[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 51 (Friday, April 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3737-S3738]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION

 Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I supported Senate Executive 
Resolution 75, a substitute for the resolution of ratification of the 
Chemical Weapons Convention [CWC] offered by Senator

[[Page S3738]]

Helms. I thank my colleagues Senator Helms, Senator Kyl, and Senator 
Biden for their hard work over the last several days and their 
leadership in bringing the Chemical Weapons Treaty debate to the floor.
  I also wish to thank Senator Dick Lugar for his support as we 
prepared for this debate. Senator Lugar's detailed analysis of the many 
complicated issues of the treaty have been invaluable. Without doubt 
this treaty is better than when we started.
  Mr. President, though new to this body, I am fully aware of the 
seriousness of the task before us and I appreciate the thorough quality 
of the debate.
  I have studied this treaty and its components. I have reviewed a 
tremendous amount of associated materials provided me from all 
quarters.
  I, like so many of my colleagues, even at this late moment in the 
debate, still have outstanding concerns with certain provisions of the 
Chemical Weapons Convention, most notably the effects articles X and XI 
will have on our country. Yesterday, the President, in a letter to the 
majority leader, basically stated that,

       In the event that a state party or states parties to the 
     convention act contrary to the obligations under Article I . 
     . . I would, consistent with Article XVI of the CWC, and in 
     consultation with the Congress, be prepared to withdraw from 
     the treaty.

  Mr. President, I am still not sure that the President will act, or at 
least act decisively, when the situation warrants because our current 
track record of taking strong action when other nations violate 
treaties and agreements with us is not good. Let me cite a few examples 
of what I mean.
  The 1972 AMB Treaty. Recently, the President reaffirmed his 
commitment to the outmoded ABM treaty in Helsinki. This agreement will 
limit the ability of this Nation to deploy even a limited national 
missile defense. Is this wise, given the way the Soviets responded to 
the initial treaty by continuing to work on a new generation of ICBM's 
and associated warheads? Was not this treaty ironclad? Apparently not. 
What did we really do in the face of the violations? Nothing.

  The Iran-Iraq war. Iraq, according to a conversation I had with 
former Secretary of Defense under President Carter Jim Schlesinger, 
Iraq has been and is a signatory to the Geneva Convention which since 
after World War I has prohibited the use of chemical weapons, yet in 
the Iran-Iraq war of the eighties, Iraq used poison gas as a way of 
stemming the human wave attacks of the Iranians. What was the reaction 
of the United States and of other Western Powers to this blatant 
violation of the Geneva Convention? ``To avert our gaze'' might be a 
way to put it. Stated another way, we stood by and did nothing even 
though the war was not one of international proportions.
  There are other examples as well: Saddam Hussein chose not to employ 
his chemical weapons against American troops for one reason only. It 
was because of the reminder that President Bush provided him, rather 
than our reliance on a treaty.
  Oh yes, that reminder was, according to Secretary Baker, that the 
United States made it very clear that if Iraq used chemical weapons 
against United States forces, that the American people will demand 
vengeance, and that we had the means to achieve it. This is an example 
of where we were finally willing to do what was necessary.
  Mr. President that is my point this evening. We are a superpower. We 
have the means to achieve the ends required by our national interests 
should it be required. The question then is whether this treaty 
achieves those ends, or whether this treaty will create a false sense 
of security; a phantom security that is provided by others whose 
interests more often than not conflict with our own. I find it 
difficult to believe that a rogue state with little means at its 
disposal would be willing to divest itself of such weapons.
  Mr. President, in 1987, former Senator Malcolm Wallop explained in 
his book how arms control can be a delusion. We might stop and consider 
this point before we vote because former Senator Wallop also reminds us 
that Arms control presents four dangers: the falsehood that security is 
to be found in the promises of adversaries rather than in one's own 
prudence and preparedness; the falsehood that one should fear inanimate 
things--weapons--rather than the evil men and regimes who would use 
them for bad purposes; the falsehood that armaments are militarily 
valuable only as bargaining chips in the arms control process; and 
finally, the falsehood that U.S. strategic superiority is both useless 
and destabilizing to the world. Mr. President, I believe strongly in 
this Nation. I believe strongly that our strength lies where it has 
always been, both in the hearts of Americans, and in our own industry. 
I am not ashamed to admit I would rather be self-reliant because that 
means our confidence will be placed in Americans, not in some inspector 
from an international bureaucracy.

  I, Mr. President, am not ashamed to admit that I am proud of the 
military superiority our Nation enjoys, paid for by American taxpayers, 
and manifested in the men and women of our Armed Forces. They deserve 
the best equipment, training, and protection this Nation can provide. 
It troubles me that while we sit here ready to hand over the security 
for chemical defense that rightfully belongs here, we are allowing the 
Department of Defense to reduce its chemical defense program. Finally, 
Mr. President, I am not ashamed to admit that when our adversaries 
consider chemical weapons we need to send a message just as strong as 
the message that America sent to Saddam Hussein--we will respond, and 
we will do so in an overwhelming and devastating manner. That is a 
message all state parties can understand. We shouldn't wobble, nor shy 
away from the responsibility to our citizens. People are responsible 
for the proliferation of chemical weapons, not pieces of paper, and to 
this end we are woefully overconfident if we think a simple piece of 
paper will stop the proliferation of chemical weapons.
  Mr. President, the question is truly one of vigilance. Are we better 
off taking care of ourselves, using our own resources, empowering our 
own intelligence services to keep abreast of the threats abroad? I 
think so.
  I cannot agree with the proposition, that I read in the Washington 
Post recently, ``That standards and values violated are better than no 
standards or values at all.'' America has standards and it certainly 
has values. We are eliminating our chemical weapons and we must not 
rely unverifiable and unenforced international norms, which according 
to former Secretary of Defense Jim Schlesinger ``will induce a false 
sense of security in law-abiding societies.''
  Mr. President, in closing I want to leave my colleagues with the 
words of Senator Wallop: ``Unverifiable, unenforceable accords do not 
promote valuable international norms. The difference is that the former 
threaten to make arms control a sham--an outcome that can translate 
into incalculable harm to our Nation and its people.'' We should not 
enter into a treaty which we know at the start will not be honored. 
This demeans the treaty process and only increases the likelihood that 
we will fail in our duty to protect the security of this Nation. I 
thank the chair.

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