SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 1999--Continued

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPTION

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the START treaty. We have been debating the START treaty off and on throughout the last few days, and there will be an amendment voted on for the resolution after the 3 o'clock vote on don't ask, don't tell.

I wish to talk about the amendment and the treaty itself. This historic treaty is seeking, of course, to limit the strategic long-range nuclear weapons that are currently in U.S. and Russian inventory for a total of 1,550 warheads for each country. While these limits require some reductions in the number of delivery vehicles and deployed warheads both countries possess, a change in the counting of warheads will allow both countries to cut hundreds of them on paper with no actual reductions. For example, under START I, each deployed delivery vehicle was counted as carrying a specified number of warheads regardless of how many warheads were actually equipped on the missile or bomber. New START abandons these rules, instead only counting the number of warheads actually equipped on deployed missiles. In addition, strategic bombers each count as one warhead regardless of how many warheads they are actually carrying.

I also have reservations because of how New START limits our ability to conduct extensive and robust verification activities to ensure compliance with the treaty. The ability to adequately and thoroughly verify the enforcement of the treaty is crucial for two reasons--not only to ensure that both parties are holding up their end of the bargain but also as it relates to possibly one party losing control of missiles they are not accounting for. It is said in many quarters that some of the deteriorating nuclear materials in Russia have somehow gotten through to rogue nations such as North Korea or Iran. So it is very important to have a verification system that keeps count.

I am concerned about the ability to conduct onsite inspections because it has been reduced in this agreement. Under START I, the United States conducted more than 600 inspections over the course of 15 years. In New START, that number has been substantially reduced to only 180 inspections over the course of 10 years.

There are only two basic types of inspections in New START. Type one inspections focus on sites with deployed and nondeployed strategic systems. Type two focuses on sites with only nondeployed strategic systems. Each side is allowed to conduct 10 type one inspections and 8 type two inspections annually. Under the previous START treaty, there were 12 types of onsite inspections as well as continuous onsite monitoring activities at a certain facility. Even though, as has been mentioned on this floor in the debate, there are fewer facilities, this is a pretty drastic reduction in the ability to actually have the onsite investigations. Because weapons inspectors will only have 10 opportunities per year to inspect just 2 to 3 percent of Russia's force, we will be more reliant than in previous agreements on the full cooperation of Russia.

I really don't know how we could have reached an agreement to substantially reduce our most effective method of enforcement. In fact, a recent State Department report issued by the Obama administration said:

Notwithstanding the overall success of START I implementation, a significant number of long-standing compliance issues that have been raised in the START I treaty's Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission remain unresolved.

Defense. I am also concerned that proposals under the New START treaty may restrict U.S. missile defense capabilities, which could threaten our national security. Of all of the concerns that have been raised, I think this is the most important. It also is part of the amendment we are going to consider this afternoon.

Russia and the United States each issued unilateral statements when they signed New START that clarified their position on the relationship between START and missile defenses.

The official Russian statement said:

The treaty can operate and be viable only if the United States refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively.

Contrary to claims by the Obama administration that missile defense will not be negatively impacted, a review of the text of the treaty shows otherwise. The most obvious limitation on missile defense is found in article V, paragraph 3 of the treaty. It says this prevents converting existing intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, SLBMs, into launchers for missile defense interceptors.

The administration says: Well, it is more expensive to actually convert than to create new ones.

Well, we need to have flexibility. Whether we convert or whether we create new ones should not be a limitation on the United States. U.S. planning and force requirements might have to change in the future to respond to evolving world threats during New START's tenure. It is important that our Nation be able to adjust our military defense systems if needed. We are not just talking about Russia now. We are talking about adjusting our missile defense capabilities against any other country in the world, including rogue nations we believe have nuclear capabilities. We are not sure how far developed they are, but we know North Korea is trying to have a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead. We know Iran is too. We know Pakistan has them, and though Pakistan is an ally, it is a fragile government at this point.

Why would we in any way link our own missile defense capabilities with the evolving threats out there, regardless of the present good terms we have with Russia? Why would we do that? That is a unilateral capability that our country must insist we keep for our sovereign Nation.

The McCain amendment would take out of the preamble to this treaty:

Recognizing the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms, that this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced, and that current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties.

We want to take that out. It is absolutely essential that we take this out of the preamble.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor of the McCain amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, we need to ensure that our defenses are not in any way inhibited by this treaty because we must defend against countries that perhaps are not enemies of Russia, but they might be ours. And to in any way restrict our defenses is not necessary to ensure that we have mutual offensive lowering of numbers.

So I am very concerned about this particular segment. If we can adopt the McCain amendment, of which I am a cosponsor, it would take me a significant way toward believing this treaty would be worthy of ratification.

I am seriously concerned that although it is clear that a number of restrictions will be placed on the United States under this treaty, the same is not necessarily true for our partner to the treaty--Russia.

Dr. Keith Payne, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Forces Policy, has noted that New START's limitations are of little real consequence for Russia because Russia's aged Cold War strategic launchers already have been reduced below New START ceilings. Additionally, many defense analysts predict Russia will have fewer than 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2012.

Russian defense expert Mikhail Barabonov bluntly makes the same point. He says:

The truth is, Russia's nuclear arsenal is already at or even below the new ceilings.

Already at or even below the new ceilings.

At the time of the signing of the treaty, Russia had a total of just 640 strategic delivery vehicles--only 571 of them deployed ..... It therefore becomes evident that Russia needs no actual reductions to comply. If anything, it may need to bring some of its numbers up to the new limits, not down.

That brings me to the second major point that concerns me about the treaty; that is, the modernization capabilities for our warheads that are part of our arsenal. We can do something about this outside the treaty and still go forward with the ratification, but so far we have not had the assurances that would allow us to know our modernization could be done.

According to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, today's nuclear weapons have aged well beyond their originally planned life, and the nuclear complex has fallen into neglect. It has been 18 years since our arsenal has been tested.

I share the concerns of my colleague, Senator Kyl, who has been a leader on this issue. We must ensure--and we can do it in a separate, signed ratification resolution--that the United States has a strong plan that provides for a nuclear modernization program that ensures that if we did need to deploy because a rogue nation that is not part of any treaties or is a part of a treaty but isn't going to comply--we need to ensure our deterrent is real. Our deterrent will be real if our warheads are assured of still being capable of being a deterrent, being deployed, being used in the very worst case circumstances.

As President Reagan said, trust, but verify when you are making treaties with other countries, especially this treaty that is going to have such consequences as one that might lower our capability to defend our country from a nuclear missile, a warhead on a missile that could be delivered to our country by a rogue nation.

This has nothing to do with Russia. We don't expect them to launch a missile against the United States, that is for sure. But we do know that there are other nations that are enemies of the United States, that are trying to get, and possibly have, nuclear warheads and the capability to deliver them.

So we need to assure, first and foremost, two things: that our nuclear capabilities are viable, which means we need a modernization program that we can be assured has an arsenal that can work; No. 2, we need to make sure our ability to maintain missile defense is not negatively impacted by this treaty. There is no reason to connect it to a treaty that is going to limit offenses. As long as our missiles are capable of being deployed, that is leverage we must have. But we certainly have no reason to lower our capability to defend our country unilaterally, which I cannot imagine that any administration--and certainly not the Senate--would sign or ratify a treaty that might take away our capability to defend our country. I would hate for it to be on our watch that we lowered the defenses of the United States, because we are being rushed into ratifying a treaty without the full capability to amend it, or that we don't make sure in every detail, as Senator Kyl has said so many times, that we have preserved our capabilities to defend our country against any enemy; and secondly, that we have the capability to go on offense so that any country that might decide to send a nuclear warhead into our territory, or into anyplace where our troops are on the ground fighting for freedom, that that country or that group of rogue nations would know we could respond because our arsenal of weapons is viable.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source