[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 153 (Thursday, September 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9666-H9669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTING
The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. Bonn of Oregon). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from American Somoa
[Mr. Faleomavaega] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
minority leader.
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, earlier last week I shared with my
colleagues and the American people some observations on the crisis that
has occurred on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, as a
consequence of French President Jacques Chirac's recent decision for
the Government of France to resume testing of nuclear bomb explosions
on the Pacific island atolls of Moruroa and Faugataufa.
Mr. Speaker, despite thousands of petitions and the pleadings from
leaders of countries from Europe, from South America, from Asia, and
especially from the Pacific island nations, asking France to refrain
from conducting nuclear bomb explosions under these Pacific atolls,
President Chirac went ahead and pressed the nuclear button 3 weeks ago,
exploding a nuclear bomb under Moruroa Atoll with a nuclear punch of 20
kilotons. The nuclear bomb detonated, Mr. Speaker, was more powerful
than the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan--which,
incidentally, Mr. Speaker, killed some 200,000 men, women and children,
from the direct explosion as well as the subsequent radioactive
contamination of the residents of Hiroshima.
Mr. Speaker, I realize that whenever a person calls out the word or
name, ``Tahiti,'' immediately many of us think of paradise--the swaying
palm trees, the lovely Polynesian maidens--a place where there is much
dancing and singing in the air, amongst the festive Polynesian
Tahitians.
Perhaps, even more vividly, when the American people think of Tahiti,
they recall visions from the silver screen classic, ``Mutiny on the
Bounty,'' first with Clarke Gable and later starring Marlon Brando.
The fact of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is that the Pacific islands of
Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, and Bora Bora, truly are among the
most beautiful volcanic islands in the world. The world famous writer
and author, James Michener, has described the island of Bora Bora as
the most beautiful in the world, and I agree with Mr. Michener.
Well, Mr. Speaker, as I stand here in the well describing the
magnificent beauty of these islands, something very serious has
happened since these islands became a colony of France some 150 years
ago. The islands of French Polynesia were what westerners would call
colonized by France, after some 500 French soldiers with guns and
cannons subdued the Tahitian chiefs and their warriors in the 1840's.
Mr. Speaker, after the French were kicked out of their former colony,
Algeria, in the early 1960's the late Charles de Gaulle immediately
ordered his subordinates to find a new place where the French
Government could continue its nuclear testing program. The French
Government decided that the two Pacific atolls of Moruroa and
Faugataufa in French Polynesia would be the sites for the French
nuclear testing program. The Government of France has now exploded well
over 180 nuclear bombs on the under these two atolls in the Pacific.
The French have been exploding their nuclear bombs in the Pacific for
the past 30 years.
Mr. Speaker, with the cold war at an end and the Berlin Wall down,
there has been a tremendous sense of relief among the leading countries
of the world. As a result, a moratorium was called by the leading
nuclear powers, including France, 3 years ago to suspend nuclear
testing altogether.
Mr. Speaker, in June of this year, the newly elected President of
France Jacques Chirac, announced that France would explode eight more
nuclear bombs--one a month, beginning this month of September until May
of next year. And each nuclear bomb explosion, Mr. Speaker, shall be up
to 10 times more powerful that the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
Japan.
Mr. Speaker, despite extensive efforts made by citizens's
organizations and government leaders, involving petitions and pleadings
from all over the world to persuade President Chirac not to push that
nuclear buttom--the Chirac government still went ahead and detonated
their nuclear bomb.
Mr. Speaker, President Chirac said recently through international
wire services that the eight nuclear bomb explosions were absolutely
necessary to improve France's nuclear weapons capabilities and that the
matter was in the order of the highest national interest of the French
Government. However, nuclear physicists contend that the safety and
reliability of nuclear weapons could be ensured by non-nuclear tests
and have suggested that what France is really pursuing with resumed
testing is completion of a new warhead design. This new warhead is
supposedly an advanced generation of neutron bombs designed to destroy
life, while leaving property intact. Dr. Hutton, a Monash University
physicist told the Weekend Australian that what France is not telling
the public ``is the kinds of new weapons they are planning to use those
simulation techniques to build.'' Why do they want simulation programs?
``So they can go beyond the thresholds which will be defined in the
Comprehensive Text Ban Treaty,'' he states.
Mr. Speaker, there are some very serious and troubling issues that
now need our national attention, and the international attention of
other countries, as well. In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, France has now
initiated the nuclear arms race again, and I would nominate Mr. Chirac
as the world's leading nuclear arms proliferator. Additionally, Mr.
Chirac's actions raise another serious probem--if I were Chancellor
Kohl or any citizen of German, I would feel very uneasy and
uncomfortable about the idea that President Chirac has his finger on a
nuclear trigger that he is trying to make more lethal. I would also
wonder as a German citizen or as citizens of other European countries
what assurances there are that French nuclear-armed missiles shall
never be pointed at Bonn, Munich or Berlin, or other cities in Europe?
If I were Chancellor Kohl or a German citizen, I would further wonder
what absolutely ensures that Mr. Chirac's nuclear forces would be used
to defend Germany against in enemy country that might be an ally or a
friend of Chirac's government. I believe, Mr. Speaker, we find
ourselves in an interesting dilemma, and I am reminded of a Middle
Eastern proverb that states that sometimes the friend of my friend is
also my enemy.
Mr. Speaker, every country in Europe should feel somewhat uneasy
about the possibility that France is the only country among the
continental European nations with a nuclear trigger that may be pointed
against any one of them.
Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of tension and uncertainty that Mr.
Chirac has raised since the re-opening of its nuclear testing program
last week. The implications are obvious, Mr. Speaker, and if Mr.
Chirac's motive is to raise fear and apprehension about France's
nuclear capabilities among its European allies, I must say, President
Chirac has succeeded in this endeavor.
Mr. Speaker, the irony of this is that while 62 percent of the people
of France do not approve of nuclear testing in the Pacific, the same
majority of the people of France also want France to be recognized as a
world leader and as a member of the nuclear club like Great Britain,
the United States, Russia, and the People's Republic of China.
The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that absent among the permanent members
of the United Nations Security Council and the world's nuclear club are
two nations that are considered as having the second and third most
powerful economies in the world. Mr. Speaker, I am making reference to
Japan and Germany, respectively.
Mr. Speaker, if there is ever a time to examine regional and
international conflicts as we confront them today, there is no way that
we can deny the presence and considerable influence of Japan in the
Asia-Pacific region and Germany throughout Europe, and certainly both
nations to be directly involved with the affairs of the entire world.
[[Page H 9667]]
Mr. Speaker, about 3 weeks ago I was in Tahiti in French Polynesia. I
was joined with some 40 other parliamentarians from the Pacific, from
Japan, from Asia, from South America, and from Europe. Led by the mayor
of the town of Fa'aa and the leading Polynesian leader, Mr. Oscar
Temaru, we joined together for a demonstration in the streets of
Papeete, Tahiti to oppose the resumption of French nuclear testing on
Moruroa and Faugataufa atolls. We were also joined by the Minister of
Finance Mr. Takemura of Japan, and he also voiced his strong opposition
to French nuclear testing.
Mr. Speaker, earlier on August 30, 1995, Mr. Temaru and his
associates, Mr. Vito Haamatua, and myself traveled to the island of
Tureia which is located about 60 miles away from Moruroa where the
nuclear bomb had already been placed in a shaft about 3,000 feet under
the atoll. We were joined later with the arrival of the Rainbow Warrior
II and together we headed for the Moruroa atoll.
Mr. Speaker, in anticipation of the French Government's announcement
that the first nuclear explosion would take place on September 1, 1995
at about 6 in the morning, the Rainbow Warrior launched about six
inflatable zodiacs at about 3 in the morning--in the dark, right under
the nose of the French naval warships.
What is remarkable about these zodiacs, Mr. Speaker, is that they
were manned by young men and women who were from New Zealand, from
Italy, from Australia, from the United States, from France, from
Portugal--kind of a mini United Nations representation. Mr. Speaker, I
commend these young people. They were not commandos or soldiers. They
were just ordinary citizens, committed to a nuclear free world. It is
no secret that the world is suffering tremendously as a result of man's
own carelessness and sheer callousness in destroying the ecological
balance between nature and all forms of plant and animal life.
Mr. Speaker, I want to share this basic item of fact again with my
colleagues and with the American people. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that
the French Government has now exploded 176 nuclear bombs on Moruroa
island. One hundred and seventy-six nuclear bombs exploded on one tiny
island atoll. And President Chirac has the gall to say that this atoll
is ecologically safe? Mr. Speaker, there are reports of hundreds of
Tahitians who were subjected to nuclear contamination but were never
properly tested after exposure.
As a consequence of these explosions, British scientists have
confirmed that the atoll underneath Moruroa Atoll is ``becoming a web
of vitrified cavities, from which an unknown number of cracks are
spreading like spiders' webs.'' Areas of Moruroa atoll have already
sunk by one meter or more. In fact, Dr. Roger Clark, a seismologist at
England's Leeds University, has said that one more test could trigger
the atoll's collapse, leading to huge cracks opening to the sea,
threatening the fish and other marine life, and ultimately threatening
our marine environment throughout the Pacific.
As early as 1987, the world-famous oceanographer and marine
environmentalist, Jacques Cousteau, who I personally commend for his
opposition to nuclear testings in the Pacific and for the appeals he
made to Chirac, also found spectacular cracks and fissures in the
atoll, as well as the presence of radioactive isotopes, in the form of
iodine 131, plutonium 239, and cesium 134, more commonly known as
nuclear leakage.
Mr. Speaker, there is also a strong link between ciguatera poisoning
and military operations involving nuclear testing in French Polynesia.
Ciguatera poisoning occurs when coral reefs are destroyed, releasing
toxic marine organisms which are absorbed by plankton that are eaten by
fish, that are ultimately consumed by humans.
Mr. Speaker, even if France stopped its nuclear testing today, the
untold amounts of radioactivity encased in Moruroa Atoll will require
scientific monitoring for decades to come. Yet France refuses to allow
complete and unhindered scientific studies and health assessments to
take place.
Another fact remains, Mr. Speaker. As media coverage gave voice to
every French diplomat around the world, as well as to France's position
that nuclear testing was necessary to its national interest, the
senselessness of the testing went untold. What the media failed to tell
the world is that France did not need to update its technology via
nuclear explosions. The United States had already offered France the
technology it sought. Yet American journalists have not given this fact
the same amount of airplay that French diplomats have gotten in
asserting their insane claim that exploding eight more nuclear bombs in
South Pacific waters is necessary to France's national interest.
The media in foreign countries, including Japan, Australia, New
Zealand, Germany, and others have done a far better job of covering the
global implications of France's resumed nuclear testing than has the
American media. How ironic that this should be the case, for a country
that has zealously protected and promoted the right to free speech and
press, and the widespread dissemination of information; and yet there
was hardly any media discussion and debate in America concerning French
nuclear testing. Just a few editorials here and there and that was it.
Mr. Speaker, the irony of it all--while just about every American
household has a television tuned in and, following the sequences on the
fate of one man--Mr. O.J. Simpson, we have turned a deaf ear to health
and welfare and even the lives of some 200,000 men, women, and children
who are totally helpless and are not capable of withstanding the
military might of the French Navy and the French Foreign Legion--as the
French Government has literally forced the Polynesian Tahitians to
accept such as awful fate, and a future with no promise to enhance
their lives.
And, Mr. Speaker, if and when the French colonial power ever does
leave these islands, what a sad commentary for writers to state that
France's two gifts to these Polynesian Tahitian's are cognac and
islands that are contaminated as a result of French nuclear testings
for the past 30 years.
Mr. Speaker, I would have hoped that the French could have learned
from America's experience with nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1954,
on Bikini Atoll, the United States exploded the most famous hydrogen
bomb of that time--a 15 megaton bomb, 1,000 times more powerful than
the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The sad part of this story is
that before the bomb was exploded, the officials who were conducting
this experiment--the ``Bravo Shot''--discovered that the winds had
shifted and that the 300 men, women, and children living on the nearby
island of Rongelap would be put at risk by the explosion. They exploded
the bomb anyway, subjecting 300 innocent people to nuclear
contamination. The accounts of their suffering are well-documented.
Though our Government is making every effort to resettle this island
and offer monetary compensation to these people, the reality is, no
amount of money can compensate for one's health. The women of Rongelap
gave birth to what many termed ``jelly babies,'' babies that were born
dead and did not appear to look human. The people of Rongelap have
suffered from cancer, leukemia, and all manners of disease associated
with nuclear contamination.
Yes, we conducted these tests, but then realized the horrors
associated with these tests. We realized how harmful these nuclear
tests are to the atolls and to the Pacific Islanders way of life. So
the United States stopped its nuclear testing program in the Pacific
and moved its testing sites underground in the desert plains of the
State of Nevada.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend President Clinton for his policy
on nuclear testing. He has committed the United States to negotiate an
absolute ban on all nuclear tests, and has rejected the argument that
small-scale testing is necessary to ensure weapons reliability. This
decision, serving as a model for the world, is a major step toward
stopping nuclear proliferation.
On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, I must express my disappointment that
our Government did not release a strong statement condemning France
after the explosion on Moruroa Atoll on September 1, 1995. While other
countries vigorously denounced France's
[[Page H 9668]]
detonation, the response of the United States was understated and weak.
So I stand here in the well today, Mr. Speaker, to declare what our
own State Department would not. Chirac's decision to promote nuclear
proliferation, at the expense of a peaceful people, is an atrocity, a
crime against humanity, not unlike France's decision in World War II to
forcibly deport 75,000 of its own citizens, to Nazi concentration
camps, where it is said that only 1,000 of those deported survived.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, France's resumption of nuclear testing,
especially on soil other than its own, is nothing less than a classic
example of colonialism in its worst form, and as such, an old ideology
politicized by dominant Western cultures as a means to marginalize and
oppress. Every enlightened French citizen should be ashamed that such
atrocity reigns in the hands of its current leader, and that those
Polynesian Tahitians are simply being forced against their will by the
French colonial government to accept nuclear testing, like it or not.
What President Chirac has done is inexcusable and offends the
sensitivities of decent people throughout the world. This madness must
stop, Mr. Speaker, and it must stop now, and again I urge any fellow
Americans, as a gesture of your support, to oppose this mean-spirited
policy by President Chirac--don't purchase French wine and French goods
and products--this is the only way President Chirac will get the
message.
Mr. Speaker, within the coming weeks and months, if there will be
more violence and even loss of lives in Tahiti because of nuclear
testing, I cannot see how President Chirac can passively take this
issue without any concern to the lives of those people who live on
those Pacific Islands.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I make this appeal to my colleagues and on behalf
of thousands of people throughout the world--especially to the citizens
of Japan, the citizens of Germany--to my fellow Americans, to show our
compassion and concerns for the welfare of the 200,000 Polynesian
Tahitians who are being forced to accept French colonial policy to
conduct nuclear testings in the Pacific--a world citizenry movement not
to purchase French wine, foods, and products as a gesture of support of
the 200,000 Polynesian Tahitians who are against nuclear testing in the
Pacific.
Mr. Speaker, I include newspaper articles on the subject of my
special order for the Record, as follows:
[From the Associated Press, Sept. 26, 1995]
Tahitian Government Leader Asks Chirac To End Tests Before Elections
Papeete, Tahiti.--Tahiti has asked France to speed up its
South Pacific nuclear tests, which have prompted huge riots
and fueled the independence movement on the largest island in
French Polynesia.
Tahitian Government President Gaston Flosse said he has
asked French President Jacques Chirac to complete the tests
before March so elections scheduled that month can be held
``in a calmer atmosphere.''
France's first nuclear blast at Mururoa Atoll on Sept. 5
set off two days of riots in Papeete, the capital of French
Polynesia. The test was the first in three years anywhere
except China.
Protesters set fire to buildings, looted shops and torched
cars.
Many of the rioters were members of Tahiti's pro-
independence movement, called out on the streets by a pro-
independence radio station after police confronted peaceful
protesters.
Opponents of the testing have threatened to hit the streets
again this week when France is expected to set off a larger
nuclear warhead at Fangatufa, another atoll in the South
Pacific.
Chirac has said he plans to conduct as many as eight tests
by the end of May. France says it needs the tests to update
its nuclear arsenal and develop computer simulation to
replace testing.
However France has said it supports an eventual global ban
on nuclear testing.
Also Tuesday, the European Parliament said it plans to
investigate possible links between the first blast and a
volcanic eruption more than 3,000 miles away in New Zealand.
Some members of the 626-seat legislature suspect that the
French underground tests on Mururoa Atoll may have sent shock
waves along underwater fault lines and caused the eruption of
New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu.
That mountain continued to spew ash and boulders Tuesday in
what could become New Zealand's biggest volcanic eruption in
50 years.
____
[From the Washington Post, Sept. 19, 1995]
French Nuclear Program Closely Tied to U.S.
Sharing of Sensitive Codes, Access to California Labs to Expand
(By William Drozdiak and Jeffrey Smith)
When President Clinton traveled to Hawaii early this month
to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in
the Pacific, his aides dispatched an urgent message to the
French government: Please do not conduct the first in your
controversial series of nuclear blasts under a Pacific atoll
while Clinton is in the region.
Even though French President Jacques Chirac was eager to
proceed with the nuclear tests in the teeth of international
protests, he realized he was in no position to turn down such
a request from a special friend. Reluctantly, Chirac put off
the politically embarrassing blast until Clinton had returned
to Washington.
Chirac's gesture was partly a token of respect for the
close relationship he has nurtured with Clinton during his
first four months in office. But even more, say French and
American officials, it was a tip of the hat to the long years
of unannounced support and assistance provided by the United
States to the French nuclear weapons program.
Despite its claims of developing an independent nuclear
deterrent, France has long relied on the United States for
some of the most sophisticated technologies needed to upgrade
and maintain a modern nuclear arsenal, these officials say.
Although known to specialists, the U.S.-French nuclear
links have been little discussed over the years. With the
French nuclear tests generating opposition around the Pacific
and among environmentalists everywhere, however, the details
of the collaboration are getting a new look.
In fact, even though the United States is no longer making
its own bombs and has publicly criticized the French tests,
U.S. officials say the cooperation is scheduled to expand to
an unprecedented degree.
Washington and Paris currently are trying to negotiate an
arrangement, for example, under which the two sides will
begin to share sensitive computer codes that describe how
bombs behave when they are detonated. France needs the data
to make full use of access to two sophisticated new U.S.
nuclear weapons research facilities that Washington has
quietly offered French weapons experts.
In addition, France has begun building a mammoth $4 billion
laser facility near Bordeaux for weapons-related research--
nine stories high and 900 feet long--with the help of an
American scientist from the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, which is one of three U.S. weapons design
centers.
A senior U.S. defense official said the Defense Department
is straining to keep this collaboration within traditional
bounds, in which the United States has secretly shared
scientific data to help ensure that French weapons cannot be
detonated accidentally or without proper authority while
steering clear of collaboration in nuclear weapons design.
But the official acknowledged there is ``so much
information in codes . . . [that] some of these data can be
used to improve their weapons.'' As a result, he said,
``joint use of codes will have to be explored very
thoroughly. . . . We are still in the negotiating phase as to
how the increase in our collaboration would take place.''
The Clinton administration says maintaining a close U.S.-
French relationship is essential to ensuring French support
for the comprehensive test ban treaty to be signed next year.
Although French aircraft routinely are allowed to ferry
military equipment and personnel related to the French
nuclear tests in the South Pacific across U.S. territory,
according to a senior State Department official, the
flights ``are not supposed to carry'' plutonium for
nuclear weapons and ``to the best of our knowledge do
not.''
The cooperation between the two nations dates from the Cold
War, when for more than two decades the United States offered
assistance in building up a French nuclear arsenal as an
important adjunct to the American strategic umbrella that
shielded the European allies from thousands of Soviet
warheads aimed at the West. U.S. officials helped France
design some missiles that carry its warheads and to develop
devices meant to prevent an accidental nuclear detonation.
The new U.S. facilities to be opened to French weapons
scientists include the $1 billion National Ignition Facility
in Livermore, Calif., which is to simulate the flow of
radiation in a nuclear weapons fireball by firing 132
lasers--each more powerful than any laser elsewhere in the
world--at a pellet of special nuclear material.
They will also be able to participate in experiments at the
new $400 million Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic test
center at Los Alamos, N.M., which is meant to snap two-
dimensional or time-sequence photographs of the inner
workings of mock weapons as they are detonated.
The experiments at these two facilities will not produce
fission, making them nonnuclear to comply with the terms of
the test ban treaty. But U.S. scientists acknowledge that the
resulting data are applicable not only to studies of aging
weapons in U.S. and French stockpiles, but also to the
potential design of new weapons.
A delegation of U.S. energy and defense officials was
dispatched to offer this access after Chirac was elected in
May, provided that the existence of U.S.-French nuclear
collaboration be made public--which it was
[[Page H 9669]]
in August. A similar deal had been proposed earlier to Chirac's
predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, but Mitterrand refused to
allow Washington to make any statement referring to nuclear
cooperation between the two nations.
In some quarters of the French government, the deepening
American connection has stirred consternation. Foreign
Minister Herve de Charette has warned that once France
embraces the American simulation technology, it will
jeopardize its own self-sufficiency. ``If we take everything
off the American shelf, we will no longer be certain that our
nuclear program is fully under our own control,'' de Charette
told foreign reporters recently.
But French scientists and Defense Ministry officials
believe cooperation between France and the United States is
so great that the claim of self-sufficiency is a charade.
These officials say even more American help will be needed if
France pursues its ambition of developing a more robust
nuclear force by fitting its warheads on new air-to-ground
rockets--something that only the United States has mastered.
French officials also argue that the cost of thermonuclear
research in the post-testing era will become so enormous--at
a time when Western countries are striving to slash defense
budgets--that sharing state-of-the-art technology will become
an absolute necessity.
The United States and France have not always approached the
issue so amicably. When Pierre Mendes-France gave the green
light in 1954 to develop a French atomic bomb, the United
States was troubled by the specter of nuclear proliferation
and sought to block French development of the bomb.
French determination to build a nuclear force grew after
Germany was allowed to begin rearming itself and the United
States expedited the flow of American assistance to France to
cope with such complex matters as ballistic missile guidance
systems and multiple warhead technology. High-speed computers
also were supplied to the French on an exceptional basis.
When France shifted its testing site from the Algerian
desert to the Mururoa atoll in the South Pacific, the
American connection became even more critical. U.S. weapons
scientists were dispatched to the site to help the French
learn to diagnose their test results. French scientists,
equipment and even nuclear bomb components were flown in DC-8
transport planes from Paris to the Tahitian capital of
Papeets across American territory, with a refueling stop in
Los Angeles.
Without permission to transit American air space, French
officials say their country's nuclear program would have been
stopped dead in its tracks. But in 1987, the U.S. Congress
became so alarmed about the risks of French nuclear warheads
and other dangerous materials flying across U.S. territory
that it passed a law barring the flights and Paris was
told to find an alternative route for its bomb parts.
After scrutinizing the map, the French realized that Panama
was the shortest--and least troublesome--territorial crossing
for such sensitive cargoes. The DC-8 planes, it was decided,
would make the journey by flying with nuclear materials first
to the French territory of Guadeloupe for a refueling stop,
then proceeding across the isthmus before heading out over
the Pacific to the final destination at Mururoa.
In a show of gratitude for Panama's willingness to provide
a Central American air bridge for the French nuclear program,
Mitterrand in 1987 bestowed one of France's highest awards--
the title of commander in the Legion of Honor--on the
notorious Panamanian dictator, Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega,
French officials who confirmed an account of the incident
published in the Newspaper Le Monde say it was the first
time, and probably the last, that a notorious drug trafficker
will be given such a medal.
____
[From the New York Times, Sept. 12, 1995]
The Arms Race Is On
(By Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr.)
In only a few months, the Republican Congress has quietly
managed to undermine more than two decades of progress on
nuclear arms control. With practically no public debate, the
Senate included in its Pentagon authorization bill a land-
based missile defense system that would flagrantly violate
the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the foundation of all
nuclear weapons agreements.
Under the bill, the United States would ``develop for
deployment'' a ballistic missile defense by 2003. The
legislation calls for trying to negotiate amendments to the
Antiballistic Missile Treaty to allow for the system; but if
such talks fail, we would have to consider withdrawing from
the treaty.
The system, which could ultimately cost hundreds of
billions of dollars, is designed to intercept only long-range
ballistic missiles. The cold-war thinking behind it ignores
the reduced threat of Russian nuclear attack. No rogue state
will have long-range ballistic capability anytime soon.
The bill tacitly recognizes the limited value of an
antiballistic defense system, because it also calls for
creating new cruise missile defenses (which could be equally
costly) and for spending at least $50 billion more on so-
called theater missile defense systems that would protect
armed forces and allies overseas.
In addition to its huge expense, this package would all but
destroy the possibility of new gains in nuclear arms control,
starting with the as yet unratified second Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty. President Boris Yeltsin of Russia has said
that Start II ``can be fulfilled only provided the United
States preserves and strictly fulfills the bilateral
Antiballistic Missile Treaty.''
Besides, if we build the antiballistic missile system,
Russia would probably begin building its own. This bilateral
buildup would preclude future reductions of strategic weapons
below the levels called for in Start II. Faced with expanded
Russian defenses, Britain, China and France would not likely
consider reductions in their nuclear forces and might even
seek increases.
The proposed system is a much less effective defense than
the agreements it would wipe out. Start I and II call for
eliminating missiles and aircraft that could deliver at least
7,000 nuclear warheads; the proposed antiballistic missiles
would be lucky to knock down a hundred such warheads in a
full-scale assault.
Finally, a new American buildup would give belligerent
countries grounds for withdrawing from the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty or demanding changes in it.
The Clinton Administration deserves some blame for this
dangerous new turn. Last year it advocated a theater missile
defense system that itself undercut the Antiballistic Missile
Treaty.
President Clinton can atone for this mistake by vetoing the
Pentagon authorization bill unless the commitment to set up
the antiballistic defense system is dropped when the House
and Senate prepare the final version this fall. If he signs
the bill because Congress is certain to override a veto, he
must make clear that he will not deploy this system or seek
any changes in the ABM Treaty.
Why risk restarting the arms race at a time when America
has never been in less danger of a nuclear attack?
____________________