HOW CAN THE ‘WORLD’S GREATEST DELIBERATIVE BODY’ DELIBERATE ON THE C.W.C. UNLESS THE ADMINISTRATION ANSWERS THE MAIL?

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton
Administration’s contempt for the United
States Senate has rarely been more
evident. An institution that the framers
of the Constitution saw as an
indispensable and co-equal member in the
treaty-making process is seen by the
President as an irrelevance. If Senators
will not rubber-stamp Mr. Clinton’s
diplomatic initiatives, he will simply
circumvent them altogether.

In late June, the White House
encouraged Democratic Senators to
filibuster critical legislation in order
to euchre the new Majority Leader into
agreeing to complete work by 14 September
on the most controversial arms control
treaty since SALT II — the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC). The
Administration’s thinking was
transparent: The Republican Senate’s
approval of this treaty before the
election could be used to insulate the
President from well-justified criticism
that he has to date responded fecklessly
to the accelerating proliferation of
chemical and other weapons of mass
destruction. And, the timing would allow
the Clinton team to cow Senators who
might otherwise be inclined to question
this wholly unverifiable and ineffective
accord with the politically explosive
charge that they “favor poison
gas.”

A Deal’s a Deal

The agreement to bring the CWC
to the floor was explicitly predicated,
however, in Sen. Trent Lott’s (R-MS)
words, on the Administration providing
“such facts and documents as
requested by the Chairman and ranking
minority member of the Foreign Relations
Committee.” This
stipulation was made because Chairman
Jesse Helms (R-NC) had written the
President on 21 June asking for
information directly relevant to Senate
action on the present convention.
Specifically, he sought clarification
about reports that “Russia will not
implement the [1990] U.S.-Russian
Bilateral Destruction Agreement (BDA) or
pursue ratification of the CWC in the
near future.”

The Senate simply cannot make
an informed decision about the wisdom of
ratifying the CWC in the absence of the
information sought by Senators Helms and
Lott. After all, the Bilateral
Destruction Agreement has been presented
as a cornerstone for the present
Convention. It was to establish an
accurate data base about the Russian
chemical weapons arsenal — the world’s
largest. (In June 1994, however, then-CIA
director James Woolsey told Congress that
the U.S. had “serious concerns over
apparent incompleteness, inconsistency
and contradictory aspects of the
data” submitted by Russia pursuant
to the BDA.)

What is more, the BDA’s inspection
agreement (which would permit U.S.
monitors to inspect Russian facilities)
was to have substituted for the
arrangements under the CWC (which would
allow multilateral inspectors but not
Americans to visit such sites). And, if
the U.S. ratifies the CWC but Russia does
not, the substantial burdens and costs of
this treaty will fall that much more
disproportionately on the United States.

From Bad to Worse

There is now more reason than ever to
question Russian intentions with respect
to these chemical arms control
agreements. Having received no response
to his June letter to the President,
Senator Helms wrote President Clinton
again on 26 July, noting:

“Russian Prime
Minister Chernomyrdin wrote to Vice
President Gore on July 8, stating
officially that both the BDA and the
[accompanying] Memorandum of
Understanding have outlived their
usefulness to Russia.
Moreover, it has been established
that Prime Minister Chernomyrdin (1)
linked Russian ratification of the
CWC to U.S. agreement to a Joint
Statement linking ratification by the
United States to Russian
ratification, (2) stated that the
American taxpayers must pay the cost
of the Russian destruction program,
and (3) linked ratification to U.S.
acquiescence to Russia’s position on
conversion of its chemical weapons
facilities.”

In other words, the Russians
are evidently saying that the bilateral
accord that underpinned the Chemical
Weapons Convention is toast. And
they will not agree to ratify the CWC
unless it is made still less verifiable
and less effective and unless the U.S.
agrees to pick up the tab for Russian
implementation — by Russian Duma
estimates as much as $3.3 billion.
Even then, Sen. Helms notes that
Chernomyrdin has indicated that “it
will be impossible for Russia ever to
ratify the treaty” if it enters into
force without Russian ratification, a
distinct possibility thanks to Clinton
diplomatic efforts that have scared up 61
of the 65 countries needed for CWC entry
into force.

Answer the Mail

These ominous signals prompted Senator
Helms a month ago to reiterate his June
request for information and to ask
President Clinton for responses to eight
specific lines of inquiry. The latter
involve among other things, the prospects
for the BDA and the implications if it is
not faithfully implemented by Russia.
They also concern the costs associated
with destroying the vast Russian chemical
arsenal and whether those costs will have
to be borne by U.S. taxpayers.
There has, as of this writing, been no
response from the Administration to any
of these Helms inquiries. At
this point, it is hard to see how the
Senate could digest and, if necessary,
seek further clarification of any
information that might be forthcoming
without postponing the scheduled vote on
the CWC.

The Bottom Line

That the Clinton Administration is
balking at providing data needed for an
informed Senate debate on a major arms
control agreement is hardly surprising.
Such data would, after all, likely make
ratification more difficult. But
something else is at work here. The
Clinton team evidently thinks it is doing
Senators a favor even permitting
them to go through the motions of
advising and consenting to this treaty.
After all, the Administration has
recently contemptuously refused to submit
to the Senate amendments that so alter
the scope and character of the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as to make
it effectively a new agreement.

The real surprise will be if the
Senate permits such contemptuous
treatment to stand. Concern for their
institution’s constitutional prerogatives
and responsibilities, if not for the
national security, should prompt even
Senators disposed to approve the Chemical
Weapons Convention to insist that the
information sought by Senators Lott and
Helms be made available and considered
before they cast their votes.

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