Dick Lugar: “Mr. President, the objective of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the debate that we are involved in now, is leadership…”

“Mr. President, the objective of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the debate that we are involved in now, is leadership, a question of leadership by our country. We can take a look at all the exceptions and the negative views, but the very positive force I think we want to stress in framing this issue is, the United States of America, our statesmen, President Ronald Reagan, George Bush, now President Bill Clinton, and many who have worked with them in the Armed Forces and in statecraft, recognize that our country has a very substantial problem in the world; namely, that of chemical weapons. We came to a determination on our part that these weapons were unreliable, unstable, dangerous, and so dangerous, as a matter of fact, that we did not wish to employ them--we wished to destroy them. We have been doing that as a nation. Our dilemma is that other nations, primarily Russia, with substantial stores much greater than our own, but a variety of other nations, purportedly have these weapons. Our problem is to convince other nations in the world that we all ought to be about the task of ending production of these weapons, ending possession, storage, ending any vestige of them. Now, in order to do that, we have to bring other nations into this with us. Therefore, we have offered leadership now for many years.”