[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 134 (Wednesday, October 6, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12090-S12093]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise to address the issue of the 
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and to apprise the Senate of 
information presented at hearings of the Armed Services Committee over 
the last two days. The committee today conducted the second of its 
series of three hearings this week on the CTBT.
  Yesterday morning, the Armed Services Committee heard classified 
testimony from career professionals, technical experts with decades of 
experience, from the Department of Energy laboratories and the CIA. At 
that hearing, the committee received new information having to do with 
the Russian nuclear stockpile, our ability to verify compliance with 
the CTBT, as well as DOE lab assessments of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. 
Much of what the committee heard during that hearing was new 
information--information developed over the past 18 months--and 
therefore was not available to the Congress and the President when the 
CTBT was signed in 1996. Since 1997, when the intelligence community 
released its last estimate on our ability to monitor the CTBT, new 
information has led the intelligence community--on its own initiative--
to conclude that a new, updated estimate is needed. I have been 
informed that this new estimate will be completed late this year or 
early next year.
  This morning, the Armed Services Committee heard from the Secretary 
of Defense, William Cohen, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, General Shelton. This afternoon, we heard from Dr. James 
Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense and Energy and former Director 
of Central Intelligence, and General Shalikashvili, former Chairman of 
the JCS. Their testimony is available on the Committee's web page.
  In today's hearing, I highlighted my serious concerns with the CTBT 
in three areas:
  1. We will not be able to adequately and confidently verify 
compliance with the treaty.
  2. CTBT will preclude the United States from taking needed measures 
to ensure the safety and reliability of our stockpile.

[[Page S12091]]

  3. The administration has overstated the effectiveness of the CTBT in 
lessening proliferation.
  Regarding the safety of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, today's witnesses 
highlighted the fact that only half of the nuclear weapons in the U.S. 
stockpile today have all the modern safety features that have been 
developed and should be included on these weapon systems. We will not 
be able to retrofit these safety features in our weapons in the absence 
of nuclear testing. These are weapons that are stored at various 
locations around the world; weapons that rest in missile tubes 
literally feet away from the bunks of our submarine crews; weapons that 
are regularly moved across roads and through airfields around the 
world.
  Regarding the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, Secretary 
Cohen and General Shelton acknowledged that it could be ten years or 
more before we will know whether the Stockpile Stewardship Program--
computer simulation tools--needed to replace nuclear testing will work. 
Secretary Schlesinger clarified that, if we substitute computer 
simulation for actual nuclear testing, the most we can hope for is that 
these computer tools will slow the decline--due to aging--in our 
confidence in the stockpile. Will we ever be able to replace nuclear 
testing?
  Regarding proliferation, Secretary Schlesinger highlighted the fact 
that the diminishing confidence in our stockpile, which is inevitable 
if we were to ratify CTBT, may actually drive some non-nuclear 
countries to reconsider their need to develop nuclear weapons to 
compensate for the diminished credibility of the U.S. deterrent force. 
This declining confidence in the U.S. stockpile is a fact of science 
that has been progressing since the United States stopped nuclear 
testing in 1992. Our nuclear weapons are experiencing the natural 
consequences of aging. Dr. Schlesinger stated it clearly when he asked: 
``Do we want a world that lacks confidence in the U.S. deterrent or 
not?''

  Regarding verification, this morning Secretary Cohen confirmed that 
the United States will not be able to detect low yield nuclear testing 
which can be carried out in violation of the treaty. In addition, we 
exposed the fallacy of the administration's claim that CTBT will 
provide us with important on-site inspection rights. We would need to 
get the approval of 30 nations before we could conduct any on-site 
inspections. That will be very difficult, to say the least.
  Although I believe all of our witnesses have conducted themselves 
very professionally, I heard nothing at either of our hearings that 
changes my view of the CTBT. I am deeply concerned that the 
administration is over-selling the benefits of this treaty while 
downplaying its many adverse long-term consequences.
  My bottom line is this: reasonable people can disagree on the impact 
of the CTBT for U.S. national security. As long as there is a 
reasonable doubt about whether the CTBT is in the U.S. national 
interest, then we should not ratify it.
  Mr. President, tomorrow morning the Armed Services Committee will 
conduct the third of its CTBT hearings. We will hear from the DOE lab 
directors and others responsible for overseeing the stockpile. We will 
also hear from former officials and other technical experts with years 
of experience in developing, testing and maintaining our nuclear 
weapons.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record material 
presented at today's hearing, including a letter to me dated October 5, 
1999, from former Chairman of the JCS, John W. Vessey, USA-Ret; a 
letter to the Senate leaders from six former Secretaries of Defense and 
a letter from other former Government officials.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                    Garrison, MN, October 5, 1999.
     Hon. John W. Warner,
     Chairman, Armed Services Committee,
     United States Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Warner: If the news reports are correct, the 
     Armed Services Committee will be addressing the proposed 
     Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the next few days. 
     Although I will not be able to be in Washington during the 
     hearings, I want you to have at least a synopsis of my views 
     on the matter.
       I believe that ratifying the treaty requiring a permanent 
     zero-yield ban on all underground nuclear tests is not in the 
     security interest of the United States.
       From 1945 through the end of the Cold War, the United 
     States was clearly the preeminent nuclear power in the world. 
     During much of that time, the nuclear arsenal of the Soviet 
     Union surpassed ours in numbers, but friends and allies, as 
     well as potential enemies and other nations not necessarily 
     friendly to the United States, all understood that we were 
     the nation with the very modern, safe, secure, reliable, 
     usable, nuclear deterrent force which provided the foundation 
     for the security of our nation and for the security of our 
     friends and allies, and much of the world. Periodic 
     underground nuclear tests were an essential part of insuring 
     that our nuclear deterrent force remained modern, safe, 
     secure, reliable and usable. The general knowledge that the 
     United States would do whatever was necessary to maintain 
     that condition certainly reduced the proliferation of nuclear 
     weapons during the period and added immeasurably to the 
     security cooperation with our friends and allies.
       Times have changed; the Soviet Union no longer exists; 
     however, much of its nuclear arsenal remains in the hands of 
     Russia. We have seen enormous political, economic, social and 
     technological changes in the world since the end of the Cold 
     War, and the these changes have altered the security 
     situation and future security requirements for the United 
     States. One thing has not changed. Nuclear weapons continue 
     to be with us. I do not believe that God will permit us to 
     ``uninvent'' nuclear weapons. Some nation, or power, will be 
     the preeminent nuclear power in the world, and I, for one, 
     believe that at least under present and foreseeable 
     conditions, the world will be safer if that power is the 
     United States of America. We jeopardize maintaining that 
     condition by eschewing the development of new nuclear weapons 
     and by ruling out testing if and when it is needed.
       Supporters of the CTBT argue that it reduces the chances 
     for nuclear proliferation. I applaud efforts to reduce the 
     proliferation of nuclear weapons, but I do not believe that 
     the test ban will reduce the ability of rogue states to 
     acquire nuclear weapons in sufficient quantities to upset 
     regional security in various parts of the world. ``Gun type'' 
     nuclear weapons can be built with assurance they'll work 
     without testing. The Indian and Pakistani ``tests'' 
     apparently show that there is adequate knowledge available to 
     build implosion type weapons with reasonable assurance that 
     they will work. The Indian/Pakistan explosions have been 
     called ``tests'', but I believe it be more accurate to call 
     them ``demonstrations'', more for political purposes than for 
     scientific testing.
       Technological advances of recent years, particularly the 
     great increase in computing power coupled with improvements 
     in modeling and simulation have undoubtedly reduced greatly 
     the need for active nuclear testing and probably the size of 
     any needed tests. Some would argue that this should be 
     support for the United States agreeing to ban testing. The 
     new technological advantages are available to everyone, and 
     they probably help the ``proliferator'' more than the United 
     States.
       We have embarked on a ``stockpile stewardship program'' 
     designed to use science, other than nuclear testing, to 
     ensure that the present weapons in our nuclear deterrent 
     remain safe, secure, and reliable. The estimates I've seen 
     are that we will spend about $5 billion each year on that 
     program. Over twenty years, if the program is completely 
     successful, we will have spent about $100 billion, and we 
     will have replaced nearly every single part in each of those 
     complex weapons. At the end of that period, about the best 
     that we will be able to say is that we have a stockpile of 
     ``restored'' weapons of at least thirty-year-old design that 
     are probably safe and secure and whose reliability is the 
     best we can make without testing. We will not be able to say 
     that the stockpile is modern, nor will we be assured that it 
     is usable in the sense of fitting the security situation we 
     will face twenty years hence. To me that seems to foretell a 
     situation of increasing vulnerability for use and our friends 
     and allies to threats from those who will not be deterred by 
     the Nonproliferation Treaty or the CTBT, and there will 
     surely be such states.
       If the United States is to remain the preeminent nuclear 
     power, and maintain a modern safe secure, reliable, and 
     usable nuclear deterrent force, I believe we need to continue 
     to develop new nuclear weapons designed to incorporate the 
     latest in technology and to meet the changing security 
     situation in the world. Changes in the threat, changes in 
     intelligence and targeting, and great improvements in 
     delivery precision and accuracy make the weapons we designed 
     thirty years ago less and less applicable to our current and 
     projected security situation. The United States, the one 
     nation most of the world looks to for securing peace in the 
     world, should not deny itself the opportunity to test the 
     bedrock building block of its security, its nuclear deterrent 
     force, if conditions require testing.
       To those who would see in my words advocacy for a nuclear 
     buildup or advocacy for large numbers of high-yield nuclear 
     tests, let me say that I believe we can have a modern, safe, 
     secure, reliable and usable nuclear deterrent force at much 
     lower numbers than we now maintain. I believe we can keep it 
     modern and reliable with very few actual nuclear tests and 
     that those tests can in all

[[Page S12092]]

     likelihood be relatively low-yield tests. I also believe that 
     the more demonstrably modern and usable is our nuclear 
     deterrent force, the less likely are we to need to use it, 
     but we must have modern weapons, and we ought not deny 
     ourselves the opportunity to test if we deem it necessary.
           Very respectfully yours,

                                               John W. Vessey,

                             General, USA (Ret.), Former Chairman,
     Joint Chiefs of Staff.
                                  ____

     Hon. Trent Lott,
     Majority Leader,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

     Hon. Tom Daschle,
     Democratic Leader,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators Lott and Daschle: As the Senate weighs 
     whether to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), 
     we believe Senators will be obliged to focus on one dominant, 
     inescapable result were it to be ratified: over the decades 
     ahead, confidence in the reliability of our nuclear weapons 
     stockpile would inevitably decline, thereby reducing the 
     credibility of America's nuclear deterrent. Unlike previous 
     efforts at a CTBT, this Treaty is intended to be of unlimited 
     duration, and though ``nuclear weapon test explosion'' is 
     undefined in the Treaty, by America's unilateral declaration 
     the accord is ``zero-yield,'' meaning that all nuclear tests, 
     even of the lowest yield, are permanently prohibited.
       The nuclear weapons in our nation's arsenal are 
     sophisticated devices, whose thousands of components must 
     function together with split-second timing and scant margin 
     for error. A nuclear weapon contains radioactive material, 
     which in itself decays, and also changes the properties of 
     other materials within the weapon. Over time, the components 
     of our weapons corrode and deteriorate, and we lack 
     experience predicting the effects of such aging on the safety 
     and reliability of the weapons. The shelf life of U.S. 
     nuclear weapons was expected to be some 20 years. In the 
     past, the constant process of replacement and testing of new 
     designs gave some assurance that weapons in the arsenal would 
     be both new and reliable. But under the CTBT, we would be 
     vulnerable to the effects of aging because we could not test 
     ``fixes'' of problems with existing warheads.
       Remanufacturing components of existing weapons that have 
     deteriorated also poses significant problems. Manufacturers 
     go out of business, materials and production processes 
     change, certain chemicals previously used in production are 
     now forbidden under new environmental regulations, and so on. 
     It is a certainty that new processes and materials--
     untested--will be used. Even more important, ultimately the 
     nuclear ``pits'' will need to be replaced--and we will not be 
     able to test those replacements. The upshot is that new 
     defects may be introduced into the stockpile through 
     remanufacture, and without testing we can never be certain 
     that these replacement components will work as their 
     predecessors did.
       Another implication of a CTBT of unlimited duration is that 
     over time we would gradually lose our pool of knowledgeable 
     people with experience in nuclear weapons design and testing. 
     Consider what would occur if the United States halted nuclear 
     testing for 30 years. We would then be dependent on the 
     judgment of personnel with no personal experience either in 
     designing or testing nuclear weapons. In place of a learning 
     curve, we would experience an extended unlearning curve.
       Furthermore, major gaps exist in our scientific 
     understanding of nuclear explosives. As President Bush noted 
     in a report to Congress in January 1993, ``Of all U.S. 
     nuclear weapons designs fielded since 1958, approximately 
     one-third have required nuclear testing to resolve problems 
     arising after deployment.'' We were discovering defects in 
     our arsenal up until the moment when the current moratorium 
     on U.S. testing was imposed in 1992. While we have 
     uncovered similar defects since 1992, which in the past 
     would have led to testing, in the absence of testing, we 
     are not able to test whether the ``fixes'' indeed work.
       Indeed, the history of maintaining complex military 
     hardware without testing demonstrates the pitfalls of such an 
     approach. Prior to World War II, the Navy's torpedoes had not 
     been adequately tested because of insufficient funds. It took 
     nearly two years of war before we fully solved the problems 
     that caused our torpedoes to routinely pass harmlessly under 
     the target or to fail to explode on contact. For example, at 
     the Battle of Midway, the U.S. launched 47 torpedo aircraft, 
     without damaging a single Japanese ship. If not for our dive 
     bombers, the U.S. would have lost the crucial naval battle of 
     the Pacific war.
       The Department of Energy has structured a program of 
     experiments and computer simulations called the Stockpile 
     Stewardship Program, that it hopes will allow our weapons to 
     be maintained without testing. This program, which will not 
     be mature for at least 10 years, will improve our scientific 
     understanding of nuclear weapons and would likely mitigate 
     the decline in our confidence in the safety and reliability 
     of our arsenal. We will never know whether we should trust 
     Stockpile Stewardship if we cannot conduct nuclear tests to 
     calibrate the unproven new techniques. Mitigation is, of 
     course, not the same as prevention. Over the decades, the 
     erosion of confidence inevitably would be substantial.
       The decline in confidence in our nuclear deterrent is 
     particularly troublesome in light of the unique geopolitical 
     role of the United States. The U.S. has a far-reaching 
     foreign policy agenda and our forces are stationed around the 
     globe. In addition, we have pledged to hold a nuclear 
     umbrella over our NATO allies and Japan Though we have 
     abandoned chemical and biological weapons, we have threatened 
     to retaliate with nuclear weapons to such an attack. In the 
     Gulf War, such a threat was apparently sufficient to deter 
     Iraq from using chemical weapons against American troops.
       We also do not believe the CTBT will do much to prevent the 
     spread of nuclear weapons. The motivation of rogue nations 
     like North Korea and Iraq to acquire nuclear weapons will not 
     be affected by whether the U.S. tests. Similarly, the 
     possession of nuclear weapons by nations like India, 
     Pakistan, and Israel depends on the security environment in 
     their region, not by whether or not the U.S. tests. IF 
     confidence in the U.S. nuclear deterrent were to decline, 
     countries that have relied on our protection could well feel 
     compelled to seek nuclear capabilities of their own. Thus, 
     ironically, the CTBT might cause additional nations to seek 
     nuclear weapons.
       Finally, it is impossible to verify a ban that extends to 
     very low yields. The likelihood of cheating is high. ``Trust 
     but verify'' should remain our guide. Tests with yields below 
     1 kiloton can both go undetected and be military useful to 
     the testing state. Furthermore, a significantly larger 
     explosion can go undetected--or be mistaken for a 
     conventional explosion used for mining or an earthquake--if 
     the test is ``decoupled.'' Decoupling involves conducting the 
     test in a large underground cavity and has been shown to 
     dampen an explosion's seismic signature by a factor of up to 
     70. The U.S. demonstrated this capability in 1966 in two 
     tests conducted in salt domes at Chilton, Mississippi.
       We believe that these considerations render a permanent, 
     zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty incompatible with 
     the Nation's international commitments and vital security 
     interests and believe it does not deserve the Senate's advice 
     and consent. Accordingly, we respectfully urge you and your 
     colleagues to preserve the right of this nation to conduct 
     nuclear tests necessary to the future viability of our 
     nuclear deterrent by rejecting approval of the present CTBT.
           Respectfully,
     James R. Schlesinger.
     Frank C. Carlucci.
     Donald H. Rumsfeld.
     Richard B. Cheney.
     Caspar W. Weinberger.
     Melvin R. Laird.
                                  ____



                                               Washington, DC,

                                                  October 5, 1999.
     Hon. Trent Lott,
     Majority Leader,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

     Hon. Thomas A. Daschle,
     Minority Leader,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators Lott and Daschle: The Senate is beginning 
     hearings on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (``CTBT''), 
     looking to an October 12 vote on whether or not to ratify. We 
     believe, however, that it is not in the national interest to 
     vote on the Treaty, at least during the life of the present 
     Congress.
       The simple fact is that the Treaty will not enter into 
     force any time soon, whether or not the United States 
     ratifies it during the 106th Congress. This means that few, 
     if any, of the benefits envisaged by the Treaty's advocates 
     could be realized by Senate ratification now. At the same 
     time, there could be real costs and risks to a broad range of 
     national security interests--including our non-proliferation 
     objectives--if Senate acts prematurely.
       Ratification of the CTBT by the U.S. now will not result in 
     the Treaty coming into force this fall, as anticipated at its 
     signing. Given its objectives, the Treaty wisely requires 
     that each of 44 specific countries must sign and ratify the 
     document before it enters into force. Only 23 of those 
     countries have done so thus far. So the Treaty is not coming 
     into force any time soon, whether or not the U.S. ratifies. 
     The U.S. should take advantage of this situation to delay 
     consideration of ratification, without prejudice to eventual 
     action on the Treaty. This would provide the opportunity to 
     learn more about such issues as movement on the ratification 
     process, technical progress in the Department of Energy's 
     Stockpile Stewardship Program, the political consequences of 
     the India/Pakistan detonations, changing Russian doctrine 
     toward greater reliance on nuclear weapons, and continued 
     Chinese development of a nuclear arsenal.
       Supporters of the CTBT claim that it will make a major 
     contribution to limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. This 
     cannot be true if key countries of proliferation concern do 
     not agree to accede to the Treaty. To date, several of these 
     countries, including India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, 
     Iraq, and Syria, have not signed and ratified the Treaty. 
     Many of these countries may never join the CTBT regime, and 
     ratification by the United States, early or late, is unlikely 
     to have any impact on their decisions in this regard. For 
     example, no serious person should believe that rogue nations 
     like Iran

[[Page S12093]]

     or Iraq will give up their efforts to acquire nuclear weapons 
     if only the United States signs the CTBT.
       Our efforts to combat proliferation of weapons of mass 
     destruction not only deserve but are receiving the highest 
     national security priority. It is clear to any fair-minded 
     observer that the United States has substantially reduced its 
     reliance on nuclear weapons. The U.S. also has made or 
     committed to dramatic reductions in the level of deployed 
     nuclear forces. Nevertheless, for the foreseeable future, the 
     United States must continue to rely on nuclear weapons to 
     contribute to the deterrence of certain kinds of attacks on 
     the United States, its friends, and allies. In addition, 
     several countries depend on the U.S. nuclear deterrent for 
     their security. A lack of confidence in that deterrent might 
     itself result in the spread of nuclear weapons.
       As a consequence, the United States must continue to ensure 
     that its nuclear weapons remain safe, secure, and reliable. 
     But the fact is that the scientific case simply has not been 
     made that, over the long term, the United States can ensure 
     the nuclear stockpile without nuclear testing. The United 
     States is seeking to ensure the integrity of its nuclear 
     deterrent through an ambitious effort called the Stockpile 
     Stewardship Program. This program attempts to maintain 
     adequate knowledge of nuclear weapons physics indirectly by 
     computer modeling, simulation, and other experiments. We 
     support this kind of scientific and analytic effort. But even 
     with adequate funding--which is far from assured--the 
     Stockpile Stewardship Program is not sufficiently mature to 
     evaluate the extent to which it can be a suitable alternative 
     to testing.
       Given the absence of any pressing reason for early 
     ratification, it is unwise to take actions now that constrain 
     this or future Presidents' choices about how best to pursue 
     our non-proliferation and other national security goals while 
     maintaining the effectiveness and credibility of our nuclear 
     deterrent. Accordingly, we urge you to reach an understanding 
     with the President to suspend action on the CTBT, at least 
     for the duration of the 106th Congress.
           Sincerely,
     Brent Scowcroft.
     Henry A. Kissinger.
     John Deutch.

                          ____________________