[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17373-17382]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wanted to deliver these remarks on the same 
subject of health care earlier in the week. I had been back home in 
Arizona during the July recess and had spoken to many of my 
constituents about the subject. I didn't have the opportunity to 
address this subject until today. I note that health care is very much 
on their minds. They have been asking a lot of questions. My 
constituents have been following the health care debate, and the 
majority I have spoken with are very much in favor of reform.
  I think all of us in this body realize there are things we have to do 
to lower the cost of health care and ensure everybody has an 
opportunity to be covered.
  I can also tell you they are very concerned about the reforms that 
have been proposed by the President. They wonder whether they, in fact, 
will work to their best interests. Cost is an issue that has come up 
repeatedly when I have spoken with my constituents. They want to know 
why we have to spend so much money in order to--allegedly--save money 
and how much it will cost. I tell them it is projected to cost at least 
a trillion dollars. This is not a fanciful figure; this is what the two 
bills pending before the Senate are being scored at, meaning that the 
Congressional Budget Office has said that is about how much they are 
going to cost. The ultimate price tag could be even higher because in 
the case of one of the bills, not everything that is going to be in it 
has already been scored by the CBO, and as to the Finance Committee 
bill, it is still very much a work in progress.
  The usual reaction people have to a trillion dollar-plus health care 
bill is that they cannot believe we would want to spend that much money 
or that we can't afford to spend that much. They know already that 
there are only two ways the Federal Government can pay for such a 
massive program: one, either borrow more money or, two, impose new 
taxes or some combination of the two. Naturally, they don't like either 
alternative.
  Most Arizonans think Washington has already borrowed more money than 
taxpayers can handle, after the President's $1.2 trillion stimulus 
bill, the $400 billion Omnibus appropriations bill, and the $3.4 
trillion, 10-year budget. Now we hear talk about adding an additional 
trillion dollars on top of that. The folks in Arizona think that is 
just too much. In fact, by the end of the fiscal year, our publicly 
held debt will be about 57 percent of our gross domestic product, and 
deficits of a trillion dollars a year are projected for the next 
decade. We just got the statistics for the deficit this year. It is 
already at $1.1 trillion. By the end of the year, it could easily be 
another half-trillion dollars above that. This will drive the debt to 
at least 82 percent of the gross domestic product by 2019. To give you 
an idea of what that means, the GDP is how much money we make as a 
country. It would be the same as saying that for a family that has an 
income of $100,000, its credit card debt is $89,000. Try paying off an 
$89,000 credit card debt on a $100,000 income. The interest payments on 
the debt will soon make up the single-largest item in our budget. So, 
obviously, when we talk about spending another trillion dollars we 
don't have, my constituents are very wary of this. They are wary about 
the debt, and, to say the least, they don't think it is fair for 
Washington to pass another trillion-dollar bill, with the costs being 
transferred to our children and grandchildren--especially after what 
happened with the stimulus, which has, frankly, included a great deal 
of waste and obviously has failed to contain unemployment.
  A lot of folks have expressed skepticism that spending another 
trillion dollars is the right way to reduce health care costs. Frankly, 
I agree with them. Somebody has to pay the trillion dollars. They are 
also concerned about the new taxes that have been proposed to pay for 
this because, in fact, part of this trillion dollars is proposed to be 
paid for through new taxes. There have been all kinds of ideas 
proposed, such as a tax on beer, soda, juice, and snack food. Those are 
really small items, but they hit people right where it counts when they 
go to the grocery store.
  There is also a new value-added tax idea. This hits the small 
business men and women, who are especially concerned because of the new 
taxes that some are suggesting they should pay--as much as a 10 
percentage point increase in the amount of taxes they would have to 
pay. This is important because, in our economic downturn today, we know 
it is small businesses that are going to create the jobs that will 
bring us out of the recession. This would not be just a job killer but 
an economic growth and recovery killer with that kind of tax imposed on 
these folks.
  My constituents want to know--and, frankly, I want to know--if the 
President will fulfill his campaign pledge not to raise taxes one 
single dime on the middle class and whether he will veto any 
legislation that includes the kinds of taxes of which I am speaking 
that would fall directly on families.

[[Page 17374]]

They believe and I believe there ought to be a different way to achieve 
the health care we want--in other words, without this new round of 
spending and taxes.
  They have heard the President argue in his pitches for Washington to 
change our health care system that if we spend all this money on health 
care now, we will somehow save money later. Americans have some 
commonsense questions about this claim: How will the government 
actually do this? Will their health care be rationed? If they are 
privately insured, will they be able to keep the health care they 
already have? Eighty-five percent of persons are already insured and 
are happy with what they have. Yet proposals in the pending legislation 
would cause many of them to lose that insurance and go onto government 
programs. That, of course, then raises questions like rationing, as I 
have discussed many times before.
  A Washington-run health care system would likely try to suppress 
costs by denying or delaying care. Administration officials are already 
talking about using comparative effectiveness research for this 
purpose. This is not a fanciful or hypothetical notion. As we know, 
this is exactly what has happened in countries such as Canada and the 
United Kingdom, two countries with government-run health care systems. 
In a ``20/20'' health care segment, they reported that Norwood, 
Ontario, holds a lottery each week to give one winner a trip to a 
family doctor. The show filmed the town clerk pulling a name from a box 
and calling the name of an elated winner. Is that what we want in the 
United States? The average emergency room wait in Canada is 23 hours--
if you are even considered sick enough to be admitted. In Britain, in 
2007, the government set a goal to reduce the average wait time to see 
a physician to fewer than 18 weeks. That is 4\1/2\ months waiting to 
see a doctor. Do Americans want that?
  That is how government-run health care works: You make something free 
and demand soars. To reduce costs, bureaucrats deny or delay treatment 
or tests or procedures they deem too expensive. The way it works is 
simple: You set a budget of how much you are going to spend on health 
care every year. It doesn't matter how sick your folks get; it has to 
fit within that budget. Think about that for your family. Say you set a 
budget and you are going to spend no more than $5,000 on health care 
this year. A good friend of mine in Arizona had an automobile accident; 
it was very serious. He had to have his spleen removed. He is still in 
recovery, and it is obviously going to cost a lot of money--more than 
$5,000. Well, if he set a budget and said that is all he is going to 
spend, what is he to do? Does he not get the treatment he needs as a 
result of that accident? You cannot reform health care or reduce costs 
by rationing care to patients.
  One of the things Republicans will insist on is that the way we do 
the reform doesn't hurt what we already have, which is a system that 
allows you to get to the emergency room and allows you to see a doctor. 
You can choose your own doctor. If you have insurance, you get to keep 
it. We don't want to take care of the few who are unable to get 
insurance today in a way that requires us to change what everybody else 
has, if it is already working for them.
  It is true that you won't find the words ``ration'' or ``denial'' of 
care or ``withholding coverage'' in these bills. Obviously, they don't 
state it that way. But the results are precisely what are required by 
the policies in the bill. The results are easily masked by all kinds of 
terminology, but the rules, the forms, the legal obligations, and the 
provider reimbursement schemes all result in the ability of the 
government to tell you whether something is going to be covered, 
whether you and your doctor think it is necessary for your care or not.
  I have heard some respond by saying that at least in the Canadian 
system they may ration care, but everybody has access to a doctor. Not 
true. The Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, released a study 
this year that found that 1.7 million people--out of a country of 33 
million--were unable to see a physician in 2007. That number does not 
include those who have a doctor but are on a waiting list.
  As I said earlier, many of my constituents also worry about losing 
their current coverage if a new Washington-run health care system is 
implemented. True, they have heard the President say repeatedly that if 
you have health insurance, you get to keep it. But they have also heard 
the other side of the story, and I have read at least one of the 
bills--in fact, there are two specific provisions--that render this 
statement untrue--that if you have health insurance, you get to keep 
it. Not true. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that just 
part of one of the proposed plans shows that millions of people would 
lose their existing coverage and be told to enroll in government health 
care. The Lewin study specifically mentioned 119 million people who 
would be shifted from their current employer-provided coverage onto the 
government plan.
  Many of my constituents also want to know if the President would veto 
legislation that has the potential to cause Americans to lose the 
private insurance they currently enjoy.
  There is a final concern, and this concerns me. It goes to America's 
seniors. We have made some very strong commitments to our seniors 
through the Medicare Program. Our seniors obviously are more 
susceptible to needing health care. They have a greater number of 
health concerns than younger Americans. And we have said to them: We 
will, through Medicare, ensure that your health concerns will be taken 
care of. They are obviously very concerned about rationing if Medicare 
were somehow to be cut in order to raise money to solve the problem for 
others in our society. That is precisely what at least one of these 
bills proposes to do--cut Medicare and take that money and apply it to 
the new costs that we are going to be incurring as a result of this so-
called health care reform.
  Seniors are worried these cuts in Medicare will adversely affect 
their ability to get care. They also fret that adding the 47 million 
uninsured Americans--which would be just for starters--to health 
insurance rolls, including government insurance rolls, would impact the 
care they now receive by crowding the system. In other words, leading 
to wait times, rationing for them or even potentially denial of care. 
We must not implement a new health care system that would suddenly 
erode the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries.
  My constituents want high-quality, patient-centered health care. Most 
already have good health insurance for themselves. They are concerned 
about its cost. They are also concerned that there are some who need to 
be insured who are not. But what they want to hear are fresh new ideas 
about how to achieve this result without, in effect, throwing the baby 
out with the bathwater; without adversely affecting the system that 
currently takes care of them, whether it is seniors being cared for in 
Medicare or it is the vast majority of Americans who are already 
insured and like the insurance they have. They do not want us to rush a 
costly new plan through the Congress.
  I think the President was correct when he said: If we don't do this 
quickly, we might not do it at all. Well, what did he mean by that? In 
effect, what he was saying is that if the American people have a long 
enough time to study and debate exactly what is being proposed, they 
may not like what they see. I think that is exactly what is happening 
here.
  There is a bill that is going to be marked up next week in the House 
of Representatives, and I don't think the American people are going to 
like what they see in that bill. We have a bill that has been marked up 
in the HELP Committee in the Senate, and much of my criticisms go to 
that particular bill. There is one section in that bill, for example, 
that spends $400 billion over 7 years to subsidize health care for 
families making between $66,000 a year and 80,000-some dollars a year. 
Is that what we want to cut Medicare to pay for?
  As I said, the more Americans understand the details of these bills, 
the

[[Page 17375]]

more questions I think they are going to ask. We owe it to our 
constituents to allow them the time to understand it and to ask us 
those questions. I want to be able to go back to Arizona and say: All 
right, here are the three bills--or two bills or however many there 
are--and here is what they do. Do you like it or not? If not, how would 
you change it? We need the time and the ability to get the reaction 
from our constituents if we are going to be true to our position as 
representatives of the people.
  So when the President says: If we don't do this quickly, we might not 
do it at all, he is probably right. But it is better to get it right; 
to take our time to do it right and not make mistakes, than to rush 
something through that is going to add $1 trillion in new spending; 
that is going to potentially impact the coverage we already have, 
potentially impact Medicare for our seniors and perhaps not achieve the 
results we want. This is one of the most important things this 
Congress--the American Congress--will have done in years. It is 
complicated, it is hard, and we have to get it right.
  One of the first things a physician learns in medical school, when 
confronting a patient to see what is wrong with that patient and to 
begin the treatment, is to, first, do no harm. It is possible to do 
harm to a patient. So the physician, first of all, is admonished: The 
body is a wonderful thing, it recovers pretty well; don't do anything 
to harm. The same thing is true with our economy and with the policies 
with respect to health care. There are a lot of good things being done 
in health care--physicians are working very hard to take good care of 
us, most people have good insurance, seniors rely on Medicare. Let's 
not do harm to what we have in order to take a small segment of our 
population and make sure they can get insurance.
  That is the primary position we are taking when we say: Let's don't 
rush this. Let's do it right. At the end of the day, we can all be 
proud of the fact that we have reformed our health care system to 
reduce, not increase, some of the expenses and to ensure that those who 
don't have insurance can, in fact, be covered.
  I said I wished to give these remarks earlier in the week, having 
talked with a lot of my constituents in Arizona. I also wished, toward 
the end of this week, to comment on the President's trip to Russia. He 
is going to be returning home soon, and his trip to Russia produced 
some very important announcements, which I wished to discuss today.


                   President Obama's Visit to Russia

  I am going to switch subjects now and discuss the President's trip to 
Moscow and his summit with the President of Russia.
  The most significant object of that summit, as we know, was the 
discussion of further strategic arms reductions. I personally believe 
it is important that the verification and confidence-building measures 
of the 1991 START agreement not expire without some measure to continue 
them, possibly including a legally binding replacement treaty. I know 
that is one of the purposes of the President's visit. But I am also 
cognizant of the fact that a follow-on to the 1991 START agreement does 
not address the most current threats to the United States and the West; 
namely, those posed by nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. The 
two subjects are barely related.
  For example, the threat from Iran and the history of Russian support 
for the Iranian nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program is well 
known. It is probably even going on today. This should have been at the 
top of the President's agenda with Russia, if, in fact, he is going to 
address the threats that are most currently before us, rather than a 
decades-old arms control agreement with Russia.
  Additionally, there is the ongoing nuclear weapon ambitions of North 
Korea. Some press reports suggest it may be sharing its technology with 
countries such as Syria and Burma. Given the well-known willingness of 
these rogue states--and I speak of North Korea and Iran--to support 
terrorism, their unchecked nuclear ambitions will surely hasten the day 
when terrorists are able to acquire nuclear weapons. I believe nuclear 
proliferation and nuclear terrorism are the greatest threats to our 
Nation today, and we should be focused much more on those threats, as I 
said, than going back and negotiating an arms control agreement with 
Russia, which obviously is not a current threat to the United States.
  The main focus of the President's trip when he was in Moscow appears 
to have been on the subject of a strategic arms reduction treaty with 
Russia. That being the case, the Senate has a great responsibility--if 
the administration seeks our advice and consent by submitting the 
treaty to us for ratification--to understand what the proposal is and 
to provide our advice to the President before it is negotiated and, if 
appropriate, our consent to ratify. Obviously, the Constitution 
requires this process of advise and consent when it comes to treaty 
making.
  Here are some of the questions I think we need to answer. First of 
all, what does the United States get from such a new treaty when it 
appears that the Russians are on their way to reaching the levels of 
weaponry announced without a treaty? They are going to do it anyway.
  Second, why has the United States bent to Russian demands to take 
tactical nuclear weapons off the table when the Russians have a 10-to-1 
advantage in tactical nuclear weapons over the United States and have 
openly talked in their military doctrine about using tactical nuclear 
weapons in conflict?
  How will the administration provide for the modernization of U.S. 
nuclear forces, including the warheads and the complex of 
infrastructure that sustains them and the nuclear weapons delivery 
systems, the bombers and the missiles and submarines that must 
accompany any START ratification process? That is perhaps the most 
critical question of all.
  A number of these questions and recommended courses of action have 
recently been articulated by some of this country's leading experts on 
arms control and nonproliferation policy, including Ambassador James 
Woolsey, Dr. Fred Ikle, Ambassador John Bolton, and many others.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, 
at the conclusion of my remarks, a document entitled ``U.S.-Russian 
START Renewal Negotiations: Guidelines to Protect U.S. Interests.''
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair.
  I also urge my colleagues to study materials recently released by the 
New Deterrent Working Group involved with the Center for Security 
Policy, a respected think tank here in Washington, that has studied 
these issues for years; and also a very objective and important guide 
for how we should approach our thinking on these negotiations from the 
Hudson Institute. These are outstanding compilations of expert opinions 
for Senators to familiarize themselves with as we head into a treaty 
ratification process. They are too lengthy to insert in the Record, but 
I am happy to provide these papers to any of my colleagues who would 
like to read them.
  Another important question concerns missile defense. Just before the 
summit, it appeared the White House was taking a strong line in 
refusing to accept Russian demands to link missile defenses with a 
follow-on treaty. The Russians have said: We are not even going to talk 
about the START numbers unless we can also talk about U.S. missile 
defense. The Russians don't like it. They would like to have us put 
some limitations on that. The administration recognized not only should 
there be no constraint on the development of missile defenses, but, 
moreover, any treaty--any treaty--that limits U.S. missile defenses 
would be dead on arrival in the Senate if we tied the two subjects 
together.
  This past week, I joined Senators Wicker, Johanns, McCain, Hatch, 
Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Begich in sending a letter to the President 
in

[[Page 17376]]

which we confirmed that ``linking missile defense plans to offensive 
force negotiations runs contrary to American strategic interests and 
would undermine our security.''
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
the letter to which I just referred.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                     Washington, DC, July 2, 2009.
     The President,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: In anticipation of your upcoming visit 
     to the Russian Federation, we write to express our concern 
     about recent comments by Russian leaders suggesting 
     limitations on U.S. missile defense plans in Europe as a 
     prerequisite for agreeing to a successor to the Strategic 
     Arms Reduction Treaty (START). We urge you to not combine 
     discussions about U.S. missile defense efforts and the 
     ongoing START negotiations.
       Speaking on May 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov 
     said that an agreement on a START replacement would be 
     ``impossible . . . without taking into account the situation 
     in the missile defense sphere.'' Russian President Dmitry 
     Medvedev also noted during an April speech that ``(a)nother 
     aspect of security is the relationship between offensive and 
     defensive weapons.'' Prime Minister Vladimir Putin likewise 
     suggested a quid pro quo between START and missile defense 
     during a visit to Japan on May 10, when he said that ``Russia 
     will link missile defense to strategic offensive armaments.''
       We feel strongly that linking missile defense plans to 
     offensive force negotiations in this way runs contrary to 
     America's strategic interests and would undermine our 
     security. As you have noted, the planned European missile 
     defense system is limited in scope to defend the United 
     States and its allies against the rising threat posed by 
     Iranian long-range ballistic missiles, but it poses no threat 
     to Russia's strategic missiles.
       We support your determination to bring into force a follow-
     on agreement to START prior to its lapse on December 5th of 
     this year. However, we will be reluctant to support any 
     agreement that is explicitly conditioned on U.S. abandonment 
     of missile defenses in Europe or otherwise linked to a U.S. 
     decision to curtail or abandon those defenses.
       Given that negotiations for a follow-on treaty to START are 
     being conducted on a relatively short timeline, we believe 
     that the paramount goal this year is to ensure that the 
     verification and confidence building measures from the 1991 
     START treaty do not lapse.
       The United States and the Russian Federation will need to 
     find ways to cooperate on many issues in the coming years and 
     we hope that your representatives bear in mind the broader 
     strategic context in which these negotiations with Moscow are 
     taking place.
           Sincerely,
         James M. Inhofe, Joseph I. Lieberman, Jon Kyl, Ben 
           Nelson, John S. McCain, Mark Begich, Jeff Sessions, 
           Mike Johanns, Roger Wicker, Orrin Hatch, United States 
           Senators.

  Mr. KYL. Notwithstanding what I have said, buried in the joint 
understanding--which has now been made public--reached by President 
Obama and Medvedev is inclusion of the following language suggesting an 
accession to the Russian demand to include missile defense in the 
follow-on treaty:

       A provision on the interrelationships of strategic 
     offensive and strategic defensive arms.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Joint Understanding be 
printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 2.)
  Mr. KYL. This last statement is a dangerous connection to make and 
one the administration must not negotiate. U.S. missile defenses exist 
to protect against ballistic missile threats by rogue regimes and the 
threat of accidental or unauthorized launches. They are not about 
Russia. Consequently, we should not allow Russia to attempt to limit 
our defenses, and that is what I fear these words from the Joint 
Understanding may allow to occur. Such a linkage in the START agreement 
will be rejected by Members of the Senate.
  I would also like to call attention to a curious statement by the 
President which was quoted in this past Sunday's New York Times:

       It's naive for us to think that we can grow our nuclear 
     stockpiles, the Russians continue to grow their nuclear 
     stockpiles, and our allies grow their nuclear stockpiles, and 
     that in that environment we're going to be able to pressure 
     countries like Iran and North Korea not to pursue nuclear 
     weapons themselves.

  The fact is, the United States has not been growing or even 
modernizing its nuclear stockpile. Why did the President make such a 
false statement? Yes, the Russians are growing theirs, at least 
modernizing it. Britain and France are modernizing their stockpiles, 
though not growing them, as far as I have seen in the press. India, 
Pakistan, and North Korea are all growing their stockpiles; and, of 
course, we are all familiar with Iran's actions. All of this has 
occurred in the absence of the United States growing its stockpile. 
What the President said is not true. In fact, it has all occurred while 
the United States has undertaken substantial nuclear force reductions. 
We haven't modernized our nuclear weapons, and we haven't conducted an 
underground nuclear test for 17 years. One would think this history 
would put to rest the naive assumption that the U.S. movement toward 
disarmament will be reciprocated by other nations, including those that 
threaten our national security.
  I would also like to submit for the Record a Wall Street Journal op-
ed written by Steve Rademaker, former Assistant Secretary of State for 
International Security and Nonproliferation in the last administration. 
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the conclusion 
of my remarks that letter.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 3.)
  Mr. KYL. Mr. Rademaker correctly observes:

       The critics are not impressed that by 2012 the U.S. will 
     have reduced its deployed strategic warheads by 80 percent. 
     They will not be satisfied if the U.S. reduces by 99 percent. 
     So long as there is one nuclear weapon remaining in the U.S. 
     inventory, he says, they will point to this as the root cause 
     of nuclear proliferation.

  As I indicated a few moments ago, there are real concerns facing the 
Senate at this time as we consider the START follow-on treaty. It is 
imperative that the President understand the true situation as he 
negotiates with his Russian counterparts.
  This is all the more important as we begin to understand the highly 
significant reductions the administration apparently wants to negotiate 
in a follow-on agreement. According to the Joint Understanding from 
which I quoted before, the President plans to reach an agreement that 
represents a significant departure from current force levels.
  I note that the 1,700 to 2,200 deployed strategic nuclear force 
level--actually on the high end of that range--was considered the 
minimum force level required for deterrence and assurance just last 
year when the Departments of Energy and Defense issued an unclassified 
white paper, ``National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st 
Century.''
  Given yesterday's announcement, I am curious to understand how 
estimates of necessary force levels could have changed so dramatically 
in the 10 months since that paper was issued. I am also very concerned 
about the implications for our triad and for our conventional arms 
modernization, if we lock in a launcher limit at anything close to 500.
  The triad is the combination of our strategic bomber force, our 
intercontinental ballistic missiles based on land in silos, and ICBMs 
in submarines. Those are the three parts of our strategic triad. If we 
were to reduce the numbers as dramatically low as this paper would 
indicate, it is very clear the triad would be jeopardized; that is to 
say, not all elements of it would have the weaponry to be part of our 
strategic deterrent.
  Moreover, these numbers would suggest that parts of this triad can be 
used for conventional purposes. Bombers can drop high explosive bombs. 
They don't just drop nuclear weapons. A missile--we have a lot of 
cruise missiles that send high-explosive warheads to their destination. 
It doesn't have to be a nuclear warhead. If we reduce the number of 
delivery systems down below

[[Page 17377]]

a certain level, we not only impact our strategic nuclear deterrent but 
also our conventional deterrent and conventional capability.
  This may be very advantageous for Russia. In fact, Russia is headed 
to a low level anyway because of their economy. But I believe it is a 
grave risk for the United States and our allies. I think these are 
issues that will warrant the highest level of scrutiny by the Senate. 
We can't be rushed in our work. These are very important existential 
questions.
  I note that the Senate had over 425 days between the signature on the 
START I agreement and the eventual ratification of that treaty. There 
were 1,119 days between the signing and ratification of START II. And 
the Chemical Weapons Convention allowed the Senate 1,563 days of 
review, deliberation, and debate. The last successful arms control 
treaty with the Russians, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, or 
SORT, permitted the Senate 287 days to review.
  I say again, there is no need for a rush. As the Wall Street Journal 
reported yesterday, July 8:

       The White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass 
     Destruction, Security and Arms Control, Gary Samore, said on 
     Sunday that the Administration may have to enact certain 
     provisions of a treaty by executive order and on a 
     `provisional basis' to meet the December deadline.

  Clearly, there are options available to ensure that the Senate has 
all the time it needs to thoughtfully consider a treaty and to make 
sure a nuclear weapons modernization program is in place and funded 
before the Senate proceeds to ratification of the START follow-on.
  Mr. President, according to press reports, Russian President Medvedev 
has indicated that his nation would like to reduce the number of 
strategic launchers several times below the number currently permitted 
under START. This is reflected in the launcher limits outlined in the 
Joint Understanding.
  This sounds good, but it is unclear that Russia is actually giving 
anything up.
  In recent testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
Dr. Keith Payne, a former official of the Defense Department and a 
member of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic 
Posture, cautioned ``We should be very careful about moving toward 
lower launcher numbers because it would provide significant advantages 
for the Russian Federation, but significant disadvantages for U.S. 
strategy.''
  As Dr. Payne noted in his testimony, Russia's strategic ICBMs, SLBMs 
and bombers will drop dramatically with or without a new arms control 
agreement.
  Specifically, Dr. Payne stated: ``within 8 or 9 years, the number of 
Russian strategic launchers will have dropped from approximately 680 
launchers (some of which already are not operational) to approximately 
270 launchers simply as a result of aging of their systems and the pace 
of their modernization program. In contrast, the service life of 
existing U.S. systems extends several decades.''
  Dr. Payne continues: ``Despite spending up to 25% of the Russian 
military budget on the strategic forces, Russia's strategic nuclear 
forces will decline steeply with or without arms control.''
  Consequently, Russia isn't giving up anything by agreeing to these 
reductions. At the same time, reductions in delivery vehicles could 
have consequences for the U.S., in terms of prompt global strike 
capabilities nd conventional strike modernization.
  Dr. Payne also wrote about these facts in a recent Wall Street 
Journal piece, and I ask unanimous consent to print it in the Record as 
well.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 4.)
  Mr. KYL. Additionally, in order to get a follow-on START agreement 
with Russia--one that appears to be much more to Russia's advantage 
than ours--we have also decided we will not seek to get the Russians to 
give up a very real advantage they possess: their tactical nuclear 
weapons, also known as nonstrategic 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 that favors Russia.
  This imbalance is exacerbated by the fact that Russia maintains an 
active nuclear weapons production complex, while the United States does 
not.
  According to the recently concluded report of the bipartisan Perry-
Schlesinger Commission, there is a growing asymmetry between United 
States and Russian nuclear weapons capabilities thanks to a 
longstanding problem whereby the Russian Federation has maintained far 
greater numbers of tactical nuclear weapons than the United States.
  According to the commission, the Russians have approximately 3,800 of 
these weapons, while the United States has only a few hundred.
  And according to a recent CRS report, the Russians may have as many 
as 8,000.
  Despite this asymmetry, we are told that the forthcoming START 
follow-on will not deal with Russian tactical nuclear weapons, at 
Russian demand.
  Yet, it is clear that our allies who rely on our extended deterrent 
are increasingly concerned.
  For example, the Perry-Schlesinger report stated: ``The combination 
of new warhead designs, the estimated production capability for new 
nuclear warheads, and precision delivery systems such as the Iskander 
short-range tactical ballistic missile (known as the SS-26 in the 
West), open up new possibilities for Russian efforts to threaten to use 
nuclear weapons to influence regional conflicts.''
  And according to that report, ``The United States should not cede to 
Russia a posture of superiority in the name of deemphasizing nuclear 
weapons in U.S. military strategy. There seems no near-term prospect of 
such a result in the balance of operationally deployed strategic 
nuclear weapons. But that balance does not exist in nonstrategic 
nuclear forces, where Russia enjoys a sizeable numerical advantage. As 
noted above, it stores thousands of these weapons in apparent support 
of possible military operations west of the Urals. The United States 
deploys a small fraction of that number in support of nuclear sharing 
agreements in NATO. Precise numbers for the U.S. deployments are 
classified but their total is only about five percent of the total at 
the height of the Cold War. Strict U.S.-Russian equivalence in NSNF 
numbers is unnecessary. But the current imbalance is stark and 
worrisome to some U.S. allies in Central Europe. If and as reductions 
continue in the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear 
weapons, this imbalance will become more apparent and allies less 
assured.''
  It is therefore inexplicable to me that we will not be negotiating 
with the Russians about reductions in those nuclear forces.
  Moreover, I am concerned by suggestions that discussions of these 
forces will have to wait for the ``next treaty'' which may not ever 
arrive. In the meantime, this follow-on agreement may lock in a 
significant disadvantage for the United States and our allies.
  In recent months, it has become clear that the state of our nuclear 
deterrent is in need of serious attention.
  As high an authority as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned: 
``At a certain point, it will become impossible to keep extending the 
life of our arsenal, especially in light of our testing moratorium. It 
also makes it harder to reduce existing stockpiles, because eventually 
we won't have as much confidence in the efficacy of the weapons we do 
have.''
  Secretary Gates continued this argument when he said: ``To be blunt, 
there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and 
reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting 
to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program.''
  This is a statement of significant import. Secretary Gates has warned 
that without a modernization program, such as the Reliable Replacement 
Warhead RRW, which Congress rejected during the last administration, we 
will be unable to reduce the number of weapons we maintain.

[[Page 17378]]

  In fact, we are not even certain we can modernize without testing, 
but we would be a lot closer to knowing the answer to that question if 
Congress had approved the RRW studies.
  As the Perry-Schlesinger Commission noted, our nuclear weapons and 
their delivery platforms are long overdue for a needed modernization 
program and will continue to experience safety, reliability and 
credibility problems until that modernization is in place.
  In fact, even in its Interim Report, the commission stated: ``High 
confidence in stockpile reliability not only is important for 
maintaining deterrence, it is also vital for making substantial 
reductions in the size of our stockpile.''
  Thus, it should not be surprising that the commission made the 
following findings and recommendations that are of such importance that 
I want to read them into the Record in their entirety:

       i. For the indefinite future, the United States must 
     maintain a viable nuclear deterrent. The other NPT- 
     recognized nuclear-weapon states have put in place 
     comprehensive programs to modernize their forces to meet new 
     international circumstances.
       ii. The Stockpile Stewardship Program has had some 
     remarkable achievements. But in recent years, the level of 
     funding provided to support these safeguards has been 
     inadequate.
       iii. The Life Extension Program has to date been effective 
     in dealing with the problem of modernizing the arsenal. But 
     it is becoming increasingly difficult to continue within the 
     constraints of a rigid adherence to original materials and 
     design as the stockpile continues to age.
       iv. As the reductions have proceeded over the period since 
     the end of the Cold War, the potential to deal with technical 
     surprise has been reduced, as the diversity of types of 
     weapons in the stockpile has shrunk.
       v. The infrastructure that supports two thirds of the 
     strategic deterrent triad--the SLBMs and ICBMs is not being 
     sustained.

  Mr. President, it is clear that not only is a modernization program 
for our nuclear weapons, the complex that supports it, and the delivery 
systems associated with it long overdue, it is also inextricably linked 
to safely reducing our nuclear arsenal further and must be considered 
by the Senate simultaneously to, if not before, the START follow-on is 
submitted.
  Such a modernization program should take into account issues raised 
by the Nuclear Weapons Council in its December 24, 2008, letter to the 
NNSA administrator.
  I ask unanimous consent to print the letter in the Record at the 
conclusion of my remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 5.)
  Mr. KYL. It should also take into account the commission's 
recommendations, which noted that as long as modernization takes place 
within current policies regarding testing and military characteristics, 
there should be no political controversy.
  The administration should request a modernization program that in its 
first year includes: increases to stockpile surveillance; LEP studies 
for W76 and B61 that add safety, reliability and credibility; increases 
to directed stockpile work; certification and safety at the Nevada Test 
Site; accelerated funding of the Los Alamos CMRR facility and the Y-12 
UPF; and, increases to advanced computing platform and code work.
  Mr. President, lastly, I wish to discuss an important but so far 
overlooked component of the pending arms control discussions, namely 
Russia's history of violating its obligations.
  The unclassified version of the 2005 State Department Report on 
Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and 
Disarmament Agreements and Commitments makes clear, and not for the 
first time, that Russia has not lived up to all of its agreements under 
the 1991 START agreement.
  Dr. Payne noted this in his recent testimony, and I quote, ``in my 
opinion, the most important of these violations has been discussed 
openly in Russian publications. It is the Russian testing of the SS-27 
ICBM with MIRVs in direct violation of START. The SS-27 is listed as a 
single-warhead ICBM and can only be tested and deployed with a single 
warhead under START. Russian Sources place the number of MIRVs on this 
forthcoming missile at 4 or more.''
  These are not the only such issues regarding the Russians compliance 
with START. I ask unanimous consent that the START section of the 
unclassified Compliance Report be printed in the Record at the 
conclusion of my remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 6.)
  Mr. KYL. Additionally, the Commission on the Strategic Posture noted 
that the Russians are in violation of their commitments concerning 
tactical nuclear weapons under the 1990-91 Presidential Nuclear 
Initiatives.

       I remind my colleagues these are the same tactical nuclear 
     weapons that Russia refuses to discuss in the follow-on 
     treaty, a demand the administration seems to have accepted.

  Clearly, if the United States is going to negotiate a successor to 
the 1991 START agreement with the Russians, we must have a way to 
reconcile past compliance failures and ensure that future violations, 
if any, are resolved in a timely manner.
  As I have articulated, there are significant issues that the Senate 
will have to follow closely and scrutinize as a part of the process of 
advice and consent.
  This is a two-way process of consultation between the administration 
and the Senate.
  I remind my colleagues and the administration, it is more important 
that this be done right than quickly.
  Arrangements can be made to ensure that the provisions of START that 
enjoy almost universal support in this body do not expire, as 
administration officials have freely admitted.
  I urge the administration to continue consulting regularly with the 
Senate, including the National Security Working Group that I cochair 
with my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Byrd.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

  U.S.-Russian START Renewal Negotiations--Guidelines To Protect U.S. 
                               Interests

       Recognize that the U.S. nuclear deterrent force is a key 
     element in the defense of the United States and of our allies 
     and friends.
       U.S. nuclear umbrella is crucial non-proliferation tool. 
     The U.S. nuclear umbrella is perhaps the most important 
     nonproliferation tool we possess, as many of our allies and 
     friends rely on our deterrent force. Absent a U.S. nuclear 
     deterrent seen to be credible, effective and safe, those 
     nations would have to consider developing their own nuclear 
     weapons.
       Analyze first, then negotiate. The U.S. Defense Department 
     should complete a proper Nuclear Posture Review, as mandated 
     by Congress, before the U.S. concludes a new treaty with 
     Russia on further nuclear weapons reductions.
       Limit Russian advantage in ``tactical'' nuclear weapons--A 
     new U.S.-Russian agreement should aim to reduce the current 
     Russian superiority over the U.S. in numbers of ``tactical'' 
     nuclear weapons. Russia has approximately ten times the 
     number of such weapons in the U.S. arsenal.
       Address before U.S. leverage shrinks--The U.S. will have 
     less leverage to address this issue once a START renewal 
     agreement has been concluded.
       Recognize the significance of Russia's large advantage in 
     ``tactical'' nuclear weapons. The distinction between 
     strategic and tactical nuclear weapons is an artifact of the 
     Cold War that facilitated arms control agreements on very 
     high levels of nuclear forces.
       Today, the size of nuclear arsenals is much smaller and the 
     importance of large numbers of smaller-yield weapons is much 
     greater.
       To U.S. allies and friends, all nuclear weapons are 
     strategic.
       An agreement that preserves the large imbalance in total 
     numbers of deployed nuclear weapons in Russia's favor will, 
     over time, affect the views of U.S. allies and friends on the 
     reliability of the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
       U.S. policy for decades--in administrations of both 
     parties--has been to maintain a nuclear capability second to 
     none. That policy would be undermined by an agreement that 
     further reduces strategic weapons while leaving so-called 
     non-strategic weapons unlimited.
       Recognize existence of risks in strategic reductions below 
     current levels--There is no compelling reason for the U.S. 
     and Russia to reduce deployed strategic nuclear warheads 
     below the current range of 1700-2200, as set in the Strategic 
     Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). This level of offensive 
     strategic nuclear arms, the lowest in decades, was based on 
     analysis that took into account the dangers and uncertainties 
     of the security environment. Quickly reducing to an arbitrary

[[Page 17379]]

     number like 1500, does not take into account these risks.
       Don't pay for what's free--According to credible Russian 
     sources, Russia's strategic nuclear weapons will be reduced 
     by approximately 60% over the next decade in any event--with 
     or without a START renewal treaty--due to the aging or 
     planned modernization of systems. The United States should 
     not make concessions for the purpose of inducing Russia to 
     make reductions that will occur anyway.
       Certain reductions may be harmful--Whether a reduction 
     below the 1700-2200 range is prudent depends on a number of 
     considerations, especially preserving deterrence and taking 
     account of all potential adversaries.
       Preserve deterrence and extended deterrence--Any reductions 
     should allow the U.S. to preserve not only deterrence of 
     threats directly against the U.S. but also extended 
     deterrence--for allies and partners who depend on the U.S. to 
     deter potential nuclear aggressors.
       Effect on triad--In particular, any reductions should allow 
     the U.S. to maintain a robust nuclear triad of land-based, 
     sea-based and bomber-delivered weapons.
       Importance of triad--It is important to maintain the triad, 
     lest the survivability and flexibility of the U.S. strategic 
     posture be undermined.
       Consider all potential adversaries--In assessing the 
     sufficiency of the U.S. deterrent, the potential nuclear 
     capabilities of all possible adversaries of the U.S. and of 
     allies and partners who depend on that deterrent should be 
     considered, not just the capabilities of Russia.
       Don't incentivize proliferation--The U.S. nuclear posture 
     should not be constrained to the point that other current or 
     potential nuclear powers come to believe they can create a 
     nuclear arsenal that would give them significant strategic 
     leverage against the U.S.
       In any case, exercise caution in limiting delivery 
     systems--In the interest of stability and flexibility, the 
     U.S. should not agree to reduce the number of delivery 
     systems in a way that would increase the vulnerability of our 
     deterrent (including our extended deterrent that protects 
     U.S. allies and partners).
       Don't incentivize MIRVs--For the same reasons, a new 
     agreement should not restrain or penalize ``de-MIRVing''--
     that is, converting multiple-warhead missiles into single-
     warhead missiles.
       Severe limits on the number of delivery systems create 
     pressure for the parties to arm missiles with multiple 
     warheads.
       Preserve U.S. ability to modernize for safety and 
     reliability--Any agreement should preserve the right of the 
     U.S. to develop new warheads to be able to react to 
     unforeseen circumstances.
       A crucial requirement: A comprehensive modernization plan--
     The Senate should not consent to any treaty until the 
     Administration has proposed to Congress a satisfactory, 
     comprehensive modernization plan that fulfills the 
     modernization recommendations of the bipartisan Congressional 
     Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, 
     especially the maintenance of a safe, reliable and credible 
     U.S. nuclear deterrent, including an extended deterrent for 
     the protection of U.S. allies and partners.
       Don't constrain missile defense--A new U.S.-Russian arms 
     control agreement should not constrain the U.S. ability to 
     develop and deploy missile defenses.
       Don't constrain advanced conventional weapons--A new U.S.-
     Russian agreement should not constrain or penalize (1) U.S. 
     development of advanced conventional--that is, non-nuclear 
     weapons, including those capable of strategic strike, or (2) 
     U.S. deployment of such weapons to replace nuclear weapons.
       Take account of unpredictability of technology 
     developments--We cannot now predict what conventional weapons 
     developments may be possible.
       Consider effects on programs of the future--Thus, the 
     effect of a given treaty limitation cannot be measured only 
     by how it would impact programs already on the books.
       Address Russian compliance problems--Devise a mechanism 
     that ensures treaty violations are investigated and parties 
     to an agreement adhere to their obligations.
       From the outset, the Russians have failed to comply fully 
     with their obligations.
       For example, according to an August 2005 U.S. State 
     Department report, Russia has prevented U.S. inspectors from 
     verifying warhead limits on certain ICBMs.
       Update START verification--A key U.S. objective in an 
     agreement with Russia should be to update START verification 
     provisions to take account of new circumstances and fix 
     problems.
       Verification regime extendable--Obama administration 
     officials have a sense of urgency because the START Treaty 
     expires in December 2009 and they want to ensure that the 
     treaty's verification regime does not lapse. But the US and 
     Russia can agree to extend the verification regime without 
     having to rush to reach agreement on further weapons 
     reductions.
       Endorsed by:
       John Bolton, Ambassador to United Nations, Under Secretary 
     of State for Arms Control and International Security (G.W. 
     Bush);
       Seth Cropsey, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 
     Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (G.H.W. Bush);
       Jack David, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 
     Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction and Negotiations Policy 
     (G.W. Bush);
       Paula DeSutter, Assistant Secretary of State for 
     Verification, Compliance and Implementation (G.W. Bush);
       Michael M. Dunn, Lieutenant General, U.S.A.F. (ret.); 
     President, National Defense University;
       Eric Edelman, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (G.W. 
     Bush)
       Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 
     (G.W. Bush);
       Fred C. Ikle, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 
     (Reagan); Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 
     (Ford);
       Robert Joseph, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control 
     and International Security (G.W. Bush);
       Stephen Rademaker, Assistant Secretary of State for 
     International Security and Nonproliferation (G.W. Bush);
       Abram N. Shulsky, Director, Strategic Arms Control Policy, 
     Office of Secretary of Defense; Secretary of Defense 
     Representative to Defense and Space Talks (Reagan);
       James Woolsey, Director, Central Intelligence Agency 
     (Clinton).

                               Exhibit 2

                          Joint Understanding

       The President of the United States of America and the 
     President of the Russian Federation have decided on further 
     reductions and limitations of their nations' strategic 
     offensive arms and on concluding at an early date a new 
     legally binding agreement to replace the current START 
     Treaty, and directed that the new treaty contain, inter alia, 
     the following elements:
       1. A provision to the effect that each Party will reduce 
     and limit its strategic offensive arms so that seven years 
     after entry into force of the treaty and thereafter, the 
     limits will be in the range of 500-1100 for strategic 
     delivery vehicles, and in the range of 1500-1675 for their 
     associated warheads.
       The specific numbers to be recorded in the treaty for these 
     limits will be agreed through further negotiations.
       2. Provisions for calculating these limits.
       3. Provisions on definitions, data exchanges, 
     notifications, eliminations, inspections and verification 
     procedures, as well as confidence building and transparency 
     measures, as adapted, simplified, and made less costly, as 
     appropriate, in comparison to the START Treaty.
       4. A provision to the effect that each Party will determine 
     for itself the composition and structure of its strategic 
     offensive arms.
       5. A provision on the interrelationship of strategic 
     offensive and strategic defensive arms.
       6. A provision on the impact of intercontinental ballistic 
     missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles in a non-
     nuclear configuration on strategic stability.
       7. A provision on basing strategic offensive arms 
     exclusively on the national territory of each Party.
       8. Establishment of an implementation body to resolve 
     questions related to treaty implementation.
       9. A provision to the effect that the treaty will not apply 
     to existing patterns of cooperation in the area of strategic 
     offensive arms between a Party and a third state.
       10. A duration of the treaty of ten years, unless it is 
     superseded before that time by a subsequent treaty on the 
     reduction of strategic offensive arms.
       The Presidents direct their negotiators to finish their 
     work on the treaty at an early date so that they may sign and 
     submit it for ratification in their respective countries.
       Signed at Moscow, this sixth day of July, 2009, in 
     duplicate, in the English and Russian languages.
       FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

       FOR THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION:

                               Exhibit 3

              [From the Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2007]

                          Blame America First

                         (By Stephen Rademaker)

       Two groups with diametrically opposed agendas have for 
     years argued that the likes of Iran and North Korea will not 
     be deterred in their quest for nuclear weapons so long as the 
     U.S. and the other nuclear powers are ignoring their 
     obligation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to 
     give up their nuclear arsenals. Apologists for the 
     proliferators, who care not at all about nuclear disarmament, 
     and arms control activists, to whom there is no higher 
     priority than nuclear disarmament, have long agreed about 
     this and little else.
       Jimmy Carter spoke for the latter group when he wrote, in 
     an op-ed in the Washington Post a while back, ``The United 
     States is the major culprit in this erosion of the NPT.'' The 
     key to ending nuclear proliferation, according to Mr. Carter 
     and the many others who share this point of view, is for the 
     U.S. to demonstrate leadership by moving decisively to 
     eliminate its nuclear weapons. This perspective is likely to 
     be heard more frequently as international efforts to 
     constrain the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea 
     appear to falter.

[[Page 17380]]

       There are, however, two basic flaws in the suggestion that 
     nuclear proliferation is rooted in U.S. nuclear policy. 
     First, the reasons why Iran, North Korea and other would-be 
     proliferators seek nuclear weapons have nothing to do with 
     Washington's nuclear policy. Second, the claim that the U.S. 
     is disregarding its legal obligations under the NPT does not 
     withstand scrutiny.
       To recognize that the motivations of today's nuclear 
     proliferators have nothing to do with U.S. nuclear policy, it 
     is necessary only to consider one question: Would Iran's 
     Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korea's Kim Jong Il be any less 
     interested in having nuclear weapons if the U.S. gave up its 
     nuclear weapons? In both cases, the answer is clearly no.
       President Ahmadinejad, by his own statements, is bent on 
     dominating the Middle East and destroying the state of 
     Israel. Nuclear weapons afford a shortcut to the realization 
     of these objectives and therefore the Iranian regime wants 
     them. Whether or not the U.S. has nuclear weapons is 
     irrelevant to this calculus. Mr. Ahmadinejad may occasionally 
     find it a convenient talking point to draw comparisons with 
     the nuclear programs of other countries, but there is little 
     doubt his policy would be the same even in the absence of 
     that talking point.
       In the case of North Korea, the pursuit of nuclear weapons 
     appears to stem from Kim Jong Il's hunger for prestige and 
     power. All indications are that Kim would be even more 
     interested in having nuclear weapons if he thought he could 
     be the only leader on Earth to possess them.
       Those who argue that the U.S. has disregarded its nuclear 
     disarmament obligations under the NPT are quick to make 
     categorical assertions about the treaty's requirements, but 
     almost never quote the pertinent language of the NPT, for the 
     simple reason that it provides no support for their claims. 
     The key provision, Article VI of the treaty, consists of only 
     one sentence: ``Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes 
     to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures 
     relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early 
     date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general 
     and complete disarmament under strict and effective 
     international control.''
       It is impossible to discern from this language a binding 
     legal obligation on the U.S. and the other four nuclear-
     weapon states to give up nuclear weapons. The operative legal 
     requirement is to ``pursue negotiations in good faith on 
     effective measures relating . . . to nuclear disarmament. . . 
     .''
       The U.S. has not only negotiated on such matters for more 
     than three decades, but it has signed and implemented a 
     series of arms control agreements beginning in 1972 that have 
     ended the nuclear arms race and substantially reduced the 
     U.S. nuclear inventory. When the latest arms control 
     agreement with Russia expires in 2012, the U.S. will have 
     reduced by about 80% the number of strategic nuclear warheads 
     deployed at the height of the Cold War.
       Significantly, the obligations of Article VI apply not just 
     to the five countries allowed by the treaty to have nuclear 
     weapons, but to all parties to the NPT. Article VI clearly 
     links the obligation to negotiate on nuclear disarmament with 
     an obligation on the part of all NPT parties to negotiate ``a 
     Treaty on general and complete disarmament.''
       The treaty also does not assume that nuclear disarmament 
     must be a prerequisite to general and complete disarmament. 
     To the contrary, one of the treaty's introductory paragraphs 
     spells out the expectation of the parties that actual 
     ``elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons'' 
     would take place not prior to, but ``pursuant to a Treaty on 
     general and complete disarmament.''
       Those who in essence agree with the views of a Noam Chomsky 
     that ``The United States has led the way in refusal to abide 
     by the Article VI obligations,'' notwithstanding more than 30 
     years of nuclear arms control, need to explain why they are 
     not similarly exercised by the failure of all other NPT 
     states to satisfy their Article VI obligations. In 
     particular, they need to explain why the U.S. must do more to 
     comply with Article VI's nuclear disarmament provisions, in 
     the absence of even token steps by anyone else to comply with 
     that Article's general and complete disarmament requirements.
       Because the language of Article VI does not actually say 
     what proponents of nuclear disarmament want it to say, they 
     have worked for decades to reinterpret it. They have, for 
     example, promoted declarations by international conferences 
     reformulating the requirements of Article VI, and then argued 
     that these reformulations are legally binding on the U.S., 
     without approval by the U.S. Senate. These efforts have 
     succeeded to a remarkable degree, at least as measured by 
     popular conceptions of the NPT's nuclear-disarmament 
     requirements.
       And so the critics are not impressed that by 2012 the U.S. 
     will have reduced its deployed strategic nuclear warheads by 
     80%. They will not be satisfied if the U.S. reduces by 99%. 
     So long as there is one nuclear weapon remaining in the U.S. 
     inventory, they will point to this as a root cause of nuclear 
     proliferation.
       Few serious students of nuclear strategy believe that the 
     stockpiles of the nuclear weapon states can be reduced to 
     zero in the foreseeable future. Fortunately our reliance on 
     nuclear weapons has been declining, and the U.S. should 
     continue to eliminate unnecessary nuclear weapons based on 
     considered judgments about our national security 
     requirements. But we should not base such decisions about our 
     nuclear force structure on wishful thinking that we can earn 
     the goodwill of nuclear proliferators and other critics whose 
     agendas are advanced by blaming America for nuclear 
     proliferation.

                               Exhibit 4

              [From the Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2009]

                          Arms Control Amnesia

                          (By Keith B. Payne)

       Three hours after arriving at the Kremlin yesterday, 
     President Barack Obama signed a preliminary agreement on a 
     new nuclear arms-control treaty with Russian President Dmitry 
     Medvedev. The agreement--a clear road map for a new strategic 
     Arms Reduction Treaty (START)--commits the U.S. and Russia to 
     cut their nuclear weapons to the lowest levels since the 
     early years of the Cold War.
       Mr. Obama praised the agreement as a step forward, away 
     from the ``suspicion and rivalry of the past,'' while Mr. 
     Medvedev hailed it as a ``reasonable compromise.'' In fact, 
     given the range of force levels it permits, this agreement 
     has the potential to compromise U.S. security--depending on 
     what happens next.
       In the first place, locking in specific reductions for U.S. 
     forces prior to the conclusion of the ongoing Nuclear Posture 
     Review is putting the cart before the horse. The Obama 
     administration's team at the Pentagon is currently examining 
     U.S. strategic force requirements. Before specific limits are 
     set on U.S. forces, it should complete the review. Strategic 
     requirements should drive force numbers; arms-control numbers 
     should not dictate strategy.
       Second, the new agreement not only calls for reductions in 
     the number of nuclear warheads (to between 1,500 and 1,675), 
     but for cuts in the number of strategic force launchers. 
     Under the 1991 START I Treaty, each side was limited to 1,600 
     launchers. Yesterday's agreement calls for each side to be 
     limited to between 500 and 1,100 launchers each.
       According to open Russian sources, it was Russia that 
     pushed for the lower limit of 500 launchers in negotiations. 
     In the weeks leading up to this summit, it also has been 
     openly stated that Moscow would like the number of deployed 
     intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-
     launched missiles (SLBMS), and strategic bombers to be 
     reduced ``several times'' below the current limit of 1,600. 
     Moving toward very low numbers of launchers is a smart 
     position for Russia, but not for the U.S.
       Why? Because the number of deployed Russian strategic 
     ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers will drop dramatically simply as a 
     result of their aging. In other words, a large number of 
     Russian launchers will be removed from service with or 
     without a new arms-control agreement.
       The Obama administration will undoubtedly come under heavy 
     pressure to move to the low end of the 500-1,100 limit on 
     launchers in order to match Russian reductions. But it need 
     not and should not do so. Based solely on open Russian 
     sources, by 2017-2018 Russia will likely have fewer than half 
     of the approximately 680 operational launchers it has today. 
     With a gross domestic product less than that of California, 
     Russia is confronting the dilemma of how to maintain parity 
     with the U.S. while retiring its many aged strategic forces.
       Mr. Medvedev's solution is to negotiate, inviting the U.S. 
     to make real cuts, while Russia eliminates nothing that it 
     wouldn't retire in any event.
       This isn't just my conclusion--it's the conclusion of many 
     Russian officials and commentators. Russian Gen. Nikolay 
     Solovtsov, commander of the Strategic Missile Troops, was 
     recently quoted by Moscow Interfax-AVN Online as saying that 
     ``not a single Russian launcher'' with ``remaining service 
     life'' will be withdrawn under a new agreement. Noted Russian 
     journalist Pavel Felgengauer observed in Novaya Gazeta that 
     Russian leaders ``have demanded of the Americans unilateral 
     concessions on all points, offering practically nothing in 
     exchange.'' Precisely.
       Beyond the bad negotiating principle of giving up something 
     for nothing, there will be serious downsides if the U.S. 
     actually reduces its strategic launchers as much as Moscow 
     wishes. The bipartisan Congressional Strategic Posture 
     Commission--headed by former secretaries of defense William 
     J. Perry and James R. Schlesinger--concluded that the U.S. 
     could make reductions ``if this were done while also 
     preserving the resilience and survivability of U.S. forces.'' 
     Having very low numbers of launchers would make the U.S. more 
     vulnerable to destabilizing first-strike dangers, and would 
     reduce or eliminate the U.S. ability to adapt its nuclear 
     deterrent to an increasingly diverse set of post-Cold War 
     nuclear and biological weapons threats.
       Accepting low launcher numbers would also encourage placing 
     more warheads on the remaining ICBMs--i.e., ``MIRVing,'' or 
     adding multiple independently targeted warheads on a single 
     missile. This is what the

[[Page 17381]]

     Russians openly say they are planning to do. Yet the U.S. has 
     long sought to move away from MIRVed ICBMs as part of START, 
     because heavy MIRVing can make each ICBM a more tempting 
     target. One measure of U.S. success will be in resisting the 
     Russian claim that severely reducing launcher numbers is 
     somehow necessary and ``stabilizing.'' It would be neither.
       Third, the new agreement appears to defer the matter of so-
     called tactical nuclear weapons. Russia has some 4,000 
     tactical nuclear weapons and many thousands more in reserve; 
     U.S. officials have said that Russia has an astounding 10 to 
     1 numerical advantage. These weapons are of greatest concern 
     with regard to the potential for nuclear war, and they should 
     be our focus for arms reduction. The Perry-Schlesinger 
     commission report identified Russian tactical nuclear weapons 
     as an ``urgent'' problem. Yet at this point, they appear to 
     be off the table.
       The administration may hope to negotiate reductions in 
     tactical nuclear weapons later. But Russia has rejected this 
     in the past, and nothing seems to have changed. As Gen. 
     Vladimir Dvorkin of the Russian Academy of Sciences said 
     recently in Moscow Interfax-AVN Online, ``A treaty on the 
     limitation and reduction of tactical nuclear weapons looks 
     absolutely unrealistic.'' If the U.S. hopes to address this 
     real problem, it must maintain negotiating leverage in the 
     form of strategic launchers and weapons.
       Fourth, Mr. Medvedev was quoted recently in RIA Novosti as 
     saying that strategic reductions are possible only if the 
     U.S. alleviates Russian concerns about ``U.S. plans to create 
     a global missile defense.'' There will surely be domestic and 
     international pressure on the U.S. to limit missile defense 
     to facilitate Russian reductions under the new treaty. But 
     the U.S. need for missile defense has little to do with 
     Russia. And the value of missile defense could not be clearer 
     given recent North Korean belligerence. The Russians are 
     demanding this linkage, at least in part to kill our missile 
     defense site in Europe intended to defend against Iranian 
     missiles. Another measure of U.S. success will be to avoid 
     such linkages.
       In short, Russian leaders hope to control or eliminate many 
     elements of U.S. military power in exchange for strategic 
     force reductions they will have to make anyway. U.S. leaders 
     should not agree to pay Russia many times over for 
     essentially an empty box.
       Finally, Russian violations of its existing arms-control 
     commitments must be addressed along with any new commitments. 
     According to an August 2005 State Department report, Russia 
     has violated START verification and other arms-control 
     commitments in multiple ways. One significant violation has 
     even been discussed openly in Russian publications--the 
     testing of the SS-27 ICBM with MIRVs in direct violation of 
     START I.
       President Obama should recall Winston Churchill's warning: 
     ``Be careful above all things not to let go of the atomic 
     weapon until you are sure and more than sure that other means 
     of preserving peace are in your hands.'' There is no need for 
     the U.S. to accept Russian demands for missile-defense 
     linkage, or deep reductions in the number of our ICBMs, SLBMs 
     and bombers, to realize much lower numbers of Russian 
     strategic systems. There is also no basis for expecting 
     Russian goodwill if we do so.

                               Exhibit 5

         Department of Defense and Department of Energy Nuclear 
           Weapons Council,
                                Washington, DC, December 24, 2008.
     Hon. Thomas P. D'Agostino,
     Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration, 
         Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. D'Agostino: The Department of Defense (DoD) and 
     the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), have 
     joint responsibility to maintain a safe, secure, and reliable 
     nuclear weapons stockpile and supporting infrastructure to 
     provide the United States a credible nuclear deterrent. I 
     understand that NNSA is implementing Records of Decision 
     (RODs), in connection with the recently completed 
     Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement 
     (SPEIS), regarding the future U.S. nuclear weapons complex. 
     Our staffs have been working together to address the detailed 
     issues associated with the SPEIS decisions, including 
     specific requirements the nuclear weapons complex must 
     achieve to enable stockpile and infrastructure 
     transformation.
       The U.S. nuclear deterrent continues to serve as the 
     ultimate guarantor of U.S. security and our security 
     commitments to allies. The required size and composition of 
     the nuclear weapons stockpile is dependent on the global 
     security environment and the ability to respond to 
     unanticipated technical problems. We cannot know with 
     certainty the future global security environment, nor can we 
     predict the nature or extent of potential problems with 
     warheads or delivery systems. These factors argue for a 
     flexible nuclear weapons infrastructure capable of responding 
     to future geopolitical or technical challenges.
       To minimize stockpile size and reduce the likelihood that a 
     return to underground nuclear testing will be needed in the 
     future, DoD will require a warhead with modern safety, 
     security, and use control features. In addition, DoD will 
     continue to rely on life extension of legacy warheads and 
     therefore requires an infrastructure capable of developing 
     and producing these warheads. Of critical importance, and 
     independent of future stockpile planning, our nuclear 
     infrastructure must ensure that our future stockpile is:
       Safe and Secure: To the degree feasible, refurbished or 
     replacement warheads will incorporate enhanced safety 
     features such as: insensitive high explosives, multipoint 
     safety, meet all other safety-related Military 
     Characteristics, and be protected against theft and sabotage 
     including the possibility of unauthorized or accidental 
     detonation.
       Reliable: U.S. nuclear forces must be able to hold at risk 
     those critical capabilities of our potential enemies that are 
     defined by presidential guidance. Increased performance 
     margins should be pursued in weapon refurbishment or 
     replacement programs, ensuring with high confidence that our 
     nuclear weapons are reliable and credible while reducing the 
     likelihood of a return to underground nuclear testing.
       Adaptable: The NNSA should employ, to the maximum extent 
     possible in refurbished or replacement weapons, modular 
     designs that are interoperable between multiple delivery 
     platforms.
       In light of these standards and the need to achieve and 
     modernize a responsive nuclear infrastructure, the DoD 
     recommends the NNSA RODs regarding the future of the nuclear 
     weapons complex take into account the following:
       Independent of the size of the future nuclear weapons 
     stockpile, provide a plutonium research, development, and 
     manufacturing capability that will ensure (1) continued 
     excellence in plutonium research, (2) an ability to conduct 
     surveillance of plutonium pits, and (3) a capacity to deliver 
     newly manufactured pits with actual production rates 
     determined by NNSA that, when coupled with full exercise of 
     analytical chemistry and other quality control processes, 
     will demonstrate key capabilities and meet stockpile 
     requirements. As stated in the March 2008 ``National Security 
     and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century'' paper signed by 
     Secretaries Gates and Bodman, planned pit production 
     facilities should be capable of providing an estimated 
     maximum capacity of 50-80 pits per year. Near-term planning 
     for pit manufacturing capacity should be executed in a way 
     that does not foreclose appropriate adjustments in capacity 
     if necessary in the future.
       Provide an infrastructure to produce, with sufficient 
     capacity, uranium and other components of nuclear warhead 
     canned subassemblies, and to support surveillance and 
     dismantlement activities.
       Maintain the ability to produce tritium in quantities 
     sufficient to support the stockpile.
       Maintain the ability to conduct surveillance of all 
     components of nuclear warheads so that potential reliability 
     issues can be quickly identified, allowing responsive 
     correction.
       Provide sufficient capacity for warhead assembly and 
     disassembly that takes into account upcoming warhead life 
     extension programs, the potential introduction of replacement 
     warheads with enhanced surety features, and the capability to 
     address future and emerging requirements, while at the same 
     time addressing the growing number of warheads slated for 
     dismantlement resulting from recent stockpile reductions 
     directed by the President.
       Complete and sustain the research and development, 
     scientific, computational and experimental facilities and 
     capabilities, including warhead design, engineering and 
     production skills needed to support the future stockpile.
       Ensure a 24-36 month preparedness to conduct, as may be 
     required, an underground nuclear test to help resolve a 
     safety or technical problem in the stockpile.
       As you implement the RODs regarding the future complex, I 
     trust that you will fully consider these requirements and 
     request that you update the Nuclear Weapons Council on 
     progress at an upcoming meeting.

                                                     ------ ------
                               (For John J. Young, Jr., Chairman).

                               Exhibit 6

                                                         Bureau of


                                  Verification and Compliance,

                                  Washington, DC, August 30, 2005.

 Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and 
                 Disarmament Agreements and Commitments


             B. THE STRATEGIC ARMS REDUCTION TREATY (START)

       Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine are in compliance 
     with the START strategic offensive arms (SOA) central limits. 
     Both the United States and Russia met the START seven-year 
     reduction final ceilings of 1,600 delivery vehicles and 6,000 
     attributed warheads by the December 4, 2001, deadline. By 
     December 2001, these four Former Soviet Union (FSU) successor 
     states had reduced their aggregate forces to 1,136 deployed

[[Page 17382]]

     launchers, 5,518 deployed warheads, and 4,894 deployed 
     ballistic missile warheads, as defined by Article II of the 
     Treaty, and all strategic weapons had been removed or 
     eliminated from the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, and 
     Kazakhstan. Additionally, START required the four FSU 
     successor states to eliminate at least 154 heavy ICBM (SS-
     18)silo launchers by December 2001. In the original MOU, 
     dated September 1, 1990, the Soviet Union declared 308 SS-18 
     heavy ICBM silo launchers. As of November 30, 2001, a total 
     of 158 SS-18 silo launchers had been eliminated--104 in 
     Kazakhstan and 54 in Russia--leaving a total of 150 deployed 
     heavy ICBMs.
       Notwithstanding the overall success of START 
     implementation, a significant number of longstanding 
     compliance issues that have been raised in the START Treaty's 
     Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission (JCIC) remain 
     unresolved. The Parties continue to work through diplomatic 
     channels and in the JCIC to ensure smooth implementation of 
     the Treaty and effective resolution of compliance issues and 
     questions.
       The United States raised six new compliance issues during 
     the period of this report. The United States considers four 
     of these to have been closed. However, several previous--
     often long-standing--compliance issues remain unresolved. A 
     number of these issues, some of which originated as early as 
     the first year of Treaty implementation, highlight the 
     different interpretations of the Parties about how to 
     implement the complex inspection and verification provisions 
     of the START Treaty.


                              ICBM ISSUES

       Inability to Confirm during Reentry Vehicle Inspections 
     (RVOSIs) that the Number of Attributed ICBM Warheads Has Not 
     Been Exceeded. During RVOSIs of deployed Russian ICBMs, U.S. 
     inspectors have been hampered, in some cases, from 
     ascertaining whether the missile had a front section, or that 
     the front section contained no more reentry vehicles (RVs) 
     than the number of warheads attributed to a missile of the 
     declared type under the Treaty.
       The purpose of an RVOSI, as set forth in paragraph 6 of 
     Article XI of the Treaty, is to confirm that a ballistic 
     missile contains no more RVs than the number of warheads 
     attributed to a missile of that type.
       The RVOSI procedures are referenced in paragraph 16 of 
     Section IX of the Inspection Protocol and contained in Annex 
     3 to the Inspection Protocol. Paragraph 11 of Annex 3 allows 
     the inspected Party to cover RVs. Inspectors have a right to 
     view these covers and to measure hard covers prior to their 
     placement on the RVs. The covers are then installed on the 
     RVs before the inspectors view the front section. Under the 
     Treaty, such covers must not hamper inspectors in 
     ascertaining that the front section contains no more RVs than 
     the number of warheads attributed to a missile of that type. 
     Russian RV covers, in some instances, are too large; 
     consequently, they fail to meet this requirement.
       During certain RVOSIs, Russia did not demonstrate to the 
     satisfaction of the U.S. inspection team that additional 
     covered objects located on the front section, and declared by 
     Russia not to be RVs, were not RVs. Although START does not 
     differentiate between nuclear and non-nuclear RVs, Russia's 
     willingness to use radiation detection equipment (RDE) during 
     such RVOSIs to establish that the extra objects were not 
     nuclear has been useful for resolving some, but not all, U.S. 
     concerns.
       FINDING. Russian RV covers, and their method of 
     emplacement, have in some cases hampered U.S. inspectors from 
     ascertaining that the front section of the missiles contains 
     no more RVs than the number of warheads attributed to a 
     missile of that type under the Treaty. Russian cooperation in 
     the use of RDE and other measures has been helpful in 
     addressing some, but not all, of the difficulties encountered 
     by U.S. inspectors.
       Russian Road-Mobile Launchers' ``Break-in.'' Russia has 
     failed to declare certain road-mobile launchers of ICBMs when 
     they first leave their production facility, as required by 
     the Treaty. Russia has moved some of these launchers to an 
     undeclared ``break-in'' area located over 60 miles from the 
     production facility without declaring that they have left the 
     production facility and are accountable under the Treaty.
       Pursuant to paragraph 6(b) of Article III of the Treaty, a 
     mobile launcher of ICBMs becomes subject to the Treaty 
     limitations when it first leaves a production facility. Not 
     later than five days following the first exit of such a newly 
     produced non-deployed road-mobile launcher, and its entry 
     into Treaty accountability, Section I of the Notification 
     Protocol requires the Party producing the new Treaty-
     accountable item to provide a notification of this change in 
     data. Except for transits, Parties are proscribed from 
     locating non-deployed mobile launchers outside the boundaries 
     of the START-declared facilities identified in subparagraph 
     9(b) of Article IV of the Treaty.
       FINDING. Russia continues to violate START provisions 
     relevant to these obligations.
       Deployed SS-25 Road-Mobile Launchers Based Outside Their 
     Designated Restricted Areas. Russia based some deployed SS-25 
     road-mobile launchers outside their declared restricted areas 
     (RAs) at two road-mobile ICBM bases while these RAs were 
     under construction. The United States and Russia concluded a 
     temporary, interim policy arrangement regarding the conduct 
     of inspections and cooperative measures at the facilities 
     where the launchers were housed during the period of 
     construction. This arrangement permitted U.S. inspectors to 
     conduct data update inspections and RVOSIs that they had not 
     previously been able to perform, and allowed Russia to 
     cooperate fully with providing cooperative measures access 
     for the launchers that were previously unavailable. All of 
     these road-mobile ICBMs and their launchers have since been 
     transferred from their bases, and their declared RAs have 
     been eliminated as START facilities.
       FINDING. Notwithstanding the interim policy arrangement, 
     Russia's practice of locating deployed SS-25 road-mobile 
     launchers outside their declared RAs for long periods of time 
     constituted basing in a manner that violated the provisions 
     of paragraphs 1 and 9 of Article VI of the Treaty. This 
     practice has ceased and the United States considers this 
     issue closed.
       Denial of the Right to Measure Certain Deployed ICBM Launch 
     Canisters on Mobile Launchers. U.S. inspectors have been 
     prevented from exercising the Treaty right to measure certain 
     ICBM launch canisters on mobile launchers, both deployed and 
     non-deployed, that are encountered during data update 
     inspections to confirm data regarding the type of item of 
     inspection. Russia, for instance, has prevented U.S. 
     inspectors from measuring launch canisters for SS-24 ICBMs 
     contained in rail-mobile launchers that are located within 
     the boundaries of an inspection site. Similar concerns have 
     arisen with regard to launch canisters for SS-25 and SS-27 
     mobile ICBMs located on road-mobile launchers. With regard to 
     launch canisters for these latter types, Russia and the 
     United States have agreed upon a policy arrangement to 
     address this issue, though it has not yet been implemented 
     for the SS-27 ICBM.
       Subparagraph 20(a) of Section VI of the Inspection Protocol 
     identifies ICBM launch canisters as one of the items of 
     inspection for data update inspections. In accordance with 
     the procedures in Annex 1 to the Inspection Protocol, 
     inspectors have the right to confirm the number and, if 
     applicable, the types of items of inspection that are 
     specified for the facility to be inspected and declared for 
     the inspection site, and the right to confirm the absence of 
     any other item of inspection at the inspection site. Pursuant 
     to paragraph 6 of Annex 1, inspectors may view and measure 
     the dimensions of a launch canister declared to contain an 
     item of inspection to confirm it is of the declared type.
       FINDING. Russia prevented U.S. inspectors from exercising 
     their Treaty right to measure launch canisters for SS-24 
     ICBMs contained in rail-mobile launchers that are located 
     within the boundaries of an inspection site, in contravention 
     of paragraphs 1 and 6 of Annex 1 to the Inspection Protocol. 
     With regard to launch canisters for SS-25 and SS-27 ICBMs 
     located on road-mobile launchers, the Parties have agreed 
     upon a policy arrangement to address this issue, but it has 
     not yet been implemented for the SS-27 ICBM.


                            TELEMETRY ISSUES

       As part of the START verification regime, the Parties are 
     obligated to notify each other of missile flight tests and to 
     exchange telemetry tapes, tape summaries, interpretive data, 
     and acceleration profiles for each flight test of a START-
     accountable ICBM or SLBM. The United States has raised 
     several concerns regarding Russia's failure to provide all 
     Treaty-required telemetry materials for some START-
     accountable flight tests in violation of paragraphs 4 and 5 
     of Article X of the Treaty, and paragraph 1 of Section I and 
     paragraphs 1 and 2 of Section II of the Telemetry Protocol.
       FINDING. Russia has in some instances failed to comply with 
     Treaty requirements regarding the provision of telemetry 
     information on missile flight testing pursuant to Article X 
     of the START Treaty and Sections I and II of the Telemetry 
     Protocol.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for 
his courtesy. I enjoyed hearing his remarks. No Senator on either side 
of the aisle has been a more consistent spokesman on military 
preparedness than Senator Kyl has been over the years. His concern 
about our nuclear stockpile is well known and very important. I hope 
all Americans will pay close attention to what he had to say.
  I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes in morning 
business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________