Thank you for the opportunity to examine the transcript of my evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, 11 April 2000. I have made some minor corrections in red ink on the enclosed copy.

  I would also like to match additional comments, as invited by the Committee Chairman, on the evidence given by others that day.

On the testimony of Dr Inch (pages 4-5)

  Dr Inch's claim that the Chemical Weapons Convention does not have "very good mechanisms—at least not tried and tested" for verifying non-compliance is, in my view, misleading. The Convention contains, for instance, the most intrusive on-site inspection procedures of any multilateral arms control convention, to the extent that they almost achieve the much sought-after standard of "anytime anywhere." The reason that such challenge inspections have not been much in evidence to date is not that they are ineffective, but that (a) the procedures and modalities for conducting them have not yet been finalised (b) the required inspectorate is still being assembled and trained, and (c) there has not yet been a case in which a challenge inspection has been necessary. While it is true that this part of the CWC verification system has to that extent not been "tried and tested," it does not follow that when they are employed they will be found wanting. In the meantime, the rest of the CWC verification system is very much being "tried and tested" and found to work highly successfully to date.

In response to the question by Sir John Stanley about why the challenge inspection provisions of the CWC have not yet been used and the response by Dr Inch (pp 8-9)

  The reason why challenge inspections have not been used has nothing to do with the United States' unilateral modification of its obligations under the CWC, but rather because there has been no need for such challenge inspections. Such inspections are only used when a sufficiently strong prima facie case of suspected non-compliance has been brought to the treaty's Executive Council by a state party. As it is still very much early days for the CWC, with much attention being paid to destroying existing CW stocks and capabilities, we have come nowhere near to seeing such a case. It needs to be emphasised that a challenge inspection is likely to be a very rare occurrence, with great political consequences when invoked. Challenge inspections should not be confused with the other types of inspections under the CWC, whether ad hoc or routine, which are being successfully conducted on an ongoing basis.

On the testimony of Col. Terry Taylor with regard to Iraq (p 43)

  Colonel Taylor seems to draw the conclusion from his Iraq experience that it is pointless even trying to design better verification and compliance systems, especially to deal with the "hard cases." The lesson that VERTIC would draw is that, on the contrary, one should examine very carefully what occurred in the Iraq case to design even better verification and compliance systems in future. Numerous lessons have been learned, including about the importance of "paper trails" in documenting proliferation efforts, the need for states to provide intelligence information to international verification bodies (especially satellite and overflight imagery), and the need to keep verification bodies as apolitical as possible (including by not appointing too many Western personnel to key positions and, more egregiously, using them as a front for national intelligence-gathering efforts). Despite the importance of the Iraq case, one should not, however, design future verification regimes only with it in mind. In a number of respects Iraq is sui generis and one should be careful not to "prepare to fight the last war."

  Colonel Taylor's general message on verification not only seems to be a counsel of despair but he offers no alternative to verifiable arms control apart from dealing with the "demand side" of weapons proliferation through regional conflict resolution. While this is an admirable goal, it certainly does not conflict with arms control efforts. Indeed the two are complementary.

On the testimony of Col. Terry Taylor with regard to the Biological Weapons Convention Protocol negotiations (pp 44-45)

  While Colonel Taylor is right to urge that the concerns of the biotechnology industry should be taken into account in negotiations on the BWC Protocol, it is quite unwise to let such commercial concerns determine national negotiating stances, as he implied and as is the case with current United States' policy. Biological weapons proliferation is too important a matter of national security and international governmental and public concern to be left to the narrow interests of industry.

  The British Government deserves to be congratulated for and encouraged to continue pressing its close ally to reconsider those elements of its negotiating stance in Geneva that are over-protective of industry to the detriment of verification. There are techniques available which minimise the cost and potential disruption of verification to industry, such as the "managed access techniques" demonstrated so effectively in the case of the Chemical Weapons Convention. At the same time, the US government should be encouraged to establish a better relationship with its biotechnology industry in order that the benefits of a properly verified BWC are made more apparent. In particular, the US industry needs to recognise the public relations dangers of being seen to thwart attempts to effectively rid the world of the threat of biological weapons.

  Colonel Taylor's suggestion that there is a trade-off to be made between continuing the UK government's attempt to convince the US government of the importance of strong BWC verification, on the one hand, and the health of transatlantic relations on the other, seems highly exaggerated. Indeed, given the UK's example of maintaining a dialogue with UK industry on the subject, its intervention with the US government may be helpful to the latter in its dealings with its own industry. Any change of the UK position on these matters would also isolate it within the EU, which over the past couple of years has articulated "Common Positions" with regard to the negotiations in Geneva.