U.S. Abandons Germ Warfare
Accord
By
Peter Slevin
Washington Post
Staff Writer
Thursday, 19 September, 2002
The Bush administration has abandoned an international effort to
strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention against germ warfare,
advising its allies that the United States wants to delay further
discussions until 2006. A review conference on new verification measures
for the treaty had been
scheduled for November.
Less than a year after a State Department envoy abruptly pulled out of
biowarfare negotiations in Geneva, promising that the United States
would return with new proposals, the administration has concluded that
treaty
revisions favored by the European Union and scores of other countries
will not work and should not be salvaged, administration officials said
yesterday.
The decision, which has been conveyed to allies in recent weeks, has
been greeted with warnings that the move will weaken attempts to curb
germ
warfare programs at a time when biological weapons are a focus of
concern because of the war on terrorism and the administration's threats
to
launch a military campaign against Iraq. It also comes as the
administration,
which has angered allies by rejecting a series of multilateral
agreements, is
appealing to the international community to work with it in forging a
new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq's programs to develop
weapons
of mass destruction.
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which has been ratified by the
United States and 143 other countries, bans the development,
stockpiling and production of germ warfare agents, but has no
enforcement mechanism. Negotiations on legally binding measures to
enforce compliance have been underway in Geneva for seven years.
The administration stunned its allies last December by proposing to end
the negotiators' mandate, saying that while the treaty needed
strengthening, the enforcement protocol under discussion would not deter
enemy nations from acquiring or developing biological weapons if they
were determined to do so.
Negotiators suspended the discussions, saying they would meet again in
November when U.S. officials said they would return with creative
solutions to address the impasse.
Instead, U.S. envoys are now telling allies that the administration's
position is so different from the views of the leading supporters of
the enforcement protocol that a meeting would dissolve into public
squabbling and should be avoided, administration officials said. Better,
they
said, to halt discussions altogether.
"It's based on an incorrect approach. Our concern is that it would be
fundamentally ineffective," a State Department official said. Another
administration official said the "best and least contentious" approach
would be to hold a very brief meeting in November -- or even no meeting
at
all -- and talk again when the next review is scheduled four years from
now.
Amy Smithson, a biological and chemical weapons specialist, said the
administration is making a mistake by halting collaborative work to
strengthen the convention. "It sounds to me as though they've thrown
the baby out with the bath water," said Smithson, an analyst at the
Henry
L. Stimson Center. "The contradiction between the rhetoric and what the
administration is actually doing -- the gulf is huge. Not a day goes by
when they don't mention the Iraq threat."
The Stimson Center is releasing a report today that criticizes the U.S.
approach to the convention. Drawn from a review by 10 pharmaceutical
companies and biotechnology experts, the document argues that
bioweapons inspections can be effective with the right amount of time
and the right science and urges the administration to develop stronger
measures.
"To argue that this wouldn't be a useful remedy would just be a
mistake. I think it's because they're looking through the wrong end of
the
telescope," said Matthew Meselson, a Harvard biologist who helped draft
a treaty to criminalize biological weapons violations. "We're denying
ourselves
useful tools."
The administration has focused publicly on a half-dozen countries
identified by the State Department as pursuing germ warfare programs.
Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said the existence of Iraq's
bioweapons project is "beyond dispute." The U.S. government also
believes Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Libya and Syria are developing such
weapons, he said.
Meselson concurred with the administration's position that a limited
enforcement provision for the bioweapons treaty could not provide
confidence that countries are staying clean. But he said that a pact
establishing standards and verification measures would deter some
countries while also helping to build norms of international behavior.
Bolton, on the other hand, told delegates to last year's review
conference that "the time for 'better-than-nothing' protocols is over.
We will
continue to reject flawed texts like the BWC draft protocol, recommended
to us simply because they are the product of lengthy negotiations
or arbitrary
deadlines, if such texts are not in the best interests of the United
States."
With only hours to go at the meeting, Bolton stopped U.S. participation
in the final negotiations. He said of the resulting one-year delay,
"This
gives us time to think creatively on alternatives."
In Bolton's view, each country should develop criminal laws against
germ warfare activities, develop export controls for dangerous
pathogens,
establish codes of conduct for scientists and install strict biosafety
procedures. The administration has proposed that governments resolve
disputes over biowarfare violations among themselves, perhaps through
voluntary inspections or by referral to the United Nations secretary
general.
Such an approach is "at best ineffectual," said the specialists
gathered by the Stimson Center. At worst, they concluded, the approach
could damage U.S. interests because it would not be structured to
deliver "meaningful monitoring."
"If a challenge inspection system is not geared to pursue violators
aggressively, then it does not serve U.S. security interests," the
65-page report states. The participants strongly favored establishing
mandatory standards backed by penalties and "robust" inspections, which
goes significantly further than the proposed protocol backed by the EU
and
other nations.
The State Department Web site has not yet been changed to reflect the
change in policy. It says, "The United States is committed to
strengthening
the BWC as part of a comprehensive and multidisciplinary strategy for
combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and
international
terrorism. . . . We would like to share these ideas with our
international
partners."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
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in receiving the included information for research and educational
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