At Code of Conduct Press Briefing:

Senator MARK HATFIELD (R-OR): "We have become the most aggressive arms peddler in the world."

Rep. CYNTHIA McKINNEY (D-GA): "We know that the United States is the leader in the export of arms throughout the world, and particularly to Third World countries."

NARRATOR: Who are these men? What do they have in common?

If you said they were big spenders, authoritarian rulers and favored arms trading partners of the United States, you would be right. Ignoring our own laws, the United States has for years attempted to buy friends all over the globe by selling weapons to repressive, anti-democratic leaders.

Today, "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" looks at a new congressional initiative to restrain the wholesale transfer of US arms abroad.

["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]

Admiral EUGENE CARROLL, Jr. (USN, Ret.): Today the United States leads the world in foreign arms sales. Some say that's fine, that it gives us influence around the world and, besides, it's a boon to our economy; it creates jobs and profits. Others say, no, that we are spreading death and devastation around the world and that there should be a code of conduct which would restrain international arms traffic.

Today we will present both sides of the argument. Who do you think is right?

Senator HATFIELD: "Just today, we have received a poll, a poll that was taken amongst the American public to ask the question, 'Should the United States sell or give tanks, fighter planes, guns, or other conventional weapons to dictators and undemocratic governments?' The answer was, 96 percent 'No'."

NARRATOR: The date: February 1, 1994. The place: Capitol Hill. Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon and Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia held a press conference launching the "Code of Conduct" legislation. The Code of Conduct would limit the transfer of conventional weapons, weapons that have been responsible for killing 40 million people since World War II. The Code of Conduct would bar major weapons transfers to governments that abuse the human rights of their citizens, are undemocratic, engage in armed aggression against their neighbors, or fail to participate in the new United Nations Arms Registry designed to track the worldwide trade in weapons.

Throughout the Cold War the spectre of nuclear conflict hovered over every international confrontation, every war. But beneath the surface, like a rapidly flowing river, ran a flow of weapons from the superpowers that in the Third World fed numerous, small but deadly little wars.

The US rewarded allies and friends with gifts of weapons and money and refused assistance to those countries who wavered from the US policy line. Anti-communism, not democracy and open markets, determined which governments the United States supported.

But by the late 1960s the wisdom of this approach was under fire. While open to building commercial trade relations with Eastern European nations that might lessen their dependence on the Soviets, Congress wanted to ensure that Western military technology did not get into the hands of potential enemies. To maintain the distinction between arms and other export products, Congress passed the Foreign Military Sales Act of 1968.

Michael Klare is the author of American Arms Supermarket, professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, and an acknowledged authority on arms trade legislation.

MICHAEL KLARE: Congress wanted to have more authority in the arms export field, and this was the vehicle that they chose to give themselves more power, more oversight over American arms exports.

NARRATOR: But the original Foreign Military Sales Act had many loopholes, ones that President Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, exploited to full advantage. Nixon and Kissinger opposed what they considered to be congressional interference in determining who could receive US weapons.

Their course was simple: Rather than provide friendly countries with subsidized US military aid, which required congressional approval, the Nixon administration pushed for cash sales of weapons, which required no congressional oversight.

The effectiveness of the Nixon administration's end-run around Congress was quickly evident. Between 1971 and 1975, for example, the Shah of Iran went on an $8 billion weapons buying spree. He acquired state of the art US military technology, including the US Navy's F-14 fighter aircraft.

Finally, in 1976, Congress had enough. It revised the 1968 legislation, renaming it the Arms Export Control Act.

Prof. KLARE: Congress was very alarmed that we were selling the Shah excessive quantities of very sophisticated weapons out of proportion to what people thought was really necessary. There was a lot of bribery involved and Congress was reacting to the buildup in Iran and saying, "Never again, we don't want this kind of buildup to occur."

The intent of Congress to regulate arms transfers was very clear. The preamble of the Arms Export Control Act states that, "It shall be the policy of the United States to exert leadership in the world community to bring about arrangements for reducing the international trade in implements of war and the burden of armaments."

Despite the law's lofty langauge, the legislation failed to restrain the US weapons trade because Congress failed to back up its words with effective, concrete action.

Prof. KLARE: I don't think it's really had a significant impact. It has given Congress more leverage on arms exports and there are a number of occasions -- very few really -- where they've used that leverage to force the Executive Branch to postpone a delivery or to perhaps to water down the technology that was involved. But it's at the margins really that they've had any effect.

Senator HATFIELD: First of all, the information only comes to the Congress on large arms sales. And secondly, the Congress can ignore the resolution that is sent up to the Hill and let it just happen.

NARRATOR: Congresswoman McKinney agrees that congressional inattention has derailed the Arms Export Control Act.

Rep. McKINNEY: It's never used. That's the major weakness, is that not one time has a decision to export arms abroad been denied by congressional action.

NARRATOR: Holly Burkhalter, the Washington director for Human Rights Watch and a widely published author of articles on human rights, believes that past efforts to curb the arms trade have failed because the quest for profits has overridden human rights concerns.

HOLLY BURKHALTER: Now in other cases, we've stopped aid, we've stopped direct assistance -- a grant, for example. But sales has been sort of impervious to human rights law, even though it's covered by the law.

NARRATOR: Joel Johnson, the outspoken vice president of the Aerospace Industry Association, disagrees. He believes that existing rules covering arms sales are too restrictive, put US weapons makers at a competitive disadvantage, and limit the market share of US weapons manufacturers.

JOEL JOHNSON: Our industry should blush with shame if it were the fact that it was competition that kept us at 55 percent; it's not. We're kept to 55 percent because our government already has in place the most restrictive regime on arms trade of any country that exports.

NARRATOR: Notwithstanding the concerns of the arms industry, the US remains the world's largest arms exporter and controls 55 percent of worldwide arms sales. One reason for the high level of weapons transfers may be the massive support structure in the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Commerce Department that promotes US arms sales.

Senator HATFIELD: We spent $4 million of taxpayers' money between June 1991 and 1993, which we call our conventional weapons transfer efforts to promote commercial sales. In other words our promotional budget, just to promote it. It is not a matter we're available for arms sales if they come to us, we're out there promoting arms sales.

NARRATOR: In the Spring of 1991, at the end of the Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon and US arms merchants were out in force at the Paris Air Show. For the first time, the US Government provided, at taxpayer expense, a massive, coordinated military presence. One hundred and fifty Gulf War veterans effectively became salesmen for US arms makers by extolling the merits of US combat systems to the world's arms merchants.

This large Pentagon presence paid off for US arms dealers. Over the remaining six months of 1991, sales of US military airplanes and helicopters exceeded $6 billion.

And this was only the beginning of a new weapons selling frenzy. The Congressional Record reveals that US Govern ment and industry arms sales rose to $31 billion in Fiscal Year 1992 and to almost $59 billion in Fiscal Year 1993.

Who were the buyers? They included Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Saudi Arabia, all countries that violate human rights or are listed as undemocratic by the US State Department. Other undemocratic regimes, including Turkey, Kuwait, Egypt and Indonesia, also spent large amounts of money for US arms.

Holly Burkhalter believes that these sales demonstrate the failure of the Arms Export Control Act and the need for further restrictions as called for in the Code of Conduct.

Ms. BURKHALTER: And I think one of the motivations that Hatfield and McKinney had in requiring a second report or an additional report in the context of arms sales was their frus- tration over the fact that the already good State Department human rights report is not taken into consideration, read, looked at, relevant to the people that are licensing these sales.

NARRATOR: Joel Johnson, however, believes that open, knock-down congressional debates that tie arms sales to a country's human rights record would be detrimental to US foreign policy interests.

Mr. JOHNSON: I think a congressional debate with the kind of heated rhetoric that often arises, and perhaps some intemperate statements, would have a much more negative impact on a number of countries that a rather reasoned report in writing that highlights certain of their activities that we think need improving.

NARRATOR: Congresswoman McKinney disagrees.

Rep. McKINNEY: We're not targeting any countries, but we're targeting the behavior of certain countries. This is a pull-up piece of legislation, where we want to pull up the behavior of countries around the world to a democratic standard.

NARRATOR: Others believe that a necessary step to better congressional control of arms transfers lies in strengthening the process for notifying Congress of a pending sale.

Prof. KLARE: Congress only gets into the act very late in the process of determining arms export policy, really after the decisions have been made and where the Executive Branch could say, "Look, if you say 'no' to this now, you're going to damage our relations with Country X or Country Y." And I think that it's very important if Congress is to play a role to get involved earlier in the process and there has to be mechanisms for greater notification to Congress, greater transparency, more of an opportunity for them to look at the wisdom of sales and intervene earlier in the process, not when it's a foregone conclusion.

NARRATOR: Even arms makers say they want the process revised. But they want a simpler, less restrictive system, one that treats weapons like other exports.

Mr. JOHNSON: I think the main thing the defense industry would like to see in this country is, one, the decision on whether or not a particular sale supports US foreign policy interests to be made as part of the license review process and the congressional review process, and otherwise be treated like any other industry. That is, don't put hurdles in front of defense exports just because they are defense exports.

NARRATOR: But for Michael Klare, weapons exports should be considered in a class by themselves.

Prof. KLARE: There's nothing in the Arms Export Control Act that says that these are very dangerous kinds of transactions to engage in, that they have farreaching consequences for global security and, if mishandled, could be very destabilizing, and therefore, we need greater prudence and greater restrictiveness in what we sell.

NARRATOR: Unfortunately, the national security justification used during the Cold War to support the evolving US arms trade still drives foreign policy. As recently as February 1994, Secretary of Defense William Perry, appearing before the House Budget Committee, noted that the "first and dominant test" of arms transfers must be national security needs. But that claim, say supporters of the Code of Conduct, should not open the arms floodgates to just anyone.

Ms. BURKHALTER: Current law permits a waiver for almost all foreign policy controls on national security grounds. That seems reasonable to me, but it should be required that the Executive Branch make the case for what that national security interest is. And I frankly think it's a very tough sell, that selling arms to a government like Samuel Doe's Liberia a few years back somehow is a national security imperative.

And I think when you get right down to it, you're not going to find very many abusive governments to whom we really need to sell. Because, quite frankly, it's a national security difficulty for the United States when Western-supplied weapons end up in the hands of governments that are going to use them discriminately and improperly. And all you have to do is look at the recent circumstances where American troops have been engaged. In every case, they've come up against American-supplied weapons; most recently, of course, in the Gulf War in Iraq.

Rep. McKINNEY: We send arms abroad to dictators. They make trouble in their region. And then, because of the burden of leadership that this country has to bear, we are called in to quell that regional conflict. Our young men and woman go abroad and, unfortunately, have to face weapons and technology made in the United States of America.

NARRATOR: Moreover, approving arms sales for national security reasons may miss a fundamental point.

Senator HATFIELD: It seems to me we ought to begin to address the causes of war and not be only dealing with the results of those events that lead to war. And as a consequence out of our experience -- particularly in El Salvador, where we expended some $6 billion and thousands of deaths, and we find the people of El Salvador today worse off than they were before got engaged -- it seemed to me that the single most important issue we must take is to control the transfer of conventional weaponry.

NARRATOR: If the threat of communism no longer drives US arms transfers, profit seems the only other force powerful enough to sustain the global arms trade. Traditionally, the defense industry has tried to link their success in selling weapons overseas with the domestic issue of jobs.

According to these companies, the more arms sold, the more US jobs are created. Since the domestic jobs issue was particularly sensitive in the 1992 presidential race, the arms industry was able to push through two major aircraft sales late in the political campaign.

Because the Code of Conduct might scare off rich potential customers, Joel Johnson believes it could damage the US economically.

Mr. JOHNSON: Well, the linkage again is indirect. The degree to which countries decide to go elsewhere for defense equipment, obviously, there are more Frenchmen or Brits or Russians with jobs and less Americans with jobs; that's very simple, in terms of reasonably high-paying defense industries.

NARRATOR: To date, the Clinton administration seems to accept the argument of the arms industry that weapons sales mean more jobs for Americans.

Prof. KLARE: The way I see the current situation is there are a lot of pressures coming from industry and from affected communities to promote arms exports at this moment in time, because this is seen as a way of salvaging some jobs, some production lines. And I think that that pressure is acting very much on Congress at this time.

NARRATOR: But profits, not jobs, are the central concern of the arms industry. Their stock prices and profits have soared, in large part because they have slashed more jobs than the shrinking Pentagon contracts have warranted.

Many like Congresswoman McKinney believe that defense cutbacks offer an opportunity to re-employ ex-defense workers in industries that produce US civilian goods for export.

Rep. McKINNEY: We are hopeful that rather than having Third World countries, in particular, receive weapons of mass destruction, that they would begin to receive US manufactured goods, US technology, US farm products -- all of the good things that this country and that this economy has to offer, we want to send those around the world.

NARRATOR: Senator Hatfield believes that the Code of Conduct will accelerate the shift from defense to civilian production.

Senator HATFIELD: It would give the conversion program that is already underway. Because let's face it; whether we're peddling arms or not, there is a transition today between a war-based economy, in terms of that part of our total economy, and the diminution of that role in the future. And I think that would stimulate the activation and implementation of the conversion.

NARRATOR: Supporters of the Code of Conduct believe it can also change underlying attitudes about the arms trade.

Prof. KLARE: It's precisely in the area of norms that the proposed Code of Conduct bill I think will make the greatest difference. It says right up front that arms sales are potentially very dangerous and that they are particularly dangerous if given to countries that are undemocratic, or have a history of being involved in aggression, or are not making their arms imports transparent through the UN Arms Trade Register, that it's against American policy to sell weapons to governments of that sort.

Ms. BURKHALTER: It would require the president to certify that proposed buyers meet a certain standard, a human rights standard, and other standards, as well: a proliferations standard, a standard relating to a government's -- whether or not it's engaged in warfare of any kind, whether it's engaged in offensive actions against other governments, whether it's -- there's a standard about whether it signed the NPT and other sort of good government behavior.

NARRATOR: Moreover, the Code of Conduct would compel Congress to live up to its constitutional responsibilities to regulate foreign commerce and to work with the president on foreign affairs.

Ms. BURKHALTER: I think a key provision of the McKinney-Hatfield Bill is that it would force the US Congress to get involved in looking at the countries that are buying American weapons and their human rights records.

To date, there has been almost no congressional interest in or ability to be interested in arms sales because they don't have the information.

Rep. McKINNEY: What we have proposed is a partnership between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch to make sure that the people have input into decisions that are made that impact American lives as well as lives abroad.

NARRATOR: Limiting arms sales today may also help limit the regional conflicts of tomorrow.

Prof. KLARE: I think what we're saying is that the world is a very different now. There are a lot of regional rivalries out there, there are a lot of areas where conflict could erupt in which US interests are not directly related, and that the United States should be very cautious about pouring weapons into areas of conflict. That our military security could be damaged by the general spread of weapons in the world, the loss of control over those weapons and the escalation of regional conflicts.

NARRATOR: Admittedly, if the Code of Conduct were passed this year, its initial effect would be modest.

Prof. KLARE: The Code of Conduct is not going to have a vast, immediate effect in slowing arms sales. It's going to say that when we do conduct arms sales, we better have a darn good reason for doing so and you have to be able to demonstrate that to the American public and to Congress before you can go ahead.

NARRATOR: The end of the Cold War may have altered some of the reasons for selling arms, but Joel Johnson believes that nations still want and need weapons and they ought to be able to buy them from the United States.

Mr. JOHNSON: I don't think we owe countries anything, in particular. I think that with the Cold War over, however, if we simultaneously are telling other countries that the United States is going to chop its defense budget and we expect them to be more capable of carrying out their own defense and we expect greater participation by them in UN peacekeeping efforts, it's then inconsistent to say, "But, of course, you can't have anything with which to do that."

NARRATOR: But, as Senator Hatfield observes, the real inconsistency lies in risking American lives by uncontrolled arms transfers to unstable regimes.

Senator HATFIELD: I think we're going to be facing more Somalias, more Iraqs, more Panamas, where our fighting people that are sent into these difficult zones are facing ammunition and weapons that have been provided by their own country and now going out to face the barrel end of those arms peddling activities.

NARRATOR: Others think the arms industry is missing the point of the Code of Conduct.

Ms. BURKHALTER: But it's going to give Congress and the American people some real insight for the first time on what's going on in their name, because all of these sales get licensed by the United States Government. I don't think it means arms sales are going to be ended. There's going to be a number of countries that want to buy our stuff that can buy our stuff, but there's going to be a number that can't.

NARRATOR: Despite having over 70 congressional co-sponsors, the prospects of the Code of Conduct becoming law this year remain uncertain. But the bill's sponsors are adamant.

Senator HATFIELD: One has to persevere.

Rep. McKINNEY: I absolutely intend to marshal all the forces necessary his year for passage. However, if we're not successful, we'll come back next year even stronger.

Senator HATFIELD: It takes time and it goes slowly, but I can assure you that in my time left in the Senate, whatever that may be, I'm going to persevere on this issue and I think the public will grow in its support. And when that bubbles up from the public, I think we'll get action.

Rep. McKINNEY: This piece of legislation represents the right thing to do.

Admiral CARROLL: I hope that what you've heard today will stimulate your interest in the Code of Conduct. On the one hand, there's the choice of going on leading the world in foreign arms sales or of America giving more attention and priority to the question of human rights and democracy. There's another one of projecting American influence by providing arms to other nations or considering that young American men and women may end up facing those same weapons, just as they did in Somalia and the Persian Gulf.

In the final analysis, weapons kill and destroy. They seldom provide enduring solutions to the world's problems.

Until the next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Eugene Carroll.

[End of broadcast.]