White House Lobbying Group Discredits Itself, Not Luntz Poll, In Attack On Finding That Americans Oppose A Flawed C.W.C.

(Washington, D.C.): On 14 April, a
U.S. government interagency team
responsible for coordinating the lobbying
effort on the controversial Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC) stooped to new
lows in the campaign to foist a fatally
flawed treaty on the Senate and the
American people. It castigated as
misleading and “fatally flawed”
a national poll conducted for the Center
for Security Policy by a respected
opinion research firm, Luntz Research
Companies — then lauded the results of
an earlier poll, whose results suited the
Administration but which was, itself,
highly misleading.

This lobbying team is dubbed the
“White House Working Group on the
Chemical Weapons Convention” and
issues periodic “News Alerts”
offering the Administration’s spin on
selected developments that might affect
the prospects for ratification of the
CWC. The degree to which this Working
Group and its sales job for the treaty
are divorced from reality can be
discerned in the motto displayed on the
Group’s Alerts: “Making the first
century of chemical weapons the
last.” There is zero prospect that
chemical weapons will cease to exist in
the 21^st Century — with or
without this treaty.

The Critique — and the
Facts

The White House lobbyists criticize
the Luntz poll for failing to tell
respondents that the United States
decided to eliminate “nearly all of
its chemical weapons with or without the
CWC.” By its own terms, this
statement acknowledges that under
the approach adopted by President Reagan,
the U.S. would have retained some
chemical weapons. href=”97-D54.html#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾
It seems unlikely that noting this policy
context would have materially affected
the dramatic results of the Luntz poll.

The Working Group’s real complaint is
not that the Center for Security Policy
gave those polled too little information,
but too much. The White House
clearly preferred the context-free
question most often cited from the
Wirthlin Group survey conducted last
February: “Should the United States
Senate ratify a treaty which would ban
the production, possession, transfer and
use of poison gas worldwide?” Since
this formulation says the treaty would
ban poison gas — suggesting that the
result would be a world in which chemical
weapons actually would be eliminated —
it is surprising that only 84% of those
polled said they would be in favor of it.

As noted in a press release issued by
the Center for Security Policy last week,
the more interesting test is how
the public would feel about a treaty that
did not accomplish that noble — but
unachievable — goal and that had,
instead, certain undesirable results.
Unlike the Wirthlin poll, the Luntz
survey did not assert that the CWC
“would” have the effects in
question but simply asked how the
respondents would feel were the treaty to
have such effects.

In fact, testimony before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee over
the past ten days by distinguished former
officials, businessmen and other
authorities has established the validity
of each of the concerns
identified in the Luntz poll.
Consider the four questions polled, the
White House critique and the facts as
they now are known:

1. An Ineffective Treaty

“Would you support the
treaty…if only the United States and
its allies wound up obeying it while
other, potentially hostile countries like
Russia, China, Iran, Iraq or North Korea
keep their chemical weapons?”
The Luntz poll found that only 31% of
those surveyed would support a treaty
that had this effect compared to 60% who
would oppose it. (The spread among
Republican voters was even more
pronounced: 25-68%, with 50% saying they
would “strongly oppose” it
compared with 44% who did so in the
general population.)

The White House
Working Group supports its claim that
such a question is
“disingenuous” by noting that
Russia, China and Iran are all
signatories and will be subjected to the
treaty’s “extensive verification
procedures” if they become parties.
It acknowledges that other rogue states
may remain outside the treaty, but
contends that the treaty will provide
“new tools” that will make
their efforts to “acquire or produce
chemical weapons…more difficult than it
would be without the treaty.”
Finally, it asserts that allowing fears
about rogue states retaining chemical
weapons to call into question the value
of the CWC is akin to saying we should
not pass anti-drug smuggling laws for
fear they will not be obeyed.

Four former Secretaries of Defense — James
Schlesinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Caspar
Weinberger and Dick
Cheney — and a number of other
authorities have made clear that the
“extensive verification
procedures” provided by the CWC will
not be sufficient to catch potential
adversaries determined to maintain covert
chemical stockpiles. Some rogue states,
like Iran, are known by the U.S.
government to be benefitting from
assistance in building chemical weapons
from another prospective state party,
China. It is untenable to claim that such
assistance will end simply because such
countries enter into this unverifiable
Convention — particularly since the
treaty’s Article XI will actually provide
legitimacy to cover-operations (for
example, by allowing China to describe
the transfer of chemical weapons
technology as merely cooperation in the
development of Iran’s pesticide or
fertilizer industry).

Numerous witnesses have made the point
that Article XI is inconsistent with the
effort to maintain supplier controls on
the transfer of such technology to rogue
states. If, as seems likely, the most
successful such effort — known as the
Australia Group — is undermined or
effectively put out of business by the
CWC, among the beneficiaries could be
rogue states outside the regime.
Certainly having one rogue state, Iran,
which has strategic ties to others
(notably Syria, Libya and Sudan) inside
the proverbial tent makes a mockery of
the idea that the treaty will
significantly control the rogues’ access
to chemical weaponry.

Finally, there is a clear difference
between a U.S. law which the full power
of the government can be brought to bear
to enforce and an international treaty
that even the more honest CWC proponents
acknowledge is unenforceable. Even in the
case of some domestic laws — for
example, Prohibition — the infeasibility
of a making a ban work has prompted the
Nation to forego that ban in favor of
other, more practical approaches. (It is
a safe bet that many among the CWC’s
advocates on the Left would favor
decriminalizing marijuana, and perhaps
other drugs, on these grounds among
others.)

2. A Treaty That Exacerbates
Proliferation

“Would you support the
treaty…if it would result in the
transfer of technology that could help
countries like Iran, Cuba or China increase
their ability to fight chemical
wars?”

Respondents said
they would oppose such a treaty by a
19-70% margin, with Republicans again
opposing it even more dramatically (i.e.,
by a 17-76% margin with 62%
“strongly opposed” compared to
53% in the general population).

The Administration’s lobbyists dismiss
concerns that the CWC could actually exacerbate
the problem of chemical weapons
proliferation by: 1) reciting the
treaty’s general prohibition against
transferring chemical weapons and 2)
selectively quoting from the specific
obligation that would — consistent with
the practice of legal construction over
the past few millennia — govern the
general obligation.

Unfortunately, as noted above,
the treaty’s Article I prohibition can be
readily circumvented by countries willing
cynically to use its Article XI as cover
for the transfer of chemical
weapons-relevant technology. The
White House Working Group’s “News
Alert” reproduces the latter article
in the following, selective fashion:
“…States Parties shall
facilitate…and have the right to
participate in…information
relating…to chemistry.” A more
complete — and accurate — quote would
read: “…States parties
shall…undertake to facilitate, and have
the right to participate in, the
fullest possible exchange of
chemicals, equipment and scientific and
technical information relating to the
development and application of
chemistry….”

The key differences between the two
versions, of course, is that the White
House left out the inconvenient modifiers
“fullest possible” and failed
to note that much more than just
chemistry information would be shared.
Some signatories (notably, Iran, China,
Pakistan, Brazil and Cuba) have made
clear their view that this language
supercedes — and requires the
dismantling of — export controls and
other inhibitions to trade. So have U.S.
chemical manufacturers, who (despite
vehement denials that they are interested
in opening up new markets in countries
like Iran) acknowledged Tuesday under
questioning by Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Jesse Helms that they
had supported H.R. 361 last year. This
legislation would have created
license-free U.S. trade in chemicals with
states parties to the Chemical Weapons
Convention, effectively gutting American
export controls in this area.

The White House release does note that
the “fullest possible exchange”
contemplated by Article XI is supposed to
be limited to “purposes not
prohibited under this Convention.”
Unfortunately, as former Director of
Central Intelligence and Defense
Secretary James Schlesinger, among
others, has pointed out, there is
no material difference between advanced
chemical facilities designed to produce
fertilizers, pesticides or
pharmaceuticals and plants capable of
turning out large quantities of lethal
chemical agents for weapons purposes.
The transfer of the former for ostensibly
non-prohibited purposes assures the
acquisition of the latter by any state
party that wants such prohibited military
capabilities.

3. A Treaty that is Unenforceable

“Would you support the
treaty… if countries that violated its
prohibitions went unpunished?”

The Luntz poll determined that such a
treaty would be opposed by the American
people by a margin of 16-73% and by
Republicans by a spread of 16-76% (with
61% “strongly opposed” compared
to 56% in the general population).

The Clinton Administration professes
an unwavering commitment to enforce the
Chemical Weapons Convention and insists
that, by being party to this Convention,
it will have tools with which to
“prevent, stop or punish those who
would produce or acquire chemical
weapons.” Unfortunately, in
our past experience with this
Administration — or, for that matter,
any other Administration — nothing
suggests that violators will actually be
punished. Invariably, it is
argued that the evidence of a violation
is inconclusive or unpersuasive,
especially to those sympathetic to the
accused. Testimony before the Foreign
Relations Committee makes clear that this
will almost certainly be true of the
Chemical Weapons Convention as well,
since samples suggesting traces of
illegal chemical weapons activities will
lend themselves to intense scientific
challenge and debate.

In any event, in the case of
violations of the CWC — as with every
previous arms control agreement — the
argument will be made that preserving the
treaty regime is more important than
taking divisive action against a
suspected violator. To be sure, this is,
as treaty supporters contend, primarily a
matter of will. Regrettably, the
proponents of arms control agreements
always show more will to enforce their
accords at the time of ratification than
after they are in effect and being
violated.

4. A Treaty With Ominous
Inspection Arrangements

“Would you support the
treaty…if it would authorize UN
inspectors to go to any site in the
United States, potentially without legal
search warrants and potentially risking
American business or military
secrets?”

The Luntz
survey indicates that such a treaty would
be opposed by a 22-68% margin with
Republican voters opposing it 16-76%
(with 57% “strongly opposed,”
compared to 49% among the general
population).

The White House lobbying group claims
that “The United Nations will have
no role in implementing the CWC.” In
fact, the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
is, like the International Atomic Energy
Agency, affiliated with the UN. What is
more, enforcement of this treaty is, by
the treaty’s own terms, a responsibility
of the UN Security Council.

That there will be constitutional
problems with the CWC’s inspection
arrangements — a fact conclusively
demonstrated by two of the Nation’s
leading authorities on the Constitution href=”97-D54.html#N_2_”>⁽²⁾
— has been acknowledged by one of the
treaty’s principal champions, Senator Joe
Biden (D-DE). Sen. Biden has agreed to
attach a condition to the resolution of
ratification that would require criminal
search warrants for all involuntary
challenge inspections. There remains
concern, however, that American citizens
and companies may find themselves euchred
into “volunteering” to accept
such inspections. For example, the
Clinton Administration’s draft
implementing legislation allows the
government to assess companies for the
cost of obtaining criminal search
warrants and/or to deny uncooperative
companies the opportunity to do work for
the U.S. government. It seems entirely
possible that those unwilling to
voluntarily submit to inspections could
also be subjected to harassment from such
agencies as the EPA, OSHA or the IRS.

As numerous industry experts,
including Donald Rumsfeld,
Malcolm “Steve” Forbes
and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s Dr. Kathleen
Bailey explained to the Foreign
Relations Committee, it is unclear
exactly how many U.S. businesses will
ultimately be caught up in the Chemical
Weapons Convention’s reporting,
regulatory and inspection regime. That
said, these experts agree that the number
of “fewer than 2,000 American
companies” being cited by the White
House lobbyists is almost certainly too
low. Neither is it correct to believe, as
the 14 April “News Alert”
contends that “any
challenge inspections are expected to be
directed largely at military
facilities.” (Emphasis added.) Even
if that were true, the result would
likely be the loss of classified
information relevant to the national
security.

In fact, in the words of James
Schlesinger, these inspections
will be a “godsend” for foreign
intelligence operatives seeking
commercial secrets. At least some of
those serving on the OPCW’s inspection
teams will be trained and assigned to
conduct economic espionage against
American companies. The opportunities and
techniques authorized by this treaty will
afford them an unprecedented chance to do
just that — with potentially devastating
effect on the competitiveness of the
affected companies. It is naive — if not
thoroughly disingenuous — to suggest
otherwise.

The Bottom Line

Notwithstanding the Clinton
Administration’s intense sales campaign,
the facts about the Chemical Weapons
Convention are getting out to the
American people. When they learn that the
treaty will not work, will have real and
unjustifiable costs and may actually make
the danger of chemical attacks worse,
they overwhelmingly oppose this treaty.
If their elected representatives in
Washington vote on the basis of those
facts — rather than the misleading
information being promulgated by the
White House lobbyists and like-minded
special interests — there is little
doubt that this public sentiment will be
translate into a rejection of the CWC by
the Senate.

– 30 –

1. It is
noteworthy that the Clinton
Administration is now prepared to
acknowledge that the decision to
eliminate all U.S. chemical
weapons was not made by Ronald Reagan or
by statute. The draft CWC negotiated
during the Reagan Administration
explicitly contemplated the retention by
the United States of a 500 agent ton
stockpile of modern, binary chemical
weapons as a credible retaliatory
stockpile until such time as the Soviet
Union and/or all other nations’ chemical
arsenals were approaching the point of
being verifiably eliminated.

2. See John Yoo’s
op.ed. article in yesterday’s Wall
Street Journal entitled “The
Chemical Weapons Treaty is
Unconstitutional” and Ronald
Rotunda’s detailed analysis sent to
Senator Jesse Helms on 6 April 1997.