Vote On C.W.C. Proves A Defining Moment: Lott Fails Test, New Security-Minded Leaders Emerge

(Washington, D.C.): It was positively
surreal: Against the backdrop of
televised images of emergency personnel
in chemical protective gear trying to
cope with an apparent terrorist incident
that shut down the heart of the Nation’s
Capitol yesterday, the Senate Majority
Leader delivered the votes President
Clinton needed to ratify a treaty that
will do nothing to prevent
similar, but probably far more traumatic,
episodes in the future — and may
even make them more likely to occur.

There can be no doubt that,
with Senator Lott’s leadership in the
opposition to the Chemical Weapons
Convention (CWC), the treaty would have
failed. After all, on four out
of the five amendments on which there
were roll call votes — concerning the
circumstances under which the U.S. would
become a party (i.e., not without
Russia); the verifiability of the treaty;
and the prospects it will result in the
transfer of dangerous technology — the
34 votes needed to defeat the treaty were
cast by Mr. Lott and his Republican
colleagues.

Majority Compromiser

Early in the afternoon, Senator Trent
Lott (R-MS) demonstrated the
characteristic that has become his
hallmark — deal-making without regard to
substance — by striking an
intellectually incomprehensible and
indefensible position: He
announced that he would vote for the
Chemical Weapons Convention and urge his
colleagues to do the same — even if its
Resolution of Ratification would be
stripped of improvements the Majority
Leader said were necessary and voted
to preserve.

Senator Lott indicated that his
contortions were justified by assurances
he received yesterday in a letter from
President Clinton. That letter spoke to
concerns the Majority Leader had publicly
expressed about the treaty’s Articles X
and XI. That provisions obligate CWC
parties to engage in “the fullest
possible transfer” of defensive
equipment and chemical manufacturing
technology with other member states,
including those with a demonstrated
tendency to divert such items to hostile
purposes. The President assured Mr. Lott
that he would “regard such actions
as extraordinary events that have
jeopardized the supreme interests of the
United States and therefore, in
consultation with the Congress, be
prepared to withdraw from the
treaty.” (Emphasis added.)

Scarlet Letter

Unfortunately, Senator Lott
inaccurately portrayed this pledge as
“an iron-clad commitment” on
the part of President Clinton,
saying that, pursuant to it, “[the
President] would exercise our right to
withdraw” if:

• Article X winds up compromising
  U.S. chemical protective
  equipment in a way that
  “significantly
  degrades” American
  “warfighting capabilities in
  a CW environment.”
• the Australia Group can no longer
  be certified as “a viable
  and effective mechanism for
  controlling CW
  proliferation”; or
• parties engage in technology
  transfers “under either
  Article X or XI which jeopardize
  U.S. national security by
  promoting CW proliferation.”

It is not clear on what basis Mr.
Lott chose to describe the President as
saying “I will withdraw” under
any one of these circumstances. What is
clear, however, is that President
Clinton made no such promise.
As Mr. Lott’s deputy, Senate
Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles
caustically observed, Mr. Clinton’s
“commitment” is only to be
“prepared” to withdraw — a far
cry from actually pledging in advance to
do so.⁽¹⁾

Beware Clinton’s Escape
Clauses

The probability that the President
will go so far as “be prepared”
to withdraw from the CWC — to say
nothing of actually doing so — is
further reduced by the subjective
judgments built into each of the
conditions Mr. Clinton cites:

• As Senator Nickles noted, the
  qualifier
  “significantly” makes
  clear that some degradation
  in our defensive capabilities
  can take place without
  repercussions.
• There will always be some
  prepared to attest to the Australia
  Group’s viability and
  effectiveness, even if
  the Group were to be mutated in
  ways that would clearly undercut
  its viability and effectiveness.
  This could occur, for example,
  were Russia and China to be
  included in this group of
  chemical supplying nations
  (assuming they become parties to
  the Chemical Weapons Convention).
  That approach has, after all,
  been adopted in connection with
  the successor to the Coordinating
  Committee on Multilateral Export
  Controls (COCOM) and the Missile
  Technology Control Regime. Such a
  step would clearly render the
  Australia Group functionally
  non-viable and ineffective if it
  only resulted in the transfer of
  dangerous chemical
  warfare-relevant technology to
  the Russians and Chinese.
• Even more distressing is the fact
  that both of these countries are
  virtually certain to transfer
  such technology — their own or
  others’ — to whatever countries
  remain on the Australia Group’s
  list of proscribed designations.
  After all, Russia has cited
  comparable provisions in the
  Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
  as grounds for sharing technology
  that could proliferate nuclear
  weaponry to countries like Iran,
  India and North Korea. And China
  is actively engaged in sharing
  chemical weapons technology with,
  among others, Iran, Syria and
  Pakistan — and there is no basis
  for believing that such behavior
  will stop as a result of the CWC.
  To the contrary, China (along
  with Iran, Cuba, Pakistan and
  Brazil) has indicated in the CWC
  Preparatory Committee that it
  regards Articles X and XI as
  obligating parties to eliminate
  export controls or other
  impediments to the transfer of
  such Technology.
• The Clinton Administration has,
  in connection with rejecting an
  amendment aimed at ensuring that
  the CWC was effectively
  verifiable, asserted that only
  very substantial chemical weapons
  programs — coupled with sizeable
  efforts to train and equip troops
  for chemical warfighting — would
  constitute a “militarily
  significant” capability. It
  stands to reason that they will
  likewise be inclined to downplay
  or otherwise discount the danger
  that any given chemical weapons
  development “jeopardizes
  U.S. national security.”

Lott’s Dismal Legacy

In placing undue reliance upon
assurances laced with such wiggle-room,
to say nothing of misrepresenting the
character of the President’s commitment,
the Senate Majority Leader misled enough
of his colleagues to ensure that this
fatally flawed Convention received the
two-thirds majority required for its
approval. It is highly regrettable that,
as a result, the Nation is now saddled
with obligations, costs and risks that
could have been avoided.

It is also tragic insofar as this vote
reinforces one of the most pernicious
notions to afflict American security in
the 20^th Century — namely,
the proposition that arms control
agreements signed with nations that do
not respect laws at home or abroad can
contribute to U.S. security. As Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said
in powerful closing comments opposing the
CWC, this treaty will have the United
States once again relying upon pieces of
paper instead of defense for its
security. Regrettably, she concluded, it
will likely make the threat of chemical
warfare worse and hurt the
Nation’s ability to protect its people
and interests.

By advocating a treaty whose
uncorrected defects Senator Lott has
acknowledged, the Majority Leader has
aligned himself — and the Senate he
leads — with policies that may enjoy the
support of the Clinton Administration and
certain Republicans whose views seem
increasingly indistinguishable from even
those in the left-wing of the Democratic
Party. That he apparently did so out of a
belief that President Clinton would
reciprocate by helping secure Democratic
votes for a balanced budget simply
underscores the short shrift Mr. Lott
seems to give national security issues —
to say nothing of what might charitably
be called naivete on the part of someone
who prides himself on his skills as a
political operative. This was no
act of “courage”; it was an act
of folly.

The New Leaders

Fortunately, the Senate’s debate on
the Chemical Weapons Convention
established that there is a new
generation of conservative leaders who
place national security above the art of
the deal. This was evidenced by
the willingness of a large number of
truly courageous Republican Senators to
cast politically difficult but
substantively correct votes. Their
courage is all the greater since they
voted against the CWC notwithstanding the
failure of leadership exhibited by Sen.
Lott and in the face of the political
cover given President Clinton by the
likes of Bob Dole, George Bush, Jim
Baker, Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft.

The Center for Security Policy takes
special pride in acknowledging the
preeminent figure among these new
leaders: Senator Jon Kyl
of Arizona, a recipient of the Center’s
‘Keeper of the Flame’ Award in 1994,
whose mastery of the details of the CWC
and whose tireless work to fix or defeat
this treaty was indispensable to Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms’
own heroic opposition to this flawed
accord. Others among the freshman and
sophomore classes who proved their mettle
in the course of this debate and
established themselves as comers in the
Senate on national security matters
include: Senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK),
Bob Smith (R-NH), Kay
Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), John
Ashcroft (R-MO), Tim
Hutchinson (R-AR) and Wayne
Allard (R-CO).

Of perhaps even greater significance
is the fact that Senator Lott was
virtually the only member of the Senate’s
Republican leadership to vote for the
Chemical Weapons Convention. In
particular, Senator Don Nickles
deserves special commendation for his
willingness to speak truth to power on
this treaty — to point out the
fraudulent nature of President Clinton’s
letter and to denounce the CWC’s
proliferation-exacerbating provisions. He
other top Republicans who distinguished
themselves by opposing Senator Lott on
this treaty were: Larry Craig
of Idaho, Connie Mack of
Florida, Paul Coverdell
of Georgia and Phil Gramm of
Texas.

Together with prominent political
figures outside the Senate who joined the
aforementioned Senators in opposing the
CWC — notably Malcolm S.
“Steve” Forbes, Jr., Jack Kemp,
Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes —
there are grounds for hope that the
Nation will be afforded a real
alternative in the future to the
manifestly defective Clinton-Bush
security policies.

The Bottom Line

While it seems likely that the Nation
will have cause to regret Senator Lott’s
decision to enable ratification of the
Chemical Weapons Convention, the Center
for Security Policy takes heart from the
fact that the new generation of national
security-minded leaders in the Senate
seem certain to exercise greater
influence over decision-making in that
body in the future. At a minimum, it
would appear that ample votes will be
available to block the raft of equally
flawed Clinton arms control initiatives
now in the wings — initiatives
affecting, for example, nuclear testing,
missile defenses, fissile materials and
landmines, but that lack comparable
Republican sponsorship.

If the debate on the Chemical
Weapons Convention has no other effect
but to establish the need for serious
national security-minded leadership in
the Congress — and to identify those
prepared and equipped to fill
that void, it may go some way to
offsetting the serious harm this treaty
will otherwise do to U.S. national
interests. The Center for
Security Policy is gratified to have
played a part in stimulating and
informing such a debate.

– 30 –

1. It is worth
noting that the President often professes
that the United States will be
“prepared” to deploy national
missile defenses thanks to his
“three-plus-three” deployment
readiness plan. Saying something is, of
course, not the same thing as it being
so.