Chemical Treaty: We must retain credible weapon

By PORCHER TAYLOR

For Scripps Howard News Service

President Clinton recently offered to make a formal, written pledge to include the nuclear option in the retaliation package against any adversary that attacks U.S. troops with poison gas in an effort to co-opt hard-line Republicans in the Senate into ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Since the weapons convention becomes operable international law for at least 65 ratifying nations on April 29 with or without U.S. ratification, perhaps the United States should retain a nuclear-option retaliation strategy against a chemical strike, regardless of the Senate's final vote on the treaty.

Making nuclear retaliation a credible deterrent presents a quintessential leadership challenge to a second-term president who still lacks a coherent and cohesive national security platform. In light of this dilemma, Clinton should study the three historical cases where Western leaders who, with bold, retaliatory pronouncements, appear to have stopped two dictators from unleashing the poison gas beast.

In 1942, a desperate Soviet Union feared that Adolf Hitler would use poison gas against "the armies and peoples of Russia" and appealed to the British government for assistance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill unambiguously and audaciously declared to Hitler that the "unprovoked use of poison gas against our Russian ally" would constitute an attack on Great Britain. Moreover, Churchill proclaimed that Britain would use its air supremacy in the West "to carry gas warfare on the largest possible scale far and wide against military objectives in Germany."

In a similar vein, on June 8, 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt promised the Axis powers in Old Testament style and proportions that "full and swift retaliation in kind" against Axis "military objectives" would immediately follow if the Axis powers used poison gas.

During the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on the Gulf War Syndrome in January, Committee Chairman Arlen Specter queried Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf about the veracity of those 1991 media reports. In a surprising admission that seemed to catch Specter off balance, Schwarzkopf confirmed that the United States planned to "blow way" Hussein's military with nuclear weapons should he be so foolish as to use chemical weapons against coalition troops.

This daring strategy probably kept Hussein's chemical beast securely chained during the Gulf War. Surprisingly, nuclear deterrent counter-threats against enemies who pose clear-cut danger to vital U.S. national security interests are not novel. According to the 1995 book Nonproliferation Primer, U.S. presidents have used nuclear weapons threats more than 20 times since 1945 to coerce belligerents in Indochina, East Asia, Berlin and the Middle East with mixed deterrent results.

Hopefully, the United States would never have to actually exercise such a Draconian measure as nuclear retaliation, although the possibility remains that a terrorist group or rogue nation could launch a massive chemical attack against American troops or civilians in the future. Congress should conduct hearings on the proper U.S. chemical-weapons deterrence policy for the next millennium even if the Senate doesn't ratify the CWC. The dialogue should include the nuclear option. Clinton must seize the initiative in this debate through strong, focused leadership.

Compelling evidence suggests that twice in this century the United States courageously stopped two tyrants from unleashing their poison gas arsenals. We cannot afford to lose this deterrent legacy.

Porcher Taylor is an adjunct professor of law and leadership at the University of Richmond's Jepson School of Leadership Studies.