Sayeth Saint Dick:

If it is brought up, "a large number of Republicans will be in favor of the [New START] treaty, but not all of them," he said.

[snip]

"I think a large majority of Republicans agree with me" on arms reduction, he said.

[snip]

“I think we will not deal with the treaty on the floor until after the election."

[snip]

"No I'm not predicting anything" when asked if it will pass by the end of this year, "beyond the fact that I think we will get to the floor and we'll have a chance to vote upon it, debate it in the lame-duck session."

Here’s hoping that Lugar’s optimistic estimate of his colleagues’ support is based on an actual nose count, not an assumption that they are as principled, knowledgeable, and reasonable as he is.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START, Senate, Congress (all tags)

Former Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation Paula DeSutter has spent most of the summer arguing that the New START treaty drops the ball on verification.  This is a pretty daft claim, since DeSutter was one of the ring leaders for an administration that believed verification was neither necessary nor useful.  Recall that the Moscow Treaty was entirely devoid of any detailed data exchanges and monitoring and verification provisions.  In the eyes of DeSutter, President Reagan’s signature phrase “trust but verify” read “trust but don't verify”.    

Both Kelsey Hartigan and Greg Thielmann have penned great take-downs of DeSutter's latest contribution, which is particularly stunning and riddled with obfuscation. Writing in the National Review earlier this week, DeSutter alleges:

Had the administration deemed the data provided under START to be critical, they could have extended the START treaty until negotiations on New START were completed and it was ratified by the U.S. and Russia. Instead, they let START expire and negotiated against a deadline after making clear their desperate desire for getting an agreement.[emphasis mine.]

Alas, the 2007 version of Paula DeSutter made an extension of START I next to impossible:

While the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or START "has been important and for the most part has done its job," Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter told Reuters the pact is cumbersome and its complicated reporting standards have outlived their usefulness.

In the post-Cold war era, many provisions of the 1991 START accord, which mandated deep nuclear weapons cuts, "are no longer necessary. We don't believe we're in a place where we need have to have the detailed lists (of weapons) and verification measures," added DeSutter.[emphasis mine.]

Kelsey also points out that DeSutter ran roughshod over the verification provisions in other key arms control treaties.

In last week's Washington Post, Walter Pincus noted that the standard by which many Republican Senators are judging New START is markedly different from the one they used to judge the George W. Bush administration's Moscow Treaty. As we've noted on the blog before, nowhere is this more evident than on the issue of verification.  See below the jump for some choice comments from select Republican Senators on verification during the Moscow treaty debate.  Could it be, as former Bush I national security adviser Brent Scowcroft has suggested, that "some just don't want to give Obama a victory" before the midterm elections?

Remember, "trust, but don't verify"...

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Nukes on a Blog, New START, verification (all tags)

In a statement on the New START treaty with the press this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the full Senate must provide its advice and consent to ratification of the agreement when it returns in September.

“Our national security is at risk,” Clinton said. “It’s been more than eight months since we’ve had inspectors on the ground in Russia” who give “a vital window into Russia’s arsenal.”

Clinton added: The treaty “will advance our national security and provide stability and predictability between the world’s two leading nuclear powers.”

NoH will post a full copy of the statement when it's available.

UPDATE 8/11: Secretary Clinton's full statement is pasted below the jump.

UPDATE #2 8/11: Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) gave a great speech on New START this morning to open the 2010 Strategic Deterrence Symposium in Omaha, Nebraska. His remarks can be found here.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START (all tags)

You know how New START skeptics in the Senate have complained about the agreement’s verification provisions and definitions, Russian cheating, nuclear modernization, and the supposed lack of dissenting witnesses in hearings?

Yeah, well they didn’t give a hoot about any of that back in 2002 and 2003 when the Senate was considering the Moscow Treaty (aka SORT), according to Walter Pincus’s definitive account in today’s WaPo. Loyal NOH readers will recall our series of posts highlighting this hypocr…uh, open-mindedness! (Here – here – here – here)

But remember, their complaints are serious and have nothing to do with politics. Nothing at all. Not a thing.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START, Senate, Congress (all tags)

Snooki, do you think the U.S. Senate should approve New START?

Her response speaks volumes about how passionately people support this agreement.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START (all tags)

Courtesy of Ben Loehrke at the Prague Project (h/t friend-of-NOH Kelsey Hartigan), we get this nice visual reminder of the overwhelming bipartisan expert consensus that supports New START.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START (all tags)

Reuters today explains how New START negotiations have devolved into (dis)armed robbery. Money grubbing for nuclear modernization funds is fair, if unbecoming, as part and parcel of congressional sausage production. But not this s*** again:

Corker who along with Kyl and other senators recently visited three national laboratories, called the state of the facilities and weapons, “pretty alarming.” Kyl was struck by the way that Sandia National Lab showed him a plastic container with 1950s-era vacuum tubes that are being replaced with new circuit boards. “They’ve got to get on with this,” Kyl said.

Kingston is going to pop a blood vessel in his eyeball (read his previous diatribes on vacuum tubes).

While horse trading is part of the game, potential treaty skeptics’ funding demands at this point have become rather trifling. Increased nuke money is in the FY 2011 request. It’s in the 10-year plan. It’s in the 20-year plan. Senior administration officials have publicly reiterated their commitment to it. But some senators are unhappy because the planned investment will come from “savings the government hopes to get from interest rates”? Put the nation on a more sound fiscal footing and you won’t have to worry about it, for chrissakes!

Future year budget plans are not set in stone. (Remember when the Bush administration used to project decreased defense spending? Ha! How’d that turn out?) Senators of course understand this variability. They know the administration can’t guarantee future funding streams, as doing so would infringe on Congress’s power of the purse and neuter the U.S. government’s ability to adjust future funding to meet shifting priorities. Congress fights tooth and nail to preserve such flexibility, which is why appropriators are always hesitant to approve multiyear procurement of major weapon systems.

But senators are still objecting on this basis when it comes to nuke modernization. In other words, senators are asking President Obama to guarantee something (modernization funding) that only they themselves can constitutionally guarantee.

The administration has done its part to integrate the modernization program into its future planning, but all it can do is ask for the money. It is up to Congress, including New START skeptics, to provide the funds. Senators: this is ultimately your responsibility, not that of the executive branch. Stop trying to pass the buck.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START, Senate, Congress, Defense Spending, FY 2011 Budget Request, Modernization (all tags)

In the aftermath of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's announcement the Council for a Livable World, the Center's sister organization, issued the following statement:

Senate Sets September Endgame on New START

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 3, 2010
CONTACT: Kingston Reif, Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation, 202.546.0795, ext. 2103, kreif@clw.org

Washington, D.C. – Council for a Livable World today applauded the decision by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to set a schedule for a vote on the New START treaty in September.

This schedule means that the Committee believes it is time to move from hearings and questions to decisions this fall.

“The debate over the national security merits of the treaty is over,” said John Isaacs, Executive Director of the Council. “New START enjoys overwhelming support from current and retired U.S. military leaders and former high-ranking government officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations.  The 20 hearings held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and other committees to date have built an impressive bipartisan record in support of the treaty and provided answers to all of the key substantive questions about the treaty.”

Isaacs added: “As of today, it’s been 241 days and counting since START I expired and with it our on-site monitoring and verification presence in Russia.  The Senate should give its advice and consent to New START as soon as possible because the greater the uncertainties about Russia’s forces, the more likely U.S. defense planners will engage in costly worst case estimates about U.S. force requirements.”

New START requires modest reductions in the deployed strategic nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia and restores an essential means of monitoring and verifying each side’s nuclear forces that has been absent since the START I treaty expired on December 5, 2009.  

“A handful of Republican Senators have indicated that they would like to support New START pending resolution of their concerns over funding for the nuclear weapons complex, which is separate from the limits and verification provisions in the treaty,” said Kingston Reif, the Council’s Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation. "I am confident that when a vote occurs the Senate will provide its advice and consent to the treaty by an overwhelming margin.”  

“Nevertheless, the longer the treaty remains in limbo, the less information we will have about Russia’s still enormous deployed nuclear arsenal,” Reif added.  “Raising questions and concerns, while part of the process, should not be used as an excuse to delay the treaty indefinitely.”

# # #

Council for a Livable World is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization dedicated to reducing the danger of nuclear weapons and increasing national security.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START (all tags)

Seven of the eight retired Commanders of STRATCOM, the U.S. military command responsible for the mission of strategic deterrence and related matters, released a joint letter yesterday strongly endorsing the New START treaty. The letter can be found here.

The Commanders write: "The New START Treaty will contribute to a more stable U.S.-Russian relationship. We strongly endorse its early ratification and entry into force."

The letter reinforces the already overwhelming support for New START from current and retried U.S. military leaders.

Stay tuned for more on this later.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START (all tags)

As you know, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and the Heritage Foundation have been frequent guests on NoH.  See here and here for some of our recent collaborative work.  In the spirit of continued friendship, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on their latest contributions to the New START debate.

Sen. Inhofe

In today’s Roll Call, Sen. Inhofe argues that the 15 hearings held to date on New START in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee have been unbalanced because they have yet to include a witness who opposes the treaty.  Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that no sooner had the ink dried on Obama and Medvedev’s signature of the treaty than Sen. Inhofe declared his opposition to it (which belies his suggestion that he could make a more informed decision if only he could hear from witnesses who oppose the treaty.)  Let’s also set aside the fact that the Senator has only showed up for two of the thirteen public hearings on the treaty to date, including neither of the hearings with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, and STRATCOM Commander Kevin Chilton.

The Senator’s core argument – that the witness list has been unbalanced – is ludicrous.  Just look at the witnesses who have testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on New START…

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Nukes on a Blog, New START (all tags)