[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 18, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5940-S5941]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   ``ILLUSORY GAME OF ARMS CONTROL''

 Mr. KYL. Mr. President, during the recent Senate debate over 
the Chemical Weapons Convention, a great deal of discussion centered on 
the proper role of arms control agreements. I recommend the Washington 
Times op-ed by Sven Kraemer, who served as Director of Arms Control at 
the National Security Council during the Reagan administration to 
anyone interested in the subject. I ask that it be printed in the 
Record.
  The op-ed follows:

               [From the Washington Times, May 11, 1997]

                     Illusory Game of Arms Control

                           (By Sven Kraemer)

       ``They cry `peace,' but there is no peace.'' Jeremiah's 
     lament about the false prophets of peace applies tragically 
     to the false prophets of arms control who won Senate 
     ratification of the proposed Chemical Weapons Convention 
     (CWC) recently. They cry ``arms control,'' but there is no 
     arms control.
       CWC supporters saw the CWC as an ``arms control'' talisman 
     to ward off evil powers and ``to ban forever the scourge of 
     chemical weapons from the face of the globe.'' They 
     proclaimed it a global ban although the CWC is far from 
     global in its list of banned chemical precursors and in the 
     number of states likely to sign or to ratify it. They 
     proclaimed it as ``arms control'' while admitting it cannot 
     be effectively verified or enforced and it cannot stop, and 
     even risks abetting, proliferation.
       Such false prophets and fatal flaws are tragically common 
     to other ``arms control'' items on President Clinton's 
     radical agenda headed for Senate review. These include 
     proposed ``bans'' on nuclear testing, biological weapons, 
     fissile materials and land mines, a START III ``framework'' 
     that vitiates START II, and a Helsinki summit agreement 
     setting new limits on missile defenses. They don't build 
     foundations or bridges for arms control in the 21st century, 
     but are more like bungee jumps. Counting on miracles, 
     spectacle and concessions rather than effective measures to 
     control and protect against arms, they miss both the 
     opportunities and the obligations of serious arms control and 
     responsible leadership.
       CWC supporters claimed years of political legitimacy for 
     the CWC and declared that a ``no'' vote would destroy U.S. 
     leadership, wrecking a long effort to establish high 
     international arms control norms and placing the United 
     States on the side of pariah states. But it is a ``yes'' vote 
     that puts the United States on the side of pariahs. A ``no'' 
     vote would have embarrassed a few officials, but would have 
     marked a principled U.S. stand, supported by American public 
     opinion, against a fatally flawed arms control approach that 
     rewards pariahs and rogues, lowers already low arms control 
     standards and seriously endangers our own security.


                               next steps

       The required leadership won't come from the White House and 
     its misguided Senate supporters. The task of critique, 
     reinvention and leadership will come from the unprecedented 
     coalition of courageous senators, former Cabinet-level 
     officials, key businessmen, and leaders of some 40 citizens 
     groups who joined in opposition to the CWC and who want 
     serious arms control, serious defense, and serious protection 
     of our citizens' rights. CWC funding and implementation 
     legislation provide early opportunities for such leadership 
     in correcting the treaty's fatal flaws. The extraordinary 
     Kyl-Lott-Helms, et al. ``Chemical and Biological Weapons 
     Threat Reduction Act'' passed by the Senate the week before 
     the CWC vote, will be an excellent foundation for that 
     effort.
       For the future, CWC opponents will be more dubious than 
     ever about the administration's blizzards of misinformation 
     and the next items on Mr. Clinton's radical agenda. Their 
     concerns are backed by Luntz polls that show the American 
     people to be overwhelmingly opposed to treaties like the CWC 
     which cannot be effectively verified or enforced, which 
     create costly and intrusive new U.N.-style international 
     bureaucracies, and which endanger U.S. rights and weaken U.S. 
     security. The administration and its Senate supporters have 
     been put on notice.
       To silence such critics and undermine potential long-term 
     opposition, Clinton CWC supporters have sought political 
     cover by invoking George Bush and even Ronald Reagan for 
     their efforts. A George Bush signature was presented as 
     necessarily guaranteeing effective ``arms control,'' and the 
     CWC was even declared a ``Reagan treaty.'' In the wake of the 
     Senate vote, such claims require new review and rebuttal.
       The Bush signature guarantees nothing. Grave flaws were 
     evident in the CWC when it was rushed to signature in the 
     closing days of the Bush presidency in January 1993. In the 
     four years since then, changed global conditions have turned 
     these flaws into deadly gambles. Left standing, the CWC 
     flaws, high-risk Clinton arms control and defense policies, 
     and dangerous international developments (notably including 
     severe proliferation problems fostered by Russian and Chinese 
     violations which the Clinton administration rewards instead 
     of engages) will be heading the United States into the bull's 
     eye of disaster.


            three reagan lessons and legacies for the future

       The invocation of Ronald Reagan on behalf of the CWC and 
     similar spurious arms control efforts is particularly ironic. 
     Mr. Reagan's understanding of history and his approach to 
     arms control are repudiated by the CWC's underlying 
     assumptions, provisions and impact. Mr. Reagan often spoke of 
     the historic reality that arms control agreements were 
     routinely violated by dictators and rogues unfettered by the 
     democratic hopes, principles and processes of the American 
     people and their allies. He often spoke of the high cost 
     paid in lives and treasure for trust in such agreements, 
     including those from the 1970's, which were being 
     systematically violated by the Soviet Union. His strategy 
     of ``peace through strength'' won the Cold War in part 
     because he redefined arms control in terms of its 
     contribution to America's security, not as a matter of 
     trust in a ``process'' or as an end in itself.


                   dealing with dictators and rogues

       Enforcing compliance, ending proliferation: From the 
     beginning of his presidency, Ronald Reagan's arms control 
     approach rejected the prevalent lowest common denominator 
     approach of his predecessors in negotiations with dictators 
     and rogues, and focused instead on mastering the task of 
     working with democratic allies effectively to constrain, 
     deter and defend against such evil powers. This task is more 
     important than ever in today's world as Iraq, Iran, North 
     Korea, Libya, Syria and their chief suppliers in Moscow and 
     Beijing routinely violate a wide range of anti-proliferation 
     and other arms control agreements and as the Clinton 
     administration fails to enforce these treaties or even to 
     implement U.S. laws providing sanctions for such behavior.
       To start with, Mr. Reagan insisted that violations of 
     existing treaties had to be exposed and corrected before new 
     ones could be signed. And for chemical, biological and toxin 
     weapons, the first two years of the Reagan presidency focused 
     on assessing and reporting such violations and seeking 
     correction, especially concerning Soviet Production and use. 
     The Reagan compliance reports were unprecedented in 
     accurately presenting the threat and in pressing the case for 
     establishing higher norms for international arms control 
     compliance. Thus, when he had Vice President George Bush 
     table a preliminary draft CW Convention in April 1984, half 
     of the press and diplomatic kit made available by the White 
     House and the vice president provided detailed information on 
     troublesome Soviet activities that had to be corrected before 
     CW arms control could begin to be taken seriously.
       Mr. Reagan's CWC draft did not contain the ``poisons for 
     peace'' language of the current CWC's Article XI which 
     requires ``the fullest possible exchange of chemicals, 
     equipment and information'' and which forbids ``the 
     maintenance of restrictions.'' Nor did his CWC draft contain 
     the other pro-proliferation clause, Article X, which declares 
     that ``nothing in this Convention shall be interpreted as 
     impeding the rights of States Parties to request and provide 
     assistance bilaterally.''


     effective verification, enforcement and insurance capabilities

       Mr. Reagan insisted that serious arms control treaties had 
     to impose real, verifiable and enforceable restrictions, not 
     the ``nuclear freeze''-type illusions demanded by the 
     Soviet Union and favored by the self-styled U.S. ``arms 
     control'' lobby. Thus, he proposed the ``zero option'' for 
     Intermediate-Nuclear Forces in 1981 and a ``deep cuts'' 
     Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 1982. And when a draft 
     CW Convention was tabled in Geneva in 1984, Mr. Reagan 
     insisted on an interagency and international work program 
     focused on a long-term effort to try to develop such 
     effective restrictions in the future. Reflecting this 
     Reagan imperative, George Bush told the Geneva press: 
     ``Let's try to use this as a beginning, a place to get a 
     start on the negotiations.''
       Mr. Reagan insisted that effective arms control required 
     U.S. security capabilities in place to provide the insurance 
     of high-confidence U.S. verification, enforcement and 
     defense, and he required that such capabilities be certified 
     for each arms control proposal by the U.S. intelligence 
     community and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For chemical 
     weapons, he required enhanced intelligence, robust anti-
     chemical defenses, and a small residual stock of modern 
     chemical weapons to provide enforcement and negotiation 
     leverage until a period near the end of the final weapons 
     destruction date.
       In addition to such U.S. insurance capabilities for 
     specific arms control treaties, Mr. Reagan's Strategic 
     Defense Initiative, introduced in March 1983 (a year before 
     the draft CWC was tabled), provided for deterrence and 
     defense based on protection rather than on his predecessors' 
     dubious Cold War policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). 
     The American people, and people around the world, were to 
     share the benefits of the accelerated development and 
     deployment of advanced U.S. theater and strategic defenses to 
     be available against missiles--the delivery system of choice 
     most threatening in the use

[[Page S5941]]

     of chemicals, toxins and other weapons of mass destruction. 
     As late as 1992, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin agreed that at 
     least a limited global anti-missile defense system (GPALS) 
     would be important to security and stability.
       In contrast to the Reagan defense insurance policies, the 
     United States is not only unilaterally eliminating its 
     chemical stockpiles, a move other nations are not following, 
     but the Clinton administration is cutting back several 
     hundred million dollars in U.S. chemical defense investment, 
     reducing its intelligence, dumbing down theater missile 
     defenses, and further postponing the national missile defense 
     deployments required to protect the American people against 
     growing threats from rogues and from accidental launches.


       protecting u.s. constitutional rights and u.s. sovereignty

       Mr. Reagan's arms control policies insisted on assuring 
     U.S. constitutional rights and protecting U.S. sovereignty. 
     His CWC interagency work program reflected the requirement to 
     study and to try to resolve the serious Fourth and Fifth 
     Amendment dilemmas raised by extensive CWC reporting, 
     regulatory and inspection requirements, which in the current 
     CWC potentially affect the rights and budgetary and 
     proprietary interests of up to 8,000 U.S. companies. Unlike 
     the current CWC, Mr. Reagan's draft CWC of 1984 had the 
     United States and other permanent members of the U.N. 
     Security Council as five guaranteed members of the CWC 
     Executive Council, and required a Preparatory Conference and 
     other forums to operate by consensus, providing a U.S. voice 
     and veto when CWC provisions and processes required 
     amendment.
       As the Senate now reviews CW implementing legislation, 
     funding requirements and other elements of the radical 
     Clinton agenda, it should send its own veto on behalf of U.S. 
     security and serious arms control. In the face of the globe's 
     gathering storms, it is not too late ``to provide for the 
     common defense'' and to prevent the historic tragedy now 
     unfolding because of U.S. reliance on ``arms control'' 
     illusions.

                          ____________________