Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 58, June 2001

News Review

Bush Defense Department Nominees Quizzed on Arms Control

On June 5, two Defense Department nominees - Douglas J. Feith, the President's choice to serve as Undersecretary of Policy, and Jack Crouch, proposed as Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy - faced intense questioning on missile defence and other arms control issues from Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Feith, a Pentagon official under President Reagan, is an outspoken critic of the ABM Treaty, arguing that the accord lapsed together with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. While defending this stance, Feith noted that President Bush "has said that the United States is complying with the terms of the ABM Treaty" and that "I'm happy to support that policy." Feith also reiterated his advocacy of strong US support for "the liberation of Iraq," eliciting a startled response from Democratic Senator Max Cleland: "Well, that's the most disturbing answer of all." Crouch was questioned at length about statements made in the mid-1990s advocating the deployment of US nuclear weapons in South Korea, and/or the conventional bombing of North Korea, to force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile programmes. Crouch countered that this was no longer his view, but that, "given what I knew at the time, I stick by the recommendations."

Bush's nominee for Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, Peter Rodham, has come under similar fire from Senators concerned at an anti-arms control bias in the Bush Pentagon. On June 15, a Russian Foreign Ministry statement expressed sharp misgivings about all three nominations:

"During the recent Senate Armed Forces Committee confirmation hearings [for Feith, Crouch and Rodman]...[a number of the nominees'] statements attracted attention that caused bewilderment and concern. What's primarily alarming is how the new US high-ranking officials, whose jobs will be closely related to questions of international security, commented on the most important multilateral disarmament agreements which form the basis of international efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to the development of which the United States in its time made a significant contribution. Thus they referred to the Chemical Weapons Convention as 'trash' in its content that 'devalues the significance of international law.' They called the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 'unacceptable' to the US. They appealed for thinking seriously of a resumption by the United States of nuclear tests. We will add to this the reports in some media recently, citing US administration officials, that the United States might refuse to sign the verification Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, on whose elaboration the talks have reached a concluding stage. The question arises: what disarmament and non-proliferation agreement might next be blacklisted by the United States?"

Reports: Democrats grill defense nominees on arms control, Washington Post, June 6; Regarding statements by US Under Secretaries of Defense on international security issues, Russian Foreign Ministry Statement, Document 1131-15-06-2001, June 15.