ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

THE world can only handle so many guns, bombs and missiles. Beyond the
minimum needed to keep the peace, building up larger stockpiles of destructive
new weapons is a really bad idea. Even unused, they cost a fortune and make
potential adversaries edgy, leading to a spiralling arms race. It must also be
better for the world’s governments to agree on limiting weapons—subject to
real verification—than have one or two countries wielding big sticks to
keep everyone else in line.

So New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, like many other commentators, has watched in horror as the
new US administration mounts an assault on arms controls. The message seems to
be that multilateral safeguards are worthless—the US trusts nobody but
itself. The rest of the world can fall in line or not, but George W. Bush is
going to do things his way.

American actions have made this abundantly clear. First, in February, the CIA
accused Iran of having thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons. Under the
Chemical Weapons Convention, the US must demand an inspection of the country to
verify its claim. Yet Bush hasn’t done so. He appears to have no faith in the
treaty. Worse, he is threatening to scrap the treaty prohibiting defences
against long-range missiles, in a gamble that may or may not shield Americans
but will create more missiles
(see p 5).
Finally, he seems set on destroying a
six-year effort to give teeth to the treaty banning biological weapons
(see p 4).

Designing a protocol to verify the Biological Weapons Convention was always
going to be a tough task. It’s a lot harder to keep track of germs than nuclear
warheads or even nerve gas. The protocol was never going to stop the Saddam
Husseins of this world, but at least it should have been a start.

Sadly, a combination of pressure from the US and developing countries and a
lack of interest from many other governments has made the final compromise weak.
Some even argue that the protocol could make things easier for biowarriors by
creating the illusion of safety. Maybe if the US rejects the protocol later this
year, as predicted, it won’t be so disastrous after all, but only if we redouble
our efforts to find a better way to police the convention.

Perhaps we should focus on the real bio-enemy at the gates: the spread of
disease. Global epidemiological monitoring would protect us from an adversary
vastly more deadly than rogue states. And keeping tabs on infectious diseases
might even catch the next Saddam Hussein.