[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 168 (Friday, December 17, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10422-S10438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Good News
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I am pleased to report two pieces of
good news out of Congress today. After 2 years of policies that lacked
public support, the tide is beginning to turn.
Today the President will sign a bill that ensures no American--not a
single one--gets a tax hike on January 1. Republicans have fought hard
for this legislation. Up until last week, most Democrats resisted. But
in the end the American people were heard. That is a welcome change
from the last 2 years.
The American people have finally been heard on another matter as
well. Yesterday, Republicans united against a 2,000-page, $1.2 trillion
spending bill that Democrats were trying to ram through Congress in the
final hours of this session. The goal of this bill was perfectly clear.
Its purpose was to lock in for another year the same big government
policies voters overwhelmingly rejected on November 2.
By approving this bill, we would have helped cement for another year
massive increases in spending and helped pave the way for a health care
bill most Americans are asking us to repeal.
Once those details became clear, it was imperative that we reject it.
The voters don't want us to wait to cut spending and debt and fight
the health care bill next October--they want us to do these things
immediately.
So I am proud of my conference for sticking together on these
principles.
Here in these final days of the 111th Congress we have held the line
on taxes.
We have held the line on spending.
Next, we turn to cutting spending and cutting debt.
The American people are seeing change here in Washington.
They can expect more in the New Year.
tribute to retiring senators
george lemieux
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to a man who has
made the most of a short tenure here in the Senate. Shortly after
George LeMieux was sworn in last September he said that his goal was to
get years of work done in 16 months. And I don't think there is any
doubt the junior Senator from Florida made good on that promise.
In his short tenure, George has served the people of Florida with
honor, integrity, and purpose. And while he may be leaving us soon, I
am certain this will not be the last time we hear from this incredibly
gifted man.
George grew up in Coral Springs, FL, or ``God's country'' as he
refers to it. He went on to college at Emory, where he graduated magna
cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate, George interned for
Congressman Clay Shaw and Senator Connie Mack. And then it was on to
Georgetown for law school and then private practice back home in
Florida.
George got his start in local politics as chairman of the Broward
County Young Republicans. He then went on to make his own bid for the
Florida State house in 1998, knocking on more than 10,000 doors in the
heavily Democratic district he was hoping to represent.
Despite George's own campaign loss, he impressed a lot of Republicans
and was elected chairman of Broward County Republican Party. In 2003,
he was asked to serve as deputy attorney general. And George answered
the call, leaving the law firm he was working in at the time. As deputy
attorney general, George was responsible for a team of 400 lawyers. He
also argued and won a death penalty case that earned a unanimous ruling
from the U.S. Supreme Court.
George would go on to serve as the chief of staff to Florida Governor
Charlie Crist overseeing the Governor's legislative agenda, policy
initiatives, and messaging.
After a year as chief of staff, George wanted to return home to his
young family. ``I've got three little men at home,'' George said at the
time, ``and a wife who's a saint.''
Despite the demands of work, George has always made sure not to lose
sight of his first priorities. And we have all seen and been touched by
the special pride he has for his wife Meike and their three boys Max,
Taylor, and Chase, and their newborn daughter Madeleine.
After a couple of years of private practice, George got the call
again to serve when Mel Martinez announced he was retiring from the
Senate.
And from the moment he got here, he was determined to do the best job
he could. He wasn't going to be a placeholder or a seat warmer, as he
put it. Floridians expected vigorous and principled representation, and
that is exactly what they got. At the time of his appointment, George
may have been the youngest sitting Member of the Senate, but that
didn't stop him from rolling up his sleeves and getting to work. He
made an immediate impact by inserting himself into the health care
debate as an eloquent and passionate opponent of greater government
intervention and an enemy of waste, fraud, and abuse. And the first
bill he introduced was the Prevent Health Care Fraud Act of 2009, which
proposed a more aggressive approach to recovering the billions of
dollars that are lost each year to health care waste, fraud, and abuse.
George has been deeply involved in efforts to raise awareness about
the national debt and promoting free trade. He has been involved in
Latin American and Cuban policy. And he was a leader on the gulf
oilspill.
He has worked tirelessly to hold BP and the administration
accountable fo the cleanup and the protection of Florida's beaches. He
has been an outspoken critic of the bureaucratic red tape that kept
more skimmers from cleaning up the Florida coast. And through his
relentless efforts at exposing this lax response, he was able to get
dozens of skimmers sent to the Florida coast for cleanup. As George put
it at the time, ``We must ensure that BP does not abandon the
hardworking families, businesses, and local communities devastated by
the spill once the media leaves . . .'' After just a few months of on-
the-job training as U.S. Senator, George had found his voice in the
midst of the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Upon arriving in this Chamber, George has always maintained a pro-
business, anti-tax, and anti-waste voting record, which has made him
the recipient of several awards. In August of this year, George was
recognized as the ``Taxpayer Hero'' by the Council for Citizens Against
Government Waste for his work to expose and end wasteful government
spending. The following month, George was honored the ``Guardian of
Small Business'' by the National Federation of Independent Business, as
well as the ``Tax Fighter'' award by the National Tax Limitation
Committee.
While George's impressive tenure in this Chamber has been brief, we
enjoyed getting to know him and working
[[Page S10424]]
with him to advance the best interests of Floridians and all Americans.
He has been one of our sharpest and most passionate spokesmen on some
of the most important issues we face. He is smart, capable, and willing
to work hard. He should be proud of his service. I know I have been
proud to call him a colleague and a friend.
We thank him for his impressive service to this Chamber, the people
of Florida, and the Nation. And we wish him and his young family all
the best in what I hope will be many years of success and happiness
ahead.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts is
recognized.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, again, I repeat that we are beginning the
third day of debate on the START treaty. Senator Lugar and I are
anxious to begin debate on an actual amendment. We are prepared to do
so as soon as colleagues decide to come to the floor and bring us those
amendments. I will repeat that given the press of business and the
holidays, we are sort of in a place where we want to afford people that
opportunity, but if people don't want to take advantage of that, we are
certainly prepared to move to a vote.
I emphasize that there are no amendments from colleagues on the
Democratic side. We are prepared to just vote on this treaty. I think
perhaps we are getting a signal that other colleagues may want to
likewise try to move to conclude this treaty fairly rapidly. Certainly,
Senator Lugar and I are prepared to do so. Senator Lugar has pressed me
to try to see if we can proceed with respect to the procedural votes
that would bring us to that point. I have suggested that we ought to
perhaps give that a little more time. We are prepared to do so. At some
point, I think it will be appropriate for us to do that.
I know Senator Lugar wants to speak with respect to some of the
points that were made yesterday. First, would the Senator be agreeable
to having Senator Franken speak?
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I am delighted to delay my remarks to
listen to other Senators who have come to the floor. We are eager to
try to expedite all of the statements of our Members.
Mr. KERRY. Would the Senator agree with me that we have been open for
business for about 2 days now, and this is the third day, and we need
to get to a substantive amendment or perhaps to move to close off the
debate and have our last 30 hours?
Mr. LUGAR. I agree with the chairman. I hope that, having raised that
issue, Members will come to the floor promptly, amendments will be
offered, and votes will be taken.
It appears to me that a number of our colleagues are prepared to
conclude business, including our majority leader and the Republican
leader. I think that is the sentiment of the body. As a result, given
the 9\1/2\ hours of open time yesterday and a number of good
statements, we did not progress toward any resolution of either
amendments or the treaty. I think today we must do so. I support action
to accelerate that.
Mr. KERRY. I emphasize that if colleagues want to be here, the
majority leader has told me he will keep the Senate open Saturday,
Sunday, through the weekend, in order to do so. So it is our choice.
But I think, in lieu of complaints about the rapidity with which the
holiday is arriving, we might spend time on an actual amendment or
votes.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota is
recognized.
Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, may I ask Senator Kerry one question.
When I was presiding yesterday, a Member rose in opposition to the
treaty. He was complaining about it coming up now. He pointed to when
we got the treaty from the White House, which was in May; is that
right?
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, that is correct, I say to the Senator from
Minnesota. I think it was April that it was signed and May when we
actually received the submission of the documents themselves.
Mr. FRANKEN. I ask the chairman, when this Senator was presiding,
another Senator was on the floor saying that we got this in May, and
now it is close to the end of the year, and it is outrageous that we
are doing it now.
I ask Senator Kerry, didn't he accommodate those on the other side of
this issue several times when they asked for delay themselves?
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Senator is absolutely correct. There
was a series of requests from Senators on the other side--which is
totally appropriate. I am not suggesting that was inappropriate. I
think the record needs to reflect that on those multiple occasions when
people requested time in order to be able to prepare, we gave them
time.
Senator Lugar was importuned some 13 times to specifically slow down
the treaty process in order to allow for more time to be able to
address the modernization process, which is outside the treaty but not
unlinked from it when you are making judgments about this.
Senator Kyl brought up some relevant omissions in that modernization
process. That extra time allowed us to address that--I hope to his
satisfaction but certainly to the improvement of an understanding of
where we are proceeding and to increase the funds.
Then we delayed even further when the committee was prepared to vote.
There was a request for delay, and we delayed that vote.
Then we delayed even after that in order to avoid the appearance of
politicizing the treaty for the election. So we literally took it out
and said: OK, we will do it after the election, which is why I think
people feel so adamantly that now is the time.
There have been an appropriate series of delays. You cannot come in
and ask for delay and then say: Oh my gosh, we are pushed up against
the calendar, and it is difficult to do it now--particularly since we
are in day 3 and we have plenty of time to even exceed the amount of
time in which we did START I.
I thank the Senator from Minnesota for clarifying that. I hope not to
get locked into a discussion of process now or what happens when. Let's
just do the substance of the treaty and show the country that we have
the ability to, in a bipartisan way, meet the national security needs
of our Nation. Again, I thank the Senator for his question.
Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for that
clarification.
I rise to discuss missile defense and the New START treaty. Missile
defense is one of the persistent areas of concern of the treaty raised
by some of my colleagues. However, the reasonable questions that have
been raised on the subject can be answered in a very straightforward
manner.
The treatment of missile defense in the treaty is no cause to oppose
it--quite the opposite. It should garner support for the treaty. Most
of those who have raised concerns understand that longstanding Russian
anxiety about our missile defense is misplaced. The purpose of our
missile defense is not to undermine Russia's deterrent; it is to
protect us from attack from the likes of Iran or North Korea. In fact,
the Senator who raised the objection about it coming up now, after
their request for delay, pointed that out, as if our side didn't
understand that, for some reason.
This is longstanding U.S. policy and law across administrations and
Congresses controlled by both parties, going back to at least the
administration of George H.W. Bush.
Nothing in the treaty bars the development and deployment of missile
defense from countering those very real threats from the likes of Iran
and North Korea, nor does the treaty give the Russians any say over
missile defense or any kind of veto over it.
The fact that we and the Russians remain at odds over missile defense
is, to some degree, nothing new. It has not prevented overwhelming
support for arms control agreements in the past, including this
treaty's predecessor, the original START treaty.
A more radical strand of criticism argues that our missile defense
should target Russian forces and should, in fact, seek to render
Russian strategic forces useless. I won't have much to say about this
criticism. In reality, it is criticism of the entire foreign policy
consensus of the United States that has prevailed across party lines at
least
[[Page S10425]]
since the end of the Cold War. Secretary Gates has spoken about the
danger and the needless budget-busting expense of this perspective.
Setting this view aside, I want to focus on the more reasonable
skeptics of the New START treaty. They have expressed concerns about
each of the two mentions of missile defense in the treaty.
Article V, section 3 of the treaty states:
Each party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM
launchers and SLBM launchers--
That is submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
for placement of missile defense interceptors therein. Each
party further shall not convert and shall not use launchers
of missile defense interceptors for replacement of ICBM and
SLBMs therein. This provision shall not apply to ICBM
launchers that were converted prior to signature of this
treaty for placement of missile defense interceptors therein.
In other words, this provision prohibits the conversion and use of
ICBM and SLBM launchers from missile defense interceptors and vice
versa. However, it grandfathers the five missile silos at Vandenberg
Air Force Base that have already been converted to launchers for
missile defense interceptors.
Some have seized on this provision as a constraint on our missile
defense. In reality, this provision effectively keeps missile defense
outside the scope of the treaty--an objective that proponents of
missile defense surely desire--at no real cost to us.
The ban on conversion of ICBM silos or SLBM launchers to missile
defense is not a meaningful constraint. As LTG Patrick O'Reilly,
Director of the Missile Defense Agency, testified, his agency has no
plans and never had any plans to convert additional ICBM silos at
Vandenberg. It is both less expensive and operationally more effective
to build new ground-based interceptors. As General O'Reilly explained,
replacing ICBMs with interceptors or adapting SLBMs to be interceptors
would be ``a major setback to the development of our missile
defenses.''
Substantial conversion of ICBM silos to missile defense would also be
unnecessarily risky. Mixing interceptors with their ICBMs, especially
in or near ICBM fields, would create an ambiguity problem for the
Russians that risks tragic misunderstanding and devastating
miscalculation. As GEN Kevin Chilton, Commander of U.S. Strategic
Command, put it, seeing a missile launch, the other side may well be
uncertain whether the launch was of an offensive or defensive missile.
Eliminating conversion of ICBM silos to defense is eliminating an
unnecessary and undesirable option. That is why this so-called
limitation on missile defense in article V of the New START treaty is--
to use Senator McCain's phrase from the committee hearings--not a
meaningful one. Nevertheless, Senator McCain and others have gone on to
ask: Even if the limitation is meaningful in itself, why did the
administration agree to include it in the treaty? Why did we make this
concession on missile defense to the Russians?
The short answer is because we got a very good deal on missile
defense, gaining several benefits by agreeing not to do something we
were never going to do. That is pretty good negotiating I think.
The five converted missile silos at Vandenberg were a major source of
contention in the context of the existing original START treaty. The
Russians considered the conversion of those silos a compliance problem.
They worried we would be able to convert them back and forth and
undermine the treaty's central numerical limits on nuclear weapons.
Apparently, in negotiations over this new treaty, the Russians pushed
us to either undo the conversions to missile defense at Vandenberg or
to count the silos under the New START central limitations on our
arsenal.
We met neither of those Russian demands. Instead, in return for
agreeing not to perform future conversions that are unnecessary and
undesirable, we got the five existing missile defense silos at
Vandenberg grandfathered. That means not only do they continue as
defense silos, but Russia can no longer raise compliance complaints
because we converted those silos to defense.
More importantly, with the conversion ban in place, our missile
defenses are not subject to the treaty and its inspection regime. It is
true we will exhibit the Vandenberg silos to the Russians on two
occasions in the future, to assure them that the five converted silos
remain unable to launch ICBMs. But by keeping Vandenberg out of the
regular inspection and verification regime established by the new
treaty, we deprive the Russians of a precedent for extending
inspections to our defenses elsewhere. If conversion were allowed under
the New START treaty, our missile defenses at Fort Greely, for
instance, would potentially be subject to intrusive inspection by the
Russians, to determine whether any such conversions had taken place.
Instead, with the conversion ban in place, Fort Greely and other
missile defenses are off limits. I am not entirely sure why the
Russians agreed to this, but it is very good for us, and our
negotiators deserve praise for article V, section 3. We kept something
of value--namely the existing Vandenberg converted silos--we cleared up
a source of contention with the Russians, and we kept our missile
defenses out of the New START regime, ensuring they are not subject to
intrusive inspection by the Russians. In exchange, we agreed to ban
something that, again, we were never going to do--further convert
silos--because that would be unwise in the first place. In other words,
article V is a good reason to support the treaty.
But I think the deepest concern of those who have raised questions
about missile defense go to the treaty's other reference to missile
defense in the preamble, together with the unilateral statement Russia
issued on its own on the subject, and the so-called withdrawal clause
in the treaty. The treaty's preamble recognizes:
The existence of the interrelationship between strategic
offensive arms and strategic defensive arms, that this
interrelationship will become more important as strategic
nuclear arms are reduced, and that current strategic
defensive arms do not undermine the viability and
effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties.
I don't think anyone would deny that there is such an
interrelationship. It is simply a fact. Nor does the preamble impose
any obligation on us or on the Russians. It is not a binding limit on
us, it requires nothing of us, and has no effect on the nuclear forces
limited or not limited by the treaty.
Russia also issued a unilateral statement on missile defense at the
time the treaty was signed. This is not part of the treaty and there is
no binding force whatsoever on us or on the Russians. We issued a
statement in response as well.
Russia's unilateral statement asserts the treaty can only be
effective and viable where there is no qualitative or quantitative
buildup in our missile defense system capabilities. That is not what
the actual treaty's preamble says. Beyond that, the statement goes on
to state that a missile defense buildup ``such that it would give rise
to a threat to the strategic nuclear force potential of the Russian
Federation'' would count as an extraordinary event under article XIV of
the treaty. Article XIV includes the withdrawal clause, which is a
standard part of arms control treaties. That clause makes clear that
each country has the right to withdraw from the treaty if it judges
that extraordinary events related to the treaty's subject matter have
jeopardized its supreme interests.
That judgment cannot be second-guessed. Russia or the United States
can always make a decision that its supreme interests require it to
withdraw from the treaty under article XIV, and there is nothing the
other party can do about it.
Some of my colleagues on the other side are troubled and worried that
Russia will seek to leverage the mention of missile defense in the
preamble and their unilateral statement to pressure the United States
to limit our missile defense. These worries are without foundation. The
preamble and unilateral statement add no force whatsoever to article
XIV's power of withdrawal from the treaty. And as Secretary Gates
testified, we know the Russians have hated missile defense for decades,
since strategic arms talks started. There is no surprise here. So it is
no surprise that the Russians say a fundamental change in the strategic
balance between our countries because of missile defense might lead
them to withdraw from the treaty.
[[Page S10426]]
But even that threat is far less than it has been made out to be by
the treaty's critics. Even the Russians' own unilateral statements
count only a missile defense buildup that ``would give rise to a threat
to the strategic nuclear force potential of the Russian Federation'' as
potential cause for withdrawal. Right now, we have 30 ground-based
interceptors and the Russians will be able to deploy up to 1,500
nuclear warheads. It is accepted you need at least two interceptors for
each threat missile.
We can and will continue to improve and deploy our missile defense
without changing the fundamental situation with Russia. We can improve
and expand our missile defense without threatening strategic stability
with Russia. U.S. missile defense simply won't meet the Russians' own
description of cause for withdrawal.
But suppose the Russians see things otherwise. What is it that the
Russians are actually threatening? Are they threatening to withdraw
from the treaty? No. Here is what President Medvedev said on April 9,
the day after the treaty was signed, with reference to missile defense:
If events develop in such a way to ultimately change the
fundamental situation, Russia would be able to raise this
issue with the USA. This is the sense of the interpretation
and the verbal statement made yesterday.
So if the Russians decide there has been a change in the fundamental
situation on missile defense and offense, then they will ``raise this
issue with the USA.'' Not withdraw from the treaty but raise the issue
with us. That is a threat I think we can handle.
There is another reason not to be overly concerned. Around the time
the United States and Soviet Union signed the original START treaty in
1991, the Soviet Union issued a unilateral statement on the
antiballistic missile--or ABM--treaty, which language is virtually
identical to the unilateral statement the Russians just issued in
connection with the New START treaty.
As you know, the United States did withdraw from the ABM treaty, and
Russia, the successor to the U.S.S.R, did not in turn withdraw from the
original START treaty, as they threatened to do in the unilateral
statement. Why would the Russians structure their unilateral statement
exactly like their previous one if they wanted us to take the threat
more seriously than the last one? The Russian objection to missile
defense is well known and well understood. Their threat to withdraw
from the treaty, such as it is, is not strong and the treaty's actual
preamble imposes no obligation, restraint or pressure upon us.
The bottom line is that whatever decisions the Obama administration
and Congress make on missile defense policy can and will be made
independent of Russian threats. Frankly, our missile defense will not
threaten strategic stability with them. The New START treaty doesn't
alter our calculations on missile defense one iota.
If this is Russia's effort to pressure us on missile defense, it is
very weak and easily resisted. I, personally, pledge to make judgments
about our missile defense policy on the basis of technical and
strategic considerations, entirely independent of Russian pressure, and
I am sure my colleagues will do the same.
To sum up, the limitation on conversion of launchers in article V of
the New START treaty is, in fact, a major success of our negotiators.
In return for agreeing not to convert more ICBM silos, which we were
never going to do anyway, we kept our missile defense out of the treaty
and away from regular Russian inspection, and we put to rest Russian
complaints about our existing converted silos. We got several things of
value at very low cost.
Similarly, the mention of missile defense in the preamble and the
nonbinding statement made by the Russians will not allow them to
pressure us or exercise a veto on our missile defense. There is no
meaningful pressure there. The threat is exceedingly weak and it is
hard to see how my colleagues would take it seriously.
There is simply not a missile defense problem with this treaty, but
don't just take it from me. In addition to the extraordinary support
this treaty has garnered from foreign policy experts across the
political spectrum, there is remarkable support amongst our defense
leadership responsible for missile defense. This ranges from the
Secretary of Defense to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the service
chiefs, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command responsible for our
nuclear deterrent, and the Director of the Missile Defense Agency.
What is more, seven former commanders of Strategic Air Command and
U.S. Strategic Command recently wrote to the Foreign Relations and
Armed Services Committees to express their support for ratification of
the treaty and specifically dismissed objections based on missile
defense.
I hope we consider the resolution of ratification on the floor of the
Senate as soon as possible. The substantive case for the treaty could
not be stronger. It is time to bring it into force.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I have, I guess, a parliamentary inquiry.
Maybe the Senator from Massachusetts, through you, might answer. I
think we are at a point in time where it is time for amendments to be
offered. I encourage people, on our side of the aisle in particular, if
they have amendments, to offer them. At present, I have no amendments
personally. I was able to be involved in the resolution of ratification
that Senator Lugar and I drafted early during the committee. But I know
a number of my colleagues have been wanting to offer amendments. It
seems like there is a lot of time for that to occur today. That ought
to be forthcoming so we can get on.
I have some comments I would like to make about the treaty and I
guess concerns I have that we would introduce in the middle of this
debate some political issues regarding the military that are
unnecessary at this moment in time. That can be said later. But it is
my hope we can move this along.
I would like to ask the Senator from Massachusetts, through the Chair
how the amendment process is working. I know there has been some
question on our side about whether amendments to the treaty and
amendments to the resolution itself can be offered at the same time. I
think it would be helpful--because everybody is impatient. They are
wanting to see the amendments come forward and let's move forward with
this process. It would be good to know how that process actually would
work. There has been a question about the cloture vote and how that
impacts pending amendments.
I think, in order to help move this along, it would be good if that
could be answered.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me say to the Senator it may be we need
the Parliamentarian on something, but here is my understanding.
There is a distinction, obviously, between an amendment to the treaty
and an amendment to the resolution of ratification. Under the
parliamentary rules, there is a vagueness, frankly--according, even to
the Parliamentarian--as to how you go back and forth. I think in the
language in the particular amendment, you can deal with that issue so
you can make certain you are either addressing the resolution of
ratification or the treaty itself.
Technically speaking, the treaty has to be dealt with first and then
the resolution of ratification subsequently. We can go back and forth.
There is no problem in that. Is that accurate, Mr. President--I ask,
through you, the Parliamentarian--that we can take an amendment at any
time on either the resolution of ratification or the treaty?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. By unanimous consent that could be
achieved.
Mr. KERRY. So we could take them at any time; by unanimous consent we
could actually be defining what we specifically would be agreeing to
deal with. But under the rules, technically, you have to do the treaty
and then move that aside and go to the resolution of ratification; is
that a fair statement?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is correct.
The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I am not sure it is my role, because of
the way the managers manage this bill, to ask for unanimous consent in
that regard. I think that is probably something that either the two
leaders
[[Page S10427]]
should ask or the two managers of the bill. But it would seem to me
that would clear up any questions people have about the process itself.
I ask the Senator from Massachusetts, through the Chair, if that is
the way it should work, to get that unanimous consent.
Mr. KERRY. To simplify matters, let me say this. We are prepared to
take any amendment at any time and to proceed to it, and at a time the
amendment comes to us and we both get a chance to look at it, we will
address the question to the Parliamentarian, whether we need to ask for
unanimous consent or to change the initial language of that particular
amendment so it fits into that moment. What we will do is abide by the
rules and make sure the amendment is appropriate. But we will take any
amendment at any time as we always have in dealing with a treaty. We
have always been able to resolve this question of where it applies.
In the end, once we have moved onto the final 30 hours of debate, it
is irrelevant anyway; we simply conclude.
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I would say I was
here last night on the floor. I think the Senator was, too, when
discussions took place around the CR. I think emotions around here were
slightly frayed, and I think everybody wants this session to end. It is
my hope it will end with us doing what is necessary on the START
treaty.
I think it would be good to clear that up. I think the last thing we
need right now is confusion over that. It seems, instead of taking each
amendment at a time--I am not up to any trickery here, I am just trying
to clear this up--I think it would be much better--again, this is maybe
beyond my pay grade at this moment--if the two bill managers would go
ahead, by unanimous consent, and ask for that and move on with it. That
way there is no question about whether people have the ability to try
to amend either one, and we can move on so people cannot come down here
later and say they were blocked from offering certain types of
amendments.
Mr. KERRY. Let me say to the Senator, we are working on the
appropriate language so we do not, in fact, wind up inadvertently
amending the treaty. So we will make certain we proceed in an
appropriate way.
But I guarantee any Senator, if they have an amendment, we will be
able to take it and we are ready to proceed.
I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his cooperative effort.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I think, having spoken to a couple
colleagues, it is quite likely the first amendment that will be
offered, relatively soon, will be on the treaty itself so that issue
will not have been--we will have time to work the question out that
Senator Kerry and Senator Corker have been talking about.
Senator Kerry and I were involved in a discussion about missile
defense last evening. I think that will be probably further debated in
connection with the first amendment that is likely to be offered. So
let me turn to another matter that is of great concern to some of us
and I think will require some resolution, either in an amendment of the
treaty or preamble or in the resolution of ratification, and that is
the limitation that was placed on our potential prompt global strike--
conventional global strike weapon. This is a matter on which the Senate
gave its advice. Our role, of course, is advice and consent. In the
last Defense bill, section 1251 of the fiscal year 2010 NDAA, we
included a statement that the New START treaty should not include any
limitations on advanced conventional systems, otherwise known as
conventional prompt global strike.
For the purposes of this, let me refer to that now as CPGS. Despite
the assurances from some in the administration that wouldn't happen, it
did happen. There is both limiting language and language in the
preamble that sets the stage for further limitations on CPGS. We were
clear about this because I believe we are going to need this. General
Chilton has said the same thing. First, let me make it clear, what we
are talking about is a conventional warhead on top which is a missile
that has ICBM-like capabilities, that can quickly reach a spot a long
way away to deliver a nonnuclear warhead.
With the WMD and terrorist and other rogue state kinds of threats
that exist today, our administration and many of the rest of us have
concluded this is a capability we need.
Let me quote General Chilton:
To provide the President a better range of non-nuclear
options against rapidly emerging threats, we also require a
deployed, conventional prompt global strike capability to
hold at risk targets in denied territory that can only be
rapidly struck today with nuclear weapon platforms.
That is the rationale for it. That is the administration's statement,
and I agree with that.
The Senate provided its advice in Section 1251 of the Defense bill,
and here is what Under Secretary of Defense Tauscher assured Senators.
She said:
[T]here is no effect for prompt global strike in the
treaty.
A March 26, 2010, White House fact sheet assured that:
. . . the treaty does not contain any constraints on
testing, development, or deployment of . . . current or
planned United States long-range strike capabilities.
Obviously, that statement was meant to assure us that CPGS would not
be constrained or limited. But the kicker in there were the words
``current'' or ``planned.'' That is because there is no current CPGS,
and the administration is studying what particular system or systems to
move forward with.
So while technically correct that there is nothing current or
planned, it is also true the constraints in the treaty will limit
whatever system we eventually come up with. The question, therefore, is
what happens when, as General Chilton urges us, we develop a CPGS in
the future.
Incidentally, General Chilton is the head of our Strategic Command.
He is the person responsible for understanding what the threats are and
how we can deliver the right ordnance in the right place with
perishable intelligence in a very constrained atmosphere, and that is
why his views on this are very important. Yet we conceded to Russian
demands to place limits on CPGS.
How was this done? The Russians were very clever about this. They
knew they were not going to get the United States to back off our plan,
so what they said was: You will have to count any of those missiles
against the 700 launcher limit on your nuclear delivery vehicles.
That is not a good deal. Most of us believe the 700 is too low to
begin with. What we will have to do is, for every single one of these,
we will have to subtract that number from the 700. So if you have 25,
now you are down to 675 launchers for nuclear weapons.
That is a constraint. There is no way to describe that in any other
terms. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said, on March 29:
For the first time, this treaty sets the ceiling, not only
for strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, but also for those
ones which will be fitted with nonnuclear warheads. The U.S.
is carrying out this work, which is why it would be extremely
important to set a limit precisely on these types of weapons.
I think he was more straightforward about this than the spokesman for
the administration. He said: Sure, we put limits on it, and the United
States is moving forward on it. That is why we wanted to put limits on
it.
So despite the relationship between strategic and tactical nuclear
weapons--but we would not dare deal with tactical weapons either in the
preamble or the treaty. Yet in another concession to the Russians, the
preamble to the treaty notes that the parties are ``mindful of the
impact of conventionally armed ICBMs and SLBMs on strategic
stability.''
Well, first of all, I do not agree with that statement. What is the
impact? The impact assumes that we cannot segregate the two, which can
be done. Second, are we to believe that tactical nuclear weapons, which
the Russians enjoy a huge advantage--some say a 10-to-1 advantage over
us--have no impact on strategic stability while conventionally armed
ballistic missiles do?
What do Russia's neighbors think of that argument, I might wonder.
Clearly, these limits on CPGS and the dangerous language in the
preamble were concessions to the Russians. It is not in our interest
because we do intend to go forward with this. I think, taken to its
extreme, the treaty could prevent the United States from acquiring the
nonnuclear strategic capabilities necessary to counter today's
principal
[[Page S10428]]
threats, terrorists and regional adversaries armed with weapons of mass
destruction.
We recognize the resolution of ratification has language on this. It
does not rescind, and could not rescind, the specific limitation on
counting conventionally armed ballistic missiles or mitigate the
potential for severe disagreement with the Russians over this issue in
the very near future.
I do not think we should ratify a treaty without knowing what kind of
CPGS systems may be counted and how that will affect the nuclear triad
at the much reduced levels now of 700 delivery vehicles. According to
the Department of Defense, an assessment on treaty implications for
CPGS proposals will not be ready until 2011. So under the resolution
approved by the committee, Senators will not know until the treaty
enters into force, when, obviously, it would be too late.
So the bottom line is, with a 700-launch vehicle limit, and CPGS
counting against that limit, we will have fewer nuclear delivery
vehicles than we negotiated for in the treaty, and that limit will be a
disincentive to develop the CPGS as a result.
Second, the language in the preamble regarding the impact of CPGS on
strategic stability opens the door to further Russian pressure against
the United States not to develop and deploy these systems. Why should
we accept these constraints in a treaty that was about nuclear weapons?
Now, I think Senator Kerry had three main points, if I distilled it
correctly. First was, well, the Russians wanted to limit us from doing
this at all. So, in effect, we should be thankful the only limitation
was on the number. I do not think that is a very good argument. As I
said, we wanted to talk tactical. The Russians said no, so we did not
talk tactical in the strategic treaty. There is no reason why, in a
strategic nuclear treaty, we need to talk conventional arms either. But
we agreed to do that.
Another argument that Senator Kerry--well, it goes along with some in
Russia who have said: Well, it would be very hard for us to know
whether a missile launch was a strategic nuclear weapon or one of these
conventional Prompt Global Strike weapons.
That is sort of a justification for the Russian position. But most of
the experts with whom I have talked say that is not a limitation we
need to worry about at all. We could easily agree with the Russians in
various ways to assuage their concerns. For example, we can deploy the
conventionally armed ballistic missiles in areas that are distinct from
our ICBM field, allow them to periodically conduct onsite inspections
under separate agreement. That could be done. And there are other
mechanisms as well. The key point is that we need these capabilities. I
do not think we should limit them in an arms control treaty dealing
with strategic nuclear weapons.
The other argument is, well, we are not going to develop these for
maybe 10 years, which is outside the life of the treaty. First of all,
we should not have constraints on developing them at any point. We
should not create the precedent that whatever we do with Prompt Global
Strike is going to count against our nuclear delivery limits, which is
what this treaty does.
But, finally, there are programs that are being studied right now in
the United States that would allow us to put the Prompt Global Strike
capability into service quite quickly. We need it; we need it now. For
example, there have been proposals for weapons on conventional Trident
missiles, to cite one example, that would count and could be deployed
in less than 10 years. The National Academy notified Congress in May of
2007 that conventional Trident missiles could be operationally deployed
within 2 years of funding. And there are others.
My point is, we should not be saying: Well, because certain things
are not going to happen for 10 years, the treaty lasts 10 years,
therefore, we do not have to worry about it. It takes a long time to
plan these systems, and if they are going to be constrained by what is
in the treaty today, they are likely going to be constrained by
provisions in future treaties as well.
This is a bad precedent. It is one of the reasons we think before we
were to proceed with this treaty, we would need to have some resolution
either in the preamble or the treaty or the resolution of ratification
that would give us assurance that we could develop Prompt Global Strike
without detracting from our ability to deliver nuclear warheads as
well.
I would like to turn to another matter. I mentioned briefly when I
began my conversation yesterday morning about the treaty--and that is,
that looked at in a larger context, some people have said: Well, this
treaty, in and of itself, may not put that many constraints on the
United States. Therefore, they are willing to support it. I appreciate
the rationale behind the argument.
But there is an argument that this treaty has to be considered in its
context. That is one of the reasons the people are concerned about the
missile defense issue. But another element of context is the whole
modernization issue, which is directly related to, but in a slightly
different way relevant to the consideration of the treaty.
But the other aspect of context is that this is a treaty seen by the
administration as moving a step forward toward the President's vision
of a world without nuclear weapons. There are a lot of people who
disagree with that vision and who believe if this treaty is ratified,
then, in effect, the administration's very next step is going to be to
begin negotiations to do that.
Indeed, administration spokesmen have said precisely that. Secretary
Clinton, when New START was signed, talked about the President's vision
of the world without nuclear weapons, and said: We are making real
progress toward that goal.
There have been numerous administration spokesmen who have made the
same point. I will just mention three. Under Secretary Tauscher, whom I
referred to earlier; Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller,
who actually negotiated this treaty; and Assistant Secretary of Defense
Alexander Vershbow have all indicated the next round of negotiations
the administration intends to engage in, beginning immediately after
the ratification of the START treaty, is the march toward the
President's vision of a world without nuclear weapons.
I said I do not share that vision. I do not share it for two reasons:
I think it is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve, and I question
whether it is a good idea at all. I do not think anybody believes that
is something that is achievable in anybody's lifetime, even if it is
ever achievable.
But, right now, focusing on this diverts attention, as I think this
treaty does, from the efforts to deal with the true threats of today:
countries such as Iran and North Korea and nuclear weapons falling into
the hands of terrorists. As I said--in fact, let me quote Dr. Rice, who
just recently wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. December 7 is
the date. She said:
Nuclear weapons will be with us for a long time. After this
treaty, our focus must be on stopping dangerous
proliferators, not on further reductions in the U.S. and
Russian strategic arsenals, which are really no threat to
each other or to international stability.
I agree with that. Let me quote George Kennan, who wrote this a long
time ago, but I think it applies today:
The evil of these Utopian enthusiasms was not only or even
primarily the wasted time, the misplaced emphasis, the
encouragement of false hopes. The evil lay primarily in the
fact that those enthusiasms distracted our gaze from the real
things that were happening. The cultivation of these Utopian
schemes, flattering to our own image of ourselves, took place
at the expense of our feeling for reality.
I would apply that to today. While we make a big hullabaloo about
signing a treaty between Russia and the United States, countries that
are no longer enemies, who are bringing down our strategic arsenals
because it is in our own self-interest to do so, and ignore the
threats--and I should not say ``ignore'' because that is to suggest the
administration and others have not spent time working on the problem of
Iran and North Korea. I ask, however, how much success we have had and
whether we need to devote more attention and effort to resolving those
problems that are immediately in front of us rather than dealing with a
nonproblem in the START treaty with Russia.
Also, I would ask my colleagues to just reflect for a moment on what
such a world would be like. You can divide, at least in my lifetime,
barely, pre-August 1945, in the last century, and post-
[[Page S10429]]
August 1945. World War II claimed between 56 and 81 million lives. It
is astounding to me we cannot even get a more accurate count of that.
That is how destructive and disruptive and cataclysmic World War II
was.
But it was ended with two atomic weapons. Since that time, the major
powers--Russia, the United States, China--have not fired a shot in
anger against each other. Major wars such as World War II, World War
I--these kinds of wars have been avoided at least in part because the
countries that possess these weapons know they cannot be used against
each other in a conflict.
That is the deterrent value. Would it be nice if they had never been
invented? Yes. Except for what they accomplished in ending World War
II. But they cannot be uninvented, and the reality is, today it does
provide a deterrent for the United States to have these weapons, and 31
other countries in the world rely on that deterrent.
So I would just ask those who say it would be wonderful if these
weapons did not exist, what would the world look like today, with all
of the conflicts that exist, and the opportunity for conventional
warfare, unconstrained by the deterrent of a nuclear retaliation?
Nobel Prize winner and arms control expert Thomas Schelling recently
observed that: In a world without nuclear weapons, countries would
maintain an ability to rearm, and that ``every crisis would be a
nuclear crisis . . . the urge to preempt would dominate. . .it would be
a nervous world.''
Well, to be sure, and that is an understatement. New York Times
columnist Roger Cohen wrote:
A world without nuclear weapons sounds nice, but of course
that was the world that brought us World War I and World War
II. If you like the sound of that, the touchy-feely `Ground
Zero' bandwagon is probably for you.
General Brent Scowcroft, who is actually a proponent of this treaty
wrote:
Second, given the clear risks and the elusive benefits
inherent in additional deep cuts, the burden of proof should
be on those who advocate such reductions to demonstrate
exactly how and why such cuts would serve to enhance U.S.
security. Absent such a demonstration, we should not pursue
additional cuts in the mistaken belief that fewer is ipso
facto better.
This is a point that was also made by the Bipartisan Congressional
Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, the so-called
Perry-Schlesinger Commission, in which they concluded:
All of the commission members all believe that reaching the
ultimate goal of global nuclear elimination would require a
fundamental change in geopolitics.
Again, quite an understatement. As I said, even the notion that we
would be immediately pursuing, trying to reach this goal after the
START treaty is ratified is to bring into question--at least I would
suggest--in the minds of the 31 countries that depend on our nuclear
deterrent for their security, whether this is a wise idea. There are
plenty of folks around the world who have commented on this, national
leaders who have commented on this.
Let me just quote a couple to illustrate the breadth of concern about
it.
The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy:
It--
Referring to the French nuclear deterrent--
is neither a matter of prestige nor a question of rank, it is
quite simply the nation's life insurance policy.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, at the
conclusion of my remarks, a list of comments and quotations by people
who have spoken to this. Let me just cite maybe one.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(See exhibit 1).
Mr. KYL. Bill Kristol, who is, I think, a very astute observer of
these matters, wrote in the Washington Post in April of last year:
Yet to justify a world without nuclear weapons, what Obama
would really have to envision is a world without war, or
without threats of war . . . The danger is that the allure of
a world without nuclear weapons can be a distraction--even an
excuse for not acting against real nuclear threats. So while
Obama talks of a future without nuclear weapons, the
trajectory we are on today is toward a nuclear- and
missile-capable North Korea and Iran--and a far more
dangerous world.
The point of all of the people whom I don't quote here but will
include for the Record is that the genie will not be put back in the
bottle. Countries will have nuclear weapons. As one of them pointed
out, if we were ever, by some magic, able to rid the world of nuclear
weapons, the threat of one nation quickly acquiring them would be the
most destabilizing thing one could imagine. The reality is, it is not
going to happen. The United States moving toward that goal is not going
to influence anyone, including North Korea or Syria or Iran or other
countries that may mean the United States harm.
For those who believe this is a bad idea and who would like to see
the President step back from that goal and instead focus more
convincingly on dealing with the threats that are near term,
ratification of this treaty presents a real problem, especially when
the administration talks about the very next thing they want to do
after beginning those negotiations is to bring to the Senate the
comprehensive test ban treaty which this Senate defeated 11 years ago,
and there are even stronger reasons to reject it today.
The bottom line is, one can argue that the dramatic reduction in the
arsenals of Russia and United States of strategic weapons has been a
good thing. It certainly has been an economically justifiable action
for both countries because they are costly. But it has had no
discernible effect on nuclear proliferation. We have had more
proliferation since, after the Cold War, we began to reduce these
weapons. They are unlikely, between the United States and Russia, to be
a cause of future conflict.
It is time for global disarmament, starting with President Obama, to
recognize this reality and channel their considerable efforts and good
intentions toward the true dangers of which I have spoken.
I would like to address one other subject, if I may.
Mr. KERRY. I don't want to interrupt the Senator, but I wonder if,
before he goes to another area, he would like to engage in a discussion
on this particular one?
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would be happy to do that.
Mr. KERRY. If he is pressed for time, I understand that.
Mr. KYL. I am always happy to yield to my friend, and we always
engage in interesting colloquies. I had indicated that, as a predicate
to amendments, several of us had opening statements we would like to
give. I am ready to go to amendments, but there are a couple of things
I would like to say before we do.
Mr. KERRY. Then I will reserve my question until later.
Mr. KYL. I will enjoy the colloquy we have when we do get around to
it.
Mr. President, we don't have time to get into a lot of detail, but
there is the question of verification. This is one of the other major
matters people have written about, including Senator Bond, who is the
ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee. It is going to be
important for the Senate to have an executive session to go over
intelligence, classified information that relates to the question of
verification and past Russian compliance or noncompliance with
agreements they have made with the United States.
In this short period, I wish to rebut something that continues to be
repeated and is simply not true or at least the implication is not
true--that we have to do this treaty because we need the verification
provisions. The implication is that they are good and strong and will
be effective. They won't. The verification provisions are far less than
we had in the START I treaty. In the view of many people, they are not
going to be effective.
Secretary of State James Baker, who testified early on this treaty,
said:
[The verification mechanism in the New START treaty] does
not appear as rigorous or extensive as the one that verified
the numerous and diverse treaty obligations and prohibitions
under START I. This complex part of the treaty is even more
crucial when fewer deployed nuclear warheads are allowed than
were allowed in the past.
My colleague Senator McCain said:
The New START treaty's permissive approach to verification
will result in less transparency and create additional
challenges for our ability to monitor Russia's current and
future capabilities.
Senator Bond said:
[[Page S10430]]
New START suffers from fundamental verification flaws that
no amount of tinkering around the edges can fix.
He also said:
The Select Committee on Intelligence has been looking at
this issue closely over the past several months . . . There
is no doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably
verify the treaty's 1,550 limit on deployed warheads.
In very simple terms, the reason he is saying that is that there is
no overall verification of those warheads. We can look at an individual
missile and see how many warheads are on the top, but that doesn't tell
us whether they are in compliance with 1,550. That is one of the
fundamental flaws.
The amount of telemetry, unencrypted telemetry, from Russian missile
tests is reduced to zero unless the Russians decide to give us more
than zero.
There is no longer onsite monitoring of the mobile missile final
assembly facility at Votkinsk, which has existed for all these years
under START I. The Russians didn't want us hanging around there
anymore. We didn't even fight for that. It is a critical verification
issue with respect to potentially a railcar or other mobile missiles
the Russians will be developing. Secretary Gates spoke to that
eloquently with respect to the verification provisions in START I.
There are fewer onsite inspections. And I can't imagine the Russians
would declare a facility, which is the only place we get to visit, and
then be doing something nefarious at that particular declared facility.
It is the undeclared facilities that represent a big part of the
problem.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey said:
New START's verification provisions will provide little or
no help in detecting illegal activity at locations the
Russians fail to declare, are off-limits to U.S. inspectors,
or are underground or otherwise hidden from our satellites.
He makes the point, when he refers to satellites, those are sometimes
referred to as our national assets. They do good and they tell us a
lot, but they can't possibly tell us all we need to know. That is why
we had much more vigorous verification under START I.
There are other things we will be discussing when we get into the
classified session on this, but let me conclude this point and my
presentation with this reality. We will find--I can say this much, at
least, in open session--that the Russians have violated major
provisions of most of the agreements we have entered into with them for
a long, long time: START I, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the
Biological Weapons Convention, the conventional forces in Europe
treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, and, by the way, others I won't mention.
The concern would be for a breakout. Today, Russia and the United
States are not enemies. That is why a lot of this is of less concern
than it ordinarily would be. The big concern is just that ultimate
concern of a breakout. What if all of a sudden they decided to confront
us over some issue relating to a country on their border or something
else and we were not aware they had gained a significant advantage over
us? Again, the preparation of the United States to deal with that takes
a long time. I won't get into it here, but it takes a long time. That
is why verification and intelligence is so important.
I have talked about two things this morning: the conventional global
strike and the verification issues, as well as the general concept of a
world without nuclear weapons, which, unfortunately, this treaty, at
least in the minds of a lot of people, is viewed as a predicate for and
which would be very dangerous.
There are some other issues I eventually wish to speak to, including
the whole question of whether, as a rationale for this treaty, the
reset relations with Russia have really provided very much help to the
United States and whether this treaty should be used as a way of
assuaging Russian sensitivities or convincing them to cooperate with us
on other things.
Others have talked about tactical nuclear weapons, and there will be
amendments we will be offering to deal with that, and we can discuss
that later.
There is also the very important matter of the Bilateral Consultative
Commission, recognizing that this group of Russian and American
negotiators could in secret change terms of the treaty. The resolution
of ratification provided for a notice provision, but it is not
adequate. I am hoping my colleagues will agree with us on that. We will
provide a longer term for notification, with an ability of the Senate
to reject terms that are deemed central to the treaty and for which we
really need to be providing our consent or nonconsent.
Then finally, something I alluded to here, which is that the United
States really ought to be spending more time dealing with the threats
that I think are more real to us today, threats coming from places such
as Iran and North Korea, rather than assuming that our top priority is
to rush it right up to Christmas in order to get it done.
We will have more opportunity to talk about all of those matters
later. Hopefully this afternoon, we can begin debating amendments, and
we do need to get squared away the issue that Senator Corker and
Senator Kerry talked about, which is how we go about doing that in a
way that does not cut off people's rights to offer amendments which are
to the resolution of ratification.
Exhibit 1
Additional Statements on the Folly of Zero
``The presumption that U.S. movement toward nuclear
disarmament will deliver nonproliferation success is a
fantasy. On the contrary, the U.S. nuclear arsenal has itself
been the single most important tool for nonproliferation in
history, and dismantling it would be a huge setback.'' \94\
``The Obama administration's push for nuclear disarmament
has a seductive intellectual and political appeal, but its
main points are in contradiction with reality. And when a
security policy is built on fantasy, someone usually gets
hurt.'' \95\
Kenneth Waltz, leading arms controller and professor
emeritus of political science at UC Berkeley: ``We now have
64 years of experience since Hiroshima. It's striking and
against all historical precedent that for that substantial
period, there has not been any war among nuclear states.''
\96\
``And even if Russia and China (and France, Britain,
Israel, India, and Pakistan) could be coaxed to abandon their
weapons, we'd still live with the fear that any of them could
quickly and secretly rearm.'' \97\
Secretary James Schlesinger, post-Reykjavik (1986):
``Nuclear arsenals are going to be with us as long as there
are sovereign states with conflicting ideologies. Unlike
Aladdin with his lamp, we have no way to force the nuclear
genie back into the bottle. A world without nuclear weapons
is a utopian dream.'' \98\
Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France: ``It [the French
nuclear deterrent] is neither a matter of prestige nor a
question of rank, it is quite simply the nation's life
insurance policy.'' \99\
``The idea of a world free of nuclear weapons is not so
much an impossible dream as an impossible nightmare.'' \100\
``A world that was genuinely free of nuclear weapons would
look very different. War between big powers would once again
become thinkable. In previous eras, the rise and fall of
great powers has almost always been accompanied by war. The
main reason for hoping that the rise of China will be an
exception to this grisly rule is that both the U.S. and China
have nuclear weapons. They will have to find other ways to
act out their rivalries.'' \101\
William Kristol: ``Yet to justify a world without nuclear
weapons, what Obama would really have to envision is a world
without war, or without threats of war . . . The danger is
that the allure of a world without nuclear weapons can be a
distraction--even an excuse for not acting against real
nuclear threats . . . So while Obama talks of a future
without nuclear weapons, the trajectory we are on today is
toward a nuclear- and missile-capable North Korea and Iran--
and a far more dangerous world.'' \102\
``As long as a nukeless world remains wishful thinking and
pastoral rhetoric, we'll be all right. But if the Nobel
Committee truly cares about peace, its members will think a
little harder about trying to make it a reality. Open a
history book and you'll see what the modern world looks like
without nuclear weapons. It is horrible beyond description.''
\103\
``So when last we saw a world without nuclear weapons,
human beings were killing one another with such feverish
efficiency that they couldn't keep track of the victims to
the nearest 15 million. Over three decades of industrialized
war, the planet averaged about 3 million dead per year. Why
did that stop happening?'' \104\
``A world with nuclear weapons in it is a scary, scary
place to think about. The industrialized world without
nuclear weapons was a scary, scary place for real. But there
is no way to un-ring the nuclear bell. The science and
technology of nuclear weapons is widespread, and if nukes are
outlawed someday, only outlaws will have nukes.'' \105\
endnotes
\94\ Keith Payne, ``A Vision Shall Guide Them?'' National
Review. November 2, 2009.
\95\ Id.
\96\ Jonathan Tepperman, ``Why Obama Should Learn to Love
the Bomb.'' Newsweek. August 29,2009.
[[Page S10431]]
\97\ Id.
\98\ Sec. James Schlesinger, ``The Dangers of a Nuclear-
Free World.'' Time. October 27, 1986.
\99\ French President Nicolas Sarkozy Nuclear Policy
speech, March 21, 2008.
\100\ Gideon Rachman, ``A nuclear-free world? No Thanks.''
Financial Times. May 4, 2010.
\101\ Id.
\102\ William Kristol, ``A World Without Nukes--Just Like
1939.'' Washington Post. April 7, 2009.
\103\ David Von Drehle, ``Want Peace? Give a Nuke the
Nobel.'' Time. October 11, 2009.
\104\ Id.
\105\Id.
Mr. KYL. I think it is true, Senator Kerry said that under the
precedents of the Senate, we first have to attempt to amend the treaty
and the preamble, and to do otherwise or to mix the two up would
require unanimous consent.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, we have no intention of trying to use any
technicality to deny an ability to offer an amendment. When each
amendment comes up, we will find a way to make certain it is
appropriate. We obviously have to send a signal at this point where you
have to go off the treaty and onto the resolution of ratification. That
happens automatically when we file cloture. So once that is done, it
really becomes irrelevant.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, when the Senator says that happens
automatically, if cloture is filed and invoked, then both amendments to
the treaty, the preamble, and the resolution of ratification are cut
off at that point, correct?
Mr. KERRY. No. There still are germane amendments allowed to the
resolution of ratification at that point, providing we have at that
point completed issues on the treaty.
Mr. KYL. In other words, cloture cuts off both the resolution of
ratification amendments as well as treaty and preamble amendments.
Mr. KERRY. Correct. Once it has been invoked, that is correct.
Let me say a couple of things to my friend, if I may. I know he has
to run, but in his earlier argument with respect to the prompt global
strike--we can get into this, and we will a little bit later, but he
said something about how you could eliminate the issue of confusion
with the Russians because you could just agree with them, and they
could agree, and then you have sort of an identification. The whole
point is, they won't agree. They are not going to agree. You can't sort
of make this supposition all of a sudden that you can erase a problem
simply because they will agree to something they don't want to agree
to, which is why we are in the place we are with respect to that issue.
That is No. 1.
No. 2, we made the decision, our generals made the decision, our
defense folks, that we are better off with this because it, in fact,
gives us a greater capacity to be able to verify what they are doing as
well as what we are doing and to understand the makeup of ICBMs as we
go forward.
I won't go into this at great length, but let me say to the Senator,
I urge him to reread the resolution of ratification. In that
resolution, condition 6 addresses these questions. Condition 7
addresses these questions. Understanding 5 addresses strategic range
nonnuclear weapons systems and declaration 3 addresses them. I will not
go through all of that language right now, but we have addressed this
question. Any future treaty with respect to this question of global
zero that keeps coming back up--I will talk about this later with the
Senator, but the Senator must have a very different vision of where he
would like to see the world go and of what would be in the long-term
interest globally and of what the impact is of multiple nuclear weapons
in the world with a lot more fissionable material, a lot more ability
for terrorists to be able to access that fissionable material.
The fact is that in testimony before our committee, Secretary Baker
was very clear about the linkage of the Nunn-Lugar threat reduction
program and the START treaty. He said directly to the committee that
were it not for the START treaty, we would not have been able to reduce
the numbers of nuclear weapons and therefore the amount of fissionable
material that in many cases was badly guarded or not guarded at all and
completely available to the possibility of black market sale and
falling into the hands of terrorists. There are many ways to proceed
forward.
I would also say to my friend, with respect to this global nuclear
zero, it is stunning to me that colleagues are coming to the floor
fighting against an organizing principle and concept for how you could
move the entire world to a safer place, ultimately, none of which will
happen, clearly, without extraordinary changes globally in the way
nations relate to each other and behave, how you control fissionable
material, and what kind of dispute resolution mechanisms might be
available in the future.
But, for heaven's sake, it is incredible to me that you cannot
imagine and have a vision of the possibility of a world in which you
ultimately work to get this. That is the purpose of human endeavor in
this field, in a sense. It is why we have a United Nations. It is why
President after President has talked about a world without nuclear
weapons, a world that is safer.
Does that mean that all of a sudden we are discarding the present day
notion of deterrence? No. Does that mean we are ignoring the reality of
how countries have made judgments over the course of the Cold War about
peace and war and what the risk is of going to war? Obviously not.
One of the things the Navy did for me was send me to nuclear,
chemical, biological warfare school, and I spent an interesting time
learning about throw weight and the concentric circles of damage and
the extent to which one nuclear weapon wreaks havoc in the world. The
concept, to me, of 1,550 of them aimed at each other is still way above
any sort of reasonable standards, in my judgment, about what it takes
to deter. Do you think we would think about bombing China today or
going to war with them? China has, in published, unclassified
assessments, one-tenth maybe of the number of weapons we have. I do not
think they are feeling particularly threatened by the United States in
that context, nor we they, because you arrive at other ways of sort of
working through these kinds of things.
So I just think this concept of a nuclear zero is so irrelevant to
this debate, particularly given the fact that we are debating a treaty
which is the only way to agree to reduce the weapons that requires 67
votes in the Senate. So even if President Obama wanted to try to do
something in the future, this treaty does not open the door to it
because it would require a next treaty in order to accomplish it and
that would require 67 votes and it is pretty obvious you would never
get that in the Senate in the current world.
So what are we talking about here? It is sort of a distraction. It is
one of these hobgoblins of some folks who are so ideologically narrowly
focused that they cannot see the forest for the trees. The choice is
between having a treaty that gives you inspection, that every Member of
our intelligence community says can be verified, that helps to provide
security or not having one and having no inspection and having no
verification--none, whatsoever. That is the choice. This is not
particularly complicated, unless you want to make it so, for a whole
lot of other reasons.
So the concept that doing this treaty is a distraction from dealing
with terror is absolutely contradicted by the facts. Witness what Jim
Baker and others have said about the Nunn-Lugar Threat Reduction
Program and its linkage to START I, not to mention the myriad of other
benefits that come, and there you see what Russia has done with the
United States in recent months to move with respect to Iran. If we had
not had a reset button, if we had not improved the relationship with
Russia, if we had not been able to share information and have a
cooperative atmosphere, partly increased by virtue of this treaty
agreement, if we had not done that, Russia would not have joined with
the United States because the relationship would not have been such
that they would have been willing to in order to bring greater
sanctions against Iran and try to deal with Iran's nuclear program.
So all of these things are linked. To suggest somehow that you can
walk in here and just separate them and treat them differently is to
ignore the nature of government-to-government relations, to ignore the
nature of bilateral relationships, to ignore the nature of human nature
in which people react to what other people do, and countries are
[[Page S10432]]
the same way. They react to the sense of where we are headed. By
working together cooperatively, I think we have been able to say we are
headed in the same direction, and that is an important message.
There is a lot more to be said on all this, but I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, during the debate, several Senators have
noted concerns about the U.S. triad of submarines, land-based missiles,
and those weapons with which we will equip our heavy bombers over the
duration of the treaty.
Others have cited concerns with the administration's plans for ICBM
modernization in the updated 1251 report. They note it could somehow
constrain our flexibility and serves to meet some arms control
aspirations rather than weapons modernization.
Our resolution of ratification incorporated a declaration concerning
the so-called triad. This was done in the committee with an amendment
offered by Senator Risch.
That declaration, No. 13, states:
It is the sense of the Senate that United States deterrence
and flexibility is assured by a robust triad of strategic
delivery vehicles. To this end, the United States is
committed to accomplishing the modernization and replacement
of its strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, and to ensuring
the continued flexibility of United States conventional and
nuclear delivery systems.
That, as I say, was included in our committee work.
Secondly, I wrote to Secretary Gates last week, our Secretary of
Defense, regarding the concerns that many Senators have noted about the
age and weaponry for our heavy bombers, notably the B-52 and its air-
launched cruise missile, and about modernization plans for our ICBMs. I
wanted assurances that over the duration of the treaty we will have a
triad of systems that is credible, particularly the bomber leg of our
triad.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the response I received from Secretary Gates on December 10.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Secretary of Defense,
Pentagon,
Washington, DC, December 10, 2010.
Hon. Richard G. Lugar,
Ranking Member, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Lugar: Thank you for your letter of December
6, 2010, regarding future U.S. strategic force structure in
light of the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Section 1251
Report, and the Update to the 1251 Report. I would like to
take this opportunity to address the issues raised in your
letter regarding the continuing viability of the U.S. air-
launched cruise missile (ALCM) capability and the heavy
bomber force, as well as the basing and warhead options for a
follow-on intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Regarding your first concern on the viability of the ALCM
inventory and the heavy-bomber leg of the Triad, the
Administration intends to replace the current ALCM with an
advanced penetrating long range standoff (LRSO) cruise
missile. The current ALCM will be maintained through 2030
with multiple service life extension programs to ensure
viability of the propulsion systems, guidance and flight
control systems and warhead arming components. The Department
of Defense intends to field an advanced LRSO capability to
replace the ALCM and the Air Force has programmed
approximately $800 million for research, development, test,
and evaluation over the next five years for the development
of LRSO. As this effort proceeds, we will work with the
National Nuclear Security Administration to study options for
a safe, secure, and effective nuclear warhead for the LRSO.
The Administration is committed to providing a sufficient and
credible nuclear standoff attack capability, and ensuring
that the bomber leg of the Triad remains fully capable of
supporting U.S. deterrent requirements. This commitment to
maintaining an effective nuclear standoff attack capability
is coupled with the Administration's plans to sustain the
heavy-bomber leg of the Triad for the indefinite future and
its commitment to the modernization of the heavy bomber
force.
The Administration is also committed to sustaining the
silo-based Minuteman III force through 2030, as mandated by
Congress. This sustainment includes substantial life
extension programs and security upgrades, which will allow us
to sustain up to 420 single warhead ICBMs at three bases
under the New START Treaty. The Administration believes that
preparatory analysis for a follow-on ICBM capability in the
2030 timeframe should examine a wide range of options. Silo-
based ICBMs have clear advantages; at the same time,
considering other alternatives will help to determine a cost-
effective approach for a follow-on ICBM that supports
continued reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons while promoting
stable deterrence. It should be noted that deployment of the
follow-on ICBM, in whatever form it takes, will occur well
beyond the expiration of New START, if it is ratified and
enters into force in the near term. Finally, neither the
Update to the 1251 Report nor planning and guidance for a
follow-on ICBM will constrain the flexibility of a follow-on
design with respect to warhead loadings. In the meantime,
plans are currently in work to retain the capability to
deploy multiple warheads on the Minuteman III missile, to
include periodic operational test launches with more than one
warhead.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the important
matters you have raised in connection with our Nation's
nuclear deterrent, and for your leadership on the New START
Treaty.
Sincerely,
Robert M. Gates.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I asked for an assurance that over the
duration of the New START treaty the Defense Department will not permit
a situation to arise where heavy bombers lack sufficient and credible
nuclear standoff attack capability.
Secretary Gates responded that the current air-launched cruise
missile will be maintained through 2030 with multiple lifetime
extensions and that ``the Administration is committed to providing a
sufficient and credible nuclear standoff attack capability, and ensure
that the bomber leg of the Triad remains fully capable of supporting
U.S. deterrent requirements.''
I also sought assurance that the language in the 1251 update will in
no way modify the basing of the ICBM leg of the triad nor constrain its
future designs with respect to warhead loadings; that is, constraining
it to meet some arms control goal of fewer warheads for ICBMs.
Secretary Gates responded that ``The Administration is also committed
to sustaining the silo-based Minuteman III force through 2030, as
mandated by Congress'' and that ``[N]either the Update to the 1251
Report nor planning and guidance for a follow-on ICBM will constrain
the flexibility of a follow-on design with respect to warhead
loadings.''
Bombers will have sufficient nuclear weapons under New START. We are
not going to constrain a future ICBM for purposes of arms control.
With these commitments, and our declaration, I am assured by
Secretary of Defense Gates that we will have a credible bomber leg, one
that allows us sufficient and flexible responses to strategic change,
and that a future ICBM will not be less effective or flexible than our
present ICBMs.
Moreover, regarding New START force levels, the combatant commander
responsible for executing strategic deterrence operations and planning
for nuclear operations, General Chilton, has said this about the New
START treaty and its force structure:
Under the New START Treaty, based on U.S. Strategic Command
analysis, I assess that the triad of diverse and
complementary delivery systems will provide sufficient
capabilities to make our deterrent credible and effective. .
. . Under the New START Treaty, the United States will retain
the military flexibility necessary to ensure each of these
for the period of the treaty. . . . U.S. Strategic Command
analyzed the required nuclear weapons and delivery vehicle
force structure and posture to meet current guidance and
provided options for consideration by the Department of
Defense . . . this rigorous appraisal rooted in both
deterrence strategy and an assessment of potential adversary
capabilities, validated both the agreed-upon reductions in
the New START Treaty and recommendations in the Nuclear
Posture Review.
End of quote from General Chilton.
Note what he said--that this analysis take into account potential
adversary capabilities. General Chilton is confident in our deterrent
and that the force structure under the treaty and our triad will meet
our needs.
I do not think we should dispute either General Chilton or Secretary
Gates--long-serving professionals who have served both Presidents Bush
and Obama so very well.
I would add, supplementing the excellent comments made by my
colleague, the chairman, that from the beginning of our debates in the
Senate on arms control treaties or even before that, the so-called
Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, there have been many
Senators very sincere in their viewpoints that they simply do not like
arms control treaties. Furthermore, they would counsel that you cannot
trust the Russians. Therefore, adding the two together, if you have an
[[Page S10433]]
aversion to arms control treaties and agreements and you do not trust
the Russians and, furthermore, you do not want to trust the Russians or
have any further dealings with them quite apart from treaties on arms
control, this leads to certain skepticism, if not outright opposition,
to those of us who have been proposing arms control treaties for
several years and arms control treaties with the Russians in
particular.
I would simply point out, as I tried to yesterday informally, that
there are always extraordinary problems with verification of any
treaty, and much of the debate on this treaty, in terms of our
committee responsibilities and initial statements made by Senators on
the floor, zero in on such points, as to the fact that you cannot trust
the Russians, and/or there are other things in the world we ought to be
paying attention to, much more important than the Russians for that
matter, and, further, that somehow this treaty, in particular, will
inhibit the defense of our country, specifically through missile
defense.
Members of administrations past and present have affirmed it is
important to have arms control treaties with the Russians. It has not
ever been a question of trusting the Russians. It has been a question
of trying to provide verification that the provisions of the treaties
that we have negotiated are, in fact, fulfilled. It is a fact, as has
been suggested by some Senators, that on several occasions we have
found violations or very dubious conduct on the part of the Russians. I
have no idea how many times they have testified they have found
something doubtful about our performance, but in any event, in the real
world of deterrence and the real world of verifiability, there have
been abrasions and arguments and disputes.
I would simply say one of the values of the treaties we have had with
the Russians, and specifically the START treaty regime, is that they
have allowed many of us--the distinguished chairman has made a good
number of trips to Russia and to countries that surround Russia. I have
had that responsibility and opportunity for many years likewise.
I testified yesterday during our debate that on one occasion, when I
was invited to come to Sevmash, the submarine base, I saw things no
American had ever seen before, apparently. When we talk about our
intelligence facilities, there were no pictures taken by our
intelligence folks, or very good dimensions of what a Typhoon submarine
actually looked like or what it did. We had various suppositions.
Incredibly, after my visit to Sevmash, where we were not allowed to
take pictures, a Russian sent to me a picture of me standing in front
of a Typhoon submarine. From our intelligence standpoint, this was the
first time anyone had seen a picture of a Typhoon, quite apart from a
diligent Senator standing in front of it. Furthermore, we had good
opportunities with the Russians to discuss the Typhoon.
I don't specialize in submarines, but I was able to take notes and to
make known at least my impressions of that particular situation. Why in
the world would someone invite a Senator to come see something of that
variety? It came about because we literally had not only boots on the
ground in terms of our military but some of us even as Senators. The
relationship was such that the Russians, perceiving they needed to get
rid of the Typhoon submarines and it was going to be very expensive,
technically maybe even dangerous with regard to removal of all of the
200 missiles, decided it was time to do business. The opportunities
that come, in other words, from a relationship of that sort sometimes
move in directions no one might have anticipated--but to the good, in
my judgment. I admitted yesterday only three of the six Typhoons have,
in fact, been destroyed. It is a tedious, expensive, difficult process.
But getting back to our debates on the floor of the Senate, I can
recall not only during the initial discussion of the Nunn-Lugar Act,
but almost annually as appropriations were sought to continue this
work, skeptical colleagues, first of all, doubting the value of any
type of arrangement with the Russians, and doubting very much whether a
dime of American taxpayer money should ever be spent on the Russians in
this regard. So some of us, as reasonably and calmly as possible, could
say, Well, we think it is probably important that if there are, in
fact, nuclear warheads, thousands of them, aimed at our cities as well
as our military installations, and we have opportunities and
cooperative threat reduction to work as contractors, as Senators, as
military officials, whoever, with the Russians, we ought to take those
warheads that are aimed at us off the missiles. We ought to physically
take the missiles down. We ought to, in fact, destroy the silos in
which they are located, and we think this is probably a valuable use of
taxpayer money in terms of our own defense.
Each year, by and large, that argument won, although rarely
unanimously. On one occasion, incredible as it may be, Members of the
Senate added so many qualifications, so many additional reports that
had to be filed by the Defense Department or the State Department or
intelligence authorities that the whole fiscal year passed without a
single dollar being available for expenditure on any of this armament
reduction. In other words, Senators were so involved in attempting to
demonstrate their mistrust of the Russians, their demand that our
bureaucracy fulfill all sorts of impossible goals, that nothing got
done. Eventually over the course of the decade, we evolved to a point
where by and large those sorts of debates began to taper off--and I am
grateful for that--and we began to see the possibilities not only with
regard to the Russians but other countries who had strange weapons that
they reported to us and sought our cooperation. This is well beyond
even the ability to wind up the nuclear situation in Ukraine or
Kazakhstan or Belarus or what have you.
I would cite one more, and that is in the year 2004, the first year
in which the Senate voted that at least $50 million--just $50 million
of about $500 million that year of the Nunn-Lugar program could be used
outside of Russia. So strong were feelings of some in opposition to the
Nunn-Lugar program that they saw the fact that it might spread outside
of Russia almost as a contaminant, something that ought to be
contained. They felt it was bad enough that we had ever had such a
thing in Russia, quite apart that we ought to destroy weapons anywhere
else. But nevertheless, a majority of the Senate did allow for $50
million. That very summer authorities in Albania notified the Pentagon
that they had found some strange drums up above the capital city of
Tirana in Albania, and they wanted to report that to us because they
thought they needed assistance, probably for safety's sake of the
Albanians who had found the drums. Our officials, having been invited
by the Albanians, went in fact to the mountains and they found the
drums were filled with nerve gas. Very quickly, they simply put up a
modest fence and began to roll the drums in behind the fence.
I was invited to come over at that stage and I did, and I had good
visits to our Ambassador to Albania, with their foreign minister and
their defense minister, members of their Parliament. Albania at that
time was a state that was coming out of a terrible dictatorship--a
dictatorship so adverse that it was even difficult for the Soviet Union
or China to deal with. Where in the world the nerve gas came from is a
matter of conjecture. But in any event, once we had indicated our hopes
that we could work with the Albanians, they invited us to do so and to
help them destroy it.
As a matter of fact, as a bonus, while we were up in the mountains
they took us by several sheds where there were hundreds of MANPAD
missiles--not weapons of mass destruction, but missiles we had
furnished, as a matter of fact, to forces in Afghanistan in an earlier
war to drive out the former Soviet Union. So we were able to destroy
those while we were at it. As an added bonus, the Defense Minister of
Albania said, We believe we ought to set up a military academy along
the same standards of your military academy at West Point. As a further
gesture, we are going to have as a requirement that each of our cadets
must master the English language so that we are going to be able to
deal with you for some time to come. I felt that was an important
gesture. I mention this because in the course of arms control, a
[[Page S10434]]
good number of things happen that are very important.
I will conclude by saying that Albania 2 years later invited all of
the countries of the world to come to their capital and to celebrate
the fact that Albania claimed to be the first nation state to fulfill
the chemical weapons convention, that all chemical weapons in the
country had been destroyed, and we celebrated with them, and it was
literally a derivative of the situation we are describing today.
So I ask those who are normally skeptical to continue to ask good
questions but likewise to understand the history at least of the last
two decades that has been very constructive for our country.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I wish to thank the ranking member, Senator
Lugar, for sharing that account with the Senate. I think it is first of
all historic, but secondly I think it is relevant to the
interconnectedness between what we are doing here and the long-term
ways in which we make our country safer. One can only imagine if one
group or another that we are all too familiar with the labels and names
of these days had gotten hold of those barrels. The havoc that could
have been wreaked somewhere is extraordinary. As the Senator from
Indiana knows better than anybody here, some of these nuclear materials
were behind creaky old rusty gates; maybe one guard, if any guard; a
lock that was so easy to break--I mean, it was infantile, the notion
that something was secured. Much of that has changed as a consequence
of the program that he and Senator Nunn began, but also the
consciousness that has been raised in a lot of countries around the
world. This effort, we believe, continues that.
So I thank him for his leadership, again, on that score. We are
awaiting amendments from colleagues and we look forward to entertaining
them when they get here.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the
New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, also known as the New START
treaty, which was signed by President Obama and Russian President
Medvedev on April 8, 2010, and would replace the START treaty that
expired on December 5, 2009.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I have had the
opportunity to review the implications of this treaty over the course
of five hearings and multiple briefings. I am convinced that
ratification of this treaty is essential to the security of the United
States, and not simply in the context of our relationship with Russia
but also in our efforts to counter nuclear proliferation throughout the
world.
As a starting point to consider this treaty, it is important to
recognize that since December 5, 2009, when the START treaty expired,
we have not had inspectors on the ground in Russia to monitor their
nuclear weapons complex. It wasn't until December 2008 that the Bush
administration and Russia agreed they wanted to replace START before it
expired but acknowledged that the task would have to be left to the
Obama administration, leaving them 1 year before the treaty was set to
expire so they could begin these negotiations.
The reality is that we have not had a verification regime in place or
inspectors on the ground in Russia for over a year, and every day that
goes by without this treaty in place is another day that the United
States lacks the ability to verify effectively and inspect Russia's
strategic nuclear forces.
If the Senate rejects this treaty, it may be many years, if ever,
before we once again have American inspectors on the ground in Russia.
President Obama stated:
In the absence of START, without the New START treaty being
ratified by the Senate, we do not have a verification
mechanism to ensure that we know what the Russians are doing
. . . . And when you have uncertainty in the area of nuclear
weapons, that's a much more dangerous world to live in.
The bottom line is this: If you don't trust the Russians, then you
should be voting for this treaty because that is the only way we are
going to get, in a timely, effective way, American inspectors back on
the ground looking at their nuclear complex.
There is another aspect. Without the New START treaty in place, there
is additional strain on our intelligence network to monitor Russia's
activities.
In his testimony to the Armed Services Committee, GEN Kevin Chilton,
commander of STRATCOM, stated:
Without New START, we would rapidly lose some of our
insight into Russian strategic nuclear force developments and
activities . . . we would be required increasingly to focus
low-density/high-demand intelligence collection and analysis
assets on Russian nuclear forces.
These intelligence assets include our satellites, which are already
in high demand, particularly in our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq,
as well as in emerging threat locations such as Yemen, Somalia, and the
Pacific. Furthermore, these national technical means can never supplant
the quality of intelligence gathered from onsite inspections by
American weapons experts in verifying the quantity, type, and location
of Russia's nuclear arsenal.
Dr. James Miller, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy, remarked:
Onsite inspectors are a vital complement to the data that
the United States will receive under New START. They provide
the boots-on-the-ground presence to confirm the validity of
Russian data declarations and to add to our confidence and
knowledge regarding Russian strategic forces located at
facilities around the country.
The failure to ratify may present a significant operational cost to
our efforts in the war on terrorism. To compensate for the lack of a
treaty, our satellite assets could be shifted to maintain some coverage
of Russia, which, in the short run, would deny the capability of
looking at other places, such as Sudan or Yemen, where we know al-Qaida
and its affiliates are establishing sanctuaries. In the longer term, we
may consider putting up new satellites--a tremendous cost that would be
difficult to bear in a continuing budget crisis and one that would not
give us the same kind of information as having inspectors on the
ground.
Let me emphasize this again. If this treaty goes unratified, if we
don't have inspectors on the ground, then we must rely on our national
technical means of verification, which is significantly satellites.
Those are, as General Chilton said, high-demand assets. If they are
being flown over Russia, I cannot conceive, if we let this treaty
elapse over several years, that military commanders will feel confident
in not putting more and more satellites over Russia. That takes away
from efforts right now to monitor troubled spots around the globe, and
it is a real cost to the failure to ratify this treaty.
Ratifying this treaty is also a vital part of our relationship with
Russia. It is the essential element in the process of controlling
nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia.
I wish to quote my esteemed colleague and manager on the other side,
Senator Lugar, who has long been not only a leader in this effort but
someone whose vision and actions already--particularly through his work
with Senator Sam Nunn--have made this world a much safer place and one
whose debt we are all in nationally. I thank him for that.
Senator Lugar stated:
We should not be cavalier about allowing our relationship
with Moscow to drift or about letting our knowledge of
Russian weaponry atrophy.
He is right, as he has been on so many issues with respect to
national and international policy.
This process has had a long history of bipartisan support--from the
first formal agreements with the Soviet Union under the Carter
administration that limited nuclear offensive and defensive weapons,
through both terms of President Reagan's administration, which produced
the original START treaty, to the overwhelming support of the Senate to
ratify these important agreements. All of these agreements had strong,
bipartisan support.
This treaty is an important part of renewing our relationship with
Russia and will provide the foundation for future negotiations on other
nuclear issues.
[[Page S10435]]
Ellen Tauscher, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security, stated:
It's my calculation that we need to get this done now
because every day that we don't is a day that not only don't
we have boots on the ground, but it's also a day that we
can't move on to other parts of the agenda. This was the New
START Treaty, but it was also the start of the reset of the
relationship, and it is a very big agenda.
We have other issues to consider, such as tactical nuclear devices,
which the Russians may have and former countries of the Soviet Union
may have. We have a whole set of issues. We have issues with respect to
Iran and North Korea. If we can ratify this treaty, we now have
momentum to move forward on these other issues.
We all know the proliferation of nuclear weapons threatens more than
the security of just Russia and the United States. Indeed, this treaty
is central to the continuing need for a worldwide effort to control
nuclear weapons. It is every President's worst nightmare that somewhere
in the world a nuclear accident will occur, that a rogue state will
attain nuclear capability or a nuclear weapon or materials will fall
into the hands of a terrorist group. This treaty is an important step
toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons around the world and
demonstrates to the international community that the United States and
Russia are committed to this goal.
If we don't ratify this agreement and don't continue this 40-year
process of working with Russia on limiting nuclear weapons, how can we
get them to assist us effectively in addressing the nuclear ambitions
of North Korea and Iran? What credibility will we have among the
international community to restrain Iran's development of nuclear
weapons if it is perceived that we have abandoned our longlasting,
long-term, and mutually beneficial attempts with the Russians to limit
our nuclear weapons?
We must do everything possible to counter proliferation through
protection, containment, interdiction, and a host of different
programs.
I again quote Senator Lugar:
This process must continue if we are to answer the
existential threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction.
Every missile destroyed, every warhead deactivated, and every
inspection implemented makes us safer. Russia and the United States
have a choice whether to continue this effort, and that choice is
embodied in the New START treaty.
We also understand, too, that as long as we have nuclear weapons, we
have to have an effective nuclear arsenal. In its fiscal year 2011
budget, the Obama administration requested $7 billion for the National
Nuclear Security Administration--NNSA--which overseas the U.S. nuclear
complex. This request is about 10 percent more than the previous year's
budget. That is a significant increase for any department in this
government, particularly as we face challenging economic times and an
increased deficit.
Indeed, Linton Brooks, the former NNSA Administrator under President
George W. Bush, said: ``I'd have killed for that budget and that much
high-level attention in the administration.''
So the issue of dealing with our nuclear arsenal is being addressed
with more energy and more resources and more attention than it was in
the preceding administration, and I don't think that argument can be
used as an attempt to delay the ratification of this treaty.
Many have argued that before we consider this treaty, we must commit
to substantial funding increases in the future budgets to modernize the
nuclear infrastructure. We are doing that. While I support the need to
ensure a safer, more reliable nuclear arsenal--and I applaud the Obama
administration's efforts to commit significant resources to do so--we
have to recognize this is a recent change. In fact, the Obama
administration is not only bringing this treaty to the Senate, it also
is bringing to the Congress a level of commitment that was lacking
previously. I think both of those are necessary, both of those mutually
reinforce one another and, together, are strong support for the
ratification of this treaty.
During an Armed Services Committee hearing in July, I asked Directors
of the national labs about the significant commitment of resources this
administration has made to the nuclear enterprise. Dr. George Miller,
the Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, responded:
It is clearly a major step in the right direction. The
budget has been declining since about 2005 . . . and this
represents a very important and very significant turnaround.
The Obama administration has also outlined an $85 billion, 10-year
plan for NNSA's nuclear weapons activities, which includes an
additional $4.1 billion in spending for fiscal years 2012 through 2016.
The $85 billion represents a 21-percent rise above the fiscal year 2011
spending level. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in his
preface to the April 2010 Nuclear Posture Review:
These investments, and the NPR's strategy for warhead life
extension, represent a credible modernization plan necessary
to sustain the nuclear infrastructure and support our
Nation's deterrent.
Ratifying this treaty presents us with the opportunity to recommit
ourselves to preserving and reinvesting in our nuclear enterprise,
including the highly trained workforce, which is so necessary. But
again, ratifying this treaty is such an essential part of our national
security that it both complements and, in some cases, transcends simply
reinvesting in our modernization efforts. But we are doing that, and
that should give comfort, I think, to those who see that as an issue,
which may--and I don't think so--present some inhibition in ratifying
this treaty.
In all the discussions we have had on the content of this treaty, we
have often failed to note the caliber and professionalism of the
American negotiators who have worked tirelessly on this treaty. This
elite cadre of experts have devoted their lives to serving our Nation
in promoting nuclear arms control and doing it from very wise, very
experienced, and I think very critical notions of what is necessary to
protect the United States because that is their first and foremost
responsibility.
This impressive team consisted of State Department negotiators,
representatives from the Department of Defense's Joint Staff, and from
STRATCOM, our military command that is responsible for all these
nuclear devices. Most of them took part in the development of START I
and the subsequent treaties. They have had the experience of years and
years of dealing with the Russians, of understanding the strengths and
the weaknesses of our approaches. They captured the lessons learned on
what we need to know about the Russian nuclear enterprise and the best
means of achieving our national strategic objectives.
This was not the labor of amateurs, this was the work of people who
have devoted their lifetime to try to develop an effective nuclear
regime involving inspections and verification, and they know more about
what the Russians do and vice versa than anyone else. They were at the
heart of these negotiations. Many of the principles behind these
treaties are, as a result, complex and nuanced. Most Americans,
frankly--and, indeed, many of our colleagues--don't have the means to
invest the time to become versed in the technical aspect of launchers,
telemetry, and verification regimes. These individuals have spent their
lives doing that. We are quite fortunate they have committed themselves
to this enterprise and that they have produced this treaty.
Furthermore, former Secretaries of State and Defense from both
Republican and Democratic administrations and military commanders,
including seven previous commanders of STRATCOM these are the military
officers whose professional lives have been devoted to protecting
America and commanding every unit that has a nuclear capability--have
all urged us to support this START treaty. That is a very, I think,
strong endorsement as to the effectiveness of this treaty and the need
for this treaty. All of them understand this is in our best national
security interest.
Again, all the commanders, all the individuals who have spent every
waking hour and, indeed, probably sleepless nights, thinking about
their responsibilities for nuclear weapons and their use, consider this
treaty essential. That, I think, should be strong evidence for its
ratification.
As I mentioned before, the New START treaty builds upon decades of
[[Page S10436]]
diplomacy and agreements between the United States and Russia. The New
START treaty is appropriately structured to address the present
conditions of our nuclear enterprise and national security interests,
while building on the lessons we have learned from decades of previous
treaty negotiations, from decades of implementing past treaties, of
finding out what works on the ground, and setting nonproliferation
goals for the future. It is important to understand how we got to this
point today.
The United States and the Soviet Union signed their first formal
agreements limiting nuclear offensive and defensive weapons in May
1972. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks--known as SALT--produced two
agreements--the Interim Agreement on Certain Measures with Respect to
the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms and the Treaty on the
Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems. In 1979, these agreements
were followed by the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty--
known as SALT II--which sought to codify equal limits on U.S. and
Soviet strategic offensive nuclear forces. However, President Carter
eventually withdrew this treaty from Senate consideration due to the
Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan.
Throughout the 1980s, the Reagan administration participated in
negotiations on the development of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces--INF--Treaty, which was ultimately signed in 1988. At the
negotiations, the Reagan administration called for a ``double zero''
option, which would eliminate all short- as well as long-range INF
systems, a position that, at the time, was viewed by most observers as
unattractive to the Soviets.
President Reagan also worked extensively to reduce the number of
nuclear warheads, which led to the signing by President George Herbert
Walker Bush of the initial START treaty in 1991. Again, the work of
President Reagan, and the work of President George Herbert Walker Bush
all led to the historic START I treaty. It limited long-range nuclear
forces--land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles--ICBMs
submarine-launched ballistic missiles--SLBMs and heavy bombers. START
also contained a complex verification regime. Both sides collected most
of the information needed to verify compliance with their own
satellites and remote sensing equipment--known as the national
technical means of verification.
But the parties also used data exchanges, notifications, and onsite
inspections to gather information about forces and activities limited
by the treaty. Taken together, these measures were designed to provide
each nation with the ability to deter and detect militarily significant
violations. The verification regime and the cooperation needed to
implement many of these measures instilled confidence and encouraged
openness among the signatories.
The original START treaty was ratified by the Senate in October 1992
by a vote of 93 to 6. We are building literally on the pathbreaking
work of President Ronald Reagan and President George Herbert Walker
Bush in limiting these classes of systems, using a national means of
technology, and putting inspectors on the ground. I find it ironic that
we might be at the stage of turning our back on all that work, of
walking away from a bipartisan consensus--93 to 6. I don't think that
would be in the best interest of this country.
In January 1993, the United States and Russia signed START II, which
would further limit warheads. After some delay, the treaty eventually
received approval by the Senate in January 1996, but it never entered
into force, mainly because of the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty
in June 2002. But, once again, there was another effort along these
same lines to limit the numbers of launchers and warheads, and in that
same spirit today we have this New START treaty before us.
During a summit meeting with President Putin in November 2001,
President George W. Bush announced that the United States would reduce
its operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a level
between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads during the decade. He stated the
United States would reduce its forces unilaterally without signing a
formal agreement. However, President Putin indicated Russia wanted to
use a formal arms control process, emphasizing the two sides should
focus on ``reaching a reliable and verifiable agreement'' and a
``legally binding document.'' Yet the Bush administration wanted to
maintain the flexibility to size and structure its nuclear forces in
response to its own needs and preferred a less formal process.
The United States and Russia ultimately did sign the Strategic
Offensive Reductions Treaty, also known as the Moscow Treaty, on May
24, 2002. The Senate ratified the treaty on March 6, 2003, by a vote of
95 to 0; and the Russian Duma approved the treaty also. Once again, a
high-level arms treaty negotiated by President George W. Bush with the
Russians came to this floor and was unanimously approved.
In mid-2006, the United States and Russia began to discuss their
options for arms control after START. However, the two countries were
unable to agree on a path forward. Neither side wanted to extend START
in its original form. Russia wanted to replace START with a new treaty
that would further reduce deployed forces while using many of the same
definitions and counting rules in START. The Bush administration
initially did not want to negotiate a new treaty but would have been
willing to extend some of the START monitoring provisions. President
Bush and President Putin agreed at the Sochi summit in April 2008 they
would proceed with negotiating a new, legally binding treaty. As I
mentioned before, it wasn't until December 2008 that the two sides
agreed to replace START before it expired but acknowledged this task
would fall to the Obama administration. This administration took that
work seriously and diligently and produced a treaty and now it is not
only our opportunity but I think our obligation to ratify the treaty.
Some of my colleagues have already described measures in the New
START treaty. Let me suggest some of the important details.
Under the New START treaty, the United States and Russia must reduce
the number of their strategic arms within 7 years from the date the
treaty enters into force. This treaty sets a limit of 1,550 deployed
strategic warheads. All warheads on deployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs
count toward this limit and each deployed heavy bomber equipped for
nuclear armaments counts as one warhead toward the limit. This limit is
74 percent lower than the limit of the 1991 START treaty.
Again, let me stop and say, I think if you asked every American the
question: Would we be safer with fewer nuclear warheads in the
strategic forces of Russia and the United States, the answer would be
yes. I think people all recognize the potential danger of the existence
of more than enough nuclear weapons to wreak havoc if they were somehow
launched.
The New START treaty also sets a limit of 800 deployed and
nondeployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers--which
are warheads but also launching systems--puts separate limits on
deployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs and deployed heavy bombers. The
limit, again, is less than half the limit established by the 1991 START
treaty for deployed delivery vehicles. The sooner we ratify this
treaty, the sooner these limitations will be in place and can be
enforced.
We are at a point, I think, where we can continue the progress that
began--the breakthrough, really, that began with President Reagan,
President George Herbert Walker Bush, and, to a degree at least in
spirit, carried on with the Moscow Treaty by President George W. Bush,
and now can be ratified with legally binding terms in this New START
treaty. Once ratified, the new START treaty will be in force for 10
years unless superseded by a subsequent agreement, and of course the
United States and Russia have the option to extend the treaty for a
period of no more than 5 years and there are withdrawal clauses if we
believe our national security requires such a withdrawal. Furthermore,
the 2002 Moscow Treaty will terminate with the adoption of this START
treaty.
Like the first START treaty, the New START treaty establishes a
complex verification and transparency regime that will guard against
cheating and will enable the United States to monitor Russia's
compliance with the treaty's terms.
[[Page S10437]]
The treaty's verification measures build on the lessons learned
during the 15 years of implementing the 1991 START treaty and adds new
elements tailored to the limitations of this treaty and to the
application of this treaty.
Indeed, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, the head of
the U.S. negotiating delegation, stated, ``Much was learned over the 15
years in which the START treaty verification regime was implemented,
and the United States and Russia sought to take advantage of that
knowledge in formulating the verification regime for the new treaty--
seeking to maintain elements which proved useful, to include new
measures where necessary, improve those measures that were an
unnecessary drag on our strategic forces, and eliminate those that were
not essential for verifying the obligations of the New START treaty.''
These verification measures include onsite inspections--which we do
not have at the moment--data exchanges--which we do not have at the
moment--and notifications as well as provisions to facilitate the use
of national technical means for treaty monitoring. To increase
confidence and transparency, the treaty also provides for the exchange
of telemetry information.
Under the terms of the treaty, the parties are required to exchange
data on the numbers, locations, and technical characteristics of
deployed and nondeployed strategic arms that are subject to the treaty.
The parties also agreed to assign and exchange unique identification
numbers for each deployed and nondeployed ICBM, SLBM, and nuclear-
capable heavy bomber. We literally now will have the serial numbers
with which we can monitor their systems. The treaty also establishes a
notification regime to track the movement and changes in status of
strategic arms. Through these notifications and the unique
identification numbers, the United States will be better able to
monitor the status of Russian arms throughout their life cycle.
The New START treaty will also allow each nation up to 18 onsite
inspections each year. These inspections will include deployed and
nondeployed systems at operating bases, as well as nondeployed systems
at storage sites, test ranges, and conversion/elimination facilities.
These onsite inspections will help verify and confirm the information
provided in the data exchanges and notifications, ensuring that Russia
is staying within the numbers of the treaty.
Some have asked why have a treaty if Russia is allowed to cheat? It
is important to remind ourselves of several points. First, because of
its commitment under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Russia has
already been operating under tighter constraints than the United
States. They are signatories to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In
1996, President Clinton and President Yeltsin signed the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty. The Russian Duma approved the treaty in 2000, but we
have yet to ratify the treaty, so Russia, indeed, is operating under
more constraints with respect to comprehensive testing than we are.
Second, over a year has passed since the expiration of the original
START treaty. Again, since that time there have been no verifications,
no inspections, no process in place to work with Russia.
It seems ironic to me that people who are worrying about signing a
treaty and having the Russians cheat are not preoccupied with what the
Russians are doing today, since we can't verify. It does not seem to me
to make sense to say the way you can eliminate the treaty is eliminate
the laws so they cannot cheat.
Again, I think the logic as well as the history as well as the
details of this treaty are so compelling and persuasive that we have to
ratify this treaty.
Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher stated also:
The urgency to verify the treaty is because we currently
lack verification measures with Russia. The longer that goes
on, the more opportunity there is for misunderstanding and
mistrust.
There is a letter to Senator Kerry addressing concerns about cheating
from Secretary Gates. Let me at this point commend the Senator from
Massachusetts for his extraordinary leadership on this issue. No one
knows more about the details of this treaty, the ramifications, the
nuances than Senator Kerry. No one has been more articulate, no one has
talked with more wisdom, more experience, and more compelling logic
than the Senator from Massachusetts when it comes to ratification of
this treaty. For his leadership, I thank him. Thank you, Senator.
But Secretary Gates wrote to Senator Kerry to remind him that:
[T]he survivable and flexible U.S. strategic posture
planned for New START will help deter any future Russian
leaders from cheating or breakout from the treaty, should
they ever have such an inclination.
Finally, ratifying the New START treaty will actually provide the
right incentive structure to prevent cheating rather than to encourage
it.
Let me conclude. Let me again remind my colleagues that this treaty
will provide a significantly increased degree of certainty in a very
uncertain world. It will continue our relationship with Russia, one
that we forged over decades and one that we must use--not just for our
mutual benefit but to act against even more pressing threats such as
North Korea, such as Iran, and such as thousands of other emerging
threats over the next several years.
This treaty will allow us to advance our counterproliferation
initiatives across the globe. As such, I urge my colleagues to support
ratification of the New START treaty.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island. I
first of all thank him for his generous comments on a personal level.
But let me thank him for his work. I think everybody in the Senate will
agree he is, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, one of the
most respected voices in the Senate, one of the most diligent, hard-
working members of that committee. He knows and understands our weapons
systems, our military needs, our security concerns as well as anybody
in the Senate. I have enjoyed enormously the history that he provided
in his discussion today. I think it is an important predicate to this
debate and I thank him for his work very much, and for the comments he
made on the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I support this treaty. The
support is overwhelming, and it is bipartisan. The fact that the entire
defense establishment and the Pentagon supports this treaty should be
significant. The questions that have been raised about the
modernization of our, basically, arsenal of nuclear weapons are
legitimate. But they are questions that are constantly tended to not
only by the appropriate committees in the Congress but by the defense
and national security establishment.
The Cold War has now been over for two decades. The United States and
Russia still possess 90 percent of the nuclear weapons. The fact is, we
need stability in these huge arsenals of nuclear weapons between our
two countries. To have this stability then allows us to be able to
confront the rest of the world and the dangers that exist with regard
to a potential nuclear threat.
While our nuclear triad remains an important component to our overall
national security, it is no longer necessary for us to maintain such a
huge stockpile. We are facing new threats, and we need new answers.
Here is what we know about the bottom line. This treaty enhances
cooperation with Russia. It allows for onsite inspections. It allows
for verification of Russia's nuclear arsenal. It also demonstrates to a
worldwide audience our commitment to oversight and monitoring of
nuclear weapons. This START treaty reduces the number of nuclear
warheads in Russia by 30 percent. Preventing a nuclear terrorist attack
is paramount. The more we create stability with Russia, it allows us
then to increase pressure elsewhere on other countries that we are
always concerned about having nuclear weapons. And we
[[Page S10438]]
are always concerned about those nuclear weapons getting out of their
control and getting into the hands of people who would do us harm. Of
course, we are certainly concerned about those other countries with
nuclear ambitions--one, North Korea, that apparently already possesses
nuclear weapons, and the country of Iran, which is certainly trying to
possess nuclear weapons. It is commonsense that what you do is take an
arsenal of some over 2,2200 nuclear weapons and reduce them. It is just
common sense that you would, under a treaty between the two nuclear
powers that have 90 percent of the nuclear weapons, that you would
start to reduce delivery systems. It just makes common sense that we
would be able to have an inspection and verification regime so that we
can have that stability between Russia and the United States.
You can always bring up all kinds of things. This does not affect in
any way our ability to have a national missile defense system. If we do
not ratify this treaty--and it is not only my hope but it is my
expectation that we are going to be able to get the 67 votes to ratify
this treaty, but if we did not, we would put ourselves in a much less
safe position because the previous START treaty expired a year ago.
Without START, there is no recourse or system to inspect warheads. We
have been analyzing this treaty now for the last 7 months. The
bipartisan support of this treaty, Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar,
along with my colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the
Senate Intelligence Committee, we have been combing through these
details.
We constantly have to develop new ways to safeguard our national
security. Developing new state-of-the-art systems allows for a more
vigorous inspection regime. We have built up some of that experience
since the Cold War ended.
When it comes around to investment, the Obama administration has
agreed to invest $85 billion into the nuclear weapons complex. The
administration agreed to Senator Kyl wanting another $4 billion
increase. That is a modernization that needs to take place at several
of our facilities. So let's move on and ratify this treaty. This treaty
does not limit our missile defense options. We have clearly and
consistently heard from Secretary Gates, Secretary Clinton, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many others in the Defense
Department state that this is the case.
The treaty's ratification is long overdue in order to secure our
Nation's security. I believe we must ratify this treaty now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
legislative session and as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.