough
against aggressors--and to know how to safeguard that essential part of
the nation's political power that flows not from the barrels of
American guns but from its traditions and values. A vote for the CWC
would be consistent with this sense of national purpose. A vote against
would be an insult.
______
Brad Roberts is a member of the research staff at the Institute for
Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Va. The views expressed here are his
own.
__________
Letters Submitted in Opposition to Ratification of the Chemical Weapons
Convention
Sterling Chemicals,
April 15, 1997.
Hon. Jesse Helms,
Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee,
United States Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: Sterling Chemicals, Inc. strongly supports a
worldwide ban on the production, possession and use of chemical
weapons, but we are concerned about the mechanics and cost impacts
associated with the proposed Chemicals Weapon Convention (CWC). We have
made our concerns known to the Honorable Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
last August. Highlights of our concerns are:
1. We have serious misgivings about the ability to protect
confidential business information. Having a foreign inspection team
inside our facility with almost unlimited access to process knowledge
and data is not acceptable to Sterling.
2. Cost impact will be significant! We project the costs just to
prepare for, manage, conduct and complete an inspection to be at least
$200,000-$300,000. This doesn't include performing duplicate sampling
and analysis, as well as calibration and verification of process
instrumentation.
3. We cannot comply with the treaty provisions within our current
annual budget and headcount. Sterling has reduced headcount to maintain
our competitiveness. We are doing more with less. We believe the
additional data record-keeping and paperwork burden associated with
this treaty cannot be managed with existing resources.
4. The EPA and OSHA, while participating as part of the inspection
team, may become over zealous with their enforcement philosophy and
begin citing violations as part of their own agenda--while they're
supposed to be monitoring the foreign inspection team.
Sterling Chemicals is not a foreign policy expert, yet we have
serious misgivings about the foreign policy implications of the
proposed CWC. For example:
1. How will chemicals weapon control be enforced in other countries
(Mexico, Columbia, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Croatia,
etc.)? Since they probably will not cooperate, how does this treaty
produce a ``worldwide ban''?
2. How will international security and foreign policy issues
related to protection of trade secrets be handled?
3. Will the cost and implementation of the treaty put American
industry at a competitive disadvantage with foreign industry whose
compliance is less regulated?
Sterling emphasizes its desire to see a worldwide ban on chemical
weapons. We hope this submittal provides the information you seek for
an informed decision which is best for America.
Sincerely,
Robert W. Roten,
President and CEO.
______
Small Business Survival Committee,
April 14, 1997.
Hon. Jesse Helms,
Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee,
United States Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Helms: On behalf of the Small Business Survival
Committee (SBSC) and its more than 40,000 members across the nation, I
wish to express our opposition to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
treaty due to be voted upon soon by the U.S. Senate. Also, I apologize
for not being able to testify before the Foreign Relations Committee
due to severe time constraints.
It seems to us that a wide array of defense and foreign policy
experts have raised legitimate questions about the CWC, including
several former U.S. Secretaries of Defense. They see the CWC as non-
verifiable, non-enforceable and not serving U.S. national interests,
and SBSC agrees.
Though the CWC offers nothing in terms of improving U.S. security
interests, the CWC accomplishes much by way of raising regulatory costs
on already over-regulated U.S. businesses. For example, the CWC would
inflict the following on U.S. entrepreneurs and businesses:
For the first time, U.S. private industry would be subject
to foreign inspection as a result of a treaty. Inspectors would
come from a new international agency in the Hague, Netherlands.
Businesses must prove to the U.S. government and
international inspectors that they are not producing or
stockpiling chemical weapons, with noncompliance fines reaching
as high as $50,000 per incident. Forms would have to be filed
on chemical types each year and changes in a process using
certain chemicals would have to be reported five days in
advance. Noncompliance could result in a $5,000 fine. And of
course, with government bureaucrats issuing fines, the threat
that fines shift from a means of deterrence or punishment to a
source of revenues always looms.
Firms would be open to a real threat from international
industrial espionage. The loss of proprietary information could
seriously weaken international competitiveness. The treaties
protections are frivolous, and any court challenge likely would
come after the horse left the barn.
U.S. firms producing, processing, or consuming a scheduled
chemical will carry a paperwork/declaration burden. The U.S.
Department of Commerce estimated that it will take companies 9
hours to fill out paperwork for every Schedule I chemical, 7.2
hours for Schedule 2 chemicals, 2.5 hours for Schedule 3
chemicals, and 5.3 hours for each Discrete Organic Chemical.
Estimates range from 2,000 to more than 10,000 U.S. companies
that will be forced to bear these paperwork burdens.
Congress's Office of Technology Assessment estimated that
inspections will cost U.S. firms anywhere from $10,000 to
$500,000 per visit.
Smaller businesses will be hit hardest by increased
regulatory burdens. Interestingly, the Chemical Manufacturers
Association (CMA) supports ratification of the CWC, apparently
claiming that the new regulations would not be a burden.
However, the CMA is a group of generally large chemical
manufacturers, and reportedly more than 60 percent of the
facilities likely affected by the CWC are not CMA members.
Large companies possess far greater resources and experience in
dealing with regulators of all kinds. Indeed, new regulatory
burdens can perversely give large firms a competitive edge over
smaller companies due to such resource and experience factors.
As economist Thomas Hopkins has shown, the per employee cost of
federal regulation runs almost 50 percent higher for firms with
fewer than 500 employees vs. companies with more than 500
employees--$5,400 per employee vs. $3,000 per employee,
respectively.
Chemical companies would not be the only types of businesses
subject to CWC regulations. Firms in the food processing,
pharmaceutical, paint, petroleum, biotech, electronics,
textiles, fertilizers, rubber, brewing, and distilling
industries would be impacted as well.
Significant legal questions arise for U.S. businesses as
well. Distinct possibilities exist that rights of due process
could be violated in relation to warrantless searches and
personnel being compelled to answer questions, and provide
information and access; and a ``takings'' could occur when
government reveals information harming a business.
There are CWC supporters who would have the public believe that
treaty supporters do not care about chemical weapons and U.S. security;
in fact, the exact opposite is true. Anyone who really cares should
stand up and oppose this deeply flawed, dangerous and costly treaty.
SBSC believes the Chemical Weapons Convention to be a deeply flawed
treaty that will do nothing to enhance and may indeed weaken U.S.
national security, while imposing new regulatory burdens on U.S.
businesses. The Chemical Weapons Convention should be rejected by the
U.S. Senate.
Sincerely,
Raymond J. Keating,
Chief Economist, Small Business Survival Committee.
__________
Statement by Ronald F. Lehman Before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, June 9, 1994
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members of this Committee: In
Islamabad, Pakistan, last week, I received your invitation to appear
before the Committee to discuss ratification of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. It was an honor to be asked to appear before you once
again, and I am particularly pleased to join several close and valued
friends who made major contributions to the revolutionary national
security and arms control achievements which took place during the
Reagan and Bush administrations. It is in that same spirit of public
service that they are here today.
The best friends of real arms control are those who have demanded
the highest standards. Better is not really the enemy of the good. In
particular, the U.S. negotiating position is always strengthened when
we negotiators are reminded that one-third of the Senate plus one might
someday decide that the treaty we conclude falls short of their
expectations for advancing the national interest.
During the negotiation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, I and
others consulted regularly with members of the United States Congress
including the members of this Committee. We sought your advice on how
to negotiate the best possible treaty. A process of consultation,
however, must never substitute for a rigorous examination of the final
product such as is now underway, taking into account the contributions
of critics as well as proponents.
For my part, I am a proponent. I speak today as a private citizen;
the views I express are my own and not necessarily those of any
institution or administration. Let me make clear up front where I
stand. I urge the Senate to give its consent to the ratification of the
Chemical Weapons Convention and to move quickly to complete a process
of careful deliberation. I say this, not because of my personal
involvement in its negotiation, but on its merits. I won't repeat the
many arguments which have already been made on behalf of the treaty,
but I would like to present a few additional considerations.
The negotiation and completion of the Chemical Weapons Convention
in the twilight of the Cold War was a valuable element in a bigger,
balanced strategy to increase the security of the United States and to
promote political change around the world. We negotiated from a
position of economic, political, and military strength. We energized
our technology and economy, while reducing subsidies to the Communist
bloc. We recognized the ``evil empire'' for what it was and rejected
attitudes of ``moral equivalence'', which undermine our resolve and
strengthen our adversary. We modernized our defenses, including our
chemical weapons deterrent, even as we made arms control an integral
part of that overall foreign and national security strategy.
One can see this, in one small example, even in the way our pursuit
of a ban on chemical weapons reinforced our commitment to the spread of
democracy. We sought intensive verification measures so that we might
reduce the threat posed by the Warsaw Pact, but also because we knew
that totalitarian regimes cannot long survive when their citizens are
exposed to contradictory information. The requirement for detailed
information on chemical weapons stocks and facilities before reaching
agreement, at the time an innovative negotiating step which led to the
December 1989 U.S./Soviet Phase I data exchange and the recent Phase II
exchange, sparked a controversy which continues in Russia even today
over the history of the Soviet chemical and biological weapons
programs.
Our demand for trial inspections prior to completion of
negotiations aided in crafting a better treaty, but it also caused
Soviet citizens to ask why they themselves could not see what Americans
were allowed to see. Our insistence, first in the U.S./Soviet Bilateral
Destruction Agreement (BDA) of 1990, and later in the CWC, that
destruction of chemical weapons stocks be done in a safe and
environmentally sound manner has created a grassroots political process
of ``NIMBY''--not in my backyard--which has complicated agreement on a
chemical weapons destruction plan but also complicates a return of the
old system. One should not exaggerate the role that arms control has
played in promoting our national agenda, but one should not ignore it
either.
Arguably, the CWC is more important in today's violent and changing
world than it was when it was being negotiated during the Cold War. The
end of the Warsaw Pact, America's sole superpower status, its changing
global military missions, and its advanced conventional munitions have
reduced the circumstances under which the United States would decide to
deploy chemical weapons into an operational theater as a deterrent.
Increasingly circumstances are such that it is more important to reduce
the likelihood that others will use them than that we have them.
The Chemical Weapons Convention plays an essential role in our
efforts to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and
their means of delivery. In the long run, our non-proliferation,
counter-proliferation, or anti-proliferation efforts may be doomed to
failure if we cannot bring about political change and greater stability
around the globe. As I have suggested, the CWC continues to be a small,
but important part of that effort. In the near term, however, the CWC
may actually play its most important role.
We will fall dangerously short in our efforts to stop the
proliferation of more destructive nuclear and biological wcapons if we
cannot even codify and build upon the international norms which emerged
in the negotiation of the ban on chemical weapons. At a time when we
must build support for long term monitoring of Iraq and ``special
inspections'' by the International Atomic Energy Agency in North Korea
and elsewhere, entry into force of the CWC will commit ever more of the
international community to the unprecedented openness increasingly
necessary if we are to prevent disaster. At a time when the global
economy reduces trade barriers, but also undermines controls on
proliferation-related technologies, the CWC codifies the principle that
no nation should trade in dangerous materials with those who will not
accept international non-proliferation norms. At a time when threats to
international security may require military forces of the United States
to be deployed within range of the weapons of outlaw regimes, the CWC
can reduce the dangers our troops will face and help provide the basis
in international law and public opinion for strong measures that we and
others may be forced to take.
These are important external effects of the CWC, but what of the
substantive workings of the Convention itself? They are revolutionary.
Given the inherent technical difficulty of achieving a meaningful ban
on chemical weapons, they need to be. The text of the Chemical Weapons
Convention has pushed the envelope of multilateral arms control far
beyond what was once believed negotiable. It may be that the special
circumstances at the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War made it
possible for a very experienced international and American team to
achieve what otherwise could never have been done. But more than
opportunity was involved. Years of careful preparation and experience
led the way. The former Reagan and Bush officials here today played a
key role in that process.
Important lessons learned from the on-going arms control process
were applied over the course of the negotiation of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. In negotiation, we were not afraid to ask for far more than
an acceptable bottom line. Great emphasis was placed on more precise
draftsmanship, more detailed data exchanges, greater openness and
interaction, an organization with the power to conduct intrusive
inspections and recommend sanctions.
Every effort was made to make cheating by parties less attractive,
more difficult, more likely to be discovered, and more certain to
result in a stiff penalty. Nations which refused to become parties to
this new international norm would also pay a heavy economic and
political price. Nations which joined could expect reasonable
assistance if threaten by chemical weapons.
Although our process was not perfect, careful study came before
making most decisions. A marketplace of ideas often resulted in
disagreements, especially when facts were few and concepts vague. In
the end, however, a vigorous interagency process which ensured that all
of the relevant information was considered and that senior officials
were exposed to key technical information and alternative views
resulted in better decisions. Sometimes a consensus developed,
sometimes difficult, divisive decisions had to be made.
Diplomatic and political considerations often influenced fine
tuning and presentation, but I think the record will show that in the
CWC, as in the INF treaty, the START I and II treaties, and in the
Verification Protocol which made possible a 98-0 vote in the Senate for
consent to ratify the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, national security was
the overwhelmingly central determinant.
One example from the Chemical Weapons Convention is that of
challenge inspections. Everyone knows that no magic telescope exists
which will tell us where in the world on any given day someone will be
violating some provision of the CWC. But everyone also knows who are
the most likely threats and where potential threats to our forces must
be considered most seriously. Information is gathered, intelligence
estimates are made, and military precautions taken. In the past, it has
usually stopped there for lack of more intrusive measures including
challenge inspections which might provide a basis for international
action without compromising sensitive sources and methods. A
verification and enforcement regime for the CWC needed a challenge
inspection mechanism.
At the same time, we recognized that challenge inspections were not
magic either. They may or may not find the evidence you need, depending
on circumstances, procedures, and skill. Worse, such intrusive
inspections could be abused or backfire revealing important proprietary
information or national security secrets. Constitutional questions
related to property and privacy also needed to be addressed.
No technical challenge in arms control over the twelve years of the
Reagan and Bush administrations received more careful consideration at
all levels than that of implementation of a challenge inspection
regime. Working with professionals and experts inside and outside of
government, we sought to find a path which would maximize the
effectiveness of inspections while minimizing costs including the risk
to sensitive information.
We learned much along the way. More often than not, the real
problems and real solutions were to be found in the field and among the
operators rather than within the Washington-based bureaucracy. We found
that different sites and activities posed different problems. We
discovered that some sensitive information was less vulnerable than we
had believed, but that some was more vulnerable. We learned that with
or without a CWC, some security measures should be strengthened. We
discovered that at many sensitive sites concern about illegal chemical
activity could be dispelled without much risk. We also feared that at a
few sites we could offer little meaningful access without great risk.
Out of this continuous process, we developed an approach which can
work and which gives us what we need to protect highly sensitive
information. Conceptually, the approach was simple. Access would be
granted to any challenged site, but access would be managed at that
site to protect sensitive information. If, at a particular site,
timeliness or intrusiveness were not considered sufficient to resolve
legitimate concerns, then the inspected party had an obligation to
resolve those concerns by other means.
To meet diverse concerns, however, the desired U.S. package
involved some complexity. Moreover, it involved far more intrusiveness
than some nations desired and more rules for managed access than other
nations favored. The more nations studied the proposal, the more they
understood that it could work. To obtain the U.S. position as an
outcome was made easier because it could be portrayed as a natural
compromise between opposing views. In the end, however, I had no doubt
that we would get our position because we had made it clear that we
would not join consensus on a treaty that did not meet our security
concerns. Other nations understood that we had done our homework and
that we meant what we said.
Still, the conclusion of the CWC does not come without a price, and
its contributions to our security will not be fully achieved without
effective implementation not only of the CWC itself but also of a sound
foreign policy and national security strategy. One of the inherent
dangers of engaging in arms control negotiations is that success will
have a soporific effect on the nation's attention to its national
defense and that of its friends, allies, and interests around the
world.
When treaties are seen as solutions to our security challenges
rather than tools to be used to help address those challenges, danger
grows. When the Biological Weapons Convention was concluded, too many
people assumed the threat of biological warfare had been eliminated.
Research on defenses received inadequate support, and we saw too much
of the ``Sverdlovsk'' phenomenon--a propensity to explain away what one
does not want to be so. One hopes that we are not seeing this again
with respect to North Korea and the NPT.
Some would argue that this danger that arms control will lull us
into neglecting our defenses means that we should never negotiate or at
least never reach agreements. The problem with that conclusion is that
it assumes we cannot trust our own nation to negotiate in its own
interest or provide for its own defense. When this becomes a problem,
it is a problem the American people and its representatives have the
power to solve. We must make certain they get the facts. Hearings like
this are an important means for doing that.
For my part, I believe that the arms control and non-proliferation
tools can be used to promote our national security, and we must ensure
that they do. The Chemical Weapons Convention is clearly a tool which
can enhance our national security. I believe that the successful
conclusion of arms control agreements need not result in the neglect of
our defenses, but it often has. In giving its consent to ratification
of the Chemical Weapons Convention without reservations, the Senate
should take real steps to support implementation of the treaty, fund a
strong defense program, and promote a balanced national security
strategy which recognizes that the United States must be the leader in
a very dangerous world.
The world has undergone dramatic change, and arms control trains
have been rushing by. In such a world, if we do not shape the arms
control process to serve our interests, we can be certain that some
nations will be pressing in directions that are not in our interest.
The Chemical Weapons Convention before this committee is in our
interest. Again, Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members of the Committee,
I believe that the United States Senate should give its consent to
ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Thank you.