[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3525-S3528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Privilege Of The Floor
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, under the new rules governing
access to the floor, that Scott Bunton of my staff, be permitted access
to the Senate floor as long as the Chemical Weapons Convention is being
debated.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I now invite the distinguished Senator from
Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe] to take the floor to make whatever comments he
may require.
Mr. INHOFE. I thank the chairman.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President.
First of all, let me say that there have been a lot of charges made
back and forth. And certainly I don't question the sincerity of any
Senators who have spoken on the floor, nor any positions they have
taken, nor do I question their motives. They clearly think that they
are right and that I am wrong. I think I am right. And the right
position is not to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts talked about ``lulling''
people into a false sense of security. There is a very interesting
editorial in the Wall Street Journal on that subject--that people are
going to believe that something is going to be done with this, that it
is going to eliminate or dramatically reduce chemical weapons. We have
testimony from very distinguished, well-known, former Secretaries of
Defense--four of them--who say that this, in fact, could increase the
proliferation of chemical weapons around the world, and particularly in
the area of rogue nations.
Let me just address one other thing because my beloved friend, Bob
Dole,
[[Page S3526]]
came out and changed the position that he had previously had. I
certainly don't question his sincerity. But in his letter he said that
the conditions or the concerns that he had previously had been met.
I happened to stumble onto the letter that was dated September 11,
1996, from Bob Dole to Trent Lott. I will read the last of one
paragraph. He says, ``I have three concerns. First, effective
verification. Do we have confidence that our intelligence will detect
violations? Second, real reductions. In this case down to zero.''
He is putting an expectation of reducing the use of chemical weapons
``down to zero.''
``Third, that it will truly be a global treaty.''
Mr. President, none of these three have been met--not one of these
three conditions; certainly on verification. There is not one person
who has stepped onto the floor of this Senate and said that this is a
verifiable treaty. Nobody claims that it is. It is not verifiable.
People who give us their word that they are not going to do it. That is
fine. We can believe their word. Are we going to believe countries who
have not lived up to their other treaties? Certainly not.
In the case of real reductions, ``down to zero''--getting one to say
there are going to be any real reductions. Certainly not down to zero.
Nobody has made that statement.
And will it be truly global? We have talked about the countries that
are not a part of this treaty. And there are countries that are not
like we are. We are talking about people who murder their own
grandchildren, we are talking about Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea. So
obviously, it is not a global treaty in any sense of the term.
In verifiability, it is kind of interesting. After the Persian Gulf
war we set up a very meticulous system of verification within the
United Nations that gave the inspectors from the United Nations far
greater authority than the inspectors would have under this treaty. Yet
we find out that in the midst of all of this that Iraq is making
chemical weapons as we speak. If you can't do it with the information
that they have, and the ability that they have from the United Nations,
certainly it is not something that can happen under this treaty.
I have another concern. Mr. President, it is not just those who have
not signed or who have not ratified the treaty. I look at some of the
countries that have signed and they may or may not ratify. The
distinguished Senator from Arizona, Senator Kyl, earlier said that 99
percent of the known chemical weapons are in three countries: United
States, China, and Russia. And not one of those countries has ratified
this treaty. I doubt very seriously that they are going to ratify this
treaty.
So we have all of these conditions that we are talking about that
assume that, No. 1, those who are signatories to this treaty are going
to ratify it; and, No. 2, the ones that ratify it will do what they
have said they will do.
I think it is kind of interesting when you look at Russia, for
example. I am not singling them out other than the fact that we have
had more treaties with Russia. We have the 1990 Biological Weapons
Destruction Treaty; the ABM Treaty that goes all the way back to the
1970's; we have the Strategic Armaments Reduction Treaty, START I; the
Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, the CFE treaty; and the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. In each one of these cases, the
country involved--this country being Russia--has not lived up to the
provisions of the treaty. In other words, they ratify a treaty. They
are a signatory. Then they ratify, go through that elaborate process,
and then they turn around and don't live up to it. They have been found
in noncompliance by our State Department--this country--in each one of
these five.
You have to ask the question: If Russia ratified five treaties and
did not comply with any of the five, why would we expect that they
would ratify this and not live up to it? One of the conditions that we
have is that the Russians will ratify the treaty prior to the time that
we would do it. People are saying oh, no, Russia will ratify but only
if we do. I would like to remind my friends in this body that I was one
of, I think, three Senators who voted against the START II Treaty and
they used the same argument at that time. They said you have to ratify
this thing, you have to ratify it before Russia because Russia is not
going to ratify it if we do not ratify it. This is 2 years later, and
they still have not ratified it. So we are still waiting.
So why will you expect if 2 years ago we passed the START II Treaty--
and I think the Senator from North Carolina and I were two of the four
votes that were against it--they said they were going to ratify after
we did, and they didn't do it--why would they necessarily do it?
This global thing is very significant because here we talk about
those who have signed the treaty and those who have ratified the treaty
and, quite frankly, I do not care if a lot of those who have to ratify
this treaty ratify it. I am not at all concerned about Canada, Costa
Rica, the Fiji Islands, Switzerland, Togo, Singapore, Iceland. They are
not threats to this country, but there are threats out there.
And a minute ago, someone, the distinguished Senator from
Massachusetts, quoted James Woolsey, former CIA Director. It is also
James Woolsey who said we know there are somewhere in excess of 25
nations that currently have weapons of mass destruction, either
biological, chemical, or nuclear and are working on the vehicle means
to deliver those weapons. And so if these countries have them, these
are not countries that we are friendly with or think like we do.
I have said on the Senate floor several times in the past that I look
back sometimes wistfully to the days of the cold war, Mr. President,
when they had two superpowers, the U.S.S.R. and the United States of
America. We had an intelligence system that was pretty well informed.
We pretty much knew what they had, and they pretty much knew what we
had. Even though they were a threat to this Nation, certainly they were
a threat and a quantity that could be measured and we could anticipate.
Now we have countries like Iraq, and we have people, as I said before,
who murder their own grandchildren and we are talking about the
Qadhafis, Hafez Assads and those individuals who, I think, are a far
greater threat in terms of what is available in technology out there
with weapons of mass destruction including what we are addressing
today, and that is chemical weapons. So the threat is a very real
threat that is out there.
I understand from some of my close friends, Republican friends, that
there are some of these conditions that they could either take or leave
and are not as concerned about whether Russia ratifies the treaty in
advance; they are not really concerned about whether there are no
inspectors from terrorist countries. I can't really understand that,
but they are concerned understandably about article X. And while
everyone has put their own interpretation on article X, and instead of
putting an interpretation on it let me just read. I hope that all of
America could hear the exact wording of this treaty that we are being
asked to endorse and to ratify. Section 3 of article X says:
Each State party 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.
Wait a minute now. We are talking about they would be able to look at
what our defenses against chemical weapons are, not just what we have,
what our technology is, how they might be able to copy our technology.
Moving on to section 5, it says:
The technical secretariat shall establish--
Incidentally, Mr. President, does it bother you, that
technical secretariat? I always wondered what happened to
sovereignty in this country. We have a group sitting over
there someplace; we are not sure who they are going to be,
but they are called the technical secretariat--
Not later than 180 days after entry into force of this
convention and maintain for the use of any requesting State
party a data bank containing freely available information
concerning various means of protection against chemical
weapons as well as such information as may be provided by
State parties.
Now, I look at this as a sovereignty issue again, because I do not
know who these people are, but I do know this, that we have a lot of
chemical companies in this country that have not been talked about very
much. You talk about the CMA. That is, as I understand it, 192 chemical
companies. They
[[Page S3527]]
are the large ones, but there are somewhere between, it is estimated, 3
and 8,000 companies that would be affected by this treaty. Not all of
them are chemical companies but about half of them, so you may be
looking at 192 large chemical companies and maybe 4,000 small chemical
companies and maybe it would be to their advantage to have very
stringent requirements like this that would be a lot easier for large
companies to stand behind than small companies.
Finally, Mr. President, I have so much respect for the three former
Secretaries of Defense who testified before Senator Helms' committee,
James Schlesinger, Don Rumsfeld, and Cap Weinberger. In fact, I have
talked to each one of them, along with Dick Cheney, who would have been
there to testify, but he was unable to make that schedule. But he has
sent a letter that has been quoted from several times. These
individuals all say essentially the same thing. They say that we are
being asked to ratify a treaty that is not verifiable, that is not
global, that does not have any effect on those countries that are
considered to be our enemies, our adversaries out there. And they are
out there, Mr. President, and also even those who say they will ratify
and comply have demonstrated over and over again, such as Russia, that
they have not complied with previous treaties.
By the way, speaking of Russia, it was interesting; last week in
Janes Defense News, I read that the Russians had developed a type of
chemical weapon, and they have developed it out of precursors that are
not under this treaty. In other words, there are three precursors that
they are using that they can develop these weapons with. So they would
not be covered by this. I think maybe that is just a coincidence. Maybe
there are other countries out there also that are saying all right, if
this Chemical Weapons Convention goes in and we intend to comply with
the provisions of it, which they probably are not, what can we do to
build chemical weapons without using those precursor chemicals? And
they are already doing it.
I would like to share lastly something that all four of these former
Secretaries of Defense have said. They have said that there is a very
good chance being a party to this treaty and ratifying this treaty
could increase the proliferation of chemical weapons as opposed to
reducing them. I would read one paragraph out of Dick Cheney's letter,
and I do not think anyone is more respected than Dick Cheney in these
areas.
Indeed, some aspects of the present convention, notably its
obligation to share with potential adversaries like Iran
chemical manufacturing technology that can be used for
military purposes and chemical defensive equipment, threaten
to make this accord worse than having no treaty at all. In my
judgment, the treaty's article X and XI amount to a formula
for greatly accelerating the proliferation of chemical
warfare capabilities around the globe.
So I would just say, Mr. President, that there has been a lot of
lobbying going on, and I know the President's been very busy. I do not
know what kind of deals have been made, but I do know that this is not
something that is in the best security interests of the United States.
I do sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I am the chairman of
the readiness subcommittee. We are very much concerned about our State
of readiness in terms of how to defend against chemical warfare. We
deal with this subject every day. I am on the Intelligence Committee.
We talk about this. But none of us on those two committees know about
this as people such as Dick Cheney. I agree with them. We cannot afford
to take a chance on a flawed treaty that could have the effect of
increasing the proliferation of chemical weapons.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may require
to thank the Senator for his comment. He is right on target.
I have been around this place quite a while, and I have seen Senators
come and go but there is one situation that is endemic to the trade. A
lot of Senators can be frightened about threats of 30-second television
commercials 2 years hence or 4 years hence. But let me tell you
something, every kind of television known to man has been used against
me about practically every vote I have cast and I am still here. So I
have a little policy. I started it the first time I was sworn in. I
stood over there five times now taking an oath to uphold the
Constitution and to do my best to defend the best interests of this
country just as the Senator has and just as the Senator has talked
about.
Now, the media have with one or two rare exceptions totally ignored
the appearance of the three former Secretaries of Defense who came
before the Foreign Relations Committee. And one of them read the letter
that the Senator has just alluded to written by Dick Cheney. I wish all
Americans could have heard these three gentlemen and read the letter by
Cheney because they would understand that no matter about the 30-second
commercials, no matter about the news media--I have had it all thrown
at me. You can come to my office and look at the wall and see all the
cartoons. Every cartoon that they run I put it up on the wall to remind
me that the media do not count if you stand on principles and do what
you think is right.
Now, I have an idea satisfactory to myself that a lot of Senators
wish they could vote against this treaty but they are wondering about
the next election. I think they better stop and wonder about the next
generation.
I thank the Senator for the fine remarks that he made. I admire the
Senator very much.
Mr. INOUYE. I thank the Senator.
Mr. HELMS. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from
Oregon.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the people of Oregon have firsthand
knowledge of the dangers of chemical weapons. Stored at the chemical
weapons depot at Umatilla in the eastern part of my State are millions
of pounds of chemical weapons. Mustard gas and nerve gas sit in
concrete bunkers, a constant reminder of the need for action.
We see and hear constant news reports about the dangers facing
children in eastern Oregon every day those weapons sit in those
stockpiles.
There is no place in a civilized society for terror weapons like
these, and it is not right to have stockpiles of these weapons that put
our children at risk. Passing the Chemical Weapons Convention is the
most important vote in this Congress for a safer future for our
children. This is a time in my view for the United States to lead
rather than to retreat. When Presidents Reagan and Bush negotiated this
treaty, they fully understood that U.S. leadership was needed to
complete it. They knew that full U.S. participation was essential for
its work.
Not only will failure to ratify this convention put us in the
position of being followers on the world's stage but the provisions
built into this treaty to isolate and in fact economically punish those
nations which refuse to ratify the treaty are going to apply to the
United States if the Senate does not ratify this treaty.
In my State, we believe that we prosper from trade, cultural and
other exchanges with the rest of the world and that there would be a
threat if we failed to ratify this treaty.
If the Senate allows America to become an outlaw nation, the effects
would be felt by every farmer, software engineer, timber worker and
fisherman who sell the fruits of their labor overseas.
I would like to for just a brief few minutes review the arguments
against this treaty. Some say that it represents a loss of sovereignty,
but there is no greater threat to our sovereignty than to run away from
our role as a world leader. Some say that this treaty would open our
essential industries to espionage, but there is no question that the
American chemical companies were consulted on this treaty. They worked
closely on the key verification issues and there is enormous support,
enormous support among those in the chemical industry to approve this
treaty.
Finally, there are those who say verification is unworkable because
rogue nations will refuse to ratify it. But the fact is that
ratification of the treaty gives our country new access to information
about the chemical weapons programs of other nations. If we are denied
access to this vital intelligence, then we will be forced to spend even
more on our own intelligence to track the chemical weapons threat.
[[Page S3528]]
The world is watching the Senate now, watching the greatest nation on
Earth and hoping that we will lead the way to ridding our planet of
these poisons. I urge my colleagues to join across party lines and
approve this treaty, because when it is approved, our world will be a
safer place.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from New Mexico
is recognized.
MR. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Domenici pertaining to the introduction of S. 633
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')