Mike Levin: “It is long overdue, Mr. President, that the Senate take up the Chemical Weapons Convention and that we promptly provide…”

“It is long overdue, Mr. President, that the Senate take up the Chemical Weapons Convention and that we promptly provide our advice and our consent to its ratification so that the United States can join the convention as an original party. I will focus just for a few moments this morning on the military issues and the military implications as they relate to the Chemical Weapons Convention from my perspective as the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee. Under the 1985 treaty which was signed by President Reagan, we are already unilaterally destroying our stockpile of unitary chemical weapons. We are doing this without a treaty, without being required to do so, because of our own decision as to their limited military usefulness. This process is scheduled to be completed by the year 2004. This is a point which Secretary Cohen makes very, very effectively. This is not an issue of saying we will give up our chemical weapons if the other guys do the same thing. We are already unilaterally destroying our chemical weapons. The question now is whether we will join a convention where other countries are going to do what we are already doing unilaterally.”