CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION
SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE APRIL 1997


                                                        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
                               __________

The Case Against The Chemical Weapons Convention ``Truth or 
  Consequences'' [Prepared by The Center for Security Policy]....   276


The Case Against The Chemical Weapons Convention ``Truth or Consequences'' Prepared by The Center for Security Policy introduction As the Senate resumes formal consideration of the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)--following the Clinton Administration's decision last fall to withdraw it in the face of certain defeat--the Center for Security Policy has undertaken to provide detailed analyses of many of the issues in dispute. These papers, most of which have been previously issued as part of the Center's Truth or Consequences series, have been compiled and organized to maximize their usefulness to those who will be participating in the coming debate. They address in particular claims being made by the proponents that appear ill-informed, at best, and highly misleading, at worst. The Center for Security Policy, whose mission is to stimulate and inform debate on vital defense and foreign policy matters, is gratified by the level of attention now being focused on the problematic Chemical Weapons Convention. Such attention--if informed and sustained--is essential to the proper functioning of the deliberative process of a democracy like ours. Rarely is that deliberative process more important than with respect to decisionmaking on a treaty such as the CWC, with its ominous implications for U.S. national security, proprietary business information and constitutional rights. For these reasons, efforts now being made to circumscribe, foreshorten or otherwise attenuate the CWC debate are to be strenuously resisted. The Center hopes that the following pages will prove helpful to those interested in determining the fate of the Chemical Weapons Convention on its merits. For additional background on the treaty and future analyses by the Center, please consult our site on the World Wide Web--www.security-policy.org. Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Director, 8 April 1997 __________ ``Truth or Consequences:'' Center Analyses on the CWC Debate Table of Contents Issues Relating to the Senate's Role In Treaty-Making Truth or Consequences #10: Clinton's White House Snow Job Cannot Conceal The Chemical Weapon's Convention's Defects (No. 97-D 49, 4 April 1997) Republicans' Senate Leadership Offers Constructive Alternative To Fatally Flawed Chemical Weapons Convention (No. 97-D 43, 21 March 1997) A Place To Start On Campaign Finance Reform: CMA Should Refrain From Putting Senators In Compromising Positions On The Chemical Weapons Convention (No. 97-D 34, 26 February 1997) Truth or Consequences #2: Senate Does Not Need To Sacrifice Sensible Scrutiny Of CWC To Meet An Artificial Deadline (No. 97-D 18, 31 January 1997) Clinton's Chemical Power Play: Bad For The Senate, Bad For The National Interest (No. 97-D 7, 13 January 1997) Here We Go Again: Clinton Presses Anew For Senate Approval of Flawed, Unverifiable, Ineffective Chemical Weapons Treaty (No. 97-T 5, 8 January 1997) The CWC's Impact on the U.S. Military and National Security: Just Which Chemical Weapons Convention Is Colin Powell Supporting-- And Does He Know The Difference? (No. 97-D 48, 3 April 1997) Truth or Consequences #7: Schlesinger, Rumsfeld And Weinberger Rebut Scowcroft And Deutch On The CWC (No. 97-D 37, 5 March 1997) Gen. Schwartzkopf Tells Senate He Shares Critics' Concerns About Details Of The Chemical Weapons Convention (No. 97-D 35, 27 February 1997) Truth or Consequences #3: Clinton `Makes A Mistake About It' In Arguing The CWC Will Protect U.S. Troops (No. 97-D 21, 6 February 1997) The CWC's Impact on U.S. Intelligence: Russia's Covert Chemical Weapons Program Vindicates Jesse Helms' Continuing Opposition To Phony CW Arms Control (No. 97-D 19, 4 February 1997) The CWC's Impact on U.S. Business: Truth or Consequences #5: The CWC Will Not Be Good For Business--To Say Nothing Of The National Interest (No. 97-D 27, 17 February 1997) The CWC's Impact on the U.S. Constitution: Truth or Consequences #1: Center Challenges Administration Efforts To Distort, Suppress Debate On CWC--Dangers To Americans' Constitutional Rights (No. 97-D 14, 28 January 1997) The CWC's Impact on International Terrorism: Truth or Consequences #6: The CWC Will Not Prevent Chemical Terrorism Against The U.S. Or Its Interests (No. 97-D 30, 22 February 1997) The CWC's Impact on Chemical Weapons Proliferation: Truth or Consequences #8: The CWC Will Exacerbate The Proliferation Of Chemical Warfare Capabilities (No. 97-D 38, 6 March 1997) Miscellaneous Issues Pertaining to the CWC: New National Poll Shows Overwhelming Public Opposition to a Flawed Chemical Weapons Convention (No. 97-P 50, 10 April 1997) Truth or Consequences #9: CWC Proponents Dissemble About Treaty Arrangements Likely To Disserve U.S. Interests (No. 97-D 46, 27 March 1997) The Weekly Standard Weighs In On the CWC: `Just Say No To A Bad Treaty' (No. 97-P 40, 17 March 1997) Truth or Consequences #4: No DNA Tests Needed To Show That Claims About Republican Paternity Of CWC Are Overblown (No. 97-D 24, 16 February 1997) __________ No. 97-D 49 4 April 1997 Truth or Consequences #10: Clinton's White House Snow Job Cannot Conceal the Chemical Weapons Convention's Defects (Washington, D.C.): The latest installment in the Clinton Administration's campaign to browbeat the U.S. Senate into ratifying a fatally flawed Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) failed to live up to its advance billing--in more ways than one. Despite repeated press reports to the effect that former President George Bush and General Colin Powell were to play active roles in an ``event'' on the South Lawn of the White House, the former was nowhere to be seen and the latter had a letter he signed acknowledged by the President, but was otherwise scarcely in evidence. (The Center for Security Policy would like to think that the force of its argument in a paper released last night \1\ encouraged these two influential figures to reconsider the active role as flacks that the Clintonistas have in mind for them.) Please Even more disappointing was the case the President made for this treaty. On issue after issue, he persisted in grossly overselling the benefits of this Convention, misrepresenting its terms and/or understating its costs. Consider the following: Item: The CWC Will Not `Banish Poison Gas' The President declared that by ratifying the CWC, the United States has ``an opportunity now to forge a widening international commitment to banish poison gas from the earth in the 21st Century.'' This is the sort of wish-masquerading-as-fact that has been much in evidence in Presidential statements to the effect that ``there are no Russian missiles pointed at our children.'' The truth--as even more-honest CWC advocates acknowledge--is that not a single country of concern, or for that matter any sub-national terrorist group, that wishes to maintain a covert chemical weapons program will be prevented from doing so by this treaty. Neither are they likely to be caught at it if they do. And even if they are, there is a negligible chance the ``international community'' will be willing to punish them for doing so. This is hardly the stuff of which effective banishment is made. Item: `Poisons for Peace' The President claimed that: ``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.'' There is clearly no such requirement on the rogue states that decline to participate in this treaty (e.g., Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan and North Korea). What is more, the Convention's Articles X and XI may well accelerate the proliferation of chemical weapon technology. This is because these provisions obligate parties to ``facilitate the fullest possible'' transfers of technology directly relevant to the manufacture of chemical weapons and those used to defend against chemical attack--a highly desirable capability for people interested in waging chemical wars. \2\ Item: The CWC Will Not `Help Shield Our Soldiers' President Clinton repeated a grievous misrepresentation featured in his State of the Union address: On the South Lawn he declared, that ``by ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention ... we can help shield our soldiers from one of the battlefield's deadliest killers.'' As noted above, the CWC may actually make our soldiers more vulnerable to one of the battlefield's deadliest killers--not least as a result of the insights shared defensive technology will afford potential adversaries about how to reverse-engineer Western protective equipment, the better to exploit its vulnerabilities. Item: The CWC Will Not Protect Our Children President Clinton shamelessly claimed that ``We can give our children something our parents and grandparents never had--broad protection against the threat of chemical attack.'' Just how irresponsible this statement is can be seen from a cover article published last month by Washington City Paper. The report disclosed that the people of the Washington, D.C. area and, indeed, the rest of the Nation are sitting ducks for chemical attacks. \3\ This problem, which arises from a systematic failure to apply resources to civil defense that are even remotely commensurate with the danger, will only grow as people like the President compound the CWC's placebo effect of this treaty by exaggerating its benefits. Item: The CWC Will Not Help in the Fight Against Terrorism While the President proclaimed that ratifying the CWC will ``bolster our leadership in the fight against terrorism,'' the reality is that this treaty may actually facilitate terrorism. This could come about as a result not only of the dispersion of chemical warfare relevant technology and the placebo effect but also by dint of the sensitive information the Convention expects the United States to share with foreign nationals. At least some of these folks will be working for potentially hostile intelligence services--including those of states, like Iran, known to sponsor terrorism. Compromising what U.S. intelligence knows about international terrorists and their sponsors will only intensify the danger posed by such actors. \4\ Item: Flogging a Phony Deadline The President further claimed that ``America needs to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and we must do it before it takes effect on April 29th.'' While the treaty will enter into force on that date, with or without the U.S. as a party, the dire consequences that are endlessly predicted if America is not in are being wildly exaggerated. Anytime the United States joins, the 25 percent of the tab that it is supposed to pick up will give Washington considerable influence in the new U.N. bureaucracy set up to implement the CWC. The Clinton Administration's real--but largely unacknowledged concern--is that this arms control house-of-cards may collapse if the United States does not ratify the treaty. After all, in its absence, not one party to the Convention is likely to be an acknowledged chemical weapons state. The unfunded costs, combined with the inability to inspect American companies while possibly exposing their own to undesired inspections, will almost certainly prompt most states parties to think better of the whole idea. \5\ Item: The CWC Will Harm American Business Interests President Clinton further claimed that, ``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.'' The truth is that no one has yet been able to document the $600 million cost the Chemical Manufacturers Association incessantly claims will arise from trade restrictions on U.S. industry if America is not a treaty party. What is more, the actual cost (probably closer to $30 million) arising from such restrictions will be insignificant compared to the additional costs treaty participation will impose on taxpayers and private companies (conservatively estimated to be in the billions of dollars). \6\ Jane's Underscores the Irresponsible Nature of the Clinton Snow-Job Today's CWC photo opportunity at the White House seems all the more ignominious against the backdrop of a news item carried in this morning's Washington Post. It seems that the forward to Jane's Air Defense 1997-98, a highly respected London-based defense publication, confirms that Russia has developed a new variant of the lethal anthrax toxin that is totally resistant to antibiotics''--in flagrant violation of an earlier ``international norm'' governing biological weapons activities. More to the present point, Jane's notes that the Russians have also developed three nerve agents ``that could be made without using any of the precursor chemicals, which are banned under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.'' It added that ``two of the new nerve agents are eight times as deadly as the VX nerve agent that Iraq has acknowledged stockpiling, while the other is as deadly as VX.'' (Emphasis added.) Unfortunately, this information is but the latest indication of bad faith on the part of the Russian government of Boris Yeltsin. One would have thought, for example, that the Kremlin's complete reneging on the Wyoming Memorandum and the Bilateral Destruction Agreement would have shamed their co-author, former Secretary of State James Baker, into staying away from the White House fandango for a CWC that was supposed to have been critically underpinned by these earlier agreements. \7\ The Bottom Line The Center for Security Policy believes that it is becoming increasingly clear why the Clinton Administration and its allies on the Chemical Weapons Convention are relying on razzle-dazzle powerplays like today's--and eschewing opportunities for a real debate: The CWC is unlikely to be approved if its fate is determined on the merits. By contrast, critics of the CWC are committed to fostering a real, thorough and informed debate. Toward that end, it looks forward to the start of hearings next week in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led off by three of this century's most distinguished American public servants: Former Secretaries of Defense James Schlesinger, \8\ Donald Rumsfeld and Caspar Weinberger. Let the debate begin! notes: \1\ See Just Which Chemical Weapons Convention Is Colin Powell Supporting--And Does He Know The Difference? (No. 97-D 48, 3 April 1997). \2\ For more on the absurd `Poisons for Peace' aspect of the CWC, see Truth or Consequences #8: The CWC Will Exacerbate The Proliferation Of Chemical Warfare Capabilities (No. 97-D 38, 6 March 1997). \3\ See ``Margin of Terror: In the two years since the Tokyo subway incident, local and Federal officials have had a chance to prepare Washington for a devastating chemical or biological attack. So why haven't they?'' by John Cloud in the 14 March 1997 issue of the Washington City Paper. \4\ For more on the threat of chemical weapons, see Truth or Consequences #6: The CWC Will Not Prevent Chemical Terrorism Against the U.S. or its Interests (No. 97-D 30, 22 February 1997). \5\ For more on this fraudulent timeline, see the Center's Decision Brief entitled Truth or Consequences #2: Senate Does Not Need To Sacrifice Sensible Study of CWC to Meet an Artificial Deadline (No. 97- D 18, 31 January 1997). For more on the non-declaration problem, see Truth or Consequences #9: CWC Proponents Dissemble About Treaty Arrangements Likely To Disserve U.S. Interests (No. 97-D 46, 27 March 1997). \6\ For more on the costs--both direct and indirect to American firms--see the Center's Decision Brief entitled Truth or Consequences #5. The CWC Will Not Be Good for Business--To Say Nothing of The National Interest (No. 97-D 27, 17 February 1997). \7\ For more on Russia's chemical weapons programs, its behavior on the Bilateral Destruction Agreement and their implications, for the Chemical Weapons Convention, see the Center's Decision Brief entitled Russia's Covert Chemical Weapons Program Vindicates Jesse Helms' Continuing Opposition to Phony CW Arms Control (No. 97-D 19, 4 February 1997). \8\ While all three of these gentlemen have held other, distinguished positions, it is noteworthy in the present context that Secretary Schlesinger also served as a Director of Central Intelligence in the Nixon Administration and as a Secretary of Energy for President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. __________ No. 97-D 43 21 March 1997 Republicans' Senate Leadership Offers Constructive Alternative To Fatally Flawed Chemical Weapons Convention (Washington, D.C.): The Senate Republican leadership (i.e., Majority Leader Trent Lott, Majority Whip Don Nickles, Republican Conference Committee Chairman Connie Mack and Conference Secretary Paul Coverdell) has joined the chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees (Sens. Jesse Helms and Richard Shelby, respectively) as sponsors of critically important legislation introduced yesterday by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ). This bill, known as the ``Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat Reduction Act of 1997'' (S. 495) makes it clear that the debate over the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is not, as some treaty proponents contend, a dispute between those who are opposed to chemical weapons and those who favor poison gas. S. 495 establishes, instead, that the Senate has a real choice-- between a Republican leadership approach toward dealing with the threat of chemical weapons that is operationally oriented, practical, enforceable and relatively inexpensive and the CWC approach that is declaratory, ineffective, unenforceable and costly. This should not be a hard choice for any thoughtful legislator. Highlights of the CBW Threat Reduction Act include the following: Creating civil and criminal penalties for the acquisition, possession, transfer or use of chemical and biological weapons. Lays out a range of sanctions to be imposed upon any country that uses CBW against another country or against its own nationals. These include suspending: U.S. foreign assistance, arms sales and the associated financing, multilateral trade credits, aviation rights and/or diplomatic relations. Calls for adding enforcement mechanisms to the existing, multilateral Conventions concerning chemical and biological weapons. Establishes as U.S. policy the goal of preserving existing national and multilateral restrictions on chemical and biological trade. These arrangements are at direct risk from the CWC's Article XI. Affirms existing U.S. policy governing the right to use Riot Control Agents (RCAs) in both peacetime and wartime. This would countermand President Clinton's plan to deny American servicemen and women the ability to use tear gas and other RCAs during wartime search-and-rescue operations and when combatants and non-combatants are intermingled. S. 495 makes clear the United States' intention to dismantle its existing stockpile of chemical weapons and to participate in sensible, effective non-proliferation efforts. It is a valuable contribution to the debate on curbing the threat posed by chemical weapons--a debate that is expected to become much more intense as the Clinton Administration tries to coerce the Senate into rubber-stamping the Chemical Weapons Convention by the middle of April. __________ No. 97-D 34 26 February 1997 A Place To Start on Campaign Finance Reform: C.M.A. Should Refrain From Putting Senators in Compromising Positions On the Chemical Weapons Convention (Washington, D.C.): Last night, the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA), an organization representing some 190 large American and multinational chemical producers, held a Washington fund-raiser for the Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS). This event presumably will help the distinguished Republican leader prepare his war chest for future electoral campaigns. It seems inconceivable, however, that this event could have the effect CMA probably hoped for-- namely, inducing Senator Lott to disregard the serious concerns he has expressed about the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and to secure the treaty's prompt ratification. After all, such an initiative occurs at the very moment that Bill Clinton's presidency is undergoing a Chinese water-torture (pun intended) of daily revelations about fund-raisers buying access, influence and policy changes. This event, and other Capitol Hill occasions like it sponsored by interested parties such as CMA, can only complicate the position of Senators obliged to act on the controversial CWC. The CMA is, nonetheless, reportedly investing millions of dollars in its campaign for CWC ratification--a campaign being carefully coordinated with the Clinton Ad- ministration and others. As the Center has documented in recent weeks in its Truth or Consequences series of Decision Briefs, \1\ this effort appears intended to obscure the key problems with this convention that have been identified by an array of knowledgeable experts--problems called to the attention of the Senate a few months ago by no less a figure than Senator Lott. Senator Lott, On the Record In fact, on 9 September 1996--shortly before the administration realized that it did not have the votes to approve the Chemical Weapons Convention and asked that it be withdrawn from consideration--Senator Lott made an important floor speech concerning the CWC's myriad flaws. Highlights of his remarks included the following: ``...As we near consideration of [the CWC], I wanted to share with my colleagues some of the correspondence that I have recently received. Late on Friday of last week, I received a letter of opposition to the Convention signed by more than 50 defense and foreign policy experts, including two former Secretaries of Defense, former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many others. ``The letter made four fundamental points: The Chemical Weapons Convention is not global, it is not effective, and is not verifiable, but it will have significant costs to American security. Their letter concludes by stating that, `The national security benefits of the Chemical Weapons Convention clearly do not outweigh its considerable costs. Consequently, we respectfully urge you to reject ratification of the CWC unless and until it is made genuinely global, effective, and verifiable.' ``This is not my judgment. It is the judgment, however, of Caspar Weinberger, William Clark, Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ed Meese, Dick Cheney, and many others who served with distinction under Presidents Reagan and Bush. I think their views deserve serious consideration from every Member. ``As you will note, two of those names that I read are former Secretaries of Defense and certainly highly respected. Our colleague from the House of Representatives, Dick Cheney, is one that I really had not known exactly what his position was, so it was of great interest to me to see what his thoughts might be. ``I have two other letters that I encourage Members to review. First, the National Federation of Independent Business wrote to me today expressing serious concern about the impact of the CWC on the more than 600,000 members of the NFIB. The letter notes that under the CWC, for the first time small businesses would be subject to a foreign entity inspecting their businesses. The concerns that are expressed concerning increased regulatory burden of the Chemical Weapons Convention on American small business I think should be weighed very carefully before coming to a decision about his or her attitude and what the position would be of that Senator on the convention. I know my colleagues do not want to vote first and ask questions later when it comes to small business, which already bears a disproportionate share of the regulatory burden from the Federal Government. ``I also received a letter today from retired Gen. James A. Williams, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency with almost four decades of experience in intelligence. General Williams raises very serious concerns over the potential of CWC being used to gain proprietary information from American business. He concludes that `there is potential for the loss of untold billions of dollars of trade secrets which can be used to gain competitive advantage, to shorten R&D cycles, and to steal U.S. market share.' Many businesses have contacted my office and the offices of other Senators expressing these and similar concerns about Senate action on this convention. ... ``I wanted to call to the Senate's attention this correspondence that I have outlined because it is very important that a range of views be made available to all Senators. The administration has been making its case for quite some time, but opponents of the convention have just begun the serious examination the convention really deserves. ... ``My own personal greatest concern is the question of verification. What do we do about Iraq? If we pass a convention like this, that would be applicable to us, sort of the law- abiding citizens of the world, how do we make sure what is happening in Iraq, North Korea, and Libya, the renegade countries of the world? Is this going to be a situation where we go forward with this convention, this Chemical Weapons Convention, yet those who are the real threat do not participate, or deny that they are involved, or we are not in a position where we can verify what they are actually doing?'' The Bottom Line As the foregoing remarks indicate, Senator Lott has approached the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention in a fair, reasonable and statesmanlike fashion. He has been responsive to the Clinton Administration's insistence that the treaty be scheduled for a vote last fall, its request on 12 September 1996 that the order for a vote be vitiated (in the face of certain defeat) and its demands this year for negotiations aimed at reviving the CWC's prospects and/or fixing the accord's shortcomings. At the same time, he has striven to ensure that the concerns of his colleagues and others opposed to this treaty are not given short shrift. It would be a grave disservice to the Majority Leader, to the institution he manages so ably and to the Nation if the appearance that strings were attached to the Chemical Manufacturers Association's largess were to sully Senator Lott's future stewardship of the top CMA legislative agenda item--the CWC. The Center for Security Policy calls on CMA to refrain from using its deep-pocketed Political Action Committee in ways that could compromise the integrity of the debate on the Chemical Weapons Convention and put key participants in that debate in compromising positions. notes: \1\ These papers--dealing with issues like the Convention's impact on the U.S. military, on American businesses, on citizens' Constitutional rights, etc.--can be accessed via the Center's site on the World Wide Web (www.security-policy.org) or by contacting the Center. __________ No. 97-D 18 31 January 1997 Truth or Consequences #2: Senate Does Not Need To Sacrifice Sensible Scrutiny of CWC To Meet an Artificial Deadline (Washington, D.C.): A centerpiece of the Clinton Administration's campaign to obtain expedited Senate action on the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is the argument that something terrible will happen if the treaty is not ratified by April 29th. Precisely what the terrible something is--and what its implications for U.S. interests will be--has proved to be a little hard to pin down. The reason for this is because there will be no significant harm if the Senate declines to rubber-stamp this ill-conceived Convention in response to what amounts to a wholly artificial deadline. The CWC Is Incomplete Clinton Administration officials claim that if the United States doesn't ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention before 29 April, it will be unable to participate in deliberations at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which will ``flesh out'' some critical issues. The Administration thus admits that the treaty awaiting the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate is not a finished document. In the Bush Administration's haste to have a Convention ready for signature prior to its departure from office, a number of details--for example, particulars concerning the conduct of on-site inspections-- were left unresolved. They were to be finalized by a preparatory commission prior to entry-into-force. Such details can have important consequences. CWC advocates point to this reality as a compelling reason for getting the United States to ratify the treaty before April 29th (the date on which the Convention is supposed to enter into force). But they cannot have it both ways: If the details yet to be worked out may materially affect the acceptability of the treaty, the Senate is being asked to sign on to a work-in-progress--or perhaps a pig-in-a-poke since the negotiations may or may not come out acceptably. On the other hand, if the treaty is ripe for Senate approval, the details that remain to be sorted out should not be so important. In that case, the argument that the United States must participate in their negotiation as a state party is not compelling. The United States is Already Involved in the Ongoing Negotiations The truth is that the United States is already participating in the preparatory commission's negotiations on the CWC's outstanding details, even before the Senate gives its advice and consent. As a result, the administration is being represented, notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. has yet to become a state party. Russia Is Not a State Party, Either Another nation has to have a keen interest in the outcome of these negotiations: Russia. In fact, the Kremlin has already served notice that if the OPCW proceeds to finalize the CWC's implementation and other outstanding particulars in ways unsatisfactory to Russia's interests, Moscow will never agree to ratify. European and other states parties appear to have taken this Russian threat seriously and seem increasingly disinclined to complete work on the treaty's details pending Russia's ratification. \1\ If so, the United States should feel no undue pressure to complete its own ratification debate. In any event, it is far from clear why the U.S. should feel compelled to ratify the treaty before Russia does. After all, Russia has the world's largest arsenal of chemical weapons, continues to produce new and more dangerous chemical arms and is widely expected to continue to do so even if Russia becomes a state party. The United States Will Have Considerable Influence Irrespective of When It Joins the CWC By virtue of the immense size, technological advantages and valuable products of the U.S. commercial chemical industry, the United States will inevitably be the ``600-pound gorilla'' in the OPCW if and when it decides to become a state party. The contention that the preferences of the United States will be ignored in the implementation of the CWC is, consequently, implausible. This is particularly true since Washington will be expected to pay 25 percent of the OPCW's operating costs--a substantially larger portion of the organization's budget than will be borne by any other nation. Even if, as the Clinton Administration claims, this tithe will amount to no more than $25 million annually, \2\ such a sum represents an obvious source of leverage should the United States need to exercise it to protect its interests in OPCW deliberations. The United States Will Have Standing Irrespective of When It Ratifies the CWC CWC proponents suggest that, if the United States does not ratify the treaty by 29 April, it will not be an original state party-- condemning it to second-class status with adverse implications for its ability to have its personnel participate in on-site inspections. In fact, by virtue of its being among the first nations to sign this Convention, the United States will in accordance with standard diplomatic practice be considered to be an original state party whenever it chooses to join the treaty regime. While it is true that, until that time, the United States will not be able to have its personnel conduct on-site inspections, this may well prove to be the case even if the U.S. does ratify the CWC! In fact, countries being subjected to challenge inspections have the right to deny individual inspectors entry. Those nations unfriendly to the United States and, presumably, of greatest concern from a compliance point of view, are likely to exercise this right to preclude U.S. monitors. After all, if there is any prospect that an on-site inspector will be able to detect an illegal, covert chemical weapons program, chances are that it will be an American that does it. (Unfortunately, those chances are likely to be reduced dramatically should the Clinton Administration succeed in an initiative now being discussed in the interagency process, one that would start sharing with the OPCW sensitive U.S. methods for detecting clandestine programs. Similar training given to the International Atomic Energy Agency gave representatives of Saddam Hussein's government and other rogue states invaluable lessons in how to defeat international monitoring and on- site inspection regimes.) For its part, however, the United States will find it difficult--if not impossible as a practical matter--to object to all of the foreign inspectors whose participation in challenge inspections in this country will be of concern. Needless to say, this will not be because of any danger that a covert American CW program will be detected since the U.S. will have no such program. Rather, it will be because such individuals will assuredly try to expropriate confidential business information (CBI) or other sensitive data from the targeted U.S. facilities. The Bottom Line In short, the April 29th deadline is an artificial one, promoted principally so as to try to force the U.S. Senate to complete action on the Chemical Weapons Convention without further, substantive consideration of this accord's myriad shortcomings. So artificial is this deadline that the Clinton Administration bears considerable responsibility for creating it. After all, the administration last October vigorously encouraged Hungary to become the 65th nation to deposit its instruments of ratification, thereby starting the clock on the 6-month run-up to entry-into-force. Its trans- parent purpose in doing so was to intensify pressure on the Senate to provide its uninformed advice and consent. If anything, the Administration's efforts to try to foreshorten or confuse the debate about the Chemical Weapons Convention suggest that the Senate would be well advised to defer U.S. ratification until after the treaty enters into force. Doing so would afford an opportunity to validate--or disprove--the various concerns being expressed by this treaty's knowledgeable critics. It may, in fact, be the only way such concerns can be fully and authoritatively addressed without grave risk to American security, commercial and taxpayer interests. Last but not least, it must be said that a treaty not worth ratifying is assuredly not worth ratifying quickly. For reasons described at length elsewhere, \3\ it would be unsafe to ratify the CWC at any speed. notes: \1\ There are as-yet-unsubstantiated rumors circulating in The Hague (where the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons or OPCW is located) that the date of entry into force may be postponed, rather than have the CWC come into effect without the participation of nations such as Russia and possibly China (which has yet to deposit the instruments of ratification). \2\ The truth is, however, that the OPCW is constantly revising its budget estimates in an upwards direction. A more realistic estimate-- derived from actual experience with another U.N. bureaucracy--the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)--suggests that the budget is more likely to be on the order of $266 million, which would translate into a U.S. share of at least $66 million per year. \3\ See, for example, Truth or Consequences #1: Center Challenges Administration Efforts to Distort, Suppress Debate on CWC (No. 97-D 14, 28 January 1997). Other products detailing the CWC's fatal flaws can be obtained via the Center's site on the World Wide Web (www.security- policy.org). __________ No. 97-D 7 13 January 1997 Clinton's Chemical Power Play: Bad For The Senate, Bad For The National Interest (Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration is mounting a campaign against the leadership of the U.S. Senate that has all the subtlety of a Mafia hit. The immediate object of its intimidation is Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), whose knees are at risk of being broken (presumably, figuratively) unless he bends to the President's will. To do so, however, the Majority Leader will, in turn, have to ``take out'' the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC)--and with him, the Senate's rules concerning the consideration of treaties and that institution's way of doing business more generally. The Administration is resorting to such tactics for a very simple reason: Senator Helms is in a position indefinitely to bottle up a highly controversial treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Incredible though it may seem Secretary of State-designate Madeleine Albright declared last week that ratification of this Convention was the Clinton team's top, near-term foreign policy priority. Unfortunately for them--and happily for the national interest--Senate procedures permit Chairman Helms permanently to pocket veto this treaty by declining to bring it up for a vote in his Committee. Jesse Helms--Horatius at the Bridge This is fortuitous for the national interest because, to his lasting credit, Senator Helms correctly concluded in the course of intensive Senate consideration of the Chemical Weapons Convention last fall that this treaty was fatally flawed. Since a sufficient number of Senators agreed with him in September 1996 to defeat the CWC, the Administration decided to withdraw it--hoping it would meet a different fate if presented later. Apparently, such is the Clinton team's contempt for members of the Senate--which is exceeded only by its disdain for their constitutional role in treaty-making \1\--that it thinks legislators either have forgotten what is wrong with this Convention or can be euchred into agreeing to it, if only enough coercive pressure is brought to bear. Thanks to Chairman Helms and thoughtful colleagues like Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), though, the Senate will be reminded of the overarching reason for opposing the Chemical Weapons Convention: It is likely to contribute to the proliferation of chemical weapons, not eliminate it. Not Global: After all, the Convention will not impose a global ban on chemical weapons, let alone rid them from the world, as its proponents often claim. In fact, it will not apply to every country that has chemical weapons. A number of the most dangerous rogue states--including North Korea, Syria and Iraq--have announced that they will not become parties to the CWC. Such nations tend cynically to see such ``international norms'' not as an impediment to pursuing prohibited activities but as an invitation to do so. Not Verifiable: What is more, thanks to the inherent unverifiability of the Chemical Weapons Convention, even some of those who do join the regime will retain covert chemical stockpiles. The unalterable fact of life is that chemical weapons can be easily produced. By using facilities that are designed, for example, to manufacture fertilizers, pesticides or pharmaceuticals, they can be produced in considerable (even ``militarily significant'') quantities in relatively short periods of time. This is an objective reality that means the CWC is not simply ``less than perfect''; it is an exercise in futility. Indeed, Saddam Hussein has demonstrated that on-site inspections far more intrusive and timely than those provided for by the CWC cannot confidently monitor the covert weapons programs of totalitarian regimes governing closed societies. Consequently, few competent experts believe that industrialized states like Russia and China will actually get rid of their existing arsenals, let alone forego future production-- notwithstanding their status as signatories to the CWC. `Poisons for Peace': Third, the CWC obliges the United States to help other states parties--including countries like Iran and Cuba--to gain state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities that can readily be used to produce chemical weapons. Unilateral trade embargoes and multilateral technology control arrangements against such parties to the CWC would be prohibited. This obligation is a recipe for rampant chemical weapons proliferation. The prospect that it provides for expanded overseas sales by U.S. chemical manufacturers, however, is a principal reason why their powerful lobby is helping the Clinton Administration make offers to Senators ``they can't refuse.'' Other Fatal Flaws: Opponents of the Chemical Weapons Convention recognize that it will have other undesirable repercussions, as well. For one, it will likely create a false sense of security that the burgeoning problem of chemical weapons proliferation has been meaningfully addressed. This placebo effect will almost exacerbate the dangers of chemical attacks by reducing our preparedness to deal with them. For another, the CWC--as interpreted by the Clinton Administration--will have the absurd effect of denying our military the right to use chemical-based Riot Control Agents like tear gas to protect themselves in situations where the use of lethal force can, and should, be avoided. Finally, the CWC will grant a U.N. agency the right to inspect anyplace in America--private or public, factories, facilities, even homes--on short notice, without a warrant, and without compensation for the associated costs, including for any proprietary information that might thus be lost. The Bottom Line Today, on the fourth anniversary of the signing of the Chemical Weapons Convention, President Clinton issued a statement that declared disingenuously: ``Early CWC ratification by the United States is extraordinarily important. The security of our soldiers and citizens is at stake, as is the economic well-being of our chemical industry.'' He concluded by saying: ``I look forward to working with the Senate leadership to get the job [of ratifying the Convention] done.'' Notice is thus served. Using such presidential statements and phone calls, a drumbeat of sympathetic editorials and op.eds. And other pressure tactics, the Administration hopes to squeeze Senator Lott to break the CWC loose. It has even asked him to remove the Chemical Weapons Convention from the jurisdiction of Senator Helms' committee. Were Sen. Lott to agree, he would be creating a precedent that would wreak havoc on Senate operations. Fortunately, while the Majority Leader is committed to cooperate with the President where possible, he is unlikely to accommodate an Administration power play where cooperation is neither in the interest of the Senate as an institution nor the Nation as a whole. notes: \1\ See the Center's Press Release entitled Will the Senate Let Clinton Rewrite the C.F.E. Treaty Without Its Advice and Consent? (No. 96-P 86, 18 September 1996). __________ No. 97-T 5 8 January 1997 Here We Go Again: Clinton Presses Anew For Senate Approval Of Flawed, Unverifiable, Ineffective Chemical Weapons Treaty (Washington, D.C.): In recent days, the Clinton Administration has launched a new campaign to secure Senate advice and consent to ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Such a campaign was made necessary by its decision last September to withdraw the treaty from scheduled Senate consideration, rather than risk its certain defeat. Now, sympathetic columnists like the Washington Post's Mary McGrory have been enlisted to hammer Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) to bring the CWC back to the Senate floor. Retired flag officers like Admiral Elmo Zumwalt are being trotted out to declare that the military strongly supports this Convention. And just yesterday, the President used the occasion of the receipt of the interim report of his commission on Gulf War syndrome--which may be related to widespread exposure of U.S. servicemen and women to Iraqi chemical weapons--to imply that ratification of the CWC would ``protect the soldiers of the United States and our allies in the future'' by ``mak[ing] it harder for rogue states to acquire chemical weapons in the future.'' Senator Lott has responded to such pressure by announcing yesterday that he would ask the ``appropriate committee members and chairmen'' to reopen hearings on the treaty early in this session with a view to seeing what can be done to address the scourge of chemical weapons and the threat they pose to world peace. That decision puts the ball squarely back, first and foremost, in the court of Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC), whose opposition to the CWC was critical to the treaty's withdrawal from consideration last fall. Let the Debate Begin, Again The Center for Security Policy welcomes the prospect of new hearings into the Chemical Weapons Convention, presumably before not only Sen. Helms' panel but also before the Armed Services, Intelligence (under new management) and perhaps other committees. With the installation yesterday of new Members comprising nearly one-fifth of the Senate, there is clearly a need to review the gravity of the problem posed by the proliferation of chemical weapons and the regrettable fact that this convention will not only prove no real impediment to such proliferation--it will probably serve actually to exacerbate the problem. The Center looks forward to continuing during such a review the educational role it performed last year. As part of that function, it is attaching for the information of all Senators--and in response to Adm. Zumwalt's op.ed. In Monday's Washington Post--a letter sent to Senator Lott on 6 September 1996 by 68 distinguished former senior civilian and military officials, including notably former Bush Administration Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney. They conclude authoritatively that the CWC should be rejected in its present form since it will not be global in its scope, verifiable or effective. The Center is confident that sufficient Senators will reach a similar conclusion should the Foreign Relations Committee decide to report the treaty out for action by the full Senate. September 9, 1996. Hon. Trent Lott, Majority Leader, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510. Senator Lott: As you know, the Senate is currently scheduled to take final action on the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) on or before September 14th. This Treaty has been presented as a global, effective and verifiable ban on chemical weapons. As individuals with considerable experience in national security matters, we would all support such a ban. We have, however, concluded that the present convention is seriously deficient on each of these scores, among others. The CWC is not global since many dangerous nations (for example, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Libya) have not agreed to join the treaty regime. Russia is among those who have signed the Convention, but is unlikely to ratify--especially without a commitment of billions in U.S. aid to pay for the destruction of Russia's vast arsenal. Even then, given our experience with the Kremlin's treaty violations and its repeated refusal to implement the 1990 Bilateral Destruction Agreement on chemical weapons, future CWC violations must be expected. The CWC is not effective because it does not ban or control possession of all chemicals that could be used for lethal weapons purposes. For example, it does not prohibit two chemical agents that were employed with deadly effect in World War I--phosgene and hydrogen cyanide. The reason speaks volumes about this treaty's impractical nature: they are too widely used for commercial purposes to be banned. The CWC is not verifiable as the U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly acknowledged in congressional testimony. Authoritarian regimes can be confident that their violations will be undetectable. Now, some argue that the treaty's intrusive inspections regime will help us know more than we would otherwise. The relevant test, however, is whether any additional information thus gleaned will translate into convincing evidence of cheating and result in the collective imposition of sanctions or other enforcement measures. In practice, this test is unlikely to be satisfied since governments tend to took the other way at evidence of non-compliance rather than jeopardize a treaty regime. What the CWC will do, however, is quite troubling: It will create a massive new, U.N.-style international inspection bureaucracy (which will help the total cost of this treaty to U.S. taxpayers amount to as much as $200 million per year). It will jeopardize U.S. citizens' constitutional rights by requiring the U.S. government to permit searches without either warrants or probable cause. It will impose a costly and complex regulatory burden on U.S. industry. As many as 8,000 companies across the country may be subjected to new reporting requirements entailing uncompensated annual costs of between thousands to hundreds-of-thousands of dollars per year to comply. Most of these American companies have no idea that they will be affected. And perhaps worst of all, the CWC will undermine the standard of verifiability that has been a key national security principle for the United States. Under these circumstances, the national security benefits of the Chemical Weapons Convention clearly do not outweigh its considerable costs. Consequently, we respectfully urge you to reject ratification of the CWC unless and until it is made genuinely global, effective and verifiable. Signatories on Letter to Senator Trent Lott Regarding the Chemical Weapons Convention As of September 9, 1996; 11:30 a.m. Former Cabinet Members: Richard B. Cheney, former Secretary of Defense William P. Clark, former National Security Advisor to the President Alexander M. Haig, Jr., former Secretary of State (signed on September 10) John S. Herrington, former Secretary of Energy (signed on September 9) Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Edwin Meese III, former U.S. Attorney General Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense (signed on September 10) Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense Additional Signatories (retired military): General John W. Foss, U.S. Army (Retired), former Commanding General, Training and Doctrine Command Vice Admiral William Houser, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Aviation General P.X. Kelley, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), former Commandant of U.S. Marine Corps (signed on September 9) Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly, U.S. Army (Retired), former Director for Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff (signed on September 9) Admiral Wesley McDonald, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic Admiral Kinnaird McKee, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion General Merrill A. McPeak, U.S. Air Force (Retired), former Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General T.H. Miller, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), former Fleet Marine Force Commander/Head, Marine Aviation General John. L. Piotrowski, U.S. Air Force (Retired), former Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as Vice Chief, U.S. Air Force General Bernard Schriever, U.S. Air Force (Retired), former Commander, Air Research and Development and Air Force Systems Command Vice Admiral Jerry Unruh, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Commander 3rd Fleet (signed on September 10) Lieutenant General James Williams, U.S. Army (Retired), former Director, Defense Intelligence Agency Additional Signatories (non-military): Elliott Abrams, former Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs (signed on September 9) Mark Albrecht, former Executive Secretary, National Space Council Kathleen Bailey, former Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Robert B. Barker, former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical Weapon Matters Angelo Codevilla, former Senior Fellow, Hoover Institute (signed on September 10) Henry Cooper, former Director, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization J.D. Crouch, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Midge Decter, former President, Committee for the Free World Kenneth deGraffenreid, former Senior Director of Intelligence Programs, National Security Council Diana Denman, former Co-Chair, U.S. Peace Corps Advisory Council Elaine Donnelly, former Commissioner, Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Services David M. Evans, former Senior Advisor to the Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe Charles Fairbanks, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Douglas J. Feith, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Rand H. Fishbein, former Professional Staff member, Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense William R. Graham, former Science Advisor to the President E.C. Grayson, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy James T. Hackett, former Acting Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Stefan Halper, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (signed on September 10) Thomas N. Harvey, former National Space Council Staff Officer (signed on September 9) Charles A. Hamilton, former Deputy Director, Strategic Trade Policy, U.S. Department of Defense Amoretta M. Hoeber, former Deputy Under Secretary, U.S. Army Charles Horner, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Science and Technology Fred Ikle, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Sven F. Kraemer, former Director for Arms Control, National Security Council Charles M. Kupperman, former Special Assistant to the President John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy John Lenczowski, former Director for Soviet Affairs, National Security Council Bruce Merrifield, former Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, Department of Commerce Taffy Gould McCallum, columnist and free-lance writer James C. McCrery, former senior member of the Intelligence Community and Arms Control Negotiator (Standing Consultative Committee) J. William Middendorf II, former Secretary of the Navy (signed on September 10) Laurie Mylroie, best-selling author and Mideast expert specializing in Iraqi affairs Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Norman Podhoretz, former editor, Commentary Magazine Roger W. Robinson, Jr., former Chief Economist, National Security Council Peter W. Rodman, former Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and former Director of the Policy Planing Staff, Department of State Edward Rowny, former Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for Arms Control Carl M. Smith, former Staff Director, Senate Armed Services Committee Jacqueline Tillman, former Staff member, National Security Council Michelle Van Cleave, former Associate Director, Office of Science and Technology William Van Cleave, former Senior Defense Advisor and Defense Policy Coordinator to the President Malcolm Wallop, former United States Senator Deborah L. Wince-Smith, former Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, Department of Commerce Curtin Winsor, Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica Dov S. Zakheim, former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense __________ No. 97-D 48 3 April 1997 Just Which Chemical Weapons Convention Is Colin Powell Supporting--And Does He Know The Difference? (Washington, D.C.): Starting tomorrow, the Clinton Administration intends to make General Colin Powell--the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--its Poster Child for the campaign to gain Senate approval of the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). According to the Associated Press, this campaign will be kicked off at a ``highpowered, bipartisan gathering of treaty supporters ... featuring Congressmen, veterans' group leaders, arms experts, religious organization heads and military leaders, past and present,'' including Army Gen. Colin Powell. Does Powell Know What He Is Endorsing? A warning to General Powell is in order, however: The Senate was recently treated to the spectacle of another accomplished retired flag officer, General Norman Schwarzkopf, who had to acknowledge that--while he is on record as supporting the CWC--he is not familiar with its details. For example, under questioning by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the Armed Services Committee's Readiness Subcommittee, the following exchange occurred: Sen. Inhofe: ``Do you think it wise to share with countries like Iran our most advanced chemical defensive equipment and technologies?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``Our defensive capabilities?'' Sen. Inhofe: ``Yes.'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``Absolutely not.'' Sen. Inhofe: ``Well, I'm talking about sharing our advanced chemical defensive equipment and technologies, which I believe under Article X [they] would be allow[ed] to [get]. Do you disagree?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``As I said Senator, I'm not familiar with all the details--I--you know, a country, particularly like Iran, I think we should share as little as possible with them in the way of our military capabilities.'' Beware the `Bait and Switch' General Powell and others who served under President Bush should also be aware that there have been--as the Center noted on 10 February 1997 \1\--significant changes in a number of the assumptions, conditions and circumstances that underpinned the Bush Administration's judgment that the Chemical Weapons Convention was in the national interest. These changes have prompted several of General Powell's former colleagues--including Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak, Assistant Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Director Kathleen Bailey, Assistant to the Secretary for Atomic Energy Robert Barker and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense J.D. Crouch--to urge that the present treaty be rejected by the Senate.\2\ A sample of the changes that have materially altered the acceptability, if not strictly speaking the terms, of the Chemical Weapons Convention include the following: Item: Russia's Evisceration of the Bilateral Destruction Agreement The Bush Administration anticipated that a Bilateral Destruction Agreement (BDA) forged by Secretary of State James Baker and his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze in 1990, would critically underpin the Chemical Weapons Convention. As the Center for Security Policy observed in early February,\3\ this agreement obliged Moscow to provide a full and accurate accounting and eliminate most of its vast chemical arsenal. The BDA was also expected to afford the U.S. inspection rights that would significantly enhance the more limited arrangements provided for by the CWC. These assumptions about the BDA have, regrettably, not been fulfilled. To the contrary, Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin declared last year that the Bilateral Destruction Agreement has ``outlived its usefulness'' for Russia. What is more, it is now public knowledge that Russia is continuing to produce extremely lethal binary munitions--weapons that have been specifically designed to circumvent the limits and defeat the inspection regime of the Chemical Weapons Convention.\4\ Item: On-Site Inspections Won't Prevent Cheating When the Bush Administration finalized the CWC, there was considerable hope that intrusive on-site inspections would meaningfully contribute to the detection and proof of violations, and therefore to deterring them. Five years of experience with the U.N. inspections in Iraq--inspections that were allowed to be far more thorough, timely and intrusive than those permitted under this Convention--have established that totalitarian rulers of a closed society can successfully defeat such monitoring efforts. In a 4 February 1997 letter to National Security Advisor Samuel Berger, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms noted that: ``Unclassified portions of the National Intelligence Estimate on U.S. Monitoring Capabilities [prepared after Mr. Bush left office] indicate that it is unlikely that the U.S. will be able to detect or address violations in a timely fashion, if at all, when they occur on a small scale. And yet, even small-scale diversions of chemicals to chemical weapons production are capable, over time, of yielding a stockpile far in excess of a single ton [which General Shalikashvili described in congressional testimony on 11 August 1994 is a level which could, `in certain limited circumstances ... have a military impact.'] Moreover, few countries, if any, are engaging in much more than small-scale production of chemical agent. For example, according to [the 4 February 1997] Washington Times, Russia may produce its new nerve agents at a `pilot plant' in quantities of only `55 to 110 tons annually.' '' Item: Facilitating Proliferation: `Poisons for Peace' In the years since the Bush Administration signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, it has become increasingly clear that sharing nuclear weapons-relevant technology with would-be proliferators simply because they promise not to pursue nuclear weapons programs is folly. Indeed, countries like North Korea, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil and Algeria have abused this ``Atoms for Peace'' bargain by diverting equipment and know-how provided under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to prohibited weapons purposes. Unfortunately, commercial chemical manufacturing technology can, if anything, be diverted even more easily to weapons purposes than can nuclear research and power reactors. For this reason, recent experience with the NPT suggests that the Chemical Weapons Convention's Article XI--an article dubbed the ``Poisons for Peace'' provision--is insupportable. It stipulates that the Parties shall: ``Not maintain among themselves any restrictions, including those in any international agreements, incompatible with the obligations undertaken under this Convention, which would restrict or impede trade and the development and promotion of scientific and technological knowledge in the field of chemistry for industrial, agricultural, research, medical, pharmaceutical or other peaceful purposes.'' Such an obligation must now be judged a recipe for accelerating proliferation of chemical weapons, not restricting it. Even if the United States were to become a party to the CWC and choose to ignore this treaty commitment, other advanced industrialized countries will certainly not refrain from selling dual-use chemical manufacturing technology if it means making a lucrative sale. Item: U.S. Chemical Defenses Will be Degraded When the Bush Administration signed the CWC, proponents offered assurances that the treaty would not diminish U.S. investment in chemical defenses. Such assurances were called into question, however, by an initiative unveiled in 1995 by the then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Owens. He suggested cutting $805 million from counter-proliferation support and chemical and biological defense programs through Fiscal Year 2001. This was followed by a recommendation from JCS Chairman General John Shalikashvili in February 1996--a few weeks before he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Department of Defense is committed to a ``robust'' chemical defense program. He sought to slash chemical/biological defense activities and investment by over $1.5 billion through 2003. The rationale for both these gambits? Thanks to a perceived reduction in the chemical warfare threat to be brought about by the CWC, investments in countering that threat could safely enjoy lower priority. Such reductions would have deferred, if not seriously disrupted, important chemical and biological research and develop- ment efforts, and delayed the procurement of proven technologies. While the Owens and Shalikashvili initiatives were ultimately rejected, they are a foretaste of the sort of reduced budgetary priority this account will surely face if the CWC is approved. Changes in the military postures of key U.S. allies since the end of the Bush Administration raise a related point: Even if the United States manages to resist the sirens' song to reduce chemical defenses in the wake of the CWC, it is predictable that the already generally deplorable readiness of most allied forces to deal with chemical threats will only worsen. To the extent that the U.S. is obliged in the future to fight coalition wars, this vulnerability could prove catastrophic to American forces engaged with a common enemy. Item: Clinton Repudiates Bush Commitment to the JCS on R.C.A.s At the insistence of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1992, President Bush signed an executive order that explicitly allowed Riot Control Agents (for example, tear gas) to be used in rescuing downed aircrews and in dispersing hostile forces using civilians to screen their movements against U.S. positions. The Clinton Administration initially indicated that it intended to rescind this executive order outright once the CWC is ratified. The result of doing so would have been to compel U.S. personnel to choose between using lethal force where RCAs would suffice or suffering otherwise avoidable casualties. In the face of Senate opposition to such a rescission, Mr. Clinton has apparently decided to allow tear gas and other RCAs to be used in these selected circumstances, but only in peacetime. In wartime, however, such use would be considered a breach of the treaty. The Administration has yet to clarify under what circumstances the Nation will be considered to be ``at war'' since there has been no declaration of that state of belligerency in any of the conflicts in which the U.S. has engaged since 1945. What is particularly troublesome is the prospect that the Clinton reversal of the Bush Administration position on RCAs will impinge upon promising new defense technologies--involving chemical-based, non- lethal weapons (for example, immobilizing agents). If so, U.S. forces may be denied highly effective means of prevailing in future conflicts with minimal loss of life on either side. Other, No Less Distinguished, National Security Experts Disagree with General Powell In a letter sent to Senator Trent Lott last fall, when the Chemical Weapons Convention was last under consideration by the Senate, a host of former top civilian and military officials expressed their opposition to this treaty in its present form. Among the distinguished retired flag officers were: General John W. Foss, U.S. Army (Retired), former Commanding General, Training and Doctrine Command; Vice Admiral William Houser, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Aviation; General P.X. Kelley, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), former Commandant of U.S. Marine Corps; Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly, U.S. Army (Retired), former Director for Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Admiral Wesley McDonald, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic; Admiral Kinnaird McKee, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion; General Merrill A. McPeak, U.S. Air Force (Retired), former Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force; Lieutenant General T.H. Miller, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), former Fleet Marine Force Commander/Head, Marine Aviation; General John. L. Piotrowski, U.S. Air Force (Retired), former Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as Vice Chief, U.S. Air Force; General Bernard Schriever, U.S. Air Force (Retired), former Commander, Air Research and Development and Air Force Systems Command; Vice Admiral Jerry Unruh, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Commander 3rd Fleet; and Lieutenant General James Williams, U.S. Army (Retired), former Director, Defense Intelligence Agency. Among the civilian leaders who signed the open letter to Sen. Lott were: Richard B. Cheney, former Secretary of Defense; William P. Clark, former National Security Advisor to the President; Alexander M. Haig, Jr., former Secretary of State; John S. Herrington, former Secretary of Energy; Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Edwin Meese III, former U.S. Attorney General; Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense; and one of General Powell's past bosses, Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense. The Bottom Line The Center regrets General Powell's decision to lend his authority to a treaty that even he has freely acknowledged is completely unverifiable. It fears that he may also come to regret it. In any event, the Nation surely will, if the Clinton-Powell razzle-dazzle campaign induces the Senate to take its eyes off the ball--namely, the fatal flaws that make the Chemical Weapons Convention unworthy of that institution's advice and consent. notes: \1\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Truth or Consequences #4. No D.N.A. Tests Needed To Show That Claims About Republican Paternity of CWC Are Overblown (No. 97-D 24, 10 February 1997). \2\ See the Center's Transition Brief entitled Here We Go Again: Clinton Presses Anew For Senate Approval of Flawed, Unverifiable, Ineffective Chemical Weapons Treaty (No. 97-T 5, 8 January 1997). \3\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Truth or Consequences #3: Clinton `Makes a Mistake About It' in Arguing the CWC Will Protect U.S. Troops (No. 97-D 21, 6 February 1997). \4\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Russia's Covert Chemical Weapons Program Vindicates Jesse Helms' Continuing Opposition to Phony CW Arms Control (No. 97-D 19, 4 February 1997). __________ No. 97-D 37 5 March 1997 Truth or Consequences #7: Schlesinger, Rumsfeld and Weinberger Rebut Scowcroft and Deutch on the CWC (Washington, D.C.): Today's Washington Post featured an op.ed. article by three of the most distinguished public servants of the latter Twentieth Century--James Schlesinger, Donald Rumsfeld and Caspar Weinberger--concerning the reasons for opposing the present Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Written in response to an earlier op.ed. favoring this treaty which was authored by former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and former Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch, the Schlesinger-Rumsfeld-Weinberger essay (a copy of which is attached) should be required reading for every Senator and American citizen following and/or participating in the debate on the CWC. That should be the case in part simply because of the stature of the signatories. Dr. Schlesinger, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Weinberger all served with distinction in the position of Secretary of Defense, respectively for Presidents Nixon and Ford, Ford and Reagan. It also is relevant to the present deliberations that Dr. Schlesinger's views are informed by his service as Director of Central Intelligence under President Nixon and Secretary of Energy under President Carter. The joint op.ed. should also command careful attention because of the clear and persuasive way it, first, applauds Messrs. Scowcroft and Deutch's admissions about the CWC's flaws (notably, with respect to the Convention's unverifiability and the treaty's lack of global coverage) and, second, underscores their warnings about the dangers inherent in the accord's ratification (notably, with respect to inspiring a false sense of security, reduced investment in defensive technologies, transferring chemical weapons-relevant production and defensive technology to countries of concern and limitations on the use of chemical-based non-lethal technologies, such as tear gas). Finally, the Schlesinger-Rumsfeld-Weinberger essay is of singular importance by virtue of the powerful rebuttal it offers to the Scowcroft-Deutch argument that the CWC is ``better than nothing.'' The three Secretaries conclude to the contrary that--due to the combination of these defects and dangers inherent in the treaty, combined with its unacceptably high costs for American businesses and taxpayers--the U.S. would be better off not being a party than becoming one. The Bottom Line The Center for Security Policy commends former Secretaries Schlesinger, Rumsfeld and Weinberger for this latest in a long line of real contributions to the national security and commends their article to all those who will be affected by or responsible for this fatally flawed accord. No to the Chemical Arms Treaty [by James Schlesinger, Caspar Weinberger, and Donald Rumsfeld] The Washington Post/March 5, 1997.--The phrase ``damning with faint praise'' is given new meaning by the op-ed by Brent Scowcroft and John Deutch on the Chemical Convention [``End the Chemical Weapons Business,'' Feb. 11]. In it, the authors concede virtually every criticism made by those who oppose this controversial treaty in its present form. They acknowledge the legitimacy of key concerns about the Convention: its essential unverifiability; its lack of global coverage; the prospect that it will inhibit non-lethal use of chemicals, including tear gas; and its mandating the transfer of militarily relevant chemical offensive and defensive technology to untrustworthy countries that become parties. It is our view that these problems are inherent in the present treaty. Take, for example, Scowcroft and Deutch's warning against cutting investment in chemical defensive measures. Unfortunately, treaties such as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)--which promise to reduce the menace posed by weapons of mass destruction but which cannot do so-- inevitably tend to diminish the perceived need and therefore the support for defenses against such threats. In fact, in December 1995, the then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended a reduction of more than $800 million in investment on chemical defenses in anticipation of the Convention's coming into force. If past experience is a guide, there might also be a reduction in the priority accorded to monitoring emerging chemical weapons threats, notwithstanding Scowcroft and Deutch's call for improvements in our ability to track chemical weapons developments. Scowcroft and Deutch correctly warn that the ``CWC [must] not [be] exploited to facilitate the diffusion of CWC-specific technology, equipment and material--even to signatory states.'' The trouble is that the Chemical Weapons Convention explicitly obligates member states to facilitate such transfers, even though these items are readily exploitable for military purposes. What is more, the treaty commits member states not to observe any agreements, whether multilateral or unilateral, that would restrict these transfers. In short, we believe that the problems with the Chemical Weapons Convention in these and other areas that have been identified by Brent Scowcroft and John Deutch clearly demonstrate that this treaty would be contrary to U.S. security interests. Moreover, in our view these serious problems undercut the argument that the CWC's ``imperfect constraints'' are better than no constraints at all. 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. Notably, if the United States is not a CWC member state, the danger is lessened that American intelligence about ongoing foreign chemical weapons programs will be dumbed down or otherwise compromised. This has happened in the past when enforcement of a violated agreement was held to be a greater threat to an arms control regime than was noncompliance by another party. The United States and the international community have been unwilling to enforce the far more easily verified 1925 Geneva Convention banning the use of chemical weapons--even in the face of repeated and well-documented violations by Saddam Hussein. What likelihood is there that we would be any more insistent when it comes to far less verifiable bans on production and stockpiling of such weapons? As a non-party, the United States would also remain free to oppose dangerous ideas such as providing state-of-the-art chemical manufacturing facilities and defensive equipment to international pariahs such as Iran and Cuba. And the United States would be less likely to reduce investment in chemical protective capabilities, out of a false sense of security arising from participation in the CWC. In addition, if the United States is not a CWC party, American taxpayers will not be asked to bear the substantial annual costs of our participating in a multilateral regime that will not ``end the chemical weapons business'' in countries of concern. (By some estimates, these costs could be over $200 million per year.) Similarly, U.S. citizens and companies will be spared the burdens associated with reporting and inspection arrangements that might involve unreasonable searches and seizures, could jeopardize confidential business information and yet could not ensure that other nations--and especially rogue states--no longer have chemical weapons programs. Against these advantages of nonparticipation, the purported down- sides seem relatively inconsequential. First, whether Russia actually eliminates its immense chemical arsenal is unlikely to hinge upon our participating in the CWC. Indeed. Moscow is now actively creating new chemical agents that would circumvent and effectively defeat the treaty's constraints. Second, the preponderance of trade in chemicals would be unaffected by the CWC's limitations, making the impact of remaining outside the treaty regime, if any, fairly modest on American manufacturers. Finally, if the United States declines to join the present Chemical Weapons Convention, it is academic whether implementing arrangements are drawn up by others or not. In the event the United States does decide to become a party at a later date--perhaps after improvements are made to enhance the treaty's effectiveness--it is hard to believe that its preferences regarding implementing arrangements would not be given considerable weight. This is particularly true since the United States would then be asked to bear 25 percent of the implementing organization's budget. There is no way to ``end the chemical weapons business'' by fiat. The price of attempting to do so with the present treaty is unacceptably high, and the cost of the illusion it creates might be higher still. James Schlesinger was secretary of defense under Presidents Nixon and Ford, Donald Rumsfeld and Caspar Weinberger held the same post under Presidents Ford and Reagan, respectively. __________ No. 97-D 35 27 February 1997 Gen. Schwartzkopf Tells Senate He Shares Critics' Concerns About Details of the Chemical Weapons Convention (Washington, D.C.): Under questioning before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, General Norman Schwartzkopf--commander of the allied forces in Operation Desert Shield/Storm--acknowledged that he was ``unfamiliar with all the details'' of the Chemical Weapons Convention and shared some of the concerns expressed by those who oppose it in its present form. This is a signal development insofar as the treaty's advocates had made much of the General's recent endorsement of the CWC during previous testimony on Gulf War Syndrome. Q. & A. General Schwarzkopf was questioned by one of the Senate's most steadfast leaders on national security matters and a courageous critic of the Chemical Weapons Convention--the new chairman of the Armed Services Committee's Readiness Subcommittee, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK)-- about several of the CWC's more troubling aspects as seen from a military standpoint. Among the most noteworthy aspects of their exchange (and a brief intervention by Deputy Secretary of Defense John White, who also participated in the hearing) were the following points: Sen. Inhofe: ``If the Chemical Weapons Convention were in effect, would we still face a danger of chemical attack from such places as Iraq [which has not signed the CWC]--or Iran [which] actually signed onto it?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``Senator, I think that the answer is probably yes. But, I think the chances of that happening could be diminished by the treaty only because it would then be these people clearly standing up and thumbing their noses at international law--and it would also help us build coalitions against them, if that were to happen.'' Sen. Inhofe: ``Aren't they still thumbing their noses right now in Iraq?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``There's no question about it, Senator--I mean the fact that they used it in the first place against their own people but, I still feel--we have renounced the use of them and I am very uncomfortable placing ourselves in the company with Iraq and Libya and countries such as ... North Korea that have refused to sign that Convention. The problem with those kinds of things is that verification is very difficult and enforcement is very difficult. Sen. Inhofe: ``... General Shali[kashvili] I think in August 1994 ... said that `even one ton of chemical agent may have a military impact.' I would ask the question: Do you believe that an intrusive, on-site inspection--as would be allowed by the Chemical Weapons Convention would be able to detect a single ton or could tell us conclusively that there isn't a single ton?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``No, no as I said earlier, we can't possibly know what's happening on every single inch of every single territory out there where this would apply.'' Sen. Inhofe: ``And as far as terrorists are concerned, they would not be under this?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``Of course not.'' Sen. Inhofe: ``Like any treaty, we have to give some things up, and in this case, of course we do ... and there are a couple of things that I'd like to [explore] ... the interpretation from the White House changed ... they said that if the Chemical Weapons Convention were agreed to, that it would affect such things as riot control agents like tear gas in search-and-rescue operations and circumstances like we faced in Somalia--where they were using women and children at that time as shields. Do you agree that we should be restricted from using such things as tear gas?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``I don't believe that is the case but I will confess to you that I have not read every single detail of that Convention so, therefore, I really can't give you an expert opinion. I think you could get a better opinion here.'' Secretary White: ``I am going to hesitate to give a definitive answer because there has been, in the administration, a very precise and careful discussion about what exactly, and in what situations, this would apply and when this wouldn't apply. ... Sen. Inhofe: ``Do you think it wise to share with countries like Iran our most advanced chemical defensive equipment and technologies?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``Our defensive capabilities?'' Sen. Inhofe: ``Yes.'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``Absolutely not.'' Sen. Inhofe: ``Well, I'm talking about sharing our advanced chemical defensive equipment and technologies, which I believe under Article X [they] would be allow[ed] to [get]. Do you disagree?'' Gen. Schwartzkopf: ``As I said Senator, I'm not familiar with all the details--I--you know, a country, particularly like Iran, I think we should share as little as possible with them in the way of our military capabilities.'' The Bottom Line After this morning's hearing, Senator Inhofe announced: ``It is clear to me that the Clinton Administration's full court press to secure ratification of the Chemical Weapons treaty ought to be slowed down until the American people are fully apprised of what this agreement entails. I oppose this treaty because I have examined it closely and believe there are serious problems contained in its fine print. ``Before Senators vote to ratify this Treaty, it is absolutely vital that they be `familiar with all the details.' The American people should expect no less of their elected representatives. All of us want to protect America from the dangers of chemical weapons. But we have no business blindly endorsing a treaty of nearly 200 pages without carefully evaluating all of its provisions on their own merits.'' To this the Center for Security Policy can only add, ``Amen.'' __________ No. 97-D 21 6 February 1997 Truth or Consequences #3: Clinton `Makes a Mistake About It' in Arguing the CWC Will Protect U.S. Troops (Washington, D.C.): President Clinton used his State of the Union address Tuesday night to launch his Administration's latest and highest profile salvo on behalf of ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Unfortunately, as with other aspects of this campaign to induce the Senate to advise and consent to a fatally flawed arms control treaty, Mr. Clinton made statements that simply do not stand up to scrutiny. One of the most troubling of these was his declaration: ``Make no mistake about it, [the CWC] will make our troops safer from chemical attack ... We have no more important obligations, especially in the wake of what we now know about the Gulf War.'' \1\ Far from reducing the risks that American military personnel will be exposed to chemical weapons, the Chemical Weapons Convention is likely to exacerbate them. This reality has become increasingly evident subsequent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsement of the CWC as originally negotiated by the Bush Administration. For the following reasons, it would actually be a great disservice to the U.S. armed forces--and to the national interests they protect--were the Senate to lend its support to the present convention: Russia Remains a Chemical Threat The cornerstone for the Chemical Weapons Convention was supposed to be a Bilateral Destruction Agreement (BDA) with Russia. Pursuant to this agreement, Moscow promised to provide a full and accurate accounting and eliminate most of its chemical arsenal--the world's largest and arguably the one that poses the most serious menace to the U.S. military. The BDA was also expected to afford the U.S. inspection rights that would significantly enhance the more limited arrangements provided for by the CWC. Regrettably, Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin declared last year that the Bilateral Destruction Agreement has ``outlived its usefulness'' for Russia. He has also announced that the tab for Russia to implement the Convention's demilitarization arrangements (conservatively estimated to be at least $3 billion) would have to be paid for by the West. Under these circumstances, even if the U.S. agreed to shell out vast sums, chances are that Russia would retain a sizable, covert chemical stockpile. As the Center for Security Policy noted earlier this week,\2\ it is now public knowledge that such a Russian stockpile will probably include extremely lethal binary munitions--weapons that have been specifically designed to circumvent the limits and defeat the inspection regime of the Chemical Weapons Convention. There is reason to believe that such weapons may also have been engineered to defeat Western chemical defensive gear. This material danger to U.S. forces can only grow if, pursuant to the CWC's Article X, the United States winds up transferring chemical protective technology or equipment to those inclined to reverse engineer and overcome it. Other Nations Will Also Have Militarily Significant CW Arsenals Russia is hardly the only nation likely to pose a chemical threat to U.S. personnel in ``a world with the CWC.'' Some, like Iraq, Syria, North Korea and Libya, will refuse to become states parties. Others will do so, secure in the knowledge that the treaty's inherent unverifiability will allow them to escape detection. When the CWC was negotiated there was considerable hope that intrusive on-site inspections would meaningfully contribute to the detection and proof of violations, and therefore to deterring them. Experience, however, with the U.N. inspections in Iraq--an operation allowed to conduct far more thorough, timely and intrusive inspections than will be permitted under this Convention--has established that totalitarian rulers of a closed society can successfully defeat such inspections. This reality applies, as Senator Helms noted in a letter to National Security Advisor Samuel Berger on 4 February, even to militarily significant stockpiles of chemical weapons: ``General Shalikashvili testified on 11 August 1994 that `In certain limited circumstances, even one ton of chemical agent may have a military impact. ... With such variables in scale of target and impact of chemical weapons, the United States should be resolute that the one-ton limit set by the Convention will be our guide.' '' ``Unclassified portions of the [National Intelligence Estimate] on U.S. Monitoring Capabilities indicate that it is unlikely that the U.S. will be able to detect or address violations in a timely fashion, if at all, when they occur on a small scale. And yet, even small-scale diversions of chemicals to chemical weapons production are capable, over time, of yielding a stockpile far in excess of a single ton. Moreover, few countries, if any, are engaging in much more than small- scale production of chemical agent. For example, according to [the 4 February 1997] Washington Times, Russia may produce its new nerve agents at a `pilot plant' in quantities of only `55 to 110 tons annually' '' Facilitating Proliferation: `Poisons for Peace' The Chemical Weapons Convention may actually contribute to the spread of militarily relevant chemical technology. This could be the result of a provision (Article XI) modeled after the ``Atoms for Peace'' provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty--which promised to share dual-use technology with those who might abuse it if only they promise not to do so. Article XI would oblige the United States to share inherently militarily useful chemical manufacturing technology and materials with countries like Iran and Cuba, if only they become states parties. This is a formula for expanding the threat to ``our troops'' posed by chemical proliferation, not effective chemical arms control. The CWC Will Encourage the Military to Lower Its Guard A March 1996 study by the General Accounting Office (GAO) determined that some elements of the U.S. military appear to be inadequately prepared, trained, or equipped to operate in areas contaminated by chemical or biological agents. A particularly troubling finding was the fact that none of the Army's five active divisions which make up the Nation's crisis response force and none of the reserve units that are designated to be deployed early in crises (such as Operation Desert Shield) were properly equipped to deal with a chemical or biological threat. In fact, these units were significantly unprepared in a number of areas. According to the GAO, three of the ``front-line'' divisions had fifty percent or greater shortages of protective clothing with shortfalls in other critical gear running as high as eighty-four percent. Training was also determined to be deficient in a number of respects. This is not entirely surprising given that, in its first 4 years in office, the Clinton Administration decreased funding for chemical and biological defensive purposes by some thirty percent, from $750 million in Fiscal Year 1992 to $504 million in Fiscal Year 1995. Unfortunately, past experience suggests that matters will only be made worse by an arms control treaty like the Chemical Weapons Convention that purports to impose a global prohibition on chemical weapons, seemingly making such defenses less necessary. For example, after ratification of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), U.S. investment in relevant defensive technology, vaccines, detection equipment, etc. declined precipitously. As a result of years of inadequate attention to this threat, the United States found itself extremely ill-prepared to deal with a potential BW threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. (In fact, the U.S. may only have detected the use of biological weapons against our forces after they started dying en masse.) That such a fate awaits U.S. chemical defensive efforts in the wake of a CWC ratification was brought home by a 1995 initiative proposed by the then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Owens. He suggested cutting a further $805 million from counter- proliferation support and chemical and biological defense programs through Fiscal Year 2001. This reduction would have deferred, if not seriously disrupted, important chemical and biological research and development efforts, and delayed the procurement of proven technologies. His rationale: Thanks to a lowering in the chemical warfare threat brought about by the CWC, investments in countering it could safely enjoy lower priority. While the Owens gambit was ultimately defeated, similar initiatives must be expected in the future if the CWC is approved--resulting in increased vulnerability, not improved safety, for ``our troops.'' Even if the United States manages to resist the siren's song to reduce chemical defenses in the wake of the CWC, it is predictable that the already generally deplorable readiness of most allied forces to deal with chemical threats will only worsen. To the extent that the U.S. is obliged in the future to fight coalition wars, this vulnerability could prove catastrophic to American forces engaged with a common enemy. Prohibitions on Tear Gas, Other Non-Lethal Technologies The Clinton Administration has made clear that it intends to reverse a Bush executive order issued at the insistence of the Joint Chiefs in 1992--an order that explicitly allowed Riot Control Agents (for example, tear gas) to be used in rescuing downed aircrews and dispersing hostile forces using civilians to screen their movements against U.S. positions. The result could be to force our troops to use lethal force where it is not necessary or to suffer otherwise avoidable casualties. Worse yet, one of the most promising new defense technologies-- involving chemical-based, non-lethal weapons (for example, immobilizing agents)--may be restricted or prohibited by this Convention. The CWC defines chemical weapons as ``toxic chemicals and their precursors, except where intended for purposes not prohibited under this Convention, as long as the types and quantities are consistent with such purposes.'' It goes on to define a toxic chemical as ``any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation, or permanent harm to humans or animals.'' As a result of the CWC, ``our troops'' may be denied highly effective means of prevailing in future conflicts with minimal loss of life on either side. The Bottom Line In its present form, the Chemical Weapons Convention cannot be justified by the contribution it will make to the safety of our men and women in uniform. If anything, the ``contribution'' that will be made will be a negative one for ``our troops.'' A question that may not be as easily dispensed of is: Precisely what did President Clinton mean when he said ``in the wake of what we now know about the Gulf War''? Is that an acknowledgment that chemical weapons were used against U.S. forces there, after all? Does it mean that the President is now convinced that American forces were inadvertently exposed to chemical agents in the process of destroying Iraqi bunkers--accounting for Gulf War Syndrome? Or is he simply acknowledging that U.S. chemical defenses are already inadequate and that ``our troops'' will likely be exposed to chemical threats--even if the enemy does not initiate their use--with or without the Chemical Weapons Convention? notes: \1\ The fallaciousness of another Presidential declaration--``if we do not act by April the 29th when this Convention goes into force--with or without us--we will lose the chance to have Americans leading and enforcing this effort''--was addressed last week in the second paper in this ``Truth or Consequences'' series on the Chemical Weapons Convention, entitled Truth or Consequences #2: Senate Does Not Need to Sacrifice Sensible Scrutiny of CWC to Meet an Artificial Deadline (No. 97-D 18, 31 January 1997). A third erroneous claim concerning the CWC's value in fighting terrorism will be the subject of a forthcoming Decision Brief. \2\ See the Center's Decision Brief from earlier this week, Russia's Covert Chemical Weapons Program Vindicates Jesse Helms' Continuing Opposition to Phony C.W. Arms Control (No. 97-D 19, 4 February 1997). __________ No. 97-D 19 4 February 1997 Russia's Covert Chemical Weapons Program Vindicates Jesse Helms' Continuing Opposition to Phony C.W. Arms Control (Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration's campaign to railroad Senators into approving the fatally flawed Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) ran into a major new obstacle today: The Washington Times disclosed that a report published recently in the classified Military Intelligence Digest confirms that ``Russia is producing a new generation of deadly chemical weapons using materials, methods and technology that circumvent the terms of [that] treaty it signed outlawing such weapons.'' Word of this frightening development was originally leaked by a Russian scientist, Vil Mirzayanov, who had been involved in the Kremlin's covert development of a new class of chemical arms. In an article he courageously published in the Wall Street Journal on 25 May 1994, Mr. Mirzayanov wrote about a new Russian binary weapon [i.e., one which uses two relatively harmless chemicals to form a toxic agent after the weapon is launched]: ``This new weapon, part of the ultra-lethal Novichok [Russian for ``Newcomer''] class, provides an opportunity for the [Russian] military establishment to disguise production of components of binary weapons as common agricultural chemicals because the West does not know the formula and its inspectors cannot identify the compounds.'' \1\ Now, More Details About Moscow's Ongoing CW Program Excerpts of the secret intelligence report that appear in today's Washington Times provide considerable detail about Russia's efforts to maintain a deadly chemical arsenal, irrespective of its treaty obligations. According to the Times, these include the following (emphasis added throughout): ``Under a program code-named `Foliant,' a Russian scientific research organization has created a highly lethal nerve agent called A-232, large quantities of which could be made `within weeks' through covert production facilities. ...'' ``A-232 is made from industrial and agricultural chemicals that are not lethal until mixed and that never had been used for poison gas.'' `` `These new agents are as toxic as VX [a persistent nerve agent], as resistant to treatment as Soman [a non-persistent but deadly poison gas] and more difficult to detect and easier to manufacture than VX.' '' ``The report says A-232 and its delivery means have `passed Moscow's rigorous military acceptance testing and can be quickly fielded in unitary or binary form.' '' ``Russia's State Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology created the agents and novel ways of making them to avoid detection by international inspectors. `By using chemicals not specified in the CWC schedules, the Russians can produce A-232 and its ethyl analog A-234, in unitary and binary forms within several chemical complexes.' '' ``The Russians can make the binary, or two part, version of the nerve agent using a common industrial solvent acetonitrile and an organic phosphate compound `that can be disguised as a pesticide precursor.' In another version, soldiers need only add alcohol to form the agent, the report says.'' `` `These various routes offer flexibility for the agent to be produced in different types of facilities, depending on the raw material and equipment available there. They also add complexity to the already formidable challenge of detecting covert production activities.' '' ``The Russians can produce the new nerve agent in `pilot plant' quantities of 55 to 110 tons annually,' the report says. Several Russian plants are capable of producing the chemicals used in making A-232. One factory in Novocherboksarsk `is capable of manufacturing 2,000-2,500 metric tons of A-232 yearly.' '' ``Several pesticide plants `offer easy potential for covert production,' the report says. `For example, substituting amines for ammonia and making other slight modifications in the process would result in new agents instead of pesticide. The similarity in the chemistry of these compounds would make treaty monitoring, inspection and verification difficult.' '' The Administration's Unconvincing Response: The CWC Will Solve the Problem The Clinton Administration's pollyannish response to these revelations ought to be instructive to Senators weighing the Chemical Weapons Convention. Although the Russians are violating their present obligation not to produce chemical weapons and are doing so in ways designed to circumvent the CWC's limitations and to defeat even on-site inspection regimes, an Administration spokesman told the Washington Times that ``the treaty would make it easier to investigate such problems'' since ``agents and components can be added to the treaty's schedule of banned chemicals.'' The National Security Council's David Johnson is quoted as saying: ``Without the CWC and the verification tools it provides, you don't have the means to get at problems like this. With CWC, you do.'' Such a statement is, at best, wishful thinking. At worst, it is highly misleading since, for reasons outlined above, the Russian Novichok weapons (and counterpart efforts likely being pursued by other chemical weapons states) are specifically designed to thwart the CWC's ``verification tools.'' A variation on this disingenuous theme is being circulated in graphic form by proponents of the Chemical Weapons Convention. They offer two world maps, one under the heading ``The World Without the CWC,'' the other ``The World With the CWC.'' The former shows large areas of the world--notably Russia, China, Iran, India and Pakistan-- with declared or suspected chemical arsenals. The latter, though, shows the entire world except for Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and North Korea as being without either declared or suspected chemical stockpiles. It is deceptive to suggest that the Chemical Weapons Convention will ensure that Russia, China, Iran, India or Pakistan will actually eliminate their chemical weapons programs thanks to the CWC. In fact, any country that is wishes to retain even militarily significant chemical stockpiles and is willing to flout international law to do so can be confident of its ability to escape detection and sanction. To his credit, one of the Convention's preeminent champions and distributors of these maps--retired Lieutenant General Tom McInerney-- responded, when asked whether he really believed that Russia and China would give up their chemical arms if they became parties to the CWC--by saying: ``Of course not.'' Enter Chairman Helms As it happens, front-page treatment was also given today to another aspect of the Chemical Weapons Convention drama. A 29 January 1997 letter from Senator Jesse Helms to Majority Leader Trent Lott expressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman's strong opposition to the present CWC was featured ``above the fold'' by the Washington Post. In this letter, Senator Helms declares: ``I am convinced that the CWC, as it now stands, is fraught with deficiencies totally inimical to the national security interests of the United States.'' Chairman Helms goes on to enumerate in an attached memorandum specific conditions that ``are essential to ensuring that the Chemical Weapons Convention enhances, rather than reduces, our national security.'' In particular, he says preconditions are needed to address six concerns which ``are best expressed in the letter [Senator Lott] received on 9 September 1996 from Richard Cheney, William Clark, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Alexander Haig, John Herrington, Edwin Meese, Donald Rumsfeld, Caspar Weinberger, 12 Generals and Admirals and 47 [other] officials from the Reagan and Bush Administrations'': \2\ Russian elimination of chemical weapons and implementation of the 1990 Bilateral Destruction Agreement (BDA); Inclusion of countries other than Russia believed to have chemical weapons; Certification by the U.S. intelligence community that compliance with the treaty can be monitored with high confidence; Specification of the actions that will be taken by the United States in the event of non-compliance; Establishing the primacy of the U.S. Constitution over all provisions of the CWC; and Protection of U.S. confidential business information (CBI). Sen. Helms Rebuts the Administration's CWC Point Person In addition, Senator Helms today sent National Security Advisor Samuel ``Sandy'' Berger a strongly worded letter concerning correspondence written by Dr. Lori Esposito Murray--the Special Advisor to the President and ACDA Director for the Chemical Weapons Convention--to members of the Senate in response to the Cheney et al. missive. Calling the Murray correspondence ``offensive,'' the Chairman of- fers his own, detailed rebuttal of her claim that there were ``significant misinformation'' and ``misstatements'' in the letter sent last fall by Secretary Cheney and his colleagues. Specifically, Senator Helms affirms that: ``The CWC does not--in fact--effectively cover the types of chemicals used to manufacture chemical weapons. Everything from Sarin and Soman to VX can be manufactured using a variety of chemicals which are not identified by the Schedules for the application of the verification regime.'' ``... The CWC will not do one thing to reduce the chemical weapons arsenals of terrorist countries and other nations hostile to the United States. ... Not one country of concern to the United States has ratified this convention.'' ``... The CWC is not `effectively verifiable' and Dr. Murray should not have made representations to the contrary. ... Declassified portions from [a] August 1993 National Intelligence Estimate note: `` `The capability of the intelligence community to monitor compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention is severely limited and likely to remain so for the rest of the decade. The key provision of the monitoring regime--challenge inspection 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.' '' The Bottom Line The Center for Security Policy commends Senator Helms for his leadership in insisting that the Chemical Weapons Convention's myriad, serious defects be addressed and corrected before the Senate is once again asked to give its advice and consent to this treaty. It looks forward to working with him, Senator Lott and all others who share Chairman Helms' determination to ensure that the CWC is only ratified if it ``enhances, rather than reduces'' U.S. national security. notes: \1\ See in this regard Not `Good Enough for Government Work:' Senate Needs to Hear About Russian Chemical Weapons From Russian Experts (No. 94-D 100, 5 October 1994). \2\ Copies of this letter, which was originally circulated by the Center for Security Policy last fall, may be obtained by contacting the Center. __________ No. 97-D 27 17 February 1997 Truth or Consequences #5: The CWC Will Not Be Good for Business--To Say Nothing of The National Interest (Washington, D.C.): Proponents of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) now awaiting consideration by the U.S. Senate often declare that industry supports this controversial treaty. That claim requires careful consideration since, on its face, this arms control treaty will have myriad, and possibly quite adverse, implications for many American businesses. Such implications arise from the reporting, regulatory and inspection requirements generated by the treaty's verification regime. Who Will Be Affected? A common misconception is that only chemical manufacturing businesses will be covered by these requirements. To be sure, such pervasively regulated companies will face additional reporting requirements and be subjected to routine inspections by foreign nationals. A trade association representing some of these companies-- the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA)--has judged the impacts of the CWC on its member companies to be acceptable, however. (Interestingly, some CMA companies--for example, Dixie Chemicals and Sterling Chemicals--have expressed opposition to the treaty on the grounds that the costs entailed in further reporting requirements, additional regulatory burdens and intrusive on-site inspections will be unacceptable.) In fact, thousands of companies that do not produce but simply use a wide variety of chemicals or chemical compounds--notably, Discrete Organic Chemicals (DOCs) \1\--will also be burdened with new and potentially onerous responsibilities under the CWC. While the CWC's proponents frequently claim that many of these companies will be able to get away with filling out a simple, short form, there is reason to believe otherwise. For a good many of the affected companies, the CWC's reporting requirements will entail a time-consuming, and assuredly expensive, process of producing declara- tions, filing reports and complying with new regulations. These industries may also face challenge as well as routine inspections. Challenge inspections permit the use of sampling procedures--for example the use of mass spectrometers--that go beyond those to which companies facing only routine inspections are exposed and that have considerable potential for the loss of Confidential Business Information (see below). Among the industries facing such prospects are: automotive, food processing, biotech, distillers and brewers, electronics, soap and detergents, cosmetics and fragrances, paints, textiles, non-nuclear electric utility operators and even ball-point pen ink manufacturers. The following well-known U.S. companies--none of which has anything to do with the manufacture of chemical weapons--have been identified by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency as subject to the CWC's terms: Sherwin-Williams, Nutrasweet, Jim Beam, Archer Daniels Midland, Lever Brothers, Kaiser Aluminum, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Xerox, Raytheon and Conoco. Last but hardly least, in addition to the obligations befalling the foregoing industries, the Chemical Weapons Convention would allow any site in the United States to be subjected to intrusive challenge inspections. While proponents downplay the danger that such an arrangement might be abused by foreign governments, there are no guarantees that such abuses will not occur. Who Speaks for All the Affected Industries? While the Chemical Manufacturers Association has been the most vocal industry advocate of the Chemical Weapons Convention, it represents only some 190 of the companies expected to be covered by the treaty. It has aggressively lobbied Senators and other trade organizations on behalf of the treaty, evidently persuaded not only that the CWC will not hurt its businesses but will actually benefit them. Notably, CMA believes this accord's Article XI will clear the way for a substantial increase in U.S. exports of chemical manufacturing equipment and materials. Since the bulk of this prospective increase may involve markets not currently open to American chemical concerns--presumably, including pariah states like Iran and Cuba--it is unclear just how willing responsible companies and/or the U.S. Government will be to engage in this sort of trade.\2\ Such exports are currently proscribed by the supplier-control arrangement known as the Australia Group. If, as seems likely, the CWC has the effect of vitiating the Australia Group mechanism, CW-relevant exports may be permitted even to dubious customers--but it will be hard to contend that the effect on curbing proliferation of chemical weapons will be a positive one. The truth of the matter is that no one can say for sure how many companies will be caught up in the CWC's reporting, regulatory and inspection regime. It is safe to say, however, that there will be thousands affected (according to official U.S. Government estimates as many as 3,000-8,000.) Even if one counts facilities, as few as two- fifths of those affected are owned by CMA member companies. Indeed, as Dr. Will Carpenter, formerly Vice President for Technology at the Monsanto Agriculture Company and a CMA representative, noted in an article in Ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention: ``The leaders of the chemical industry, through the board of directors of the CMA have always emphasized support of the convention. There are, however, another 60 to 80 trade associations whose members will also be regulated by the National Authority [set up to implement the CWC]. ... An overwhelming number of these companies are not aware of the implications of the Chemical Weapons Convention despite a continuing effort by ACDA, the CMA and other organizations to get the word out.'' How Will American Businesses Be Affected? The impact of the Chemical Weapons Convention on American companies will occur through two avenues: (1) Impacts Due to New Reporting and Regulatory Requirements: The data required by the treaty's verification regime differs in both quantitative and qualitative respects from that already collected for other regulatory purposes. For example, current environmental regulations do not cover all of the chemicals relevant to the CWC. Moreover, of those that are covered, the production thresholds triggering current reporting requirements are set much higher than would be the case under the CWC. In addition, some existing regulations require reports concerning future actions (whereas the treaty imposes obligations for considerable retroactive reporting). Some of these current regulations apply to chemical producers, but not to industrial processors or consumers of chemicals. And deadlines for reports required by the CWC will be shorter, and necessitate more frequent updating, than those presently demanded, for instance, by the Environmental Protection Agency. For all these rea- sons, new reporting requirements will have to be levied by the U.S. government in the implementing legislation for the Convention. These new requirements may prove to be viewed by large concerns as simply a marginal additional cost of doing business. Smaller companies, however, may find these additional requirements to be considerably more burdensome. This is particularly true since some companies will be obliged to file detailed declarations for the first time. Such reports will also have to be updated on an annual basis. The associated costs for preparing these reports are likely to run to the thousands--and perhaps hundreds of thousands--of dollars per company. What is more, the new U.S. bureaucracy dubbed the ``National Authority'' to whom these reports will be sent, must be notified of changes in declared activities 5 days before they occur. Complying with this requirement is likely to prove problematic for companies unable to predict their activities; it certainly will be burdensome. A failure to comply with this reporting regime could result in civil and perhaps even criminal penalties. (2) Impacts Arising from On-Site Inspections: Any company that provides declarations to the ``National Authority'' should prepare to be inspected. Once the U.S. National Authority turns the information thus supplied over to the new international bureaucracy created under this Convention--the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) the OPCW's Technical Secretariat will have the authority to conduct on-site inspections (both routine and challenge inspections) to verify the data thus supplied. Depending on the sorts of chemicals declared and the nature of the inspections, the amount of notice, duration and degree of intrusiveness of the inspection can vary. For example, advance notice can be as little as twenty-four hours; the duration can extend to 96 continuous hours; and the international inspectors can in some instances demand to examine any data, files, processes, equipment, structures or vehicles deemed pertinent to their search for illegal chemical manufacturing activities. What Will Be At Risk? It is a virtual certainty that, in the course of at least some such inspections, confidential business information (CBI) will be put at risk. In 1993, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment identified examples of proprietary information that could be compromised: The formula of a new drug or specialty chemical A synthetic route that requires the fewest steps or the cheapest raw materials The form, source, composition and purity of raw materials or solvents Subtle changes in pressure or temperature at key steps in a process Expansion and marketing plans Raw materials and suppliers Manufacturing costs Prices and sales figures Names of technical personnel working on a particular project Customer lists According to the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the means by which the foregoing and other sensitive business information could be acquired by foreign inspectors (at least some of whom may be agents of their governments' intelligence services and specialists in the conduct of commercial espionage) include via the following: manifests and container labels that disclose the nature/ purity of the feedstock and the identity of the supplier instrument panels [e.g., networked computer monitors] revealing precise temperature and pressure settings for a production process chemical analysis of residues taken from a valve or seal on the production line visual inspection of piping configurations and instrumentation diagrams could allow an inspector to deduce flow and process parameters audits of plant records A loss of confidential business information either through a challenge inspection, or through sample analysis, could be particularly troubling for those in the chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Many companies have not sought patents for such proprietary information lest they be compromised by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, to which patents are subject. Even so, in August 1993, the OTA estimated that the U.S. chemical industry loses approximately $3-6 billion per year in counterfeited chemicals and chemical products. If proprietary formulas are compromised by commercial espionage, the cost can be very great. For example, it takes an average of 10 years and an investment of $25 million to perfect a new pesticide. U.S. pharmaceutical companies must invest an average of 12 years and on the order of $350 million in research and development to bring a breakthrough drug to market. Clearly, while it is difficult to assess the potential dollar losses that may be associated with the compromise of proprietary business data, information gleaned from inspections and data declarations literally could be worth millions of dollars to foreign competitors. A small company whose profitability (and economic survival) derives from a narrow but critical competitive advantage will be particularly vulnerable to industrial espionage. The OTA notes that for a small company, ``even visual inspection alone might reveal a unique process configuration that could be of great value to a competitor.'' The Risk is Real Unfortunately, these are not hypothetical or ``worst case'' scenarios. In preparation for the CWC, the U.S. has conducted mock inspections at seven government and private sector industrial sites. The results validate fears that even routine access by the OPCW's international inspectors could result in the loss of commercial and/or national security secrets. This would certainly be true of the access allowed under more intrusive challenge inspection provisions. These conclusions are evident, for example, in a report submitted by the U.S. government to the Conference on Disarmament concerning the third of these so-called National Trial Inspections. It was conducted by U.S. experts at the Monsanto Agricultural Company's Luling, Louisiana plant in August, 1991. The report said, in part: ``The Monsanto representative who was on the inspection team to determine the extent of CBI he could obtain, determined there would be a loss of such information. He stated he was able to obtain enough information about the glyphosate intermediate process merely by equipment inspection to save a potential competitor considerable process development, time and dollars. He said a knowledgeable inspector could compromise Monsanto's proprietary business interests with no access to their records beyond the quantity of phosphorous trichloride consumed.'' (Emphasis added.) Even Exterior Sampling Can Put CBI At Risk: Another mock inspection revealed that soil and water samples taken even from the exterior of buildings at a chemical plant three weeks after a production run revealed the product of the operation and process details. This is especially worrisome in terms of the implications for confidential business information since the CWC's Verification Annex (Part II paragraph (E)(55)) explicitly affords an inspection team the right to take samples on-site using highly invasive mass spectrometers and, ``if it deems necessary,'' to transfer samples for analysis off-site at laboratories designated by the OPCW. And, as Dr. Kathleen Bailey of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 21 March 1996: ``Experts in my laboratory recently conducted experiments to determine whether or not there would be a remainder inside of the equipment that is used for sample analysis on-site. They found out that, indeed, there is residue remaining. And if the equipment were taken off-site, off of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory site, or off of the site of a biotechnology firm, for example, and further analysis were done on those residues, you would be able to get classified and/or proprietary information.'' Matters are made worse by the prospect that the OPCW is likely to allow a number of states parties' laboratories to conduct sample analysis. Among the nations that have expressed an interest in providing such laboratory services are several with dubious records concerning non-proliferation and/or a record of using multilateral organizations--among other devices--for intelligence collection (including commercial espionage). Conclusion The Chemical Weapons Convention will entail real, if as yet unquantifiable, costs for thousands of U.S. industries having nothing to do with the manufacture of chemical weapons. Such costs might be justifiable if the treaty were likely to be effective in ridding the world of chemical weapons--or even in appreciably reducing the likelihood of chemical warfare. Unfortunately, while the CWC's verification regime will be sufficiently intrusive to jeopardize U.S. proprietary interests, it is woefully inadequate to detect and prove non-compliance by closed societies determined to maintain covert chemical weapons capabilities notwithstanding their treaty obligations.\3\ As a result, the burdens that American private industries will be asked to bear--largely without their knowledge-- simply cannot be justified on national security or any other grounds. notes: \1\ The CWC defines DOCs only in the following, expansive terms: ``Any chemical belonging to the class of chemical compounds consisting of all compounds of carbon except for its oxides, sulfides and metal carbonates.'' \2\ In fact, ACDA Director John Holum has indicated that the United States' obligations under the CWC would not be allowed to compel it to sell CW-relevant technology to proliferating states. Even if that position were actually adopted by the U.S. government after treaty ratification, Article XI would still provide political cover for other nations feeling no such compunction and deny Washington grounds for objecting. \3\ N.B. The UN's on-site inspection effort in Iraq (UNSCOM) has been unable to ascertain the true status of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs despite five years of challenge inspections under a regime providing for far more intrusive, timely and comprehensive inspections than those authorized by the CWC. __________ No. 97-D 14 28 January 1997 Truth or Consequences #1: Center Challenges Administration Efforts To Distort, Suppress Debate on CWC dangers to americans' constitutional rights (Washington, D.C.): Like a saturation bombardment of toxic gas on a World War I battlefield, proponents of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) have suddenly unleashed a barrage of Cabinet-level public statements and op.eds., departmental letters, government fact sheets and interest group point papers. The purpose seems to be to asphyxiate informed debate about this treaty with billowing clouds of false or misleading information, even as the Convention's critics are wrongly accused of doing the same thing. For example, in a letter written to Senators on 14 January 1997, Dr. Lori Esposito Murray--the Special Advisor to the President and ACDA Director on the Chemical Weapons Convention--took strong exception to correspondence authored by a large and distinguished group of former senior civilian and military officials who oppose ratification of the CWC in its present form. The latter include: former Secretaries of Defense Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Caspar Weinberger, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig and former National Security Advisor to the President William Clark. Dr. Murray declared that the Cheney et al. letter ``contains significant misinformation about the Convention.'' She proceeds to cite several portions of the letter (which was circulated by the Center for Security Policy originally last fall and again earlier this month) \1\ which she characterizes as ``misstatements.'' In opposition to these alleged ``misstatements,'' Dr. Murray offers what she calls ``facts.'' As a contribution to a real and informed debate about the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Center will be issuing a series of Decision Briefs in the coming days briefly responding to each of Dr. Murray points--and similar arguments on behalf of the treaty made by others-- that have the effect of confusing or distorting, if not actually suppressing, such a debate. CWC Will Impinge Upon Americans' Constitutional Rights As Secretaries Cheney, Rumsfeld, Weinberger and their colleagues noted in the joint letter: ``We are concerned that the CWC will jeopardize U.S. citizens' constitutional rights by requiring the U.S. government to permit searches without either warrants or probable cause.'' Dr. Murray describes this as a ``misstatement'' and declares as a ``fact'' that: ``The Administration expects that access to private facilities will be granted voluntarily for the vast majority of inspections under the CWC. If this is not the case, the United States Government will obtain a search warrant prior to an inspection in order to ensure that there will be no trampling of constitutional rights.'' On 9 September 1996, Department of Justice officials publicly acknowledged in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that in such cases a criminal warrant would be required. The problem is that obtaining such a warrant from a court would require demonstration of probable cause. This will be impossible in most cases because the nation requesting an inspection need not cite its reasons for making such a request. Hence, the Clinton Administration faces a difficult choice. If the U.S. government respects its citizens' rights not to be subjected involuntarily to searches in the absence of judicial warrants, it will be creating a precedent other countries will assuredly cite to refuse on-site inspections on their territories. If it does not respect those rights, it will be acting in an unconstitutional manner. Judge Bork Is Concerned About the Treaty's Constitutional Impact In a letter sent to Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch last August, a respected constitutional scholar and distinguished Federal judge, Robert H. Bork, expressed the view that ``there are grounds to be concerned about [CWC provisions'] compatibility with the Constitution.'' He wrote: ``Fourth and Fifth Amendment concerns are raised by the United States' obligation to open to on-site inspections any facility, whether in the public sector or privately owned. Apparently, no probable cause need be shown. A foreign state will have the right to challenge inspection of a U.S. facility without the grounds that are essential for a search warrant. ``The U.S. is required by the CWC to enforce inspection by an international team, even over opposition from the owner. On- site personnel can be compelled to answer questions, provide data, and permit searches of anything within the premises-- including records, files, papers, processes, controls, structures and vehicles. ``Whatever the merits otherwise of the claim that the `pervasively regulated industries' exception avoids the Fourth Amendment problems, it is my understanding that the majority of the 3,000-8,000 companies expected to be covered are not pervasively regulated. ``Additional Fifth Amendment problems arise from the authority of inspectors to collect data and analyze samples. This may constitute an illegal seizure and, perhaps, constitute the taking of private property by the government without compensation. The foreign inspectors will not be subject to punishment for any theft of proprietary information. ``American citizens will have fewer rights to information concerning investigations concerning them or their businesses than they would if investigated by a U.S. agency. Freedom of Information requests will not be permitted under the proposed CWC implementing legislation. ... ``... The owner of a facility will [likely] be faced with an international inspection team, backed up by the U.S. government, demanding access to his property and demanding answers and documents from his employees. No one will be shown a search warrant and, so far as I can gather, the owner or employee must decide on the spot whether he has a constitutional right to refuse what is demanded. If he refuses and turns out to be wrong, he will face punishment. At least a citizen shown a search warrant knows that a judge has deemed the search constitutional. ``The provision in question speaks of constitutional obligations with regard to property rights or searches and seizures. That does not cover the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate oneself. Yet self-incrimination is a real danger for people required to answer questions, turn over documents and other matter.'' Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde is Also Concerned On 28 August 1996, Chairman Hatch received a letter from his House counterpart, Rep. Henry Hyde. It expresses similar misgivings to those addressed by Judge Bork. Rep. Hyde asked: ``How can we accede to an arrangement that grants an international inspection agency the right to demand access to thousands of privately owned U.S. facilities without requiring the foreign inspectors to demonstrate probable cause necessary to secure a judicial warrant--except by compromising the American owners' constitutional rights? ``Similarly, how can those owners be denied due process--or, for that matter, the right to sue for damages in the likely event that the foreign inspectors use their eighty-four hours of on-site inspection to elicit sensitive proprietary data and then that data finds its way into the hands of competitors overseas? As you are well aware, there is growing concern about illegal commercial espionage. If we are not careful, it would appear that we may be creating through the CWC a legal opportunity for carrying out such intelligence collection, to the severe detriment of America's competitive position. A further concern arises from the fact that the new Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will be significantly less accountable than U.S. regulatory agencies for information collected in the course of international inspections of American businesses. I understand that the draft implementing leg- islation proposes to preclude requests about OPCW inspections that might otherwise be made under the Freedom of Information act. ``... Whatever one thinks ... about the wisdom of ratifying a treaty that is inherently unverifiable, unenforceable and inequitable, the likelihood that it will compromise the constitutional rights of many thousands of American companies and their owners and employees should be sufficient grounds for its rejection.'' The Bottom Line Clearly, there are grounds for concern about the constitutional impact of the Chemical Weapons Convention. These cannot be dismissed as ``misstatements'' or ``myths.'' Neither can consideration of such issues be responsibly deferred--as some treaty proponents are arguing-- until after the CWC is ratified by the United States. At that point, the theoretical option of building safeguards into the implementing legislation will be a non-starter, at least from a practical point of view, to the extent such protections would conflict with ``the supreme law of the land,'' i.e., a ratified treaty. Accordingly, the Center for Security Policy encourages members of the Senate to examine the constitutional and other, serious problems with the Chemical Weapons Convention prior to any further consideration of this accord. notes: \1\ See the Center's Transition Brief entitled Here We Go Again: Clinton Presses Anew For Senate Approval of Flawed, Unverifiable, Ineffective Chemical Weapons Treaty (No. 97-T 5, 8 January 1997). __________ No. 97-D 30 22 February 1997 Truth or Consequences #6: The CWC Will Not Prevent Chemical Terrorism Against the U.S. or its Interests (Washington, D.C.): In recent weeks, proponents of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) have cited the contribution this Convention would make to combating terrorists armed with chemical weapons as an important justification for the Senate to approve its ratification. In President Clinton's State of the Union address, in successive op.ed. articles by former Bush Administration officials and in news articles and editorials reflecting the administration's pro-treaty line, the assertion is made that an admittedly grave problem will be alleviated by the CWC's ban on the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons. According to the Wall Street Journal, Senator Richard Lugar--the Chemical Weapons Convention's principal champion in the Senate--has even taken to darkly warning his colleagues that they better vote for the CWC lest there be a chemical terrorist incident in this country which might have been prevented if only the Convention had been in place. The CWC Will Not Impede Terrorists Such arguments are highly misleading, possibly dangerously so, for two reasons: (1) The `Home-Brew' Problem: The ability to produce toxic chemical agents is so widespread--and the materials required are so universally accessible and ordinary--that a treaty banning chemical weapons will have no effect at all on small, non-governmental groups determined to manufacture such agents. Lethal chemical substances can be manufactured by virtually anyone with a good understanding of chemistry and access to commercially available hardware and ingredients. In fact, the Japanese cult, Aum Shim Rikyo, produced the toxic nerve agent Sarin it used a few years ago in its terrorist attack on the subways of Tokyo in just such a fashion--in a room with dimensions of eight by fourteen feet. Suggestions that such terrorist incidents will be precluded in the future by a prohibition on governmental stocks of chemical weapons--a step said to eliminate the danger some chemical weapons might be stolen and used in an unauthorized fashion--ignore the reality of this ``home-brew'' option. The effect of the CWC on this option will be roughly that an international treaty foreswearing bank- robbery by governments would have on independent bank-robbers, which is to say no beneficial impact whatsoever. As a practical matter, neither the limits imposed by the Chemical Weapons Convention's three schedules of chemicals nor the intrusive inspection regime mandated by the treaty would prevent terrorist groups like Aum Shim Rikyo from garnering chemical weapons capabilities. This would be true even were they to produce quantities of chemical agents deemed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, sufficient to have a ``militarily impact'' (i.e., one agent ton).\1\ On this point, a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report of February 1996 observed: ``Irrespective of whether the CWC enters into force, terrorists will likely look upon CW as a means to gain greater publicity and instill widespread fear. The March 1995 Tokyo subway attack by Aum Shim Rikyo would not have been prevented by the CWC.'' (2) The Problem of State-Support for Chemical Terrorism: A number of the leading state-sponsors of terrorism--notably, Libya, Syria, Iraq and North Korea--have indicated that they will not become parties to this treaty. As a result, at least some of those who provide infrastructural support, training and other assistance to terrorists will be free to do so in the chemical arena, as well as with respect to more traditional tools of the trade (e.g., Semetex plastic explosive, fertilizer-based bombs and other high-explosives). What is more, since the Chemical Weapons Convention's limitations cannot be monitored with confidence, it is possible--perhaps even likely--that at least some of the nations known to have supported international terrorism who may become parties to the CWC (e.g., Russia, China, Iran and Cuba) will also be able to assist those interested in performing acts of chemical terrorism. If the Convention cannot ensure that such CWC counties are entirely out of the chemical weapons business, it certainly cannot assure that those with whom these countries deal covertly are out of that deadly business. In the final analysis, of course, state-sponsorship of terrorism is itself a violation of international law. The idea that nations that routinely flout treaty obligations and international norms will behave differently if only a new convention is adopted is absurd. The problem is not a lack of laws or the ``tools'' they ostensibly provide to deal with such nations and behavior. The problem is, rather, the absence of will to use the available laws and tools to penalize state-sponsors of terrorism and curb their malevolence. The Bottom Line The threat posed by chemical terrorism is a real one. Every American should be concerned about this danger--and insistent that it be seriously addressed by the elected and appointed officials charged with providing for the common defense. The predictable effect of the Chemical Weapons Convention, however, will be to reduce concern out of a mistaken belief that the chemical threat from terrorists and others has been appreciably lessened. What is needed now is effective action, not placebos like the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Antiterrorism Act demonstrates that the United States can adopt legislation addressing the threats posed by terrorists without being compelled to do so by international treaty. That and other antiterrorism statutes can and should be strengthened so as to impose severe criminal penalties on those who enable, help or execute such attacks. The existing, relatively verifiable international ban on use of chemical weapons should be given teeth. U.S. intelligence efforts aimed at identifying, penetrating and neutralizing groups that might be inclined to engage in such activities need to be intensified and given substantially greater resources. And a vastly increased effort should be made to provide protection against chemical attacks not only to the U.S. military but also to the American government and people. By contrast, a treaty that will, in all likelihood, have the effect of reducing investment in chemical defenses\2\ and possibly diminishing valuable chemical-related intelligence collection by diverting efforts to the inspection and other activities mandated by the CWC,\3\ may actually make the U.S. more susceptible--not less--to terrorists wielding CW. That could also be the case thanks to the treaty's obligation on states parties to transfer chemical manufacturing capabilities and defensive equipment to other member nations.\4\ Should this obligation be honored by the U.S. and/or its allies, it will prove a recipe for intensified threats emanating from terrorist-sponsoring countries. Finally, if--as virtually everyone agrees--chemical terrorism is likely to occur in the future, Senators would be well advised to think about whether they wish to be implicated by having voted for a treaty falsely advertised as a means to prevent such incidents, but that will be seen in retrospect to have done nothing on that score, and perhaps actually served to make them more likely. notes: \1\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Truth or Consequences #3: Clinton `Makes a Mistake About It' in Arguing the CWC Will Protect U.S. Troops (No. 97-D 21, 6 February 1997). \2\ Ibid. \3\ Douglas J. Feith, a leading critic of the CWC and founding member of the Center for Security Policy's Board of Advisors, has likened the Convention's intrusive inspection arrangements to those of a drunk looking under a streetlamp for keys lost elsewhere simply because the light was better there. \4\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Truth or Consequences #5: The CWC Will Not Be Good For Business, To Say Nothing of the National Interest (No. 97-D 27, 17 February 1997). __________ No. 97-D 38 6 March 1997 Truth or Consequences #8: The CWC Will Exacerbate the Proliferation of Chemical Warfare Capabilities (Washington, D.C.): In recent days, proponents of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) have taken to dissembling about the clear meaning--and certain effect--of the treaty's Article XI. Article XI says, in part: ``... States parties shall ... undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of chemicals, equipment and scientific and technical information relating to the development and application of chemistry for purposes not prohibited under this Convention; What is more--as noted in the attached article in the current edition of the New Republic by Douglas J. Feith, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense responsible for chemical arms control during the Reagan Administration and founding member of Center Board of Advisors--Article XI goes on to say: ``[States parties shall] not maintain among themselves any restrictions, including those in any international agreements, incompatible with the obligations undertaken under this Convention, which would restrict or impede trade and the development and promotion of scientific and technological knowledge in the field of chemistry for industrial, agricultural, research, medical, pharmaceutical or other peaceful purposes. ... In addition, the CWC's Article X declares that ``Every state party shall have the right to participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, material and scientific and technological information concerning means of protection against chemical weapons.'' `Poisons for Peace' Any reasonable reading of this language shows that these provisions would require the United States (in the event it ratifies the Convention) to provide other states parties--including in all likelihood countries like Iran, Cuba, China and Russia--with state-of- the-art manufacturing capabilities and defensive technologies with direct relevance to chemical warfare activities. After all, advanced facilities designed to manufacture pesticides, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals have the inherent capacity to produce chemical weapons in substantial quantities. Supplying potential adversaries with modern chemical defensive gear could equip them to engage in chemical war. It could, in addition, aid in efforts to defeat Western protective equipment. As the Center recently reported,\1\ General Norman Schwartzkopf recently reacted with incredulity and horror when advised that the CWC, which he has endorsed, would have such effects. Will the U.S. Violate the CWC? Remarkably, the Clinton Administration and other CWC advocates are now claiming that the United States will not be compelled by this treaty to transfer to nations like Iran and Cuba chemical technology that will lend itself to diversion for military purposes. Presumably, they think they will not have to abide by the treaty's ``obligation'' to provide chemical defensive gear to Teheran or Havana, either. Maybe so. Still, it would be helpful to establish in advance--and formally codify in any resolution of ratification--precisely which of the CWC's provisions the United States will not observe. Such a step would do much to protect against the predictable postratification demand from Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and State Department lawyers to the effect that the United States must faithfully observe all of the treaty's articles and obligations. Even If We Don't, Who Else Will Observe Export Controls? As Mr. Feith observes, even if the United States does selectively adhere to the Convention and maintains export controls (not to say embargoes) against Iran and Cuba, however, ``Articles X an XI will invite other countries to transfer dangerous technology to them. Germany can be expected to invoke the treaty against any U.S. official who protests a planned sale of a chemical factory to, say, Iran.'' CWC advocates' assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, voluntary supplier control arrangements like the Australia Group are likely to fall victim to the CWC-blessed, trade uber alles appetites of such ``friendly'' nations.\2\ What is more, one can safely predict that the prospect of foreign competitors closing such sales will cause would-be American suppliers to seize upon these same provisions to argue that Washington has neither the right nor an interest in penalizing U.S. firms. This punch has been telegraphed by the emphasis the frantically pro-CWC Chemical Manufacturers Association has placed on the opportunity the Convention will create for increasing exports, presumably to countries where such U.S. exports are not currently permitted. The Bottom Line Douglas Feith's essay in the New Republic and an op.ed. by former Secretaries of Defense James Schlesinger, Donald Rumsfeld and Caspar Weinberger which appeared in the Washington Post yesterday \3\ make one point crystal clear: CWC Articles X and XI are but two of the myriad reasons why the United States would be better off not being a party to this Convention. The Senate would be well-advised to give these arguments careful consideration. Indeed, it would make sense to defer action on the treaty's ratification until after it had been in force for some period so as to evaluate whether these unintended and counterproductive effects are as serious in practice as in prospect they would appear likely to be. Either way, the Senate should resist the pressure to rubber-stamp this accord--pressure that will only intensify as treaty advocates realize that time is no more on their side than are the merits of the case. notes: \1\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Gen. Schwartzkopf Tells Senate He Shares Critics' Concerns About Details of the Chemical Weapons Convention (No. 97-D 35, 27 February 1997). \2\ For more on German behavior unbecoming an ally, see the Center's Watch on the Rhine series, e.g., Watch On The Rhine: German Efforts To Extort The Czechs, Forge Relations With Rogue States Are Ominous Indicators (No. 96-C 127, 10 December 1996) and Watch On The Rhine #2: Germany Proceeds With Bait-And-Switch Encouraging Sudeten Claims And Moves To Reschedule Syrian Debt (No. 96-C 131, 19 December 1996). \3\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Truth Or Consequences #7: Schlesinger, Rumsfeld And Weinberger Rebut Scowcroft And Deutch On The CWC (No. 97-D 37, 5 March 1997). Chemical Reaction: A Bad Treaty on Chemical Weapons [By Douglas J. Feith] It would seem an indisputable good: a treaty to eliminate poison gas from Beijing to Buenos Aires. Yet the new Chemical Weapons Convention is having trouble in the Senate. And the more the treaty is debated, the deeper the trouble. In congressional hearings and public forums, even the treaty's champions have been forced to concede our severely limited ability to monitor compliance and enforce the ban. As a result, the chief pro-treaty argument is no longer that the CWC, as the treaty is acronymically known, will abolish chemical weapons--for it obviously will not--but that the CWC is better than nothing. Administration officials, in their standard pitch to skeptical senators, now stress that the treaty is on balance worthwhile, if flawed, and rebuke critics for measuring the treaty against an unrealistic standard of ``perfection.'' ``The limits imposed by the CWC surely are imperfect,'' former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former CIA Director John Deutch contended in a recent Washington Post op-ed, ``but ... it is hard to see how its imperfect constraints are worse than no constraints at all.'' The it's-better-than-nothing argument has some potency. After all, no decent person wants poison gas to proliferate. Conservatives and liberals alike want to continue to destroy the entire U.S. chemical arsenal regardless of what happens to the CWC. So even a small step in the direction of global abolition would be valuable. But the treaty is not such a step. It is not better than nothing. Indeed, it would eliminate export controls that now impede rogue states from developing their chemical warfare capabilities. And, as many senators have discovered after examining the treaty's 186-page text, it would exacerbate the problem of poison gas proliferation around the world. Article XI, for instance, states that parties to the treaty shall: Not maintain among themselves any restrictions, including those in any international agreements, incompatible with the obligations undertaken under this Convention, which would restrict or impede trade and the development and promotion of scientific and technological knowledge in the field of chemistry for industrial, agricultural, research, medical, pharmaceutical or other peaceful purposes. What this means is that the United States must not restrict chemical trade with any other CWC party--even Iran and Cuba, both of which are CWC signatories. Similarly, CWC Article X obliges countries to share with other parties technology relating to chemical weapons defense. ``Each State Party,'' the article says, ``undertakes to facilitate, and shall have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, material and scientific and technological information concerning means of protection against chemical weapons.'' Once Iran and Cuba ratify the treaty, our current export controls against them will surely be attacked as impermissible. Furthermore, those countries, upon joining the CWC, will claim entitlement to the advanced countries' ``scientific and technological information'' on how to protect their armed forces against chemical weapons. A crucial element of an offensive chemical weapons capability is the means to protect one's own forces from the weapons' effects. Even if the U.S. government decides to maintain export controls against Iran and Cuba, Articles X and XI will invite other countries to transfer dangerous technology to them. Germany can be expected to invoke the treaty against any U.S. official who protests a planned sale of a chemical factory to, say, Iran. Indeed, Bonn could not only argue that its firms are allowed to sell chemical technology to Iran, but that they are actually obliged to do so, for Iran will have renounced chemical weapons by joining the CWC. Articles X and XI are modeled on similar provisions in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, called ``atoms for peace,'' which even admirers acknowledge have spread the very nuclear technology the treaty was intended to contain. When Iran, Iraq and North Korea became signatories, they quickly gained access to this sensitive technology, ostensibly ``for peaceful purposes.'' Yet it helped these outlaw states to develop their nuclear weapons programs. The CWC encourages the same abuse. Even Scowcroft and Deutch acknowledge ``we must ensure that the CWC is not exploited to facilitate the diffusion of CWC specific technology ... even to signatory states.'' Alas, the perverse product of the CWC will be ``poisons for peace.'' Without the treaty, any country that wants to destroy its chemical weapons can do so, as is the United States. But, for the sake of declaring an unenforceable ban on chemical weapons possession, the CWC will undermine existing export controls that are, in fact, doing some good. It is a stunning, though not unprecedented, example of arms control diplomacy resulting in the opposite of its intended effect. The treaty brings to mind Santayana's definition of a ``fanatic'' as someone who redoubles his effort upon losing sight of his goal. As this absurdity impresses itself upon the Senate, that body appears intent on rejecting the agreement, thereby sending the administration and the world a beneficial message: arms control treaties should make us more secure, not less. Douglas J. Feith oversaw chemical weapons arms control as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy in the Reagan administration. __________ No. 97-P 50 10 April 1997 New National Poll Shows Overwhelming Public Opposition To A Flawed Chemical Weapons Convention (Washington, D.C.): On 4-5 April 1997, the Luntz Research Companies conducted a national poll of 900 American adults concerning the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). This poll was intended to ensure that public sentiments about the present treaty were properly understood--an objective made all the more necessary by earlier canvass performed by the Wirthlin Group. The Wirthlin poll suggested overwhelming support for a treaty that ``would ban the production, possession, transfer and use of poison gas.'' The Luntz Poll This poll--which was sponsored by the Center for Security Policy, a non-partisan educational organization specializing in national defense and foreign policy issues--asked respondents whether they would support the CWC if it had certain troubling characteristics and/or implications. The text of the questions and the responses follow (including a breakout of the views of the respondents who identified themselves as having voted Republican in the 1996 congressional election, since the treaty's fate will be decided by the Senate's GOP members): \1\ ``President Clinton will ask the U.S. Senate to vote in the next few weeks for an arms control treaty called the Chemical Weapons Convention. It is supposed to ban the production and stockpiling of nerve gas and other chemical weapons worldwide. Let me read you two opinions about the treaty [order of following two paragraphs reversed in every-other question]: ``Treaty supporters point out that more than 160 countries have signed the Chemical Weapons Convention and believe it would create international pressure to get rid of such weapons--and punish those who keep them. They say that, even if it does not work perfectly, it will still be better than having no treaty at all. ``Treaty opponents--including four former Secretaries of Defense--believe there are serious problems with this treaty. If they are right, it will not rid the world of chemical weapons and may, instead, have even more undesirable effects. They believe that such problems could make the result of this Convention worse than having no treaty at all. ``With these views in mind, I would like to ask you whether you would strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the Chemical Weapons Convention if it did the following things: ``1. If only the United States and its allies wound up obeying it while other, potentially hostile countries like Russia, China, Iran, Iraq or North Korea keep their chemical weapons?'' Poll Results -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Sample Republicans -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15% Strongly support 13% Strongly Support 16% Somewhat support 14% Somewhat support -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Support 31% Total Support 27% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16% Somewhat oppose 16% Somewhat Oppose 44% Strongly oppose 50% Strongly Oppose -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Oppose 60% Total Oppose 66% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9% Other (No opinion/Don't know/Refused) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``2. If it would result in the transfer of technology that could help countries like Iran, Cuba or China increase their ability to fight chemical wars?'' Poll Results -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Sample Republicans -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9% Strongly support 7% Strongly support 10% Somewhat support 10% Somewhat support -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Support 19% Total Support 17% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17% Somewhat oppose 14% Somewhat oppose 53% Strongly oppose 62% Strongly oppose -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Oppose 70% Total Oppose 76% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11% Other (No opinion/Don't know/Refused) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``3. If countries that violated its prohibitions went unpunished?'' Poll Results -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Sample Republicans -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7% Strongly support 8% Strongly support 9% Somewhat support 8% Somewhat support -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Support 16% Total Support 16% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17% Somewhat oppose 15% Somewhat oppose 56% Strongly oppose 61% Strongly oppose -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Oppose 73% Total Oppose 76% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11% Other (No opinion/Don't know/Refused) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``4. If it would authorize UN inspectors to go to any site in the United States, potentially without legal search warrants and potentially risking American business or military secrets?'' Poll Results -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Sample Republicans -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10% Strongly support 6% Strongly support 12% Somewhat support 8% Somewhat support -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Support 22% Total Support 16% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19% Somewhat oppose 19% Somewhat oppose 49% Strongly oppose 57% Strongly oppose -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Oppose 68% Total Oppose 76% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11% Other (No opinion/Don't know/Refused) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CWC Does Have These Flaws Thanks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under the leadership of its chairman, Senator Jesse Helms, there is now little doubt that the Chemical Weapons Convention awaiting Senate advice and consent is defective in each and every one of these respects. In the course of hearings the Committee held this week, an array of unimpeachable authorities highlighted the treaty's flaws with respect to its ineffectiveness, its technology transfer implications, its unenforceability and its ominous implications for American constitutional rights and businesses. Such points were underscored by four former Secretaries of Defense (James Schlesinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Caspar Weinberger and Dick Cheney [in the form of a letter]), a former Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Fred Ilke), a former UN Ambassador (Jeane Kirkpatrick) and two other, prominent former Defense Department officials (former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith). The Center anticipates with pleasure further hearings next week by the Foreign Relations Committee that are expected to address in greater detail the business, constitutional, intelligence and military issues associated with the Chemical Weapons Convention. It calls upon the Senate Armed Services Committee and Intelligence Committees to exercise their respective oversight responsibilities as well before the full Senate is asked to address this fatally flawed treaty. Such hearings can only serve to inform the debate about the CWC and reinforce the need for it to be conducted in a rigorous and deliberate manner--not the artificially constrained, superficial and disinformed consideration the Clinton Administration would prefer from the Senate. notes: \1\ The Poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3%. Subtotals reflect rounding of responses. __________ No. 97-D 46 27 March 1997 Truth or Consequences #9: CWC Proponents Dissemble About Treaty Arrangements Likely To Disserve U.S. Interests (Washington, D.C.): In recent weeks, a number of arguments have been advanced by proponents of the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to counter concerns expressed by the treaty's critics. The more important of these have been rebutted in previous papers in this Truth or Consequences series.\1\ Several of the advocates' other misrepresentations appear, by comparison, to be relatively insignificant at this moment. To the extent that these statements encourage Senators to underestimate the problems with this Convention, however, it is important that the facts be clearly established with regard to these issues, as well. Generically, the statements in question fall in the category of mechanics and other organizational aspects of the institutional arrangements established by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Of particular concern are the following points: `The Laugh Test'--Ha! In response to concerns that foreign governments might abuse the CWC's intrusive inspection provisions to acquire proprietary information from American companies, treaty advocates have claimed that the Convention provides a mechanism for screening out any requests for challenge inspections that are frivolous or abusive. Some have called this colloquially the ``laugh test'': They note that, as long as three- quarters of the Executive Council (excluding the requesting party and the party to be inspected) of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)--the new UN bureaucracy established in The Hague pursuant to this treaty--determine that an inspection is frivolous, the inspection can be foreclosed. In practice, though, it is hard to see how this ``laugh test'' will be able to protect American companies, including many that have nothing to do with the manufacture of chemicals--to say nothing of any involvement in the production of chemical weapons.\2\ After all, under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the following factors will be at work: No Timely Basis for Declaring an Inspection Frivolous: According to the CWC's Article IX, paragraph 17, the OPCW's Executive Council will have just 12 hours after receipt of an inspection request to determine whether it is a frivolous or abusive one. Making such a determination will be problematic, however, since there is no requirement at that juncture for the challenging state party to identify the company or site to be inspected. The nation requesting the challenge inspection is initially required only to identify the country in which the site is located, the port of entry to be used by inspectors and the nature of the concern as it relates to the treaty (Part X, Section B, paragraph 4). In fact, the challenging party does not have to name the exact site to be inspected until 12 hours before inspectors are to arrive at the point of entry (Part X, Section B, paragraph 6). This will be well after the time by which a ruling on frivolity must have been rendered. No Opportunity to Object: There will, as a practical matter, be no way for a country (or one of its companies) to object that an inspection is frivolous. Not only will they not know of the precise inspection request in time to appeal to the Executive Council for relief but--in the unlikely event that they do learn of the location to be inspected prior to the Executive Council's timeframe for acting--the party to be inspected is precluded by the treaty from participating in Council deliberations on the frivolousness of the request (Article X, paragraph 17). Little Chance of Prevailing in the Executive Council: Even if the United States had the requisite information to argue that a challenge inspection would be frivolous or abusive and was in a position to make that argument before the Executive Council, the composition of that body makes it unlikely that American objections would be respected by three-quarters of the members. In standard U.N. style, the 41 seats (held for 2-year terms) are apportioned regionally: 9 African nations, 9 Asian, 7 Latin American and Caribbean, 5 Eastern European, 1 rotating between Asian or Latin and Caribbean nations and 10 Western European or ``other'' nations (the United States is an ``other'' nation for the purposes of the CWC). The United States has neither a guaranteed seat on the Council nor a veto. If standard U.N. practice applies, Washington will find it hard to muster a majority--let alone a super-majority of three-quarters of the membership--in support of its positions. What is more, the U.S. government will almost certainly be disinclined to object to inspections of any but the most patently sensitive government installations on the grounds that doing so will create precedents and otherwise facilitate foreign efforts to impede valid inspections. `No Go' on Adding Chemicals to the Schedules In the wake of revelations that Russia has been covertly developing new classes of extremely toxic chemical weapons using ingredients deliberately left off the CWC's Schedules of Chemicals, treaty proponents have claimed that such chemicals could easily be added to the list. Unfortunately, such statements ignore two inconvenient facts: Revealing Formulas for Chemical Weapons May Do More Harm than Good: In the event the United States learns the composition of a novel chemical agent--such as the Russian A-232 nerve agent--it is highly unlikely that the U.S. would seek to add these chemicals (or their precursors) to the Annex on Chemicals. After all, adding these compounds to the Annex means making public the chemical structure of the agent, thereby undermining efforts to limit the spread of chemical weapons expertise and knowledge, especially to rogue states. Since U.S. intelligence has low confidence in its ability under the CWC to detect illicit Novichok-related activities in Russia (assuming Russia ultimately decides to ratify the treaty) the costs of adding A-232 to the Annex on Chemicals--measured in terms of abetting chemical weapons proliferation--far outweigh any potential benefits. Impediments to Adding Chemicals to the CWC's Schedules: Even if the United States should wish to add an agent or precursor to the Chemical Weapons Convention's schedule, the process is not the simple undertaking that proponents have led the public to believe. To the contrary, it is a long and complicated one. For one thing, modifications to the Annex on Chemicals are not treated as formal ``amendments'' to the Convention. ``Changes'' to the Annex on Chemicals, including additions of new chemicals to the schedules, are treated as administrative or technical in nature. Consequently, special provisions and procedures apply (Article XV, paragraph 4): Any state party may propose a change to the Annex on Chemicals. The proposal is then sent to the Director-General, who forwards it to states parties and the Executive Council (Article XV, paragraph 5(a)). Within 90 days of receipt, the Executive Council makes a recommendation to states parties on whether to accept or reject the proposal. The decision requires a simple majority of the Executive Council (Article XV, paragraph 5(c)). If the Council recommends that the proposal be adopted, it shall be considered approved unless a state party objects within 90 days, and the changes will enter into force 180 days after formal notification of its acceptance by State Parties (Article XV, paragraph 5(d) & (g)). If a state party objects, a decision on the proposal will be taken as ``a matter of substance'' by the Conference of State Parties at its next session (Article XV, paragraph 5(c)). Conferences are only held on an annual basis, however. Even then, as the treaty puts it, decisions taken in such Conferences on ``matters of substance should be taken as far as possible by consensus.'' If consensus is not possible, the Conference shall take a decision by a two-thirds majority of members present and voting (Article VIII, paragraph 18). Currently, this would entail garnering the support of 51 out of 70 state parties to the Convention. To make this process less abstract, assume that the U.S. government (a) knows the composition of a new chemical weapons agent (or precursor) and (b) has reached inter-agency agreement to seek inclusion of the compounds in the Annex on Chemicals--possibly over the objection of the Chemical Manufacturers Association. The following is a scenario describing what would be entailed in effecting such a change: C-Day: The United States proposes the change to the OPCW's Director-General; C + 3 months: The Executive Council recommends acceptance of the U.S. proposal; C + 6 months: Russia, for example, objects. C + 6-to-18 months: An annual Conference is held to address, among other things, the proposed change. The United States musters the two-thirds votes necessary. C + 12-to-24 months: Change becomes effective--up to 2 years after the initial request. Alternatively, if the United States cannot enlist two-thirds of the states parties, the change will not be adopted. It is important to note that, even if the CWC's proponents were correct in their representations that it will be easy to add chemicals to the treaty's Schedules, it is not clear that U.S. interests would be served by that arrangement, either. After all, addition of chemicals to Schedules 1 or 2, or relocation from Schedule 3 to Schedule 2 over Washington's objections could impinge significantly on the reporting and inspection burden imposed on U.S. companies and on American chemical export opportunities. In theory at least, changes in the Schedules could broaden the treaty's scope so as to cover hundreds, possibly thousands, of additional companies. The Senate would have no say over such changes--even if they were to have the effect of significantly altering the CWC's costs. House of Cards The Chemical Weapons Convention requires states parties to declare whether they have chemical weapons and where they were produced within 30 days after the treaty enters into force. Since the preponderance of the CWC's reporting, regulatory and inspection arrangements hinge on voluntary declarations, unwillingness of parties to provide full and accurate reports of their capabilities will significantly diminish even the putative value of this Convention. Of the countries that have so far ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, not one has publicly affirmed that it has chemical weapons. While they will not be obliged to make a formal declaration until May 29th, the fact that not even India--which is widely believed to have chemical warfare capabilities--has intimated that it is a CW state bodes ill for the candidness of future disclosures. What is more, there is no reason to believe that China, Iran, Pakistan or other states judged to have active chemical warfare programs will acknowledge that reality. Even Russia, which has, under the now moribund U.S.-Russian Bilateral Destruction Agreement, affirmed that it is a chemical weapons state, has consistently understated and otherwise misrepresented the nature and size of its chemical arsenal. It will only be possible to calibrate the gravity of this problem thirty-days after entry into force (or after countries like Russia, China and Iran) deposit their instruments of ratification. The United States would be well-advised to wait until that point to become a state party. The Bottom Line While these issues may appear relatively minor compared with the Chemical Weapons Convention's other major defects--notably, the United States' inability to monitor compliance with the treaty with even moderate confidence; its prospective costs in terms of Americans' constitutional rights and their businesses' proprietary information; and the danger that the CWC's Articles X and XI will actually exacerbate the chemical warfare threat while the treaty's placebo effect diminishes U.S. preparedness to deal with that threat. Still, the truth about these ``mechanical'' aspects of the treaty once again belie assurances provided by the CWC's proponents and further compound the down-sides associated with U.S. ratification of the present Convention. notes: \1\ To obtain copies of these papers, please check the Center's Website (http://www.security-policy.org) or contact the Center at 202- 466-0515. \2\ See Truth or Consequences #5: The CWC Will Not Be Good for Business--To Say Nothing of the National Interest (No. 97-D 27, 17 February 1997) for more information about the number and kinds of companies likely to fall under the purview of the CWC's reporting, regulatory and inspection regime. __________ No. 97-P 40 17 March 1997 The Weekly Standard Weighs in on the CWC: `Just Say No to a Bad Treaty' (Washington, D.C.): According to the Washington Post, the debate over the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) has become one ``between conservatives.'' A variation on this theme is the claim that it is a debate ``between internationalists and isolationists''--read, ``good'' conservatives who appreciate the importance of American power and leadership in the world and ``bad'' conservatives who believe the United States can safely walk away from international affairs and responsibilities. Fortunately, the fraudulent nature of such characterizations is revealed in the attached editorial which leads the current issue of one of American conservatism's most influential periodicals--The Weekly Standard. As the Standard puts it: ``What we really have here is the continuation of one of this century's most enduring disputes. In the first camp are the high priests of arms control theology, who have never met an international agreement they didn't like. In the second camp are those who take a more skeptical view of relying on a piece of watermarked, signed parchment for safety in a dangerous world. The case for ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention is a triumph of hope over experience.'' The magazine goes on to describe the debate over the CWC as one essentially between those who subscribe to ``Reaganite internationalism'' on the one hand and ``the more starry-eyed Wilsonian version'' on the other--a difference it says is rooted in the principle that ``treaties must reflect reality, not hope.'' Perhaps even more important is its practical guidance to conservatives who would prefer to be in the former camp rather than the latter: ``In the Reagan years, the treaty was mostly a sop to liberals in Congress, an attempt to pick up some points for an arms control measure at a time when Reagan was trying to win on more important issues like the defense buildup and the Strategic Defense Initiative. And President Bush pushed the treaty in no small part because he had disliked having to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate as Vice President in favor of building chemical weapons. Republicans today are under no obligation to carry out the mistakes of their predecessors. ``In one respect, the debate over the Chemical Weapons Convention calls to mind the struggle for the party's soul waged in the 1970's between Kissingerian detente-niks on one side and the insurgent forces led by Ronald Reagan on the other. Back then, conservative Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott knew without hesitation where they stood. They should stand where they stood before, foursquare with the ideas that helped win the cold war, and against the Chemical Weapons Convention.'' (Emphasis added.) Just Say No To A Bad Treaty The Weekly Standard/March 24, 1997.--The United States Senate must decide by April 28 whether to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. The press, the pundits, and the Clinton administration have treated the debate over the treaty as another in a series of battles between ``internationalists'' and ``isolationists'' in the new, post-Cold War era. It isn't. What we really have here is the continuation of one of this century's most enduring disputes. In the first camp are the high priests of arms control theology, who have never met an international agreement they didn't like. In the second camp are those who take a more skeptical view of relying on a piece of watermarked, signed parchment for safety in a dangerous world. The case for ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention is a triumph of hope over experience. It is an attempt to reform the world by collecting signatures. Some of the most dangerous nations--Iraq, Syria, Libya, and North Korea--have not ratified the convention and, for all we know, never will. Some of the nations that are signatories, like Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba, are manifestly unreliable and are already looking for ways to circumvent the convention's provisions. The convention's most prominent American defenders admit that the agreement is probably not verifiable. And it isn't. Chemical weapons can be produced in small but deadly amounts in tiny makeshift laboratories. The nerve gas used by terrorists to poison subway riders in Japan in 1995, for instance, was produced in a 14 ft.-by-8 ft. room. No one in the American intelligence community believes we would be able to monitor compliance with an international chemical weapons regime with any reasonable degree of confidence. The Washington Post opines that these failings in the convention-- the very fact ``that the coverage of this treaty falls short and that enforcement is uncertain''--are actually arguments for ratifying it. Presumably, signature of a flawed treaty will make all of us work harder to perfect it. Great. At the end of the day, the strongest argument proponents of ratification can offer is that, whatever a treaty's manifest flaws, it is better to have one than not to have one. How could it be bad to have a treaty outlawing production of chemical weapons, no matter how full of holes it may be? Well, actually, such a treaty could be worse than no treaty at all. We have pretty good evidence from the bloody history of this century that treaties like the Chemical Weapons Convention--treaties that are more hortatory than mandatory, that express good intentions more than they require any actions to back up those intentions can do more harm than good. They are part of a psychological process of evasion and avoidance of tough choices. The truth is, the best way of controlling chemical weapons proliferation could be for the United States to bomb a Libyan chemical weapons factory. But that is the kind of difficult decision for an American president that the Chemical Weapons Convention does nothing to facilitate. Indeed, the existence of a chemical weapons treaty would make it less likely that a president would order such strong unilateral action, since he would be bound to turn over evidence of a violation to the international lawyers and diplomats and wait for their investigation and con- currence. And as Richard Perle has recently noted, even after Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons in flagrant violation of an existing prohibition against their use, the international bureaucrats responsible for monitoring these matters could not bring themselves to denounce Iraq by name. In the end, it would be easier for a president to order an airstrike than to get scores of nations to agree on naming one of their own an outlaw. The Chemical Weapons Convention is what Peter Rodman calls ``junk arms control,'' and not the least of its many drawbacks is that it gives effective arms control a bad name. Effective treaties codify decisions nations have already made: to end a war on certain terms, for instance, or to define fishing rights. Because they reflect the will of the parties, moreover, the parties themselves don't raise obstacles to verification. But treaties whose purpose is to rope in rogue nations that have not consented, or whose consent is widely understood to be cynical and disingenuous, are something else again. They are based on a worldview that is at best foolishly optimistic and at worst patronizing and deluded. One of the important things separating Reaganite internationalism from the more starry-eyed Wilsonian version is the understanding that treaties must reflect reality, not hope. The Chemical Weapons Convention turns the clock back to the kind of Wilsonian thinking characteristic of the Carter administration. It is unfortunate that among its strongest backers are some prominent Republicans who have served in key foreign-policy positions. It is true that the origins of the Chemical Weapons Convention date back to the Reagan years, and the convention was carried to fruition by the Bush administration. But let's be candid. In the Reagan years, the treaty was mostly a sop to liberals in Congress, an attempt to pick up some points for an arms control measure at a time when Reagan was trying to win on more important issues like the defense buildup and the Strategic Defense Initiative. And President Bush pushed the treaty in no small part because he had disliked having to cast a tiebreaking vote in the Senate as vice president in favor of building chemical weapons. Republicans today are under no obligation to carry out the mistakes of their predecessors. In one respect, the debate over the Chemical Weapons Convention calls to mind the struggle for the party's soul waged in the 1970s between Kissingerian detente-niks on one side and the insurgent forces led by Ronald Reagan on the other. Back then, conservative Republicans like Senate majority leader Trent Lott knew without hesitation where they stood. They should stand where they stood before, foursquare with the ideas that helped win the Cold War, and against the Chemical Weapons Convention. __________ No. 97-D 24 10 February 1997 Truth or Consequences #4: No D.N.A. Tests Needed To Show That Claims About Republican Paternity Of CWC Are Overblown (Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration's hole card in its bid to persuade a Republican-controlled Senate to agree to ratification of the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) appears to be the contention that the fathers of this treaty are Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. The most recent and visible manifestation of this gambit was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to Mr. Bush in Texas last Saturday to secure a public statement of his support for the CWC. The Administration's reasoning seems to be that Republican Senators will be willing to disregard myriad, serious concerns about the substance of this accord and vote for it simply because two Presidents of their party were involved in its negotiation. This tactic may be explained by the fact that any arms control for which Mr. Clinton is seen as principally responsible will be viewed with skepticism by more than a third of the Senate--a number sufficient under the Constitution to defeat treaties.\1\ Still, the idea that demonstrating Republican paternity for a flawed agreement will be sufficient to secure its ratification suggests a low regard for GOP Senators and their sense of responsibility when it comes to the Senate's constitutional role as equal partner with the executive in treaty-making. Not So Fast--This is Not Ronald Reagan's Treaty This proposition is even more extraordinary since the degree of Republican responsibility for the treaty as it now stands is, in important ways, less than the Clinton Administration would have Senators believe. For example, in Sunday's New York Times, a letter signed by a number of senior Reagan Administration officials takes strong exception to the suggestion that the President they served is implicated in the agreement ultimately signed in January 1993. The signatories are the following distinguished former office-holders: Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Director Eugene Rostow, Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikle, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle and Deputy Assistant Secretaries of Defense Douglas Feith and Frank Gaffney. This joint letter notes, in part: ``It is a distortion of recent history for supporters of the controversial new Chemical Weapons Convention to describe it as a product of the Reagan Administration, implying that the treaty has Ronald Reagan's imprimatur. ``The Convention now being debated in the Senate is a very different document from the chemical weapons ban the Reagan Administration was negotiating. The principal difference is that the Chemical Weapons Convention is hopelessly unenforceable. Cynical signatories like Iran, China, Russia and Cuba know that they could ratify it, make and store nerve gas in violation of it, almost certainly escape detection and certainly escape serious penalty. ``The Clinton Administration has recently told Senate leaders in considerable detail that it has no intention of imposing meaningful punishment on treaty violators. It has also admitted that American intelligence cannot certify confidence in our ability to detect illegal production and stockpiling of chemical weapons in secretive countries, even in militarily significant quantities. ``We know that the Chemical Weapons Convention, in its current form, would never have been accepted as consistent with President Reagan's policies. President Reagan was clearsighted and principled in his opposition to arms control treaties that could be violated with impunity.'' (Emphasis added.) Changed Circumstances Have Significantly Altered President Bush's Treaty What is more, there have been significant changes in a number of the assumptions, conditions and circumstances that underpinned the Bush Administration's judgment that the Chemical Weapons Convention was in the national interest. These changes have prompted several top Bush Administration officials--including Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak, Assistant Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Director Kathleen Bailey, Assistant to the Secretary for Atomic Energy Robert Barker and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense J.D. Crouch--to urge that the present treaty be rejected by the Senate.\2\ An illustrative sample of the changes that have materially altered the acceptability, if not strictly speaking the terms, of the Chemical Weapons Convention include the following: Item: Russia's Evisceration of the Bilateral Destruction Agreement The Bush Administration anticipated that a Bilateral Destruction Agreement (BDA) forged by Secretary of State James Baker and his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze in 1990, would critically underpin the Chemical Weapons Convention. As the Center for Security Policy observed last week,\3\ this agreement obliged Moscow to provide a full and accurate accounting and eliminate most of its vast chemical arsenal. The BDA was also expected to afford the U.S. inspection rights that would significantly enhance the more limited arrangements provided for by the CWC. These assumptions about the BDA have, regrettably, not been fulfilled. To the contrary, Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin declared last year that the Bilateral Destruction Agreement has ``outlived its usefulness'' for Russia. What is more, it is now public knowledge that Russia is continuing to produce extremely lethal binary munitions--weapons that have been specifically designed to circumvent the limits and defeat the inspection regime of the Chemical Weapons Convention. \4\ Item: On-Site Inspections Won't Prevent Cheating When the Bush Administration finalized the CWC, there was considerable hope that intrusive on-site inspections would meaningfully contribute to the detection and proof of violations, and therefore to deterring them. Five years of experience with the U.N. inspections in Iraq--inspections that were allowed to be far more thorough, timely and intrusive than those permitted under this Convention--have established that totalitarian rulers of a closed society can successfully defeat such monitoring efforts. In a 4 February 1997 letter to National Security Advisor Samuel Berger, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms noted that: ``Unclassified portions of the National Intelligence Estimate on U.S. Monitoring Capabilities [prepared after Mr. Bush left office] indicate that it is unlikely that the U.S. will be able to detect or address violations in a timely fashion, if at all, when they occur on a small scale. And yet, even small-scale diversions of chemicals to chemical weapons production are capable, over time, of yielding a stockpile far in excess of a single ton, [which General Shalikashvili described in congressional testimony on 11 August 1994 as a level which could, `in certain limited circumstances ... have a military impact.'] Moreover, few countries, if any, are engaging in much more than small-scale production of chemical agent. For example, according to [the 4 February 1997] Washington Times, Russia may produce its new nerve agents at a `pilot plant' in quantities of only `55 to 110 tons annually.' '' Item: Facilitating Proliferation: `Poisons for Peace' In the years since the Bush Administration signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, it has become increasingly clear that sharing nuclear weapons-relevant technology simply with would-be proliferators simply because they promise not to pursue nuclear weapons programs is folly. Indeed, countries like North Korea, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil and Algeria have abused this ``Atoms for Peace'' bargain by diverting equipment and know-how provided under the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) to prohibited weapons purposes. Unfortunately, commercial chemical manufacturing technology can, if anything, be diverted even more easily to weapons purposes than can nuclear research and power reactors. For this reason, recent experience with the NPT suggests that the Chemical Weapons Convention's Article XI--an article dubbed the ``Poisons for Peace'' provision--is insupportable. It stipulates that the Parties shall: ``Not maintain among themselves any restrictions, including those in any international agreements, incompatible with the obligations undertaken under this Convention, which would restrict or impede trade and the development and promotion of scientific and technological knowledge in the field of chemistry for industrial, agricultural, research, medical, pharmaceutical or other peaceful purposes.'' Such an obligation must now be judged a recipe for accelerating proliferation of chemical weapons, not restricting it. Even if the United States were to become a party to the CWC and choose to ignore this treaty commitment, other advanced industrialized countries will certainly not refrain from selling dual-use chemical manufacturing technology if it means making a lucrative sale. Item: U.S. Chemical Defenses Will be Degraded When the Bush Administration signed the CWC, proponents offered assurances that the treaty would not diminish U.S. investment in chemical defenses. Such assurances were called into question, however, by an initiative unveiled in 1995 by the then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Owens. He suggested cutting $805 million from counter-proliferation support and chemical and biological defense programs through Fiscal Year 2001. The rationale: Thanks to a perceived reduction in the chemical warfare threat to be brought about by the CWC, investments in countering that threat could safely enjoy lower priority. This reduction would have deferred, if not seriously disrupted, important chemical and biological research and development efforts, and delayed the procurement of proven technologies. While the Owens initiative was ultimately defeated, it is a foretaste of the sort of reduced budgetary priority this account will surely face if the CWC is approved. Changes in the military postures of key U.S. allies since the end of the Bush Administration raise a related point: Even if the United States manages to resist the sirens' song to reduce chemical defenses in the wake of the CWC, it is predictable that the already generally deplorable readiness of most allied forces to deal with chemical threats will only worsen. To the extent that the U.S. is obliged in the future to fight coalition wars, this vulnerability could prove catastrophic to American forces engaged with a common enemy. Item: Clinton Repudiates Bush Commitment to the JCS on R.C.A.s At the insistence of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1992, President Bush signed an executive order that explicitly allowed Riot Control Agents (for example, tear gas) to be used in rescuing downed aircrews and in dispersing hostile forces using civilians to screen their movements against U.S. positions. The Clinton Administration has stated its intention to rescind this executive order once the CWC is ratified. The result could be to compel U.S. personnel to choose between using lethal force where RCAs would suffice or suffering otherwise avoidable casualties. Worse yet, the Clinton reversal of the Bush Administration position on RCAs may mean that promising new defense technologies--involving chemical-based, non-lethal weapons (for example, immobilizing agents)-- may be restricted or prohibited by this Convention. If so, U.S. forces may be denied highly effective means of prevailing in future conflicts with minimal loss of life on either side. The Bottom Line The foregoing considerations make clear that Senators should consider the Chemical Weapons Convention carefully on its merits. They should, in particular, resist the Clinton Administration's pressure to ignore this treaty's flaws out of some sense of duty to earlier administrations. A treaty that has little in common with Ronald Reagan's approach to arms control and that has undergone material changes in circumstances since George Bush's presidency must be seen for what it is: a defective agreement that is unworthy of the intensive--and increasingly misleading--campaign being mounted for its ratification by the current resident of the White House and his team. notes: \1\ Presumably, it is for this reason, that the administration has strenuously resisted demands that major changes it has been negotiating to the Conventional Forces in Europe and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty be submitted for the Senate's advice and consent. \2\ See the Center's Transition Brief entitled Here We Go Again: Clinton Presses Anew For Senate Approval of Flawed, Unverifiable, Ineffective Chemical Weapons Treaty (No. 97-T 5, 8 January 1997). \3\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Truth or Consequences #3: Clinton `Makes a Mistake About It' in Arguing the CWC Will Protect U.S. Troops (No. 97-D 21, 6 February 1997). \4\ See the Center's Decision Brief entitled Russia's Covert Chemical Weapons Program Vindicates Jesse Helms' Continuing Opposition to Phony CW Arms Control (No. 97-D 19, 4 February 1997). __________