Pifer and Talbott Rebut False Claims About New START

Amb. Steven Pifer and Strobe Talbott of Brookings took to the pages of the Washington Post to rebut groundless assertions about the New START Treaty from Mitt Romney and the extreme right.  Pifer and Talbott argue that the ratification debate for the treaty should be based on substance and focus on the critical national security benefits that the treaty offers.

Pifer and Talbott correct the baseless claims Romney wrote in his July 6 Washington Post op-ed.  They calmly and assertively remind readers that New START is verifiable, does not limit missile defense, and will give confidence to the U.S. and Russia as they reduce below New START's limits and pursue further negotiations on all nuclear weapons - including tactical.

Romney has faced a torrent of withering criticism for his uninformed and misleading statements on New START.  Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, responded to Romney in the Washington Post and said, "Rather than pander to politics, we need to ratify this agreement quickly. Every day without its verification regime is a day without a clear view of Russia's nuclear arsenal."

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• Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress, a Ploughshares Grantee, wrote of the political motivations behind Romney's op-ed.  
• Fred Kaplan of Slate took apart Romney's falsehoods line by line in a detailed article.
• Barron YoungSmith of the New Republic and Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic explain how the op-ed undermines Mitt Romney's foreign policy credibility.