Sen. DeMint Mischaracterizes U.S. Missile Defense Programs

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today, Wednesday May 20, 2010:

A Defender for a Defense the U.S. Doesn't Want - The New York Times [link]

• At this week's Senate hearing on President Obama's New START treaty Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, assailed Mr. Obama for effectively agreeing to limit any new missile defense system so it could not stop Russian missiles.
• But if that is his concern with the treaty, then his argument is as much with former President George W. Bush as with Mr. Obama. Although Mr. Obama reformulated the system last year, he kept Mr. Bush’s goal.
• The line of attack on the New Start agreement with Russia is instructive, suggesting that some Senate Republicans may go after the pact on the grounds that it does not allow a missile defense against Russia, something neither Republican nor Democratic presidents have actually wanted.
• “Is it not desirable for us to have a missile defense system that renders their threat useless?” DeMint asked.
• Senator John Kerry argued that such a move would open a new arms race with Russia. Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed. “That, in our view, as in theirs, would be enormously destabilizing, not to mention unbelievably expensive,” he said.

DeMint Doesn't Understand New START'S Implications - William Hartung in The Hill [link]

• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) does not seem to understand the implications of the New START Treaty for U.S. missile defense efforts (“Will START Treaty Weaken US Missile Defense? - Senator Kerry Seems to Hope So”, May 18th).
• Sen. Kerry’s point – which Mr. DeMint misrepresents in his essay – is that it is not in the United States’ interest to build a missile defense system that could completely blunt an attack by current Russian nuclear forces. Such a system, were it possible to deploy, would simply drive Russia to deploy more nuclear warheads. Then, as Sen. Kerry rightly noted, we would be on the verge of a Cold War-style arms race that would waste tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars even as it made the world a much more dangerous place.
• Senators of both parties should take this fact into account in considering the relationship between missile defenses and the new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

Chairman's Corner: Testifying on the New START Treaty - Admiral Mike Mullen in the DOD Live Blog [link]

• I had the privilege to reiterate my strong support of the new START Treaty in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today. As I laid out in my previous blog entry on this topic, the treaty has the full support of your uniformed military.
• Some of you have expressed concern to me through Facebook and Twitter about Russian intent. I can tell you that I met with my Russian counterpart, General Makarov, several times during this process.
• These meetings not only provided a better understanding of our common challenges, but reaffirmed my belief that the Russian military is as committed to this treaty and the reduction of nuclear stockpiles as we are.

Iran's Proposed LEU Deal: Skeptical But Awaiting Clarification - Institute for Science and International Security [link]

• It is important to recall that the original purpose of a [fuel swap] agreement was as a confidence building measure aimed at temporarily removing the issue of Iran’s potential weapons-breakout capability, and addressing Iran’s desire to refuel the Tehran Research Reactor.
• Iran has continued to enrich uranium in the intervening seven months and begun its own effort at the Natanz Pilot Enrichment Plant to produce 20 percent enriched uranium, announced plans to deploy a more advanced centrifuge, and start building two more centrifuge plants without notifying the IAEA until late in the construction process.
• The removal of 1,200 kilograms of LEU is also not as attractive today since Iran’s stockpile of LEU is now likely close to 2300 kilograms. At the time of the October 2009 proposal, Iran’s stockpile was about 1,500 kilograms, providing many months where Iran would not have a nuclear weapons breakout capability.
• An agreement to remove most of Iran’s accumulated LEU to a third country in exchange for fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor could be a positive, welcome development.
• It should be negotiated, however, in a way consistent with existing UN Security Council resolutions and in a manner that helps to build transparency and confidence in negotiations aimed at addressing Iran’s uranium enrichment program and the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.

A View From Cannes

Cannes: In the Dark Documentaries "Inside Job" and "Countdown to Zero," It's the End of the World As We know It - Entertainment Weekly [link]

• The scary, gripping, responsibility-inducing, at times borderline exploitative Countdown to Zero makes old terrors radioactively new again.
• I have to acknowledge that the movie is hardly creating fear in a vacuum. It’s trying to shock and horrify and jolt us out of the complacency that set in after the end of the Cold War.
• It’s so sharp in its excavation of the real-world danger of annihilation that it’s the rare piece of political filmmaking that could trigger, and unite, the reflexes of both the left and the right. It makes getting rid of nuclear weapons look less like a “cause” than an imperative.

Cannes: Valerie Plame at the End of the World - Time Magazine [link]

• Countdown to Zero is about the threat of real weapons of mass destruction: nuclear devices that countries like Iran and Pakistan and North Korea could use against their neighbors, or that al-Qaeda and other freelance groups could detonate in the U.S.
• It does not aspire to high art or headline-making exposé. But it does efficiently and vigorously enumerate the dangers of nuclear proliferation by governments and rogue entities.
• The facts marshaled by Plame and the film's other advisers make Countdown to Zero a stirring and scary reminder of the nuclear sword hanging over our collective neck. It details the potential horrors befalling a nuclear attack on New York City, and the deadly fallout that would destroy countless lives, not to mention any residue of a social order in the rest of the nation.
• The film ends with a zero message to embrace: no country should have nuclear weapons.