[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 170 (Sunday, December 19, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10706-S10724]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Amendment No. 4833
Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. Following the
disposition of the Risch amendment, we will be scheduling my amendment
No. 4833 having to do with verification and numbers of inspections. I
will be wanting to speak on this. I don't want to take time from the
Risch amendment.
I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the Risch amendment
for consideration of amendment No. 4833.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe] proposes an
amendment numbered 4833.
Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment
be dispensed with.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To increase the number of Type One and Type Two inspections
allowed under the Treaty)
In paragraph 2 of section VI of Part V of the Protocol to
the New START Treaty, strike ``a total of no more than ten
Type One inspections'' and insert ``a total of no more than
thirty Type One inspections''.
In paragraph 2 of section VII of Part V of the Protocol to
the New START Treaty, strike ``a total of no more than eight
Type Two inspections'' and insert ``a total of no more than
twenty-four Type Two inspections''.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma.
I will consume such time as I use for a moment. Let me say, first of
all, again, I appreciate this amendment. There is not a lot of
contention about the importance of addressing a lot of short-range
tactical weapons, as we call them. The administration wants to do this
as much as our friends on the other side of the aisle do, and I think
the Senator from Idaho knows that.
Let me correct one fact for a minute that both the Senator from Texas
and the Senator from Idaho said. They said the Russians will not have
to reduce their strategic warheads and that they are already below the
number of 1,550. That is not accurate. I won't go into detail here. We
can reinforce this tomorrow in a classified session. But the Russians
do have to reduce warheads under this requirement--not as much as us.
Our defense community has made the judgment that because of our triad,
which will remain robust, and for other reasons, we have a very
significant advantage. Again, I will discuss that tomorrow in the
classified briefing.
What I want to say to my colleague is that, again, I am 100 percent
prepared to try to embrace this concept even further in the resolution
of ratification. But we cannot do it in a way that requires this treaty
to go back and be renegotiated. This is not a complicated amendment.
There is a very simple reason why we should oppose this amendment as it
is: because of the requirement that we go back. Because if we don't
pass the START treaty, if we can't reach a bilateral agreement on the
reduction of strategic weapons, there will be no discussion about
tactical weapons. That is as plain as day. Every negotiator, everybody
who has been part of this process, understands that. If we can't show
our good faith to reduce and create a mutual verification system for
strategic weapons, how are we going to sit in front of them and say,
Oh, by the way, let's get you to reduce what is your advantage--it is
an advantage, I acknowledge that--you go ahead and reduce it. They are
going to laugh at us and we will have lost all of the verification we
have today.
It is not just me who says that. The fact is Secretary Gates has been
very clear about this, and Secretary Clinton likewise. Secretary Gates
said this. I know my colleagues all respect him enormously.
We will never get to that step of reductions with the
Russians on tactical nukes if this treaty on strategic
nuclear weapons is not ratified.
It is a pretty simple equation, folks. This isn't a one-way street
where we can stand here and say, You have to do this and you have to do
that and, by the way, we don't care what you think about what we are
doing, we are going to do what we want. That is not the way it works.
There has to be some reciprocity in the process of reduction and
verification and inspection, and so forth. They have things they don't
want us to see and we have stuff we don't want them to see. There is
plenty in this agreement where we protect our facilities from them
being able to intrude on them excessively, because our folks don't want
them to. That is the nature of a contentious relationship which is the
reason you have to argue out, negotiate out a treaty in the first
place.
If the Secretary of Defense is telling us--a Secretary of Defense, by
the way, whom we all mutually respect enormously, but who was appointed
to the job by President Bush--if he is telling us you have to pass this
in order to get to the tactical nukes, I think we have to listen to
that a little bit.
Let me point out--I want the Record to reflect I agree with the
Senator from Idaho. They have many more tactical nukes. They have had
for a long time. The reason is they have different strategic needs.
They are in a different part of the world. For a long time, the Warsaw
Pact and NATO were head to head and squared off, and so they saw a
world in which they saw the potential of a land invasion. So for a long
time they had tanks and mines and other things that were nuclear
capable. What happened is we unilaterally, I might add, decided under
President Bush, I think it was, President George Herbert Walker Bush,
we decided this is dangerous. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make
sense for us. So we unilaterally announced--after the fall of the
Soviet Union, President Bush announced we were going to ratchet down
our tactical nuclear forces, and everybody agreed with that. It made
sense.
So we did that and what happened is after that, President Boris
Yeltsin in 1992 pledged that the production of warheads for ground-
launched tactical missiles, artillery shells, and mines had stopped.
They stopped it because we stopped it. And all of those warheads would
be eliminated. He pledged that Russia would dispose of one-half of its
tactical airborne and surface-to-air warheads as well as one-third of
its tactical naval warheads. The Russian Defense Ministry said in 2007,
the
[[Page S10718]]
ground force tactical nuclear warheads had been eliminated. Air defense
tactical warheads were reduced by 60 percent. Air Force tactical
warheads were reduced by 50 percent. Naval tactical warheads were
reduced by 30 percent. Guess what. That didn't happen with the treaty.
It happened because we had what we call Presidential nuclear
initiatives. Our President made the decision, President Bush: We don't
need them, dangerous, reduce them, and the Russians followed.
I heard an estimate earlier of 2,000 or something--this is according
to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. We estimate they have a large
inventory of operational nonstrategic warheads--5,390 is the number of
tactical warheads, air defense tactical, et cetera. So they do still
have more, and it still is a very legitimate concern to us.
That is why, I say to my colleagues, in the resolution of advice and
consent we have the following declaration:
(A) The Senate calls upon the President to pursue,
following consultation with allies, an agreement with the
Russian Federation that would address the disparity between
the tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian
Federation and of the United States and would secure and
reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.
That is in the resolution. You can vote for that. In addition, we
say:
(B) Recognizing the difficulty the United States has faced
in ascertaining with confidence the number of tactical
nuclear weapons maintained by the Russian Federation and the
security of those weapons, the Senate urges the President to
engage the Russian Federation with the objectives of (1)
establishing cooperative measures to give each Party to the
New START Treaty improved confidence regarding the accurate
accounting and security of tactical nuclear weapons
maintained by the other Party; and (2) providing United
States or other international assistance to help the Russian
Federation ensure the accurate accounting and security of its
tactical nuclear weapons.
I am prepared--if that language doesn't satisfy folks, let's go look
further. I am happy to do that. But we are not going to do it in a way
that precludes us from going to the very negotiations you want to have.
It doesn't make sense, not to mention the fact that it puts the entire
treaty back into negotiating play. Who knows how long it would be.
The estimates I have from the negotiating team is it could take 2, 3
years. We have been a whole year now without inspections and knowing
what they are doing. I will talk, tomorrow in the security briefing,
about the impact that has on our intelligence, and the dissatisfaction
in the intelligence community with a prolonged and continued delay in
getting that.
So I simply say to my colleagues, let's do what is smart. Secretary
Clinton said:
The New START Treaty was always intended to replace START.
That was the decision made by the Bush administration.
I emphasize again that President Obama was not the person who made
the decision not to extend START I. The Russians didn't do it
unilaterally. Neither of us wanted to do it, because under this START
agreement, we actually put in a better system, and one, let me say,
that General Chilton emphasizes reduces the constraints on missile
defense.
So here is what Secretary Clinton said: ``I would underscore the
importance of ratifying the New START Treaty to have any chance of us
beginning to have a serious negotiation over tactical nuclear
weapons.''
Some Senators are saying: Why didn't they address them at the same
time and say we have to get this and that done? Well, for a couple
reasons. One, Russia's tactical weapons are primarily a threat to our
allies in Europe. Knowing the differences of that equation, to have
linked our own strategic interests to that negotiation at that time
would have left us who knows how long without the capacity to get an
agreement, No. 1. No. 2, last year when we began negotiations on New
START, NATO was in the midst of working out its new strategic concept.
Our allies were in the midst of assessing their security needs. It
would have been impossible to have that discussion without them having
made that assessment and resolved their own security needs and
definitions.
But now NATO has completed that strategic concept. We have heard from
a lot of European governments about New START. What do they say and
what do our allies say? We are not in this ball game alone. They are
united in support for this treaty, in part because they see it as the
necessary first step to be able to have the negotiations that bring the
reductions in tactical nuclear weapons.
Let me quote Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland's Foreign Minister:
Without a New START Treaty in place, holes will soon appear
in the nuclear umbrella that the U.S. provides to Poland and
other allies under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the
collective security guarantee for NATO members. Moreover, New
START is a necessary stepping stone to future negotiations
with Russia about its tactical nuclear weapons.
So they believe you have to pass START to get to this discussion.
This is the Lithuanian Foreign Minister:
We see this treaty as a prologue, as an entrance to start
talks about substrategic weaponry, which is much more
endangerous, and it is quite difficult to detect. And we who
are living in east Europe especially know this.
The Secretary General of NATO said:
We need transparency and reductions of short-range tactical
weapons in Europe. This is a key concern for allies. But we
cannot address this disparity until the New START Treaty is
ratified.
I don't know how many times you have to make this connection. General
Chilton, who is in charge of our nuclear forces, said this to the Armed
Services Committee:
The most proximate threat to the United States, us, are the
ICBM and SLBM weapons because they can and are able to target
the U.S. homeland and deliver a devastating effect on this
country. So we appropriately focused in those areas in this
particular treaty for strategic reasons. Tactical nuclear
weapons don't provide the proximate threat that the ICBMs and
SLBMs do.
The disparity in U.S. and Russian tactical arsenals, I repeat, we
want to address. I am prepared to put something in here--if the Senator
from Idaho thinks we can find the language, as we did with Senator
DeMint, who has strong language in here about missile defense, let's
put it in here. But it doesn't put us at a strategic disadvantage.
Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen stated, in response to our
questions, for the record:
Because of their limited range and the very different roles
played by strategic nuclear forces, the vast majority of
Russian tactical nuclear weapons cannot directly influence
the strategic nuclear balance between the United States and
Russia.
Donald Rumsfeld said this to the Foreign Relations Committee a few
years ago:
. . . I don't know that we would ever want to have symmetry
between the United States and Russia [in tactical nuclear
weapons]. Their circumstance is different and their geography
is different.
General Chilton said:
Under the assumptions of limited range and different roles,
Russian tactical nuclear weapons do not directly influence
the strategic balance between the U.S. and Russia. Though
numerical asymmetry exists in the numbers of tactical nuclear
weapons we estimate Russia possesses, when considered within
the context of our total capability, and given force levels
as structured in New START, this asymmetry is not assessed to
substantially affect the strategic stability between the
United States and Russia.
There is more here. I will reserve the balance of time because other
colleagues want to say something. First, let me say this about the
process as we go forward. There is some talk that we are now reaching a
point--we are on day five--we had Wednesday afternoon, Thursday,
Friday, Saturday, and now Sunday. That is 5 days. START I took 5 days.
If we filed a cloture motion at some point in the evening, for
instance, we would still have 2 days before we even vote on that. Then,
presuming we were to achieve it, we have 30 hours after that, which can
amount to almost 2 days in the Senate. That would mean 9 days, if we go
that distance on this treaty, which is simpler than START I. We would
have more days on this treaty--simpler than START I--than we had on all
3--the Moscow Treaty, START II, and START I treaties put together.
I hope my colleagues will recognize that the majority leader has
given time to this effort. We are giving time to it. We want
amendments. No amendment, I think, would be struck. We would have time
to vote on each amendment and deliberate each amendment. But I think it
is important for us to consider the road ahead.
I reserve the remainder of our time.
[[Page S10719]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Risch
amendment. The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts just helped
make the case as to why this amendment is so important. In every
hearing we have had in Armed Services and Intelligence, every
conversation I have had in person, by telephone, with every
administration official and everybody in support of this, I raised the
issue of not what is in the treaty as being the most significant issue
but what is not in there--the issue of tactical nuclear weapons.
I hear what the Senator is saying. What he has reinforced to me is,
we have been talking to the Russians about tactical weapons for over
two decades, and we have not yet been able to get them to sit down at
the table with us. If we don't get them now, when? I understand what
the President said, which is that he will make a real effort to get
them to the table. You should get them to the table when you have
leverage. The Russians want this treaty bad. We had the opportunity, in
my opinion, to discuss tactical weapons with them, to get them to the
table for this treaty, but we didn't take the opportunity to do that.
So I rise to talk about the issue of tactical nuclear weapons with
respect to New START and the two amendments filed on this issue, the
Risch amendment, as well as one filed by Senator LeMieux.
We all know tactical nuclear weapons is one of the issues the treaty
doesn't address and also an area where there is a huge disparity
between the United States and the Russians relative to the numbers of
weapons. Perhaps, most important, the intent of arms control treaties
is to control and limit arms in order to create predictability and
security.
By not addressing tactical nuclear weapons in this treaty, we have
left the least predictable and the least secure weapons in our nuclear
inventories out of the discussion. Russia has somewhere in the
neighborhood of 5,000 weapons. There have been numbers bantered around
here. But the estimates of exactly how many vary widely. The point is,
we don't know. That is part of the real problem with tactical weapons.
Many of these nuclear weapons are near Eastern Europe and in proximity
to U.S. troops as well as to our allies.
These weapons are different, not primarily in terms of how powerful
they are, because the warheads are, in some cases, similar in size to
strategic nuclear weapons. Instead, they are different primarily in
terms of the range of the delivery systems. The Russian advantage in
tactical nuclear weapons is at least 5 to 1, but could be as high as 10
to 1. Again, we don't know because they will not tell us.
It is also the case that the United States and Russia both agreed in
the 1990s to reduce tactical nukes. The United States has, but we don't
know that the Russians have. They said they have. But do we truly trust
the Russians? We should not. In fact, they have cited the expansion of
NATO as a change in the strategic landscape since the 1990's.
Tactical weapons are the least secure nuclear weapons in our nuclear
inventories. They are deliverable by a variety of means, and for these
reasons are more of a threat of being stolen, misplaced or mishandled
than strategic nukes. It is a mistake and unfortunate that this treaty
doesn't address tactical nuclear weapons because an agreement to reduce
and control these weapons is exactly where we need to be focusing and,
relative to the overall security of the United States and the world, it
is, frankly, more important than reducing and controlling strategic
nuclear weapons.
On Senator Risch's amendment, it would add a statement to the
preamble of the treaty which addresses the interrelationship between
nonstrategic and strategic offensive arms; that is, the relationship
between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Senator Risch's
amendment is correct in that ``as the number of strategic offensive
arms is reduced, this relationship becomes more pronounced and requires
an even greater need for transparency and accountability, and that the
disparity between the Parties' arsenals could undermine predictability
and stability.''
We are reducing strategic nuclear weapons under this treaty. By doing
so, we are making tactical nuclear weapons much more important and much
more relevant and, therefore, we should seek to achieve greater
transparency and accountability on both our side as well as on the
Russian side.
That brings me to the second amendment, which is not pending but is
filed and of which I am a cosponsor; that is, Senator LeMieux's
amendment. That amendment would require the United States and the
Russians to enter into negotiations within 1 year of ratification to
address the disparity in tactical nuclear weapons. Both these
amendments address what I believe is one of the most crucial issues and
one of the issues the treaty should have addressed but didn't. I urge
my colleagues to support both these amendments but particularly today
the Risch amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado). Who yields time?
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, the proponents of the amendment have how
much time remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 25 minutes remaining.
Mr. RISCH. Does that include my 10 minutes of closing?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It does.
Mr. RISCH. So we have 15 minutes left to yield time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, Senator Sessions was next, so I yield the
floor to the Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would ask to be advised after 4
minutes have lapsed.
Mr. President, I think Senator Risch is correct and Senator Chambliss
is correct to make the point that tactical nuclear weapons are more
available for theft and to transship than strategic nuclear weapons,
and it is a high priority of the United States to reduce the risk of
terrorists obtaining weapons of this kind, and this treaty does nothing
about that. It does nothing about tactical nuclear weapons, which the
Russians do care about.
It is a big part, apparently, of their defense strategy, and they
gave not one whit on it; whereas our President, who says he wants to
move toward zero nuclear weapons in the world--a fantastical view,
really, and one that endangers our country and would create instability
around the world and create more national security risks--did not
negotiate this in any effective way. I think that was a failure of the
treaty, a failure of negotiations, and another example of the fact that
we wanted the treaty too badly for what, I guess, are primarily public
relations matters rather than substantive matters. That is just the way
I see it.
So the Russians have been steadily reducing their strategic weapons,
we are reducing ours, and this strategic relationship has been moving
along. There does not have to be a treaty. We would like to have a
treaty. I think the Russians would probably like to have a treaty. But
it is not essential that we have one if they will not agree to some of
the things that are important, such as tactical nuclear weapons. I do
think this is a weakness in the treaty, and I am disappointed our
negotiators didn't insist on it.
As Mr. Feith said, who negotiated with the Russians, and they made a
number of demands on a previous negotiation over the SORT treaty in
2002: You just have to say no, and then you can move forward once the
Russians know we are not going to give. But they will push, push, push
until they are satisfied you are not going to give on it, and then they
will make a rational decision at that point whether to go forward with
the treaty or not go forward with the treaty.
He said no on curtailment of missile defense in 2002. The Russians
insisted, insisted, insisted, and he said, finally, no treaty.
We don't have a treaty with China, we don't have one with England, we
don't have one with India, and they have nuclear weapons. We don't have
to have one. We would like to, but we don't have to. At that point the
Russians conceded and agreed. So I don't think we negotiated this well
at all. We do not need to continue with this large disparity of
tactical weapons between the United States and Russia, and I appreciate
Senator Risch's raising it.
I will perhaps talk a little later about the national missile defense
question in President Obama's letter, but President Obama's letter----
[[Page S10720]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has consumed 4 minutes.
Mr. KERRY. Would the Senator be willing to yield for a question?
Mr. SESSIONS. On my time or yours?
Mr. KERRY. We can share the time. It depends on how long you answer.
Mr. SESSIONS. I am not giving up any of mine. I want to finish this 1
minute on the subject of the President's letter.
What it fails to acknowledge is that we were on the cusp of
implanting a GBI in Europe by 2016, and that was completely given up in
the course of these negotiations. This is the same missile we have in
the ground in Alaska and California. That was given up, and we are now
proceeding with a phase four theory that might be completed by 2020, if
Congress appropriates the money for the next five Congresses and some
President who is then in office--not President Obama 10 years from
now--is still supportive and pushes it through and Congress passes it.
So this is a big mistake. We made a major concession on national
missile defense and even put words in the treaty that compromise our
ability to do the new treaty. The statement from Putin that we will be
obliged to take action in response did not say just GBI; it also
referred to the capabilities of an SM-3 Block IIB, which would be what
the President said is going to be deployed in 2020.
I thank the Chair, I thank Senator Risch, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, if you will let me know when I have used
4 of the 5 minutes I am to have.
Mr. President, I rise today to support the amendment by my friend and
colleague and next-door neighbor on the Foreign Relations Committee, as
well as my next-door neighbor of State, Senator Risch.
I want to discuss the issue of nonstrategic nuclear weapons, also
known as tactical nuclear weapons. While the United States and Russia
have a rough equivalence in their strategic nuclear weapons, there is a
significant imbalance in tactical nuclear weapons, and it favors
Russia.
Russia currently has a 10-to-1 advantage in tactical nuclear weapons,
and it is expected that the number of tactical nuclear weapons in
Russia will continue to grow. This imbalance directly impacts our
security commitments to NATO and to our other European allies.
Mr. President, I have been to the hearings in the Foreign Relations
Committee. As a member of that committee, I have heard statements given
by former Secretaries of State of both parties. Henry Kissinger
testified before the committee and said:
The large Russian stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons,
unmatched by a comparable American deployment, could threaten
the ability to undertake extended deterrence.
Former Secretary James Schlesinger called this imbalance of Russia's
tactical nuclear weapons ``the dog that did not bark.'' He called it a
``frustrating, vexatious, and increasingly worrisome issue.''
In the past, many current Members of the Senate have expressed their
concerns with Russia's tactical nuclear weapons. Even Vice President
Biden, when he was a Member of this body and serving on the Foreign
Relations Committee, spoke about it, and he said:
We were hoping in START III to control tactical nuclear
weapons. They are the weapons that are shorter range and are
used at shorter distances, referred to as tactical nuclear
weapons.
Well, Mr. President, as I look at this and work through it, it seems
that, clearly, this administration did not make tactical weapons a top
arms control and nonproliferation objective in the New START treaty.
The negotiators of this treaty did not make this issue a priority, and
they gave in to pressure from Russia to exclude the mention of tactical
nuclear weapons.
I want to point out that while the administration failed to negotiate
the reduction of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in the New START
treaty, it did allow a legally binding limitation of U.S. missile
defense, and that is, I believe, a mistake.
So I disagree with those who argue that ratifying the New START
treaty is needed in order to deal with tactical nuclear weapons in the
future. I believe the issue of tactical nuclear weapons should have
been addressed--together with the reduction of strategic nuclear
weapons--in the New START treaty. The administration lost a real
opportunity by not negotiating a deal in this treaty. It is unclear
what leverage will remain for us to negotiate a reduction in Russian
tactical nuclear weapons.
Mr. President, the Risch amendment tries to resolve the complete
failure of the administration to address Russia's advantage in tactical
nuclear weapons in the New START treaty. The Risch amendment
acknowledges the interrelationship between tactical nuclear weapons and
strategic-range weapons, which grows as strategic warheads are reduced.
The Risch amendment seeks greater transparency.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has consumed 4 minutes.
Mr. BARRASSO. I thank the Chair.
The Risch amendment seeks greater transparency, greater
accountability of tactical nuclear weapons, and the Risch amendment
recognizes that tactical nuclear weapons can undermine stability.
So with that, Mr. President, I support this amendment, and I urge my
colleagues to adopt the amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I understand we have 4\1/2\ minutes
remaining, plus my 10 minutes at the very end.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, Senator Corker has indicated he would like
to take those 4\1/2\ minutes, so I yield the floor to Senator Corker.
Mr. CORKER. I thank the Senator, and I appreciate the Chair's
courtesy.
I think Senator Kerry was down here earlier today talking a little
about procedures, and I want to follow up on that. I know we have a
number of people back in the cloakroom wondering about how we go
forward with the amendment process. So I just thought I could enter
into a conversation with him through the Chair.
Unlike most procedures, this is a situation where you have a 60-vote
cloture and your ability or your strength on the issue itself rises
because it actually takes 67 votes, or two-thirds, of those voting to
actually ratify a treaty. So it is not like on a cloture vote on the
floor where you go from a 60-vote threshold to 51, where you are
weakened. In this case, you are actually strengthened because it takes
more votes after cloture to actually pass this piece of legislation.
So I just wanted to, if I could, verify with Senator Kerry the
process of actually offering amendments, not just on the treaty--
because I know we are still on the treaty--but also on the resolution
of ratification, where I think numbers of amendments might actually be
approved and accepted.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Senator is absolutely correct. The key
question is, Is there sufficient support to ratify the treaty? Once we
get to that sort of question postcloture, when and if that is invoked,
that is what the threshold would be for the passage of this treaty. It
is not as if you have cloture and all of a sudden, boom, only 51 votes
are necessary to pass it.
Secondly, I would say to my colleague--and I want to emphasize this--
if the majority leader were to put the cloture motion in this evening,
it doesn't ripen until Tuesday. So we would have the rest of today, all
of tomorrow, and Tuesday to have amendments; to continue as we are now.
Then, if it did pass, we would have another 30 hours, which, as we all
know, takes the better part of 2 days. So we are looking at Thursday
under that kind of schedule, and I know a lot of Senators are hoping
not to be here on Thursday.
So I think that is quite a lot of time within the context of this.
But the Senator is correct. The answer to his question is yes.
Mr. CORKER. If I could ask one other question. If a Senator comes to
the floor and wants to offer an amendment, not on the treaty itself--
which we realize is more difficult to pass because of what that means
as relates to negotiations with Russia--but to offer an amendment on
the resolution of ratification, which is something that might
[[Page S10721]]
likely be successful and accepted, it is my understanding all they have
to do is come down and offer that amendment, to ask unanimous consent
to call it up; is that correct?
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, without the help of the Parliamentarian,
obviously we are entitled to do a lot by unanimous consent, and that is
one of those things. We will not object, obviously. We want to try to
help our colleagues be able to put those amendments in, so it would be
without objection on our side.
Mr. CORKER. So it is my understanding--to be able to talk with other
Senators who have an interest on the treaty itself and would like to do
some things to strengthen it, it is my understanding that what I just
heard was that the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee would be
more than willing to accommodate a unanimous consent request to
actually offer amendments to the resolution itself, and he knows of no
one on their side, at present, who would object to that. So if people
wanted to go back and forth between the actual treaty and the
resolution itself, they now can do that on the floor?
Mr. KERRY. That is correct.
Mr. CORKER. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee.
I will yield 5 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, Senator Levin, to be followed by 7 minutes to the
Senator from Oregon.
I ask the Senator from Oregon, is that enough time? Is 7 minutes
enough time?
Thank you.
I reserve the remainder of our time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Risch amendment states a concern which
is a legitimate concern. I think probably everybody would agree to
that. This concern was there in the START I treaty and it was there in
the Moscow Treaty just a few years ago, that we need to address the
imbalance or the--the imbalance, I guess, is a good word--between the
number of strategic nuclear weapons that exist on both sides and the
nonstrategic weapons. But that was true during START I in 1991 when
President Bush negotiated it. There was no effort to, in effect, kill
the treaty with an amendment stating that concern, although it was a
concern then. During the Moscow Treaty debate here in 2002, I believe
Senator Biden again raised the same concern about this imbalance. It is
a legitimate concern. But you don't kill a treaty because there are
some legitimate concerns about issues.
The Russians have a concern about our large number of warehoused
warheads. We have a big inventory of warheads compared to them. They
have a concern. We could state that as a fact, that the Russians have a
concern about the number of warheads we have. But putting that into the
treaty kills the treaty.
We could make any statement of legitimate concern. If it is in the
treaty text, it will kill the treaty.
Senator Biden, in 2002, I believe, or it may have even been in the
first START treaty, raised this issue about the imbalance. It was a
legitimate issue. But there was no effort to kill that treaty which had
been negotiated by President Bush by inserting a legitimate concern
into the treaty.
There are a number of legitimate concerns. The Russians have
legitimate concerns about our conventional capabilities, about
accuracy, about our encryption capabilities. They were not addressed
adequately for the Russians in this treaty. But they have a concern.
Should we state in the treaty the fact of legitimate concern? Should we
by amendment attempt to insert in the treaty that the factual statement
of a legitimate concern just kills the treaty?
That is what concerns me as to why it is that there is such a
determination to try to kill this treaty by means of an amendment which
states a legitimate concern, which was true during the last two
treaties negotiated by two President Bushes. That is what troubles me.
That was the difference Senator Corker pointed out between seeking to
amend a resolution and seeking to amend the treaty.
To Senator Risch, through the Chair, I happen to share the same
concern the Senator has about this imbalance. As chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, this imbalance existed in 2002, it existed in 1991,
and we ought to address it, but we don't address it by killing this
treaty, and that is what this amendment does.
Despite the absence of this language expressing a legitimate concern,
we have support for this treaty by former President George H.W. Bush
and Secretaries Brown, Carlucci, Cohen, Perry, and Schlesinger. They
support this treaty without this language. It was true that former
Secretary Schlesinger said, for instance, that he has a concern about
this imbalance. I think we all do. He stated that concern. He still
supports the treaty without this language, without this expression of
concern.
Former Secretaries of the State Albright, Baker, Christopher,
Eagleburger, Kissinger, Powell, Rice, and Shulz support the treaty
without this language. They have the same concerns. As a matter of
fact, I believe it was Senator Sessions--it may have been someone
else--who said that former Secretary Kissinger has expressed this
concern, in fact quoted, I believe, from former Secretary Kissinger's
writing on this issue. He has that same concern which Senator Risch and
all of us have about this imbalance. But without the language, former
Secretary Kissinger still supports this treaty.
All I can say is that I think there is a legitimate concern which is
expressed in this amendment. It is a concern which has existed and
needs to be addressed, as former Senator Biden said when he was
debating a treaty--but not to kill a treaty by an expression of a
legitimate concern.
That is what I think is the issue here--not whether the language in
the Risch amendment expresses something which is legitimate but whether
the absence of that concern being expressed in the treaty should be
enough to vote for this amendment and to kill this treaty as a result
and to force it back to an open-ended negotiation, which we have no
idea where that would lead.
I hope we defeat the Risch amendment not because we disagree with
what the concern is but because, understanding that concern, we do not
want to do damage to the treaty and kill a treaty which does so much
for the security of this Nation.
I yield the floor, and if I have any time, I yield the remainder of
my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I would like to add a few comments to
those of the Senator from Michigan.
First, I would like to observe that this treaty encompasses fairly
modest reductions in our strategic force. We are looking at ICBMs
reduced from 450 to 420 and in some cases those ICBMs being reduced in
terms of the number of warheads they are carrying--modest reductions.
When we look at some relaunch ballistic missiles, we are looking at a
fleet of 14 Trident submarines, and we are looking at keeping all 14 of
those, reducing the number of silos on each submarine from about 24 to
20--again, a modest reduction. Indeed, two of those subs will be in
drydock at any one point in time, and they do not count against the
numbers in this treaty.
In bombers, we are looking at 18 Stealth missiles currently--Stealth
bombers, and keeping all 18--or B-2s, as they are known. We look at
modest reductions in our aging, ancient, antique fleet of B-52s, modest
reductions there.
In its entirety, what this represents is modest changes to the
existing structure negotiated by a Republican administration and
maintenance of verification regimes incredibly important to our
national security. In that context, we have to look at various
amendments being raised that, if they were sincere about their purpose,
would be added to the resolution we are passing. But if their real
purpose is to kill the treaty, then of course it comes in the form of
an amendment to the treaty, which would effectively, in fact, do that.
So let's look at the structure of the issues that were put forward
here.
First, the goal of this START treaty is to address strategic, not
short-range tactical nuclear weapons which have never been covered by a
treaty, including those negotiated by a Republican administration.
[[Page S10722]]
Second, tactical weapons are categorically different from strategic
arms because they do not pose an immediate catastrophic threat to the
U.S. homeland that strategic weapons do. With shorter range and smaller
yield, they are intended for battlefield use.
I would note the quotation of General Chilton, commander of the U.S.
Strategic Command, who said:
The most proximate threat to the U.S. are the ICBM and SLBM
weapons because they can and are able to target the U.S.
homeland and deliver a devastating effect to this country.
So we are appropriately focused in those areas in the particular
treaty for strategic reasons. Tactical weapons do not have the
proximate threat that ICBMs and SLBMs do.
I also note that if you look at this from the Russian perspective, we
have tactical weapons deployed in Europe. Numerous European nations
have tactical weapons which can reach the Soviet--reach the Russian
Federation, formerly the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, because of our
superiority at sea, the Russian tactical weapons do not represent the
same kind of threat to the United States.
I then note that we have already addressed this issue in the Senate
ratification resolution, which states that ``the President should
pursue, following consultation with allies, an agreement with the
Russian Federation that would address the disparity between the
tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian Federation and the
United States and would secure and reduce the tactical nuclear weapons
in a verifiable manner.'' So it is already in the resolution of
ratification.
Then I would note that Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton said in
a letter:
We agree with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's call
in the resolution of Advice and Consent to ratification of
the New START treaty to pursue an agreement with the Russians
to address them.
Tactical weapons represents a thorny issue because it involves the
European powers and it involves disparities of geography. That it is
why it has been so hard to link them in the past to a strategic nuclear
treaty and why they have not done so in this case. But it is the
commitment by the Secretary of Defense, by the Secretary of State, by
the President, and by this Senate through this resolution of
ratification to pursue this issue that is important, and that is what
is before us now.
In terms of addressing this issue, there are changes that need to be
made to the language, to the ratification resolution. That would be
appropriate. But this treaty, which greatly enhances the security of
the United States of America while providing the appropriate
verification protocols, is absolutely essential.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, how much time do we still have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 16 minutes remaining.
Mr. KERRY. Sixteen? And the Senator from Idaho has--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Ten minutes.
Mr. KERRY. Ten. So somehow we are going past the hour of 3.
MR. RISCH. Unless, of course, you want to yield.
Mr. KERRY. Do you want to yield some time back?
Mr. RISCH. No.
Mr. KERRY. Let me use a portion of it, and I will reserve a little
bit at the end.
First of all, both Bill Perry, former Defense Secretary Bill Perry,
and Jim Schlesinger have been mentioned, as well as the Commission on
which they served. Let me make certain that the record is clear about
their position with respect to this treaty.
Secretary Perry said the following:
The focus of this treaty is on deployed warheads and it
does not attempt to counter or control nondeployed warheads.
This continues in the tradition of prior arms control
treaties. I would hope to see nondeployed and tactical
systems included in future negotiations, but the absence of
these systems should not detract from the merits of this
treaty and the further advance in arms control which it
represents.
Jim Schlesinger, from the same Commission, said:
The ratification of this treaty is obligatory. I wish more
of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were here to
hear Jim Schlesinger's comments, but he said ratification is
obligatory and the reason it is obligatory is that you really
can't get to the discussion you want to have with the
Russians about tactical unless you show the good faith to
have the strategic and verification reduction structure in
place.
Let me just say, supposing the language of the Senator from Idaho was
adopted here, would it mean we are reducing tactical nuclear weapons?
No. Would it get you any further down the road to be able to reduce
them? The answer is, not only would it not do that, it would set back
the effort to try to get those reductions because the Russians will not
engage in that discussion if you can't ratify the treaty, and if they
pass this amendment, this treaty, as Senator Levin said, is dead.
It goes back to the Russian Government with a provision that is now
linking those weapons in a way that they have not been willing to talk
about, even engage in the discussion at this point in time.
In fact, we would be setting ourselves backwards if that amendment
were to be put into effect. What is ironic about it is, he is amending
a component of the treaty that has no legal, binding impact whatsoever.
So not only would they refuse to negotiate, but there is nothing
legally binding in the language he would pass that would force them to
negotiate. So it is a double setback, if you will. I would simply say
to my friend on the other side--I talked to him privately about this,
and I think he is openminded on it--we have language in the resolution
right now with respect to nuclear weapons. We are not ignoring the
issue. The language says: The Senate calls on the President following
consultation with allies to get an agreement with the Russian
Federation on tactical nuclear weapons.
I am prepared in the resolution of ratification to entertain language
as a declaration that would also make the Senate's statement clear
about how we see those nuclear weapons in terms of their threat. I hope
that would address the concerns of many of our colleagues on the other
side of the aisle.
But the bottom line here is that Senator Risch's language not only
does not make any progress on the topic he is concerned about, it
actually sets back the capacity to be able to make the progress he
wants to make.
If you want to limit Russia's tactical nuclear weapons, and I do, and
he does, and I think all 100 Senators do, then you have to pass the New
START. You have got to approve the New START. If you reject it, you are
forcing a renegotiation, which never gets you not only to the tactical
nuclear weapons but which leaves you completely questionable as to
where you are going to go on the strategic nuclear weapons, which means
the world is less safe; we have lost our leverage significantly with
respect to Iran, North Korea; we have certainly muddied the
relationship significantly with respect to Russia; we have ``unpushed''
the restart button; and we have opened who knows what kind of can of
worms with respect to a whole lot of cooperative efforts that are
important to us now, not the least of which, I might add, is the war in
Afghanistan, where Russia is currently cooperating with us in providing
a secondary supply route and assisting us in other ways with respect to
Iran.
So I say, let's not do something that we know unravels all of these
particular components. Anytime you change that resolution of
ratification, it is like pulling, you know, a piece of string on a
sweater or on a yarn roll and everything starts to unravel as a
consequence. One piece undoes another piece undoes another piece. That
is not where we want to go.
I hope, obviously, we will say no to this amendment and proceed. I
reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, under the UC, I believe I have the last 10
minutes. Am I correct on that? I think that was the UC.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair believes that is correct.
Mr. RISCH. So when I finish, at the conclusion of the 10 minutes, we
will vote? Is that my understanding?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair believes that is correct.
Correction. The Senator from Massachusetts still has 10 minutes
remaining.
Mr. RISCH. My understanding is he can use that at any time and I get
the last 10.
[[Page S10723]]
Mr. KERRY. Unless the Senator says something completely outrageous,
which he has managed not to do in the course of the last 3 hours, I
have no intention of using the time. But I reserve it to preserve my
rights. I would be happy to yield it back after the Senator speaks,
depending on him.
Mr. RISCH. I thank the Senator. I will try not to disappoint in that
regard.
Mr. President, fellow Senators, distinguished chairman and ranking
member, I think certainly we have had a civil and a good airing of an
issue that is of considerable concern to, I think, every Member of this
body. I am a little disappointed in that we started out acknowledging
it was a very deep and serious concern to every Member of this body, as
it was to the commission, in their Report on America's Strategic
Posture.
I felt that along the line a little bit the concern was denigrated. I
want to back up on that one more time and say that, in my judgment, and
in the judgment of members of this commission, the issue of tactical
weapons exceeds, in severity, in concern, the issue of strategic
weapons.
I understand one might argue that you are arguing about how many
angels can dance on the head of a pin as opposed to which is of the
most concern. But I come back to the reasons I gave as to why I think
the tactical issue is important more than the strategic issue. That is,
on the strategic issue, we are in about the same position we were 40
years ago, with the exception, and admittedly an important exception,
that the raw numbers are down. When we started this 40 years ago, each
party had about 6,000 warheads. As I said, if either party pulled the
trigger and launched 6,000 or some significant part of that, obviously
that is the deterrence that each party was counting on that neither
would do that.
Today we are down to--and with all due respect to my good friend from
Massachusetts, the numbers reported in the press are 1,100 and 2,100. I
understand there is intelligence information that we cannot go into
here. But, in any event, I think most people would agree that we have
the advantage in numbers from a strategic standpoint.
Indeed, if the numbers are even close to that, the--whether it is
6,000 warheads or 1,000 warheads, when someone pulls the trigger, the
party is over for this world. So focusing on the raw numbers, when we
have got a 40-year history that we are not going to do that and they
are not going to do that, and most people agree that neither side is
inclined to pull the trigger, what are the real concerns?
The real concerns are an accidental launch from them, although
remote, possible, but, more importantly, an intentional launch by a
rogue nation. Obviously one would look at North Korea or one would look
at Iran in that regard.
In my judgment, the two issues that need to be focused on are the
defensive missile issue and the tactical nuclear weapons issue.
Let me say I agree with my good friend from Massachusetts and Senator
Levin, that geography is such that the issue of tactical weapons is
substantially more important on a direct basis to the Russians than it
is to us. After all, we are insulated by oceans on each side of us to
the east and the west, which the Russians do not enjoy, and they have a
several hundred-year history of seeing invasions come by land and
intermediately, which we do not have.
So in that regard I will concede certainly that the tactical issue is
important for them. And the good Senator from Massachusetts makes a
good point in that I think they would like to relocate, if they could,
their tactical weapons to be focused more on the Chinese threat and
perhaps more on the threat from the south, from other countries. We
ought to help them out in that regard by entering into negotiations in
that regard on the tactical weapons.
But I come back to the tactical weapons are an important issue.
Senator Levin says they are a concern. Senator Levin says, we should
not kill this treaty simply because of a concern, and I agree with
Senator Levin. I have not, from day one, said we ought to kill this
treaty. I have said from day one, everyone has convinced me, and I
think virtually everyone else, that we are much better off with a
treaty than we are without a treaty.
I think everyone has worked in good faith in that regard. But, on the
other hand, having said that, I do not think we should then throw in
the towel and say: Well, okay, we will agree to any treaty. That brings
me to the point of where we are. We are exercising our constitutional
right that every one of us--not only our right but our duty as a
Senator, to advise and consent on this treaty and any other treaty that
is put in front of us, and that is where I have problems.
The position we have been put in is these negotiations have gone on,
the treaty has been negotiated, it has been signed by the President,
and it has been put in front of us, and what we are told is, it is a
take it or leave it. If you do not vote for this, you are voting to
kill the treaty.
I disagree with that. I think simply because we amend the preamble to
this treaty is not a killer. Indeed, my good friend from Massachusetts
keeps telling us, the preamble does not mean anything, it is a throw-
away, the language is a throw-away, it does not mean anything.
Well, it does mean something, particularly when it comes to the
context in which you interpret and you react to the treaty. So to
everyone here, I say, you have the opportunity to set the restart
button with Russia, and we can do it by focusing on what is an
extremely important issue, which most everyone here agrees is an
extremely important issue, but nobody ever does anything about it.
So let's tell the negotiators: Go back to the table and at least
agree that the interrelationship between the strategic and tactical
weapons is an important issue, and we are not going to go on as we have
over the last 40 years. The times have changed. We trust you are not
going to pull the trigger on us, and you trust that we are not going to
pull the trigger on you. But this issue of tactical weapons where we
enjoy, if you would, a 10-to-1 disadvantage to the Russians, we have
tactical weapons that are out there that can be much more easily gotten
ahold of by terrorists than strategic weapons. We have tactical weapons
that continue to be designed, continue to be manufactured, and continue
to be deployed by the other side, in violation of their admittedly
individual Presidential initiatives, which needs to be addressed.
It is so important that people on this commission said that it should
be addressed before strategic weapons. You have the opportunity to put
that in here. There is no intent to kill this. It is an intent to make
it better. We have the right. We have the duty. We must advise and
consent. I urge that my colleagues vote in favor of this very good
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Has the time expired?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho has slightly less than
a minute left.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me say, as I yield back----
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, is the next vote going to be on this
amendment or are the judges going to be voted on first?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. The next vote is on the Risch
amendment.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I will yield back the time momentarily. I
want to say one thing. The commission report that the Senator refers to
and has held up, the two principal authors are former Secretary of
Defense, Bill Perry, who says: The absence of the tactical nuclear
should not detract from the merits of this treaty, and he is in favor
of our ratifying this treaty, and Jim Schlesinger, who was his
coauthor, who worked with Republican Presidents as a Secretary of
Defense, Secretary of Energy, said, ``The ratification of this treaty
is obligatory.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I say to Senator Kerry, I respect that. I
would remind everyone that I filed a letter dated December 17 to
Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar from six members of the commission,
including James Schlesinger, which says that:
Dealing with this imbalance is urgent--
Referring to the tactical weapons--
[[Page S10724]]
Dealing with this imbalance is urgent, and, indeed, some
Commissioners would give priority to this over taking further
steps to reduce the number of operationally deployed
strategic nuclear weapons.
I agree. I thank the good chairman and ranking member for a very good
dialogue on this particular issue.
I yield back my time.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 4839.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs.
Shaheen), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter), and the Senator
from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr.
DeMint), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the Senator from
Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr.
DeMint) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr.
Bunning) would have voted ``yea.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 32, nays 60, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 283 Ex.]
YEAS--32
Barrasso
Bond
Brown (MA)
Brownback
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Cornyn
Crapo
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Johanns
Kyl
LeMieux
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Thune
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--60
Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Bayh
Begich
Bennet
Bennett
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Gregg
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
NOT VOTING--8
Bunning
DeMint
Isakson
Kirk
Shaheen
Specter
Voinovich
Wyden
The amendment was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.