New START Moves Toward Final Votes as "Treaty-Killing" Amendments Fail

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

Stories we're following today, Monday, December 20, 2010:

New START Rolls on Toward Final Vote as McConnell and Kyl Declare Opposition - Josh Rogin in “The Cable” a Foreign Policy Blog [link]

• The road ahead for New START got much clearer Sunday, as the treaty heads for a final vote this week despite the now open opposition of the two top Republicans in the Senate.
• The Risch amendment failed by a vote of 32-60, after Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) characterized it as a "treaty killer" amendment because any change to the preamble would require a new round of negotiations with the Russian government.
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the treaty Sunday night, which sets up a vote on Tuesday to end debate, according to what Kerry said on the floor.
• "We have now spent 5 days having a very good debate on New START and proposed amendments. That is as much time as the Senate spent on START I, and more than it spent on START II and the Moscow Treaty combined, but we are looking forward to continuing the debate this week," Kerry said.
• More amendments on the actual treaty are expected Monday. The next up is an amendment by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) that would increase the number of inspections mandated by the treaty. That amendment will also be discussed in a closed session scheduled for Monday afternoon to discuss classified intelligence matters related to New START.
• Kerry keeps suggesting that amendments should be made to the Resolution of Ratification (ROR), an accompanying document that doesn't require Russian consent to be changed. The problem is, nobody on the GOP side knows whether there will actually be time to debate the ROR at length.

Barrasso Should Listen to Simpson on Treaty - Casper Star-Tribune [link]

• "The American people deserve a full debate on the Senate floor on a treaty of this magnitude," Sen. John Barrasso, (R-WY), wrote in a Dec. 1 op-ed in the Washington, D.C., newspaper The Hill about his opposition to the New START treaty.  Yet exactly two weeks later, when the Senate voted whether to debate the treaty between the United States and Russia that would further reduce and limit nuclear warheads, Barrasso voted no. Apparently the debate was no longer important to the senator, but stopping the treaty is definitely his prime goal.
• Fortunately, with the help of eight Republicans, the Democratic-controlled Senate cleared the way for the debate, and the public will get a chance to learn why the treaty has strong bipartisan support, including...Wyoming's former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson.
• Simpson, in a Sept. 15 Star-Tribune guest column, explained why the treaty is essential to verify Russian actions. "If the New START treaty is not ratified, we will likely find ourselves in a situation of trust, but don't verify," he wrote. "We will be left to guess the size, location and nature of that arsenal because we will have denied ourselves the ability to conduct surveillance and inspection of Russian weapons and facilities."
• Barrasso and other opponents said they want a chance to amend New START, but they know full well that any changes in the agreement would effectively kill the treaty because it would require new talks with Russia.
• In their head-long rush to deny the president a foreign policy victory, some GOP senators are apparently willing to compromise Americans' safety to score political points. Sen. Jon Kyl, (R-AZ), had the gall to complain that there wasn't enough time during the lame-duck session to consider the treaty, when he and other Republicans insisted all year in delaying the debate.  This is Barrasso's opportunity to put politics aside and be a leader on national security. We hope he takes it.
  

Games vs. Governing - The New York Times [link]

• The Senate still has two major tasks ahead in the remaining days of the lame-duck session: allowing open military service by gay and lesbian soldiers and ratifying the vital New Start nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
• Those Republicans need to resist the obstructionism preached by their leadership and realize that the public wants the two parties to do their jobs and grapple for ways to vote together. There are still many Republicans who have not heard that message.
• On Friday, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said that the Democratic push for military equality for gays and lesbians could “poison the well” for New Start. The two matters are related only because they are both important for this country’s security.
• While all lawmakers need to think hard about how they want to move ahead, Republicans have a particular choice to make, in the next few days and over the next two years. Should they follow the path of bipartisanship, which is leading to solid results in the lame duck, or the obstruction that led to the death of the spending bill?
  

In Letter to Senate, Obama Says New START Pact Won't Limit Missile Defense - Mary Beth Sheridan for The Washington Post [link]

• President Obama issued a letter to the Senate on Sunday pledging to fully develop a U.S. missile defense system in Europe, as part of a final offensive to relieve concerns about the nuclear arms pact with Russia as it moves toward a final vote.  Missile defense has emerged as the greatest point of contention over the treaty. Although the pact is focused on arms reductions and verification, its preamble briefly mentions an "interrelationship" between nuclear weapons and missile defense.
• The letter reiterated administration policy but was an especially extensive and detailed statement on missile defense by the president. Parts of it were read aloud by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) shortly before a vote on an amendment that could have killed the treaty. That amendment was defeated, 59 to 37.
• Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has been leaning toward supporting the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), took to the floor to welcome the president's letter. "A number of people on our side of the aisle have asked for it," he said.  Senators had questioned whether the White House might hold off on developing the last phase of the program, which would be aimed at stopping U.S.-bound Iranian missiles, for fear of antagonizing Russia.
• Obama devoted his weekly radio address to the treaty, saying that it "isn't about winning a victory for an administration . . . it's about the safety and security of the United States of America."

WikiLeaks Cables: Egypt 'Turned Down' Black-Market Nuclear Weapons Deal - Julian Borger in The Guardian [link]

• Egypt was offered nuclear weapons, material and expertise on the black market after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to a senior Egyptian diplomat.
• President Hosni Mubarak turned down the offer, but the incident raises new questions over what nuclear sales were made by the other states or groups in the chaos of the early 1990s in Russia and the former Soviet republics.
• Maged Abdelaziz, the country's ambassador to the UN, made the revelation to America's top negotiator on nuclear arms control, Rose Gottemoeller, in a conversation reported in a leaked US cable in May last year.
• Maria Rost Rublee, an expert on the history of Egyptian nuclear programme, said she was told by three well-informed sources – a former Egyptian diplomat, military officer, and nuclear scientist - that "non-state actors" from an unnamed former Soviet republic had tried to sell fissile material and technology to Egypt.
• Amid all the uncertainty, experts argue that if a warhead had gone astray in that critical period in the early 90s, it would probably have been detonated by now.

View From the Dark Side

New Treaty is Flawed - Sen. John Barrasso in Casper Star-Tribune [link]

• I am writing in response to your recent editorial about my position on the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ("Barrasso should listen to Simpson on treaty," Dec. 17).
• I disagree with President Barack Obama and former Senator Alan Simpson. I also disagree with your characterization that my opposition is based on a desire to deny the president a foreign policy victory. My position is based on policy -- not politics.
• I believe the treaty contains serious flaws that will impact America’s national security. The current treaty weakens our missile defense, benefits Russia, and ignores other nuclear threats like Iran and North Korea. I also believe the administration must provide long-term commitments to modernize our nuclear delivery vehicles and infrastructure.
• On Friday, Sen. John McCain and I offered the McCain-Barrasso amendment to strike language in the treaty’s preamble that places limitations on U.S. missile defense. This is only one area of concern.
• Unfortunately, the full Senate has only been given a few days to address the treaty’s consequential flaws. START is too important to be rammed through in the last few days of a lame-duck Congress. We need to fix START’s flaws before it is ratified.