[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 170 (Sunday, December 19, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10726-S10730]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

TREATY WITH RUSSIA ON MEASURES FOR FURTHER REDUCTION AND LIMITATION OF 
                  STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE ARMS--Continued

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we go to 
executive session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KERRY. We will now consider the START treaty. The Senator from 
Oklahoma has the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from South Dakota, 
Senator Thune.


                           Amendment No. 4841

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask that the pending Inhofe amendment be 
set aside in order to call up my amendment No. 4841.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 4841.

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with, and that we resume consideration of the 
Inhofe amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To modify the deployed delivery vehicle limits of the Treaty)

       In section 1(a) of Article II of the Treaty, strike ``700, 
     for deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy 
     bombers'' and insert ``720, for deployed ICBMs, deployed 
     SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers''.

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I will yield at this moment to the Senator 
from Wyoming----
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am trying to get a procedure in place. I 
ask my colleague from Oklahoma if it is possible, with my colleague 
from South Dakota, to enter into a time agreement. Obviously, we won't 
ask colleagues to come and vote tonight. Can we get a time agreement 
and set it aside for a vote at such time that the leadership decides is 
appropriate?
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I respond by saying that I will object to 
a time agreement at this time. Several people, including the Senator 
from Arizona, want to speak on this amendment. That might create a 
problem because of his activity on this amendment. Let's keep it 
moving, and I can assure you that I want to get out of here quicker 
than you do.
  Mr. KERRY. If that is true, let's go.
  Mr. INHOFE. At this time, I yield to the Senator from Wyoming on a 
subject of far greater significance than anything we have been talking 
about. I yield to the Senator from Wyoming to discuss something.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. It is a 
great pleasure for me to be able to make an announcement from the floor 
of the Senate. I ask unanimous consent to share my joy as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Enzi and Mr. Inhofe are printed in today's Record 
under ``Morning Business.'')


                           Amendment No. 4833

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have another amendment that is up that 
I think is very significant. It is one having to do with verification.
  I think if we look at all of the problems we are trying to address 
with amendments--we have been talking about missile defense, which is 
the one I have been most passionate about; we have been talking about 
other areas, too--in the case of verification, it is very significant 
to understand that this New START treaty has remarkably less 
verification than the START I treaty did. There are only 180 
inspections over 10 years under New START versus 600 inspections over 
15 years in START I. That is a drop of 40 inspections per year to 18 
inspections per year.
  In a minute, I will tell you why I think it is more precipitous than 
that because of the significance of the inspections as the arsenals are 
dropping

[[Page S10727]]

down in terms of the percentage of inspections versus the arsenals.
  The New START treaty inspections to verify the elimination of nuclear 
weapons delivery systems have been fundamentally changed from those in 
START I, replaced with a lesser provision of twice a year permitting 
the other party to view the debris from half of the eliminated first 
stages.
  In a minute I will break these down, but what I am talking about is 
that we have a treaty now that addresses two things. Type one is the 
ICBM bases, the submarine bases and the air bases. These are delivery 
systems. I think this has to be talked about as well as the actual 
warheads. The type two refers to the formerly declared facilities to 
confirm that such facilities are not being used for purposes 
inconsistent with the treaty.
  Now, when I say that, we were talking about trying to verify those 
things that are in existence today but also those that have been 
eliminated. In the first START I treaty, we were able to actually 
witness the destruction of these various warheads and of the systems 
that are under the consideration of this treaty. As it is now under the 
New START treaty, we cannot witness it. All we can do is look at the 
debris that remains after something is destroyed.
  Now, my concern is this: If you keep the debris around from something 
you have destroyed, you could use the same debris, as evidenced under 
the New START treaty, to show you have destroyed something that was 
destroyed in the past and not addressing those that are still there 
today. So in that area, I think this is very difficult.
  Finally, under the New START treaty, 24 hours of advance notice is 
required before an inspection, dramatically increased from the 9 hours 
of advance notice required under old START. Why is this important? This 
is important because as we get down to fewer and fewer inspections that 
would be made because we are limiting the arms under the treaty, then 
you should actually have a longer period of time of advance notice of 
the inspections.
  So I have an amendment that will correct these inadequacies. The 
amendment triples the number of inspections under New START for the two 
types of inspections referred to under START I as the type one and type 
two inspections. I mentioned the type one and type two, and this would 
actually triple the number of inspections. Type one would increase from 
10 to 30 inspections a year; type two inspections would increase from 8 
to 24--the total being 54 inspections.
  On July 20, 2010, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for 
Policy, that is James N. Miller, testified before the Senate Armed 
Services Committee--and I was there--that the Russian cheating or 
breakout under the treaty would have little effect because of the 
United States second-strike strategy nuclear capabilities.
  I wholeheartedly disagree. The whole idea that we would say the 
current Under Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration--what he 
is doing is admitting the Russians cheat, but he is saying it does not 
matter.
  I would say this: The smaller the size of the nuclear arsenal--that 
is what we have today as in New START--the larger impact cheating has 
on a strategic nuclear balance. In other words, if you are cheating 
with a smaller nuclear arsenal, that is much more significant than if 
it were a large one. It is a percentage of a smaller figure. So if it 
is 50 percent of a smaller figure, it would have been 10 percent of the 
larger figure, of the nuclear arsenals that were there under the 
original START treaty.
  Increasing the number of type one and two inspections is critical to 
New START verification because the total number of inspections has been 
dramatically reduced in New START from the old START. So as the weapons 
decreased, inspections should actually increase or be enhanced.
  Former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown explained this when he said 
why this is the case in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee or the original START treaty, and that was in October of 
1991. He said:

       Verification will become even more important as the numbers 
     of strategic nuclear weapons on each side decreases because 
     uncertainties of a given size become a larger percentage of 
     the total force as this occurs.

  That was way back in 1991. Since then you had former Under Secretary 
of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton who 
stated this year, on May 3:

       While [verification is] important in any arms control 
     treaty, verification becomes even more important at lower 
     warhead levels.

  They agree, and we are talking about going all the way back to 1997. 
In 1997, Brent Scowcroft and Arnold Kantor said, in a joint statement:

       Current force levels provide a kind of buffer because they 
     are high enough to be relatively insensitive to imperfect 
     intelligence and modest force changes. . . . As force levels 
     go down, the balance of nuclear power can become increasingly 
     delicate and vulnerable to cheating on arms control limits 
     concerns about ``hidden'' missiles and the actions of nuclear 
     third parties.

  That was 1996. You have 1991, 1997, then present, and, of course, in 
May of this year in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 
former Secretary of State James Baker summarized that the New START 
verification regime is weaker than its predecessor, testifying to 
Congress that the New START verification program ``does not appear as 
rigorous or extensive as the one that verified the numerous or diverse 
treaty obligations 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.''

       They all are consistent, agreeing No. 1: Russians cheat 
     and, No. 2, verification becomes more important as the 
     arsenals decreased in size.

  I think we can say Russia has essentially violated every arms control 
treaty we have had with them in the past. The State Department this 
year submitted a report on foreign country compliance with their arms 
control measures. This is a report that came out this year, in 2010. 
They refer to the last report which was 2005. START:

       There is a number of long-standing compliance issues--such 
     as an obstruction to U.S. right to inspect warheads--raised 
     in the START Treaty's Joint Compliance and Inspection 
     Commission that remained unresolved when the treaty expired 
     in December.

  This commission endured the time all the way up to December 2009, in 
different areas. In the biological weapons convention--there are a lot 
of different kinds of weapons of mass destruction. They are not all 
nuclear--biological, chemical, conventional. In the biological weapons 
convention in 2005, the State Department concluded that ``Russia 
maintains a mature offensive biological weapons program and its nature 
and status have not changed.''
  Then, in 2010, the State Department report said: Russian confidence-
building measure declarations since 1992 have not satisfactorily 
documented whether its biological weapons program was terminated.
  What they are saying is even back in 2005 they say it was inadequate 
because they are still continuing, they are violating the accord. This 
is back in 2005, on biological weapons. Then that was renewed in 2010, 
saying they are still not doing it today. That was biological weapons.
  On chemical weapons we find the same thing. In 2005 the State 
Department assessed that ``Russia was in violation of its Chemical 
Weapons Convention obligations because its declaration was incomplete 
with respect to declaration of production and development facilities.''
  In 2010 the State Department again stated that there was an ``absence 
of additional information from Russia, resulting in the United States 
being unable to ascertain whether Russia has declared all of its 
chemical weapons stockpile, all chemical weapons production facilities, 
and all of its chemical weapons development facilities.''
  With biological weapons, they have not complied there; in the 
chemical weapons, they have not complied there; with conventional 
weapons in Europe, the United States notes in the 2010 report that 
``Russia's actions have resulted in noncompliance with its treaty 
obligations.''
  The Wall Street Journal recently reported, according to U.S. 
officials, the United States believes Russia has moved short-range 
tactical nuclear warheads to facilities near NATO allies as recently as 
this spring.
  I think the Senator from Idaho covered this to some degree. We are 
concerned about those tactical problems. I guess what we can say is, we 
know one

[[Page S10728]]

thing and nobody seems to disagree with this: Russia cheats. But there 
are five things to be considered. One is there are fewer inspections 
than there were under the old one. Second, instead of actually seeing 
the destruction of these warheads, we depend on the debris that remains 
after the destruction has taken place.
  I think everyone understands if we are depending on debris, we can be 
looking at debris from one destruction effort and they can declare that 
they have done it three or four times since then, using the same 
debris.
  Third is, advance notice is three times longer now. It should be 
shorter now because of more significance. As we get the smaller 
stockpile, we should have a greater compliance requirement.
  The fourth is weapons decrease--we should be paying more attention to 
them.
  No. 5, Russia does cheat.
  I believe of all the amendments, the amendments on the missile 
defense are significant. It concerns me that we have something, as I 
said on the floor yesterday, and I quoted, several Russians from the 
very beginning were saying: We don't want the United States--and it is 
the intent of this treaty--to be able to enhance their missile defense 
treaties.
  Right now, I look at this and, as I said several times: This is fine, 
the treaty, except it is with the wrong people. This treaty is with 
Russia, not with where the threat is--not with North Korea, not with 
Iran. That is where the problem is.
  I have had very strong feelings. I disagreed with taking down the 
termination of the ground-based system that was to be in Poland because 
our intelligence tells us--it is not even classified--that Iran will 
have the capability of sending a nuclear warhead and having a delivery 
system reaching as far as the eastern part of the United States by 
2015. We, with a ground-based interceptor site in Poland, would have 
had that opportunity. But now that that site is down, we would be 
dependent, as I showed on a chart yesterday, on a 2-B system that we 
don't even know--they say maybe it will be done by 2020. We have no 
assurance it will.
  Look at that: We the United States will be naked in this effort for a 
period of time between 2015 and at least 2020. Maybe even longer than 
that.
  All these things are important. But this one is equally important 
because it does not do any good to have a verification system that is 
as flawed as this system.
  We will have an opportunity to talk about this in more detail. For 
that reason it is my understanding, and I assure the Senator from 
Massachusetts that my being unwilling to agree to a time agreement is 
not--this is not going to shorten it at all. It is my intention to move 
on with this as soon as we can get to it. I understand it is pretty 
well locked in for tomorrow.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I know 
he is not trying to prolong it. I was just trying to see if we can get 
a time certain now, but I am confident we will.
  I do not know if the Senator from South Dakota----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. I apologize. I don't know if the Senator from South Dakota 
is planning to be here? I ask if anybody knows whether he is.
  Let me speak to the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma for a few 
minutes. I thank him for this amendment on verification. It is an 
amendment that will help us to flesh out this question of verification, 
which is important to anybody in the Senate. I guess three words that 
have become famous beyond what people might have thought when they were 
first uttered is the pronouncement of President Reagan, ``trust, but 
verify,'' which at the time was accompanied by his articulation of the 
Russian words for that.
  Obviously, any agreement we would enter into with the Russians, or 
with anybody, can never rely completely on somebody's word--either 
word--because neither side is going to be satisfied with somebody's 
word with whom they have the necessity of actually having to reach this 
kind of an agreement to reduce weapons that are pointed at each other 
for lots of different reasons over a long period of time.
  I assure the Senator from Oklahoma that every Senator on our side--
and most importantly the unbelievably experienced negotiators who put 
this treaty together, who made a lifetime of trying to understand these 
kinds of relationships and the ways in which to adequately verify--they 
would not be standing in front of the country and the world and the 
Congress saying to us this treaty provides better verification in many 
ways than we had previously.
  Tomorrow, in the classified session, we will have an opportunity to 
dig into a little bit of what exactly those ingredients are that fill 
that out--better. I am not going to go into them all now.
  But let me talk specifically about the amendment the Senator has 
proposed. He proposes an amendment to the treaty itself, which we all 
understand now after two votes, both of which have been to reject a 
change to the treaty itself because of the implications of changing it. 
Those do not change here with this particular amendment. But let me go 
beyond that so we, hopefully, could enlist the opposition to this 
amendment of some people who will see why it is unnecessary and, in 
fact, conceivably even counterproductive.
  The Senator wants to increase the number of type one inspections. I 
might add this concept of a type one inspection and a type two 
inspection is new to the New START treaty. It is new to the process. 
What the Senator would like to do is triple the number of inspections 
currently set forth in the treaty.
  The second reason, after the question of why you do not want, for 
this reason particularly, to amend the treaty, there might be a 
circumstance where a treaty were so egregious or it presented us with 
such a challenge that the Senate might decide to advise and consent, 
and we would all say we ought to send this back. But this does not rise 
to that level, in my judgment, and I think colleagues will share that 
opinion.
  Let me say why.
  We can achieve effective verification with the number of inspections 
that are set forth in the treaty. Admiral Mullen has said we can, the 
Strategic Command says we can, the national intelligence community says 
we can--the people responsible for verification. This treaty would 
never have been sent to the Senate if this treaty did not have adequate 
verification measures in it that would allow the intelligence community 
to sign off and say to Senators: Please vote for this treaty.
  But let's go underneath that and examine it a little bit. That is the 
judgment of our military, the State Department, our intelligence 
community. James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, told 
us we should approve this treaty the earlier, the sooner, the better. I 
think we need to heed his judgment and the judgment of our military.
  The Senator expresses the concern that there are fewer inspections 
here than the original START treaty had. In sort of on-its-face terms, 
that is a truth. That is a true statement if you simply compared the 
total number that existed in START I and you compare the number that 
are set forth in the New START. But that is not what we are comparing.
  The reason for that is, in 1992, when we approved START I, there were 
four countries that we were approving inspections for--Belarus, 
Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Russia--because they all had nuclear 
facilities. There were about 70 sites that we inspected back then in 
1992.
  But as we all know, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of cold 
warriors for years and years from the end of World War II until this 
historic moment of 1992, the fact is, we were inspecting those 70 sites 
with a very different relationship and a very different world.
  Today, the New START agreement only seeks 35 Russian sites to inspect 
because Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine no longer have any nuclear 
weapons. Those weapons were consolidated in Russia, and the sites in 
Russia were reduced. So you do not want an apples and oranges 
comparison here. The comparison of how many fixed number of inspections 
there were back in 1992 is simply not applicable to what you need in 
2010, given the change of locations, the change of relationship,

[[Page S10729]]

and the numbers of sites where there are nuclear weapons.
  The comparison is also problematic beyond that because, in fact, 
under the New START, the inspections we do have, because of the way 
they have been set up in the type one, type two and the way they have 
been laid out, they are actually about two inspections equivalent to 
one inspection under START I.
  Let me explain that. Under the original START treaty, an inspection 
of a missile to see whether it had too many warheads, that inspection 
of a missile was counted as a separate inspection from so-called update 
inspections of the base. In other words, there was an inspection of the 
base, which might take place because we had been told or learned that 
there was some change in delivery vehicles or other aspects of the 
base. So we could go to the base and have an update inspection, and 
that was counted as a separate inspection from the inspection of a 
missile that might have been located there.
  But under the new START, we are allowed to conduct up to ten type one 
inspections a year, and each inspection includes both the counting of 
the warheads mounted on one missile bomber and the conducting of the 
equivalent of the START I treaty separate update inspection. So you get 
two for one--two inspections for one.
  So you cannot compare these inspections in the way the Senator from 
Oklahoma has. Ten type one and eight type two inspections per year, 
under the New START agreement, is at least comparable to the 15 data 
update inspections and 10 reentry vehicle inspections we had under the 
old START. The 10 reentry vehicle inspections per year under New START 
are the same as under the old START. So the truth is, the inspection 
numbers under New START are comparable to those under the original 
START treaty.
  That is precisely why our military and intelligence officials told us 
this number would be sufficient to comply, to provide verification 
compliance with this treaty. As I said, we can discuss more of this in 
the closed session tomorrow. I wish to remind my colleagues, tripling 
the number of inspections per year, as the Senator's amendment would 
require, is not a freebie. It is not something we can just say to the 
Russians: we are going to triple your inspections. Guess what. They are 
going to demand the same number of inspections of us.
  Our military bases would have to be prepared to host three times as 
many inspections per year as they are currently preparing for. Frankly, 
that could certainly disrupt day-to-day operations of strategic forces. 
Anytime the Russians select one of our bases for inspections, we would 
have to lock down the movements of any treaty items at that base for 24 
hours before and throughout the inspection, which is at least another 
day. That means dropping everything, stopping any movements of our 
delivery vehicles, halting any work on these systems, and you have to 
get ready to protect any unrelated classified information that you do 
not want the Russians to see.
  So I think it is one thing to ask our strategic nuclear forces to do 
that 10 times a year or less than once a month. It is another thing for 
them to be waiting for 30 inspections a year. We have two submarine 
bases, three bomber bases, and three ICBM bases that are going to be 
subject to type one inspections. If we follow through with those 
amendments, frankly, I think our base commanders, not to mention the 
Pentagon, would be less than satisfied. Right now, they are comfortable 
with what we have in this treaty. But far more important, they are 
comfortable we can verify, which is the key to the ratification of any 
treaty.
  Let me also remind my colleagues that the verification provisions in 
this treaty were developed with the concerns and the perspective of the 
U.S. Department of Defense totally in that mix. They helped guide what 
came out here. ADM Mike Mullen agreed. Let me quote him: ``The 
verification regimes that exist in the New START treaty is in ways 
better than the one that has existed in the past.''
  Why would we want to challenge that? Why would we want to open now a 
whole new can of worms of renegotiation when we think what we have is 
better than what we had previously?
  Admiral Mullen also stated he is convinced the verification regime is 
as stringent as it is transparent and borne of more than 15 years of 
lessons learned under the original START treaty.
  General Chilton has said:

       Without New START, we would rapidly lose some of our 
     insight into Russian strategic nuclear force developments and 
     activities, and our force modernization planning and hedging 
     strategy would be more complex and more costly.

  Let me also quote a letter Secretary Gates sent me this summer about 
whether Russia could cheat on this treaty in a manner that would be 
militarily significant. He said:

       The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs 
     Commander, the U.S. Strategic Command, and I, assess that 
     Russia will not be able to achieve militarily significant 
     cheating or breakout under New START due to both the New 
     START verification regime, and the inherent survivability and 
     flexibility of the planned U.S. strategic force structure. 
     Our analysis of the NIE and the potential for Russian 
     cheating or breakout confirms that the treaty's verification 
     regime is effective, and that our national security is 
     stronger with this treaty than without it.

  I mentioned before that Ronald Reagan was one great advocate for this 
kind of verification. So I wish to quote what Condoleezza Rice wrote 
the other week:

       The New START treaty helpfully reinstates on-site 
     verification of Russian nuclear forces which lapsed with the 
     expiration of the original START treaty last year. Meaningful 
     verification was a significant achievement of Presidents 
     Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and its reinstatement is 
     crucial.

  Finally, I would like to point out that we addressed the importance 
of this verification question in condition 2 of the resolution of 
ratification. That condition requires that before New START can enter 
into force, and every year thereafter, the President has to certify to 
the Senate that our national technical means, in conjunction with the 
verification activities provided for in the New START treaty, are 
sufficient to ensure the effective monitoring of Russian compliance 
with provisions of the New START treaty and timely warning of any 
Russian preparation to breakout of the limits. So we are going to 
remain seized of this issue for every year the treaty is in force.
  So not only could we lose the treaty if this amendment were to pass, 
not only could we impose unwanted and unneeded requirements on our 
military bases and our military, not only would we not effectively 
increase the verification because of the advantages that were built 
into the New START treaty by our negotiators, which have been attested 
to by the very people who need to enforce it, not only that, but we 
could be without any verification at all for maybe 1 year, 2 years, 
longer, who knows whether we get any agreement or not.
  Clearly, that exposes our country in ways I do not think we want to, 
and it certainly is no guarantee of an increase in the inspections 
themselves.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me make a couple of comments and 
observations. I know the Senator from Massachusetts started out by 
saying we have to take someone's word for it. My concern is, and I 
agree with his statement in reference to quotes that were made by 
Ronald Reagan, the ``trust, but verify.''
  He also said, and when I look at this, I think this is--I think it is 
flawed in all the ways we talked about this before. But I remember the 
statement actually, I was here, when Reagan came back from Iceland. He 
said what Mr. Gorbachev was demanding at Reykjavik was that the United 
States agree to a new version of the 14-year-old ABM Treaty that the 
Soviet Union had already violated. I told him we don't make those kinds 
of deals in the United States. We prefer no agreement than to bring 
home a bad agreement to the United States.
  I think we are--most of us who have questions that were unanswered 
and we want amendments--are those who do not believe this is a good 
treaty.
  When the Senator talks about the number of inspections, let's keep in 
mind when we did the first treaty, we were only inspecting new 
facilities, existing facilities, facilities that could be used, 
warheads that could be used, looking at the MIRV situation.
  But now, on this one, we also want to inspect to make sure those 
things they had agreed to destroy they actually

[[Page S10730]]

have destroyed. That is why I talked about the debris--rather than 
seeing something destroyed, they look at the debris that is left over.
  On the argument, on the fact that you talked about the one time in 
Kazakhstan and Ukraine. When you look at the vastness of Russia, I 
remember--and one thing the Senator from Massachusetts and I have in 
common is we both are aviators. I had occasion--I will share with my 
friend from Massachusetts--a few years to fly an airplane around the 
world, replicating the flight of Wiley Post, a very famous Oklahoman.
  In doing this, I went all the way from Moscow to Provideniya, all the 
way across Siberia. I can remember going from time zone after time zone 
and not seeing anything except vast wilderness and perhaps a few bears 
now and then.
  When I think about the areas they have where things can be hidden, 
compared to any of these other countries, including our own, it is kind 
of a scary thing.
  I do believe we need to have the opportunity to increase the 
inspections because there is so much more area to inspect. The idea 
that it is not a freebie--I know it is not. I know anything in this 
treaty that I would change, such as the number of inspections, would 
apply to us as well as them. I understand that. But in that respect, I 
don't mind doing it because there is one big difference between the 
United States and Russia: They cheat and we don't. It is fine with me 
if we have to subject ourselves to a greater number of inspections so 
long as we can do the same with them.
  I will stand by the statements made and also the statements that were 
discovered in the 2010 Department report which I quoted from having to 
do with biological weapons, chemical weapons, and conventional forces 
in Europe. I am glad to repeat the quotes, but I don't think I have to. 
In 2010, the State Department said that Russia's confidence-building 
measure declarations since 1992 have not satisfactorily been 
documented, whether it is biological weapons or any other program, such 
as chemical weapons. So with the fact that they have not complied as 
they stated they would in the past--and we are now dealing with that--I 
think we have to take more precautions, more inspections, more 
verifications, because they have demonstrated clearly that they are not 
telling the truth, and they have not complied with commitments in the 
past.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I will not engage in a long discussion. I 
don't know if the Senator from Indiana wants to say something.
  First of all, I am envious of that flight. I would love to have made 
that. Secondly, as the Senator knows--and I think I will reserve most 
of this for the classified session tomorrow--we have great ability to 
observe construction in Siberia or any part of Russia and to notice 
changes of various kinds, notwithstanding the vastness. Yes, there have 
been occasions when there have been some misunderstandings or 
differences of opinion about enforcement requirements. We have had some 
differences on those things. We can again discuss some of those in 
closed session. But the treaties have worked. The process set up by 
which we get into dispute resolution and sort of raise these issues has 
worked. When we notice something they are doing that we think is, in 
fact, not in compliance or likewise when they have with us, we have 
gotten together, and, because of the treaty, we have come into a 
discussion, and we have worked those things through.
  I think our intelligence community's conclusion is that they have 
never exceeded the limits, though there have been some 
misunderstandings about sort of the process of getting from one place 
to another with respect to one system or another.
  Let's have that discussion in a place where we can do it without a 
sense of restraint, but I think it is a good one to have. I look 
forward to continuing that with my colleague.
  I don't know if the Senator from Indiana has anything he wants to 
add.
  Mr. President, I understand the Senator from South Dakota will not be 
here, so unless there is another Senator seeking recognition or looking 
for an amendment to be acted on at this point, I yield the floor and 
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. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Let me make one last comment. I think the Senator from 
Massachusetts is right that we have covered enough of this tonight. 
There are some things that would be worth going into in a closed 
session. One thing that doesn't have to be in a closed session is the 
fact that there is a long record of Russians not complying with the 
first treaty. I would rather use another word than ``cheating,'' but 
that is one that everyone understands, and that has characterized 
Russia's behavior in previous treaties.
  The statement we are making right now, everyone is in agreement that 
the lower the arsenal becomes, the more significant it is for 
inspections for verification. I think everyone is in agreement with 
that. That is something that is probably the strongest point of our 
argument.
  The last thing I will say is just to repeat something I said for 
which I was a little bit overwhelmed when I said it. This is the first 
in 51 years that we have missed our wedding anniversary. And what I was 
trying to say before I got choked up is to my wife at home: I love you 
more today than I did 51 years ago.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

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