[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 139 (Tuesday, October 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12144-S12146]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION

 Mr. KYL. Mr. President, on September 12, Secretary of State 
Warren Christopher personally asked the Senate majority leader to 
withdraw the Chemical Weapons Convention [CWC] from consideration by 
the Senate. The majority leader had scheduled a vote on the treaty on 
that day. Obviously the administration did not believe the Senate would 
ratify the agreement. As a result, we were not able to have the public 
debate that, I believe, would have shown why the treaty was in such 
trouble. Since the treaty could be resubmitted for consideration by the 
Senate, I believe it is important to submit for the Record a sampling 
of articles, editorials, and opinion editorials which outline the basis 
for the case against the CWC.
  The material follows:

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 13, 1996]

                     A Treaty That Deserved to Die

                              (By Jon Kyl)

       An extraordinary thing happened in the Senate yesterday. 
     The proponents of the Chemical Weapons Convention 
     surprisingly pulled the plug on their effort to obtain 
     immediate Senate approval of the treaty's ratification.
       Last June, the advocates thought this treaty was all but 
     ratified. They had won a commitment for it to be brought up 
     for a vote in the last few weeks before the November 
     elections. They assumed, not unreasonably, that the treaty 
     would be seen as a motherhood and apple-pie proposition--
     aiming as it does to ban these horrible weapons worldwide.
       By any political analysis, this calculation should have 
     been right. But substantive analysis of the treaty's flaws 
     proved to be more powerful than superficial political 
     considerations.
       That such serious deliberation could occur reflects great 
     credit on both the treaty's proponents and its opponents. In 
     particular, its champions largely refrained from portraying 
     themselves as the champions of the abolition of these weapons 
     and casting the other side as ``pro-poison gas.''
       The opponents, however, made clear that they too are in 
     favor of the elimination of chemical weapons, including the 
     American stockpile. By law, the destruction will take place 
     with or without this convention. But they fear that under 
     present circumstances the treaty will not accomplish its 
     purpose and that it will do more harm than good.
       First, the convention will not include many dangerous 
     chemical-weapons states,

[[Page S12145]]

     notably Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Syria, which will not 
     become parties. Worse yet, American intelligence could not 
     reliably detect militarily significant cheating in countries 
     like Iran, Cuba, China and Russia that are likely to became 
     parties to the treaty.
       Second, the convention would impose significant costs on 
     the American taxpayer and new, substantial burdens on 
     industries. It would, moreover, actually aggravate the 
     current, serious problem of chemical weapons proliferation. 
     This is true for several reasons.
       The treaty prohibits restrictions on trade in chemicals 
     among its parties. It even requires them to transfer chemical 
     technologies to other treaty members. In other words, if the 
     United States and Iran were to ratify the convention, Teheran 
     would have a powerful claim, under the treaty's Article XI, 
     against American-led trade restrictions in the chemical 
     field.
       This arrangement repeats the mistake made in the Nuclear 
     Nonproliferation Treaty--the so-called Atoms for Peace 
     initiative--under which ostensibly peaceful technology is 
     provided to nations determined to divert it to proscribed 
     military purposes.
       The treaty would also create a false sense of security, 
     probably increasing the dangers from these weapons. And it 
     will harm arms control and international law to enter into a 
     convention that everyone knows is going to be unverifiable 
     and ineffective. For all these reasons, the United States is 
     better off having no treaty than a seriously defective one.
       This critique was sufficiently compelling that a number of 
     leading proponents acknowledged the serious flaws. Although 
     these advocates nonetheless content that the treaty was still 
     worth having, more than a third of the Senate concluded that 
     the convention was, at best, deeply flawed. At worst, it 
     would exacerbate the problem it was trying to fix.
       As a result, the treaty's proponents realized that they 
     were going to lose. Let us hope that the serious discussions 
     we have had leading up to that decision will lead to 
     bipartisan support for constructive, sensible arms control 
     approaches for dealing with this scourge in the future.
                                                                    ____


              [From the Washington Times, Sept. 12, 1996]

                             Reject the CWC

       Opposition is mounting to the Chemical Weapons Convention 
     (CWC), which the Senate is expected to vote on today. While 
     most people--terrorists and lunatic dictators excepted--
     regard chemical weapons with abhorrence and indeed would like 
     to see them banished from the face of the earth, the 
     unfortunate fact is that the CWC will do little to inhibit 
     their production and use by those who are sufficiently 
     unscrupulous. What will happen instead is that law-abiding 
     American businesses, both those who manufacture chemicals and 
     those who merely use them, will be subjected to an intrusive, 
     expensive and possibly unconstitutional international 
     regulatory regime.
       For anyone interested in what the reporting procedures will 
     look like for users of chemicals covered under CWC--and that 
     includes companies from Starbucks to Revlon--the chart on the 
     opposite page should give an indication. Some might find that 
     it bears a more than passing resemblance to the chart 
     depicting Hillary Clinton's health care reform plan in all 
     its infinite variety.
       An estimated 3,000 to 8,000 U.S. companies will be affected 
     by the CWC. That means they will be subject to warrantless 
     inspections with only 48 hours notice for an international 
     U.N.-style bureaucracy. Those most likely to be affected are 
     users of what the treaty calls Discrete Organic Chemicals 
     (DOCs). That includes not just the members of the Chemical 
     Manufacturers Association, but also companies in such 
     industries as automotive, food processing, biotech, 
     distillers, brewers, electronics, soap and detergents, 
     perfume--even manufacturers of ball point pens! While it may 
     seem a little far-fetched that international inspectors might 
     descend on the Bic factory forthwith, the burden of reporting 
     the use of chemicals will be severe. And this from the 
     administration that calls for ``smaller, less intrusive 
     government.''
       And, of course, inspections, when they do occur, will be 
     golden opportunities for countries that engage in industrial 
     espionage against the United States--just as they will be for 
     those eager to learn because they harbor the notion of 
     developing their own chemical weapons industry. (Remember the 
     Iraqi scientist who boasted to representatives of the 
     International Atomic Energy Agency how the Iraqis had gained 
     invaluable information on nuclear technology this way?)
       Senators who plan to vote to ratify the treaty must ask 
     themselves whether they are ready to impose this kind of 
     burden on domestic companies for the sake of an elusive and 
     unrealistic goal. The list of distinguished experts in the 
     fields of defense and foreign policy who have denounced the 
     CWC as ineffectual, unverifiable and certainly not global, 
     since numerous outlaw nations like Libya and Iraq will not 
     sigh, ought to give serious pause. A letter dated Sept. 9 to 
     Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, urging him to ``reject 
     ratification of the CWC unless and until it is made genuinely 
     global, effective and verifiable,'' is signed among many 
     others by former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, former 
     National Security Advisor William Clark, former Secretary of 
     State Alexander Haig, former Secretary of Energy James 
     Herrington, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former 
     Attorney General Edwin Meese III, former Secretary of Defense 
     Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of Defense Casper 
     Weinberger. Weigh that list against the Clinton 
     administration, and it really shouldn't be a difficult 
     decision.
                                                                    ____


               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 12, 1996]

                         Chemical Weapons Fraud

                          (By Lally Weymouth)

       If the Clinton administration succeeds in persuading the 
     Senate to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention, the mere 
     fact of a new treaty will not help the United States combat 
     the spread of this weapon of mass destruction. Indeed, this 
     particular treaty may do the reverse: Some of the treaty's 
     opponents argue convincingly that it would actually increase 
     the trade in chemical agents with military application. 
     Certainly, it would facilitate the establishment of an 
     unnecessary international regulatory agency with unlimited 
     police powers over thousands of U.S. companies that produce 
     chemicals that could be used to make weapons.
       Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) agrees with the majority staff of 
     the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: Of course a 
     verifiable treaty that achieved real reductions in chemical 
     weapons would serve U.S. national security interests. But, 
     argues Kyl, this treaty isn't verifiable. Nor would it reduce 
     the chemical arsenals in countries U.S. officials deem most 
     likely to use such war tools against America and its allies: 
     Libya, Syria, North Korea and Iraq. Not surprisingly, these 
     rogue states have refused to sign on to the regime.
       In fact, not one country of concern to the United States on 
     the chemical weapons front has ratified this convention: not 
     the People's Republic of China, Iran, Cuba or even Russia, 
     which has signed but not ratified and is said to possess one 
     of the most sophisticated chemical arsenals in the world.
       When President Bush signed the chemical weapons treaty, he 
     did so with the understanding that Moscow would implement a 
     1990 U.S.-Russian bilateral agreement that called for both 
     countries to destroy their chemical weapons stockpiles. Thus 
     far, however, Moscow has refused to implement this accord, 
     thus undermining the larger international convention.
       One of the treaty's most dangerous features is that it 
     undercuts the work of the Australia Group, a collection of 
     Western countries that have an informal agreement banning the 
     transfer of potentially dangerous dual-use chemicals to non-
     members. If ratified, the convention will end restrictions on 
     trade in deadly chemicals and chemical technology. Treaty-
     signers, in fact, will have a right to demand both the 
     chemicals and the relevant technical information they need 
     from other signatories, who will have an obligation to 
     fulfill the requests.
       This raises the issue of dual-use chemicals--those that, 
     while intended for peaceful use, can be used to make weapons. 
     If Cuba and Iran sign and then ratify the convention, they 
     can break out of the embargoes on chemicals the United States 
     has imposed on them.
       Treaty proponents argue that the convention would enable 
     the United States to gather intelligence on other countries' 
     chemical weapons programs. But Sen. Kyl calls such benefits 
     ``marginal'' and says, ``It's not worth the price.''
       If the treaty is ratified, moreover, the United States will 
     have to pick up a considerable part of the setup costs of a 
     massive new international regulatory body in the Hague. This 
     superagency would be empowered to subject U.S. businesses to 
     routine or ``challenge'' inspections of sites that allegedly 
     might contain chemical weaponry or its key ingredients.
       A challenge inspection would be undertaken merely upon the 
     request of a member. The CWC gives any ratifier the right to 
     ask for an arbitrary inspection of a private facility--
     anytime, anywhere; the ratifier merely has to allege that 
     deadly chemicals might be on the premises. The treaty 
     requires that ``the inspected . . . party shall be under the 
     obligation to allow the greatest degree of access.'' 
     According to the implementing legislation for CWC, it would 
     be ``unlawful for any person to fail or refuse to permit 
     entry or inspection.
       The inspection teams that will enter U.S. plants if this 
     convention is ratified could have representatives from states 
     such as France and Japan, for example, that practice 
     industrial espionage. Ironically, Washington also will have 
     to foot some of the bills for these inspections, which 
     experts believe may violate the constitutional rights of U.S. 
     companies and citizens.
       Lt. Gen. James A. Williams, a former director of the 
     Defense Intelligence Agency, has written to Majority Leader 
     Trent Lott warning that ``the opportunity for unfettered 
     access to virtually every industrial facility in this 
     country, not merely the pharmaceutical and chemical plants, 
     would make most foreign intelligence organizations very 
     happy.''
       American companies also would have to provide continuing, 
     time consuming reports. While arms control officials told the 
     Senate Foreign Relations Committee that at least 3,000 U.S. 
     firms that use, process or consume chemicals would have to 
     make so-called ``data declarations'' under CWC, the majority 
     staff of the committee contends that as many as 8,000 
     companies--firms that manufacture anything from dyes to 
     pigments to insecticides--could be forced to contend with 
     this burdensome load of paperwork.

[[Page S12146]]

       Negotiations on the treaty began under President Reagan; 
     the accord was seen then as a verifiable, global ban on 
     chemical weapons. As time passed, the purposes changed. Arms 
     control experts concluded that constitutional rights clashed 
     with the need to verify. There would have to be a compromise. 
     The balance that was struck, according to Kyl, adversely 
     affects the United States: While the convention doesn't catch 
     and punish many countries that have secret chemical weapons 
     programs, it ends up imposing heavy costs and constitutional 
     burdens on the United States.
                                                                    ____


               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 12, 1996]

                          Peace Through Paper

                        (By Charles Krauthammer)

       The Senate is about to vote on ratification of the Chemical 
     Weapons Convention. Senate Democrats maneuvered--by 
     threatening to filibuster the defense authorization bill--to 
     have the vote just before the election. The timing fits the 
     political strategy. And the strategy is emotional black-mail: 
     Who is going to vote against a treaty whose lofty goal is to 
     eradicate chemical weapons from the face of the earth?
       Who? Every senator should. The goal is indeed lofty, but 
     the treaty that purports to bring it about is a fraud.
       The fatal problem with the chemical weapons treaty is that 
     it is unverifiable. Sure, it has elaborate inspection 
     procedures. And an even more elaborate U.N. bureaucracy to 
     oversee them. No treaty is complete without that nowadays. As 
     a result, the treaty will be perfectly able to detect the 
     development of chemical weapons by free, open governments 
     (like ours) that have never used and have no intention of 
     using chemical weapons. (Indeed, the United States now is 
     actively destroying its Cold War stockpile.)
       And the treaty will be perfectly useless at preventing 
     development of chemical weapons by closed societies such as 
     Iran, Iraq (which in 1988 blatantly violated the current 
     treaty banning the use of chemical weapons), Libya, Syria and 
     North Korea. These are precisely the places where chemical 
     weapons are being made today for potential use against the 
     United States or its allies.
       How can anyone seriously defend this treaty as verifiable 
     when, even as the Senate votes, Iraq--subject to a far more 
     intrusive inspection regime than anything contemplated under 
     the CWC--nonetheless is going ahead with its chemical (and 
     nuclear and biological) weapons programs right under our 
     noses? When North Korea, signatory and subject to all the 
     fancy inspection provisions of the Nuclear Nonproliferation 
     Treaty, went blithely ahead and with impunity made nuclear 
     bombs?
       And these are violations by countries that had submitted to 
     intrusive international inspection. Yet we already know that 
     Libya, North Korea and Syria have not agreed to sign the CWC 
     and thus will be subject to no chemical weapons inspection at 
     all! Not to worry. The treaty will definitively banish the 
     threat of chemical attack by Australia.
       All arms control treaties have problems with verification. 
     But with chemical weapons, the problem is inherently 
     insoluble. Consider the (nuclear) START treaties with Russia: 
     hard to verify, but at least they involve fixed numbers of 
     large objects--missiles--with no other use and not that hard 
     to find. Chemical weapons, on the other hand, involve small 
     quantities of everyday stuff that is impossible to find.
       How small? The sarin nerve gas use for the Tokyo subway 
     attack was manufactured by the Aum Supreme Truth cult in a 
     single room.
       How everyday? As Jeane Kirkpatrick and Dick Cheney and many 
     others pointed out in a letter to the Senate majority leader 
     opposing the CWC, the treaty does not even prohibit the two 
     chemical agents that were employed to such catastrophic 
     effect in World War I and that are the backbone of Iran's 
     current chemical arsenal--phosgene and hydrogen cyanide. Why? 
     Because they are too widely used for commercial purposes.
       All right, you say (and many senators up for reelection are 
     privately thinking): So the CWC is useless. What harm can it 
     do? The harm it--like all panaceas--does is induce a false 
     sense of security.
       Treaties are not feel-good devices. They are not 
     expressions of hope. They are means of advancing peace by 
     putting real constraints on the countries that pose threats.
       Syria has put chemical weapons on the tips of its Scud 
     missiles. Iraq is rebuilding its arsenal. Libya is 
     constructing the largest underground chemical weapons plant 
     on the planet. And what are we doing? Passing a treaty that 
     will allow international agents to inspect up to 8,000 
     American businesses, searching and seizing without warrant.
       The logic is more than comical. It is dangerous. The 
     chemical weapons treaty is part of a larger administration 
     scheme to build a new post-Cold War structure of peace 
     through the proliferation of paper. Yesterday, a test ban 
     treaty. Today, chemical weapons. Tomorrow, a biological 
     weapons convention and strengthening the ban on anti-
     ballistic missiles.
       The conceit of this administration is that it is following 
     in the footsteps of Truman and Marshall in the 1940s, 
     building a structure of peace after victory in a great war. 
     In fact, they are following in the footsteps of Harding and 
     Coolidge, who spent the 1920s squandering the gains of World 
     War I on the false assurances of naval disarmament treaties 
     and such exercises in high-mindedness as the Kellogg-Briand 
     Pact.
       The Clinton administration calls the chemical weapons 
     treaty ``the most ambitious arms control regime ever 
     negotiated.'' Its ambition is matched only by that of the 
     Kellogg-Briand Pact, also an American brainchild, also 
     promulgated to great international applause. (Frank Kellogg, 
     Coolidge's secretary of state, won the Nobel Peace Prize for 
     it.) All parties to that piece of paper pledged the 
     renunciation of war forever. The year was 1928. Germany and 
     Japan were signatories.

                          ____________________