[EXCERPTS] "Building a Bipartisan Foreign Policy"
TEXT: SECRETARY OF STATE ALBRIGHT
AT RICE UNIVERSITY FEB. 7
We will also use diplomacy to keep America safe.
The Cold War may be over, but the threat to our security posed by weapons of mass destruction has only been reduced, not ended.
In recent years, with U.S. leadership, much has been accomplished. Russian warheads no longer target our homes. The last missile silos in Ukraine are being planted over with sunflowers, and nuclear weapons have also been removed from Belarus and Kazakstan. North Korea's nuclear weapons program has been frozen. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has been extended. A comprehensive ban on nuclear tests has been approved.
And we are continuing the job begun under President Bush of ensuring that Iraq's capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction is thoroughly and verifiably dismantled.
The President's budget empowers us to build on these steps. It provides the resources we need to seek further reductions in nuclear stockpiles, to help assure the safe handling of nuclear materials, to back international inspections of other countries' nuclear programs, and to implement the agreements we have reached.
... ... ...
Before closing. I would like to highlight one of the President's top early priorities, which has little to do with money, but much to do with America's standing in the world.
The President has asked the Senate to give its approval to a convention intended to ban chemical weapons from the face of the Earth. That agreement, known as the Chemical Weapons Convention, or CWC, will enter into force on April 29. Our goal is to ratify the agreement before then so that America will be an original party.
Chemical weapons are inhumane. They kill horribly, massively, indiscriminately and are no more controllable than the wind. That is why the United States decided years ago to eliminate our stockpile of these weapons and to purge from our military doctrine any possibility of their use. Countries that join the CWC will undertake a legal obligation to pursue a similar policy.
The convention make it less likely that our armed forces will ever again encounter chemical weapons on the battlefield; less likely that rogue regimes will have access to the materials needed to build chemical arms; and less likely that such arms will fall into the hands of terrorists or others hostile to our interests.
The result will be a safer America and a safer world.
Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way. Senate approval of the convention is by no means assured. Opponents of the CWC argue that it does not provide full protection, because we do not expect early ratification by the rogue states. We regret that, but the CWC remains very much in our interests.
The CWC establishes the standard that it is wrong to build or possess chemical weapons. That standard will put added pressure on rogue regimes. It will send a message that if a country wants to be part of the international system, and to participate fully in its benefits, it must ratify and comply with the CWC.
What it comes down to is this question. Who should set the rules for the international community? Law-abiding nations? Or the rogues? Are we barred from establishing any rule that the outlaw nations do not first accept? Or does it serve our interests to draw the clearest possible distinction in law between those who observe international standards and those who do not?
Unfortunately, as General Norman Schwarzkopf recently observed, if the foes of the CWC have their way, the United States would draw a line in the sand, put our friends and allies on one side, and then cross over to the other, joining hands with Libya and Iraq.
If the opponents have their way, we would forgo the right to help draft the rules by which the convention is enforced and the destruction of chemical weapons assured.
We would lose the right to have Americans help administer and conduct inspections within the CWC.
We would risk the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in export sales because the American chemical industry would become subject to trade restrictions imposed upon non-members of the CWC.
Finally, we would lose credibility in negotiating arms reduction agreements generally, because our ability to deliver in the Senate what we have proposed at the bargaining table would be undermined, for reasons that friends and allies around the world would find very difficult to understand.
Make no mistake, the Chemical Weapons Convention is in the best interests of the United States. In fact, the CWC has "made in America" written all over it. It was endorsed by President Reagan, and negotiated under President Bush -- very ably negotiated I might add, thanks to his Secretary of State.
Now, and until success is achieved, the President, our new Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, and I will he working with every member of the
Senate to ensure the timely and favorable consideration of this important convention.
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