Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
DANIEL FEAKES,
DR. BRIAN
JONES AND
NICHOLAS SIMS
19 NOVEMBER 2008
Q60 Andrew Mackinlay: Were any of
you three involved in the debriefing or interviews with Wouter
Basson?
Chairman: Perhaps we can pursue that
matter elsewhere.
Q61 Sir Menzies Campbell: I was wondering
whether I interpreted a relationship between Dr. Jones and Mr.
Sims, in the sense that Dr. Jones said—please correct me
if I am wrong—that the acquisition of the technical ability
for chemical and biological weapons is easier than for nuclear.
It is that ease that gives rise to Mr. Sims's enthusiasm for control
through convention. Of course, we do not have a nuclear convention.
We have a biological convention and chemical convention in which
control lies at the heart of efforts to achieve international
supervision. Is it because of the relative ease of manufacture
and the relative ease—at least in the case of biological
weapons—of portability that the convention is so important?
Nicholas Sims: I am not sure.
That would imply that we do not need a nuclear weapons convention,
after a Biological Weapons Convention and a Chemical Weapons Convention.
Sir Menzies Campbell: That hypothesis
does not lie behind my question.
Nicholas Sims: Good. The fact
that the three weapons categories have been tackled in such different
ways is mainly attributable to the fact that biological and chemical
weapons were marginal to the armouries of most states when nuclear
weapons were very far from marginal for several. Therefore, it
was historical opportunity that one could do something about biological
weapons and then chemical weapons. It is nuclear weapons that
are the odd ones out, where there is a series of treaties but
none is an abolition, full-disarmament treaty of the kind that
BWC and CWC represent.
The question about ease of manufacture is interesting—the
relative ease of acquisition of materials, the relative ease of
acquiring the technology and the know-how and so on. That was
a very important motivation for the negotiations on BWC and CWC,
although they took place at different times. In the case of nuclear
weapons, I would guess the main motivation is the unequivocal
undertaking to complete the elimination of nuclear arsenals, given
at the sixth review conference of the NPT in 2000. That unequivocal
undertaking interprets article VI of the NPT in an abolitionist
direction which, to my regret, was not reaffirmed at the seventh
review conference, which could not produce an outcome document
at all. I hope it will be reaffirmed at the review conference
in 2010. I repeat that I see nuclear as the odd one out in that
we do not yet have a disarmament convention of the kind we have
for biological and chemical weapons.
Q62 Ms Stuart: May I follow on
with a question regarding weapons of mass destruction, in terms
of the legal structures not making sufficient distinction between
nuclear, chemical and biological? Dr. Jones, you are on record
as saying that you thought it required a slightly more sophisticated
approach. For the benefit of our report, would you please say
a little more on that?
Dr. Jones: Yes, I do have problems
with the term "WMD," mainly because I think its use
masks the very important differences between not only the technical
aspects of the weapons systems but also their concepts of use
and how they are likely to be used. The term is useful to the
extent that it reminds people that there is more to this subject
of producing large numbers of casualties than nuclear weapons.
Nuclear seems to be a little bit exclusive. The papers that have
been submitted to the Committee contain barely a mention of biological
and chemical weapons. Not that I want to play down nuclear: nuclear
is very important. Do not get me wrong. But it is important to
realise that some biological weapons have the potential to produce
the same number of lethal casualties as nuclear but they would
not be used in the same context and in the same way, and they
do not have the same deterrent properties. It is those differences
that are quite poorly understood.
I should like to cite Professor Meselson from
Harvard, whom Daniel's organisation is closely associated with.
He assisted Dr. Kissinger when the Americans gave up biological
weapons in 1969 and in the late '90s he explained what had happened.
He said that the American advice to President Nixon at the time
realised that biological weapons were cheaper than nuclear weapons
because the cost, effort and expertise required for their acquisition
was much smaller than for nuclear weapons. But he added the rider
that it was no simple thing either. There are important distinctions,
but that is an important point and something that we tend to lose.
When biological weapons raise their head from time to time we
remember it, but then it rapidly recedes again in my experience.
Q63 Ms Stuart: This is a question
for the entire panel. If you have a more differentiated approach
between the various weapons, the response presumably also has
to be different, does it not? With some of them we talk about
non-proliferation and with others we talk about disarmament. I
would add a third: powder in condoms thrown at the backs of Prime
Ministers is sheer disruption, which in a modern society is probably
even more damaging than anything else.
Daniel Feakes: I would share Brian's
concerns about the term "weapons of mass destruction".
In some ways WMD is convenient shorthand. It helps to emphasise
the linkages between nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
I would not for a minute argue that they should be totally separate
and not looked at together because there are states that potentially
have or have had all three programmes running at the same time.
There are linkages between them.
The term WMD originates with the United Nations.
It is written into various multilateral treaties. It is not something
that we can ignore, but I would agree with Brian. The national
security strategy, for example, uses the term WMD. I would hope
that in that case it is used as shorthand. I hope that policy-making,
assessment and analysis is based on the differentiated approach
that you describe because these weapons are different in terms
of what they can do and how they can be used. They are different
in terms of the treaty regimes.
We have two disarmament regimes—the CWC
and the BWC—and we have the NPT, which is the odd one out.
I would strongly urge that they be disaggregated. If there is
too much of a focus on lumping them all together, nuclear dominates
and chemical and biological weapons get left behind. People assume
that what works with nuclear weapons therefore also works for
chemical weapons. A second order value is therefore given to chemical
and biological weapons. If they get neglected in that way and
one's thinking is dominated by nuclear weapons, one could come
up with responses that work for nuclear weapons but do not work
for chemical and biological weapons. That could be quite damaging
in itself.
Finally, the UK has been one of the leaders
on chemical and biological weapons, disarmament and arms control.
Since the late 1960s, the UK has been one of the strongest supporters
of disarmament and control of these weapons. I hope that what
we see in the national security strategy and in the Foreign Office
memo to your inquiry is that chemical and biological weapons are
not being neglected, because the UK has a good and a positive
record in that area. I hope that this focus on nuclear disarmament,
which is obviously welcome and good, is not to the detriment of
chemical and biological weapons.
Nicholas Sims: I very much agree
with that. I also think that it is very unfortunate when all three
treaties are placed under the heading of non-proliferation, which
sometimes, rather carelessly, happens. It is most important that
the CWC and the BWC are understood as banning possession and all
activities prior to possession equally for everyone; there are
no permitted possessors, as there are, for a time, in the NPT.
Rather than "non-proliferation" I like the phrase "non-diversion,"
which Daniel has used at the end of paragraph 9 of his memorandum.
It is a very useful term to use about the CWC and BWC. He applies
it to the CWC in paragraph 14, but I think that it is equally
true for the BWC. The diversion of biological or chemical materials,
or know-how, to weapons purposes is forbidden equally to the great
majority of states that have not possessed and do not possess
the weapons and to those that have possessed them in the past
or that, with the CWC, are still on the way to completing the
destruction of stockpiles—there are still four parties to
the CWC in that position. It is equally important for all of them
to ensure that there is no diversion.
I am much happier with the term "non-diversion,"
both for the BWC throughout its history and for the CWC, particularly
after the completion of the destruction of stockpiles in 2012,
than I am with "non-proliferation". The danger with
the overall category of non-proliferation is that it diminishes
the standing of the BWC and the CWC as absolute, unconditional
renunciations—in effect, simple disarmament treaties. As
well as everything else that they have in them, they are simple
disarmament treaties.
Q64 Mr. Hamilton: Gentlemen, as
we are aware, the enforcement of the Chemical Weapons Convention
relies on inspections and verification. There is obviously a similar
regime to strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
However, in your written evidence to the Committee, Dr. Jones,
you said that the false assertions about the status of Iraq's
WMD capabilities that were used to justify the war in 2003 have
challenged confidence that the compliance of states with their
international obligations relating to these weapons can be reliably
monitored, and you said that it is an important omission. Do any
of you think that multilateral rules-based treaties and conventions
are effective against the states that are the most likely to flout
them? Is this an effective non-proliferation strategy? Clearly,
it is quite flawed—discuss.
Chairman: Who wants to start with that
one?
Dr. Jones: Clearly, it is a major
problem, and the extent of the problem varies from weapons system
to weapons system. At the lowest level—a single nuclear
weapon of small capability or a chemical or biological weapon—I
think that the chances of detecting breaches to treaty obligations
are very small, but I may be wrong. I hasten to add that I am
not an expert in treaties or conventions. It is not something
that I have ever studied; I have looked at the capabilities and
the technical processes associated with the development of those
weapons capabilities. A very major problem with biological weapons,
which causes great confusion, is the lack of a requirement of
a large stockpile to develop a significant capability. The development
of a national-based nuclear weapons capability of the sort that
we fear will be reasonably visible and detectable. From that follows
one's ability to reinforce the convention, or the deterrence value
of a convention as I understand it.
As far as chemical weapons are concerned, I
believe that a nation could break out and develop a capability
over a period of months, say, during which time large quantities
would have to be produced and physically large stockpiles generated.
The problem with biological weapons, and I suspect one of the
reasons why they currently have no inspection-type controls, is
that it is possible to begin with relatively small amounts and
generate sufficient quantities to be very dangerous very quickly.
That makes the whole business of catching a nation that decides
to do so very much more difficult. That is a special problem.
Daniel Feakes: Under the Chemical
Weapons Convention, which I guess is the one that I know best,
in terms of straight numbers there have been almost 3,500 inspections
over the past 10 years at almost 200 chemical weapons facilities
and more than 1,000 industrial facilities. There is a very intrusive
and robust verification regime under the CWC. The Organisation
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, over in The Hague, has
about 200 inspectors who go out every day to military and civilian
facilities around the world. The regime is there and it is robust.
When we get to the question whether the regime
could detect everything, no regime will ever be 100% foolproof
and verifiable. That is impossible in a global industry such as
the chemical industry or, even more so, the biotech industry,
in which things are done on a very small scale. What on-site inspections
give you is some kind of confidence. They allow the organisations—the
OPCW in this case—to build up a picture of what is going
on in a particular state. Over time, they can build up an idea
of that state's capabilities, whether civilian or military. It
gives them a picture of what is going on in that state. They send
in inspectors and have them in that state, on the ground, asking
questions. They might not find a smoking gun on any particular
inspection, but it works over time. From what I understand of
the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, that was what happened
there.
It is like a detective story—one builds
up a picture. I understand from talking to people who were in
Iraq that the things that they found were often not the weapons
or the programmes themselves but all the concealment activities
to do with them. If you find heavily guarded facilities, there
might be nothing inside, but the existence of the guards or fences
raises suspicions.
In the case of the CWC, there is also the possibility
of a challenge inspection—an almost surprise inspection
that the OPCW can be requested to launch. Again, there are potentially
ways in which states could get around those and still escape detection,
but all those parts of the regime add up to a fairly strong deterrent.
Any state that went down the path of developing, say, a break-out
capability, would have to be sure that it could never be detected.
It could never be 100% sure that something would not be detected,
whether through the OPCW itself, the other states parties by their
own intelligence means or a whistleblower in a particular programme.
There will often be leaks from programmes, as we saw in Iraq and
with the former Soviet Union's programme. Verification is an important
thing, with people in there on the ground who are able to go to
the states involved and build up a picture.
Finally, even if a state has developed a break-out
capability in a legitimate, civilian industry, it is something
quite different to produce a deployable weapon for use, say, by
military forces. The military forces will need training. They
will need doctrine. They will need to know that they have such
things and know how to use them. Even if the state had stockpiles
of chemical agents, it is a question of how it would use and deploy
them for them to be militarily useful. Production is one thing,
but the other step is to translate the capability into a useable
weapon. OPCW inspectors can pick up on that too and add it to
their picture.
Q65 Mr. Hamilton: Do you think
there is an alternative strategy to the verification regime, the
rules-based approach to inspections on the ground and the scenarios
that you have described? Is there an alternative to that? Clearly,
Iraq showed us that it was rather flawed.
Daniel Feakes: I do not know.
People assume that Iraq showed the failure of inspections, and
in some ways it showed that inspections can actually succeed,
because the UN inspectors did find evidence of programmes. They
picked up on various things. Because of what followed, I guess
that UNSCOM has the image of being a failure. Perhaps it was a
failure politically, but technically in terms of on-site verification,
it was quite successful. Lots of things that happened in UNSCOM
were lessons that the OPCW learned from when it started its operations
in 1997.
As for alternatives, it is hard to think of
anything better than getting people on the ground in facilities.
The OPCW has gone to facilities in Russia that, during the cold
war, we did not know existed. It has gone to previously unknown
chemical weapons programmes in India and South Korea. We did not
know that India and South Korea had chemical weapons programmes
before 1997, whereas now the OPCW sends its inspectors there on
a routine basis. At present, I cannot think of anything different.
Q66 Mr. Purchase: Given that the
Iraqis and others might from time to time deny the existence of
any development proposals, and given that inspections on the ground—unavoidable
as they are and desirable as they are—may not discover serious
concrete evidence that development is taking place, is it not
the case that politicians are left with the serious dilemma of
deciding whether to take at face value the protestations of the
regime? How long can they expect the verification programme to
continue in the face of denials, before a decision has to be taken?
I hurriedly want to say that I voted against going to Iraq. Dr.
Jones made the point—the words he used were "falsely
asserted"—but politicians are still left with a dilemma
about what they should do in those very difficult circumstances.
Chairman: Dr. Jones, you were quoted.
Do you want to come back on that?
Dr. Jones: Absolute certainty
in most areas is—
Mr. Purchase: Impossible—
Dr. Jones: Just about impossible,
not least because any state that is transgressing will find some
way of pulling the stumps before the smoking gun is found.
Q67 Mr. Purchase: So that could
apply to Iran now, could it not?
Dr. Jones: Probably.
Mr. Purchase: It is the same conundrum.
Dr. Jones: Yes. I am thinking
as I speak. The end point of the process has to be one step back
from that absolute certainty and involve the sort of processes
that are already available in conventions and United Nations Security
Council resolutions. There comes a point at which the onus must
be on the suspected transgressor to come clean. In the case of
Iraq, that was a major problem. That never happened and there
was uncertainty.
Chairman: I am conscious that we do not
want to discuss the nuclear issue and Iran, because the focus
of the meeting is supposed to be on other areas, but it was worth
making a point.
Nicholas Sims: I cannot see an
acceptable alternative to the treaty approach as the cornerstone
of our efforts, because that approach involves equality of obligation
for everyone. There must be that equality of obligation for everyone,
whether it is openness to inspection or, in the case of the BWC,
where there is not a verification regime or inspection, the obligation
to explain and to engage in various confidence-building measures,
which are politically binding commitments, and also to consult
and co-operate, which are legally binding commitments. We have
to build on all those substitutes for verification and make them
as strong as possible so that the compliance regime is as robust
as it can be in the absence of verification.
The treaty approach is the cornerstone, but
you can also have export controls co-ordinated by the Australia
Group, for example, and the sort of obligations that states are
under as a result of Security Council resolution 1540, directed
particularly at preventing diversion to non-state actors in that
instance. There must also be a tremendous amount of national implementation
so that the prohibitions that a state has accepted at the international
level are transmitted into domestic penal legislation and enforced.
Q68 Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I am
still trying to get a feel for the scale of the risk, because
plainly the effort that the world is prepared to put into that
is proportionate to the threat that it feels it faces. We have
not seen the widespread use of chemical weapons since the first
world war, and although there have been highly damaging incidents
since then, the use of biological and chemical weapons has by
and large been fairly rare and isolated, compared to the millions
killed in every other way and the traumas that the world has gone
through. Can you say a little more about the scale of the threat?
Perhaps you might start, Dr. Jones. Without giving away too many
secrets from your past work, you clearly faced that. I am looking
for a quantitative assessment of how important that is.
Dr. Jones: We always used to talk
about low probability but high impact if ever such things happened,
and I do not know that there are any easy answers. In my submission
to you, I pointed out that the National Security Strategy quite
rightly recognises a whole range of problems for us as a nation,
not all of which were from weapons and the military. Although
at this range there are possible weapons-based, WMD-type threats
downstream, it seems to me that there are probably more potential
existential threats to us, for example from climate change, although
I am not sure about the exact point in that debate. It seems to
me that that is something we need to be concerned about for a
variety of reasons. Perhaps I should also include mention of the
possibility of pandemics.
One of the points that I was trying to make
to the Committee is that an additional consideration for the whole
non-proliferation agenda is that it is very important to ensure
that we get some idea of those balances. My criticism of the National
Security Strategy is that it gave us no guidance on how the Government
see that. It is five years since I was working in Whitehall, so
I can slope shoulders on that, but those are the sorts of issues
that need to be addressed much more vigorously than they are.
We tend to see suggestions and problems right across the board,
where I think we really need to begin to say, "We think that
this one is more important than that one."
Q69 Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I think
that we need a few more facts here, if we can. There are declared
states which possess chemical and biological weapons, but do we
have any idea about whether they deploy them, whether they are
training troops to use them, or whether they have been recently
tested? In the case of non-state agents, roughly what is the proliferation
threat? How many terrorists have been picked up in possession
or near the possession of these sort of agents? It is quite important
that we get a handle on the realistic threat here. Maybe it is
impossible. I imagine that if one asked to inspect Afghanistan,
it would not be brilliantly successful, given that there are only
one and a half provinces that are in any sense pacified. Is the
answer that we just do not know? Or are we just groping around
because there is a real threat—a possibly catastrophic one—and
we are just taking out an insurance policy against it? That is
probably valid, but I am trying to get an idea of the proportionality
of the threat.
Dr. Jones: I do not think that
I can help you very much with that, not having access to intelligence
information at this stage.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: We do not know,
in other words.
Dr. Jones: I do not, but someone
might.
Daniel Feakes: In terms of declared
states, when the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force,
states parties to that convention had to declare whether they
possessed chemical weapons or production facilities for chemical
weapons and also whether they had in the past possessed chemical
weapons programmes. There are a total of six states since 1997
which have declared that they currently possess chemical weapons:
Albania, India, Libya, South Korea, Russia and the US. Of those,
Albania and South Korea have destroyed all their stockpiles, India
is due to destroy its stockpile by the end of next year, I think,
and Libya by the end of 2010. The big stockpiles are those of
Russia and the US. The original deadline in the CWC was 10 years
after entry into force, so all these stocks should have been destroyed
by 2007. The CWC allows a one-time, five year extension, which
all the states had to apply for, and they were granted various
extensions. The US and Russia applied for the full five years,
so their deadline is now 29 April 2012, but both of them look
unlikely to meet that deadline. The US has already said publicly
that it cannot do so and that it will be perhaps 2017, or even
2023. The Russians are still saying that they can do it, but people
who know doubt that they can do it by then as well. Within the
convention that is what we know about.
Outside the convention there are 11 states that
have not joined the CWC yet, among those 11 there are four—Israel,
Syria, Egypt and North Korea—which people strongly suspect
of having some kind of chemical weapons capability, but because
they are outside the convention we do not know what they have.
The production facilities of those inside the convention have
been closed down, and lots of them have already been converted
or destroyed. The ones that are still open are inspected by the
OPCW and the stockpiles are being destroyed under OPCW verification.
The weapons that exist there are under international monitoring.
They have seals and tags on them and the facilities are being
destroyed or converted. So training and so on would not be happening
in those states that are inside the CWC, unless there was a covert
programme in there somewhere, which hopefully the OPCW would detect.
As I said, we do not know what is happening with the other four.
There are efforts by the OPCW and by states such as the UK to
get Israel, Syria, Egypt and North Korea on board, but it is difficult—particularly
in the Middle East.
In terms of biological weapons, various states
have historical biological weapons programmes—the UK, for
example. Again, there are states outside the Biological Weapons
Convention, similar to the states that I just mentioned regarding
the Chemical Weapons Convention, that are suspected of having
biological weapons programmes. Even for the states inside, as
we said, there is no verification mechanism for the BWC, so there
is no way of telling exactly what the states inside are up to.
But there is a system, which Nicholas mentioned, of confidence
building measures, in which states have to submit information
on various facilities and various parts of legislation—domestic
measures. They have to submit that annually to the United Nations,
but unfortunately a very small percentage of states actually do
so.
In quantitative terms, it is hard to give a
definitive answer, particularly regarding terrorists. Terrorists
are an unknown quantity. So I am sorry, but I cannot help you
with that. In terms of the CWC and BWC numbers that we know about,
those are the figures.
Chairman: I think that we should move
on now.
Q70 Mr. Horam: Looking at non-proliferation
policy over the three areas—nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons—one bit of evidence that has been put to us is that
NATO has effectively ceased to be interested since President Bush
came to power, and has abandoned any attempt at threat reduction
through arms control, in favour of a purely military response
to potential WMD-armed adversaries, and that is because European
nations have submitted to the American view of this area. Do you
think that that is correct? Do you think the Europeans have given
in on the issue in NATO, despite not sharing the Washington view,
and that NATO has ceased to play a part in the whole thing?
Chairman: Mr. Sims?
Mr. Horam: You are looking very anguished,
Mr. Sims.
Nicholas Sims: I am looking anguished
because it is such a good question and so difficult to answer.
I think that regardless of what is or is not the case at the moment,
the coming-in of the new Administration in the United States gives
the UK and other NATO countries an enormous, almost unprecedented
opportunity to re-engage the United States in a much more wholehearted,
reinvigorated multilateralism in this field, as in others.
Q71 Mr. Horam: You are implying,
therefore, that the Americans are not engaged at the moment.
Nicholas Sims: I am more than
implying: they certainly are not engaged. In the BWC, they have
been remarkably discouraging to multilateral endeavours ever since
2001, and therefore the predominant mode in BWC diplomacy in Geneva
has been, "How much will the Americans allow us to do? How
fast can we move towards recovery from the debacle of the ending
of the protocol negotiations in July 2001? How far and how fast
can we move towards something that is almost a secretariat?"
The Americans will not let us call it a secretariat, so we have
to call it an Implementation Support Unit. It is a tremendous
achievement to be allowed to employ three people full-time for
four years. That is the sort of grudgingness that I hope the new
US Administration will get right away from. If we look far enough
back, they have a very good national record.
Q72 Mr. Horam: The Americans?
Nicholas Sims: Yes. They gave
up their biological weapons to try to encourage the BWC. They
had completed the abolition of their own BW stockpile before the
BWC entered into force in 1975, and they also had a major role
intellectually in the genesis of the first set of confidence-building
measures in the mid-1980s. I would like them to be encouraged
to be far more positive on reinforcing the BWC from within, allowing
the treaty regime to develop in the sorts of ways that plenty
of European Union and other NATO members, such as Canada and Norway,
have put forward. Those members have, however, found themselves
held back by the constraints that the US has placed since 2001
on any development of multilateralism within the BWC—very
severe agenda constraints, very severe constraints on linking
progress in one year's meeting of states parties to the next,
very severe constraints on any negotiation or addition of commitments
at all and, unfortunately, no secretariat. At least, finally,
in 2006, this four-year, three-person Implementation Support Unit
was allowed. It is good that it was allowed, but let us hope that
the new Administration will be persuaded to be far more positive.
Q73 Mr. Moss: Can I just follow
on from that, Mr. Sims? You talk about hope that the new Administration
may take a different approach. Were there any signs or signals
during the presidential campaign from the eventual winner, President-elect
Obama, that suggest to you that there might well be a significant
change in the attitude of the USA towards non-proliferation?
Nicholas Sims: I am not aware
of anything concrete from him. Within the Democrat camp, there
have been encouraging signs that the US would be much more engaged
in multilateral endeavours generally. Where people are perhaps
over-optimistic is in expecting that the change of Administration
would lead the US to be more favourable to verification of the
BWC. I frequently have to diminish those hopes—pour cold
water on them—because the Clinton Administration was extremely
dubious about verification of the BWC. It became almost a dogma
that the BWC was not really verifiable and, therefore, other types
of compliance measures need to be sought, which the second Clinton
Administration actively pursued through the protocol that was
under negotiation between 1997 and 2001.
The new Administration is likely to provide
a change of tone first of all. It is likely to be less grudging.
Given all the Democrats who hope to be involved in policy making
under President-elect Obama, I would be very surprised if there
were not at least a change of tone. However, I do not expect a
change of substance in regard to verification.
Daniel Feakes: May I add something
to that? In a presidential debate or a statement by President-elect
Obama—on the issue of science and technology, I think—he
spoke about biological weapons and making the use of biological
weapons a crime against humanity. "Crime against humanity"
was the phrase he used, but I cannot remember if he was just addressing
that to bio-terrorism, or whether he meant biological weapons
used more widely. I am not sure of the context, but I remember
it, because we monitor the press and pronouncements for this kind
of thing. I remember that that phrase was used, which could mean
various different things—a reinvigoration of the multilateral
process, or a focus on non-multilateral measures against terrorism
and non-state actors. I am not exactly sure of the thinking behind
it, but I remember that that statement was made.
Q74 Mr. Moss: Could I turn to
a European dimension? Back in 2003, we had the publication of
the European Security Strategy and the publication on non-proliferation.
Do you think that there are any lessons in those publications
that might steer the UK's policy on non-proliferation in any different
direction?
Daniel Feakes: I have studied
this area quite a lot. I have spoken to people in Brussels and
in various places—The Hague and Geneva as well—about
EU policy in this area. It is an evolutionary process. Over the
years, the EU is becoming more involved. Since the strategy that
you mentioned, the EU has also adopted a WMD strategy and action
plan—later than 2003, I think. We have seen the profile
of the EU develop in Geneva, say, when we attended the ad hoc
group negotiations during the 1990s for the protocol, in the meetings
that have happened since and in The Hague for OPCW meetings. The
visibility of the EU has gradually increased in that area. Earlier,
it was pretty low key—if it existed at all. People in Brussels
told me that the aim was to increase the visibility of the EU.
That was one of my concerns. What was it about? Was it about doing
something, or was it just about increasing the EU's visibility
and making it more of a presence within a particular negotiation
forum or meeting?
It is important to distinguish the rhetoric.
The presidency will make a statement on behalf of the EU at CWC
or BWC meetings, rather than the 27 states making their own individual
statements. A co-ordination process currently goes on among the
EU states. It is useful. Since then, the EU has done various substantive
things. A number of common positions have been adopted on both
the BWC and the CWC about the universalisation of the treaties.
After that, there have been joint actions in support of the BWC
and the CWC in terms of resolution 1540, and one fairly recently
in support of the World Health Organisation.
The EU is also putting money behind the rhetoric
in some ways. Over the years, it has given between €5 million
and €7 million to the OPCW for its activities. I think that
it put in almost €1 million in support of various meetings
to raise awareness of the BWC. The role of the EU is growing.
It is still very much into common, foreign and security policy.
It is intergovernmental. It is not something in which the Commission
plays a great role.
There is another concern. Some people have spoken
about a straitjacket on the 27 EU members within the treaties.
Not all 27 are as engaged and as active as one another; but whether
they are in a straitjacket, they negotiate common positions, and
that is the lowest common denominator that can be agreed on among
the 27. The UK might want to go further, but it is limited by
that. The other side is that the 27 states negotiating a position
together are already a fairly sizeable number of CWC or BWC states
parties. As opposed to the policy straitjacket, there is also
a laboratory of consensus model, whereas states outside the EU
are more likely to say, "Yes, that is a good approach or
position because you have already negotiated it among yourselves.
Obviously, it is value that combines the national positions."
The EU is playing a positive role, but it needs to do more, and
it needs more financial resources behind it.
Chairman: We are very conscious of the
time. I shall bring Sir John Stanley in briefly, and I want to
ask about the Chemical Weapons Convention. I hope that we shall
then conclude. We are running late, and I am worried about Divisions.
Q75 Sir John Stanley: I want to
talk about proliferation in relation to chemical weapons. I am
following the question asked by Mr. Heathcoat-Amory earlier. As
far as I am aware, the biggest single user in a so-called military
context of chemical weapons since the first world war has been
Saddam Hussein—first against the Iranians and then against
his own people, the Kurds. The use was widespread, and as we know,
they are incredibly awful weapons resulting in terrible, protracted
deaths with acute pain. As has been widely reported from open
sources, the foundations of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapon capability
were laid by chemical companies based mainly inside EU member
states.
Do you believe that, since those chemical exports
took place into Iraq, the EU has sufficiently tightened up its
control over dual-use chemicals and that, in future, it will be
impossible—or, I hope, very difficult—for chemical
companies inside the EU particularly or, say, in the United States,
to make those types of exports to someone who could then put together
that technology and create a chemical weapon capability? Or are
we still basically as vulnerable as we were when Saddam Hussein's
chemical weapon capability was established?
Daniel Feakes: I think that things
have improved a lot since then. The EU now has a dual-use goods
regime, which it did not have in the 1980s. That has also been
improved over the years. All the member states have obligations
under both conventions to have strong export controls. All members
of the Australia Group do as well; they harmonise and talk about
their export controls together. These things are also being more
rigorously enforced. More press reports are coming out of the
US about companies being fined for exporting to so-called countries
of concern or companies that do not have licences to export what
they have exported. A UK chemical company received a fine for
an export made either last year or the year before. So enforcement
is improving. The framework and the national enforcement are getting
better. I would hope that something like that did not happen again.
There was a lot of soul searching within the
German and Swiss industries—the various ones involved in
the Iraqi programme. In Holland, there is the case of Frans van
Anraat—a Dutch person who facilitated a lot of those transfers.
He was tried last year or the year before and sentenced to prison.
More has happened on that score, so I hope that that will not
be allowed to happen again.
Q76 Sir John Stanley: If we do not
have it already, could you please let us have a brief note of
the UK company that was fined for breaching the chemical export
control?
Daniel Feakes: Yes.
Q77 Chairman: Could I just ask a
couple of questions about the chemical weapons convention? Mr.
Feakes, you referred to the countries that had signed and those
that were outside the regime. What is the British Government doing
to encourage those who are outside to sign up and those that have
signed but not ratified to ratify? Are we doing enough?
Daniel Feakes: It is hard to say
exactly what is happening. As far as I know, there are demarches
every so often. The EU has a collective demarche, say, in Tel
Aviv or Damascus. Every so often, our ambassador or the EU representative
will deliver demarches to the Governments there. These countries
are all invited to the various OPCW meetings. The Middle East
is particularly tough area. There are some meetings that Israel
will not attend—for example, if Syria or Egypt are attending—or
vice versa. That is a very tricky area.
One thing that the EU has being doing recently
is trying to link arms control—these kinds of issue—more
to other issues such as trade. The EU holds a very big soft power
weapon. It has come up with a non-proliferation clause in its
recent agreements with third countries, so that the EU is saying,
"We will meet you on trade as long as you do something on
arms control." There are various ways to do it. I am not
sure of the details of what the UK Government do, but I know pressure
is exerted, although I guess there could always be more.
Q78 Chairman: What about those countries
that have signed but not yet legislated, or have not appointed
or designated a National Authority within the terms of the chemical
weapons convention? Are we doing anything on that issue?
Daniel Feakes: As far as I know,
the same sort of things happen. It is a matter of pressure. For
a long time, the OPCW would say that many states have not met
such and such an obligation, whereas now it is naming such states.
There is a naming and shaming process going on.
Q79 Chairman: Perhaps you could
give us a note setting out more detail on these areas, because
clearly it will be helpful when we produce our report if we can
name and shame as well.[5]
Daniel Feakes: The UK is also
involved in technical assistance programmes, so there is finance
behind it, too.
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