Truth or Consequences #3: Clinton ‘Makes a Mistake About It’ in Arguing the C.W.C. Will Protect U.S. Troops

(Washington, D.C.): President Clinton
used his State of the Union address
Tuesday night to launch his
Administration’s latest and highest
profile salvo on behalf of ratification
of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Unfortunately, as with other aspects of
this campaign to induce the Senate to
advise and consent to a fatally flawed
arms control treaty, Mr. Clinton
made statements that simply do not stand
up to scrutiny. One of the most
troubling of these was his declaration:
“Make no mistake about it, [the CWC]
will make our troops safer from chemical
attack….We have no more important
obligations, especially in the wake of
what we now know about the Gulf
War.”⁽¹⁾

Far from reducing the risks
that American military personnel will be
exposed to chemical weapons, the Chemical
Weapons Convention is likely to
exacerbate them. This reality
has become increasingly evident
subsequent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
endorsement of the CWC as originally
negotiated by the Bush Administration.
For the following reasons, it
would actually be a great disservice
to the U.S. armed forces — and to the
national interests they protect — were
the Senate to lend its support to the
present convention:

Russia Remains a Chemical
Threat

The cornerstone for the Chemical
Weapons Convention was supposed to be a
Bilateral Destruction Agreement (BDA)
with Russia. Pursuant to this agreement,
Moscow promised to provide a full and
accurate accounting and eliminate most of
its chemical arsenal — the world’s
largest and arguably the one that poses
the most serious menace to the U.S.
military. The BDA was also expected to
afford the U.S. inspection rights that
would significantly enhance the more
limited arrangements provided for by the
CWC.

Regrettably, Russian Prime Minister
Victor Chernomyrdin declared last year
that the Bilateral Destruction Agreement
has “outlived its usefulness”
for Russia. He has also announced that
the tab for Russia to implement the
Convention’s demilitarization
arrangements (conservatively estimated to
be at least $3 billion) would have to be
paid for by the West. Under these
circumstances, even if the U.S. agreed to
shell out vast sums, chances are that
Russia would retain a sizeable, covert
chemical stockpile.

As the Center for Security Policy
noted earlier this week, href=”97-D21.html#N_2_”>⁽²⁾
it is now public knowledge that such a
Russian stockpile will probably include
extremely lethal binary munitions — weapons
that have been specifically designed to
circumvent the limits and defeat the
inspection regime of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. There is reason
to believe that such weapons may also
have been engineered to defeat Western
chemical defensive gear. This material
danger to U.S. forces can only grow if,
pursuant to the CWC’s Article X, the
United States winds up transferring
chemical protective technology or
equipment to those inclined to reverse
engineer and overcome it.

Other Nations Will Also
Have Militarily Significant CW Arsenals

Russia is hardly the only nation
likely to pose a chemical threat to U.S.
personnel in “a world with the
CWC.” Some, like Iraq, Syria, North
Korea and Libya, will refuse to become
states parties. Others will do so, secure
in the knowledge that the treaty’s
inherent unverifiability will allow them
to escape detection.

When the CWC was negotiated there was
considerable hope that intrusive on-site
inspections would meaningfully contribute
to the detection and proof of violations,
and therefore to deterring them.
Experience, however, with the UN
inspections in Iraq — an operation
allowed to conduct far more thorough,
timely and intrusive inspections than
will be permitted under this Convention
— has established that totalitarian
rulers of a closed society can
successfully defeat such inspections.

This reality applies, as Senator Helms
noted in a letter to National Security
Advisor Samuel Berger on 4 February, even
to militarily significant
stockpiles of chemical weapons:

• “General Shalikashvili
  testified on 11 August 1994 that
  ‘In certain limited
  circumstances, even one ton of
  chemical agent may have a
  military impact….With such
  variables in scale of target and
  impact of chemical weapons, the
  United States should be resolute
  that the one-ton limit set by the
  Convention will be our
  guide.'”

• “Unclassified
  portions of the [National
  Intelligence Estimate] on U.S.
  Monitoring Capabilities indicate
  that it is unlikely that the U.S.
  will be able to detect or address
  violations in a timely fashion,
  if at all, when they occur on a
  small scale. And yet,
  even small-scale diversions of
  chemicals to chemical weapons
  production are capable, over
  time, of yielding a stockpile far
  in excess of a single ton.
  Moreover, few countries, if any,
  are engaging in much more than
  small-scale production of
  chemical agent. For example,
  according to [the 4 February
  1997] Washington Times,
  Russia may produce its new
  nerve agents at a ‘pilot plant’
  in quantities of only ’55 to 110
  tons annually.'”

Facilitating Proliferation:
‘Poisons for Peace’

The Chemical Weapons Convention may actually contribute
to the spread of militarily-relevant
chemical technology. This could be the
result of a provision (Article XI)
modeled after the “Atoms for
Peace” provisions of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty — which
promised to share dual-use technology
with those who might abuse it if only
they promise not to do so. Article XI
would oblige the United States to share
inherently militarily useful chemical
manufacturing technology and materials
with countries like Iran and Cuba, if
only they become states parties. This
is a formula for expanding the threat to
“our troops” posed by chemical
proliferation, not effective chemical
arms control.

The CWC Will Encourage the
Military to Lower Its Guard

A March 1996 study by the General
Accounting Office (GAO) determined that
some elements of the U.S. military appear
to be inadequately prepared, trained, or
equipped to operate in areas contaminated
by chemical or biological agents. A
particularly troubling finding was the
fact that none of the Army’s five
active divisions which make up the
Nation’s crisis response force and none
of the reserve units that are designated
to be deployed early in crises (such as
Operation Desert Shield) were properly
equipped to deal with a chemical or
biological threat.

In fact, these units were
significantly unprepared in a number of
areas. According to the GAO, three of the
“front-line” divisions had
fifty percent or greater shortages of
protective clothing with shortfalls in
other critical gear running as high as
eighty-four percent. Training was also
determined to be deficient in a number of
respects. This is not entirely surprising
given that, in its first four
years in office, the Clinton
Administration decreased funding for
chemical and biological defensive
purposes by some thirty percent,
from $750 million in Fiscal Year 1992 to
$504 million in Fiscal Year 1995.

Unfortunately, past experience
suggests that matters will only
be made worse by an arms control treaty
like the Chemical Weapons Convention
that purports to impose a global
prohibition on chemical weapons,
seemingly making such defenses less
necessary. For example, after
ratification of the Biological Weapons
Convention (BWC), U.S. investment in
relevant defensive technology, vaccines,
detection equipment, etc. declined
precipitously. As a result of years of
inadequate attention to this threat, the
United States found itself extremely
ill-prepared to deal with a potential BW
threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
(In fact, the U.S. may only have detected
the use of biological weapons against our
forces after they started dying en
masse.)

That such a fate awaits U.S. chemical
defensive efforts in the wake of a CWC
ratification was brought home by a 1995
initiative proposed by the then-Vice
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Admiral William Owens. He suggested
cutting a further $805 million from
counter-proliferation support and
chemical and biological defense programs
through Fiscal Year 2001. This reduction
would have deferred, if not seriously
disrupted, important chemical and
biological research and development
efforts, and delayed the procurement of
proven technologies. His rationale:
Thanks to a lowering in the chemical
warfare threat brought about by the CWC,
investments in countering it could safely
enjoy lower priority. While the Owens
gambit was ultimately defeated, similar
initiatives must be expected in the
future if the CWC is approved —
resulting in increased vulnerability,
not improved safety, for “our
troops.”

Even if the United States manages to
resist the siren’s song to reduce
chemical defenses in the wake of the CWC,
it is predictable that the already
generally deplorable readiness of most
allied forces to deal with chemical
threats will only worsen. To the extent
that the U.S. is obliged in the future to
fight coalition wars, this vulnerability
could prove catastrophic to American
forces engaged with a common enemy.

Prohibitions on Tear Gas,
Other Non-Lethal Technologies

The Clinton Administration has made
clear that it intends to reverse a Bush
executive order issued at the insistence
of the Joint Chiefs in 1992 — an order
that explicitly allowed Riot Control
Agents (for example, tear gas) to be used
in rescuing downed aircrews and
dispersing hostile forces using civilians
to screen their movements against U.S.
positions. The result could be to force
our troops to use lethal force where it
is not necessary or to suffer otherwise
avoidable casualties.

Worse yet, one of the most promising
new defense technologies — involving chemical-based,
non-lethal weapons (for example,
immobilizing agents) — may be restricted
or prohibited by this Convention. The CWC
defines chemical weapons as “toxic
chemicals and their precursors, except
where intended for purposes not
prohibited under this Convention, as long
as the types and quantities are
consistent with such purposes.” It
goes on to define a toxic chemical as
“any chemical which through its
chemical action on life processes can
cause death, temporary incapacitation,
or permanent harm to humans or
animals.” As a result of the CWC, “our
troops” may be denied highly
effective means of prevailing in future
conflicts with minimal loss of life on
either side.

The Bottom Line

In its present form, the
Chemical Weapons Convention cannot be
justified by the contribution it will
make to the safety of our men and women
in uniform. If anything, the
“contribution” that will be
made will be a negative one for “our
troops.”

A question that may not be as easily
dispensed of is: Precisely what did
President Clinton mean when he said
“in the wake of what we now know
about the Gulf War”? Is that an
acknowledgment that chemical weapons were
used against U.S. forces there, after
all? Does it mean that the President is
now convinced that American forces were
inadvertently exposed to chemical agents
in the process of destroying Iraqi
bunkers — accounting for Gulf War
Syndrome? Or is he simply acknowledging
that U.S. chemical defenses are already
inadequate and that “our
troops” will likely be exposed to
chemical threats — even if the enemy
does not initiate their use — with
or without the Chemical Weapons
Convention?

– 30 –

1. The
fallaciousness of another Presidential
declaration — “If we do not act by
April the 29^th when this
Convention goes into force — with or
without us — we will lose the chance to
have Americans leading and enforcing this
effort” — was addressed last week
in the second paper in this “Truth
or Consequences” series on the
Chemical Weapons Convention, entitled Truth
or Consequences #2: Senate Does Not Need
to Sacrifice Sensible Scrutiny of C.W.C.
to Meet an Artificial Deadline
(No. 97-D 18,
31 January 1997). A third erroneous claim
concerning the CWC’s value in fighting
terrorism will be the subject of a
forthcoming Decision Brief.

2. See the
Center’s Decision Brief
from earlier this week, Russia’s
Covert Chemical Weapons Program
Vindicates Jesse Helms’ Continuing
Opposition to Phony C.W. Arms Control
(No. 97-D 19, 4
February 1997).