[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 61 (Monday, May 7, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4442-S4445]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

 NOMINATION OF JOHN ROBERT BOLTON OF MARYLAND TO BE UNDER SECRETARY OF 
           STATE FOR ARMS CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The hour of 4 p.m. having arrived, the Senate 
will now go into executive session and proceed to the consideration of 
Executive Calendar No. 39, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read the nomination of John Robert Bolton of 
Maryland to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and 
International Security.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there shall now be 3 
hours of debate on the nomination.
  Under the previous order, there shall also be 60 minutes under the 
control of the Senator from North Dakota.
  The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, on the John Bolton nomination, I 
understand that I am to be recognized for an hour.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to give the 
final 15 minutes of my hour to Senator Wellstone.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, the issue before the Senate is the 
nomination of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and 
International Security. The proposed nominee is Mr. John Bolton. I 
don't know John Bolton from a cord of wood, and I have no ill will 
toward him, but I come to the floor opposing this nomination in the 
most vigorous way possible.
  We have a circumstance in this world where there exist somewhere in 
the neighborhood of 30,000 to 40,000 nuclear weapons. They exist in 
relatively few countries. We have a large stockpile of nuclear weapons, 
Russia has an even larger stockpile of nuclear weapons, and a few other 
countries are members of the nuclear club. It was demonstrated about a 
year and a half ago, or so, that both India and Pakistan have nuclear 
weapons. They don't like each other at all. Each tested nuclear weapons 
underneath the other's chin. One wonders about the wisdom of that. It 
demonstrated for all of the world the danger of so many nuclear 
weapons, the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  So it is our job, it is incumbent upon us in this country, to be a 
world leader and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to be a 
world leader in trying to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on this 
Earth. This is our responsibility.

  The area of our Government in which leadership is required is that of 
Under Secretary of State for Arms Control. That is where one would 
expect to see leadership with respect to arms reductions, arms control 
talks, and stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  President Bush nominated John Bolton for the job. He is exactly the 
wrong nominee. He is exactly the wrong person to put in this position. 
Again, I do not know him personally. But I know of his thinking and 
writings and how he has expressed himself in recent years about these 
subjects. I am going to use some of these expressions, quotes, and 
articles he has written to demonstrate why I think he should not be 
confirmed by the Senate.
  First, he does not have experience in arms control at all. He has 
never served in an arms control position. He has never been part of 
negotiating groups involved in arms control talks. He has not even 
written very much about the arms control subject. But he has expressed 
disdain for arms control and for those who promote it.
  I will relate a couple of those statements. He says:

       America rejects the illusionary protections of 
     unenforceable treaties.

  With respect to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, the CTBT, 
that we debated in the Senate and defeated, regrettably, nearly 2 years 
ago, he says the supporters of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban 
Treaty are ``timid and neo-pacifists.''

[[Page S4443]]

  Let me explain what the test ban treaty is. We do not test nuclear 
weapons in this country. We decided and announced 8 or 9 years ago that 
we were not going to test nuclear weapons, so we suspended nuclear 
testing.

  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has been signed by about 150 
countries, it tries to get all of the countries to commit to the 
position we have already taken: to prohibit nuclear testing; a treaty 
to stop nuclear testing. This Senate voted against that treaty. It is 
almost unthinkable. This Senate said no to that treaty.
  Mr. Bolton says the supporters of that treaty are ``timid and neo-
pacifists.'' He, I guess, disagrees. He, I guess, thinks we should not 
be involved in a treaty with other countries to stop nuclear testing, 
despite the fact we have already stopped nuclear testing.
  What value is it for us to decide we will not be part of a treaty 
that stops others from doing what we have already decided not to do? It 
makes no sense to me.
  Mr. Bolton says international law is not really law:

       Treaties are ``law'' only for U.S. domestic purposes. In 
     their international operation, treaties are simply 
     ``political'' obligations.

  He says:

       While treaties may well be politically or even morally 
     binding, they are not legally obligatory. They are just not 
     ``law'' as we apprehend the term.

  We have been involved in many treaties in this country, most notably 
and most important to me are the arms control treaties we have 
negotiated with the old Soviet Union and the arms control treaties we 
now have with Russia. Mr. Bolton's position is they do not really mean 
very much; they are just political obligations; they do not mean 
anything; they have no force and effect in our law.
  The arms reduction treaties we have negotiated with the old Soviet 
Union and now Russia have accomplished a great deal, and someone who 
discards the notion of reaching these kinds of agreements with other 
countries, in my judgment, is not thinking very clearly about what our 
obligation ought to be with respect to stopping the spread of nuclear 
weapons and trying to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on this 
Earth.
  Mr. Bolton also expresses rather substantial disdain for the United 
Nations. He says:

       The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it 
     lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

  He says:

       If I were redoing the Security Council today, I'd have one 
     permanent member because that's the real reflection of the 
     distribution of power in the world [and that member would be] 
     the United States.

  Kind of an elitist attitude.
  He has expressed disdain for some of our allies for positions they 
have taken. He has accused Premier Chretien of Canada of ``moral 
posturing.''
  The Sun, a British newspaper, says Bolton is ``one of Tony Blair's 
strongest critics.''
  He says the proposed European defense force is a ``dagger pointed at 
NATO's heart.''
  He says:

       Europeans can be sure that America's days as a well-bred 
     doormat for EU political and military pretensions are coming 
     to an end.

  Mr. Bolton gloated after the vote on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-
Ban Treaty in the Senate:

       The CTBT is dead.

  Mr. Bolton has been highly critical of the agreed framework under 
which North Korea pledged to freeze its nuclear weapons program. He 
says ``the United States suffers no down side'' if we never normalize 
relations with North Korea.
  South Korea and Japan, two friends of our country, certainly do not 
agree with that.
  His position that we should give diplomatic recognition to Taiwan 
contradicts several decades of official American policy.
  He says we have no vital interests in Kosovo or the rest of the 
Balkans. He says:

       The problem with Kosovo now is precisely that we do not 
     have concrete national interests at stake, and we are off on 
     a moral crusade. I think there's more than one moral 
     principle in the world, and one moral principle I think we 
     are ignoring in Kosovo is that the President should commit 
     American forces to battle, and possibly to death, only when 
     there is something that matters to us.

  The genocide that was occurring in that region was stopped by U.S. 
intervention. I was as uncomfortable as anyone in this Chamber when we 
committed troops for that purpose. I understand there is risk. The fact 
is the genocide was stopped. The killing was stopped and the tens of 
thousands of people whose lives were saved would not share Mr. Bolton's 
evaluation of our response to the difficulties in Kosovo.
  This President sends us Mr. Bolton's nomination at a time when he is 
proposing we abandon the ABM Treaty. He did not say it quite that way 
last week, but his previous statements suggest the ABM Treaty is really 
of no value and that it ought to be abandoned. And make no mistake, 
this administration is prepared to and on the road to abandoning the 
ABM Treaty.
  Its first priority is to build a national missile defense system, 
wants to abandon the Kyoto treaty, and wants to suspend missile talks 
with North Korea. It opposes the International Criminal Court and 
International Landmine Convention.
  If one listened to President Bush's presentation about a week ago at 
the National Defense University, one might wonder why he nominated John 
Bolton. He describes national security policy in moderate terms, talks 
of consultation and cooperation, and these are concepts that seem 
totally alien to all the work I have seen expressed by Mr. Bolton in 
quotes, articles, so on.
  Last Friday, an article in the Washington Post by the columnist 
Charles Krauthammer reveals, I think, the real agenda President Bush 
and also Mr. Bolton aspire to manage. As Mr. Krauthammer puts it, ``the 
Bush Doctrine abolishes arms control.''
  These quotes from Mr. Krauthammer's article are instructive:

       The new Bush Doctrine holds that, when it comes to 
     designing our nuclear forces, we build to suit.

  In other words, it does not matter what other countries think. It 
does not matter what our agreements are. It does not matter what 
circumstances exist in the rest of the world. It does not matter if 
what we do ignites a new arms race. What we do ought to suit ourselves, 
and it does not matter the consequences.

       Nor does the Bush administration fear an ``arms race.'' If 
     the Russians react to our doctrine by wasting billions 
     building nukes that will only make the rubble bounce, let 
     them.

  That is saying let us stop this effort to reduce nuclear weapons. Let 
us build a national missile defense system, and if that ignites a new 
arms race and we see Russia and China building new offensive weapons, 
so be it; it does not matter at all.
  That is, in my judgment, a pretty thoughtless approach. It does 
matter. Those who want to see the United States be a leader in stopping 
the spread of nuclear weapons and reducing the number of nuclear 
weapons through arms control agreements do believe it matters what we 
do and believe it matters how others react.
  ``If others doesn't like it, too bad.'' This is a fascinating article 
by Mr. Krauthammer evaluating the approach of the administration and 
probably underlines why Mr. Bolton is the nominee.
  I don't accuse Mr. Bolton of being of bad faith or ill will. He is 
just wrong on these issues. This country is making a very big mistake 
by putting someone with his viewpoint over at State as Under Secretary 
of State for Arms Control.
  Now I will talk about the effect of some of these policies. I will 
not speak at great length about national missile defense, but we have a 
threat chart from the Department of Defense, and about the least likely 
threat we face is an ICBM with a nuclear warhead from a rogue nation or 
a terrorist. A far more likely threat is a pickup truck with a nuclear 
bomb. That is a far more likely threat.
  The national missile defense being proposed by the President, even if 
it abrogates and scraps the ABM Treaty, will be kind of a catcher's 
mitt, put in the sky to catch nuclear missiles that might be fired at 
us. However, people should understand they are only talking about 
catching a few missiles because any robust attack could not be defended 
against by this system. It is designed to defend against someone who 
will send one, two, three, four, or

[[Page S4444]]

five missiles. But it will not defend against an accidental nuclear 
launch by a Russian submarine where they unload all the tubes. It will 
not defend this country against that. And it puts all our eggs in this 
basket and ignores the far more likely set of threats.
  It is far more likely, if we were to be terrorized by a rogue nation 
or terrorist state or terrorist group, they would find a delivery 
device as simple as a pickup truck or a rusty car or a small deadly 
vial of chemical or biological agents placed at a metro station 
somewhere. It is far more likely that would represent the terrorist 
threat using a weapon of mass destruction against the American people. 
Yet we are determined, absolutely determined, to build a system that 
will probably cost up to $100 billion and be a catcher's mitt only in 
circumstances where someone would launch a couple of missiles.
  This country, of course, has thousands of nuclear weapons, and this 
country would vaporize any terrorist group or any country that launched 
a nuclear attack against this country. That has always been the case. 
It is called mutually assured destruction.
  The new group that has taken power says that is old fashioned, that 
doesn't work, or, maybe it worked but it won't work in the future 
because we have new adversaries--presuming the adversaries are willing 
to attack us and then to be vaporized by a nuclear response from this 
country.
  Somehow, it seems to me that taking apart arms control treaties that 
have resulted in real reductions of nuclear weapons and delivery 
vehicles is a step in the wrong direction. It seems to me not caring 
whether what we do unilaterally will ignite a new arms race and have 
the Russians and Chinese building new, massive offensive weapon systems 
is not in this country's best interests. Yet that is where we are 
headed. It is what this administration talks about, and it seems to me 
to be part and parcel of the type of thing we will see with the John 
Bolton nomination.
  Let me talk for a moment about a former majority leader of the 
Senate, Howard Baker, a Republican leader in the Senate, who has done 
some interesting work on these issues. A bipartisan task force, led by 
Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler, working on these issues, said the 
following:
  One of the first national security initiatives of the new President 
[should] be the formulation of a comprehensive, integrated strategic 
plan, done in cooperation with the Russian Federation, to secure and/or 
neutralize in the next eight to ten years all nuclear weapons-usable 
material located in Russia and to prevent the outflow from Russia of 
scientific expertise that could be used for nuclear or other weapons of 
mass destruction.
  Baker recently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that:

       It really boggles my mind that there could be 40,000 
     nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union, poorly controlled 
     and poorly stored, and that the world isn't in a near state 
     of hysteria about the danger.

  According to the Baker-Cutler panel's report:

       In a worse case scenario, a nuclear engineer graduate with 
     a grapefruit-sized lump of highly enriched uranium or an 
     orange-sized lump of plutonium, together with material 
     otherwise readily available in commercial markets, could 
     fashion a nuclear device that would fit in a van like the one 
     the terrorist Yosif parked in the World Trade Center 1993. 
     The explosive effects of such a device would destroy every 
     building in Wall Street financial area and would level lower 
     Manhattan.
       The most urgent unmet national security threat to the 
     United States today is the danger that weapons of mass 
     destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be 
     stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and 
     used against American troops or citizens at home.
       The national security benefits to U.S. citizens from 
     securing and/or neutralizing the equivalent of more than 
     80,000 nuclear weapons and potential nuclear weapons would 
     constitute the highest return on investment in any current 
     U.S. national security and defense program.
  If we decide, as the President suggests, that we will abrogate the 
Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, Russia would respond by 
suspending their programs that Baker and Cutler say are so vital, and 
respond by increasing military cooperation with China, Iran, and 
others, and suspend plans to further reduce their own nuclear arsenal.
  Let me talk about what we have been doing that is successful and why 
I am so concerned about this nomination. This chart shows what has 
happened with long-range missile warheads, ICBMs and SS-20s. We have 
had strategic arms reduction talks that have resulted in a reduction in 
nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles. The INF and START talks 
resulted in a reduction of 6,000 warheads from long range missiles. 
Those 6,000 warheads represented the equivalent of 175,000 Hiroshimas; 
175,000 equivalents of a Hiroshima bomb have been dismantled. Thousands 
still exist.
  The question is, Is it moving in the right direction to begin talks 
and arms reduction treaties and agreements with the Soviets and the 
Russians, now, that reduce nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles? It 
seems to me that makes a great deal of sense.
  This Congress, and previous Congresses, have funded the Nunn-Lugar 
program. We appropriate money in order to have the Russians reduce 
their nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles according to the 
agreements we have with them. Because of Nunn-Lugar nearly 6,000 
nuclear warheads are gone, 597 ICBMs are gone, 367 missile silos are 
gone, 18 ballistic missile submarines are gone, 81 heavy bombers are 
gone.
  Here is a picture of a submarine. This is a Typhoon-class Russian 
submarine. That submarine is now being dismantled by the Nunn-Lugar 
program. Soon it will not exist anymore.
  In fact, I have kept in my desk for some while a small container of 
copper. This is ground-up copper. This copper comes from wiring from a 
Delta-class ballistic missile submarine, a Russian submarine.
  I ask consent to demonstrate the two pieces I have as a result of 
these arms reduction programs.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. This wiring is ground-up copper wiring from a Russian 
submarine. We didn't sink that submarine. We weren't at war with 
Russia. We didn't destroy it. Through our arms reductions program, that 
submarine is dismantled and now doesn't exist. So I now stand in 
Washington, DC, holding up ground-up copper wire from a submarine that 
is now dismantled, a submarine of a former adversary. Does that make 
sense? A submarine with warheads aimed at American cities now no longer 
exists.
  Or, this is a photograph of a Bear Bomber. This is a Russian heavy 
bomber. This is a piece of a wing strut from a Russian bomber. We 
didn't shoot down this bomber. I have this piece of wing strut from a 
bomber in Russia because we sawed the wings off. We helped pay for 
sawing the wings off and destroying those bombers. Why did they allow 
them to be destroyed? Because our arms control agreements with Russia 
required the reduction of both nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles: 
missiles, submarines, and long-range bombers. So I am able to hold up a 
part of a wing strut of a Russian bomber in Washington, DC. We didn't 
have to shoot it down. All we had to do was help buy some saws to saw 
the wing off and dismantle that plane piece by piece. That bomber that 
carried nuclear bombs that threatened our country no longer exists.
  Is that progress? I think it is.
  So we have what is called the Nunn-Lugar program that we have funded. 
Despite this success, as I indicated, we have something more than 
30,000 to 40,000 nuclear weapons left in the world, the bulk of them in 
the United States and in Russia. They have a total yield, it is 
estimated, of somewhere around 6,000 megatons. That is 6 billion tons 
of TNT. That is the equivalent power of 400,000 Hiroshima-type bombs--
400,000 Hiroshima bombs.
  The Hiroshima ``Little Boy'' bomb killed about 100,000 people. It was 
calculated the ``Little Boy'' bomb dropped on Hiroshima produced 
casualties 6,500 times more efficiently than the ordinary high-
explosive bomb.
  So the question for us is: Is there more to do in arms control, arms 
reduction? Is there more to do in stopping the spread of nuclear 
weapons? Will this country be a leader in those areas?
  The answer for me, clearly, is yes. Yet today we consider the 
administration's nomination to be the Under Secretary of State for Arms 
Control, Mr. John Bolton, who has little experience in the area. But 
more alarming in my judgment, is that the expressions he

[[Page S4445]]

has made about this subject in recent years suggest that he does not 
care a whit about arms control.
  He seems to believe, as this administration does, that arms 
reductions are not part of a strategy that makes much sense for this 
country. Treaties, arms control talks, somehow represent a display of 
weakness, apparently, and that, if we could, we should just decide to 
go our own way, build national missile defense, not care what others do 
in reaction to it, and believe it doesn't matter how many nuclear 
weapons exist in the hands of the Russians, or how many nuclear weapons 
and delivery vehicles the Chinese might desire to consider in the 
coming years. It just doesn't matter, they say.
  I think that is a very serious mistake for this country to believe 
that. In my judgment, it is a very serious policy mistake. I think if 
ever there is a case of a fox in a chicken coop it is Mr. Bolton's 
nomination to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control. He is the 
wrong person in the wrong place.
  Let me conclude as I started. I do not know Mr. Bolton personally, 
and I do not mean by my presentation to suggest he is not a perfectly 
good man, perhaps someone who is well educated--bright I am certain. I 
just feel very strongly, with respect to the consent requirement of the 
Senate, I want someone in the position of Under Secretary for Arms 
Control who believes in arms control. I would like someone who believes 
in a missionary need for this country to provide world leadership in 
stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. I want someone who has passion 
about trying to engage with those who have nuclear arms and delivery 
vehicles in treaties and talks and agreements to reduce the number of 
nuclear weapons.
  I do not suggest we do that from a position of weakness. We clearly 
do it from a position of strength. But those who suggest what happens 
in the rest of the world is irrelevant and the only thing that is 
relevant is what happens here are just plain wrong.
  So I will be voting against Mr. Bolton's nomination. I hope others 
will do so as well. I hope perhaps with that vote we can send a message 
from this Senate to this administration that this is not the direction 
the American people want. This is not the direction the American people 
expect in terms of trying to reduce the threat of nuclear war, trying 
to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons, and trying to increase the 
opportunity to reduce the nuclear weapons that exist.

  Madam President, I yield the floor. I make a point of order a quorum 
is not present.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. I ask consent to speak in morning business for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________