EXCERPTS OF TESTIMONY BY FRANK J. before the SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE

9 June 1994

FATALLY FLAWED: WHY THE
CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION SHOULD NOT
BE RATIFIED

….As someone who has spent most of his professional life in
one part or another of the so-called arms control
“process,” I am convinced that the prospect that the
Senate will hear — and may be influenced by — informed
criticism of any given treaty greatly strengthens the hand of our
negotiators. Even more importantly, the possibility that a
less-than-satisfactory treaty may not receive a two-thirds
majority, or do so only with substantive amendments or
reservations, can often be parlayed into negotiated provisions
that might not otherwise seem obtainable…. On the other hand,
the fact that this and sister committees of the Senate have not
received critical testimony from knowledgeable experts about
several recent arms control accords has denied our negotiators
important leverage….

I have become thoroughly convinced that, as heinous as
chemical weapons are, there is simply no way that they can be
“eliminated from the face of the earth,” as President
Bush was fond of saying…. In particular, the present
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) will not accomplish this goal.
To the contrary, I believe that it will — on balance — leave us
more exposed to deadly chemical attack, not less.

* * *

We are prepared to accept the argument that it is a good thing
to increase the opprobrium associated with chemical weapons. This
is the purpose we are told will be served by the so-called “international
norm” that will, ostensibly, be encouraged by the CWC. Such
an essentially symbolic and hortatory objective, however, could
be accomplished as well by other means — for example,
by having the United Nations General Assembly adopt a
single-paragraph resolution denouncing the possession and use of
chemical weaponry. This approach would be no more effective, of
course, in ridding the world of chemical weapons than will the
present Convention, but it would be much less onerous and
potentially dangerous.

Instead, we have a treaty:

• that does not actually ban all chemical weapons
  or production capabilities;
• that does not require all nations, or even all
  nations suspected of having dangerous chemical arsenals,
  to subscribe before it goes into effect;
• that entails the creation of large international
  and domestic bureaucracies that will engage in expensive,
  burdensome monitoring of chemical activities that will be
  of negligible value to the task of detecting and
  preventing covert chemical weapons production; and
• that will inevitably degrade the readiness and
  effectiveness of our defensive posture vis a vis chemical
  attack….

* * *

We believe that, if the United States is determined to
unilaterally deny itself a credible, in-kind deterrent to
chemical attack, it would be far better off doing so without a
treaty. For one thing, it would avoid putting the United
States in the position of allowing rogue nations to sign on to a
treaty that makes us party to their deception. We should want no
part of such a subterfuge….

It is also important to bear in mind that the very fact that
we are party to a treaty regime affects the way we view and
respond to others’ behavior. Take, for example, the case of the
Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). If there had been no BWC, it
seems indisputable that the United States would have focused far
greater public, congressional and military attention on the
Soviet BW program and the proliferation of this dangerous
technology elsewhere around the world — even though this country
may have continued to have no interest in acquiring its own
deterrent stockpile of BW weapons.

In the presence of a treaty, however, anyone who was inclined
to call attention to such developments was sharply challenged —
not on the basis that the evidence was inadequate — but on the
basis that they were enemies of arms control. So
insidious is this phenomenon that it even winds up skewing U.S.
intelligence. Instead of the best evaluation of available
information, intelligence judgments become contaminated with
political and legal considerations. The result: Thanks to an
ineffectual arms control agreement, the American people and their
elected representatives are less informed about the real
magnitude of the threat than they are entitled to, and should,
be.

* * *

[T]his Convention should be rejected by the Senate because it
is going to mislead the Congress and the public — and foreign
publics — about the magnitude of the abiding threat of chemical
attack. The result will be to degrade not only our
deterrent posture but also our ability to defend against chemical
weapons use….

The threat of biological warfare did not end with a treaty
that was supposed to rid the planet of such horrific weapons. To
the contrary, a large and growing number of nations have the
potential or the actual capability to wage biological warfare
today. But, due to an arms control agreement that ostensibly
eliminated this menace, the United States has consistently and
systematically failed to invest in the research, development and
procurement of relevant defensive technologies, leaving us
gravely vulnerable to such attack.

As one listens to horrifying tales of tissue- and muscle-
eating viruses in Scotland, bacteria-contaminated water supplies
in Milwaukee, deadly hamburgers in Seattle and salmonella-laden
chickens, the implications of our vulnerability to man-made
biological agents are obvious. And yet, we continue largely to
ignore this threat, to underfund needed research and procurement
programs and to nurture the illusion that arms control solutions
might be found to perfect the BWC and reduce our risks.

Mr. Chairman, notwithstanding the solemn assurances you have
received from other witnesses as to the Clinton Administration’s
commitment to a robust chemical defense program, it is
predictable that no such program will long survive the atmosphere
of false security that will attend the CWC. This is
particularly true as the armed forces — who gave inadequate
attention to chemical defensive measures even in the face of a massive
CW threat — can be expected to continue to make too small
investments in related research, development and procurement in
the face of dramatically declining defense budgets and myriad
other unfunded and pressing priorities.

* * *

[W]e believe the Chemical Weapons Convention to be a
fundamentally dishonest exercise — a case of a treaty pretending
to be what it is not. Moreover, people who are promoting the CWC have
to know that, in the final analysis, this accord is not what
it is cracked up to be. The unease on this score may
explain why the drafters have denied the Senate the right to
attach reservations to the articles of this agreement….

The simple truth of the matter is that if the 1925
convention banning first-use of chemical weapons were faithfully
observed and enforced, there would be no need for the present
treaty. It is only the fact that there has been neither
compliance with the earlier agreement nor will on the part of the
international community to enforce it that has given rise to this
new, infinitely more ambitious and wholly unverifiable accord.
Why anyone imagines that the prospect of debatable intelligence concerning
some suspicious building, plant or facility is going to
engender better performance from the international community than
was occasioned when it was confronted with irrefutable evidence
of chemical attack in the form of dead bodies is completely
mystifying.