White House, Senator Kerry Call for Ratification of START This Year

We are happy to serve you a daily summary of the day's top nuclear policy stories each morning, with excerpts from the stories in bullet form.

Stories we're following today:

White House Sees Arms Deal Ratification this Year - Reuters [link]

• President Barack Obama is hopeful of Senate ratification this year of the arms reduction treaty with Russia he is signing in Prague on Thursday, a White House official said.
• White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said "we hope and expect" ratification would be completed this year.

Chairman Kerry Calls for Timely START Ratification - Senator John Kerry [link]

• Today’s signing of the START treaty strengthens our security while affirming the vital role the nuclear arsenal plays in our nation’s defense. I will work closely with Senator Lugar and our colleagues to see that this historic treaty is ratified this year.
• The White House has indicated that the full treaty will be completed and submitted to the Senate in early May. I plan to begin hearings on the treaty in the coming weeks, and then report a proposed resolution of advice and consent to ratification out of the Foreign Relations Committee for approval by the full Senate as soon as possible.
• The Senate has a long history of approving strategic arms control treaties by overwhelming margins and I am confident we will renew that spirit of cooperation and bipartisan tradition on arms control and national security to approve ratification of this vital treaty. This is too important to delay.

Don't Play Politics with START - Senator Harry Reid in The Hill's Congress Blog [link]

• I commend the President for signing a historic treaty that will help keep Nevadans and Americans safe from nuclear attack. Along with the groundbreaking Nuclear Posture Review released last week, today’s signing of the new START treaty firmly reestablishes U.S. leadership on global non-proliferation and arms control and demonstrates that we can take concrete steps to secure a nuclear-free world without sacrificing America’s security.
• Strategic arms control treaties similar to this one have historically passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support, and I am confident that this agreement will receive the 67 votes from both sides of the aisle needed for passage. There is no need to play politics with something as important as this is to our national security.

Nuclear Terrorism is Most Urgent Threat - Valerie Plame Wilson on CNN.com [link]

• My job was to create and run operations that sought to peer into the procurement networks and acquisition chains of rogue nations. It was intense, tactical, creative and demanding.
• We know that terrorist groups have been trying to buy, build or steal a bomb.
• In the past two decades, there have been at least 25 instances of nuclear explosive materials being lost or stolen. There is enough highly enriched uranium, or HEU, in the world today to build more than 100,000 bombs.
• The only way to eliminate the danger that nuclear weapons will be used by countries in conflict, by accident or by terrorists is to lock down all nuclear materials and eliminate all nuclear weapons in all countries: global zero.

Obama Aide: Israel will have Presence at Summit - Associated Press [link]

•  President Barack Obama's national security adviser says that Israel will still have a "robust" delegation at a nuclear security summit in Washington next week, even after Israel's prime minister abruptly decided not to attend.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said he would be at the conference to underline the danger of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons. Officials in his office said Netanyahu reversed himself because some nations planned to use the conference to target Israel over its barely concealed nuclear weapons program.
• Speaking to reporters traveling with Obama, national security adviser James Jones said Israel did not want to be a catalyst for changing the theme of the summit.

A View from the Dark Side

Nuclear Posturing, Obama-Style - Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post [link]

• Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker is up to date with its latest IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear retaliation. (Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.)
• However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT-noncompliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come.
• This is quite insane. It's like saying that if a terrorist deliberately uses his car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely on whether his car had passed emissions inspections.

The Lighter Side 

The Big Bang Treaty - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart [link]