CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTIONSENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE APRIL 1997
CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION
S. Hrg. 105-183
CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION
=======================================================================
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).
__________