Clinton’s Chemical Power Play:
Bad for the Senate, Bad For The National Interest

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton
Administration is mounting a campaign
against the leadership of the United
States Senate that has all the subtlety
of a Mafia hit. The immediate object of
its intimidation is Senator Trent Lott
(R-MS), whose knees are at risk of being
broken (presumably, figuratively) unless
he bends to the President’s will. To do
so, however, the Majority Leader will, in
turn, have to “take out” the
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) —
and with him, the Senate’s rules
concerning the consideration of treaties
and that institution’s way of doing
business more generally.

The Administration is resorting to
such tactics for a very simple reason:
Senator Helms is in a position
indefinitely to bottle up a highly
controversial treaty, the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC). Incredible
though it may seem, Secretary of
State-designate Madeleine Albright
declared last week that ratification of
this Convention was the Clinton team’s
top, near-term foreign policy priority. Unfortunately
for them — and happily for the national
interest — Senate procedures permit
Chairman Helms permanently to pocket veto
this treaty by declining to bring it up
for a vote in his Committee.

Jesse Helms — Horatius at
the Bridge

This is fortuitous for the national
interest because, to his lasting credit, Senator
Helms correctly concluded in the course
of intensive Senate consideration of the
Chemical Weapons Convention last fall
that this treaty was fatally flawed.
Since a sufficient number of Senators
agreed with him in September 1996 to
defeat the CWC, the Administration
decided to withdraw it — hoping it would
meet a different fate if presented later.
Apparently, such is the Clinton team’s
contempt for members of the Senate —
which is exceeded only by its disdain for
their constitutional role in
treaty-making⁽¹⁾
— that it thinks legislators either have
forgotten what is wrong with this
Convention or can be euchred into
agreeing to it, if only enough coercive
pressure is brought to bear.

Thanks to Chairman Helms and
thoughtful colleagues like Senator Jon
Kyl (R-AZ), though, the Senate will be
reminded of the overarching
reason for opposing the Chemical Weapons
Convention: It is likely to contribute
to the proliferation of chemical
weapons, not eliminate it.

Not Global: After
all, the Convention will not
impose a global ban on chemical weapons,
let alone rid them from the world,
as its proponents often claim. In fact,
it will not apply to every country that
has chemical weapons. A number of the
most dangerous rogue states — including
North Korea, Syria and Iraq — have
announced that they will not become
parties to the CWC. Such nations tend
cynically to see such “international
norms” not as an impediment to
pursuing prohibited activities but as an
invitation to do so.

Not Verifiable: What
is more, thanks to the inherent
unverifiability of the Chemical Weapons
Convention, even some of those
who do join the regime will
retain covert chemical stockpiles.
The unalterable fact of life is that
chemical weapons can be easily produced.
By using facilities that are designed,
for example, to manufacture fertilizers,
pesticides or pharmaceuticals, they can
be produced in considerable (even
“militarily significant”)
quantities in relatively short periods of
time. This is an objective reality that
means the CWC is not simply
“less than perfect”; it is an
exercise in futility.

Indeed, Saddam Hussein has
demonstrated that on-site inspections far
more intrusive and timely than those
provided for by the CWC cannot
confidently monitor the covert weapons
programs of totalitarian regimes
governing closed societies. Consequently,
few competent experts believe that
industrialized states like Russia and
China will actually get rid of their
existing arsenals, let alone forego
future production — notwithstanding
their status as signatories to the CWC.

‘Poisons for Peace’: Third,
the CWC obliges the United States to help
other states parties — including
countries like Iran and Cuba — to gain
state-of-the-art manufacturing
capabilities that can readily be used to
produce chemical weapons. Unilateral
trade embargoes and multilateral
technology control arrangements against
such parties to the CWC would be
prohibited. This obligation is a
recipe for rampant chemical weapons
proliferation. The prospect that
it provides for expanded overseas sales
by U.S. chemical manufactures, however,
is a principal reason why their powerful
lobby is helping the Clinton
Administration make offers to Senators
“they can’t refuse.”

Other Fatal Flaws: Opponents
of the Chemical Weapons Convention
recognize that it will have other
undesirable repercussions, as well. For
one, it will likely create a
false sense of security that the
burgeoning problem of chemical weapons
proliferation has been meaningfully
addressed. This placebo effect will
almost exacerbate the dangers of chemical
attacks by reducing our preparedness to
deal with them. For another, the CWC —
as interpreted by the Clinton
Administration — will have the absurd
effect of denying our military
the right to use chemical-based Riot
Control Agents like tear gas to
protect themselves in situations where
the use of lethal force can, and should,
be avoided. Finally, the CWC will
grant a U.N. agency the right to inspect
anyplace in America — private
or public, factories, facilities, even
homes — on short notice, without a
warrant, and without compensation for the
associated costs, including for any
proprietary information that might thus
be lost.

The Bottom Line

Today, on the fourth anniversary
of the signing of the Chemical Weapons
Convention, President Clinton issued a
statement that declared disingenuously:
“Early CWC ratification by
the United States is extraordinarily
important. The security of our soldiers
and citizens is at stake, as is the
economic well-being of our chemical
industry.” He concluded by saying: I
look forward to working with the Senate
leadership to get the job [of ratifying
the Convention] done.”

Notice is thus served. Using such
presidential statements and phone calls,
a drumbeat of sympathetic editorials and
op.eds. and other pressure tactics, the
Administration hopes to squeeze Senator
Lott to break the CWC loose. It has even
asked him to remove the Chemical Weapons
Convention from the jurisdiction of
Senator Helms’ committee. Were Sen. Lott
to agree, he would be creating a
precedent that would wreak havoc on
Senate operations. Fortunately, while the
Majority Leader is committed to cooperate
with the President where possible, he is
unlikely to accommodate an Administration
power play where cooperation is neither
in the interest of the Senate as an
institution nor the Nation as a whole.

– 30 –

1. See the
Center’s Press Release
entitled Will the Senate Let
Clinton Rewrite the C.F.E. Treaty Without
Its Advice and Consent? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=96-P_86″>No. 96-P 86,
18 September 1996).