[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 83 (Friday, June 23, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6446-S6449]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to talk briefly about an issue 
I think is really very important dealing with the country of India and 
nuclear weapons that are possessed by India and other countries around 
the world.
  Yesterday, one of my colleagues in the Senate indicated that weapons 
of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. I guess he was referring to 
some inert artillery shells that were produced in the 1980s for the 
Iran-Iraq war. No one believes those are weapons of mass destruction. 
That is an absurd claim. I think it has been described as absurd by 
nearly everybody. But since the subject of weapons of mass destruction 
has been raised I want to make a few comments.
  I have in my desk in the Senate a piece of metal. I ask unanimous 
consent to show it on the floor of the Senate.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. This is from a Backfire bomber. It used to be part of a 
wing strut on a Soviet Backfire bomber. This bomber, presumably, 
carried nuclear weapons to threaten the United States at some point. 
The bomber doesn't exist anymore. The bomber's wings were sawed off and 
it was cut into small metal pieces. We paid for that under the Nunn-
Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in which we spend American 
taxpayers' money to dismantle former Soviet nuclear weapons and their 
delivery systems--missiles, bombers, submarines.
  I also have in my desk some chewed-up copper from the electrical 
wiring from a submarine that once carried nuclear weapons aimed at the 
United States. We paid money to dismantle weapons of mass destruction 
in the arsenal of the Soviet Union. So we didn't shoot this airplane 
down. This piece of metal from a Soviet bomber was achieved because we 
paid for the saw that cut the wings off of the bomber. What a 
remarkably successful program to try to reduce the threat of nuclear 
weapons.
  I think the threat of nuclear weapons is the greatest threat that we 
face. We have roughly 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons on this Earth. 
The loss of one nuclear weapon to a terrorist and the detonation of one 
by a terrorist in a major American city will cause a catastrophe unlike 
any of us can imagine. There are roughly 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear 
weapons in this world. Where are they? Are they safeguarded? Will 
someone steal one? Who is building more? Who wants nuclear weapons? 
What are we doing about that? These are critically important questions.
  A former Secretary of Defense says that he believes the question is 
not so much whether but when will a nuclear weapon be detonated in an 
American city? A former Secretary of Defense says he believes there is 
a 50-percent likelihood that within the next 10 years a nuclear weapon 
will be detonated in a major American city. I don't know whether that 
is true or not. I do know this: this world is full of nuclear weapons. 
More countries want to achieve the capability of possessing nuclear 
weapons. It is our responsibility--it falls to us as a world leader to 
stop the spread of nuclear weapons and begin to reduce the number of 
nuclear weapons. That is our job.
  I am not very encouraged, frankly, by actions in the Congress in 
recent years, turning down the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, 
suggesting that we want to reserve the right to test nuclear weapons 
again. The discussion in the administration and even some in Congress 
is that what we really need are new nuclear weapons, designer nuclear 
weapons, earth-penetrating bunker buster nuclear weapons. There is a 
suggestion by some that nuclear weapons are perfectly usable. They are 
not.
  The only success we can measure will be the success by which we 
prevent another nuclear weapon from ever being exploded in anger on 
this planet. That is the only success that can matter.
  I want to talk a little about the nuclear agreement the Bush 
Administration has reached with India, which I think undermines our 
nonproliferation policy of many years. It also undermines the Non-
Proliferation Treaty that we have signed, and many other countries have 
signed. India has not signed it. It stops the proliferation of nuclear 
weapons. At least it says it is our resolve to stop the spread of 
nuclear weapons.
  I want to talk about this new agreement that Secretary Rice, on 
behalf of the President and others, has negotiated with India, and what 
it means for the job we have of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. 
One of our major periodicals in this country described a story that was 
not reported much post-9/11. In the period post-9/11, my understanding 
from press reports was that our intelligence picked up some kind of a 
report from their sources that a nuclear weapon had been stolen by a 
terrorist organization from the Russian stockpile of nuclear weapons 
and was prepared to be detonated by terrorists, I believe they said 
either in New York City or Washington, DC--in any event, one of 
America's major cities. Those who picked up this rumor in the 
intelligence community were very concerned about it, very worried about 
it.
  After some period of time it was determined that this was not a 
credible rumor, but in retrospect the analysts determined that it is 
perfectly plausible. It is not unthinkable that a terrorist 
organization could acquire a nuclear weapon, or steal one from an 
existing stockpile. It is not implausible that having stolen a nuclear 
weapon they could have detonated it in a major American city. That 
ought to cause an apoplectic seizure in this country about the need to 
safeguard against nuclear weapons, reduce the number of nuclear weapons 
that now exist, and stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
  It is our responsibility to provide the leadership to do that. That 
doesn't fall to anyone else; it falls to us.
  Let me describe how the nuclear deal with India fits into this. Many 
countries want to possess nuclear weapons. North Korea, we believe, is 
now building them, and perhaps has them. I believe the administration 
said they believe that North Korea has actually produced nuclear 
weapons. We understand that the country of Iran is doing things that 
would lead it to be able to produce a nuclear weapon at some point in 
the future. We are concerned about that. Our country and others have 
been trying to prevent that from happening.
  Our country invaded Iraq because we believed it had weapons of mass 
destruction. I heard a radio show this morning, with the fellow running 
the show saying that wasn't the case; that we invaded Iraq because 
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. That is not true at all. Saddam Hussein 
is an evil man. We found him in a rat hole. He murdered people in his 
own country by the thousands, and he likely will, following trial, meet 
justice. I hope so. But we attacked Iraq because we believed, our 
intelligence community believed, and the American people were told, and 
the world community was told by Secretary Powell that Iraq possessed 
weapons of mass destruction that threatened the world and threatened 
us.
  The point is that the threat of weapons of mass destruction is 
serious and real. It is serious and real because there are 25,000 or 
30,000 nuclear weapons in the world. We have a lot of them. Russia has 
a lot of them. Other countries possess them. One of those countries is 
India.
  Nowhere is the threat of nuclear war or nuclear terrorism, or the 
need to safeguard nuclear weapons more important than in South Asia, 
the home to al-Qaida, who seeks nuclear weapons. It is an area where 
relations among regional nuclear powers--China, India, Pakistan--have 
historically been tense. India and China fought a border war in 1962. 
India and Pakistan fought three major wars and had numerous smaller 
skirmishes. After both detonated nuclear weapons in 1998 and declared 
themselves nuclear powers, the

[[Page S6447]]

world held its breath as India and Pakistan fought a limited war in 
Kashmir. So this is a serious issue, one that is of great concern.
  It is almost incomprehensible to me that the administration has 
agreed to a nuclear deal with India, a country that did not sign the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, that will gut the nonproliferation 
treaty and allow New Dehli to dramatically expand its stockpile of 
nuclear weapons and possibly ignite another regional arms race of 
nuclear weapons. Giving legitimacy to the nuclear arsenal that India 
secretly developed is not going to help us convince other countries to 
give up their secret nuclear programs.
  The nonproliferation treaty is a treaty that, if you describe it, 
puts people to sleep. ``Nonproliferation'' as a term doesn't even sound 
very exciting. But it is at the root of the determination of whether we 
will one day see nuclear weapons exploded in American cities.

  We have to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. The nonproliferation 
treaty isn't perfect, but there are a host of countries in this world 
who have decided to forgo trying to acquire or build nuclear weapons 
because of it. They have done that so that they can get access to 
peaceful nuclear assistance for nuclear power that is allowed by the 
treaty because the treaty would not allow access to technology for 
nuclear power to build nuclear powerplants unless the country signed 
the nonproliferation treaty and agree to forego nuclear weapons. That 
treaty has worked--not perfectly--but it has worked well enough.
  India, as I said, has never signed it. Instead, it secretly built 
nuclear weapons in the 1970s and 1980s, which they revealed only after 
the fact that Pakistan conducted its first test of nuclear weapons in 
1998. India and Pakistan are both countries which are subject to U.S. 
laws--and international laws, for that matter--that prohibit sending 
nuclear fuel and technologies to states that are operating outside of 
the nonproliferation treaty. Because India has very little domestic 
uranium, the application of those laws has severely constrained its 
ability to expand its nuclear power industry, and it has restrained its 
ability to expand its stockpile of nuclear weapons as well.
  During this past year, New Delhi has stepped up efforts to get the 
assistance of our country to obtain nuclear fuel and reactor components 
so it can deal with an impending energy crisis. I understand their 
interest and concern about their energy crisis, but this was an 
opportunity, I believe, to get India to abide by and to become a 
signatory to the nonproliferation treaty and to cap its nuclear weapons 
program. Instead, the administration decided that it would initial an 
agreement that legitimizes India's nuclear weapons and which will make 
it substantially easier for India to produce more weapons grade 
material for more nuclear weapons. I don't understand this at all.
  I was dumbfounded to discover what the administration has done, in 
secret, with no consultation with Congress at all. But the fact is, I 
have here a copy of the legislation that the Administration wants 
Congress to pass so the treaty can be implemented even though the text 
of the agreement is not even complete. They have the skeleton of the 
agreement. They have decided we are going to say to India: It is OK 
that you have decided you are going to create nuclear weapons outside 
of the nonproliferation treaty, but we will not have you suffer the 
consequences of that so we will now begin to offer you technology and 
fuel so that you can have the ability to produce more nuclear 
powerplants for your own energy needs, and you will also be able to 
keep some of those behind the curtain and produce additional nuclear 
weapons. We have said they can do that.
  The agreement has not been written in its final detail, but even 
though its detail isn't complete, we already have legislation 
introduced in the Congress to say: That is OK. That is good. We 
approve. God bless you all.
  I don't understand this at all. The fact is, this is a huge step 
backwards for this country in providing leadership to stop the spread 
of nuclear weapons.
  Here is what the deal does. The final text, I am told, has not been 
finalized, but the substance is this: President Bush's plan will allow 
India to buy from the U.S. and other countries sensitive nuclear 
technologies that are now forbidden to India under the nonproliferation 
treaty. That includes nuclear fuel, nuclear reactors, and advanced 
nuclear technology. In return, India has agreed to allow IAEA 
inspections and safeguards at 14 of its 22 existing and planned nuclear 
reactors. So 14 of India's reactors will be off-limits for the 
production of plutonium for India's nuclear weapons program.
  But the agreement allows India to keep 8 existing and planned 
reactors outside of the agreement and free from international 
safeguards. And it will allow New Delhi to decide entirely on its own 
which future reactors it will designate as civilian and therefore to 
submit to safeguards or not.
  So the agreement allows India to keep at least eight nuclear reactors 
behind the curtain and use them to produce nuclear weapons.
  So we have essentially said that unlimited amounts of fissile 
material for nuclear weapons can be produced at facilities not 
protected by these safeguards, and it is just fine with us.

  Well, that is not fine with me. It does not meet our responsibility 
as a world leader to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. By seeking 
exception to the rules for a country with which the United States 
wishes to build a special friendship, this nuclear deal would reinforce 
the impression that our country's approach to nonproliferation has 
become selective, self-serving, inconsistent and unprincipled. This 
deal will send a signal that the United States--the country the world 
has always looked to as the leader in the global fight to stop the 
spread of nuclear weapons--is now deemphasizing nuclear 
nonproliferation and giving it a back seat to other foreign policy and 
other commercial concerns.
  I think that is a huge mistake. If the United States is seen as 
changing or bending the rules when it suits us, others will want to 
follow suit. Pakistan has already said: Us, too. We would like some of 
that. We would like to seek comparable treatment. Not long after the 
United States-India deal was announced, China and Pakistan began 
discussing additional reactor sales. I believe the United States-India 
nuclear agreement very likely will reduce the constraints on other 
states that want to go nuclear.
  In calculating whether to pursue nuclear weapons, a major factor for 
most countries is, how will the United States react? What will the 
sanctions be if we decide to produce nuclear weapons to become part of 
the club that possesses nuclear weapons? The sanctions, at least 
suggested by the India deal, is: Don't worry. If we want your 
friendship at some point, we might waive all of that and say that the 
nonproliferation issue is much less important than your friendship.
  There is no question that what has happened is the administration, 
secretly--with Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Ambassador Burns and 
others--has negotiated a deal with the President's blessing that will 
make it much easier for a country that did not sign the 
nonproliferation treaty to greatly expand its illegal nuclear arsenal. 
It will allow India to access fissile material from overseas, buy 
foreign technologies and create a curtain behind which eight nuclear 
reactors can produce additional nuclear weapons in that region of the 
world. That is a profound mistake, just a profound mistake.
  I don't understand why this Congress will not decide that it has a 
voice as well. The Administration is asking us to rubberstamp the 
agreement even before the agreement is fully written. It is an insult. 
The legislation we are asked to approve is a rubberstamp. This Congress 
is being asked to say: Well, sign us up, yes, of course. Of course we 
agree. The geopolitics of this friendship is certainly more important 
than restraining the growth of nuclear weapons or the spread of nuclear 
weapons. Sign us up. It doesn't matter.
  I am a little tired of a town in which you have one view and one 
political party--the White House and the Senate--saying: Sign us up. We 
are all there. We are all hitched up. Whichever way you want to go, we 
want to go.
  I think this is the most significant mistake--and there have been 
very significant mistakes in recent years--but this is one of the most 
significant mistakes I can conceive of.
  Let me go back to where I started a minute ago. A colleague of mine 
yesterday said they found weapons of mass

[[Page S6448]]

destruction in Iraq. Of course, they didn't. They didn't. But weapons 
of mass destruction, no matter where they are found in the future, 
ought to be of great concern to all of us. We just passed a Defense 
authorization bill that is going to spend about $10 billion on 
antimissile defense. Everyone is worried about North Korea testing a 
new long-range missile. So we are going to spend $10 billion on 
technology to try to hit a bullet with a bullet. If anyone looks at the 
threat meter--I don't think anybody does much anymore--they will 
understand one of the least likely threats our country will face is a 
rogue nation or a terrorist who acquires a nuclear warhead and puts it 
on top of an intercontinental ballistic missile and aims it at our 
country and shoots it at about 18,000 miles an hour at the United 
States.
  By far, the most likely threat is the stealing of a nuclear weapon by 
a terrorist organization, putting it on a container, loading the 
container on a ship, and having that ship pull up to a dock in a major 
American city at 3 miles an hour--not 18,000 miles an hour--and 
detonating a nuclear weapon in the middle of an American city.

  There are 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons, we think, tactical and 
strategic, in this world, the loss of one of which will be 
catastrophic; the detonation of one of which in an American city will 
be catastrophic--one. I am not talking about 5 nuclear weapons or 10 or 
30 or 100; I am talking about 1. In this new age of terrorism, our 
responsibility is to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, be a world 
leader in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, and reduce the number 
of nuclear weapons, trying to give teeth to the nonproliferation 
treaty.
  Instead, we are off making deals with India. Yes, India is a fine 
country. I want India to be a friend of ours. But I am not willing to 
abrogate the nonproliferation treaty and say to India: It is all right 
what you did to secretly produce nuclear weapons outside of the 
nonproliferation treaty. That is not all right with us. It ought not be 
a signal we send to the rest of the world that it is all right with us. 
Yet that is exactly what the deal with India is signaling: We will give 
you the technology and the capability. You allow inspectors into 14 
plants in the future, you can have 8 plants that you have behind the 
curtain to produce nuclear weapons, and that is fine with us because 
the geopolitics of this deal lead us to believe it is more important to 
give you this agreement.
  I think that is just profoundly wrong, and it is going to injure this 
country's national security in a profound way.
  So, Mr. President, my understanding is there are people here already 
working on this legislation to approve the deal--it is already 
introduced--saying: Yes, yes, yes.
  There was a former Governor in a Southern State--I won't use names 
because most of my colleagues will recognize it--but he was put in 
place by a fellow who came to the Senate. But when he went back home on 
weekends he would kick the Governor out of the Governor's chair because 
he wanted the Governor's office and he wanted to tell him what to do, 
and the guy would say: OK, OK, OK. They named him Governor OK because 
that is all he ever said was OK. That is what is going on around here. 
Yes, even with the India deal. It is OK. It doesn't matter what you do, 
it is OK.
  It is not OK with me. It is not OK with me that we have legislation 
introduced to approve a deal that hasn't yet been written in all of its 
detail, but the architecture of which we know enough of to understand, 
at least from my standpoint, that this is a serious breach of faith for 
our responsibility to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
  So, Mr. President, I don't know when the President or when our 
committees will decide they want to take a break from amending the U.S. 
Constitution. I understand beginning next week we will have the second 
opportunity to express that this Congress thinks that the work of 
Washington and Franklin and Madison and Mason was a rough draft and we 
have a lot of ideas and we ought to change the Constitution. If we can 
take a break from amending the Constitution, I assume someone will try 
to bring to the floor of the Senate legislation that will give a big 
rubberstamp to the India deal.
  I only wanted to be here today to say that when that happens, I will 
certainly do everything I can to slow it down. I prefer to stop it. I 
don't know if I can stop it. I will try to do that. If not, I will slow 
it down a lot, and we will have a long discussion about what the 
responsibility is of this country to stop nuclear weapons in this day 
and age of terrorism.
  Some don't care very much about that. They think there are other 
things that are much more important. There is nothing much more 
important in the day of terrorism, in this new age of terrorism, than 
making certain that we never, ever have a nuclear weapon detonated in a 
major American city. How do you do that? You stop the spread of nuclear 
weapons. You reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons. And you make sure 
that we provide the aggressive, assertive leadership to try to keep 
nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and safeguard existing 
stocks even as we try to reduce the number. That is our responsibility. 
The world looks to us for that leadership. And this, in my judgment, is 
not providing the kind of leadership that gives me comfort.
  For that reason, I will oppose the agreement that has been reached 
with India and that has been announced, much to the surprise of most of 
us; in fact, I think to the surprise of probably everyone in Congress 
who didn't know it was being negotiated.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak about the 
important issue of private property rights in this country, but I did 
not realize the distinguished Senator from North Dakota was going to be 
talking about another issue that is very important, and that is the 
proposed civil nuclear accord between the United States and India. It 
is a subject I have been studying. I am interested in it. I just 
happened to be one of the two Senate cochairs of the United States-
India caucus and, for that reason, I have been following the 
developments in this proposal from the beginning.
  As is so often the case, we agree on the ultimate objective, and that 
is to reduce proliferation of nuclear weapons, but we differ about the 
means. I happen to support this particular agreement because I think it 
is in the best interests of the United States. It will take another 
friend of the United States--the world's largest democracy, composed of 
more than 1 billion people, that has a good record for 
nonproliferation--and it will make us partners with them for peaceful 
civilian use of nuclear power while avoiding the threat of 
proliferation and the possibility that terrorists might acquire a 
nuclear weapon or it might proliferate to some other irresponsible 
party and then endanger the United States or our allies.
  The Congress, of course, will have a chance to get very much involved 
in this issue. Next week, Chairman Lugar and Ranking Member Biden are 
taking this matter up in the Foreign Relations Committee. They are 
going to mark up--I believe it is the Atomic Energy Act, if I am not 
mistaken, which is the one which needs to be amended if, in fact, 
Congress does consent to this agreement between President Bush and 
Prime Minister Singh of India.
  I do know there are a lot of people watching to see just what the 
reaction of Congress and the United States to this agreement will be. I 
for one believe it is an important step in our strategic relationship, 
in our growing friendship. It will be another way the United States and 
India can work together to make the world a safer place and the United 
States can demonstrate its good will by providing civilian nuclear 
technology to a country that needs the energy.
  We know how much the geopolitics of the search for oil has distorted 
our foreign relationships, so it is important that we find clean 
alternatives to oil and gas. That is what nuclear power provides, that 
clean, efficient alternative--although it has problems in that it can, 
in the wrong hands, be abused. It can be used to create nuclear 
weapons.
  As we all know, India already has a nuclear weapon, so it is not a 
question of whether it is going to acquire one. It already has one. It 
has demonstrated its responsibility and its willingness to work with 
peace-loving partners like

[[Page S6449]]

the United States in a way that looks to this alternative of civilian 
nuclear energy but at the same time makes sure that the dangers of 
proliferation are reduced to a minimum.

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