In his State of the Union address, President Clinton pushed for ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, despite a newspaper report that very morning that Russia plans to circumvent the treaty!
Last month the Washington Times published excerpts from a secret intelligence report detailing Russian plans to proceed with chemical weapons development in clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Times reported that the Russians have created a deadly nerve agent "from industrial and agricultural chemicals that are not lethal until mixed." The individual chemicals, which are not barred by the Chemical Weapons Convention, can be combined quickly in covert facilities, thus making detection by international inspectors virtually impossible. These shocking revelations apparently had no impact on America's commander-in-chief, whose State of the Union address later that day featured a ringing endorsement of the proposed treaty.
Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy warns that the Chemical Weapons Convention will "seriously damage United States national security interests and impose a massive, new regulatory burden upon thousands of U.S. businesses." He says the Treaty "will do nothing to reduce the arsenals of terrorist countries and other nations hostile to the United States." Several such countries "have neither signed nor ratified" the treaty, observes Gaffney, citing Libya, Syria, Iraq, and North Korea as examples. China has not yet ratified the Treaty; nor has Russia, "the country with the largest chemical weapons arsenal in the world."
Gaffney considers the Treaty unverifiable. He worries that it "will forbid United States commanders from using tear gas and other riot-control agents to protect our soldiers in the field and minimize civilian casualties." And he argues that the Treaty "will create yet another international bureaucracy costing millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars."
Analyst Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation charges that the Treaty "contains serious short-comings. It is neither reliably verifiable nor enforceable. But the potential damage," he says, "is not limited merely to national security. It also will impose a costly regulatory burden on American businesses and thus harm America's economy." The Treaty would require American businesses to "prove to the U.S. government and international inspectors that they are not producing or stockpiling chemical weapons," Spring explains. "Failure to comply with these regulations could result in companies being fined as much as $50,000 per incident."
Following the rules isn't cheap either. Complying with the terms of the Treaty could cost American businesses as much as $200 million a year, says Spring. That doesn't include "potential indirect costs to businesses, such as those stemming from the loss of confidential information." Spring stresses that the Treaty would apply not just to chemical companies, but to almost any business that uses chemicals. Given the Treaty's potentially negative impact on our economy and our liberties, and the likelihood that Russia will not abide by its provisions anyway, the United States Senate should emphatically reject the Chemical Weapons Convention.
