[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 135 (Thursday, September 26, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11408-S11410]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            RATIFICATION OF THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION

  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I rise to the floor today to speak in 
support of the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention as 
reported out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Unfortunately, 
consideration of the Convention by the Senate has been postponed until 
next year. I will no longer be here when this important matter is 
undertaken, in terms of voting on this matter, before this body. In the 
closing days of this Congress, I want to put on the record today my 
strong support for the ratification of this important agreement.
  Mr. President, now that the cold war is over, the single most 
important threat to our national security is the threat posed by the 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
  Over the last year a series of hearings have been held in both the 
Foreign Relations Committee and in the Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations that have clearly documented the threat posed to the 
United States by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
  During these hearings, representatives of the intelligence and law 
enforcement communities, the Defense Department, private industry, 
State and local governments, academia, and foreign officials described 
a threat that we can not ignore, but for which we are unprepared.
  For one, CIA Director John Deutch candidly observed, ``We've been 
lucky so far.''
  In July, the Commission on America's National Interests, co-chaired 
by Andrew Goodpaster, Robert Ellsworth, and Rita Hauser, released a 
study that concluded that the number one ``vital U.S. national 
interest'' today is to prevent, deter, and reduce the threat of 
nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons attacks on the United States. 
The report also identified containment of biological and chemical 
weapons proliferation as one of five ``cardinal challenges'' for the 
next U.S. President.
  Mr. President, I firmly believe, based on a wide variety of testimony 
and other presentations from credible academics, government officials, 
and others, that the threat posed by proliferation of chemical and 
biological weapons and materials is more dangerous even than that posed 
by the spread of nuclear materials. In the case of nuclear materials, 
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, has erected barriers to 
proliferation that have become effective over time. In part as a result 
of this strengthened NPT regime, and in part because chemical 
precursors are widely available for commercial purposes, chemical and 
biological weapons and materials are much easier to acquire, store, and 
deploy than nuclear weaponry--as demonstrated by the Aum Shinrikyo 
disaster in Japan several years ago.
  That cult conducted an enormous international effort to acquire, 
build, and deploy chemical weapons--without detection by any 
intelligence or law enforcement service--prior to releasing the deadly 
sarin gas in the Tokyo metro.
  Mr. President, the judge at the World Trade Center bombing case 
believed strongly that the culprits had attempted to use a chemical 
weapon in that terrorist attack. He found that had those chemicals not 
been consumed by the fire of the explosion, thousands of World Trade 
Center workers might have been killed, greatly compounding that tragic 
episode.
  Mr. President, Senator Lugar and Senator Domenici joined me this year 
in introducing legislation--the Defense Against Weapons of Mass 
Destruction Act--that will provide over $150 million, starting next 
month, toward combating the threat posed to the United States by the 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This legislation passed 
unanimously in the Senate, and was virtually unchanged in conference 
with the House. It is part of the National Defense Authorization Act 
for Fiscal Year 97, which has been sent to the President. I won't go 
into great detail here, but that legislation seeks to 
combat proliferation on essentially three fronts: enhance our domestic 
preparedness for dealing with an incident involving nuclear, 
radiological, chemical, or biological weapons or materials; improve our 
ability to detect and interdict these materials at our borders and 
before they can be deployed on our territory; and strengthen safeguards 
at facilities in the former Soviet Union that continue to store these 
materials to prevent their leakage onto the international grey markets 
and into the hands of proliferators, terrorists, and malcontents.

  Mr. President, although Senator Lugar, Senator Domenici, and I 
attempted to create a comprehensive program for addressing what we all 
believe is the No. 1 national security threat facing our Nation in the 
decades ahead, we also recognize that the enacted legislation is only a 
beginning, and that much more work needs to be done. We must combat 
this threat on all available fronts, and leave no available path 
untaken.
  Mr. President, ratification of the CWC is an important step in the 
process of controlling the proliferation of chemical weapons and the 
technologies for their manufacture. The CWC requires all parties to 
undertake the following: to destroy all existing chemical weapons and 
bulk agents; to destroy all production facilities for chemical weapons 
agents; to deny cooperation in technology or supplies to nations not 
party to the treaty; and to forswear even military preparations for a 
chemical weapons program.
  The Chemical Weapons Convention represents the culmination of some 15 
years of negotiations supported by the last four Presidents of the 
United States. The agreement was concluded and signed by President 
George Bush near the end of his term. The Joint Chiefs of Staff support 
ratification. The major chemical manufacturer trade associations 
support ratification. The CWC has been open for signature and 
ratification since 1993. As of today, the CWC has enjoyed overwhelming 
worldwide support. It has been signed by 161 of the 184 member states 
of the United Nations, and 63 countries have already ratified the 
treaty. Those who have already ratified include all of our major 
industrial partners, and most of our NATO allies. The CWC will enter 
into force 180 days after the 65th country has ratified it. It will 
begin to enter into force after ratification by two additional 
countries, whether or not the United States chooses to ratify it.
  Now, Mr. President, after years of bipartisan support, after the CWC 
was successfully negotiated by two Republican Presidents, after lying 
before the Senate for inspection for 3 years, literally at the eleventh 
hour, a small group of Senators has set about to defeat the 
ratification of this treaty. They claim to have identified a number of 
fatal flaws that have gone undiscovered during the 3 years and numerous 
hearings before the Senate, fatal flaws that have gone unnoticed by 161 
nations, including all our major industrialized allies.
  Those opposed to the CWC seem to view it through the same cold war 
lenses that have been applied to the consideration of numerous 
bilateral nuclear arms reduction treaties between the United States, 
and the Soviet Union, and between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. They insist 
that the kind of verification standard that we used to require in a 
bilateral treaty with the Soviet Union must now be applied to a 
convention intended to move the world community away from the scourge 
of chemical weapons. Mr. President, this is not a reasonable standard 
to apply. We insisted on parity of limitations and drawdowns with the 
Soviet Union because asymmetries in strategic weaponry would have been 
dangerous to the strategic balance. But the cold war is over; the CWC 
is not a bilateral treaty, and is not about the strategic balance.
  In bilateral United States-Soviet arms reduction agreements, we were 
agreeing to reverse or forgo some weapons systems based on Soviet 
promises that they would undertake parallel actions. In the chemical 
weapons arena, we have already committed to do away

[[Page S11409]]

with chemical weapons and this treaty's purpose is to get other nations 
to do likewise.
  Mr. President--to repeat, the cold war is over. The Soviet Union has 
dissolved. The world community now faces a serious threat from the 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a threat that arises at 
least in part because of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the 
loss of tight controls which that breakup entailed. The Chemical 
Weapons Convention is a broad treaty among many nations, intended to 
begin to control chemical weapons proliferation, in much the same way 
that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, set about to limit 
the proliferation of nuclear weapons materials and technology nearly 
three decades ago. When the NPT entered into force in 1970, barely 40 
countries had ratified that treaty; today, well over 100 nations have 
joined, and the world community clearly serves to bring pressure to 
bear on both the non-adherent nations, and on countries like North 
Korea that have ratified but whose compliance is in very deep question. 
When the NPT was signed, a new inspection regime, under the 
International Atomic Energy Agency, was created to establish 
inspections to verify the compliance of those countries that had 
nuclear programs and activities.
  Does the NPT guarantee that no nation will develop a nuclear weapon? 
Is it perfect? Is it 100 percent verifiable? The answer to each of 
these questions is clearly no.
  There are no guarantees with NPT, nor are there guarantees with the 
Chemical Weapons Convention. On the other hand, does it help reduce 
nuclear proliferation and nuclear danger? The answer is clearly 
yes. The answer to those questions clearly is yes. The same will be 
true over a long period of time with the CWC.

  Mr. President, one of the major complaints by the critics of the 
Chemical Weapons Convention is that it is not adequately verifiable. 
Clearly, a modest program to produce chemical agents can be 
accomplished inconspicuously. You can almost do it in the basement of 
your home. It can be done in a very small physical space. The CWC will 
impose only modest constraints, at best, on small groups of people like 
terrorists making small quantities of chemical weapons.
  No treaty and, I might add, no domestic law, no law we could pass, 
could ever prevent a few people from making a small amount of chemical 
compounds. It could be very lethal in a small area when used in a 
terroristic way.
  However, the fact that 160 countries have signed the Chemical Weapons 
Convention is bound to increase the international consciousness about 
the threat posed by the proliferation of these horrible weapons and 
materials and is bound to also heighten national concern and 
international cooperation in dealing both with the national threat, 
nation-state threat, as well as the terrorist threat.
  So will it cure the problem? Will it stop terrorism? Will it 
eliminate chemical terrorism from being a potential threat? Absolutely 
not. Will it help? Yes, it will help.
  As drawn, however, the CWC was not intended to primarily address the 
chemical weapons threat from terrorists. It is intended to eliminate 
national-level chemical weapons programs and to put world pressure on 
those nations that refuse to comply.
  We need to recognize that the mere production of chemical agent is 
only the first step in a nation's military program to produce and have 
available militarily useful chemical weapons. To conduct all the 
subsequent steps to stockpiled, militarized weapons also in clandestine 
fashion is no easy feat. The critics seem to assume that every step is 
as concealable as a small lab required to produce some agent; this is 
certainly untrue.
  The CWC is intended to begin a regime of data collection on the 
production and use of those chemicals that can readily be used in 
chemical weapons programs. This will be combined with a program of 
inspections to verify those data submissions and a system of 
challenging inspections to resolve ambiguities and suspicions. This 
will also no doubt be supplemented by what we call national technical 
means of verification.
  We are going to have to do all this verification anyway. We do not 
solve any of our verification challenges in terms of terrorists, in 
terms of rogue nations, in terms of other nations; we do not solve a 
one of them by rejecting the CWC. If we are never a party to the CWC, 
we have all of these verification problems and challenges. Will the CWC 
solve them? No; it will not. Will it make it easier? Yes; it will.
  Will this CWC inspection regime be ironclad from day one? Of course 
not. But then neither was the inspection and verification for the NPT 
when it first entered into force. It still is not perfect. But over the 
last 25 years technology has provided many new ways of safeguarding 
nuclear materials in peaceful nuclear energy programs around the world.
  It has become much more difficult--but of course not impossible--to 
cheat on the NPT without running substantial risk of discovery. We 
should expect that the CWC will also develop more effective 
verification techniques once it is entered into force, techniques that 
one day might be more effective against the threat of terrorist use of 
chemical weapons and materials. But, Mr. President, if the United 
States does not ratify the CWC, we will not be allowed to participate 
in the development of the verification regime nor in the inspections 
themselves.
  CWC safeguards are more likely to become effective faster if the 
United States is a party to the CWC and can bring our advanced 
technology to bear than if we have excluded ourselves from the 
administration and implementation of the CWC as the critics of this 
convention propose.
  As former Secretary of State James Baker observed in testimony to the 
Senate Armed Services Committee on September 12, 1996:

       . . .[W]hen you have a lot of countries that have signed 
     onto a treaty to eliminate these weapons, you have a much 
     stronger political mass that you can bring to the table in 
     any forum, whatever it is, to talk about restraints and 
     restrictions and sanctions.

  Moreover, Mr. President, to argue that we should refuse to ratify the 
CWC because it does not guarantee that Libya or North Korea or Iraq 
will be stripped of chemical weapons is to ensure that we will end up 
in the same category of nonparticipants with Libya, North Korea, and 
Iraq. Like those countries, if we do not ratify this convention, the 
United States will be a nonparty to the CWC. We will be subject to 
trade sanctions on chemical products and on technologies by all the 
other parties to CWC; trade sanctions, I might mention, that were 
proposed by our own Government under a Republican administration.
  Some of the senatorial critics suggest that the negotiators should 
start over, that we should not enter into any limitations unless all 
the rogue states have been compelled to join, and unless the agreement 
is absolutely verifiable. Mr. President, this is mission impossible.
  First, the CWC will enter into force whether the United States 
ratifies it or not, as I have said. It will take effect next year 
whether or not we are involved.
  Second, the CWC itself imposes no new limits on the policy of the 
United States toward chemical weapons programs. By law, the United 
States is already committed to the elimination of all unitary chemical 
weapons and all unitary agent stocks by the end of 2004. By law, we are 
already moving in that direction. By policy decision taken by President 
Bush in 1991, we have forsworn the use of chemical weapons even in 
retaliation for their use against U.S. forces. Our Joint Chiefs also 
agree with that policy.
  By a further policy decision by President Bush, we will eliminate our 
very small stockpile of binary chemical weapons as soon as the CWC 
enters into force, whether or not we are a party to the treaty. 
President Clinton has followed these same policies.
  Mr. President, back in the cold war days, you could stand on the 
floor and say, let us reject this treaty because the Soviet Union may 
not comply; we may not be able to verify. Those were arguments that had 
great legitimacy and were very seriously important arguments because we 
were agreeing to draw down our weapons based on their drawing down 
their weapons. That was the cold war. If we were not confident we could 
verify it, then, of course, we

[[Page S11410]]

should reject that kind of treaty because we were depleting our 
military capability.
  Here in this case, we have already decided to get rid of our chemical 
weapons, and the only question is whether we are going to participate 
in a treaty that gets other countries to get rid of their chemical 
weapons. It is not the same decision as cold war treaties with the 
Soviet Union. It is vastly different. To view it through that prism, as 
I think some of our colleagues are doing--I am sure in good faith from 
their perspective--is a profound mistake.
  Mr. President, the bottom line is that the United States has already 
made a unilateral decision to eliminate all of its chemical weapons 
capabilities, whether or not we are party to the CWC. Our refusal to 
ratify this treaty does not help us one iota on verification. We still 
have all those verification challenges, and our refusal to ratify 
provides no bargaining leverage that I can identify against anyone 
whether it is Libya or North Korea or Russia, which still has large 
stocks of chemical weapons.
  They all know that we are out of that business. Defeating the 
ratification of the CWC in no way restores or preserves a U.S. chemical 
weapons capability. To again quote former Secretary of State James 
Baker:

       We knew at the time that there would be rogue countries 
     that would not participate. * * * We have made a decision in 
     this country that we're not going to have chemical weapons. 
     We're getting rid of them. And we don't need them. We've made 
     a policy decision that we don't need them in order to protect 
     our national security interests. * * * Whether we are able to 
     get all countries on board or not, I think we have a critical 
     mass of countries and I think the treaty makes sense, 
     recognizing up front all the problems of verifying a Chemical 
     Weapons Convention.

  Finally, Mr. President, I have heard some of my colleagues argue that 
this treaty will pose an enormous burden and cost on U.S. industry. 
This argument is simply not true. If the costs and consequences to the 
American chemical and related industries were severe, as these critics 
suggest, why have the major chemical manufacturing associations not 
only endorsed, but also lobbied strongly in favor of ratification of 
the Chemical Weapons Convention? Why have 63 other nations, including 
most of our major industrial competitors, already ratified the CWC? Has 
this small group of CWC opponents discovered something that has been 
overlooked for the last 3 years by everyone else?

  Mr. President, the truth of the matter is that the cost of 
implementing this regime to the vast majority of U.S. business is 
either negligible or nonexistent. There are two categories of chemicals 
made and consumed by businesses in the United States that are covered 
by this treaty. No more than 35 firms in the United States, all of them 
large corporations, produce or consume the direct precursors of 
chemical weapons agents that are on the first category and are subject 
to the strictest CWC controls.
  The second category covers only large-volume producers of products 
that are in direct chemical weapon precursors. So no small businesses 
will be affected by the moderate requirements imposed by the CWC by 
this category.
  Contrary to the argument being made by the opponents of this treaty, 
downstream consumers of this category of chemicals are specifically 
exempted from reporting and inspection requirements. While it is true 
that some 2,000 firms, including some small and medium-sized 
businesses, will be required to fill out one form per year, both 
private industry and the Department of Commerce estimates indicate that 
it will take a very small and minimal amount of time to fill out. No 
proprietary information whatsoever is required, and the reporting 
requirements are essentially the same as those already required of 
these businesses by the Environmental Protection Agency or other 
regulatory bodies.
  In addition to the fact that only a small number of firms will 
actually be affected by the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Department 
of Commerce has worked very closely with the business community to 
develop a method of fulfilling both treaty requirements and industry 
requirements for protecting confidential business information. Again I 
would argue that if this were not the case, the American chemical 
manufacturing industry would not have endorsed ratification of the 
Chemical Weapons Convention.
  Mr. President, I also point out that if the Senate continues to 
refuse to ratify the CWC--I am hoping the minds will be changed next 
year after the election is over--we are choosing to inflict 
international sanctions on foreign trade and one of our largest export 
industries, the $60 billion chemical industry. The CWC regime requires 
member states to impose trade sanctions against the chemical industries 
in nonmember states. While the entire $60 billion probably would not be 
immediately threatened, some $20 to $30 million would be threatened to 
begin with. Industry experts believe that over time U.S. interests 
would lose more and more business to foreign competitors who face no 
equivalent CWC trade sanctions from participating countries.
  Mr. President, the basic bottom line which each Senator must ask him- 
or herself is as follows: Is the United States more likely to reduce 
the dangers of the proliferation of chemical weapons by joining the 63 
countries that have already ratified the CWC--and the many others that 
will join after the 65th ratification occurs, or is America's security 
better served by remaining on the outside, by joining rogue regimes 
like Libya and North Korea in ignoring this pathbreaking effort by 161 
nations to bring these terrible weapons under some degree of control?
  Mr. President, I find this an easy question to answer. This is not a 
close question. This is not one of those questions that you can balance 
both sides and come out almost flipping a coin. We have many of those. 
This is an easy question to answer because no, it is not perfect, but 
yes, it does take steps in the right direction. We do enlist support 
from all the nations that will be signing, even those that we will have 
to watch very closely in terms of whether they comply.
  Therefore, I would have voted to ratify the CWC had it been brought 
to the floor during this session. If I were here next year, I would 
certainly vote to ratify. I urge all of my colleagues to pursue the 
ratification of the CWC when it is brought up in the 105th Congress. 
Ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention is in our national 
security interests, Mr. President, and I hope the Senate will ratify 
this convention next year.
  I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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