Final START Vote Looms

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

Stories we're following today, Tuesday, December 21, 2010:

Senate Support Builds for Pact on Arms Control – Peter Baker in The New York Times [link]

• The Senate moved closer on Monday to approving a new arms control treaty with Russia over the opposition of Republican leaders as lawmakers worked on a side deal to assure skeptics that the arms pact would not inhibit American plans to build missile defense systems.
• By the end of another tumultuous day, treaty backers said they could count more than the two-thirds majority required for approval in votes that could begin as early as Tuesday. The Senate mustered as many as 64 votes in defeating Republican amendments on Monday, just two short of what supporters need for final approval, and three senators who supported one of the amendments have already said they will vote for the treaty in the end.
• The momentum building for the treaty came despite the announcements of the two top Senate Republican leaders, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Jon Kyl of Arizona, that they will vote against the treaty, known as New Start.
• “Ratification of the New Start treaty is vital to U.S. national security,” Admiral Mullen wrote in a letter to the Senate. “Through the trust it engenders, the cuts it requires, and the flexibility it preserves, this treaty enhances our ability to do that which we in the military have been charged to do: protect and defend the citizens of the United States.”
• With that avenue blocked, Mr. McCain was trying to fashion a plan to make clear that Russian objections would not stop American missile defense in Europe. Mr. McCain proposed an amendment to the resolution of ratification that accompanies the treaty, which would not require reopening talks with Russia.

@senatorlugar - Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) via Twitter [link]

• Today, 3 treaty-killing amendments were voted down. Vote results were 33-64, 33-64 & 35-62. Debate continues Tues w/ final passage Wednesday

New START a Shift to the Political Center – Gloria Duffy in The San Francisco Chronicle [link]

• New START looks likely to pass despite the type of extreme partisan political posturing that has torpedoed many of the other major issues that passed through the Senate's last term, and it is likely to pass with bipartisan support.
• The closer we've gotten to the vote, the more surprising the endorsers -- Patrick Buchanan and Max Boot have joined Catholics United and the Natural Resources Defense Council to urge its passage. The entire military leadership, every living former secretary of state and two former presidents have urged its passage.
• It's the type of rally around national security that happened after 9/11, but in an entirely different direction. The support for New START signals a security consensus that values engagement with other nations in meaningful partnerships and envisions nuclear weapons as the ultimate problem, not the ultimate solution.
• These results cannot be achieved without determination, cooperation and leadership. New START will only pass with genuine hands-across-the-aisle partnerships built over shared values and common sense.
• After all the electioneering talk of hands-across-the-aisle and a new way of doing business in Washington, we finally have a model that shows how a bipartisan consensus can win the day. New START is what genuine bipartisanship looks like, and it is a model that will make America safer.

Mullen Urges Senate to Ratify Arms Treaty - Mary Beth Sheridan and Felicia Sonmez for The Washington Post [link]

• The nation's top military officer appealed to the Senate on Monday to ratify a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia, as supporters attracted more Republican votes, making it increasingly likely that the pact would be approved.The letter from Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could intensify the pressure on wavering Republicans by putting them in the awkward position of rejecting the military's advice on a national security issue if they voted "no."
• The letter came amid intense efforts on both sides to sway senators on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which could face a vote as early as Tuesday. Seven Republican senators have publicly supported it, putting the administration within two votes of victory. The White House says it has the votes for passage.
• Mullen's letter was a rebuke to Republicans who have sought to postpone consideration of the treaty until next year and amend it to allow more inspections and to raise the number of permitted nuclear-capable missiles and aircraft. "The sooner it is ratified, the better," he wrote, saying that New START was "vital to U.S. national security." Mullen emphasized that he had been personally involved in the treaty's negotiations. "Military perspectives were thoroughly considered," he wrote.
• The White House is optimistic it has the supermajority of two-thirds of senators required to pass the treaty. On Monday, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) declared he would vote for it. Asked whether Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) would support the pact, spokeswoman Andrea Candrian said, "Yes, he's planning on it."  Sen. Johnny Isakson (R.-Ga.), a Foreign Relations Committee member who supported the pact in committee and spoke in favor of it on the floor, told the Hill newspaper on Monday that it "sounds like" he will vote in favor of ratification.  Four other Republican senators have publicly backed New START - Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and George V. Voinovich (Ohio).  Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) told reporters that he was leaning toward supporting the treaty. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Monday that he has not made a decision yet but that it appeared "the caveats that I've laid out are going to be dealt with."

North Korea Makes Gestures Toward Calm After South's Drills - John Pomfret and Chico Harlan for The Washington Post [link]

• North Korea has told a visiting American politician that it would allow international inspectors to visit a newly unveiled uranium-enrichment facility and announced Monday that it would not "retaliate" against South Korea for conducting military exercises - gestures that seemed intended to calm tensions on the Korean Peninsula, at least for the time being.
• Ending a five-day visit to Pyongyang, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) praised North Korea for reacting "in a statesmanlike manner" to the South's live-fire exercises and expressed hope that the North's proposals would "signal a new chapter and a round of dialogue to lessen tension on the Korean Peninsula."
• Dai Bingguo, a senior Chinese diplomat, traveled to North Korea on Dec. 9, and China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that China and North Korea had reached "consensus" on the situation on the peninsula - which many analysts interpreted to mean a North Korean agreement not to provoke South Korea in the short term.
• "The Chinese clearly had to have something to do with it," said Evan Feigenbaum, a George W. Bush administration State Department official now at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Dai goes there and suddenly North Korea says, 'We don't need to respond.' "
• At the State Department, the reaction was more guarded. "If North Korea wants to reengage with the [International Atomic Energy Agency], wants to reintroduce inspectors into its facilities, that certainly would be a positive step," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told a news briefing. "We'll be guided by what North Korea does, not by what North Korea says it might do under certain circumstances." North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors in April 2009 before it conducted a second test of a nuclear device.

China Urges North Korea to Accept Nuclear Inspectors - Wee Sui-lee and Sylvia Westall for Reuters [link]

• China on Tuesday urged North Korea to follow through on its offer to allow U.N. nuclear monitors into the country as a way to alleviate international tensions during a standoff with the South.  China, North Korea's only major ally, has continually urged dialogue to resolve the crisis and has been reluctant to blame its neighbor for the shelling of a South Korean island last month, in which two Marines and two civilians were killed. South Korea held further live-fire drills on the island on Monday, raising fears of all-out war, but the North did not retaliate. Instead, it offered to accept nuclear inspectors it has kicked out of the country before.
• "North Korea has the right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, but also at the same time must allow IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors in," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in Beijing. "All parties should realize that artillery fire and military force cannot solve the issues on the peninsula, and dialogue and cooperation are the only correct approaches."
• New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said on his return from a visit to Pyongyang, where he acted as an unofficial envoy, that North Korea had promised to allow in inspectors to make sure it is not processing highly enriched uranium.
• Analysts said it was unclear how much access IAEA inspectors would really get because North Korea has limited their oversight in the past. They also said the major worry was whether there were other nuclear sites hidden outside of Yongbyon.
• Shen Dingli at Shanghai's Fudan University, said North Korea's latest moves did not mean that it was moving any closer to abandoning its nuclear weapons programme. "North Korea wants nuclear weapons and won't abandon them, and if there are new six-party talks it will defend that right."

View From the Lighter Side

 The Image above was created by Tom Toles for The Washington Post [link]