Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

September 13, 2000

But persistent moral and political proscriptions have not prevented intermittent outbreaks of man-made biological horror.

Each of the 159 nations endorsing the BWC pledged "never in any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain" microbial or biological agents or the means to use them in war. Yet the Convention contained no verification or enforcement provisions because biological weapons were not considered a significant military threat in the Cold War world.

How the world has changed. Iraq's unchecked use of prohibited weapons of mass destruction against Iran in the 1980s emboldened nations and terrorist organizations who saw lethal rewards and little risk in the proliferation and use of chemical and biological arms. The demise of the Soviet Union revealed a bio-weapons program, in direct violation of the BWC, on an almost unimaginable scale.

According to yesterday's Washington Post, surplus Soviet biological weapons, technology and expertise may yet be made available to the highest bidder despite U.S. threat reduction efforts.

Acknowledging the need for a stronger regime to deter and detect BWC violations, representatives of signatory nations in 1995 began negotiating the terms of a compliance protocol including declaration, verification and inspection provisions similar to those contained in the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The draft protocol under discussion in Geneva raises, but does not yet answer, fundamental questions about curbing the spread of biological weapons.

To what extent is the BWC verifiable?

When the same microbe and the same equipment can be used to make a life-saving vaccine one day, and a deadly weapon the next, will any protocol prove more than a temporary nuisance to a determined violator?

Will the uncertain benefits of a traditional arms control verification system outweigh the certain and substantial burdens on governments and private enterprises conducting legitimate medical research and pharmaceutical production activities?

How can classified material and proprietary business information be protected from an intrusive inspection regime some would use to conduct state-sanctioned spying and industrial espionage?

Recent history offers only partial answers. Efforts by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to inspect Iraqi bio-weapons facilities demonstrate how easily even a focused enforcement program can be frustrated.

Experience to date under the Chemical Weapons Convention provides some comfort that procedural and substantive safeguards can work to protect the rights, and the intellectual property, of the inspected. But it remains uncertain whether the same safeguards will work in a very different setting, in which a single microscopic organism contains the blueprint for a product or process worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

As the Subcommittee begins our consideration of these important issues today, we are fortunate to be joined by the lead U.S. negotiator on the BWC protocol, Ambassador Donald Mahley, and others who bring a great deal of experience and expertise to this discussion. We look forward to their testimony.

Regrettably, we are not joined this morning by a representative from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), who declined our invitation to participate. In working with the administration on these issues, PhRMA has not been shy about expressing a position in favor of a more workable, cost-effective process to control biological weapons.

As world leaders in conquering disease, American pharmaceutical companies have an unassailably positive role to play, and an undeniable responsibility to participate, in this discussion. We trust their timidity will be overcome at a future hearing.