Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Nebraska, and if he needs more time, let me know. We are kind of tight on time. Then, in accordance with the unanimous-consent request by the majority leader, I will yield 7 minutes of my time to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, [Mr. Bingaman].

Mr. BIDEN. I ask, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, this amendment strikes condition 29. I will speak to this in a moment, but I yield as much time of the half-hour that I control as my friend from Indiana desires to discuss this.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BIDEN. That the remaining time that the chairman have be 35 minutes, the remaining time under the control for the Senator from Delaware be 15 minutes, and I believe Senator Leahy has 14 minutes anyway, and that be the remaining time on the bill.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Only to recognize Mr. Hagel.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Without objection.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield 10 seconds for a unanimous-consent request regarding a staff member? Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Greg Suchan, a fellow on the staff of Senator McCain, be granted the privilege of the floor during the discussion of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, just as my friend from Idaho knows a lot about mining and knows a lot about potatoes and knows a lot about apples, because they are big issues in his State, I assure you, being a Senator from Delaware, if there was any genuine opposition from the chemical industry for this treaty, since most of those companies are incorporated in my State and it makes up 56 percent of my State's economy, I assure you, I would hear about it. Now, there may be some companies that do not like it, but I want to tell you, to use the expression, there may be reasons why for this in the minds of my colleagues, but none of the big boys, none of the outfits that do this as a big business, none of the outfits with multibillion-dollar operations, none of them, that I am aware of, are opposed to this treaty. They strongly support it. I yield 7 minutes to my friend from Ohio.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield myself as much time as I might take, and I am only going to take a few minutes. Mr. President, the reason I mention the Chemical Manufacturers Association is not that they should determine the foreign policy. My friend from Idaho is saying that the target of this kind of espionage, or stealing secrets, whatever, is going to be the chemical industry. All I am pointing out is, just as they should not determine the foreign policy, I respectfully suggest my friend from Idaho does not know anything about their secrets. The chemical industry knows about their secrets, and they believe that this treaty fully protects them in maintaining their secrets. That is the point I was making. You know that play and movie that is out, ``Don't Cry for Me Argentina,'' well, don't worry about the chemical companies, they think they can take care of themselves in terms of their secrets. One last point. The Senator raised, as others have raised, the 1 ton of weapons and 2 tons that could be amassed, et cetera. I want to point out what John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, and he is not quoted by the Senator from Idaho, but others. Everyone quotes John Shalikashvili as saying that 1 ton of chemical weapons is militarily significant and that we cannot effectively guarantee we could uncover 1 ton. Let me read what General Shalikashvili said: A militarily significant quantity of chemical weapons is situationally dependent. Thousands-- Thousands-- of tons of chemical agent would be required to significantly impact on a large scale engagement while a mere ton of agent could be effective as a weapon of terror. He went on to say: In certain limited circumstances-- I emphasize ``in certain limited circumstances''-- even 1 ton of chemical agent may have a military impact, for example, if chemical weapons are used as a weapon of terror against an unprotected population in a regional conflict. He went on to say further: The United States should be resolute that the 1-ton limit set by the convention will be our guide. He did not mean, however, that 1 ton was an appropriate standard for what constitutes effective verifiability. Rather, General Shali meant that the 1-ton limit in the CWC on agent stocks for peaceful purposes-- that is the context in which he talked about it--was appropriate and that any country's stock in excess of 1 ton would likely be for offensive military purposes. So what he is saying--the 1 ton that keeps being used--he is saying if you detect that there is more than a ton of chemical weapons out there, they are probably doing it not for peaceful purposes, they are probably doing it to gain some military advantage. But it would take a lot more than 1 ton to have a major effect on a battle, a major effect on our security. He said it would take thousands of tons. Other people may think in this body that 1 ton is militarily significant and if you can't effectively verify 1 ton then there is no verification in terms of our strategic interests. They may think that, but that is not what the Joint Chiefs think. The 1-ton reference was for the purpose of determining whether or not a country was trying to do more than use those chemicals for peaceful purposes. He says, if you have more than 1 ton, it is a pretty good sign that these are bad guys and they are trying to do something worse, but they are nowhere near being militarily significant in terms of U.S. security. I see my friend.

Mr. BIDEN. I will be happy to yield when I finish. He also said the intelligence community says, ``They have never found anything that is successfully hidden.'' I do not know how many of you are golfers. That is like saying you cannot sink a putt if it is short. Obviously, a putt will not go in if it does not get to the hole. Obviously, you cannot uncover something that is successfully hidden. The last point I would make is the chemical industry, the outfit that represents the bulk of the chemical industry has strongly endorsed this treaty. I am just responding to the last point that the chemical industry is the target. The chemical industry, coincidentally, is for this treaty. But I would be happy, now, on Senator Helms' time, to yield back to my friend from Idaho.

Mr. BIDEN. Not on my time. I will be delighted to yield on the time of the Senator, since I have limited time, on Senator Helms' time.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I found it fascinating, the statement of my friend from Idaho. He made a very compelling case, from his perspective, as why we cannot verify the treaty and therefore why we should be against the treaty--because we cannot verify it. We cannot verify it because, he says, we cannot inspect sufficiently well. And that is why he is against the treaty. Then he says one of the other reasons he is against the treaty is because the verification regime is so intrusive that it will allow the opposition--allow rogue states to get access to information in the chemical industry. So, if we correct one problem, which is to make it more verifiable, then he would argue he is against the treaty because it is verifiable. If you do not make it more verifiable, he said, he is against the treaty because it is not verifiable.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield 30 seconds to myself. I ask unanimous consent that a statement of the Chemical Manufacturers Association be printed in the Record, as well as the list of those companies supporting this treaty.

Mr. BIDEN. No, I yield myself 3 minutes and then I will yield to the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes and then I will yield to the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. BIDEN. I yield the distinguished Senator from New Jersey 7 minutes.

Mr. BIDEN. That ``four month'' comment reminds me of a joke about the two guys who were cheering at the bar, clapping their hands. A guy walks into the bar and says, ``What are they so happy about?'' Another guy says, ``Oh, they just put together a jigsaw puzzle, and they did it in 3 hours.'' The guy walks up to them and says, ``Congratulations, but why is that so special?'' They showed him the box, which said ``2 to 4 years.'' At any rate, it will take a while for that to sink in. A little bit of levity in the chemical weapons treaty is worth the effort. The junior Senator from Arizona complimented me on the limited success that we have achieved here. I thank him for that. Now I am going to yield to a man of unlimited capacity to prove to everyone that there is no limit to the success we are about to achieve in this treaty. I yield 15 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Arizona, my good friend, John McCain.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, as we close the first day of debate on the Chemical Weapons Convention, I wanted to insert into the Record an explanation of the 28 conditions to the resolution of ratification that we adopted this afternoon, so we can create a legislative history. Mr. President, the Chemical Weapons Convention is a fine arms control agreement. It can stand on its own. But the U.S. Senate has a constitutional duty to consider carefully all the implications of treaties submitted for its advice and consent to ratification. Such careful consideration often enables us to spot aspects of an agreement that merit clarification, or implementation matters on which we would be well advised to require particular executive branch policies. The Chemical Weapons Convention is no exception to this rule. Over the years since its signing over 4 years ago, near the end of the Bush administration, we have identified several areas in which clarifying the convention's intent or establishing requirements regarding executive branch implementation would be useful. In addition, there were several areas in which some of my colleagues wanted assurances that went beyond those that the executive branch or I could give them, even though we thought that such reassurances ought to suffice. In many such cases, the easiest way of providing the needed assurances was to codify them in a condition to the resolution of ratification. The convention enters into force on April 29, with or without the United States. To be an original state party, therefore, the President must deposit the instrument of ratification by midnight on April 28. As a technical matter, the Senate's vote is not the final word, because the Senate does not ``ratify'' a treaty; it provides advice and consent to it. Once that occurs, the President then must formally ratify--an indication to our treaty partners that the United States is consenting to be legally bound to its terms--by signing an ``instrument of ratification.'' The President then directs the Secretary of State to deposit that instrument at a central location designated by the convention; then, once the convention enters into force, the United States is bound under international law to abide by its terms. The Senate's role in providing consent to a treaty is not that of a rubber stamp. The Senate may attach amendments or reservations to the treaty--essentially changing the terms of the original bargain between the United States and its treaty partners, or it may adopt conditions, which are, in effect, a binding contract between the Senate and the President which will govern how the treaty will be implemented or interpreted under U.S. law and practice. In the case of the Chemical Weapons Convention, no amendments to the convention's text have been, or will be, offered; the Senate has already moved beyond the stage in its consideration of treaties in which such amendments would be in order. Neither have any reservations been put forth--although article XXII of the convention purports to prevent a party from doing so. The Senate has gone on record several times, and does so again in condition 17, that the President's agreement to such a prohibition cannot constrain the Senate's constitutional right and obligation to give its advice and consent to a treaty subject to any reservation it might determine is required by the national interest. Instead, we have a set of 28 conditions which were agreed to by those involved in the negotiations to date, and which the Senate approved by voice vote earlier this afternoon. These conditions, as stated before, are binding upon the President. Several conditions will be debated tomorrow which are tantamount to killing the treaty. For example, any condition which requires a renegotiation of the treaty--as condition 32 does--is a killer, plain and simple, because there is no way that this treaty can be renegotiated. Additionally, any condition which requires the President to make impossible certifications before depositing the instrument of ratification will prevent the United States from formally entering the convention. As I described earlier, there have been several stages of negotiation to work out agreed conditions to the resolution and to narrow our areas of disagreement. The Senator from North Carolina and I engaged in many hours of negotiation as part of this process. The end result of our negotiations, of the negotiations between the White House and the task force established by the majority leader, and of discussions directly between the White House and the majority leader is a set of 28 agreed conditions to the resolution of ratification. I would like to summarize and comment upon those agreed conditions, so that my colleagues may understand what we have achieved. For I think that we have achieved quite a lot. I also think that Members should study the many agreed conditions that the Senator from North Carolina was able to propound. Frankly, virtually all of the concerns that have been raised regarding the CWC have been addressed in these agreed conditions, in a manner that should substantially ease those concerns. So I would like to summarize, Mr. President, what the Senator from North Carolina and I, along with other Members and the executive branch, have been able to achieve. providing protection for industry The CWC contains a number of built-in protections for U.S. businesses, largely because industry helped write many of the convention's provisions. A number of conditions have been added, however, to provide even greater protection for business. Condition 16 provides that if an employee of the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons, or OPCW, willfully discloses U.S. confidential business information that causes financial harm to a U.S. business, the President must inform Congress. If the director-general does not waive the employee's diplomatic immunity from prosecution, which may be done pursuant to paragraph 20 of the CWC's confidentiality annex, within 9 months of the President's reporting the matter to Congress, the President is required to withhold half of the U.S. contribution to the OPCW until that employee's immunity from prosecution is waived. This will serve as a strong deterrent to breaches of confidential information. You might call it a ``don't mess with our trade secrets'' condition. Condition 18 is a further protection for proprietary information. This condition prohibits any samples collected during inspections in the United States from being analyzed in a foreign laboratory. This will greatly reduce the risk of industrial espionage. I frankly have concerns about this condition. I hope it does not lead to every country keeping all its samples in-country, so that all of Iran's samples are analyzed in Iran and all of Russia's samples are analyzed in Russia. But there is no question that this is a major concession to some of my colleagues' concerns regarding the need to protect confidential business information. Condition 9 requires the President to certify, both now and annually, that the CWC's limits on the production and use of the most toxic chemical weapons and their precursors are not significantly harming the legitimate commercial activities and interests of chemical, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical firms. The administration is fully prepared to make that certification. The Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations have all taken extraordinary measures to limit the impact of the CWC upon U.S. businesses. For example, the Bush administration made sure that challenge inspections would be subject to ``managed access,'' in which a firm will be able to limit the access of inspectors to the minimum necessary to disprove any allegations of CWC violations by that firm. And the Clinton administration worked with other countries in the CWC Preparatory Commission to make sure that most of the businesses covered by the convention will only have to fill out a short form to comply with the requirement for data declarations. Condition 21 puts the Senate on record supporting the provision of assistance to U.S. businesses by the On-Site Inspection Agency--or OSIA--an arm of the Department of Defense. OSIA has years of experience in helping protect sensitive information during inspections of Government-run facilities and defense contractors. This Agency lacks authority to aid other U.S. businesses, however. Following through on this provision with authorizing legislation--which I would hope we could do in the CWC implementing legislation--would ensure that American businesses have the full benefit of OSIA's expertise available to them. Under condition 23, the Senate will be informed promptly of the proposed addition of a chemical to any of the CWC's schedules of chemicals. A report from the President will indicate the anticipated effect of such proposal on U.S. industry. If a proposed addition should appear to promise too great a burden on U.S. industry for too little gain in protection against chemical weapons, Congress will then have time to convince the executive branch to force that proposed addition into a CWC process that requires two-thirds vote of the states parties to adopt the change. holding down u.s. costs Allegations have been made that the CWC will create a massive U.S.- style bureaucracy that will cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Several conditions have been agreed upon to keep U.S. costs to a minimum and ensure a well-managed organization. Under condition 22, regular U.S. contributions to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, have been capped at $25 million annually. Any increase to this cap must cross two high hurdles. First, the President must make a ``national security interest'' waiver. Second, the Congress must enact a joint resolution approving the President's waiver. Fortunately, condition 22 allows a periodic inflation adjustment to the regular U.S. contribution. In addition, the United States will be permitted to contribute funds to help the OPCW handle the costs of monitoring U.S. destruction of chemical weapons. Those are costs that we originally intended to fund for implementation of the 1990 bilateral destruction agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, and they have not been included in the regular OPCW budget. Condition 2 provides that any U.S. contributions to the OPCW will be subject to congressional authorization and appropriation. This means that not one dollar can be transferred to the organization by the U.S. Government without congressional approval. Pursuant to condition 3, the OPCW must create an independent inspector general within its first 9 months of operation. Otherwise, half of the regular U.S. contribution to the OPCW budget will be withheld. An inspector general will ensure rigorous oversight of OPCW activities and expenditures. While it is in the U.S. interest for the CWC to have a strong verification regime, we should not have to foot the bill for all of the research and development that goes to improving verification. That is why condition 4 was included, to require that any research and development by the United States that is designed primarily to improve the verification provisions of the CWC--including the training of OPCW inspectors--must be pursuant to an agreed cost-sharing arrangement that spreads the costs of such R&D equitably between the United States and the organization. A cost-sharing arrangement will also be required in order to share items or services that were developed through U.S. research and development. It will still be possible, however, for U.S. agencies to pursue R&D programs so as to improve U.S. monitoring of chemical weapons, and cost-sharing arrangements need not be in place unless and until the United States wants to share the results with the OPCW. We would also not want to be stuck with the bill for Russian destruction of their vast chemical weapons stockpile. So there is agreement on condition 14, under which the United States shall not accept any Russian effort to condition its ratification of CWC upon United States guarantees to pay for Russian implementation of chemical weapons destruction under the CWC or the 1990 bilateral destruction agreement. ensuring improved monitoring, verification and enforcement Some opponents of CWC have alleged that the convention will lead to a ``dumbing down'' of U.S. intelligence and that the United States will shy away from taking tough actions when faced with instances of noncompliance. Three conditions address these concerns head-on. We all know that monitoring and verification of some aspects of CWC compliance will be difficult. This fact of life has prompted understandable concern on the part of some Members, and the administration has accepted a condition-- No. 10--that requires both periodic reports and prompt notice regarding world chemical weapons programs and the status of CWC compliance. The executive branch would also offer briefings on current compliance issues, including issues to be raised in OPCW meetings and the results of those meetings. The careful reader of condition 10 may note some hyperbole in it. Thus, the first subparagraph states that ``the convention is in the interests of the United States only if all parties * * * are in strict compliance * * *, such compliance being measured by performance and not by efforts * * *'' In truth, of course, there may be major violations or minor shortfalls. If a party is delayed in its sincere efforts to clean up the vestiges of a long-inactive chemical weapons program, that will hardly constitute a threat to U.S. national interests. But the drafters of this condition are on to something; even minor violations by a few parties could erode the commitment of other parties to strict compliance with the convention. The important thing is that the administration is not afraid to keep Congress in the loop on CWC compliance issues. Condition 10 requires briefings at least four times a year for the Congress on U.S. actions taken to address compliance issues. This regular flow of information will allow the Congress to keep abreast of chemical weapons programs and to judge for itself whether the United States is doing enough to detect and respond to noncompliance. It may be in our interest at times to share intelligence with the OPCW, especially so as to maximize the effectiveness of the CWC's on- site inspection regime. All agree that we should take steps to protect U.S. sources and methods when sharing intelligence information. Thanks to the work of the senior Senator from Alabama, which I am happy to commend, condition 5 has been added to do just that. It requires the intelligence community, at the interagency level, to fully sanitize and to approve all intelligence information before it is released to the OPCW. The Director of Central Intelligence can waive this requirement for particular documents on a case-by-case basis, but that must be promptly reported to the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees of the Congress. The Director must also report on the procedures set up to protect classified information and on any unauthorized disclosures of information provided to the OPCW. The Senator from Alabama's condition makes a real contribution to the verification of compliance with the CWC. The ability of the United States to share information with the OPCW is vital to catching would-be violators of the convention. I hope that this condition will not only ease the Senator's concerns over the protection of intelligence sources and methods, but also reassure him that the overall convention is in the national interest. All of us want the executive branch to act effectively in the event that a State party should violate the CWC in any manner that threatened U.S. national security interests. Condition 13 will require the executive branch to report to and consult with the Senate regarding such violations and to make effective use of CWC provisions for challenge inspections, high-level diplomacy and U.N. sanctions. The executive branch also agrees that any sanctions required by U.S. law should be implemented in such a case. Pursuant to subparagraph (A)(vi), if the noncompliance should persist for a year, the executive branch will be bound to consult with the Senate for the purposes of obtaining a resolution of support of continued adherence to the convention. This seems unduly rigid; a country may well need more than a year to come into compliance if it must destroy chemical weapons stocks or facilities. Frankly, I do not know what is to be gained by requiring the executive branch to consult each time on a possible resolution of support for continued adherence to the CWC. But condition 13 does not require that such a nonbinding resolution be introduced or voted upon in every case, so there is little potential for harm in this. Some other aspects of condition 13 merit additional explanation. For example, several of the mandated executive branch responses to CWC violations must be undertaken on an urgent basis. This does not mean that they must all proceed concurrently. Thus, in some cases high-level diplomacy will suffice and there will be no need to seek a challenge inspection or U.N. sanctions. In some cases, it might be necessary to prepare the groundwork carefully for a challenge inspection or a diplomatic approach. The Senator from North Carolina and I are agreed that the executive branch could proceed with such preparations on an urgent basis, even though they may take many months to come to fruition. Finally, the requirement in subparagraph (A)(ii) that the executive branch seek a challenge inspection should not be read as requiring that the United States must always be the party that initiates such a request. There might well be other States parties with an equal or greater interest in a given country's apparent violation of the CWC, and it might be more fruitful in some cases for the executive branch to work with those other States parties to secure the common objective of a challenge inspection. maintaining robust chemical defenses Some have asserted that if the United States joins the CWC, we will be lulled into a false sense of security and drop our guard against the continuing threat of chemical weapons. This concern is frankly a bit mystifying. Aside from the risk that any arms control treaty might be violated by a State party to it, U.S. military leaders are quite aware that such potential military adversaries as Iraq, Libya, and North Korea are not planning to sign the convention. The Joint Chiefs of Staff support CWC not because it will automatically remove the need to defend against chemical weapons, but rather because CWC is a vital step toward reducing and combating that threat. While the opponents' argument ignores the fact that the Pentagon has requested $225 million in additional funds for chemical weapons defenses over the next 5 years, a condition has nonetheless been added to address their concerns. Pursuant to condition 11, the Secretary of Defense shall ensure that U.S. forces are capable of carrying out required military missions in U.S. regional contingency plans, regardless of any threat or use of chemical weapons. In particular, U.S. forces must be properly trained, equipped, and organized to operate in chemically and biologically contaminated environments. This means not only improving the defensive capabilities of U.S. forces, but also initiating discussions on chemical weapons defense with likely coalition partners and countries whose civilian personnel would support U.S. forces in a conflict. The administration has also agreed to assure that the U.S. Army Chemical School remains under the supervision of an Army general. Finally, the President is required to submit exhaustive annual reports to Congress on the State of Chemical and Biological defense efforts.

Mr. BIDEN. Further, Mr. President, before I yield the floor to my friend from Washington State, we are trying to work out a unanimous- consent agreement on the total 10 hours. I am not propounding such an agreement. But we are hoping we can work out an agreement, whereby in the closed session tomorrow, the so-called secret session that will take place tomorrow, which will be a 2-hour session, that that time not be counted against the 10 hours in the UC for debate on chemical weapons. Again, I will leave it in the able hands of my friend from Arizona to determine whether the Republican leader is amenable to that, but colleagues who may be listening hopefully were able to do that. The reason I stand up to say that, if they are not, each of us only have about 55 minutes left tomorrow in this process. So for the colleagues who wish to speak, I want them to understand that I am not going to have the time to give them if in fact this doesn't happen. This is by way of disclaimer this evening, so tomorrow morning my colleagues won't come in and say: Joe, you promised me time. I think we can work it out. Mr. President, we now yield a total of 7 minutes, 3\1/2\ from each side, to the distinguished Senator from the State of Washington.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, in the spirit that these negotiations began with me and the chairman of the committee and Senator Kyl, we have continued that spirit. The next speaker we have is undeclared. So we have agreed for a total of 7 minutes he will get. We ask unanimous consent that 3\1/2\ minutes be taken out of the time of the Senator from Delaware and 3\1/2\ minutes out of the time of the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. BIDEN. In 30 seconds, I will yield 12 minutes to my friend from Pennsylvania. Mr. President, I am holding up in my hand here a declaration form for those firms that face reporting requirements for production of discrete organic chemicals, which applies to about 1,800 firms. It is three pages long. I will at a later time read into the Record what it asks for to show you how non-onerous it is. On one of the pages of instructions, on the bottom of the page, it says, You do not have to declare unscheduled discrete organic chemical plant sites that produce explosives exclusively, produce hydrocarbons exclusively, refine sulfur-containing crude oil, produce oligomers and polymers, whether or not containing PSF, and produce unscheduled discrete organic chemicals via a biological or bio-mediated process. This eliminates thousands of firms, hundreds of firms at least. And so this is not nearly as onerous as it was made out to be in my humble opinion. I now yield with the permission of my colleagues 12 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr Specter.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Sure.

Mr. BIDEN. I yield myself as much time as may be necessary. Mr. President, as my distinguished friend, the chairman of the committee, leaves the floor, let me note that he and I came to the Senate the same year, 1972. I, like he, on five occasions --four here and one in a hospital--raised my right hand and swore to uphold the Constitution. We have both done that, to the best of my knowledge, for the past 24 years. Let me just say that just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, security and upholding the oath of office, how to protect and defend the United States of America, is in the eye of the Senator. I do not doubt for one single second that my friend from North Carolina believes what he says, that he does not believe this treaty is in the interest of the United States of America and, by inference, he would not be upholding or defending the Constitution of the United States were he to vote for it, other than with the killer amendments attached to it that would effectively end the treaty. I think it is important for the listeners to put in perspective a little focus here as to how much verification is necessary to defend our interest and how much is enough and what tradeoffs constitute our interests. Let me just say that my friend and I have worked together for years and years. As I said, we came here together, 1972. We got elected in the same year. To the best of my knowledge, my friend has not voted on the floor for an arms control agreement, ever. Although the Senate overwhelmingly passed the START Treaty negotiated by Ronald Reagan--``trust but verify'' Reagan--my friend from North Carolina voted against it because he did not think it was verifiable. Ronald Reagan thought it was verifiable. Ronald Reagan, who said ``trust but verify,'' he negotiated the treaty. He sent it to the U.S. Senate. We voted for it. Senator Helms did not. I do not say this as a criticism but an observation. Because if you listen to Senator Helms, it makes it sound as though he is just like Ronald Reagan. Well, he is not like Ronald Reagan. Bush finally concluded the START I agreement, but it was Reagan who had negotiated it. Reagan supported the START I agreement. President Reagan, I understand, supported the START II agreement. Senator Helms voted against both of them because he did not believe they were--and I believe he meant it--he did not believe they were in the security interests of the United States of America. So again the reason I mention it is that you will hear a lot of appeals to authority today. You will hear a number of ad hominem arguments and a number of infallible arguments invoked on the floor of the Senate today by all of us. It is a debating technique. But I think one of my objectives today is going to try to be sort of the truth squad here, to make sure we are comparing apples and apples and oranges and oranges and we remember who did what. So before the day is over, someone probably will invoke the name of George McGovern, somehow. I do not know how George McGovern will get into this, but I promise you that will happen as evidence that these arms control treaties are bad things that just soft-headed liberals do. Ronald Reagan is no soft-headed liberal. My friend from North Carolina is a staunch conservative, but he parted company with other staunch conservatives who thought START I, START II and the INF agreements were all bad treaties. We negotiated the INF agreement when Senator Helms and I were here. Ronald Reagan proposed that. I do not know how he voted on that. But I would not be surprised if he voted against that. And ``trust but verify'' Reagan not only negotiated it, but submitted it. Mr. President, the debate we are commencing today is not only about a global treaty--it is important, it is global, and it addresses the chemical weapons threat. Quite frankly--and my distinguished friend from Indiana, Senator Lugar, will speak to this at length because he is so articulate when he does--it is about nothing less than America's leadership in the post-cold-war era. I mean, it really is that simple. It is above and beyond the issue of merely the chemical weapons treaty, which I will speak to in detail, and why this treaty is such a good treaty. But it is well beyond that. It is well beyond that. Over the course of two decades and three administrations, the United States of America has led--has led--the world in developing a comprehensive treaty designed to outlaw chemical weapons. Now, less than a week before this treaty goes into effect, with or without the United States of America, the world watches to see what the world's greatest deliberative body is going to do. I mean, it sounds a bit melodramatic, but it is literally that serious. It is that fundamental. This treaty is going into effect no matter what happens, because the way the treaty is, if over 65 nations signed on to it, it automatically goes into effect 6 months later. So whether we vote for it or not, a total of 74 nations of the world have now said, ``This is a good treaty. We sign on to it. We commit to it.'' So it is going into effect. What is it going to look like, as the world watches us--and, believe it or not, they watch us; the American public may not watch us a lot here in the Senate but the rest of the world is watching--when the possessor of the one of the two largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world, who unilaterally agreed to destroy those weapons--us-- when we do not ratify a treaty that 74 nations have already ratified? But there are the anti-arms controllers who believe there has never been an arms control agreement that is worth having. I respectfully suggest that the Senator from North Carolina is among them. He stood up on the floor when we were debating this before it came on the floor, and he said, quoting someone, that America ``has never lost a war, nor has it ever won a treaty.'' Remember, that is what this is about. This dividing line is between people who believe that there is no way in the world you can multilaterally sign on to anything because you cannot trust anybody; the only thing we can trust is ourselves. Therefore, whatever we do, do it unilaterally. Senator Helms has never voted for an arms control treaty on the floor of the U.S. Senate, including the ones negotiated by Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush. We have all been here for all those Presidents. I am not being critical. I just want to make you understand the dividing line here. This is not about the little pieces. This is about whether or not you think we can have any kind of multilateral agreements relative to controlling any kind of arms. Our friend from Arizona, the distinguished Senator, Senator Kyl, introduced a unilateral effort to stem chemical weapons. It was great, but it does not affect any other nations. No one else signed on to it. That is sort of the mantra you get from our friends who oppose arms control--we can do it ourselves. But how can we control the rest of the world unless they are part of an agreement that we are part of? The real issue is, will we remain in the forefront of the battle to contain weapons of mass destruction, the preeminent security threat of this era, or will we retreat from the challenge and be lulled into believing we can combat this scourge of chemical weapons on our own? I know what the answer to that is. The answer is: We cannot do it on our own. I hope the Senate will answer in the affirmative that we have to do this globally. But before we face that moment of decision sometime tomorrow evening, we are going to spend 2 days in debate here, and we are going to vote when I move to strike five specific conditions on the Helms proposal that is before us. As we commence this debate, I think it is instructive to briefly trace the history of the problem of poison gas and the efforts of the world community to address the threat. Today is April 23. And 82 years ago, almost, today, 82 years ago yesterday, April 22, at 5 o'clock in the evening, a green cloud boiled up out of the east near the town of Ypres in Flanders. The modern use of chemical weapons had begun. On that day, the use of chlorine gas achieved a significant tactical advantage for the German attackers in World War I. But within 8 days, gas masks were made available to the allies and, thereafter, in World War I, the use of poison gas as a method of warfare was not especially effective as compared to the primary weapons of artillery and machine guns. But ``terrible beauty had been born,'' to paraphrase Yeats--poison gas had been used. As a weapon of terror, poison gas continued to be exceedingly effective in World War I and had an appalling effect on its victims along the front lines. Soldiers in trenches knew all too well the terror and horror of gas. Wilfred Owen, who was killed in action in 1918 described the terror in his poem, ``Dulce et Decorum Est.'' I would like to read from that poem. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And floundering like a man in fire or lime. Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight. He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest. To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori. Translated, it means: It is sweet and fitting to die for the fatherland. The international revulsion against the use of poison gas in World War I led the United States, once again, to press for an international agreement banning the practice. The result, in 1925, was the Geneva Protocol, which prohibits the use in war of poison gas and bacteriological weapons. For much of this century, with a few exceptions, this norm was honored. During the Second World War, where restraints were hardly the rule, no party saw fit to violate the norm. Even Adolf Hitler obeyed it, although presumably not out of any sense of honor, but out of fear of allied retaliation. Hitler's restraint on the battlefield, unfortunately, did not carry forward to the concentration camps where he used gas to slaughter defenseless innocents, millions of them. The norm contained in the Geneva Protocol eroded considerably in the 1980's, when both parties in the Iran-Iraq War employed gas during a war of attrition that ended in stalemate. The use of chemical weapons in that war provided no significant breakthroughs on the battlefield, but it did give Saddam Hussein an idea, and that idea was to use poison gas against defenseless civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan following a cease- fire in the war with Iran. In August 1988, Saddam launched his final offensive against dozens of villages, killing hundreds and causing tens of thousands to flee to neighboring countries. A staff report prepared for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by our present Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, was based on interviews with survivors. He described the atrocities in vivid detail in that report: ``The bombs''--meaning the chemical bombs--``did not produce a large explosion, only a weak sound that could be heard, and then a yellowish cloud spread from the center of the explosion. Those who were very close to the bombs died almost instantly. Those who did not die instantly found it difficult to breathe and began to vomit. The gas stung the eyes, skin, and lungs of the villagers exposed to it. Many suffered temporary blindness. After the bombs exploded, many villagers ran and submerged themselves in nearby streams to escape the spreading gas. Many of those that made it to the streams survived. Those who could not run from the growing smell--mostly the very old and the very young--died. The survivors, who saw the dead reported that blood could be seen trickling out of the mouths of some of the bodies, a yellowish fluid could also be seen oozing out of the noses and mouths of some of the dead. Some said the bodies appeared frozen. Many of the dead bodies turned blackish blue.'' Saddam's outrageous act, unfortunately, prompted only muted response from the world community. One of the few sounds of protest came from this body, where Senator Claiborne Pell, now retired, and the chairman of the committee, Senator Helms, promptly introduced legislation to impose sanctions against Iraq. The bill sailed through the Senate on a voice vote the day after it was introduced. Unfortunately, the Reagan administration, at that time still operating under the delusion that it could deal with Saddam, denounced the chairman's bill as premature and later succeeded in blocking its enactment in the final days of the 100th Congress--a fact we tend to forget. Saddam's atrocities, although not a violation of the Geneva Protocol--you know, it wasn't a violation of the Geneva Protocol. That Geneva Protocol only banned the use of chemical weapons in war. This was not a war. So the irony of all ironies is that the first guy to use poison gas since the Italians in Ethiopia in the 1930's, didn't even violate the Geneva Protocol. It was used in the Iran-Iraq War, which was a violation because that was international war. The Geneva Protocol bans the use of chemical weapons in warfare, and the extensive use of gas in the Iran-Iraq War was banned but still occurred. Ironically, it had a positive effect, Mr. President. They catalyzed the negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on strengthening the Geneva Protocol, which were already underway. President Reagan gave the effort a very important push--that is, the effort to deal with containing chemical weapons--during his annual address to the U.N. General Assembly that fall, where he urged the parties to the protocol, as well as other concerned states, to convene a conference to review the deterioration of respect of the norm against the use of chemical weapons. France obliged President Reagan by hosting a special conference in January 1989. Eighteen months later, Saddam Hussein struck again by invading Kuwait this time. But this time the international community, led by President Bush, reacted forcefully to Saddam's latest outrage. Thankfully, chemical weapons were not used in the gulf war, although Saddam suggested he might do so. And an Iraqi weapons depot containing such weapons was destroyed by coalition forces after the war. Ironically, the only reported exposure to poison gas for allied troops resulted from an Iraqi stockpile that was perfectly legal under international law. The only thing illegal is to use it in international conflict--not to manufacture it, not to stockpile it, and not to use it internally. The specter that chemical weapons might have been used in the gulf war, however, gave a new urgency to the negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention. In May 1991, President Bush who, as Vice President, had first proposed the draft treaty in 1984 on behalf of President Reagan--so Reagan proposed the first draft--President Bush announced several steps that spurred the negotiations to a successful conclusion. Specifically, he declared that the United States would forswear the use of chemical weapons against any state, effective when the Chemical Weapons Convention enters into force. Additionally, the United States committed to destroy all its chemical weapons stockpile. So I want to get something straight here. Whether or not we are members of this treaty and have the benefits, we are going to destroy our chemical weapons anyway. We have already decided to do that. We have already pledged to do that. President Bush pledged that once the convention went into force, we would also forswear the use, period. The Bush proposal, made at the time, had the desired effect. Within months, the negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention were completed. The treaty was signed by Secretary of State Eagleburger on January 13, 1993, 1 week before President Bush left office. Now, Mr. President, this review of the history of the Chemical Weapons Convention is necessary not only to set the stage for this debate, in my view, but also to rebut the myth which has arisen in some quarters that this is President Clinton's treaty. This is President Bush's treaty and President Reagan's treaty. The treaty was initiated by Reagan, concluded by Bush. This week, we can continue that Republican legacy by giving the Senate's consent to ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. So this is not a product of anything other than the intensive efforts on the part of this administration to pass a treaty signed by a Republican President, of which this President did not change a single word, did not have one bit of input on. The only input the present President had is on seeking the Senate's approval. Had President Bush been reelected, it would be real clear that this is a total Republican product, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. The reason I am bothering to say this is, if you listen here, you hear a lot of confusing talk, because some of my Republican friends understandably aren't real crazy about President Clinton, you will hear this talked about, saying the President did this and that, and the President promised this or that. This President had nothing to do with this treaty, zero, nothing. In getting it ratified, he has been tremendous in helping that process. So I do not want anybody getting confused here. If you do not like this treaty, dislike it for a good reason. Don't dislike it because you do not like the foreign policy of Clinton or you do not like the domestic policy of Clinton or you do not like President Clinton. This is a Republican treaty, born and bred. By the way, I think it is one of their proudest achievements. I think it is a fine thing, and they deserve the credit. But let's not get into these--you will hear these ad hominem arguments this day about this liberal President did this liberal thing; we got sucked in by these all-knowing and smarter nations to get us to do these things with the treaty. Malarkey. Bush and Reagan said we are not going to use any chemical weapons; we are going to destroy our stockpiles; whether there is a treaty, or not, we will put that in the legislation; we are going to destroy our stockpile. They negotiated a treaty and sent it up here. Unfortunately for President Bush, he was not reelected. So it is left on the watch of this President to get it ratified. There are the facts. The question still remains, though, regardless of who negotiated this treaty, why do we need it? The answer still, in essence in my view, is very simple. Notwithstanding the Herculean efforts of my friend from Arizona, Senator Kyl, who is on the floor, we cannot contain the threat of chemical weapons on our own. Let me repeat that. We cannot contain the threat of chemical weapons on our own. I would love it if we could. It should be obvious that our objective of combating the global threat of chemical weapons cannot be met without working in concert with other nations. We may be the world's lone superpower, Mr. President, but that does not empower us to solve the chemical weapons problem on our own. Mr. President, the convention is quite detailed, as it necessarily must be. This is the treaty. It is quite detailed in its several provisions upon which there will be specific debate over the course of the next 2 days. But, for the moment, let me highlight the reasons why this treaty will advance our national interests. First, the convention addresses two key flaws in the Geneva Protocol--that is the thing that outlaws the use of chemical weapons in international war--which focused on a single wrong. The Geneva Protocol focused on one thing. It banned the use of chemical weapons in international armed conflict, period. A good thing, but not nearly enough. The reason we need this treaty: The first reason is the Geneva Protocol doesn't ban the internal use of chemical weapons, and it says nothing about stockpiling the development of or the production of chemical weapons. Today, roughly 20 countries are believed to either possess chemical weapons or have a program aimed at acquiring such weapons. Included on this list are such pariah states as Iraq, Iran, Libya, or North Korea. Under current international law there is nothing illegal about these programs--nothing, zero, nothing illegal about these programs. The Chemical Weapons Convention will make them illegal and thus serve to isolate those who ignore this international norm. My friends will later point out today and tomorrow that unless these countries all ratify and become signatories, we should not. Let me explain to you why it is equally important that we determine who is inside the norm and who is outside the norm. The convention will provide a moral, if not legal, basis for taking military action against a chemical weapons program that poses a threat to peace whether or not that nation is a signatory to the convention. Let me explain what I mean by that. Let's assume that North Korea or Libya never entered this convention. Let's assume we enter it and the other nations who have signed it enter it. Let's assume that number, which I think is realistic to assume, gets closer to 100. Let's assume Libya, that we find out, or are able to demonstrate to the world through this international group of inspectors or through our own national technical means, that Libya is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons. Even though they have not signed onto the treaty, let's assume that we conclude that we should take military action to take out that capability--``take out'' meaning bomb it, destroy it, get rid of it--I believe, and I predict that you will see the world community sanctioning that action, at a minimum by their silence and probably with an overwhelming degree of support. But let my ask it another way. Let's say we don't sign onto this treaty. Libya develops a significant stockpile of chemical weapons. We identify it, show the world, and decide we are going to take it out. What do you think will happen then? Do you think there is any reasonable prospect the world will coalesce around our effort to protect us and the rest of the world? I respectfully suggest to you that there is not a chance. So this is a significant inhibitor even to those nations that do not sign onto the treaty because it establishes an international norm. The second reason why this treaty is important is that the Chemical Weapons Convention provides this strict regime for controlling trade in precursor chemicals used in making chemical weapons because chemicals commonly used in industry are also able to be used to produce chemical weapons. The only way to effectively control chemical weapons on a global basis is to provide a strict control and monitoring regarding the commercial trade in these kinds of chemicals that can ultimately produce chemical weapons. Accordingly, the convention provides several mechanisms, including annual reporting by companies and export controls, to track the chemicals. Parties which do not join the treaty will be left on the outside of the system subject to cutting off trade in those certain chemicals, along with other restrictions that the convention will impose. Failure to ratify the convention will in time impose onerous costs on any chemical industry in any state that does not sign, including our own. In our case, it will be the loss of--at minimum--hundreds of millions of dollars in lost export earnings annually. This financial loss would be a cruel irony because the United States pushed to put these controls in the treaty. Do you all remember when we were trying to track down who sold the technology and the material to the Iraqis to build their nuclear and/or chemical capability? Remember all of that? We tried to track down, and we tracked down some German companies which had provided the engineering and other companies from France, and other countries had provided some of the material, et cetera. Guess what? It is important to know who is selling what. Any outfit that signs onto this treaty could not sell without reporting in detail what they sold to each of these countries who are signatories to the treaty. Guess what? If you don't ratify the treaty and you sell certain chemicals abroad, you will be unable to sell them to the countries that have ratified, including our largest trading partners. Chemicals are our single largest export. OK? I know people who think I am a little prejudiced on this because I come from Delaware, occasionally referred to by some facetiously as ``The State of DuPont.'' Chemicals and the chemical industry make up 51 percent of the industrial products of my State. If we do not sign onto this treaty, we are in real trouble because then we can't trade our chemicals. We can't trade certain chemicals, which is our State's biggest export and which produces the most jobs, other than agriculture. We can't trade. We will have tariffs put up against us in other countries. Why do we do that? We, the United States, President Bush did that because we were so sure that we would sign on and see the wisdom of this. We wanted to make sure that countries who didn't sign on suffered a penalty for not signing on. So now, if we vote this voice vote which we are going to have after our caucuses, as Senator Helms proposes, guess what? We kill the treaty and our chemical industry, and the jobs associated with it will be in real trouble. But remember why that was put in there. It was put in there because we want to track chemical trade. You know everybody is watching the Timothy McVeigh trial. You don't have to be a rocket scientist or an expert in chemicals to know that one of the things the prosecution is trying to do is they are trying to find out whether he purchased any material that could be used to make the bomb. So they are trying to find a chain. They are trying to work their way back. That is the way you stop the building of chemical weapons. If you are going to go make chemical weapons, you need certain chemicals. Countries like Iraq and countries like Libya don't have them. They need to buy them from someplace that manufactures them and then go make their chemical weapons. So another inducement to prevent the construction of chemical weapons is that we track the material that could be used, components, to make the chemical weapons. If company officials know they are going to be violating the law if they don't record that they sold 10 barrels of such and such, that is one side of the sanction. But they also know that, if they sell it to countries that use it to produce poison gas, and report it, then they are going to be responsible in the world's eyes. What do you think would happen if we knew today each of the chemical companies around the world that sold to Iraq the components of the chemical weapons that they used against the Kurds? What do you think would happen if we are able to identify company A, B, C, and D? I bet you that there would be a serious change in attitudes on the part of those companies. There is no reason to believe this, but let's assume that we identified American corporations which had sold the material to the Iraqis to build their chemical weapons stockpiles. I will lay you 8 to 5 that the Senators on the floor of this Senate and Congressmen in the House of Representatives would immediately be introducing legislation to sanction those companies, and those companies would know that was about to happen to them. So you see the logic here. If you can trace the chemicals being sold to produce the weapons, you inhibit the likelihood that any company will sell that precursor because they don't want to be listed as the company or the nation that helped North Korea build chemical weapons. Technically, not all trade in the chemicals on what they call schedule 2 of this treaty would be banned immediately if we do not sign on, and trade in schedule 3 chemicals, would also not be banned immediately. But trade between countries that ratify and countries that don't in all of those chemicals that appear in schedule 2 will be banned in 3 years, and in schedule 3, possibly in 5 years. That means that, if we are not signed onto that at the front end or along the way, all those chemicals that have legitimate uses could not be sold for legitimate purposes without the chemical company being at a distinct disadvantage with the competitors in Europe and elsewhere. The third reason we need the Chemical Weapons Convention is that the United States has already decided by law--voted on in this body--to destroy most of our chemical weapons stocks anyway, a decision jointly made by the Congress and, guess who, ``trust but verify'' Reagan. In the 1980's, President Reagan, after consulting with his military advisers, said, look, these chemical stockpiles, the hundreds and hundreds of tons of chemicals weapons that we have stockpiled in the United States, have little or no efficacy. Our military tells us we don't need them to defend against other nations that use chemical weapons, and we don't need them for offensive purposes and they are unstable, so we are going to independently destroy them. And we passed a law saying you are right, Mr. President Reagan, destroy them. So think of the irony. We are going to destroy our chemical weapons no matter what, and we may not join a treaty that requires other nations to destroy their chemical weapons. After the gulf war, President Bush announced that we would destroy the rest of our chemical weapons other than the ones that President Reagan said we are going to destroy anyway. Then President Bush, after the Gulf war, said we are going to destroy anything that is left once we ratify the chemical weapons treaty. There is a connection here. I used to practice law with a guy who was a very good trial lawyer, Sidney Balick, still a great trial lawyer. He would stand before a jury, teaching me how to do jury trials, and he would look at the jury and say now look, it is very important you keep your eye on the ball here. The issue is whether or not my client robbed the store, not whether my client is a nice guy, not whether or not you would want my client to go out with your daughter, not whether my client is well dressed, not whether my client is nice looking. It is about whether or not he robbed the store. So keep your eye on the ball and connect the dots. Well, one of the things we have to do is keep our eye on the ball here and connect the dots. One of the reasons why President Bush said we will destroy the rest of our chemical weapons was to help get ratified this treaty that we were the major architects of--a Republican President. And so because we have already decided to dismantle our chemical stockpiles, this convention we are talking about, this treaty will ensure that other nations do so as well. As Secretary of State Albright said: ``This treaty is about other people's weapons, not our own.'' Let me repeat that. ``This treaty is about other people's weapons, not our own.'' We are going to destroy our own anyway. This is about other people's weapons. You are going to hear our colleagues stand up and say, you know, we should not ratify this treaty, although it has been signed by Russia, until it is ratified by their Duma, their Congress. Now, we are going to destroy our weapons anyway. We then do not ratify this treaty. Failure to ratify this treaty then gives Russia the excuse not to ratify the treaty. We will have destroyed all of our chemical weapons and Russia will still have millions of tons of stockpiled chemical weapons. Now, isn't that smart. Isn't that smart. What are we talking about here? This is about other people's weapons, not ours, not ours. The conclusion that we do not need chemical weapons to protect our military superiority, by the way, is based not on some reckless idealism but on hardheaded pragmatism on the part of the Joint Chiefs. Military leaders like Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretaries of Defense Harold Brown and William Perry tell us that we do not need chemical weapons to defeat any potential adversary whether or not that adversary is armed with chemical weapons. We can engage in massive retaliation. This treaty, by the way, is also endorsed by several highly respected veterans organizations. The list includes the Reserve Officers Association, the Vietnam Veterans Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Jewish War Veterans of the United States. Of course, Mr. President, we have to maintain a capacity and capability to defend against chemical weapons, against parties that may choose not to join the treaty or those which do not abide by its norms. But the danger that our forces will face chemical attack will in time be greatly reduced once this treaty is passed. So too will the threat that innocent civilians will be subject to such attacks by rogue states. The fourth reason we need this convention is because it will greatly enhance our ability to detect and deter chemical weapons programs. Through a detailed accounting procedure and an elaborate regime of on- site inspection, the most intrusive inspection regime of any arms control agreement ever negotiated, the Chemical Weapons Convention will strengthen our ability to ensure compliance. You are going to hear another argument which I kind of find fascinating. As the Senator from Indiana and I tried to answer each of the arguments of the opponents of this treaty, we realized that by answering one we make their other argument. They argue at cross- purposes. For example, you will hear some stand up one moment and say this treaty is not adequately verifiable. And we say OK, we have an inspection regime that allows you to go into plants in other countries, challenge inspections without notice, et cetera. They say, well, it is not enough. It is not enough. And we say OK, want to do more? They say, no, no, no, no, we can't do more. We don't want to do more. We don't want to verify. Why don't we want to verify? Because to verify intrudes upon your sovereignty. So you hear a second argument. Senator Helms made it. He says, you know, this treaty will allow people to go into the plants of chemical industries in the United States and pharmaceutical industries--and soap manufacturers, which is not true--and steal their trade secrets. So someone is going to challenge the DuPont Co., the international community, saying we think you are making chemical weapons. So this team of inspectors will go into the DuPont Co., they will have us believe, and they will root around the DuPont Co.'s books and look at all their patents and look at everything and steal their trade secrets, take them back to Iraq and now make nylon or make Corfam, which no one uses anymore. And we say, well, to the degree we protect against that, we lessen the ability to verify. And to the degree we increase the verification, we can protect less against that. The truth is neither are real. There is an entire regime built into this convention that will prevent anybody from being able to steal any trade secrets. But the point is you will hear these arguments. Ask yourself as this debate is going on, if they are really concerned about verification, why do they not want a greater ability to verify. And if they are really concerned about the loss of proprietary business interests and secrets, why do they not understand that they really do not want to verify. With or without the treaty, Mr. President--this is a key point-- whether we sign this treaty or not, the United States intelligence community, the defense intelligence establishment, the CIA, our entire intelligence apparatus, is still going to have the duty to monitor chemical weapons programs in other States. The President will demand no less, nor would we as a Nation. So no matter what we do, we are still going to be attempting to monitor through any means we can what is going on in Iran with regard to chemical weapons or Iraq with regard to chemical weapons, whether or not we verify. But what happens if we do not verify? Well, if we do not verify, then we do not get the ability to go into Iran, a signatory to this convention--and look at their companies, look at their facilities, challenge whether or not they are in fact lying to us. We do not get to be part of that. We have to do it from a distance. Now, how does that help us? No matter how weak you think the inspection regime is, how are we better off in our ultimate objective-- and that is finding and getting rid of chemical weapons programs around the world--how are we better off by not having access to the inspections that we could be part of conducting if we are part of the treaty? In my view, every single criticism you will hear of this treaty is worse without the treaty. Every single problem you will hear raised is worse for the United States if we are not in the treaty. I will not take the time now to go into all of them but this is just one. Since we have to have our intelligence guys and women find out what other countries are doing, how are we better off when we do not give them the tools that this treaty provides to find out what other nations are doing. This view is confirmed by George Tenet, the acting director of Central Intelligence, who testified: In the absence of the tools that the Convention gives . . . us, it will be much harder for us to apprise . . . the military and policymakers (about) developments. Developments meaning chemical weapons. Of course, there are going to be cheaters. But the extensive verification regime will surely raise the stakes considerably for cheaters and act as a deterrent. Ron Lehman, the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Bush and the Deputy National Security Adviser under President Reagan, stated: We do not have the highest confidence that we will detect cheating, but the cheater must still worry that we might. Should we deny ourselves the strategic warning that comes from the detection of indications of chemical weapons activity, even if there is not complete proof? With the inherent difficulties in monitoring chemical weapons activities, we need all the help we can get. Mr. President, it comes down to a simple question. Given that the treaty will enter into force next week without regard to our action, will we be better off inside the treaty or outside the treaty grouped with the pariah nations? I believe the answer is absolutely clear. We should be on the inside helping to implement the treaty that can be a powerful instrument in containing the threat posed by chemical weapons. It is not perfect, but we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This is a good treaty and the Senate should consent to its ratification forthwith. Before we go to the final vote on the treaty itself, however, we will have a full day of debate and then tomorrow consider the various conditions contained in the proposed resolution of ratification. As provided for in the unanimous consent agreement reached last week, we will consider two sets of conditions. The first is a group of 28 conditions upon which all the parties have negotiated. Senator Helms laid out how long and hard he and I negotiated. I asked him and all opponents, I said list the entire universe of objections you have to this treaty, every single, solitary, conceivable reason to be against the treaty. And after months they listed them all. It came to 33 there was no agreement on. I sat down with Senator Helms and we worked out agreement on 28 of the 33. Hear what I said, 28 of the 33. I asked every argument of the treaty; list it; let me try to answer it for you--every single one. So the entire universe of objections comes down to 33. We agreed after laborious negotiations on 28 of the 33, leaving five in disagreement. We are going to, at some point, move to adopt all 28 of those by voice vote. But that leaves the five, the five that are killer conditions.

Mr. BIDEN. I will just take a few more minutes and reserve the remainder of my time. But let me answer the question. As the Senator from Arizona stood up to tell me that, my staff just handed me the news release. I was not aware until he just told me, but it does not surprise me and it pleases me a great deal. You and I worked with Senator Dole for a long time, I for 24 years, and have great respect for him. I was absolutely convinced that the conditions that we agreed on would take care of every conceivable problem he had with the treaty. I think it does for everyone, frankly. I know my friend from Arizona was very concerned about several provisions of this treaty. He has been deeply involved in the negotiations relating to this, and I think we have taken care of every condition that can possibly be dealt with, without killing the treaty. The remaining five conditions are conditions that cannot be met and will kill the treaty. So the reason we could not agree to the last five is they are what we call, in the parlance of the Senate, ``killer amendments,'' or ``killer conditions.'' But I am very pleased, as I say, not surprised. Because in all the years I have worked with Senator Dole I have had the greatest respect for him and I have no doubt that he has thought about this long and hard. I am glad to see he has spoken out, now, which is very important. As I said, as provided for in the unanimous-consent agreement reached last week, we will consider two sets of conditions. The first is a group of 28 conditions, upon which all parties to the negotiations agree. The second is a set of five conditions that remain in disagreement among the parties; these five will be the subject of a separate debate and vote tomorrow. The 28 agreed conditions are the product of hours of negotiation that occurred in two complimentary phases. The first involved discussions between the administration and a task force of Republican Senators established by the majority leader. The second involved extensive negotiations between the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and me. At this point, I would like to express my personal appreciation to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and his able staff, for engaging in hours of discussions with me and my staff. Throughout the past few months, we held over 40 hours of meetings. Although we did not always agree--obviously, we would have been here on the floor a lot sooner if we had--the discussions were carried out in good faith, and the Senator from North Carolina was always a gentleman. I would also like to pause here to express my appreciation to the majority and minority leaders, who spent many hours on this over the past few months, and to the President, the National Security Adviser and his dedicated team, and the Secretary of State, for all their efforts in trying to forge common ground and narrow the issues. And we have narrowed the issues considerably. The negotiations succeeded in addressing many key issues of concern. Let me elaborate briefly on these conditions. Among the 28 agreed conditions are the following: A condition [No. 28] ensuring that fourth amendment rights will be protected by requiring search warrants in cases where consent to search a facility is not granted. A condition [No. 26] providing for the continued use of riot control agents by U.S. troops to save lives when rescuing pilots or when attacked by both combatants and civilians. Several conditions which augment existing protections for industry, including: No. 9, which requires an annual certification that the CWC is not significantly harming legitimate commercial activities; condition No. 16, which adds teeth to the convention's provision on protecting confidential business information by withholding U.S. contributions to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons--the body that will implement the treaty--if an employee discloses information that results in financial loss to a U.S. firm; the money will be withheld until the immunity of that employee is waived; and condition No. 18, which prohibits samples collected from U.S. firms from being taken to foreign laboratories, thus reducing the risk of the loss of proprietary information to foreign espionage. Conditions No. 2, 3, and 4, which hold down U.S. costs under the convention and require establishment of an inspector general for the body that will implement it. A condition [No. 5] which establishes strict standards for the sharing of U.S. intelligence information. And a condition [No. 14] which rejects any attempt by Russia to link its own ratification of the CWC to the receipt of U.S. assistance for chemical weapons destruction. Some treaty opponents have attempted to characterize these achievements as relatively minor. That is hardly the case. For example, throughout the debate on the convention, opponents have contended that it would violate the fourth amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Though this was never the case, condition No. 28 makes it explicitly clear that search warrants will be required whenever consent is withheld for an inspection. Similarly, CWC opponents have frequently criticized the Clinton administration's decision to interpret the convention as requiring modifications to U.S. policy, codified in Executive Order 11850 of April 8, 1975, on the use of riot control agents by U.S. forces in certain situations. Condition No. 26 states, unequivocally, that Executive Order 11850 shall not be altered or eliminated. In short, many arguments about the treaty's perceived flaws are simply no longer valid in light of the agreed conditions contained in Senate Executive Resolution 75. Unfortunately, our success in addressing so many concerns has not been enough for some treaty opponents. They insist on voting on five extreme conditions, which, if adopted, will prevent the United States from ratifying the convention or will significantly undermine the convention. An opportunity to vote on these extreme conditions was coupled with a refusal to give the supporters of the treaty an opportunity to offer any substitutes. So we will be left with one course--to vote against the conditions offered by the opponents of this treaty. I regret that outcome--but that is the hand we have been dealt. During the next 2 days, we will debate these five conditions, and at an appropriate time, I will discuss them in detail. Let me now address a few of them briefly. First, the opponents of the convention will argue that we shouldn't join the convention until Russia, as well as several countries with offensive chemical weapons programs, do so, too. We will have 2 hours of debate on these issues tomorrow, but for now let me just say this: this approach holds American policy hostage to the decisions of other nations, which is not only bad policy, but it also undermines our claim to international leadership. Opponents will also say that even if the rogue states join, the treaty won't be worth much because they will cheat. To this charge, there is an easy answer, provided by our Secretary of State: to say that we shouldn't try to make chemical weapons illegal because there will be cheaters, is like saying that we shouldn't have laws because people will break them. Next, you will hear the argument that we must amend article XI of the treaty, or else it will lead to the end of export controls on dangerous chemicals. This argument is based not only on a flawed reading of the treaty text, but on a willful ignorance of commitments already made. The CWC is completely consistent with continued enforcement of existing controls enforced by the Australia Group, an informal alliance of supplier countries. Moreover, the 30 nations that comprise the Australia Group have specifically stated their intention--individually and collectively--to maintain export controls that are equal to, or exceed, those in place today. Finally, we have added a condition--condition No. 7--which makes clear our interpretation that we may maintain export controls, and which requires the President to certify annually that the Australia Group continues to control the trade in vital chemicals. Even after all of this debate--and all of the voting--I suspect that the opponents of this treaty will still not be satisfied, even if they succeed in attaching killer conditions. That is because, at bottom, they have a theological opposition to arms control. That is defensible position. I respect it. But I strongly disagree with it. In essence, opponents of arms control fear that a treaty like this will lull us into a false sense of security. This proposition, I concede, has considerable force. But I am not persuaded. There is, of course, always a risk that a nation will lower its guard in the face of a reduced threat. But today's debate is not the end of our efforts on the chemical weapons problem. To borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill, it is not even the beginning of the end; it is the end of the beginning. From this day forward, if we approve this convention, as I sincerely hope we will, both the Senate and the executive must remain ever vigilant against the threat of chemical weapons--and ensure that we have an effective convention. We have added several conditions to the resolution of ratification to advance this objective. We have made a commitment, in condition No. 11; that requires the Secretary of Defense to ensure that U.S. forces are capable of carrying out military missions regardless of any foreign threat or use of chemical weapons. We have required, in condition No. 10, an annual report on compliance issues. We have established, in condition No. 13, a mechanism for ensuring that the President promptly pursues potential violations that threaten our national security interests. Aside from these concrete conditions, however, our experience with other arms control agreements demonstrates that the political commitment remains, and that the dangers of complacency are greatly exaggerated. Nearly 30 years ago, we signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty amid predictions that dozens of states would have nuclear weapons within a decade. Today, we are more concerned than ever about the threat of nuclear proliferation, the Non-Proliferation Treaty has been extended permanently, and just a handful of states have the bomb. During the 1980's, we had constant debates about whether the Soviet Union was complying with its obligations under the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Not once did we let down our guard against the Soviet threat. The thesis that we will be lulled into a false sense of security applies not to the convention, but to the alternative: to doing nothing other than strengthening our domestic laws against chemical weapons-- which was all the Senate achieved last week in passing S. 495. Revision of our domestic laws to criminalize possession and stockpiling of chemical weapons is necessary--with or without the treaty. But it is a delusion to believe that merely enacting domestic legislation will suffice to combat an international problem of this magnitude and gravity. Rather, it will take close cooperation by the civilized nations of the world to enforce the new international norm set forth in the Chemical Weapons Convention. Mr. President, as I stated at the outset, the world--and this is no exaggeration--is watching the U.S. Senate today and tomorrow. They are waiting for the answer to the question, will we, the United States, remain in the forefront of the battle to combat proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? We must answer that in the affirmative. Put it another way, does anybody believe that 74 nations would have signed onto this treaty if they believed the United States of America was not going to support them? We have led people down the primrose path, if in fact we do not sign onto this treaty. I see that my friend from Indiana, who probably knows more about the chemical weapons treaty than anyone in the U.S. Senate, or maybe anyone in the country, has risen. I will be happy, if he is seeking recognition, to yield as much time to him as he believes he needs. Mr. LUGAR addressed the chair.