Bill Clinton’s ‘Changes’ To The C.W.C. Are Not ‘Good-Enough-For-Government-Work’

(Washington, D.C.): The surprise
announcement yesterday that Senator Bob
Dole now supports the Chemical Weapons
Convention (CWC) is all the more
surprising because of the grounds he gave
for doing so: He asserted that the
changes that have been agreed to by the
Clinton Administration after protracted
negotiations with Senate critics of the
treaty have addressed the concerns he
expressed last fall. Nothing
could be farther from the truth.

Mr. Dole’s Stated Concerns

As Republican Senators from Majority
Leader Trent Lott on down consider
whether they too should declare that the
28 agreed “conditions” should
be deemed
good-enough-for-government-work, it is
worth recalling precisely what Senator
Dole’s concerns were in September 1996.
In a letter to his successor dated 11
September 1996, Mr. Dole wrote:

“…The United States needs
and wants a treaty which
effectively banishes chemical
weapons from every point on
earth. To achieve this
goal, a treaty must be
effectively verifiable and
genuinely global — encompassing
all countries that possess, or
could possess, chemical weapons.
If the Chemical Weapons
Convention now before you
achieves this goal, I will
support it. If it
does not, I believe we
should pass up illusory arms
control measures. As
President, I would work to
achieve a treaty which really
does the job instead of making
promises of enhanced security
which will not be achieved.

“I supported the START I,
START II, INF, and CFE Treaties
because these agreements met
three simple criteria established
by President Reagan: effective
verification, real reductions and
stability. In evaluating
the Chemical Weapons Convention,
I suggest you apply these same
criteria, adapted to these
particular weapons and to the
post-Cold War multi-polar world.

“Thus, I have three
concerns. First, effective
verification: do we have high
confidence that our intelligence
will detect violations?
Second, real reductions,
in this case down to zero: will
the treaty eliminate chemical
weapons? Third,
stability: will the treaty be
truly global or will countries
like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and
North Korea still be able
to destabilize others with the
threat of chemical weapons?

“Furthermore, I believe it
is important that the Senate
insures that the implementation
of this treaty recognize and
safeguard American Constitutional
protections against unwarranted
searches.”

“It is my understanding that
the Senate will have the
opportunity to address these
matters in debate and, perhaps,
in amending the Resolution of
Ratification. It is my hope that
President Clinton will assist you
in resolving them. If we can work
together, we can achieve a treaty
which truly enhances American
security.” (Emphasis added.)

The Changes Dole Wanted Are in
the Unagreed Conditions

As the Center for Security Policy
noted in a recent analysis of the various
conditions agreed to by the Clinton
Administration as part of its frantic
campaign to secure Senate approval of the
CWC,⁽¹⁾
they do not address the key
concerns Senator Dole expressed last year.
Even the action on Sen. Dole’s
“search and seizure” issue — which
treaty proponents long claimed was not a
problem and now take credit for
correcting by requiring criminal search
warrants for any involuntary challenge
inspections — is inadequate. The
aforementioned Center analysis notes:

“Important as this
affirmation of the Constitution
is…since there is no
requirement in the treaty for the
new UN-style inspection
bureaucracy to offer probable
cause, it seems likely that
searches will not be possible unless
U.S. businesses ‘volunteer’ to
submit to them. Since the
Clinton Administration’s view
will surely be that failure to
permit such inspections will
ensure that other countries opt
out as well, it is a safe bet
that the Feds will find ways to
make companies ‘volunteer.’

“The CWC’s draft
implementing legislation — which
the Senate has agreed to act on,
if the treaty is ratified, before
the Memorial Day recess and after
no more than four hours of
debate — provides clues as
to how the government will make
American businesses ‘offers they
can’t refuse.’ This
legislation would make it
possible to assess uncooperative
companies the costs of securing a
search warrant and to deny such
companies the opportunity to do
business with the federal
government in the future. Unsaid,
but always an option, are other
coercive techniques like the
prospect of harassment from
agencies like the EPA, OSHA, INS
or IRS.”

The Senate will Decide Today
on the Real Dole Concerns

All of Sen. Dole’s other, stated
concerns will only be addressed in action
today on the five conditions that are
described by the Clinton Administration
and its surrogates as “killer
amendments.”

• Effective verification:
  The President would be required
  by one condition to certify that
  the treaty is effectively
  verifiable, using sensible
  criteria derived from testimony
  before the Senate — i.e., the
  U.S. Intelligence Community has
  high confidence that militarily
  significant quantities (according
  to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
  General John Shalikashvili,
  “one
  agent-ton”) could be
  detected in a timely fashion (within
  one year).
• Real reductions:
  The U.S. would not become a party
  to the CWC until Russia, China
  and a number of other,
  potentially hostile chemical
  weapons states do so. This step
  would at least eliminate the
  absurd — but entirely plausible
  — prospect that the United
  States would be the only
  declared chemical weapons state
  inside the treaty regime, and
  therefore be disproportionately
  burdened by the reporting,
  regulatory and inspection
  requirements imposed on
  “declared” facilities.
  To the extent that treaty
  membership actually translates
  into “real reductions”
  and the ultimate elimination of
  chemical weapons in totalitarian
  states like China, Cuba and Iran,
  it would be entirely consistent
  with Sen. Dole’s admonition of
  last fall to require their
  participation as a precondition
  for our own.
• Stability: The
  Chemical Weapons Convention will
  not increase stability if it
  actually winds up exacerbating
  the spread of chemical
  warfare-relevant technologies and
  facilitates espionage against
  U.S. companies and government
  facilities. The conditions
  requiring the renegotiation of
  the treaty’s highly controversial
  “Poisons for Peace”
  Articles (X and XI) and barring
  inspectors from China and rogue
  states would go some way toward
  preventing this accord from
  contributing to instability.

The Bottom Line

Like many other prominent figures who
have lent their good names and authority
to this seriously defective treaty — and
the Clinton Administration’s efforts to
ram it through the Senate, Sen.
Dole has been had.
Unfortunately, the fine print belies his
statements and undercuts his credibility.

It is to be hoped that other members
of the Senate, starting with Majority
Leader Trent Lott, will not fall prey to
a similar bait-and-switch operation — or
become party to any effort to impose upon
the American people a treaty that clearly
remains fatally flawed and inconsistent
with U.S. sovereignty, constitutional
rights and national security interests.

– 30 –

1. See Truth
or Consequences #11: Clinton’s ‘Changes’
to the CWC Are Necessary, But Clearly Not
Sufficient ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_55″>No. 97-D 55, 21
April 1997).