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BWC: With Threat, U.S. Pressures to End Review Conference Early By David Ruppe Senior U.S. diplomats attending preparatory meetings in Geneva this week threatened to publicly identify suspected treaty violators unless the conference is abbreviated, and discussions about amending the treaty by establishing a verification and monitoring regime are avoided. Bush administration officials also said they would oppose any further treaty meetings until the next review conference scheduled for 2006. The U.S. insistence is a further blow to efforts by other Western treaty parties to strengthen the pact in a number of ways, including by creating an on-site inspection mechanism for checking on suspected biological weapons activities worldwide, similar to that of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Observers say U.S. officials are hoping to shut down the conference to prevent any further discussion of an inspections protocol to the treaty. “The U.S. seems to be very intent on wrapping this up,” said Michael Moodie, president of the Washington-based Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute. “They want absolutely no possibility that there will be a return in any way of the protocol negotiations. They don’t want anyone thinking in any way they have a back door to negotiations,” he said. “So they’re taking this very hard line towards the closure of the review conference.” Prior to the review conference last year, Bush administration officials announced they would not support creating a protocol for inspections and other changes, the subject of six years of mostly-U.S. led negotiations (see GSN, Nov. 21, 2001). U.S. officials then said they opposed inspections, arguing they might expose legitimate U.S. military and commercial secrets but not illicit activities of rogue regimes. With other Western states unwilling to push for a protocol without U.S. support, the conference was suspended until this November in Geneva. A number of close U.S. allies, including the United Kingdom, have indicated they still favor creating a mandatory inspection mechanism, and also have indicated they would propose holding annual treaty meetings and scientific meetings for addressing technological changes to the threat. U.S. officials said this week they do not favor any such follow-on meetings and remain opposed to further meetings of an ad hoc group to negotiate a protocol. Who Might Be Named U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton shook up the conference last November by naming Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and North Korea as nations suspected by the United States to have biological weapons programs. Bolton said the U.S. authorities believe more than seven other countries are pursuing biological weapons, but did not name them. At a Tokyo conference last week, Bolton again named the five countries and said the United States has spoken to other unidentified countries privately during the past year. A Pentagon report released in April identified India, China, Pakistan and Russia as nations suspected of having biological weapons programs (see GSN, April 19). A 1998 State Department report to Congress said Egypt might have a biological weapons capability. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson was quoted in the Washington Post Wednesday as speculating France may have a store of the smallpox virus. Independent experts also widely suspect that Israel has a program. “Politically, I’d find it very difficult to imagine they would name Israel in this context, especially since Israel is not a party to the BWC,” Moodie said. Potential Problems With Naming Names Bolton has presented the strategy of “naming names” of countries suspected by the United States — presumably based on evidence gathered by U.S. intelligence — as an alternative to a treaty mechanism for investigating and identifying suspected states. “The United States seeks to put maximum political pressure on proliferators by naming state parties that are violators of the BWC,” he said last week. Formal arms control inspections through the BWC to determine biological weapons activities could not be effective, he argued, because the components can be found in the everyday environment and can simultaneously have legitimate and illegitimate uses. “They are used for many peaceful purposes such as routine studies against disease, the creation of vaccines, and the study of defensive measures against a biological attack,” Bolton said. “Detecting violations is nearly impossible. Proving a violation is impossible,” he said. There is a problem in the U.S. “naming names” approach, however, with providing proof the international community will recognize. Bolton and another U.S. official this year accused Cuba of having a limited, offensive biological warfare research and development “effort,” citing U.S. intelligence information. The accusation provoked some controversy, with former President Jimmy Carter questioning its accuracy and Cuba issuing a denial. Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl Ford in congressional testimony in June acknowledged U.S. difficulties uncovering proof Cuba actually had a program (see GSN, June 6). Naming names also can have harmful diplomatic consequences, said Moodie. “Nobody in those kinds of forums likes to be singled out, and some people consider it a breach of diplomatic decorum to be that specific about it,” he said. By naming additional names, Moodie said, the United States could run the risk of itself being accused of having a program forbidden by the treaty. The New York Times reported last September that the United States has been running several classified biological weapons research programs, ostensibly for better understanding potential threats, which could be construed as violating the treaty. “There are at least a couple of those programs that were reported that were, in the view of some people, close to the lines if not over the lines of compliance,” said Moodie. “If the U.S. is sort of looking for a fight, I think that some people might try to take them up on it, on that basis.” A Change of Position The latest U.S. positions were not received warmly by other Western delegations, said Jenni Rissanen, who has followed the debate at the review conference from Geneva and written for the Acronym Institute’s Disarmament Diplomacy. “Other countries were quite upset. It puts U.S. allies in a very difficult position,” she said. A British official told Global Security Newswire last month that British diplomats would not rule out pushing for a vote on a protocol or other recommendations in November despite opposition (see GSN, Aug. 6). “U.S. officials announced to the Western group partners their position had ‘evolved.’ People said they should have used the word ‘regressed,’ Rissanen said. Rissanen said U.S. officials have effectively withdrawn from pursuing even their own BWC-related proposals last year. “Last year they said in order to agree to follow up meetings, [the parties] would have to kill the ad hoc group,” she said. “Now they no longer support the whole concept of follow-up meetings.” A State Department fact sheet on the BWC published in May said there was “widespread support” at the conference last November “for U.S. and allied initiatives intended to strengthen the convention through practical, national implementation measures and continuing expert meetings.” A State Department spokesman yesterday said U.S. officials would not be available for comment on the recommendations until they returned to Washington Monday. Skepticism About Traditional Arms Control Bush administration officials on a number of occasions have indicated strong skepticism about the usefulness of traditional arms control tools, such as detailed treaties, declarations of holdings and on-site inspections, and have said in particular they do not find them useful with respect to uncovering biological weapons (see GSN, March 27). “While the BWC retains an important role, the U.S. believes we should also look beyond traditional arms control measures to deal with the complex and dangerous threat posed by BW,” the fact sheet said. Countering the threat, it said, “will require a full range of measures — tightened export controls, intensified nonproliferation dialogue, increased domestic preparedness and controls, enhanced biodefense and counterterrorism capabilities, and innovative measures against disease outbreaks, as well as the full compliance by all states parties with the global ban.” Bolton listed a number of measures to combat biological weapons proliferation involving the United States over the past year, including laws to strengthen U.S. counterterrorism and biological defense capabilities (see GSN, May 3), a pledge to donate $10 billion over 10 years to enhance WMD security in the former Soviet Union (see GSN, June 14), a World Health Organization agreement to strengthen global health surveillance systems to detect an attack (see GSN, June 24) and an agreement by industrial states to strengthen export controls of certain equipment that could be used in biological weapons programs (see GSN, June 21). With U.N. arms inspectors barred from Iraq since late 1998, the Bush administration currently is considering a military attack against Iraq to rid it of suspected biological and chemical weapons capabilities, and a suspected nuclear weapons programs. Rissanen said she believes the U.S. approach to the treaty is effectively “making the convention obsolete.” Bolton said the United States remains a “strong supporter of this treaty,” but indicated what is valued in it is the standard it creates against biological weapons. “The United States strongly supports the global norm established by the BWC,” he said.
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