[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26273-26275]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         ABM TREATY WITHDRAWAL

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to take just a few moments today to 
place President Bush's announcement that he is withdrawing the United 
States from the 1972 ABM Treaty into a broader context, to try and 
redefine a debate about our security which too often has been argued at 
the margins.
  The undergirding objective behind any American foreign policy should 
be to make Americans safer, to make our position in the world more 
secure, not less. That is the only objective measurement of foreign 
policy, and it is by that measurement that I want to offer any 
construction concerns about today's announcement.
  First, let me be clear: I support the development of an effective 
defense against ballistic missiles that it deployed with maximum 
transparency and consultation with U.S. allies and with other major 
powers, including Russia and China. I've voted as has the Senate, to 
support an approach which delivers that kind of security measure. In 
the end, it boils down to common sense: If there is a real potential of 
a rogue nation firing a few missiles at any city in the U.S., 
responsible leadership requires that we make our best, most thoughtful 
efforts to defend against that threat. The same is true of accidental 
launch. If it ever happened, no leader could ever explain not having 
chosen to defend against the disaster when doing so made sense.
  The broader question we must ask today is what constitutes not just 
effective defense against the ballistic missile threat, but whether in 
its entirety we are pursuing a national security strategy which makes 
us as safe as we can be against the whole range of threats we face as a 
nation, and what should have been clear before September 11 and what is 
evident with frightening clarity today is that there are urgent and 
immediate vulnerabilities to our security which can and must be 
addressed, practically, pragmatically, today.
  The President's announcement today reflects, I fear, misplaced 
priorities--an unyielding obsession almost with a threat which most 
measurements would suggest is of lesser likelihood, and an almost 
cavalier willingness to nickel and dime security priorities of the 
first order. I remain disappointed that the Bush Administration 
continues to focus so much on its attention on the issue of missile 
defense and a missile defense plan which will be enormously expensive 
while at the same time they cite expense as a reason why they will not 
today make the investment towards meeting our tremendous homeland 
security challenges.
  Missile defense is important, but it is a response of last resort, 
when diplomacy and deterrence have failed. No missile defense system 
can be 100 percent effective, and so we would be remiss to discard 
entirely the logic of deterrence that has kept us safe for 40 years. 
Even in periods of intense animosity and tension, under the most 
unpredictable and isolated of regimes, political and military 
deterrence have a powerful, determining effect on a nation's decision 
to use force. We saw it at work in the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein 
was deterred from using his weapons of mass destruction by the sure 
promise of a devastating response from the United States. For 30 years, 
the ABM Treaty has helped to anchor nuclear deterrence, and I believe 
that people of the world have been safer for it. Yes, I would have 
preferred that the Bush administration continue to work with Russia to 
find a way to amend, rather than end, the ABM Treaty. It appears that 
Russia was willing to allow the Bush administration great leeway in 
pursing its robust testing plan for missile defense, but the President 
was unwilling to accept any restrictions on his plans. Given their past 
statements, it comes as no surprise that the Administration does not 
seem to have offered much to Russia by way of a compromise or an 
attempt to amend and preserve the Treaty. What the Administration has 
done, and it is their prerogative to do so, is gamble successfully on 
the fact that the Russian leadership would wisely determine not to 
allow this issue to derail the improvements we have seen in the last 3 
months in the U.S.-Russian relationship. President Putin has called 
this decision on the ABM Treaty a mistake and expressed his regret that 
President Bush intends to go forward with this, but Putin and others in 
his administration have pledged that they will continue to work with us 
on reducing strategic nuclear arsenals and building a new Russian 
relationship with NATO. The response from Russia could have been much 
different, much more dangerous and destabilizing, and I believe it 
would have been, before the events of September 11 changed Russia's 
perception of the threats it faces and the importance of cooperating 
with the United States. But I am gratified that the Russians remain 
partners in a global effort to increase security.
  The situation with China is more murky. While the administration has 
briefed the Chinese leadership on its missile defense plans, I don't 
believe enough time or diplomatic effort has been invested in 
convincing Beijing that this system is not directed at eroding China's 
small nuclear deterrent. The Administration must do more to reach a 
common understanding with China that there is a real threat from 
isolated regimes bent on terrorism and accidental or unauthorized 
launches. If we fail to take this task seriously, we will jeopardize 
stability in the Pacific.

[[Page 26274]]

  But, in my judgment, what is more striking about the President's 
announcement today is the homeland security measures left unaddressed, 
and unfunded, in the Administration's security wish list.
  In his statements about missile defense over the last several months, 
President Bush has said over and over that this is only one part of a 
comprehensive national security strategy. I could not agree more, but I 
am deeply concerned that the President's words are not matched by the 
deeds of his administration. Especially in the world after September 
11, a comprehensive national security strategy must emphasize the 
things we need to do to keep the American people safe from terrorism. 
But just last week, the President defeated attempts by Democrats in the 
Senate to provide additional funding for homeland security as part of 
the Defense Department appropriations bills.
  I am deeply concerned that, at a time when the Administration tells 
us that financial resources for defense are highly limited, we must be 
more prudent about our spending priorities, we need a debate about 
choices for our national security agenda.
  Let's be clear about what every national security expert told us 
before September 11 and has amplified since. We need to fund our 
efforts to deliver airline and rail security, border security, the 
ability of our fire fighters, police and emergency workers to respond 
to terrorist attacks, and the ability of our health care system to 
respond to the threat we face from bio-terrorism. And we are at war. We 
need to ensure that our fighting men and women have the tools and 
support they need to prosecute this war on terrorism successfully. 
Finding an effective defense against missile attacks is important, but 
these challenges are immediate, critical, and regrettably they are 
being left unmet today.
  Pushing forth first and foremost with national missile defense does 
nothing to address what the Pentagon, even before September 11, 
considered a much more likely and immediate threat to the American 
homeland from terrorists and non-state actors, who might attack us with 
weapons of mass destruction. As we are learning more about Osama bin 
Ladin's attempts to possibly acquire nuclear weapons and develop 
chemical or biological weapons, it is crucial that we stay focused on 
meeting the WMD threat.
  Our first defense against that threat is a robust international 
effort on non-proliferation. but the President's FY 2002 budget 
actually cut U.S. funding for counter-proliferation programs to deal 
with the huge weapons stockpiles of the former Soviet Union. Our former 
colleague, Senator Howard Baker, was part of a study of these counter-
proliferation programs released earlier this year. That study concluded 
that the threat of proliferation from the weapons stockpiles of the 
former Soviet Union is very grave, and efforts to secure and destroy 
those weapons demand our immediate, robust support. The study 
recommended an increase of $30 million in funding for these programs, 
but supporters of these programs on both sides of the aisle have 
struggled mightily just to keep the funding from being slashed.
  Consider also the homeland security needs so clearly being given 
short shrift in an agenda dominated by national missile defense. Our 
security needs are enormous, for certainly the last months have at 
least demonstrated where some of the vulnerabilities lie.
  We must shore up not just the safety of our nuclear plants around the 
country, but plants and nuclear weapons facilities around the globe. 
From making nuclear facilities less vulnerable from the air, to 
investing in the trained personnel to ensure that cargo ships in 
American ports are not carrying dangerous or stolen nuclear materials 
meaningful steps can be taken to protect Americans against a threat 
which was real before September 11 and looms larger today.
  The Administration can't speak about preparing to deal with 
bioterrorism, and in the next breath ignore that medicine must be 
stockpiled, that nurses and medical professionals must be trained, and 
that massive investments in vaccines for diseases long believed to have 
been eradicated must be made at a rapid pace.
  We can't honor firefighters, police and rescue workers who died in 
the World Trade Center if we aren't willing to invest in the technology 
and innovation that make these jobs safer. There is little solace for 
postal workers killed by Anthrax if the government is not committed to 
putting in place innovative ways to detect and combat future biological 
and chemical threats.
  Making our Nation's rail system safe will come with a high price tag, 
but it's trivial compared to the devastation that could be wrought by a 
single terrorist attack on passenger rail. More than 300,000 people 
pass through the century-old rail tunnels under New York City each day, 
tunnels lacking both ventilation and sufficient emergency exits. It is 
time to shore up the security of our transportation infrastructure 
before they become targets, not when it is too late.
  These are security needs of a nation at war and a nation bent on 
returning to normalcy in the months and years ahead, and they must be 
addressed. I would say to you today, it's time we break out of a debate 
over whether we're going to have a missile defense system or rely 
entirely on deterrence, a fruitless debate, ideological shadow-boxing 
and end the days of arguing at the margins. We need a serious, 
thoughtful debate on the comprehensive steps required, in every issue 
of national security, to make our Nation as safe as it can be, and 
until we do that we are not offering the kind of leadership our 
citizens and our country demands of us. And that is a debate of the 
first order of urgency, a debate too important to delay.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed that the 
President has announced that the United States is withdrawing from the 
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The President is adamantly pursuing a 
unilateral approach at a time when we so clearly need international 
cooperation in the war against terrorism. We now know beyond dispute 
that we cannot simply withdraw within our border, with a magical shield 
to protect us. All our gold-plated weapons systems could not prevent 
the terrorist attack, and they can't hunt down every terrorist. Our 
national security depends on international intelligence, international 
law enforcement, international financial transactions, international 
aid, in short on our relations with other nations.
  Yet for the first time since World War II we are walking away from a 
major treaty, dismaying our friends and inciting those who could become 
our enemies. While Russian President Putin has given a measured 
response, I fear our intransigence could endanger cooperation not only 
on terrorism in Asia but also on further reductions in nuclear arms. 
And China, whose much smaller missile arsenal is most directly 
threatened by our missile defense plans, will almost certainly build 
more missiles, making the world less safe.
  For our close allies, abandoning what we used to call the 
``cornerstone'' of arms control is just the latest in a series of 
provocations. Last week we torpedoed negotiations on the Biological 
Weapons Convention, having earlier axed a verification protocol, at a 
time when we face a biological weapon attack. Wouldn't a little 
verification of foreign labs that use anthrax be useful right now? We 
abandoned negotiations on the Kyoto global warming accord, gutted the 
small arms treaty, and walked away from the United Nations Conference 
on Racism. We rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and dismissed 
the convention on land mines. How can we expect full cooperation from 
other nations on terrorism, when we dismiss their concerns, refusing 
even to negotiate, on critical issues including biological weapons, 
nuclear arms control, and global warming?
  Make no mistake, we have no technical need to withdraw from the ABM 
treaty at this time. Most experts agree that research and testing could 
continue for years without violating the present treaty. And the 
Russians have offered to amend the treaty if needed.

[[Page 26275]]

Unfortunately, this administration refused to take yes for an answer. 
If we are to maintain international cooperation in defeating the 
terrorists, and also in protecting the global environment, ending child 
labor abuses and promoting human rights, and improving the global 
economy, we must ourselves show some regard for international norms and 
concerns. Friendship is not a one-way street. I hope we wake up to that 
fact before it is too late.

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