Republicans’ Senate Leadership Offers Constructive Alternative To Fatally Flawed Chemical Weapons Convention

(Washington, D.C.): The Senate
Republican leadership (i.e., Majority
Leader Trent Lott,
Majority Whip Don Nickles,
Republican Conference Committee Chairman Connie
Mack and Conference Secretary Paul
Coverdell) has joined the
chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations
and Intelligence Committees (Sens. Jesse
Helms and Richard Shelby,
respectively) as sponsors of critically
important legislation introduced
yesterday by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ).
This bill, known as the “Chemical
and Biological Weapons Threat Reduction
Act of 1997″ (S. 495) makes
it clear that the debate over the
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is not,
as some treaty proponents contend, a
dispute between those who are opposed to
chemical weapons and those who favor
poison gas.

S. 495 establishes, instead, that the
Senate has a real choice — between a
Republican leadership approach toward
dealing with the threat of chemical
weapons that is operationally oriented,
practical, enforceable and relatively
inexpensive and the CWC approach that is
declaratory, ineffective, unenforceable
and costly. This should not be a
hard choice for any thoughtful
legislator.

Highlights of the CBW Threat Reduction
Act include the following:

• Creating civil and
  criminal penalties for the
  acquisition, possession, transfer
  or use of chemical and biological
  weapons.
• Lays out a range of
  sanctions to be imposed upon any
  country that uses CBW against
  another country or against its
  own nationals. These
  include suspending: U.S. foreign
  assistance, arms sales and the
  associated financing,
  multilateral trade credits,
  aviation rights and/or diplomatic
  relations.
• Calls for adding
  enforcement mechanisms to the
  existing, multilateral
  Conventions concerning chemical
  and biological weapons.
• Establishes as U.S. policy the
  goal of preserving
  existing national and
  multilateral restrictions on
  chemical and biological trade.
  These arrangements are at direct
  risk from the CWC’s Article
  XI.
• Affirms existing U.S.
  policy governing the right to use
  Riot Control Agents (RCAs) in
  both peacetime and wartime.
  This would countermand President
  Clinton’s plan to deny American
  servicemen and women the ability
  to use tear gas and other RCAs
  during wartime search-and-rescue
  operations and when combatants
  and non-combatants are
  intermingled.

S. 495 makes clear the United States’
intention to dismantle its existing
stockpile of chemical weapons and to
participate in sensible, effective
non-proliferation efforts. It is a
valuable contribution to the debate on
curbing the threat posed by chemical
weapons — a debate that is expected to
become much more intense as the Clinton
Administration tries to coerce the Senate
into rubber-stamping the Chemical Weapons
Convention by the middle of April.

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