Chemical Arms Pact: U.S. Holds Out at the Peril of All

By its failure to ratify the international Chemical Weapons Convention, the Senate continues to embarrass the United States and jeopardize its national security. The treaty, signed four years ago and since ratified by 67 countries--China is expected to join that list soon--bans the development, production, stockpiling, transfer and use of chemical weapons.

Impetus for the accord came from a 1985 congressional mandate that sought to outlaw these weapons. But despite broad bipartisan backing and a renewed appeal from President Clinton, the treaty remains bottled up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose chairman, Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), seems determined to keep it from going to a floor vote.

With this exercise of power Helms pits his quirky biases against the informed analyses of such treaty backers as former President George Bush; Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell, and former Secretaries of State James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger. Certainly none of these men can be accused of being soft on national security issues.

What are Helms’ objections to the treaty? Chiefly, he says, that it would not prevent rogue states like Iraq, a non-signatory, from acquiring or using chemical weapons and that the accord could be detrimental to American chemical companies. But the Chemical Manufacturers Assn., the leading industry group, is on record as believing that “ratifying the treaty is the right thing to do.” And certainly Iraq and other dangerous states that seek to acquire chemical weapons arsenals can be more effectively monitored within the framework of a treaty subscribed to by most of the world’s nations--and in which the United States fully participates--than they could be in the absence of any effective international verification process.q

The convention takes effect on April 29, with or without U.S. ratification. If the United States remains outside the treaty it will have no seat on the executive council that will oversee its operations, nor could U.S. citizens serve as verification inspectors. The Senate’s Republican leaders should move quickly to bring treaty ratification to a floor vote, to avoid this foolish self-exclusion and the threat it poses to American interests and global security.