Nobody Needs Weapons This Horrendous

One week from today the Chemical Weapons Convention, signed by 161 countries and ratified so far by 70, will come into force. Whether the United States will become a party to the treaty and be among the nations that will oversee its key verification procedures depends on the U.S. Senate, which has scheduled a ratification vote on Thursday.

Majority Leader Trent Lott says the outcome of the vote is too close to call. Unless two-thirds of the senators vote aye, the United States will find itself in the unsavory company of such treaty rejecters as North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iraq. Presidents from Ronald Reagan, who initiated the convention, to George Bush, who signed it, through Bill Clinton, who has lobbied hard for its ratification, have seen the importance of the treaty to U.S. interests, not least to maintaining America’s global leadership role.

The treaty bans production, possession and use of all nerve and mustard gases and requires member states to destroy their chemical weapons stockpiles within 10 years. The United States and Russia, which between them control about two-thirds of the world’s chemical arms, are already committed by bilateral agreement to destroying most of their chemical weapons by 2004. American security will in no way be diminished. U.S. military planners long ago soured on unpredictable battlefield chemical weapons, which can, given a shift in the wind, threaten their users. High U.S. officials have also made clear that any foe who uses chemical weapons could expect an “overwhelming and devastating”--meaning nuclear--response.

The Senate can’t amend the treaty. But the resolution of ratification will contain conditions, sought by treaty critics led by Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), that include maintaining strong defenses against chemical attacks. Opposition nonetheless remains.

Some of it is based simply on the raw suspicion that pariah states, like those mentioned above, can’t be trusted not to make or use chemical weapons. The treaty indeed lacks absolute guarantees; chemical weapons, as the nerve gas attack by terrorists in Japan in 1995 showed, can sometimes be assembled virtually in home labs. But the treaty does provide for much tighter international oversight on production and sale of certain chemicals, making their illicit use harder. Treaty critics worry that this scrutiny could mean snooping into the private affairs of the U.S. chemical industry. In fact, the treaty is strongly backed by the Chemical Manufacturers Assn., which warns that failure to ratify it would trigger trade restrictions that could cost U.S. producers $600 million a year in sales and thousands of jobs.

The Chemical Weapons Convention is not a foolproof arms control measure. But it is a vital step toward erecting better barriers against the proliferation and use of a frightful class of weapons. By ratifying the treaty the United States would ensure it had a major voice in shaping the means of implementation. Failure to ratify would be an abrogation of political and moral leadership.