Richard Perle Discounts Allies’ Objections to Senate Rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

(Washington, D.C.): In an op.ed. article slated for publication in a major British daily
newspaper tomorrow, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle puts in perspective
recommendations made last week by the leaders of Britain, France and Germany that the Senate
agree to the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Mr. Perle — an
accomplished security policy practitioner widely respected on both sides of the Atlantic and,
indeed, around the world — powerfully argues that the objections heard from Messrs. Tony
Blair, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder in an op.ed. article published in the New York
Times on 8 October should not dissuade the United States Senate from doing what American
national security and interests dictate: defeating the CTBT.

Passion’s Slave and the CTBT

by Richard Perle

Always generous with advice, a chorus of European officials has been urging the United
States
Senate to ratify the “Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.” Last Friday, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac
and Gerhard Schroeder (BC&S for short) issued what Will Hutton, writing in the
Observer,
called “a passionate appeal” to the American Senators whose votes will decide whether the
United States signs up to the fanciful conceit that the CTBT will halt the testing of nuclear
weapons.

Advice giving is contagious, and Hutton has some of his own: to encourage the U.S. to ratify
the
CTBT, he urged Britain and France to phase out their nuclear weapons entirely–a suggestion
they will passionately reject.

Now, the prospect of crowning the Western victory in the Cold War with a piece of
international
legislation that will stop the spread of nuclear weapons is certainly appealing. After all, a
signature on a piece of paper would be a remarkably cheap and efficient way to keep nuclear
weapons out of the hands of Kim Jong-il, Saddam Hussein and the other 44 regimes now
deemed capable of developing nuclear weapons.

So what explains the need for passionate appeals from politicians and strident comment from
leader writers? Why doesn’t the Senate congratulate its friends on their wise and timely counsel
and vote to ratify the treaty?

I suspect that one reason is the Senators–or at least the more responsible among them–have
actually read the treaty and understand how deeply flawed it is, how unlikely it is to
stop
nuclear proliferation or even nuclear testing, and how it has the potential to leave the United
States with an unsafe, unreliable nuclear deterrent.

Arms control agreements–especially ones affecting matters as sensitive as nuclear
weapons–must be judged both in broad concept and in the details of their implementation.
As a device for ending all nuclear tests, the CTBT fails on both counts.

It is characteristic of global agreements like the CTBT that they lump together, under a
single set
of constraints, states that can be counted upon to comply and those which intend either to find
and use loopholes–the CTBT is full of them–or to cheat to defeat the constraints of the
agreement. To make matters worse, states joining global conventions, even if they do so in bad
faith, obtain the same treatment as those who join in order to advance the proper purposes of the
agreement.

There can be little doubt that Indian participation in the “atoms for peace program” facilitated
New Dehli’s acquisition of nuclear weapons by legitimating the construction of a Canadian
designed reactor from which India extracted the nuclear material to make its first bomb. We now
know that Saddam Hussein made full use of the information provided by Iraqi inspectors on the
staff of the International Atomic Energy Agency (set up to police the Non-Proliferation Treaty)
to conceal his clandestine nuclear weapons program. With knowledge of the sources and
methods by which the IAEA attempts to ferret out cheating, Iraqis ensconced there (by virtue of
Iraq’s having signed the NPT) were better able to circumvent treaty’s essential purpose.

In domestic affairs, no one would seriously propose that the police and criminals come
together
and sign agreements according to which they accept the same set of constraints on their freedom
of action. Yet that is the underlying logic of the CTBT: a compact among nation states, some of
which are current or likely criminals, others–the majority–respectful of international law and
their treaty obligations. Because there can be no realistic hope of verifying compliance with the
CTBT, this fundamental flaw, which is characteristic of global agreements, is greatly magnified.
The net result of ratification of the CTBT would be (a) American compliance, which could leave
the U.S. uncertain about the safety and reliability of its nuclear deterrent; and (b) almost certain
cheating by one or more rogue states determined to acquire nuclear weapons.

Among the leaders in Congress who have taken a keen interest in arms control is Senator
Richard
Lugar from Indiana, a senior member of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees. A
frequent floor manager in favor of arms control legislation, he has supported every arms control
treaty to come before the Senate and has often led the proponents in debate. Last week he
announced that he would vote against ratification of the CTBT.

I would be willing to bet that Senator Lugar has spent more time studying this treaty than
Blair,
Chirac, Schroeder and Hutton combined–which may explain why his view of the treaty is one of
reason and not passion. Senator Lugar opposes ratification–not because he shares my view that
the treaty is conceptually flawed–but because he believes it cannot achieve its intended purpose
but it could “risk undermining support and confidence in the concept of multi-lateral arms
control.”

Arguing that the CTBT is “not of the same caliber as the arms control treaties that have come
before the Senate in recent decades,” Lugar concludes that the treaty’s usefulness is “highly
questionable,” and that it would “exacerbate risks and uncertainties related to the safety of our
nuclear stockpile.” He rightly points to the treaty’s “ineffective verification regime” and
“practically nonexistent enforcement process.”

Senator Lugar’s careful, detailed assessment of the treaty contrasts sharply with the rugby
cheering section coming from the London, Paris and Berlin offices of BC&S. Do
BC&S know
that the treaty actually lacks a definition of the term “nuclear test?” Rushed to completion before
the 1996 Presidential election, Clinton abandoned in mid-stream an effort to negotiate a binding
definition. Do they know that advances in mining technology permit tests to be smothered so
they cannot be detected? Do they understand the composition and complexities of the U.S.
nuclear stockpile or the importance of future testing to overcome any potential problems? Can
they get beyond their passion?

“Give me that man/That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him/In my heart’s core”
Sound
advice from Will (Shakespeare, not Hutton).