CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL WARFARE: U.S. POLICIES AND INTERNATIONAL EFFECTS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1969 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENTS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Clement J. Zablocki (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. ZABLOCKI. The subcommittee will please come to order. The subcommittee today opens its hearings on U.S. policies regarding chemical-biological warfare. More specifically, we have under consideration a number of identical resolutions, sponsored or cosponsored by some 108 Members of Congress, calling on the President to resubmit to the Senate for ratification the 1925 Geneva Protocol on chemical-biological warfare. (The text of the protocol follows:) PROTOCOL PROHIBITING THE USE IN WAR OF ASPHYXIATING, POISONOUS OR OTHER GASES, AND OF BACTERIOLOGICAL METHODS OF Warfare, GENEVA, JUNE 17, 1925 The undersigned plenipotentiaries, in the name of their respective Govern ments: Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world; and Whereas the prohibition of such use has been declared in Treaties to which the majority of Powers of the world are Parties; and To the end that this prohibition shall be universally accepted as a part of International Law, binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations; Declare: That the High Contracting Parties, so far as they are not already Parties to Treaties prohibiting such use, accept this prohibition, agree to extend this prohibition to the use of bacteriological methods of warfare and agree to be bound as between themselves according to the terms of this declaration. The High Contracting Parties will exert every effort to induce other States to accede to the present Protocol. Such accession will be notified to the Government of the French Republic, and by the latter to all signatory and acceding Powers, and will take effect on the date of the notification by the Government of the French Republic. The present Protocol, of which the French and English texts are both authentic, shall be ratified as soon as possible. It shall bear to-day's date. The ratifications of the present Protocol shall be addressed to the Government of the French Republic, which will at once notify the deposit of such ratification to each of the signatory and acceding Powers. (1) The instruments of ratification of and accession to the present Protocol will remain deposited in the archives of the Government of the French Republic. The present Protocol will come into force for each signatory Power as from the date of deposit of its ratification, and, from that moment, each Power will be bound as regards other Powers which have already deposited their ratification. In witness whereof the Plenipotentiaries have signed the present Protocol. Done at Geneva in a single copy, this seventeenth day of June, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-Five. Mr. ZABLOCKI. These resolutions also call for complete review by the U.S. Government of its policies on chemical-biological weapons, and for reaffirmation of the no-first-use policy of our Nation. Today we will hear testimony from Members of Congress who have a special interest in the very important subject of chemical-biological warfare. Our first witness is the Honorable Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota. Congressman Fraser is a valued member of this subcommittee, who has contributed significantly to our work over the past 11 months. Mr. Fraser. STATEMENT OF HON. DONALD M. FRASER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA Mr. FRASER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation for the fact that you have scheduled these hearings. I think this is consistent with the initiative which you have shown as chairman of this subcommittee in moving into areas of vital national concern and areas which I think deserve the attention which you are giving them. Mr. ZABLOCKI. I thank my colleague for the observation. I want to also state that in no small measure your deep interest in calling to the attention of the chairman the necessity of going into these fields has contributed much to the activity of this subcommittee. Mr. FRASER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The hearings which we begin today were called because one-fourth of the House has requested the President to resubmit the Geneva Protocol of 1925 to the Senate for ratification. Undoubtedly, support for this resolution would increase dramatically were we to mount a campaign on its behalf. It is disturbing to me that successive administrations have let over 40 years lapse without requesting the advice and consent of the Senate to ratify this treaty, which we originated and signed in 1925. A POLICY CHANGE ON CBW Until recently I had thought that our policy in this field was identical to the rule of the Geneva protocol: We would not be the first to use chemical or biological weapons in war. Over the past few years, however, it has become clear that policy with respect to the use of these weapons has changed. The United States initiated chemical warfare operations in Vietnam. It is reported that plans were made to use biological weapons against the Cuban people and that contingency plans exist for the first use of these weapons in many countries. Our research, stockpiles, and delivery capabilities have increased substantially during this decade. Because the Pentagon has surrounded chemical and biological weapons with greater secrecy than it has imposed on nuclear weapons, Con gress and the American public have been unaware of this policy change. The Pentagon has spent a minimum of $2 billion on those weapons since 1961 with virtually no congressional review until this year. It is hardly surprising that we have produced a CBW arsenal whose necessity even ranking Chemical Corps officers could not justify to the Government Operations Committee in May 1969. The immediate issue of ratification of the Geneva Protocol needs to be discussed in the context of the national security and foreign policy implications of CBW. Unfortunately, this task is made difficult by the absence of any systems analysis or strategic studies of these weapons by the Pentagon. The Chemical Corps discusses the potential employment of CBW as if nuclear weapons either did not exist or did not constitute a credible deterrent threat. No wonder the Defense Department does not speak with a single voice on CBW. The United Nations Report on CBW, prepared by scientific and military experts from 14 countries, including the United States, concluded that the development of a CBW armory "implies an economic burden without necessarily imparting any proportionate compensatory advantage to security. And, at the same time, it imposes a new and continuing threat to future international security." I submit that this conclusion holds true no matter how we analyze the costs and utilities of CBW, whether we look separately at chemical in contrast to biological weapons, or lethal in contrast to so-called incapacitating weapons, or tactical use in contrast to strategic use. The marginal military utility which these weapons represent does not justify their development or retention in our arsenal. Furthermore, because these weapons of mass destruction are within the reach of many less developed countries, we should not by our own activities, be encouraging their proliferation. ON THE "HUMANENESS" OF CBW The ultimate myth employed by CBW advocates is to justify their development and use as "humane" weapons. The ideal of making warfare humane has captured man's imagination for centuries. Chemical and biological weapons, however, do not advance us down that road. There is nothing humane about weapons which kill people but do not destroy property. We have no weapons which can incapacitate without producing fatalities. Relatively innocuous agents like tear gas are being used every day in Vietnam to increase enemy casualties. I believe that the principal reason we have so far maintained a CBW capability is because of the old refrain: "The other side has them." Being able to retalitate-in-kind has become an ingrained, but superficial, response to justify a wide range of weapons systems. Yet biological weapons are unpredictable in their effects and unsuitable for immediate response, even if we could determine the origin of the attack. Chemical weapons entail a level of violence approximating tactical nuclear weapons, but from a military viewpoint are less efficient. We have consistently attributed an enormous stockpile to the Soviet Union, much greater than our own, without once coming to terms with the fact that no country in the world has a biological warfare production facility such as we have at Pine Bluff, Ark. We also appear to have so many chemical stocks on hand that the Pentagon last summer wanted to dispose of tons of modern nerve gas weapons by dumping them at sea. These contradictions between official policy pronouncements and Chemical Corps practice, the justifications for the U.S. program which do not hold up under analysis, and the series of accidents that have plagued CBW operations for 2 years have prompted these hearings. We obviously must find ways to place constraints on the U.S. CBW program. Ratification of the Geneva Protocol would be a long overdue first step that would legally bind us to do what 84 countries have already agreed upon-refrain from the first use of these weapons in war. VIETNAM WAR POSES OBSTACLE But at a time when public and congressional pressure for action is growing, the war in Vietnam raises certain obstacles against any initiatives the United States might now take. The protocol must be considered in relation to the war, but I hope it will not be used to further a divisive debate on the war itself. The protocol, should it be ratified, will stand for decades to come as a legal barrier to the use of these weapons. The Vietnamese experience hopefully is unique and should not dictate the nature of our commitment to the protocol. My specific concern here is how the protocol can be ratified in view of our military use of tear gas in Vietnam, which nearly all parties to the protocol would consider to be prohibited. A legal analysis of the protocol would show that this issue is not free from ambiguity, and the United States even in 1930 questioned the wisdom of prohibiting wartime use of nonlethal tear gas. ALTERNATIVE COURSES OF ACTION Nevertheless, we now seem faced with alternative courses of action. First, we could bring about a uniform interpretation of the protocol that prohibited the use of tear gas by so agreeing when we ratify, or we could maintain our freedom to use tear gas when we ratify. This latter alternative would not be accepted without some criticism from the other parties and certainly would lower the restraints to using gas in warfare. Personally, I doubt that tear gas could be a useful weapon in other theaters of combat. It may not be an option worth preserving. Abandoning its use in Vietnam soon would be a welcome sign of deescalation, I believe, and would enable us to ratify the protocol so as to maintain an absolute barrier to the use of all gas in warfare. Should careful analysis lead to the other conclusion, however, I still believe it worthwhile to ratify the protocol. We would at least be bound not to use all other gas and germ weapons, a major restraint on military planning to judge from press accounts of Pentagon plans. Beyond that, it is a necessary step to take if we are serious about pursuing further arms control agreements in this field. We have been told repeatedly that new agreements must await U.S. ratification of the basic treaty on CBW, the Geneva Protocol. Let us decide to make good on a past mistake. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ZABLOCKI. Thank you, Mr. Fraser. I wish to commend you for a very thoughtful statement. THE U.S.S.R. AS A SIGNER OF GENEVA PROTOCOL You mentioned 88 nations have ratified the Geneva Protocol of 1925. Was the U.S.S.R. one of the nations? Mr. FRASER. My understanding, Mr. Chairman, is that only two industrial nations have not ratified the protocol. That is Japan and the United States. Mr. ZABLOCKI. The only two that have not? Mr. FRASER. They have not. Mr. ZABLOCKI. I think it would be very helpful if the list of those nations who have ratified the Geneva Protocol would be made a part of the record at this point. Mr. FRASER. I agree. Mr. ZABLOCKI, Without objection, it is so ordered. |