At the invitation of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, John Bolton presented the Bush Administration's views on the Biological Weapons Convention. The meeting was co-chaired by Michael Moodie, Leonard Spector, and Peggy Hamburg.

John R. Bolton: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here today. I appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to speak to the sponsoring groups. I would like to talk for a little while about the BWC, and what's been happening in the past couple months, and what we see happening ahead. I would be pleased for the remainder of the time to answer any questions you have about the BWC or the Bush Administration's arms control and nonproliferation and political/military policies in general.

Today, of course, is the four-month anniversary of the terrorist attacks in September. We're not doing a lot of commemorating as we did at the three-month anniversary. It is important to keep the attacks in mind because Americans have been criticized for a long time for having a short attention span. I think one of the things that President Bush has stressed since September 11 is the importance of responding both to the attacks and to the overall threat of global terrorism, that we need to take the long-term view and we need to have patience. And while this may be difficult for us individually and collectively as a nation, I don't think we can remind ourselves enough that this struggle is not going to be over in a short period of time. It's not the way we think of other wars we have engaged in with a defined beginning and a defined end.

One of the most important things that President Bush has done both in assembling the international opposition to terrorism and in the evolution and conduct of the campaign is the connection that he has quite properly drawn between terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction. He said, for example, in his speech last year to the UN General Assembly, "The world faces the horrifying prospect of terrorists searching for weapons of mass destruction in order to turn their hatred into holocaust. They can be expected to use chemical, biological, and nuclear the moment they are capable of doing so."

President Bush and other senior administration officials have repeatedly since then stressed the ties between the threat of terrorism, the actions of state sponsors of terrorism, and the proliferation and potential use of weapons of mass destruction. I think it is very instructive, as we think of the way ahead, to note that the list of state sponsors of terrorism the United States government has published, pursuant to statutory requirement for years, has nearly a one-to-one confluence with states that either have or aspire to have weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems. So this is not simply the abstract perception that there might be, at some point, the use of weapons of mass destruction. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind, as the President said, that if terrorists had weapons of mass destruction that they thought they could use, they would not hesitate to do so.

So, just to focus on the biological weapons area, there is no question that among the range of WMD threats we face, the BW area is one of the most serious. It has, in the wrong hands, real destructive power, and it also has a disproportional psychological impact as well. We can look only to our own experience with the anthrax release to see the disruptive effect that it can have and the concern that it can cause with ripples throughout society as a whole.

Now this leads to the question, faced with these kinds of threats, whether from terrorists or state sponsors of terrorism, what is the appropriate response? Obviously, you can see in the range of activities that the U.S. and others have undertaken, military, political, economic, law enforcement, intelligence and otherwise, that the answer has to be fairly broad.

But in the specific area of what we do in terms of international cooperation on what you might call the traditional arms control front, it seems to me that given the failure of existing arms control agreements to stop the threat that we now see from terrorists, one has to ask what exactly is the central focus of our interests? On what should we be concentrating? I believe it is beyond dispute that the main area of concentration in this area for states is compliance with existing treaty obligations.

This is what we tried to do at the Biological Weapons Review Conference in Geneva in November, to raise the issue of non-compliance, and specifically to state, at least some of the actors that we thought were posing the most immediate danger because of their non-compliance. Now the most obvious candidate is al Qaeda, which of course is not a state by anybody's definition, but which we had substantial reason to believe was working on trying to achieve a biological weapons capability. But, in addition, it was important to name states, mostly parties to the BWC that we believed were in non-compliance. I named a total of six states back in November: Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Iran, Syria and Sudan.

There are other states that are party to the BWC that I did not name and I'd be happy to explain the reasons for that when we get into questions and answers, but the purpose of concentrating on the issue of non-compliance and specifically of naming non-compliant states is that this is the path ahead for the international community: to focus on those states that have undertaken in the BWC and the Geneva Convention not to produce or use biological weapons but which are violating their commitments.

Now it was interesting to hear the reaction to this new focus on the question of non-compliance. Many people supported it, of course. Some opposed it on the ground that non-compliance should not be the central focus of the review conference. I found this a very curious proposition. Here is a conference that meets once every five years to assess the BWC. What is it conceivable that is more important in such a review conference than to assess whether people are paying attention to the convention itself. Indeed I have yet to hear, and maybe I'll hear today, an argument as to why the subject of compliance should not be the central focus of every meeting of the review conference of the BWC.

Now the second objection to our approach was by some people who disagreed with our approach to name names. They said, "Well it's not appropriate, it's not something you should do in a diplomatic context." Well, I have to tell you, I find that a kind of curious response, too. Imagine if you will, an annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission talking about compliance with human rights standards around the world where you didn't talk about particular countries and allegations of human rights violations. That's commonly accepted. Countries might like it or not like it, but it happens every day of the annual human rights commission meeting.

So what is it about the BWC review conference that would make it different? I don't find the answer. I think that it is particularly important to talk about those states, which we know are not in compliance, and to get people focused on what the real problem is. The good news about a focus on compliance is that the overwhelming number of states party to the BWC are in compliance. That should tell us that addressing the problem of noncompliance is not simply an issue of more negotiation among 150 countries that are sovereign equals. There are differences among the states party to the BWC, and most particularly, some are abiding by it, and some are lying about what they are doing.

Now this leads I think pretty directly to consideration of why the United States last summer announced our rejection of the draft protocol supplementing the BWC that had been under negotiation for six or seven years. There were three basic American objections to the protocol.

The first was that, as written, if it were actually implemented, it would compromise our important biodefense preparations. That would arise from the risk of inspections by people who didn't particularly bear us the best wishes, who by inspecting our biodefense facilities would be able to develop countermeasures that could frustrate the defenses that we were preparing.

The second major area of concern was the risk to our pharmaceutical and biotech industries, that inspections would compromise their intellectual property assets and risk widespread interference in their activities. And the experience of some test inspections over the 90's I think helped corroborate that, and it was a very serious issue that we did not see being addressed.

The third principal concern for the United States was the undermining of our system of export controls and the multilateral framework of export controls known as the Australia Group to prevent the export both of dual-use items and others that could be used in an offensive BW program.

Now these are three extremely serious objections in my view that were not even close to solution at the time we announced our position. Now, many asked, "Well, why did the U.S. announce its position when it did?" The answer was that despite American advocacy of not using this November's review conference as a deadline by which states would have to come to a conclusion on the protocol, that position was a distinct minority.

So the timing of the announcement was really driven by the mechanistic calendar schedule of the work of the ad hoc group and the timing of the meeting of the five-year review conference. But what we did in considering what the United States position would be was to survey the views of every government agency and department that had equity in what the American position would be. And it was reviewed very extensively, as only bureaucratic interagency reviews of this kind can do, over a several month-long period through many, many meetings, the net of which was essentially the unanimous recommendation of every government department and agency involved that the United States should reject the protocol. And this was carried through to decisions up to and including the Cabinet level.

Now, as we have explained to many of our international partners how we went through this decision-making process and the factors we considered and the extent of the review and the extent of the consideration, they told us a number of interesting things, some of which were very different than what they said publicly. Many of them said to us privately, "We agree with you this is a very flawed protocol." But many of them said, "Nonetheless, it's better than nothing." And therefore, that they hoped that we would go ahead and support it.

I just want to stop here for a moment and say that the "better than nothing" argument seems to me to be something that we should confront and emphatically reject. "Better than nothing" really is a formula that could have led to a protocol that would have simply rewarded hypocrisy and permitted further violations of arms control conventions that their very advocates say are important to honor.

A country that is willing to lie about its compliance with the BWC is a country that would have been perfectly prepared to sign the protocol and then lie about its compliance with that. So, from the American point of view, we did, as I think one must always do on treaties like this, a very exhaustive cost-benefit analysis and concluded that the cost of the draft protocol substantially exceeded the benefits. So we don't even accept the idea that it was better than nothing. I would have said it was even worse than nothing. But we also reject the idea that simply asserting the ultimate rhetorical value of the protocol is in itself justification for proceeding. I just think that is misguided.

And I don't think you can avoid the problem by saying, "Well, more negotiations might have solved it." It was our conclusion that more negotiations probably would not have solved it, would have made it worse, and that in any event, the other partners didn't want more negotiations. But it does lead to a further question when you have a convention like the BWC where some states are in very strict compliance and other states are not, what the benefit is of sitting down and having, as one person put it, the analogy of the police sitting down with the mafia to discuss their shared interest in law enforcement.

That's why I think instead of a focus on negotiation, a focus on compliance and on exerting international pressure on non-compliant states to bring themselves into compliance or face the consequences is really, over time, a lot more likely to be productive. So what we proposed to the review conference were a series of steps that would have called on states party to the BWC to show their political commitment not only to their own compliance but to compliance by others, through new domestic law enforcement requirements that would have, essentially, as we have presently in the United Stares, criminalized activity that could have led to the production or use of biological weapons.

This is not dissimilar from the kind of political commitment that we expect from members of the Australia Group in having effective export control regimes. We were thinking about that analogy and what might be done in terms of domestic law enforcement, as well as the benefits of having cooperation internationally among domestic law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies, which has been very effective, and other areas that might have been effective in this area as well.

We also proposed a number of other specific steps that could be done in terms of enhancing the international response to pathogens and toxins, whose research and transmission were problematic. We spelled all those out. I might say in our consultations before the BWC Review Conference, we found essentially unanimous acceptance of the utility of the proposals the United States had made. There were, to be sure, disagreements and assertions that we hadn't gone far enough. But if one begins to accept the idea that it's not simply a question of finding more steps to get people to agree on, but getting people to comply with what they'd already agreed to, then you can see the utility of the American approach.

I would make the prediction that when we come back to the resumed session of the Review Conference in November, people will begin to think more and more about the compliance issue. That is certainly what we're going to be stressing in our bilateral consultations over the next year. So my prediction is that, not just in November but over the longer term, what the United States began in November of last year by naming names will begin to be much more frequent, that perhaps in November not only will we name names again, but that other countries will name names. And a year after that, or two years after that, that there will be more specific discussions.

I'm not necessarily saying that this will provide the kind of real and effective solution we need, but I do believe that talking about compliance over the long term is much more likely to get the kind of result in the BW area than would be the case with negotiations and further discussions about inspection regimes that are not likely to be any more effective than the underlying BWC.

So why don't I stop there. As I said, I would be delighted to answer your questions on any subject.

Moderator: Thank you very much for those remarks. You have given us a lot to think about. Why don't we take some questions from the floor?

Milton Leitenberg, University of Maryland: I have been very interested in the compliance issues and that seems to have been the focus of your presentation. I have written papers on this subject for thirteen years. It's in fact not new. The U.S. government has presented these things in the non-compliance side of the statement, as well as in Senate testimony since 1988. Just so you don't misunderstand my question, I agreed with everything you said. However, in your presentation in Geneva, you have several paragraphs about the main countries, and evidence about those main countries and you were prepared, on behalf of the U.S. government, to present that information to the world. However, those paragraphs were subsequently deleted. If it was inconvenient in Geneva, could you tell us here what some of that evidence was about those countries since we've been naming them for thirteen years?

Bolton: Well, its always fascinating to know what I almost said. Let me address the question in a serious way. Number one, there were states that I did not name, that I could have named. I said in the speech, which was fully cleared across a range of agencies that clear speeches like this. It wasn't my speech—it was the statement of the U.S. government. There are reasons why to name names of some states and reasons not to. I can state the rule fairly simply: those states we felt we had a better chance of impacting by not naming publicly, we didn't name. Those we felt we had no channel of communication to and which we felt deserved to be named in public, we included in the list. It is the case that I did not name any states that had not been named in previous documents issued by the U.S. government.

The fact that those statements got the attention they did, showed how little attention had been paid to the previous statements. I was happy that press and others focused on the statements in a way they hadn't in other public statements, which were largely in Congressional testimony.

Nor did I attempt in that speech to provide any information on the activities of those states that had not previously been done publicly. That was another conscious decision. When you get into the subject of disclosing all that we know, it raises a lot of very serious questions. I did not want the effort to focus on that procedural issue. I wanted it to focus on what I think is generally known by people who work in this area and is generally unquestioned in the list of states that I named. There is extraordinarily substantial information about the programs of every one of the states named. When and to what extent that will be provided is a separate subject. But I have complete confidence of the fact that the offensive BW programs and plans exist for all of the states I mentioned.

Leonard Spector, Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies: A second treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, does have a very clear-cut formula for establishing compliance and the use of challenge inspections. We have made comparable allegations regarding chemical weapons programs in other countries, but in this setting, the CWC, we haven't exploited the mechanism provided in that case. Perhaps you could comment on that. And then to come back to the biological weapons side, how will we establish compliance by a country like Libya? How do they demonstrate that they are in compliance? What's going to happen when we get an accusation that some of our activities may be non-compliant, such as the allegation that the U.S. is developing weaponized forms of anthrax?

Bolton: Let me address the last question first. We are not developing weaponized forms of anthrax. I have no doubt that there are probably (and let me make a risky statement here) more lawyers reviewing what the U.S. government does in the BW field than there are scientists working in the field. I am very confident in American compliance with its obligations.

In terms of the difference between the BWC and the CWC, I think there are some obvious differences and I think that's one reason the CWC was brought into force and why we see it in operation today. It is overly facile to think, and I'm not saying you did, if you can do it in the chemical area you can do it in the biological area. The research and production facilities and the whole range of scientific issues relating to the differences between BW and CW make that clear. Even in the chemical weapons area, we are finding ongoing difficulties in the operationalization of the CWC. The OPCW itself, the organization designed to implement the Convention, is troubled in its management. I said that during my confirmation hearing, and it remains the subject of very intense review and discussion by the United States and most other major participants in the CWC. We all share that concern.

What one does in the biological weapons area in terms of compliance is something we're working on as we come up to the next session of the review conference in November. It was a major step forward this past November to get people to begin to acknowledge that instead of the endless treadmill of negotiations on the draft protocol, it is time to recognize that process is finished, that protocol will never come into force, and that further negotiations on it are going to be fruitless. With that in mind, we can all turn our attention to working on the subject of compliance and what concrete steps we can take next. The first objective, which I believe was achieved, was to gain recognition that compliance is the central issue and that focusing on the non-compliance states is the most important step thereafter.

Nanette Ryen, General Accounting Office: I was wondering if you could comment on your third point about why the U.S. government rejected the protocol regarding the Australia Group and its export control system.

Bolton: There were many states that were active participants in negotiations of the Ad Hoc Group that essentially wanted, in a variety of ways, basically to loosen restrictions on the export of materials and equipment and technologies associated with biological research and development, dual-use things that could have been used in biological weapons programs.

We feel that the export control regime that the United States and its Australia Group partners have is a critical element in preventing the proliferation of biological weapons. The export control system is extremely onerous, and we face lots of complaints by companies here and in other countries about the difficulties that the export control system imposes. This is not a cost-free exercise for the United States to have this system of export controls. It's not a cost-free exercise for other Australia Group members either. But we think it's important enough, and that it's useful in stemming the potential outflow of these technologies and commodities and equipment to prevent BW proliferation.

So we would be unswervingly opposed to anything that weakens the system we have now, which is useful. I would certainly not argue, comprehensively effective. If anything, we ought to be strengthening the Australia Group regime, not weakening it. That was the direction of a lot of language of what I can now safely call the last draft of the protocol. Every indication was that further negotiations just would have made it worse.

Amy Smithson: A number of the proposals that were tabled in Geneva would leave it to the discretion of individual nations as to what approach they took. And the proposals, I think are hard to argue with. I think everyone would like to see surveillance enhanced and certain activities criminalized and the regulations for transporting dangerous pathogens strengthened. However, don't you leave yourself open to some problems with not having an approach that sets some type of a global standard? For example, what recourse do you have if Country X passes a national law that says the penalty for making and using biological agents is five days in the pokies and a five hundred dollar fine?

Bolton: Well, that sort of statute would obviously have next to no effect, which would mean we're pretty much where we are now. This seems to me an inherent problem in the BWC itself, which is an intent treaty. It's different than counting missile silos or other objects that have no other use. I'll just read a part of Article I of the BWC. It says, "Each state party to this convention undertakes never, in any circumstance, to produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain microbial or other biological agents or toxins, whatever their origin or method of contain, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective, or other peaceful purposes."

That's why I say this is an intent treaty, as opposed to, let's say, START I, where you have nuclear warheads that are pretty hard to justify as having some other peaceful role. And that inherent judgement that is required in implementing the BWC means that a lot of what was proposed in the draft protocol, for the reasons I've said, I think would fundamentally be incapable of being operationalized.

So I don't pretend and I have not argued that steps that the United States has proposed are a complete palliative for all the problems. What I would like to see for example--just to pick one of the countries that is not compliant, Iraq--I'd liked to see a regime change. I don't care whether Saddam Hussein passes a law that makes the use of biological weapons illegal or not; I'd like to see a regime change. That's why, as we look at the really quite remarkable coincidence between states that aspire to weapons of mass destruction and states that are listed on the government's list of state sponsors of terrorism, I think that tells us a lot about what we ought to expect over the long term.

Michael Moodie, Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute: Could you elaborate a little bit on U.S. thinking and plans for how it is going to be pursuing this agenda with others between now and the review conference? Is that going to be done quite early on a bilateral basis and if so, with whom, or are there plans to widen the forums?

Bolton: A lot of it will be on a bilateral basis. We're considering some other initiatives that I wish we had reached a decision on so we could discuss them here today, but we are still working on those. I do think that it will be important to convince others, as we said in Geneva, that the process that we've followed over these past seven years with the Ad Hoc Group has led us into a ditch and it's time to recognize that and to start thinking about other ways of moving ahead.

We're not going to proceed with the draft protocol. I don't see the utility of taking precisely the same process that produced an unacceptable protocol and then taking it forward, so we are looking for alternative processes. A lot of what we recommended, precisely for that reason, were steps that nations can take on their own, wouldn't require the kind of negotiating process that we've been going through. But we are willing to consider other possibilities. We are actively discussing that. We've done so in the past couple of weeks and we'll be doing it further in the future.

Peggy Hamburg, Nuclear Threat Initiative: As a follow-on, speaking as someone that is working in an NGO, I'm interested in your thoughts, as you move forward and try to address the broad concerns. Is there a role and a strategy for how to engage other non-traditional partners? If we're going to make a difference in improving early disease surveillance or early detection and warning, if we're going to reduce access to dangerous pathogens and improve bio-security, either on a national or a global level, there are going to need to be partners that have not traditionally been part of the diplomatic process — the scientific community, the public health community, NGOs in new and different ways. I think everybody is deeply committed to the goal of reducing the threat. Do you have notions on how this community can be helpful?

Bolton: I appreciate that. I believe that is worth exploring, and some of our proposals that we made in the run-up to the opening of the review conference in Geneva I think, assumed participation of that kind and we would certainly be open to further suggestions of that kind. But I'd tell you quite frankly that part of our difficulty was in stopping the momentum of this seven-year-long process, and I think it is now stopped. Therefore, with that task completed, we can do some more thinking about what the alternatives are. I think all of us who have been involved in the government are more than happy to receive suggestions, and I'm sure there's a lot more wisdom out there than we possess, so all the help you can give us would be appreciated.

Alan Platt, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher: I'd be interested to learn how the nature of some of the bilateral discussions with some of our allies or other countries may have changed in the wake of September 11 and how you would see that playing out in 2002.

Bolton: I think one thing that changed is the realization that something like al Qaeda, if it did get weapons of mass destruction, would have been something that we would have been just as much or even more unprepared to defend against as we were for the actual terrorist action. One of consequences, which was quite favorable, was to talk about specific, concrete steps that have real consequences in the real world, rather than hortatory declarations of aspirational policy that take years to negotiate and that don't change things concretely. But talking about specific steps that will make a difference in the real world. That is an approach I find far more effective in multinational negotiations than the broad attitudinal language that fills most of our political rhetoric. I would rather talk about specifics and I think since September 11th focus on the concrete has become much more intense. That is a very positive development.

Greg Siegle, National Journal Group: This is a two-pronged question. First, could you tell us how many other countries were under consideration to be named on the list?

Bolton: No.

Siegle: Ok, I figured you couldn't tell us which countries, but wondered if you could reveal how many. In lieu of that, when speaking about getting all the countries to name names, what, if anything, could be done to really put the pinch on these countries? What actions are you considering taking against these countries, should they be found to be violating the BWC?

Bolton: I think one of the impacts of naming names is felt on the range of countries in the circle around those that actually have offensive BW programs that are in violation of the BWC. By that, I mean there are undoubtedly states as to which our information is incomplete, that are thinking hard about a BW program or making tentative steps toward creating one. Some states that weren't named would fall under this category as well. There are certain states that say to themselves, when they see people talking about North Korea and Libya and other states that we named, what would be the consequences for us if in the next speech the Americans or somebody else named us as state violating the BWC?

So, the dissuading power of governments that conclude it's difficult to achieve a BW capability, the risks and the costs are high. And if one more cost is being shamed internationally and risking other political and economic relationships, in effect we are raising the costs to them in their calculus in whether to begin a BW program at all. I think you have to look at the first level effects, which are convincing people that this game isn't worth it. As to the others, this is a pretty discrete group of countries. As I've said before, it's really remarkable how many countries that are states party to the BWC are in compliance. When you recognize that you have a limited set of problems, it helps everyone focus on what the solutions ought to be. There are some where I don't believe a solution is possible absent regime change. I've named Iraq, as is our policy. However, we are also pursuing measures short of that which might get us part of the way there.

Yesterday, Hans Blix was in Washington and had a series of consultations with Secretary Powell and National Security Advisor Rice. I've known him since the first Bush Administration when he was head of the IAEA. I believe that if and when UNMOVIC inspectors go back into Iraq, he his colleagues will be very aggressive and do the best they can. That would be a step in the right direction. But realistically, for some of these governments, it will require fundamental policy change and that is what we should push for.

Seigle: You are discussing political pressure. What, if anything, are you considering doing in order to get countries to act on that?

Bolton: A lot of the countries that are on our list of state sponsors of terrorism are already subject to a range of economic and other sanctions. I think that the burden is on us as we raise the issue of non-compliance and stress its importance. As we try to get others to accept that that's what we should focus on, we need to bring them along in terms of steps that need to be taken. I think President Bush has made a very forthcoming statement about our willingness to engage in discussions with North Koreans. Their non-compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention is a subject that I'd certainly enjoy speaking with them about, as soon as those discussions begin. The possibility that other like-minded countries, members of the Australia Group and the like, had that same level of political commitment, we might be surprised at the changes that might occur.

Jonathan Tucker, Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies: You mentioned that the Bush Administration believes that the Chemical Weapons Convention is relatively verifiable. It seems to me that the Administration has not taken full advantage of this instrument. For example, it is well known that the OPCW is under-funded and is unable to carry out even its routine inspection mandate and also the United States has alleged that Iran is in non-compliance with its treaty obligations. But the United States has not requested a challenge inspection under the treaty to determine if, in fact, Iran is non-compliant. Could you comment on what the US is doing to effectively implement the Chemical Weapons Convention?

Bolton: This is a legitimate question. There are a number of things that we are doing that I can't really get into today. I acknowledge what you say. There are things we should be doing with Iran. The subject of our own destruction of schedule, financing and management of the OPCW, all of these are things that do require more attention. I personally plan to focus more on the chemical weapons. Life in the government is never perfect in that there are always new things to deal with. I take your point.

Jim Wyerman, 20/20 Vision: Clearly a cornerstone of the Administration's policy is the emphasis on national legislation. Few would disagree that this a useful tool. However, considerable questions remain with both observers and our allies on why that's the almost exclusive tool. My question is: do you really think national legislation would have made a difference in preventing things such as the recent anthrax attacks? If not, what supplementary measures or tools would be useful in increasing our level of protection?

Bolton: I can't answer the question in terms of the anthrax release we had here because I don't think we know enough about where it came from. It is entirely possible that this was a purely domestic operation. What one could say is that if our investigative authorities are able to apprehend the perpetrators, we will have a broad panoply of criminal statutes that will be applicable and I'm happy that's the case. If there were international involvement then we'd have to look at where they came from and whom they worked through. I do believe that even among developed-country colleagues, there are substantial gaps in legislation exist that individual action could correct. I'm hoping that when criminalization occurs at the national level, international police and law enforcement cooperation, which has been proven powerfully effective in many other areas and is now being expanded considerably in the anti-terrorist campaign, could be brought to bear in this area as well. That would be an example of advanced scrutiny and enforcement that I think would be very productive.

Elisa Harris: The Administration is correct to focus on non-compliance as the issue. It is not a new focus, however. It's been the focus of previous administrations including the Clinton Administration. As many of the people in this room know, because of the concerns about non-compliance with the BWC, the Clinton Administration believed that adding enforcement provisions to the convention was an important part of responding to this problem. Not the solution, but part of a comprehensive approach.

The Bush Administration has rejected the concept of adding enforcement provisions and instead proposed at the review conference a variety of alternatives. But I don't see any of those alternative proposals really addressing the compliance problem. They focused on national steps that would be taken. The few that could potentially be upheld, export of pathogens and equipment, are not going to have much of an impact on the key violators because those programs are sufficiently advanced that they don't need access to foreign pathogens or equipment. So, export controls aren't going to get us very far in killing non-compliance. You've also proposed strengthening the Secretary-General's investigative authority, but it's not clear how that proposal advances what already has existed since the late 1980's and was agreed in the aftermath of the Iran/ Iraq use of chemical weapons. My question for you is whether the Administration is going to put some real muscle behind dealing with the compliance problem, by for example, not just having politically binding arrangements as far as investigating noncompliance, but whether the Administration would consider legally binding international inspection arrangements under the auspices of the United Nations.

Bolton: Well, there are a lot of people in Washington and around the country who have lots of ideas about putting muscle behind a number of steps dealing with some of these rogue states, but let me deal with the first part of your question, which I think is premised incorrectly. I don't think we've rejected enforcement mechanisms. I think we've rejected weak, ineffective and counterproductive efforts at enforcement mechanisms. I think the inspections provisions of the draft protocol were a bit like the story of the drunk looking for his keys under the light post. That's kind of the most positive thing you can say. As I indicated in my remarks earlier, I think the potential negative consequences of inspection regimes far outweighed any small amount of positive enforcement power there might have been.

In the first Bush Administration, I helped participate in the writing of what then-Soviet Permanent Rep Vorontsov called "the mother of all resolutions," 687, creating, among other things, the UN Special Commission on the Destruction of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Even after the first Bush Administration left office involuntarily, I followed the work of UNSCOM very carefully because of my interest in it. And what has struck me is that the most effective, strongest mechanism for international inspection in the chemical and biological field, supported by the highest levels of science and technology, the most explicit political commitment by the five permanent members of the Security Council, the most extensive intelligence support, and the most prostrate country its ever been applied to, nevertheless did not succeed in finding critical elements of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons program. And my conclusion is that the kinds of inspection mechanisms that were contained in the draft protocol which were pale shadows of UNSCOM were simply pursuing an illusion. And I think we have now conclusively established that that course is finished, and it's time to move on to something else.

Thank you.

Transcript prepared and edited for continuity by Kristin Thompson

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