The Capital Spin Machine operates every day. But it’s rare that one can peek inside a central element of American government.
Spin. It’s the word for crafting an issue or response to your liking. It is a critical priority at the high-level morning staff meetings held at the White House and most government agencies. Especially with the 24-hour cable news networks, policymakers and their aides generally are obsessed with the media and how they will be portrayed.
“What’s The New York Times saying?” “Will we take a hit in The Washington Post?” “CNN wants an on-camera interview with the secretary.”
Last week I was leaked a document, titled “Press Guidance,” that is meant for State Department officials who expected a problem over an imminent disclosure: That of the U.S. rejecting a 55-nation panel’s draft accord to enforce an international treaty banning the manufacture, possession and use of germ warfare agents.
“We expect a flurry of press activity,” the document made clear.
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The Biological Weapons Convention was ratified by the U.S. and 143 other nations. But it did not contain an enforcement provision. For the last six years, the smaller panel, known as the Ad Hoc Group, has tried to craft one in Geneva, with the Clinton administration frustrated but willing to forge on.
The Bush administration is not. Thus, it again finds itself squaring off with much of the world, looking as if it is acting unilaterally and arrogantly.
The Tribune and The Washington Post broke the news in their July 21 editions. But if the initial responses from U.S. officials, as well as the later comments in White House and State briefings, sounded familiar to me, it was no surprise.
Clearly, officials were reading, often verbatim, from the document passed to me. I can’t rerun it here in full but will pass along its sample questions and answers, as well as my postscript on what the answers did not include:
Q: Can you confirm that the administration has decided not to support the Biological Weapons Conventional Protocol?
A: An intensive review of U.S. Policy toward the BWC Protocol has been conducted over the past six months. At the highest level of the USG (U.S. government), the determination has been made that the “chairman’s text” continues to contain severe problems for the U.S. We have concluded that we cannot support the draft “chairman’s text” and that its flaws are not fixable. It would not strengthen international security and the underlying 1975 BW Convention.
Left out: Why, oh why, is the proposal on enforcement not fixable, why must we pack our bags and go home? The specifics were grievously lacking.
Q. What is the U.S. position on the Convention?
A: The 1975 Biological Weapons Convention bans biological weapons. The U.S. remains totally committed to the BWC and to efforts to strengthen it. Biological weapons proliferation is a key threat to U.S. national security, and to the security of our friends and allies.
Left out: Well, yes, we may be committed to strengthen it but the underlying message of the early Bush administration is that arms-control treaties are not verifiable. It believes that some nations, which claim a desire for a treaty, cynically seek it as a veil over their slimy ways. The Bush administration is exhibiting unease with exercising the most basic mechanism in any treaty, the enforcement measures.
Q: How does the U.S. view the threat of BW?
A: The biological weapons threat is real, growing and extremely complex and dangerous. It may well be the 21st century weapon of choice by rogue states and terrorists. The U.S. will seek and support effective national and multilateral measures to prevent and protect against the BW threat.
Left out: As it defends its sensitivity to the problem, the administration arguably engages in a fair bit of overstatement. The very dangerousness of these weapons, and their difficulty to put together, poses a problem even for wily terrorists. And they remain a weapon of last resort for folks who might prefer car bombs. As one Bush administration official put it to me, people get a bit too enamored with books like “Hot Zone” while forgetting the extent to which biological weapons may be more a regional issue, notably in the Middle East, where Israel’s enemies may work on them precisely because of fears of Israel’s potential nuclear capabilities (which we don’t like to acknowledge).
Q: What is the U.S. view of the work of the Ad Hoc Group in Geneva?
A: The United States recognizes the hard work of the Ad Hoc Group and its chairman, Ambassador Tibor Toth of Hungary, over the past six years. The fact that the United States still has serious difficulties with the result of that work attests to the difficulty of creating formal measures, agreeable in a multilateral negotiating context, to address the complex issue of BW proliferation.
The U.S. believes the chairman’s text, unfortunately, does not effectively address the BW threat, but puts U.S. biodefense and business information at risk.
Left out: This really wouldn’t put U.S. biodefense at risk because it would provide a chance to conduct small-scale research in the area. And it misses the larger point of trying to come up with an enforcement mechanism with the rest of the world, namely that you at least create an international norm against which rogue states will be judged.
An ineffective protocol is worse than no protocol. It would give the veneer of legitimacy to states we know already possess offensive BW weapons. The fact that several states in this category are apparently prepared to sign the protocol demonstrates its weakness.
Left out: Well, not really anything. This is a pretty good summary of why they hate these sorts of treaties. It’s arguable but this is the Bush administration’s general view.
Another current problem with the text is that it would focus on-site activities primarily on western countries, who would take the legally binding declarations seriously, rather than on countries which the international community has good reason to believe are pursuing a biological warfare capability.
Left out: First of all, guys, decide on the correct pronoun to follow “countries”; don’t just use “who” or “which” randomly. Second, this skirts the important point, namely that the very problem cited explains the need for an inspection mechanism in the first place. With a protocol in place, and being at the bargaining table, we can at least influence the inspection process. Without one, we can’t.
Q: Is the U.S. walking away from multilateral efforts to strengthen the BWC?
A: Absolutely not. The U.S. remains committed to strengthening the BWC but believes this protocol does not do so. We believe we can strengthen the BWC through multilateral arrangements. To be valuable, however, we believe that the approach must focus on effective measures that can withstand the test of time as the BWC itself has. Signing up to an instrument that is outdated will merely allow proliferators to step over a low bar and preclude any opportunity to find measures that really will strengthen the regime and endure over time.
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Left out: Even taking this at face value, there’s the question of whether the Bush administration has the political will to follow up, because this is arduous labor, often taking years. The U.S. was supportive of the Biological Weapons Convention when Saddam Hussein was developing, and hiding, his biological weapons. But there was no inspections program and we didn’t lift a finger until after the gulf war.
We know some will mischaracterize and exploit our position as a general rejection of multilateral arms control. This is not correct. This decision is specific to a protocol text that simply does not meet our standard for dealing with a growing threat that should only be countered with measures which are and will continue to be effective.
Left out: Our view of what’s “effective” has become extremely narrow. And this now adds to the list of international dealings in which the U.S. is more interested in pursuing matters largely by itself; our definition of “national interest” supersedes collective efforts.
The response declines to even suggest that the negotiating group should try to work out our problems. It could be seen as a debatable way to exercise world leadership, even if you adeptly spin the Washington media.