Powerful New Voice Joins The C.W.C. Debate: Steve Forbes Launches Campaign Against ‘A Bum Treaty’
(Washington, D.C.): In an appearance
yesterday on CBS’ “Face The
Nation” program, Malcolm S.
“Steve” Forbes, Jr. declared
his forceful opposition to the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC) which he
described as “dangerous and
flawed.” He warned that the CWC is
“a bum treaty” and “we
have to fight [it] tooth and nail.”
Importantly, Mr. Forbes announced as
well the initiation of a national radio
advertizing campaign aimed at educating
the American people about what is at
stake in the CWC debate. The ads will
begin airing Tuesday, 15 April in states
represented by key Republican Senators —
Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming
— as well as in the Washington, D.C.
market.
In a press release issued on 13 April
by Americans for Hope, Growth and
Opportunity — Mr. Forbes’ new national
issues advocacy organization — the
former Republican presidential nominee
observed that, “The more the public
learns about this issue, the more they
are concerned that Republicans would even
consider voting to ratify this assault on
U.S. national security.”
This statement is borne out by the
results of a recent national poll
conducted for the Center for Security
Policy by the Luntz Research
Organization. As noted in a press release
issued last week by the Center(1),
the American people generally — and
Republican voters in particular —
overwhelmingly oppose a treaty that would
have the defects inherent in the Chemical
Weapons Convention.
Mr. Forbes declared that, “The
immediate and final defeat of the
Chemical Weapons Convention is a critical
test of Republican leadership in the
United States Senate.” This theme is
also underscored in his radio
advertisements, which describe the CWC’s
central flaws — notably its
unverifiability, ineffectiveness and
dangerous technology transfer provisions.
The ad concludes that such a “flawed
piece of paper” does not measure up
to Ronald Reagan’s principle of
“trust but verify.”
The start of the Forbes campaign
against the Chemical Weapons Convention
coincides with two powerful inputs to the
CWC debate that appear in today’s Wall
Street Journal:
entitled “Arms Control
Mystique” and
powerful testimony against this
Convention delivered last Tuesday before
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by
James Schlesinger — a distinguished
former Director of Central Intelligence,
Secretary of Defense and Secretary of
Energy.
The Center for Security Policy
welcomes these important contributions
and hopes that they will help ensure that
Senate consideration of this
“bum” treaty will be thorough
and informed, not the rush to
ill-considered judgment that the Clinton
Administration has in mind.
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