[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.'')