Treaty with Russia on Measures for Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am here to join my colleagues who believe that now is the time to ratify the New START treaty. The New START treaty is a continuation of a long history of bipartisan arms control cooperation and it is the culmination of President Ronald Reagan's consistent appeal, as mentioned in previous remarks, to trust, but verify when we are dealing with Russia. At a time when much of America is fed up with this body's inability to work in a bipartisan fashion, I hope we can still work across the aisle to strengthen America's national security and deal with the threat that is posed by nuclear weapons. I certainly applaud the leadership of Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar and the work they have done on this issue heading the Foreign Relations Committee.

Much like previous arms control treaties, including the old START treaty signed by President George H.W. Bush and the SORT treaty signed by President George W. Bush, the New START treaty is squarely in the national security interests of the United States. The New START treaty will reduce the limit of strategic nuclear arms aimed at the United States. The United States and Russia will be bound to a lower number of nuclear weapons, which will be 30 percent fewer than the current limits under the SORT treaty. The treaty's new rules allow us to count Russia's nuclear weapons more accurately. That is a critical piece as we listened to the concerns of Senator Chambliss about whether we can verify what is going on. These new counting rules give us the ability to more accurately figure out what is happening with Russia's nuclear arsenal.

In addition, New START leaves us the flexibility to determine our own force structure and maintain a robust deterrent capable of protecting us and our allies.

Despite all the concerns raised, this treaty does nothing--let me repeat that, this treaty does nothing--to constrain our missile defense plans. Further, it allows for the modernization of our nuclear weapons complex. We have already heard from the three directors of our nuclear labs that they are happy with the commitment this administration has provided to modernization of our nuclear arsenal. The treaty restores a critical verification regime that was lost when the old START treaty expired. We have gone over a year without important intelligence from these on-the-ground inspections. This gap hinders our insight into Russia's program.

Much like previous agreements, this treaty deserves broad bipartisan backing in the Senate. Past treaties have benefited from overwhelming support in this body. The original START treaty was ratified by a vote of 93 to 6. We can see that on this chart. START II was ratified 87 to 4. The SORT treaty, negotiated by George W. Bush, was ratified by a vote of 95 to 0. That is incredible--no opposition to that treaty. New START has earned the backing of an overwhelming number of foreign policy experts and national security officials across a broad political spectrum, both Republican and Democratic. New START has the unanimous backing of our Nation's military and its leadership, including Secretary Gates, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the commander of America's Strategic Command, and the Director of the Missile Defense Agency. America's military establishment is joined by the support of every living Secretary of State from Secretary Jim Baker to Secretary Condoleezza Rice, as well as five former Secretaries of Defense, nine former National Security Advisers, and former Presidents Clinton and George H.W. Bush. I know people cannot read this because the writing is so small, but this is the column of former Presidents and Cabinet-rank officials who support New START. Look how long the list is. This is the list of those Cabinet-rank officials who oppose it.

America's intelligence community also strongly supports the New START treaty. It has now been 376 days since we last had inspection teams on the ground in Russia monitoring its nuclear program. Every day we go without this critical intelligence is another day that erodes our understanding of Russia's intentions, plans, and capabilities. New START gives us on-the-ground intelligence we currently do not have and also, for the first time, includes a new unique identifier system which allows us to better track Russia's missiles and delivery systems.

I heard the Senator from Georgia expressing a question about whether this gives us the ability we need to verify what Russia is doing. New START gives us more inspections per facility per year than the old START treaty did. Without this critical information, our intelligence community is hindered from an accurate assessment and our military is forced to engage in costly worst-case-scenario planning.

Our NATO allies also support New START. As chair of the subcommittee responsible for NATO, I am mindful of the defense and security of our NATO alliance members living in Eastern Europe. I was pleased that at the recent NATO Lisbon summit, all 28 NATO allies gave their strong unanimous support for ratification of the New START treaty. In fact, some of the treaty's strongest backers are those countries that are our allies along Russia's borders. The NATO Secretary General said: ``A delay in the ratification of the START treaty would be damaging to security in Europe.''

Finally, ratification of this treaty should be important to those who are concerned with the nuclear threats posed by Iran and North Korea or who are worried about the threat that is posed by terrorists around the world who are seeking a nuclear weapon or nuclear materials.

I know some critics look at the New START treaty in isolation and say this arms agreement has nothing to do with these proliferation threats. I couldn't disagree more. What does it say to our allies and partners around the globe if we turn our back on a long history of bipartisan support for working with Russia to reduce the nuclear threat? Delaying ratification of a treaty with so much bipartisan support from our military and the national security and foreign policy establishments, a treaty that is so obviously in our national interest, tells the world we are not serious about the nuclear threat. It says we are not serious about our responsibilities under the nonproliferation treaty. I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle agree we should do everything in our power to make sure Iran and North Korea and al-Qaida do not have nuclear weapons. If we abdicate our position as a leader on nuclear arms control, we risk losing the authority to build international consensus and stopping rogue nations and ending nuclear proliferation around the globe.

Earlier this year, Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Adviser under President George H.W. Bush, testified to the Foreign Relations Committee that ``the principal result of non-ratification would be to throw the whole nuclear negotiating situation into a state of chaos.'' It is much too dangerous to gamble with nuclear weapons or our national security at a time when we are working with our international partners to press Iran and North Korea on their nuclear weapons programs.

In testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger said that a failure to ratify this treaty would ``have a detrimental effect on our ability to influence others with regard to, particularly, the nonproliferation issue.''

That sentiment was echoed by five former Republican Secretaries of State in an op-ed written for the Washington Post a couple weeks ago.

One of the arguments we have heard this afternoon is that we are rushing consideration of this treaty. This is not true.

This chart is an outline that shows how much time has been spent in the past as treaties have come to the floor. The fact is, the Senate has thoroughly considered the New START agreement. We have had plenty of time to review the treaty. Since it was signed in April, the treaty text has been available for everyone to read. It has not changed. We have had over 250 days to examine the treaty and ask questions of the administration. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held 12 hearings on the treaty.

There were another nine held by other committees. In contrast, there were only four committee hearings held on the SORT treaty and only eight held on START II. The Foreign Relations Committee also accommodated some Members' concerns earlier this year by delaying a vote on the treaty during the August recess. The Obama administration has answered over 900 questions for the record on New START. Nearly every major foreign policy or national security expert has weighed in on the treaty, either in testimony, briefings or in the press.

The history of treaties such as New START shows that the concern that there isn't enough time on the floor to consider this treaty is not accurate. In general, arms control agreements take an average of 2 to 5 days of floor time. The original START treaty, which was much more complicated and complex and the first of its kind, took only 5 days of floor debate. START II took 2 days of floor consideration. The most recent SORT treaty took 2 days of floor debate. We have already had almost 2 days of floor debate. Other arms control agreements, such as the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and the Chemical Weapons Convention, took 2 days of floor time. We have had more than enough time to consider this treaty on the floor.

Finally, some have expressed concerns that the Senate should not be forced to work so close to their holiday vacations. I think it is important to repeat what retired BG John Adams said in response to that concern. He said:

We have 150,000 U.S. warriors doing their job over Christmas and the New Year. The U.S. Senate should do its job--and ratify this treaty.

I could not agree more with Brigadier General Adams. The Senate should get its work done. We should ratify New START. We should do it before the holidays, before we go home, in this session of Congress. It is time to vote on this critical national security concern.

I yield the floor.

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