‘ENOUGH TO MAKE GROWN SENATORS WEEP’? WILL ABSURD CLINTON LIMITS ON TEAR GAS, NON-LETHAL WEAPONS USE GO UNCHALLENGED?

(Washington, D.C.): If the fatally flawed Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC)⁽¹⁾
were not already in sufficient difficulty to assure its
rejection by the U.S. Senate, information from a former
senior Pentagon official should give Senators serious
pause: A recent letter to the chairman and ranking
minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee confirms
that a controversial “narrow” interpretation of
the CWC embraced by the Clinton Administration is wrong.
Worse, its adoption could needlessly compel American
servicemen to kill
rather than disperse hostile combatants and
non-combatants populations in certain international and
domestic circumstances.

This revelation was contained in correspondence dated
29 August 1994 from Victor Rostow, a lawyer and
internationally recognized expert on the subjects of
chemical weapons, conventional forces and related
multilateral arms control negotiations who acted until
September, 1993 as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Conventional Forces and Arms Control Policy.
It sharply responds to testimony provided to the
Committee in an 11 August hearing with Deputy Secretary
of Defense John Deutch and the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili. Where the
two witnesses hedged in response to Senators’ questions
about the impact of the Clinton interpretation, Mr.
Rostow could not have been more clear: “[The
Clinton Administration’s interpretations] would require
the use of deadly force in situations where, currently,
humanitarian considerations and the safety of U.S. armed
forces would dictate the use of tear gas.”
(Emphasis added.)

Other key passages from Mr. Rostow’s detailed,
three-page letter include the following:

• “In the past, unscrupulous combatants have
  sought to use civilians as shields for
  belligerent operations particularly in urban
  settings. In order to minimize collateral
  casualties, responsible military authorities have
  in the past responded by using tear gas — as
  U.S. forces did in Mogadishu. This can be
  accomplished within the
  treaty by taking specific
  measures to reduce any perception that the RCA
  use is CW use.”
• “…The CWC attempts to legislate
  international behavior with respect to international
  armed conflicts — but it in no way
  attempts to interfere with the conduct of internal
  armed conflicts. Numerous States would
  have refused to sign the treaty had they believed
  that it applied to their domestic affairs.”
• “There is no conceivable
  justification for interpreting this treaty to
  prohibit the use of tear gas against combatants
  in domestic armed conflicts. The
  foreseeable result [of these interpretations] is
  that U.S. armed forces would be restricted to the
  use of deadly force against American citizens in
  the event of an extended civil conflict, such as
  the American Indian Movement’s armed occupation
  of the Village of Wounded Knee in 1973.”
• “The testimony of Deputy Defense Secretary
  Deutch and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
  General Shalikashvili before the Senate Armed
  Services Committee on 11 August 1994, leaves the
  impression that the Defense Department
  harmoniously acquiesced in the Administration’s
  interpretation of the RCA provisions. In
  fact, until June 1994, sentiment within the
  Department opposed vehemently any change to
  Executive Order 11850, which currently regulates
  the use of RCAs in war.”
• “I believe that it is clear that the
  Administration’s proposed policy on the use of
  riot control agents is not supported by the
  treaty negotiating record, the treaty text or the
  other signatories. In view of the negative and
  deadly consequences of maintaining the
  Administration’s interpretation, I believe that
  the Senate should inquire further into the
  Executive decision-making process and the history
  of this treaty before providing its advice or
  consent to the CWC.”

The Bottom Line

Victor Rostow’s authoritative account of the
negotiating history of the Chemical Weapons Convention
with regard to limiting the use of Riot Control Agents —
and the Clinton Administration’s unwarranted change in
the U.S. government’s interpretation of the relevant
provision — is profoundly troubling. The Center for
Security Policy believes it offers fresh and compelling
evidence that the Senate Armed Services Committee, and
the Senate as a whole, must examine this and other
defective aspects of the CWC far more closely than has
been done to date.

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1. For more regarding the high
national security and financial costs of the CWC, see the
Center’s recent papers: ‘Inquiry
Interruptus’: Will the Senate Get to the Bottom of the
Chemical Weapons Convention’s Fatal Flaws?
(No. 94-P 83, 19 August 1994); Center
Symposium Examines False Promises, Costly Implications of
the Chemical Weapons Convention ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-P_82″>No. 94-P 82, 29 July 1994); Center
Warns Senate that Chemical Weapons Convention is a Hoax,
Must be Rejected (No.
94-D 59, 9 June 1994).