US finds collective security a threat
Washington's behaviour towards two organisations campaigning against
nuclear and chemical weapons puts the future of multilateral bans in
doubt, writes Julian Borger
Julian Borger
Guardian Unlimited
Wednesday April 17, 2002
The global organisation set up to monitor and enforce the treaty banning
nuclear tests sat down to its plenary session in Vienna last week, but
one important guest was missing - the US ambassador.
The ambassador, Kenneth Brill, had accredited himself to the usual list
of other international organisations headquartered in the Austrian
capital but had failed to present his credentials to the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO).
Contacted in Washington, a state department official was insistent that
Brill would eventually get round to it, and pointed out that other
American delegates would be at the meeting. Nevertheless, a source at
the CTBTO said: "It's the first time in the five-year life of this
organisation that something like this has happened."
It is hard to see the downgrading of the US role in the CTBTO as an
accident. The Bush administration has made it clear it sees the
organisation as an impediment to its security in the post-cold-war
world. It is considering a variety of new nuclear weapons, including
low-yield "bunker-busters" and even interceptors for its proposed
national missile defence system.
The senate refused to ratify the treaty in 1999, and is not likely to
any time soon. Hawks in the senate and the administration itself have
been trying to persuade the White House to cut off funding to the CTBTO,
which is gradually attempting to set up a network of monitors spanning
the globe that would raise an alarm if a nuclear bomb was detonated. The
state department managed to hold off the hawks with a compromise by
which the US would agree to fund the monitoring system itself, not the
bureaucracy back in Vienna. Failing to accredit Ambassador Brill could
be another step along the road to disengagement.
It looks all the more ominous for the non-proliferation cause, in the
light of another simmering struggle the US is leading to oust the
Brazilian head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW), Jose Bustani. The US administration has gone to
extraordinary lengths to get rid of Bustani, who was confirmed in his
second term only last year. The state department released a long litany
of Bustani's supposed sins, which include poor financial management,
high-handedness and favouritism. Sounds like just another UN
organisation, but Washington appears gripped by determination that his
leadership of the OPCW is a threat to chemical non-proliferation itself.
Bustani himself accuses the US of trying to engineer a "coup" against
him, and has suggested Washington has turned on him because he had the
temerity to order inspections of US chemical plants, in a show of
evenhandedness. OPCW officials also suggest the whole battle has
something to do with Iraq. OPCW has offered its services in Iraq, only
to be rebuffed by the US, which wants the job done, if at all, by
Unmovic, an organisation of experts specially prepared for investigating
Iraq that is directly answerable to the security council.
Whatever the motives, there is no doubting Washington's determination.
In a vote of no confidence proposed by the US in March, 17 nations voted
to get rid of Bustani, 18 abstained and five voted in his defence
(China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Brazil). Both sides claimed victory and
Bustani remained at its post.
The US has now called a special session of the organisation's 145 member
nations, its first since its inception in 1997, for another vote on
Bustani's fate on Sunday. It is likely to be a bitter affair in which
Bustani's management style will not be the only issue under scrutiny.
The collision between Washington and multilateralism, in all its
imperfections, will provide a well-focused insight into what the Bush
administration's intentions really are towards the tenuous ideals of
international collective security.
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