[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 11619]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 11619]]

               THE COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to talk for a moment about the 
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. That is a subject I suppose will 
glaze over the eyes of many, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. 
I was in my home State of North Dakota last week. The Senate was not in 
session. We did not have votes. I guess I was in
20 or 25 different communities all across the State, probably at three 
dozen different events, town meetings and speeches and various things. 
It will not surprise anyone to learn that the Comprehensive Nuclear 
Test Ban Treaty did not come up. We talked about farm policy. We talked 
about virtually every other thing. We talked about water policy, we 
talked about welfare, but at none of the meetings in which we discussed 
public issues did anyone raise the issue of the Comprehensive Nuclear 
Test Ban Treaty.
  I want to raise the question about this treaty because the President 
of the United States signed this treaty 2\1/2\ years ago and sent it to 
the Senate for ratification. This Senate did not hold a hearing on it 
during the 105th Congress, no hearing at all. It is now 6 months into 
the new Congress, with no hearing. I, with some of my colleagues, am 
organizing a letter to the appropriate committee and key people on the 
committee to say we would like to see movement here. If one Senator 
opposes this country joining the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 
then bring it out here and let's have that debate. I cannot conceive of 
significant opposition to a determination by so many countries in the 
world that we ought to prevent nuclear testing; we ought to have an 
agreement that we do not want the spread of nuclear weapons to 
additional countries.
  In the past year or so we have seen activities that concern me and 
many of my colleagues a great deal. We know how many countries possess 
nuclear weapons. Among those countries that are understood to possess 
nuclear weapons we can now add India and Pakistan, because each of them 
exploded nuclear weapons under each other's noses. These are two 
countries that do not like each other a great deal. There are great 
tensions. In fact, yesterday on the news you would have seen shelling 
on the border between Pakistan and India. Each of these countries 
exploded nuclear weapons, apparently just to show the other country 
they possess nuclear bombs.
  North Korea is testing medium-range missiles, firing missiles down 
range. The country of Iran is testing medium-range missiles. Are these 
things ominous? Of course they are. Terrorist states acquiring delivery 
mechanisms for long-range missiles and potentially, I assume, to send 
weapons of mass destruction to other parts of the world; is that an 
ominous development? You bet it is.
  We spent a lot of time here in the Senate talking about a national 
missile defense; if we could just get a national missile defense put in 
place in this country so if someone shoots a missile at our country we 
can go up and hit that bullet with a bullet. I guess we have spent $100 
billion over the years trying to do that. There is not much talk about 
the other things that have been far more successful, and that is arms 
reduction and test ban treaties banning nuclear tests, reducing nuclear 
weapons.
  With consent, I hold up here the part that was taken from the wing of 
a backfire bomber. This is the piece of a wing strut from a backfire 
bomber which had its wings sawed off at a former Soviet airbase in 
Priluki, Ukraine. During the cold war, when the Soviet Union was 
considered our adversary, the only way I could hold up a piece of the 
wing of one of their bombers was if we had shot the bomber down. So how 
does it happen I hold up a portion of a wing of a Soviet backfire 
bomber? That wing was cut off. Why was it cut off? This country helped 
provide the funds to cut the wings off bombers in the Soviet Union and 
now Russia and now the Ukraine.
  Why did they agree to that? Because we have an arms control reduction 
agreement in which missiles with nuclear warheads aimed at the United 
States of America that used to be buried in the ground in the Ukraine 
are now taken out of the ground and dismantled with the warhead still 
on. I displayed a picture on the floor of the Senate showing where a 
missile used to rest in a silo in the Ukraine with the warhead aimed at 
the United States of America. A sunflower field now exists there. No 
missile, no nuclear bomb--sunflowers. How did that missile get taken 
out? How did this backfire Soviet bomber wing get chopped off? We have 
arms reduction agreements with the Soviet Union, the old Soviet Union, 
and now Russia and the Ukraine, and they are working.
  We have people here who say: We do not care about those agreements. 
We want to build a national missile defense system. It doesn't matter 
what it costs. It doesn't matter whether it will work. We just want to 
spend the money so we will feel good.
  One part of what works in arms control, in my judgment, is the Nunn-
Lugar funds which we have spent that accomplished this. The second 
part, in my judgment, is to pass pieces of legislation that we know 
make sense for this country's future and for the safety of the world. 
One of those is the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This country 
needs to pass it. This Senate needs to ratify it. That is the way, as a 
country, we make judgments about it.
  I want to hold up a chart that shows the support for it. This was 
polling done in a range of States around the country: Oregon, Nebraska, 
Utah, Ohio, Kansas, Colorado, Tennessee--support for the Comprehensive 
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Look at it. Mr. President, 86 percent in favor 
to 10 percent in Oregon who believe we should not ratify this treaty. 
This country signed it; so have many other countries around the world, 
152 countries.
  This country has a responsibility, in my judgment, to provide 
leadership, and leadership will mean this Senate ought to ratify it. In 
order to do that, we must get this treaty out of the committee and get 
it to the floor and have a debate on it. I urge my colleagues who feel 
strongly about this to join me and say to the committee it is time, 
long past the time, when this Senate should ratify the Nuclear Test Ban 
Treaty.
  I will, in coming days, speak again on the floor on this issue and 
the importance of it. I hope I will be joined by plenty of colleagues 
who will encourage and urge and push, if necessary, the committee to 
bring this treaty to the floor. Give us a chance to debate this treaty 
and give us a chance to produce the votes to ratify this treaty, for 
this country's sake and for the sake of added security and safety in 
the world. We must prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. We must 
prevent the spread of technology that allows the delivery of nuclear 
weapons. One way to do that, in my judgment, is to prevent additional 
nuclear testing, and the way to do it is to ratify this treaty.
  It is long past the time to do it, and we ought to do it now and we 
ought to expect that be reported to the floor for debate in the next 2 
to 3 months.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.

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