>> a look back at the public waves of special envoy richard holbrooke online at c-span video library. nominated for the nobel peace prize seven times, he served under four presidents and was the main architect of the dayton peace agreement, ending the war in bosnia. the c-span video library. is washington your way. >> the senate today approved tax cuts and employment benefits deal brokered between the white house and congressional republicans. the bill now goes to the house.t this portion of the senate debate leading up to the vote is half an hour.

>> we have an amendment which is a motion to suspend the rulesndn and considerd the amendment ani will make that motion in a bill moment. we had to force a bill. we're going to spend $136 billion more than what we plan to be for this agreement was made. we have no opportunity under oft last priority, less important items. so we have an amendment for the it's not being free. it's painful. but it cuts $150 billion from the federal expenditures to payt for the shell petrol expenditures that will go out the door as a result of this bill. and i actually believe every one of my colleagues in the senate

understands the jam we're in. cn where i'm confused is that when we bring cuts to the floor, not only do they not vote for the't cut, they don't offer alternative cut.you can and you really can't have it both ways. you can't see you recognize the significant difficulty or countries than and turn around t and vote against somebody making an effort to get us out of that additionalwh spending cut for spending. we don't have that privilege ana longer. so we got the recognition of the and lea t me describe what is happening just in the last two and a half years. we have run a budget deficit foi

now 27 straight month, and leaving this month. 2009 budget deficit has recorded was 1.4 trillion. section 1.6 trillion when youds take the money we actually stole from trust funds and other items.1.3 in 2010, 1.3 trillion. on the basis of how we're going now, our budget deficit will probably be in real terms, notws what is reported to the american people, but the actual facts ofe how much the devil increase, probably 1.6 to $1.7 trillion. how long can we continue to do t that?dget is a matter of fact, the largest budget monthly deficit ever recorded was a trooper. $291 billion. the time to act is now. put

if you don't like what i've putu up, then put something else up. let's have a debate about it. let's have an honest discussiond about the problem of the t possible solutions. that's what the deficit commission was trained to do. inudin that's a group of us, includingo but president pro tem are tryinr to do in a bipartisan basis.o there is no longer debate onoun. whether or not we have to cut most everybody agrees. the question is when will we start? we nowill tell you, if this amendment passes, we will send a notice to the world that we gett it. the international financial community will start seeing thic acting like adults and no longer delaying the time at which we at will start shipping and stopeepe taking. may we have a hole so deep we may not climb out of it now.

the last thing we want to do ism make a hole bigger. so mr. president, i move to of suspend rule 27 under amendment 4765 and ask for the and nays. do not the motion is pending. is there sufficient second? at the moment there is none. >> i will we offer. i yield the floor.'m going >> center for michigan. the to cal >> is to present, in a moment i'm going to ask to call a nine. minute number 4787 for the motion to concur the house amendment. in my amendment would restore the estate tax exemption level a on top of state tax rates to thl 2009 bubbles to 3.545 million% respectively. with the fall of the othermo sod modifications to the estate,axes

gift and so-called generation skipping transfer taxes the same as they appear in the underlying amendment. i'm raising the estate tax exemption level to $5 million lower the rate i to 35% is just not the responsible thing to dot given our current fiscal situation. and it only would exacerbate widening wealth and inequality ee america.only thr only three of every 1000 in e deceased estates in excess ofsel $3.5 million. at a time when some people are seriously discussing cuttingupy social security, which is relied upon by so many millions of to americans, how can congress consider this action to benefit the top three tenths of 1% of -- that we don't have an estimate of the savings to the treasury for this amendment, but we do or

know that it would save our treasury tens of billions ofwhiw dollars, which we need to help continue unemployment, social curity and other critical programs.s mr. president, whether anyoneat. agrees with this amendment or not, this is an amendment which should be debated. the senate should have an issue. unless they get unanimous consent the way this is currentlywi structured by ther p senate will be denied this sup opportunity. whether people support it, don'k opposed the estate tax change or don't know, the way the senate ought to operate, we should have a chance to vote on thistt amendment. so mr. president, i now ask my unanimous consent that it be in order to call up i amendmenthe e number 4787 in the motion to concur to the house amendment. j >> is there objection? >> mr. president. >> senator from wyoming. >> i object. >> objection is heard.

>> i yield the floor. >> is to president, as i think many people know i have been extremely critical of the the agreement struck between thelea. president and the republican i leadership. aga i've spoken out against it and voted against cloture just yesterday. it is one thing to be critical of a proposal. it is another thing to come up with a better alternative and i think i've done that today. i think the amendment that i amt offering is i believe a significant improvement over the struck in thery president and the republican leadership and i would hope very much we can get strong bipartisan support forward. only very briefly tell you what it does. first, as i think most americans appreciate, at a time of record-breaking deficit to $13.7 trillion national debt, ir makes veryov little sense to be

providing huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in oururis country, drives up the national debt, forces are too or text in the future to pay that nationals debt off. what this amendment does is end -- and all the bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of americans begin on january 1 of this yeasr. now, what does it do to save ust the most important point to beo wanting to make.o over the long term, what this amendment to would be to vote half of the revenue raised by this provision by eliminating three tax breaks for the top 2%. it would use half of that money to reduce the deficit.eduction, half of that money goes to deficit reduction, which i hopea the appeals to many of my republican friends whodefi up tight deficits anhadlf the dr of this tight deficits to this e

country. half of the savings by eliminating tax breaks for the t wealthy goes to deficit hf reduction. what does the other half go to?t seems to me, mr. president, do what we should be and must be concerned about the deficit, we must also understand that we continue to be in a major unelo. recession. too millions of our fellow americans are employed. we've got to do everything we can to create decent paying jobs and put those people back to work. what the other half of the savings to invest in ouructure. infrastructuredo.here tt i do not tell anybody here that our infrastructure is crumbling, that is our roads, bridges, schools, housing, transforming our nation's energy sector.dollo we need to put billions of dollars into building a 21st century rail system. and what we do that, we not only create jobs now and this is thee fastest way that i know to create jobs. we make our country more as ane

internationally competitive in the future. and if we do not build our crumd infrastructure, if it continuesd to crumble and they tell us many trillions of dollars investment, we are going to lose our place in the global economy.n so we've got to invest in infrastructure.hat. half of the savings does just that. mr. president, in addition, thiy amendment replaces the payroll y tax holiday with a one-yeary extension of the make work pay credit. in other words,or we are giving targeted tax breaks for the middle class, not reducing payroll taxes for millionairesam and members of congress.ould and this proposal would not endanger social security and a bag to go to the people who most need it. it would be a lot fairer because

better. upper income people would not ma get it. dresses a concern i think many americans have and po that is diverting money away from thell payroll tax endangeri the long-term solvency otyf socn security. as their kingston, the cochair of the strength of socialn security campaign an tens organization representing tens of millions of senior citizens quotes, extending and expanding to making work pay tax credit io far superior to the payroll tax cut for most americans.s making work pay tax credit istr, more similar, fair distribution, poses netsw administration courc and includes the 6 billion public-sector employees who will receive nothing from the payroll tax cut.doesn't r and unit doesn't run the risk of undermining social security's i financing and americans, et that cetera. issue so it addresses that issue as i

well. third,a this amendment addresses another issue that i know a lote of people in this country of gi concern about and that is the underlying bill by inserting for the 2009 estate tax rate for twl years. mr. president, let's be clear. the estate tax only applies to the top three tenths of 1%. is what we are doing now is not exptions, lowering estate tax and raisingy exemptions which only be.nefit the very, very wealthy people in brging this u country. what we are doing now is bringing us back to the 2009 estate tax rate for two years. further, mr. president, this amendment addresses an issue l f that jimmy is very important and i know too many members because we have a lot of support when it brought this amendment up last week. as you well know, our seniors on

social security, disabled ve had not received a cola in the last two years. a lot of those folks are trying to get by r. 14, 15, $16,000 amt year. inudes i what this amendment also includes a $250 cola for all ths 57 million american senior citizens, veterans and persons with disabilities. b without this provision, seniors, as i mentioned, would be going through their second year without a cola and i think that is unfair.uld kee further course, this amendment would keep all of what ie consider to be the positive aspects of the president's agreement with the republicans. obviously, it would extend middle-class tax cuts for 90% or americans. it would extend unemployment insurance for 13 months.xtend it would extend the trail tax ic credit earned income taxom cred, college tax cut included in the

recovery act. so mr. president, what we are doing here is i think bringingfr forth a far better proposal in the agreement struck between the republicans and the president. let me summarize, and tax breako for the rich. uses half of the money for deficit reduction. half of th jat money to create millions of jobs, rebuilding out crumbling infrastructure. taxeuld replace the payroll holiday of which many peopleay m have concerns. they're diverting money away from social security with a wo one-year extension of the pay m credit, much more targeted to to low and moderate income people,y not to members of congress and the richest people in this country not for social security. this amendment would strike the call -- the estate tax proposale in the underlying bill and insert the 2009 estate tax rates for two years. and that is i think a muchmore k fairer sproposal than giving evs

more tax breaks for the very, ldry wealthiest people in thisiu country. and lastly, this amendment would provide a $250 cola for all the 57 million americans citizens or disabled veterans and people with disabilities. it also includes an extension of merntion middle class tax cuts for 90% of americans and extension of unemployment for 13 and extension of child earned income tax credit and college tax credit expansion. so i think this is the alternative that many americans would like to see. creates jobs, cuts the deficit and is much fairer -- much undg fairer than the agreement of the underlying bill that we are voting on now.oting on mr. president, with that, i woud would know if to suspend rule 22 for the purpose of proposing ane considering amendment number 48 of nine with a house message took him any h.r. 4053 and ask for the yeas and maze.

>> the motion is pending. is there sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and names are ordered. >> with that i would yield the floor.m >> mr. president, yield myself are minutes from the time and c controlled the latest time. >> senators recognize.gnificanyt >> mr. president, does senate is about to pass a bill that would bolster economic recovery. the bill were about to pass will cut rates for families.yment it will reauthorize unemployment insurance. it will extend the child taxax credit in the college tuition ad tax reduction.pment t it will extend the research and developmentax tax credit and busi accelerate depreciation for for it wilel c autre payroll taxes r workers. these are important provisions. with the bipartisan leadership did not include several other ie

important items that i think deserve special attention. hard i worked hard to include these provisions in the bill reaches past, but some on the other side of the aisle were prevented fros inclusion. these are commonsense provisions any senator could opposero them one provision i would like to rl highlight this morning is a provision to repeal the 1099 small businesses across america were disappointed that this provision was not included in i'm talking aboutth the repeal g the recently expanded form 1099 information reportingngly, somet requirements. surprisingly, some of the other sites now block inclusion of provision to repeal these requirements. it included a repeal of these requirements for the taxhe alternative for this month andsr senator schumer included this in

alte hisrn alternative. several measures to repeal the new rules have received bipartisan support.ent oug to frankly, repeal of this reporting requirement out to be a. no-brainer. new the new rules take effect at the beginning of 2012. money that means many small businesses will soon begin spending money to cure up for them.l bus small businesses in montana thas cross this should not be to spe spend their time and money to fl fill up our governmentd let t paperwork.focus on that said, we should let them focus on staying in business, growing their business and creating jobs. t many small-business owners have contacts to be about thisose provision. some republicans now appear ton oppose repeal in private after having advocated repeal in are public. and i can understand why smallppose businesses are public frankly i don't see how any senator can oppose repeal.buo they intend to keep working onfn

behalf of american small business to see that this unrealistic information repealed. conse and so, mr. president, i askof unanimous consent that the finance committee discharge of m h.r. 4849 in the senate proceedt to the needy consideration that the senate agree to the baucus amendment to repeal the form 1099 reporting requirement. as the bill be ready to attack us at the motion is to reconsider be laid on the tableg and this all occur without >> mr. president. >> sender for wyoming. >> thank you, mr. president. reserve the right to object, ass the center does mr. johansenrepl nebraska has proposed a the republican alternative to. >> mr. president, and appreciate myg, good friend from wyoming, t i cannot agree to amending my

request in that way because of the incessant cuts and appropriate spending and thespen johanns amendment. i mean, the johanns amendment is 1099. it's just a totallyit differento animal, so therefore it cannotit agree to this amendment.fficer: >> the senator from wyoming. >> i object. eq objection is heard. two unamr >> mr. president. >> senator from montana.on of te >> eighty-two units that can t send requests that the senate to get the approval of the majority and the minority beaters. as consent is the agree to end this request be printed on the record. >> without objection. demin >> mr. president. >> senator from louisiana. aed t e is my goodo friend senator demint and i know we have time allocated to him. i alsoef have a bit flat. i just want to make sure that i will be able to retain my eight and a half minutes.ms. larieu: y

>> the senator has seven minutes remaining.i'd like t >> i like to pretend my seven minutes after president deminta. speech.mr. demint: >> mr. president. >> senator from south carolina. >> mr. president, i have been a motion, excuse me. >> the motion is pending. mov >> thank you, mr. president. just a moment i'll move to suspend the rules for the purpose of offering my motion to permanently extend the current finally repeal the death tax once and for all and permanently patch the alternative minimum work h gon tax. mr. president, i know a lot of work has gone into this tax compromise i appreciate the fact that both sides have worked so a hard to strike a deal.fforts while i appreciate the efforts l

that have been made, i'm concerned the bill currently under consideration does not permanently extend tax rates and best will have a marginal, if any, benefit to our economy. temporary rates make for a temporary uncertain economy. my substitute amendment ensures a long-term stable economic environment for americans to create jobs, buy a home, investi their assets, save for retirement and preserve their family farm or business. areoing mr. president, we need to stop and consider what we are doing for our country and to our economy. we are a premier free market economy the world. yet, almost all of our federal tax rates are temporary. lot i've been a business most of my life and i understand a lot

about how free markets work, how businesses plan, usually in a ds five or 10 year window, looking people canon they afford? onl in a building a newy plant?s. l now they're not only looking at whether to do it in the u.s., w but all overor the world. but now in our country, we have a temporary uncertain tax code t that makes it very difficult foh businesses to plan.rs we've not just at the tax code.ber for the last several years, we've waiteddoct until decembert tell doctors what we're going t pay them to see medicare patients the next year. their offices? we know some have argued that p people off not knowing what they're going to get paid next e year. now free markets, free of enterprise work within a whe framework within a rule of law, where people know what their taxes will be, with the loss will be come with the regulatory environment will be. taile

but in america today, if we take the-- compromise, almost all ofl tax rates are either one year or two years. or t and then people can expect them to go upward to change. we cannot operate the world's largest economy in this type ofs environment. mr. president, washington does not have a tax revenue problem.a it is a spending problem. j the muscle to work americans keep their hard-earned money, not just for a year or two, but allowlo people actually to looke out and see can they make those car payments for four, five 15, years? can they make those house payments for 15, 20 or 30 years? they need to know what their tax rates are going to be. repl we must repeal the immoral death tax once and for all. it's zero this year, but the proposed compromise will have i5 at 35% for any estate over a

5 million next year. now that may sound like a much better deal than we would have t had, but even with that, the estimates are that this could cost 850,000 jobs to let this mc tax reemerge. we must commit ourselves to recovering from years ofoverreh. overspending, overtaxing,s overreaching. the american people deserve better they told us so in theorg november elections. ester president, according to rule five of the standing rules of the senate, i moved to suspend the rules for the purpose of proposing and804 to considering amendment 4804 to001 permanently extend 2001 and 2003 income tax rates, permanently ad repeal the estate tax and permanently patch the alternative mintaimum -- a minim tax. and i asked for the yeas and nays.

>> senators that voted 81 to 19 to approve the tax cut and unemployment. the legislation could come up in the house as early as tomorrow. the senate today voted to move forward with debate on the u.s.-russian nuclear treaty, known as the s.t.a.r.t. treaty over the next several hours to hear from supporters and opponents

..

>> thank you ladies and gentlemen. in view of the unanimous consent agreement that was just entered into i thought this would be a good time for us to express some positions relative to beginning the debate on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. in case you are not aware what is just an agree to us that there would be no reading of the s.t.a.r.t. treaty but rather an agreement that members could proceed today to talk as if in mourning business and consideration of the treaty would officially begin tomorrow. now on the dais here are members who have i think decided that they would like to vote for the treaty. members who have decided they would not like to vote for the treaty and members who are undecided and for whom the amendment process is very very

important, but one thing that we share is our desire to debate and consider important matters before the senate in a way which does credit to the senate, to the american people and the seriousness of the issues that confront us. that begins with the omnibus appropriation bill. we all believe that after the tax legislation and we are not done with that, that the next order of business should be to fund the government, which funding runs out as of midnight on saturday. it is important for us to find a way to move forward with that in a bipartisan way. right now we don't have that. and then, if there is time before the christmas holiday, going beyond the original december 17 to date that the talked about as the desirable date to leave, we could consider those issues but the leader decides instead to proceed to the s.t.a.r.t. treaty and that we all share is a belief that is not a good idea because it does

not give us the appropriate way forward to consider all of the important issues that the leader has raised. the omnibus appropriation bill after the tax bill, the s.t.a.r.t. treaty, the legislation the leaders talked about such as as "don't ask don't tell," the d.r.e.a.m. act and other matters. to fail to for example fund the government for the entire year and then come before christmas with a process that would not enable republican senators -- senators to offer amendments on a bill that is over 1000 pages, excuse me almost 2000 pages and over a trillion dollars is not the way to run the united states senate. and then to decide to dual-track that with the s.t.a.r.t. treaty, which enables us to afford appropriate time to neither is just a further exacerbation of the problem. the omnibus appropriation bill and continuing resolution are important matters that the american people are focused laser-like because they just

sent us a message to stop spending so much money and earmarking. this is a bill that will raise those important issues. the s.t.a.r.t. treaty is a very important document and there are very important ramifications that need to be thoroughly considered with appropriate amendments and sufficient time to consider them. and for the leader to suggest that for a couple of days this week and then whatever time there may remain next week before christmas is adequate time to consider the treaty right up against the christmas holiday of course, well i will say is quite inappropriate and i will just conclude by saying that i didn't really appreciate the leader's remarks just a moment ago on the senate floor when criticizing those of us who have taken this position as whining and not being willing to work over the christmas holidays like everyone else does. first of all if you are called just a year ago from thanksgiving all the way through christmas eve day, we worked

every single day including saturdays and sundays. remember there were a lot of folks that had to occur in 7:20 a.m. and 12:01 p.m. -- actually 12:01 a.m. and the like, so we have worked over the christmas holidays but i don't think it is desirable if one considers the needs of our constituents to occasionally see us back home, the needs of our families and yes i did say that i thought it was disrespectful of one of the two major christmas holidays of the year. but in most of all and this is where i will conclude, think it is disrespectful of the senate. those of you who are heard judd gregg's comments yesterday he talked about the uniqueness of the senate and white was so important to our government and one of the reasons he said it's because members are given a full opportunity to -- theoretically to offer amendments and debate important matters and not to be constrained by matters of time or by the majority being able to always win.

and as a result it seems to me that the process we have embarked upon here is an inappropriate process. now i know senator bond may have to go here and just a moment. he has been just a stalwart in working on the intelligence issues as the ranking member on the intelligence committee and so let me ask you to speak next and then whoever else would like to step forward. >> thank you very much john and thank you for a very constructive path you have outlined with the majority leader. i regret the fact that he says that they are going to try to cram this with a jam vote and too little debate. if there's anything that proves why the senate should work its will, it is the business that we passed last christmas, the outrage about that senate action has led to a major seismic shift in the electoral makeup of this

country. if there's one thing we should have learned, it is people don't trust the senate when the majority jams things through without adequate debate. and on this treaty, think there is lots of room for debate and it cannot be strong-armed into a few days when we still have the two most important things to the american people to deal with. there are a number of problems with the treaty. i have severe reservations requiring unilateral cuts. only in our arsenal, none to the russians in giving russia essentially a vote on our missile defense decision. as vice chairman of the -- my biggest problem with this broad treaty is the u.s. will lack but i consider a reliable means of verifying russian compliance. unless you have had your head buried in the sand for the last 50 years you can't ignore the fact that moscow has a very poor track record of complying with

arms treaties and has used many ways to get around the inspection requirements of the past. now members of both sides of the aisle have been throwing around the terms are responsible. in my book there is nothing more irresponsible than for my colleagues to push to vote on a treaty of this magnitude affecting our national defense without hearing all of the issues and getting a full debate i believe that that includes reviewing the classified information. my view is the frustration needs to go back to the drawing board, hit the reset button on new s.t.a.r.t. and negotiate negotiated a treaty which puts america's national security first. >> i want to back up the vice-chairman of the intelligence committee. he is the longest-serving person on the intelligence committee. what he is just told is absolutely accurate. i also want to thanks senator kyl. i think both sides have been

great but he is approached as an intelligent respectful way and he has really put in the time to really look at these treaties the way they should. this particular treaty the way it should be. the s.t.a.r.t. treaty is a very important treaty, very important set of issues but we simply don't have enough time to deal with it in this context and the remaining days of the congress. i have to ask, why can't we wait until the next congress? isn't that the morally upright thing to do since we have had a lot of people who have an elected who really ought to be the ones who represent the people having won elections? it seems to me that we have to put it over until we can have enough time to do it. usually these kinds of treaties take at least two weeks on on the floor of the senate and sometimes much longer than that but certainly about to be given at least that amount of time. 18 members of the republican colleagues have requested in a letter to senate minority leader

mcconnell earlier this month that we should push this over until next year. like i say, the american people just elected a whole bunch of new members of the senate who have not been given an opportunity to radically examine this treaty and its implications. i think they should be given the time to study the treaty and all the supporting documents which have been withheld, some of them. why? this is the u.s. senate. this is the most important legislative body in the world. it is our job under the constitution to approve or disapprove a treaty and it requires a simple majority vote to do so. to handle it right it is very logical and probably a given that this treaty is going to be past. with so little time left we should focus on the funding of the government. by defeating the $1.1 trillion omnibus bill. the american people oppose that and instead we should pass a continuing resolution that will

get us to the next year into this the right way. if they do at the right way they will have more consensus, people like myself who want to support and do the very best we can and would like to support a s.t.a.r.t. treaty, but i don't think this is an unreasonable thing into ram this through at this crucial time of year when we have a lot of other things we have to worry about as well i think is just not right. >> i am going to jump in here on the intelligence bandwagon and agree with senator bond, who spoke as the ranking member when i was chairman of the intelligence committee. we knew something like this was going to happen in the years ahead. i would encourage everybody here to read the 14 reservations that we all have about the s.t.a.r.t. treaty as written, and i would

simply agree with my colleagues that we certainly need more time to do this in the proper way as opposed to jamming this up against the christmas holidays. each one of these questions are very serious. i'm especially concerned that there is a classified section that has not been provided to the congress and i even toyed with the idea as did senator bond -- doit is probably not the right word, of going into closed session and having a briefing by the state department and by others in the intelligence community on the classified section so that every member would be fully aware on everything that happens in regards to the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. now i have been to several secret sites in russia when i served in that capacity. i would like to see the russians open up additional sites. it is trust and verify that i have robbins with the lack of testing in their problems with side agreements. all of these things have not an

answer to at least to my satisfaction. i hope that we can reach accord but i hope it would be next yeae of calm and reasoned that we could get to a proper conclusion on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. excuse me. i don't know how many of you have seen former president putin singing blueberry hill on the news, and i don't know if you have looked into his eyes and found trust incompetence or not, but i am not ready to go there. as a matter fact i think i would probably sing back a country western song saying, the bridge of trust and verification has washed out. i can't swim in the treaty is on the other side. and so consequently i hope we can take more time to do it right and all of these members i know support to s.t.a.r.t. treaty and again i would urge you to read the 14 concerns that we have that need to be

addressed in the proper fashion. thank you. >> the schedule is very disappointing. this is a last minute christmastime stunts that puts a major arms control treaty in jeopardy. i am one united states senator who plans to support the treaty and his ratification if we continue to debate it thoroughly, air it out and especially if we deal with nuclear modernization in a correct way, but this is not the way to do it. this and not the way to get 67 votes and it is a reckless way to consider the treaty. if it is important, as i believe it is, to the future of our country by bringing it up at the last minute, this is a senate where the majority sets a schedule. we are in the minority, but let's remember that this is a senate that has not voted one friday in the entire year of 2010.

there have been plenty of times to do these issues yet we have a lame-duck session, where the majority seems to be insisting on an encore where there are boos for the concert and they are bringing in every single issue they can think of. it is cold. the snow is about to come. we are going to be meeting late at night and all of a sudden a right to 2000 page bill. it sounds a lot like last year and is one senator he said what angered people in the elections this year was not just the health care law. it was how it was passed last year. it was jammed down the throats of the american people. we have a 2000 page spending bill that we need to read and carefully considered before we act on it that we would also need to read and debate and carefully consider the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty out of respect to the american people, out of respect to our country on the senate and this is not the way to do it. it is a reckless disregard for the future of an important treaty that has a major effect

on the future of our national security. >> as a member both the armed services committee and the intelligence committee, i understand the significance and importance of this treaty and i a senator who wants to support a s.t.a.r.t. treaty, but the fact of the matter is that those of us on this stage have done our homework. we have studied this thing for months and months. i travel to other parts of the world with jon kyl to examine what our friends around the world are doing with respect to this issue. all of us take this work very very seriously. the government is fixing to shut down saturday night if we don't do something about it. where it is harry reid give his priorities? he is trying to jam through a s.t.a.r.t. treaty that he knows needs to have at least 10 days to two weeks from a legislative standpoint to fully debate and have the opportunity for amendments on the floor. instead of doing that, a month

ago or two months ago or agreeing to set it in january or february, here he is putting it ahead of a continuing resolution on omnibus bill that he knows now is going to be jammed up against midnight saturday night deadlines. that is amateurish at best and it is poor leadership on his part to do that. >> first of all let me say that what we are doing here is actually constitutional and one of the most important constitutional things that the united states senate does. a treaty like this requires two things. to requires the president's signature but it also requires that the treaty be approved by two-thirds of the united states senators. both of those have equal rank. neither one outranks the other. one of the things that is really troubling a lot of us as member of the intelligence committee i can tell you that the administration negotiated this had a lot of conversation.

transcripts were kept and understandings were had during those meetings and they won't give it to us. i don't understand that. is both of us are equal and you have to have both approving, how can one side have all the information and the other side be denied the information? i certainly would agree it can be done in a close setting in an intelligence committee meeting that we should have it all. as far as the overall issues involved, come at this from just a little different standpoint. this is really important. this is a matter of national security of the highest level for the american people. to do this the way we are doing it in an attenuated fashion is not right. what has happened is they are up in a number of issues raised and progress has been made on some issues. senator kyl has done an outstanding job of moving the administration from one place to another place as as far as modernization of our nuclear weapon stockpile is concerned in that needs to be done.

there is another one that troubles me and to me it is the most important one, and that is missile defense. i think the administration also needs to move from where they are to another place and we have had lots of discussions on it and it started out just like modernization, where the answer was no with a question. we have seen some odd in that regard but there needs to be more discussion. there needs to be more movement and if indeed this is done right, the american people will be better off and not only will modernization move in a much more positive direction, so we'll missile defense, which is absolutely critical to the american people. thank you. >> what you are seeing here this week is further evidence that congress is broken and it is why only 13% of the american people support congress and think congress is doing a good job. the idea that we are going to take up a solemn responsibility

of approving a treaty with russia on nuclear weapons and at the same time approved and omnibus spending bill that is a $1.1 trillion bill, 2000 pages long and do all of that at the same time over the next seven to 10 days is impossible, to do both of them and do them any justice. as my colleague said it is there solemn constitutional responsibility of members of the united states senate to approve or not approve a treaty and to give this fair treatment and to get to a place where we could support the treaty, i think every member of our conference wants to be in a position where they can support the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. i'm so thankful for the work that has that been done by senator kyl to make this treaty better. but i have a lot of concerns. being on the armed services committee and having evaluated this treaty i have concerns about verification. i have concerns about the missile defense portion of this and i have a huge concern about tactical nuclear weapons not

being a part of this treaty. especially in light of the fact that the russians have a 10 to one advantage on us on tactical nuclear weapons. so if we are going to have an honest and earnest debate about this and give it the treatment it deserves, does going to take a couple of weeks. we are going to need to be able to offer amendments to get members of the senate comfortable and approving this treaty. if we can do that fine but there is no way we can give it the attention it deserves and at the same time do a 2000 page omnibus spending bill that is laden with pork and exactly what the american people don't want. is exactly what they spoke on on november 2, when they rejected that type of politics here in washington. it is irresponsible to try to do both at the same time. >> i think the democrat leadership somehow thinks that by being here christmas week, but that is an act of courage that they are being courageous

by having congress here because we are doing all these important things. i think the democratic leadership looks incompetent. i think the american people are sitting there at home going, what is wrong with these guys? why can't they get their work done in a reasonable time and take seriously the big issues that are so important to the future of this country? i mean everything we are talking about doing right now our legislative matters. they could take a week or more on the floor of the united states senate and should take a week or more on the floor of the united states senate. if the senate is going to do its traditional deliberative functions. and instead we are dual tracking a 2000 page omnibus spending bill, a treaty, and made your arms control treaty and all kinds of other things that they are trying to throw into the mix here and it is not the way the senate should function. and i think it is a big mistake to try and wear something this important. many of my colleagues have touched on a concerns about the

treaty. i have my own. i will be offering amendments when we get on it to dealing with a number of delivery vehicles and modernization of delivery vehicles. i'm very concerned about the missile defense issues in this particular treaty but frankly it is ridiculous in my judgment to try and jam important matters like this through. the american people i think spoke very plainly and very clearly. they want the tax issue dealt with. they want the funding issue dealt with. they want us funding rather than more. but all these other matters that should take some reasonable amount of time on the united states senate can certainly wait until next year. and staying here, using the christmas holiday as a backstop they think makes the democratic leadership of the united states senate looks incompetent. >> well, let me start out in just a thank you to jon kyl. he has done great work with this treaty.

not only in terms of the negotiations, but in terms of getting us information in terms of what is in the treaty, what we should be paying attention to is just really outstanding work. this treaty is on the cusp of being in some pretty serious trouble in terms of ratification and it is not so much what is in the treaty or what is not in the treaty. because i do think negotiations can occur. i think the discussions can occur. we have seen how senator kyl has worked to improve the situation here. it made me feel a little bit more comfortable, at least about one issue. the reason why this treaty is heading into trouble is because there are senators like me who quite honestly started this discussion in absolutely open to either possibility, a yes or a no vote. i don't sit on any of the relevant committees. this is something that i had not

dealt with. this is new to me. i will tell you my wish for this treaty would simply to have the time to dig into it deeper, to listen to robust debate, to go through all of the briefings about the treaty and then make a thoughtful, reasoned choice because this is so important. it is so important in terms of the security of our nation. and i will tell you today i stand here feeling like i am being jammed, like there are some arbitrary deadline out there. and i'm happy to stay as long as whatever. you know, i am here for the duration but really, the strategy seems to be not too get the best treaty we can get, to get to the best situation we can get, but to try to get to a vote by an arbitrary deadline. well, we have been there before and it didn't work out well.

the american people reacted to that and told us in no uncertain terms they don't want us to do business that way. so it is my hope that even with debate starting, we can go so far. we can come back after the first of the year. we can dig into this. we can get the very best situation, the very best treaty, the very best approach to this we can possibly get. my hope is that all of my questions are answered and my hope would be that i can support the treaty but i could not do that today. i could not be a yes vote. there's just too much out there that is yet to be answered, yet to be determined. >> mark kirk of illinois and i will say for quick things. first i believe the first of 95 republicans coming to work in the congress on january 5, think we will do a very good job with the nation's business and with

regard to the 16 new senators, they not only have the confidence to do this work but they have a fresh mandate and we should honor that mandate. the lame-duck mandate has been overwritten. secondly, i have to amendments that i would like the senate to consider. first is my concern on the russian support, the busheir reactor in the creation of a plutonium stream for that country rated by every president since president carter is a state sponsor of terror and they proliferation risk. the second amendment would explore what i see as a growing potential divide between the department of state and the defense on whether we move forward with the development and deployment of the sm3 block to bravo missile that would have the capability to shoot down icbm's articulately thinking about iranian icbm's or whether

we would follow state department assurances to the russian federation that we not deployed that kind of system and having to cabinet departments seeming to be in disagreement is something that is a very legitimate issue for the senate to explore as we look at this treaty. finally i think the number one issue in the country is the omnibus and as a freshman i would regard the omnibus as a 1924 page memo to the american people that the congress doesn't get it. >> a treaty of this kind that the administration considers to be a critical part of their foreign policy is a part of american strategic posturing and i'm worried about that. for example, north korea has attacked one of our best allies. russia has attacked a sovereign nation. iran is proceeding with a

nuclear weapon system and russia has intermittently only been helpful in that regard and not at that point of time. i am worried about where we are heading in general with our foreign-policy. mr. putin has opposed the missile defense idea so a number of his people have made statements contrary to what art administration is telling us but december 1 on larry king, mr. putin said "of the radar encounters missile will be deployed in the year 2012 along our borders, our 2015 they will work against a nuclear potential there and we are obliged to take actions in response." so it seems to me a fundamental issue like missile defense we are not in accord and a big issue like this on a treaty like

this, serious nations ought to be in accord on the fundamentals. and i would say that i am also concerned about where it leads. we need to ask this question. the administration's policy is to have zero nuclear weapons in the world and this is not a rational idea i contend. and it certainly won't set an example for iran or north korea to eliminate their weapons. i am also concerned about how aggressive the russians have been in these negotiations. the fact that according to doug pfizer negotiating with him before we have rejected many of the things they attained in this treaty. the previous administration rejected negotiations with russia and they are proceeding aggressively to reduce the amount of inspections. why? you would think rush is out to be a better nation in the world.

it seems to me that they are if anything drifting into a more dark atmosphere than we have seen before. so these are matters that i think ought to be part of this discussion should not be rushed and in the long run our country will be stronger if we do. >> we have overextended here and we are all late, however you all want a chance for a question or two. >> we understand you don't want -- [inaudible] >> let me share with you all of our tactics. >> also the administration seems confident -- macquarie confident that they don't and why our senators lugar and senators mccain, the ranking members of the senate arms foreign -- what do you know that they don't know >> well, i think every senator

has a right and an opportunity and an obligation to consider the issues on their own. senator mccain and i ordinarily agree and usually senator lugar and i agree. senator lugar and i don't agree on this. obviously with respect to tactics, nobody can talk about tactics. our main tactic is to have enough time to thoroughly consider all of the issues and we don't believe that the way it has been laid out here will afford us an opportunity to do that. and with respect to the votes, let's just say this, that people have told the care that they would like to vote for the treaty. but under the current circumstances, the weight is being jammed through, they can't do that and i would just suggest that the administration needs to take that into account in considering whether they will really have the votes that they need. >> senator kyl, in terms and issue of the team jammed througs pointing out that this has been

available since may and it seems like the health care bill it was not developed until the last second. the treaty has been out there for discussion and debate. in that context how is it being jammed through? >> first, the most important issue facing our country right now is to ensure that people's taxes don't increase and if the government can be funded at a reasonable cost for the next year. those two items of business ought to be concluded before we do anything else. the leader originally said that we would be leaving here on the 17th so that we could get home and be with our constituents and their families but last week -- not the last week before christmas. that is not out the window because of the inability to get these other things done and is still not clear what the way forward is on funding the government. to suggest that we can dual-track an issue as important as the funding of the government with this almost 2000 page,

trillion plus bill at the same time that we are seriously debating the s.t.a.r.t. treaty is a fantasy. both of those deserve full focus and attention of the american people and not to be bouncing back and forth one to the other without adequate time to do either one justice. i look at the amendments that so far i have seen. they are all serious, important amendments. there is no way that they could adequately be considered in the time that we have, even if you assume we are not going to finish the omnibus or cr, which we have to do or take up some of the other items. different people will have different opinions about how serious these issues are and whether they need to be dealt with but i don't think anybody can deny that the things we are talking about debating and bristling through amendment are not very deserving of the full attention of the senate and of the american people.

let one of my colleagues may be response. [inaudible] the treaty is somehow jeopardizing the nation, opening the door to terrorists? >> ghana let me respond to that. i think senator kyl could probably be too generous in responding to that. those people that are saying that are absolutely wrong. indeed, they are an accurate to the point that they are going in the other direction. senator kyl has dumb things with this treaty as far as some of the issues and i will point to one to start with and that is modernization which has done tremendous service for the american people. without going into intelligence matters i can say that this pretty well established everywhere that our stock pile needs modernization badly,

badly. that is particularly true in light of what the russians are doing, not only the russians but the french, english and others who have weapons. they have all gone through modernization programs. we have not. the was dragging its feet and has had no plan. senator kyl is drugged them kicking and screaming to the point that they are well at least there to do it really needs to be done so that people that have said that, i think that is posturing. i think it is typical of people who don't have the substance or the facts on their side and they start attacking the messengers and the people who are actually working. so senator kyl would have been much more generous in responding to that but believe me for those of us who work shoulder-to-shoulder with him on this, he has been a patriot on this matter. >> senator kyl? >> sir, you have been very deliberative about not

pronouncing what you plan to do on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty in terms of whether you would vote yes or no. you about is they mentioned you will have amendments. what would it take for you at this point to support the s.t.a.r.t. treaty because it sort of sounds like you don't support of. >> first let me say that every one of my colleagues will confirm the fact that i haven't tried up to now to convince anybody to vote for or against the treaty. all the time the administration has been lobbying very hard i have not. rather i've been trying to work constructively to improve it as senator risch just said in the best ways i know how. currently the best way i know how to do that is to get the very best amendments out and see whether we can build support for them. if i announce for or against the treaty at this point i'm not sure anybody's going to listen to me but i think you can detect in my demeanor here a great frustration and disappointment with the fact fact that notwithstanding our effort to try to work constructively we

are going to get stiffed now. and i don't like that and i don't think is good to the country. i go back to what judd gregg said in his speeches, we ask had to listen to those departing speeches. they reflect a lot of wisdom of senators. at judd gregg said is the pillar of our government is the senate and the reason the is that it is so important is precisely because we ordinarily have plenty of time to talk things over and to resolve issues through through the give-and-take of the amendment process. there is no way that the current process will allow for that. now we will have a lot of opportunities to talk about other issues, specific issues and other matters as the days come forward here but we are really late and i know we have held all of you so we will see you later. [inaudible conversations]

>> thank you very much all of you for coming. delighted to be joined by senate vote -- senator carl levin the chairman of the armed services committee and senator dianne feinstein the chairwoman of the intelligence committee, and we are delighted to be here to share some thoughts about where we are. at the beginning of the debate on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty on the floor of the united states senate, really marks an historic moment. the senate has the opportunity and frankly it has the solemn responsibility to act to reduce the number of nuclear weapons pointed at our country. that is what makes this moment historic. it is the continual him of an effort that has been engaged in by republican and democratic presidents alike and congress, the united states senate and overwhelmingly embraced arms

reductions as in our national security interest. some have suggested that somehow we don't have time to take up the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty because christmas is only 10 days away. let me read you what retired brigadier general john adams said in response to that claim a couple of days ago. he said, we have 150,000 u.s. warriors doing their job over christmas and new year. the united states senate should do its job and ratify this treaty. and all of us agree with that statement. i think general adams has for cicely wright, and he echoed the support for this treaty that his calm from every single leader of our military. the secretary of defense robert gates all the way through to the director of the missile defense agency, to the commander of our strategic forces. all of them have asked us to

ratify this treaty as soon as possible and the question that ought to be asked to others is why if the entire military establishment of our country and the national intelligence establishment of our country and the strategic command of our country are asking us to ratify this treaty, why do some senators know better than they do and suggest that we shouldn't? we believe we should stay here as long as it takes to get this treaty ratified and we are prepared to do so. there is no legitimate reason not to finish the work that has been done to date. to anyone who suggest that this treaty is being rushed, i offer a little reality check. the original start agreement in 1992 was a far more dramatic treaty that came in the immediate wake of the fall of the soviet union. and had a great deal of uncertainties that it faced at that time. it was a more dramatic treaty

then this new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. the cuts in nuclear weapons were deeper. the uncertainty was greater because the soviet union had just collapsed. yet the full united states senate needed only five days of floor time before it approved the treaty by a vote of 93-6. the start to treaty which was ratified by the senate but never fully approved by the russians because of the abm treaty fracas at that time but was ratified by the senate it took only two days of floor debate before it was approved 87-4. the moscow treaty, they are the debate took exactly two days and it was approved 95-0 and it had no verification in it at all. so, the question has to be

asked, what happens if you delay? what happens if you don't do this? it is really a recipe for endless delay on a matter of enormous in national security importance. with newly elected senators, if you went into next year you would have to go back to square one. you would have to go back to new hearings in a new round of questions. we have to books here, over 900 questions, 900 questions were filed and asked and answered. by the administration in response to all of the questions posed by senators over the course of the last month. we have gone a year and 10 days without any inspectors of russian nuclear sites. and, while the debate goes on and the delay goes on, our understanding of russia's

nuclear arsenal would continue to deteriorate day by day and our efforts to contain the nuclear ambitions of iran and north korea will be weekend day by day. i know that senator levin and i know and senator feinstein will speak to that in a minute. so, i don't accept and i don't think the majority of the united states senate accepts the idea that we should wait and delay on this. let me share with you at james clapper, the director of national intelligence, had to say about our responsibility to ratify this treaty. he said this months ago. he said, i think the earlier, the sooner, the better. that is a national intelligence community speaking to us. so again we should be willing to stay here folks until we get the job done. we have 100,000 troops in harm's way in afghanistan and 50,000 troops in harm's way in iraq. they don't get a break from

christmas. they don't take new year's and they are away from their families because they are protecting our country. surely, we in the united states senate can't ask any less of ourselves as we sit in a warm chamber and talk about this treaty. we owe it to our servicemen and women in afghanistan, iraq and elsewhere in the world to do everything in our power to make the world safer and reduce the threat of conflict for them and a threat to our own citizens. this treaty is the least that we can do. now another answer to the claims of some of those who incidentally have opposed in most cases most treaties. but that aside, the start back process goes back 20 years, folks. this is not new. this treaty is built on the foundation that was laid by earlier agreements. we are safer today because of that legacy. the original s.t.a.r.t. agreement cut our arsenals some

10,000 nuclear weapons on each side down to 6000 nuclear warheads. the s.t.a.r.t. ii treaty would have cut them to about 3500 and the moscow treaty did ultimately reduce those numbers to 1700, to 2200. that is what we are trying to do, is come down from there now to 1550. i don't understand why an agreement that reduces their nuclear warheads, forces down to 1550 warheads can't be done the next few days in the interest of the security of our country. starting in june of 2009, nearly a year before this agreement was signed by the president, the foreign relations committee was briefed five times on these talks with the russians. senators from the armed services committee, from the intelligence community, from the national security working group which jon kyl heads on the other side in the works together in a bipartisan way, we took part in all of these briefings.

roughly 60 senators were able to follow the negotiations in detail over the course of an entire year. so we were present in real-time as the negotiators worked through the intricacies with the russians. we met with the negotiators, the negotiators briefed us during this period of time. that is what makes the senate and this congress uniquely qualified to ratify this treaty. the fact is that individual senators had individual opportunities to meet with the negotiating team and a delegation of senators including senator kyl even travel to geneva in the fall of 2090 meet with negotiators. my friends, that kind of deep, detailed involvement in the reduction of this treaty is not rushing anything. in fact, the republicans came to me last summer and said, gee please don't have the boat in the committee. we would like a little more time over the august recess and

against the will of many of our members, i exercise the prerogative of the chairman and i gave them that extra six weeks in order to make certain we gave people as much time as possible to get these questions answered. they were answered. when we came back, they'd been made, they made the request. the people here who say we are rushing something made the request to delay again saying please don't do this before the election because if you do you are going to politicize it. so we didn't do it before the election out of complete, t. and deference to their requests to give them time. now we came back after the election and all of a sudden it is gee, we ought to not rush it up until now. this is the time. this is the time and this is the moment when the united states senate needs to stand up and be counted on an issue of national security for our country. in fact, the fact is in the six

months after this treaty was signed and presented, the committees of jurisdiction had held more than 20 public and closed hearings and briefings. my own committee held 12 hearings. we heard from past, current military leaders and statesmen and as i have said, every living former secretary of state, republican and democrat, supports this treaty. last week former president george herbert walker bush who signed both start one and start to issued a statement that he too supports this treaty so there has been no rush to the consideration of this treaty. still, some sort of suggests, why do you have to do it now? the real question my friends is not why now. the question would be, why delay? why would you not do this now when you have a chance to reduce the numbers of weapons pointed at the united states and the chance to get american

inspectors back on the ground in russia to understand what is happening there. so i hope that in the next days, we will give time. we are not rushing this vote. they can decide how much time they think it takes but we believe that a fair amount of time will be allotted by the majority leader in order to allow for amendments. i would go in on my statement on the floor to the huge number of changes we have made in the resolution of ratification on behalf of the republicans. we have worked very closely with many of them. we have taken their comments and their advice. we have incorporated them into the resolution. there are at least 13 amendments that we have already accepted and made on missile defense. we have provided additional funds on modernization to meet the needs of senator kyl. i think we have reached over everywhere possible to be fair and allow people an opportunity to comment on this treaty but now is the moment and this is

the time to proceed forward. i won't go into it now but if there are questions on the delay or what the history has been that leads us to this moment that we need to proceed now on a dual-track. let me turn to senator carl levin and the chairman of the armed services committee. >> thank you for your leadership. you and senator lugar have made a team. we are not going to be thwarted by obstructionist. we cannot be for the national security of this country that is at stake here. this is a significant treaty. is significant because of the reductions it provides in terms of nuclear missiles that are aimed at our country. is significant in terms of our relationship with russia and we should not under -- underestimate the importance of strengthening that relationship. iran is the greatest threat this world faces are going to say state which is aimed as far as we concerned in most of us would

agree at acquiring nuclear weapons. is essential that russia continues to be part of that group that either is near iran or distant from iran that understands that iran with a nuclear weapon would he a major threat to the well-being of this world and we need to be linked arm in arm with russia, with this kind of a treaty and not to ratify this treaty would be a significant breach in terms of that relationship. we cannot, cannot tolerate that kind of a reduction in the relationship that is still growing and so important. two quick points. one, the argument has been raised that somehow or other this treaty would in some way limit our missile defense program. it does not. that is not just me saying that. the chairman of the armed services committee and the authorization bill which we passed in the committee says

specifically that "there are no constraints contained in the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty on the development or deployment of effective missile defenses including all phases of the adaptive approach to missile defense in europe and further enhancements for the defense system as well as future missile defenses. that has been confirmed by general chilton r. stratcom commander says that. as the combatant command also responsible for synchronizing global missile defense plans, operations and advocacy i can say with confidence that this treaty does not constrain any current or future missile defense plan. secondly, in terms of verification and i believe that senator feinstein will go into that issue, because of her position as the chair of the intelligence committee. but it is vitally important that we have people on the ground in

russia looking at their systems. we have none now. the s.t.a.r.t. treaty, the previous one has run out. to s.t.a.r.t. treaty will again get our people on the ground looking at their systems. we believe the trust but verify was wise advice by president reagan. in order to have the second half of that wise advice and play, in effect, we must ratify this treaty. so it is a treaty which is clearly in the national interest of our country. previous secretaries of defense of both parties, previous secretaries of state of both parties, previous presidents of both parties have together urged the senate to ratify and we cannot allow the -- obstructionists who have obstructed so many things in this congress to stop this national security interests from being taken care of. >> thank you very much.

senator kerry and senator levin. you know we often come to these press conferences and our colleagues speak and we agree with some things and perhaps not all things. in this case i want to categorically say i very much agree with the statements made both by senator kerry and senator levin. i think from the perspective of foreign relations and the respective of armed services, this treaty must be ratified. i want to add to that the intelligence committee has carefully reviewed the june 2010 national intelligence estimate or as we would say, the m.i.t., on the intelligence community's ability to monitor this new treaty. we held a hearing on the nie and related issues and then sent 70 questions for the record and received detailed responses from the intelligence community. the committee undertook its own independent review of the nie.

committee staff participated in more than a dozen meetings and briefings on a range of issues concerning the treaty. focusing on intelligence monitoring and collection aspects. so i would like to focus my remarks today on the intelligence -- intelligence related aspects of this treaty, beginning with its monitoring provisions based on our committee's review. new start back include several several -- new s.t.a.r.t. includes several provisions that allows the united states to -- the united states intelligence community will use these treaty provisions and other independent tools such as the use of national technical means. that is obviously our satelliten russian forces and whether russia is complying with the treaty's terms. east provisions include on the ground inspections of russian

nuclear facilities and bases, 18 per year, regular exchanges of data on warhead and missile production and locations, a requirement that there be unique identifiers, a distinct alphanumeric code for each missile and heavy bomber for tracking purposes, and a ban on blocking national technical means from collecting information on strategic forces. these provisions enable the intelligence community to monitor russian activities under this treaty. more broadly, they provide indispensable information on russian strategic forces. there have been no inspections and no data exchanges and no telemetry since the expiration of the s.t.a.r.t. treaty.

so we have less inside into any new russian weapons and delivery systems that might he entering the air force. we have essentially gone black on any monitoring, inspections, data exchanges and notification which is allowed by this new treaty. so i believe that it is in the nation's interest to act quickly to ratify this treaty. the senate intelligence committee has done a detailed review of the monitoring provisions of the treaty and whether the intelligence community can effectively monitor russian activities. my conclusion is yes, we can. the intelligence community will be able to perform its monitoring mission under new s.t.a.r.t. and we will have far more information about russian strategic forces with this treaty than without this treaty. the intelligence committee also

looked at the consequences of failure of new s.t.a.r.t.. senate rejection of new s.t.a.r.t. would not only undermine our understanding of russian strategic forces. it could also israel or disrupt a host of other united states policy objectives. and let me just give you a few examples of those. russia has been allowing the united states and other members of the international security assistance force in afghanistan to transport materials into afghanistan over russian territory. this is assisting war efforts, especially in light of recent attacks against convoys crossing through pakistan. also, russia has withheld delivery of the s-300 advanced air defense system to iran and supported u.n. security council sanctions against tehran. russia and nato partners have

agreed that the recent summit in lisbon to a new missile defense system for europe. here is the conclusion. beyond the intelligence regions i have discussed there are many reasons to support new s.t.a.r.t.. is important to nuclear non-proliferation. it will lay the groundwork for future arms control agreements. it will strengthen our relationship with the key world powers and i really cannot say too much about that. this is a world where nonstate actors are the fighting forces and there are no rules of the battlefield. our relationship with the big nations is extraordinarily important, much more important than ever before and this treaty helps cement what can be and much more, a better relationship between our two countries.

without new s.t.a.r.t. our national security will suffer. every day, without this treaty is another day without american inspectors on the ground in russia, another day in the dark, in the black. bottom line, we should ratify this treaty without delay. ..

[inaudible] [inaudible] how can your ensure -- [inaudible] >> first of all, let me say, i understand the emotions and the currents of the ways better certainly than they did a number of years ago. let's see how feel tomorrow and how they feel the day after tomorrow after people have had a chance to really step back and they just what is appropriate and what isn't. you know, i want this to stay up at a level. they certainly don't want it to become political and it shouldn't be.

our country is stronger when republicans and democrats together -- come together. but i would ask them in good conscience to ask themselves why we are here at this late hour. as i said, senator luke -- lugar was just 13 times, count them, by their colleagues to delay the process of s.t.a.r.t. so senator kyl would have time to do modernization. we did the modernization. i think there is such a thing as reciprocity here in the things of united states senate and were looking for you. the fact is since january 2 dozen nine, we have had to file 125 cloture motions in order to go forward into the senate's business. that's why were here late. that's as many cloture -- we need to to tell the story to

america. now if many cloture motions have been filed, in the last year as were filed between may 219, world war i, in 1974. and so, they can't even say that we somehow -- we were guilty of the same thing. because the fact is they double the number of cloture's over the course of lasher since 2007. so while i can say is the fact he filed 264 cloture motions or an average of 66 per year since 2007. that's what the business has been slow down enough when americans are not die. they need to take a look at their heart frankly and the realities of their choices about where were heading here. so i believe we will have the votes. i also believe if we've given people adequate time it was as

the the road with respect to motions and amendments -- were doing amendments, willing to have votes. but as i said, the first s.t.a.r.t. treaty took five days. the second s.t.a.r.t. treaty two days treaty two days and the moscow treaty two days. after a legitimate amount of time, i think harry reid has prepared to file a cloture motion and we hopefully will get cloture. as i said, we're not rushing that. we want people to have time. we want people to be able to debate. [inaudible] -- at what point would you feel it has been made in the past and at what point do you feel -- [inaudible] >> we don't want to devote off until next year. we went to this post sometime this year. as i said, five days on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty, two days on

the second s.t.a.r.t. treaty, today from the moscow treaty with no verification and all. so they have to decide how much time frankly it takes. at some point will make the decision whether the motion in the amendments are duplicated and repetitive and simply there to delay, but we're not prejudging. we want people to have a legitimate opportunity here. and let's let them have a chance to do that and maybe they'll help to make that decision for us. so i'm not going to prejudge anything in terms of days. [inaudible] >> that the position that the president of the united states and the vice president will make. i'll tell you what the vice president said to me yesterday they think he z it to some republicans. is a book, if we've chance of losing us now from an extra looks like there's even a greater chance that what happened. we'd rather lose it with this crowd did some work on it and go back and start from scratch. so we all understand what is at

stake here. we understand the implications and i think they do too. so our disposition is look, we've got time. there is nothing written in the rules of the united states senate that says we can't do the business of america the remains here before we go home. i think we have an obligation to do it. our caucus is ready to work day and night. we're ready to be your way. we are ready to be here all weekend. we are ready to work and vote and it is that to them how quickly we do that. >> i just wanted to say one thing. i was in geneva with senator kyl and my floor remarks about going to a little bit more, but we've had both the russian negotiating team as well as with the american negotiating team. and a lot of questions were asked about inspections about telemetry about ballistic missile defense, about specific weaponry. and the questions were answered. and that was a year ago. and here we are here later.

so this treaty has been out there. and as i look at it, basically every informed republican that i recite, president bush 41, president bush 43, all nature secretaries of state to our republican. george shultz, henry kissinger, james baker and on and on our in support of this treaty. plus virtually all at the united states military. there are a few outliers that may have their own reason. so i play it? why do we pass the s.t.a.r.t. treaty at the time when the soviet union was collapsing and when there was major anxiety over where the world would go. and now, when we know russia wants to move closer to the united states, russia wants to develop a relationship with the unit states, this could be positive for both countries.

here is a treaty which improve the cooperation between both nations. why would we not support it? >> one quick word about reciprocity. we have a national security working group that senator kyl is a member of. and every time he wanted the briefing, we got the security folks appear to provide that briefing. what we wanted to go to geneva, that was sort no. but there has been real effort on the part of the administration and senator kerry and all of us to accommodate senator kyl throughout here. and reciprocity is got to be a two-way street. the public wants us to get the business of the senate done and that does require a reasonable action on the part of both and we've taken an action with all of these delayed and now it's time for senator kyl, it seems to me, to reciprocate.

>> have you heard from senator bayh what he meant and you have any indication he might be weeping and supporting the treaty? >> no, not so far. [inaudible] >> no, it does not complicate matters. it takes 51 votes to go to executive session to legislative session. and we'll come back to this when appropriate. [inaudible] >> for the very simple reason that we were trying to accommodate senator kyl and his request for a little more time, a little more work, a little more discussion. and we kept the door open and so we finally are at a point where obviously we have to fish or cut eight and that's what we're doing. >> senator feinstein, you mentioned today cannon --

>> and i had something else? the 42 -- it complicated the choices and with the tax issue and it was important to get the tax issue tenant finding good faith, that we were really going to do that and not try to jam at the back and i delay in the treaty. so the treaty was really held in good faith in order to show them that we were prepared to be serious, get that done, keep our word. we did it. and you also dislike the president took an effort to do that. once again that bakes the of reciprocity. and i think this can't be a one-way street. it just doesn't work that way. and were asking our republican friends to respect that and send a country a message at christmas time that we have the ability to work together, particularly on something that can reduce the number of nuclear weapons

pointed at our nation and help leverage us against iran and north korea. what could be more important as some of your? and that's what we're trying to achieve. last question. >> on verification, such a big issue at the s.t.a.r.t. treaty and some of the critics. and the response often is much better off with this treaty than without one, which is a pretty low bar. would you say you're better off with a new s.t.a.r.t. treaty then you were with the previous treaty in terms of verification? >> when they make this point. it's a very important one for all of you to reflect as we go forward. first of all, on verification with respect to the component that some of our friends complain about. the bush administration, prior to president obama coming into office was noticed by the russians that they were not going to continue the same process of reporting on the mobile missile production line because it was a one-way street to them.

they found that to be unfair in terms of the treaty. and so, they noticed george bush. that would not exist going forward. so it wasn't something that happened under president obama. it is previous and prior to that but they said were going to adjust that in the context of whatever the next round is. sewer administration has negotiated frankly whether people feel is a terrific -- and in some ways better. because for the first time we will have accounting and accounting and the counting of all warheads. we didn't have that before. we now have a tracking system of the individual warheads. as you'll see from senator feinstein and love him and others in any debate on this, they're going to be required to provide us with the team short notice on the ground inspections each year and the most sensitive nuclear installations. there's all kind of technical means, some of which were not privileged to talk about publicly.

the intelligence community has completely signed off on the notion that this is fully verifiable. they are completely comfortable with its provisions. and to them, there is no issue of capacity to verify. thank you all very much. [inaudible conversations] >> after news conferences on the start nuclear reduction treaty, chairman and ranking member of the foreign relations committee, senators john kerry and richard lugar's okemos senate floor.mitt this is an hour and a half. >> mr. president. >> senator from indiana. ofhe >> mr. president, i rise today to speak in support of the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. a we undertake this debate in a time when almost 100,000 american military personnel are

fighting a difficult war in w 10 afghanistan. more than 1300 of our troops have been killed in afghanistan, with almost 10,000 wounded. our meanwhile, we're in our seventh year in iraq, a deployment that has cost more than 4400 americas lives and wounded roughly 32,000 persons. we still have more than 47,000 troops deployed in that countryr tensions on the korean peninsula are extremely high, with no resolution to the problems of prth korea's nuclear programs. international support for steps that could prevent iran's nuclear program for producing a nuclear weapon.rned we remain concerned about stability in pakistan and the al security of that country's nuclear arsenal.terr for attempting to counter terrorist threats, emanating from afghanistan and pakistan come east africa, yemen and many other locations.ce

we are concerned about terrorisa cells and allies countries, even in the united states. we remain highly vulnerable to i disruptions in oil supply due to national disasters p, terrorist attacks, political instabilityy for unfriendly oil-producing nations. now even as we attempt to res respond to these andpo other national security imperatives, we are facing severe resources during. 11, since it under 11, 2001, we have spen tt almost $1.1 trillion in iraq and afghanistan. on we are spending roughly twice as many dollars on defense to date b we were before 9/11. these heavy defense burdens have financial and budgetary crisis that has raised the united states government's total debt to almost $14 trillion.

the first year, 2010 budget deficit registered about 1.3 trillion or 9% of gdp. famih now mr. president, all senators here are familiar with the enumated. challenges that i just enumerated. natnal as we begin this debate, werityt should keep this larger national security context firmly in mindc ason we contend with the enormot security challenges of the thing 21st century, the last thing we need is to reject a processdy that is mitigated the threat prose by russia's nuclear arsenal. treat for 15 years, the s.t.a.r.t. treaty of focus to keep a lid on the u.s.-russian nuclear rivalro it established a working relationship by nuclear arms, with a country that was ourr ana mortal enemy for four and a half

decades. s.t.a.r.t.'s transparency features a shirt both countries about the new air capabilities for us, that meant having american experts on the groundig in russia and the inspections o. nuclear weaponry.ired because it expires in november american november 2009, we have no american flag is in russia for more than a year.can new s.t.a.r.t. will enable american teamster returned to russia on the russian arsenal and verify russian compliance. e these inspections greatly reduce the possibility that we will be deployment r&b and spins. before we even get to the checks of the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty and the resolution of ratification,e

senate rejection of new s.t.a.r.t. would mean for broader national security. failure of the united states senate to approve the treaty would result in an expansion of arms competition with russia. g it would guarantee a reduction in transparent the incumbent aiminish cooperation between thi united states and russia defense establishments. it would complicate our militarn planning. a rejectionew s of new s.t.a.r.. would be greeted with delight and iran, north korea, syria, burma.rograms f these nations want to shelve their weapons programs from outside scrutiny and they want to be able to acquire a sense of these weapons technologies. they want to block international efforts to make them comply with their legal obligations. t unitd

rogue nations fear any nuclear cooperation between the united states and russia because they know that it limits theirallo options. they want to call into question iran non-proliferationcredentiat credentials and they want russia to be just as economic measures against them. if we reject this treaty, it ras will be harder to get russia'sur cooperation in stopping nucleart proliferation. it could create obstacles on so some issues and then security council, where russia has said tie deal.en a nice also reduce incentivesr for our troops in afghanistan. h it would give more weight to the arguments of russian nationalists whose the to undermine cooperation with the united states and its allies. it would require additional family coverage of russia at the expense of their youth. t

with all that we need to achieve, why would we had to our problems by separating ourselves from russia over a treaty that are on once ratified.rs a mr. president, our militarynxios commanders are anxious to avoid the added burden and uncertainties of an intensifiedi armed complication with russia.m they know such competition wouli detract from other national security priorities and mission. that is one reason that they are telling a unequivocally to ratify this agreement. they also have asserted that thn modest reductions in warheads and delivery systems embody the treaty in no way threaten our nuclear deterrence. defense secretary robert gates and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff admiral mike mullen ha

testified that they have no doubts the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty should be ratified. i general kevin chilton, who was in charge of our strategic the nuclear forces has said the treaty -- and i quote theof t general quotes, will enhance the security of the united states,ef and of quote. msile general patrick o'reilly, who was in charge of our missile defenses endorsed the treaty saying flatly, that does not constrain our plans to execute the united states missile defense program, and of quote. f robert, seven former commandersa of sndtrategic command, military command in charge of our strategic nuclear weapon but that the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty.e members of the senate, republicans and democrat alike have taken pride in supportingnd the military and respecting military views about steps

necessary to protect the nationc reject dean and unequivocal taty military opinion on a treaty, involving nuclear deterrencery would be an extraordinary s position for the senate to takey the military is supported in this field by the top national security officials from paststrn administrations. today, every secretary of state and secretary of defense who hae expressed a public opinion about the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty has counseled in favor of ten ratification. this has included 10 republicans and five democrats. all five living americans who rl served ronald reagan as defense secretary, secretary of state for white house chief of staff have endorsed a new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. end the list of endorsers includes w president george h. debbie bushm

george shultz, jim baker, jim schlesinger, henry kissinger, brent scowcroft, colin powell,za condoleezza rice, stephen hadley, howard baker, lawrence eagleburger and frank gallucci.s many of these officials served at a time when thed statesucleam related to russian nuclear arms or even higher than they are today.ar during the cold war and certainty over russia's intentions and weapons offenses, this cost is 10, if not hundreds of billions of dollars andsovier academic industry developedy th. was devoted to pursing soviet military capabilities. this was one of the biggest, if not the biggest expenses of our intelligence budget each year. and the fact that we cannott

accurately judge the soviet military capabilities let us toe elevate our spending on weaponry out of a sense of caution.ese these times are dominated byntry contradictory risk assessmentsrs and rumors about the dangerous new soviet weapons systems. we were constantly worried about sssile gaps be stabilizing armo deployment or soviet technologyt breakthroughs.ost to and all this came in a tremendous cost to the american nation, which lived under the threat of mutual assured i destruction.h oppositi to i firmly believe that our aggr staunch opposition to an aggressive soviet state was achievement of freedom or tens of millions of people in eastere europe. it also set the stage for a

dramatic breakthrough and international cooperation. but that does not mean the cold war with a benign experience ore that we want to revive nuclearat competition carried out in anve environment without verificatios or basic limits on weapons. aron now i am not suggesting that we are on the brink of returning to the cold war.f retur reality is far more complicated than not.than but we should not be cavalier about allowing our relationship with moscow to dress or about letting our knowledge of russia. weaponry atrophy. few americans today give much thought to the nuclear arsenal of the formerme soviet union.e g americans have not had to be concerned in the same way as they were during the cold war years. a large elements of that arsenal still access and still threaten

the united states. whether through accident, number miscalculation, proliferation or any number of other scenarios, russian nuclear weapons, materials intact allergy stillal have the capability to obliterates american cities. that is a core national security problem that commands the attention of our government in this body.ughts i relate these thoughts about where wee have an empire becauss most senators entered national erblic service after the cold fw war ended. and even fewer were serving in e this body when we were called upon to make decisions on arms treaties. only 21 current members of the r senate were here in 1988 to i.n. debate the inf treaty.-- only 15 current members were

serving in the senate during tht geneva summit between president ronald reagan and mikhail rond gorbachev in 1985.embers only 11 members were here and pe march 1983 when president reagan delivered empire, and of quote speech. only seven of us were here whenr the soviet invaded afghanistan in 1979.ll dec in a few weeks, these numbers will decline even further. the final question remains as to how we manage our relationship with a former enemy and current rival that still possesses enormous capacity for nuclear de destruction. with the start process has done since initiated by presidentmanr reagan is managed in adversari l relationship that previously had paen closed and volatile insertm the unaccompanied by enormous

financial cost were in society.t one can take the view, i suppose, that unrestrained competition with russia is the best way to ensure our security in relation to that country. but that has not been the view of the american people and ther. is no indication that is what rericans were voting for inot november. it certainly was not ronaldeagan reagan's view. it was president reagan who team began the s.t.a.r.t. process. his team coined the term of s.t.a.r.t. standing for strategic arms reduction talks. to reflect president reagan's intent to shift the goal of nuclear arms control from limiting weapons bill that to s, making substantial verifiable code in existing arsenals. on may 8, 1982, president reagan made the first s.t.a.r.t. f proposal and a speech at eurekar

college in illinois, calling for a one third reduction in nuclear warheads.sidency, he engage the russians on reducd nuclear arms control proposals to reduce weaponry and prevent established a verification measures to prevent cheating. he personally conduct defiesocud summit with russian leaders, which primarily focused on armsy control. he produced the inf treatyd signed in 1988, which greatly reduced nuclear weapons in europe.aty, which his efforts also led to the original s.t.a.r.t. treaty, which was signed during the first president bush's term in 1991. the cornerstone of president reagan's armss control agenda ws hi verification.frequently smed his interest in verification is frequently summed up by asiftruu quoted line, trust but verify. with the united dates and russie have done through the s.t.a.r.tt process is far more than

verification. structure structure and transparency upon which unprecedented arms control and non-proliferation initiatives have been built. most of the play, the lugar program. the stability that came with and bunch of agreement and the commitments implicit in then boh treaty approved by both the russians and the american b legislatures have beenee indispensable to this out of otr lugar and non-endeavors. decades, it has joined america and russia and a sustained effort to safeguard and ultimately destroy weapons and materials of mass destruction in the former soviet union and e des beyond. the destruction of both the weapons is a monumentales achievement for countries. but the process surrounding this joint effort is as important as the numbers of the weaponsssia

eliminated. u.s.-russian relationship hasums been through numerous highs ande lows in the post-cold war era. throughout this period, s.t.a.r.t. inspections in consultations and the corresponding threat reductionrn activities of the non-blucher rd program have been a constant thatuc is reduced miscalculation and is built precise. this has not prevented highly contentious disagreements with moscow, that meant whae have not had to wonder about the makeup and disposition of russian nuclear forces during periods of tension.eliminated, the eliminated the proliferation nur threat posed by the nuclear arsenal of the former soviet union. this process must continue if we are to answer-this process muste are to answer the existential threat posed by theprolifion proliferation of weapons of mas. destruction. warhead deactivated, every

inspection implemented makes us ve safer.he russia and the united states have the choice whether or not d to continue this effort and that choice is embodied in the newato s.t.a.r.t.re treaty. the senate foreign relations and armed services committee called 18 hearings on the treaty with national se ncurity leaders who have served in the nixon, ford,e carter, reagan, george h.w.nd bush, george w. bush and obama administrations. these hearings were supplemented by dozenses of staff and member briefings as well as nearly 1000 questions for the record.er, we know, however, that bilateral treaties are not weak two instruments because they involve merging the will of two nations with distinct and often conflict teenli entries. treaties come with inherent imperfections of questions.ns. as secretary gates testified ins

may even successful agreements routinely are accompanied by difference of opinion by the parties.th the ratification process therefore isn't it to produce ae resolution of ratification for consideration by the whole senate. the resolution should clarify r the meaning and effect of treaty provisions aboard the united states and resolve areas of concern or ambiguity. on september 16, 2010, the foreign relations committee approved a resolution of v ratification for the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty by a vote ofts 14 before with important contributions from both democratic and republican members.ns this resolution incorporates thx concerns andpr criticism expresi over the last several months by committee witnesses. members of the committee and other senators -- and there will be further strengthened to our debates in the coming days. with this in mind, i would turn

to specific concerns addressed in the resolution of ratification. first of all, missile defense.rd some critics of the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty have argued that it impedes the united states missile defense plans, te but nothing in the treaty bot changes theto bottom line that e control our own missile defense. destinies. not russia.eral defense secretary gates, admirable in, general patrick o'reilly who was in charge of our missile defense program have all testified he does nothing to impede our missile defense plans. the resolution of ratification is explicitly reemphasized it iy multiple ways. expressed some commentators have expresset concerns in the treaty'sationshi preamble, notice the interrelationship betweensttegid strategic defense and strategice defense. but preamble language does not permit rights nor impose u obligations.ate

and it cannot be used to create an obligation under the treaty.m the text in question is stating a truism ofin strategic planning that in interrelationship exists between strategic offense and strategic defense. critics have also heard that treaty's prohibition onconvertig converting icbms and sop and launchers to defense the missilr silos reduces our missile defense options. general riley has stated flatly that it would not be in our ownc interests to pursue such a conversions because converting a silo cost an estimated $19 million more than building a modern tailor-made missile admin interceptor silo. the bush administration converted five icbm test pilots at brandenburg airspace or missile defense interceptors and thesnde have been grandfathered under the new s.t.a.r.t.th treaa

beyond this, every singledminiss program advocated during the bush and obama administrations a symbolic construction of new o silos dedicated to defend famils and, exactly what the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty permits.eilly general riley said in a u.s. mar embrace silo emergence would be defensnoe program. now, addressing whether there b wouled be utility in converting any existing sobm longitudes to a lunch of defense missiles, general kevin p. chilton, commander of the u.s. strategic command stated quote the missile tubes that we have our valuable and the sense that they provide the strategic deterrent i would not want to trade and sobm and how powerful it is and its ability to deter for a single missile defense interceptor. tht

essentially, our military commanders are saying that to converting silos for missile defense purposes would never ild th make sense for our efforts to build the best missile defense n possible. a third argument concerning missile defense centers on russia's unilateral statement s upon signature of the netawtrea s.t.a.r.t. treaty, whichom the expresses right to withdraw fro. the treaty for the expansion of u.s. missile defense programs. unilateral statements are and do a not alter the legalrtie rights and obligations of the parties in the treaty. and deep, moscow issued a similar statement concerning ths s.t.a.r.t. wide treaty concluded its obligations for conditional with good compliance with the ft abm treaty. yet russia did not in awfact i withdraw from start one with thy

united states withdrew from the0 abm treaty in 2001. nor did it withdraw when we subsequently deployed missile defense interceptors in california and alaska.s for nor does it withdraw when we announced plans for missile defenses in poland and the czech republic. russia's unilateral statement does not say to contribute to te its rights to withdraw from the treaty. that right, which we alsorecentr possess is standard in all treae recent armss control treaties e most treaties consideredy. throughout the united states history. the resolution of ratification r approved by the senate foreign relations committee reaffirms that the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty will in no way inhibit our missile defenses. trey it contains an understanding that the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty imposes no limitations on the deployment of u.s. missile defenses other than the requirement to refrain from

converting offensive missile launchers. it also states that russia's april 2010 unilateral statements on missile defense does not impose any legal obligations on the united states under any ame further limitations that require senate's advice and consent. 199 consistent with the missile defense act of 1999, it also declares it is u.s. policy to df deploy an effective national and this paramount obligation of the united states to defend his people but the armed forces andb its allies against nuclear attack to the best of itsgn rels ability.gs on in a revealing moment, turn the senate foreign relations committee hearings on thee treaty, secretary gates testified quote, the russiansine have hated missile defense ever

since the strategic arms talks began in 1969 because we cany afford it and they can't and bu were going to be able to build a good one and they probably aren't. and they don't want to devote us the resources to it, so they try and stop us from doing it. this treaty doesn't accomplish that for them. limit there are no limits on this, end of quote. i would paraphrase the secretary's blunt comments by saying simply that our missi negotiators want on missile u defense., if indeed they rest objective it this treaty was to limit u.s. missile defense, a they failed s the defense secretary asserts. does anyone really believe that russia negotiating ambitions shting were fulfilled by nonbindingy language in the preamble or by unilateral russian statement

with no legal force or by a prohibition on converting silosn which cost more than building new ones? these are truths with provisions that do nothing to constrain us. moreover, southland, a in muiple resolution of ratification states explicitly in multiple ways that we have no intention of being constrained. our government is investing heavily in missile defense. strong bipartisan majorities in congress favor of pursuingile current missile defense plans.es what the russians are left withn on missile defensess. unrealized ambitions. at the end of any treaty negotiation between t any two a countries, there are always unrealized ambitions left on the table by both sides.out this has been true throughoutdic diplomatic history. things om the russians might want allat de sorts of things from us, butgoit

that doesn't mean they are going to get them. ourselves and if we constrain ourselves from signing thepg treaty now tn designer of interest on the realized russian ambitions, we are showing no confidence in thm ability of our own democracy to make critical decisions. w we would be saying that we have to live with the end of s.t.a.r.t. inspections, anothern rejecting this treaty to prevent the united states government in the future from bowing toe o russian pressure on missile defense. imes almost imp if one buys into this logic, it becomes almost impossible to seek cooperation with russia one anything. let us be absolutely clear. the president of the united states, the u.s. congress and the executive branch agencies on behalf of the american people di control arrowed to me on missile defense. the russians can continue to ons argue all they want on this trey

tisue, but there is nothing inpn the treaty that says we have to pay any attention to them. it may turn to the item of verification. treat the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty's verification regime has also been the subject of considerable debate. the important point is that today we have zero on the ground verification capability, given n that s.t.a.r.t. once expired and 2001 year ago.ctions o under s.t.a.r.t., the unitedheir states conducted delivery vehicles and war have in russia, cosmic stan, ukraine and belarus. these inspections fulfilled a crucial national security greaty interests but greatly reducing the possibility that we would be surprised by future advancementr in future russian technology were deployment. only through ratification of neo s.t.a.r.t., with u.s. technicians returned to russia

to resume verification. under new s.t.a.r.t., the united states and russia each will deployed no more warheads for strategicnto deterrence.rce, t seven years from its entry intos force, the russian federation is likely to have only about 350 deployed missiles. the smaller number of strategicc nuclear assessments will be deployed if your faces.it is it is likely that russia will dn close down even more bases over the life of the treaty.ver the both sides agreed it the outside but each would be free to its structure its forces had used it. a few consistent with that of the bush administration. as a practical economic matter,s they preclude a massive restructuring of the strategic l forces. the treaty protocol and annexeso detailer thunderbolt andew start procedures for verification of new s.t.a.r.t. treaty.

one. each the inspection regime contained in the new s.t.a.r.t. isthat tho designed to provide each party's alsoor being simpler and safer r the inspectors to implement, less operationally disrupted for strategical forces and less costly than the start regime. ca secretary gates recently wrote to congress that quote, the chairman of the joint chiefs of. staff joint chiefs, commander, u.s. strategic command and issy that russia will not be able to achieve militarily significant stt due seeding or breakout under new s.t.a.r.t. due to both the new s.t.a.r.t. verification regime and the inherent survivability and flexibility of the planned." u.s. strategic force structure, end of quote.start we should not expect that new s.t.a.r.t. will eliminate to

friction, but the treaty willens provide for a means to do with those differences constructivelf as under start s.t.a.r.t. the resolution of ratification approved by the foreign relations committee requires further assurances byrati conditioning ratificationcert unpresidential certification prior to the treaty's entry into force.a' of our abilitys to russia's ourd compliance and on immediate consultation should a russian breakout from the treaty beime expected. for the first time in any strategic arms control treaty, a condition requires the plan for a new start wiring.are some of us assert there are too few inspections and that new s.t.a.r.t. the treaty does provide for fewero inspections compared to s.t.a.r.t. one. s.t.a.r.t. one covers 70 onl

facilities and successor states were as new start only appliesf. to russia and has 35 remainingoe facilities. therefore, we need youright. inspections to achieve a comparable level of oversight. new s.t.a.r.t. also maintains the same number of quote reentr" vehicle on-site inspections under quote as s.t.a.r.t. one, namely 10 per year.ew they find inspections that were phased out a new s.t.a.r.t. are no longer needed as we have it o teen years of s.t.a.r.t. one trade implementation on data re. which to rely. the force of their s.t.a.r.t. it nothy ratified for a lengthy period, the efficacy of our baseline data would eventually deteriorate. new s.t.a.r.t. includes the innovation that unique identifiers, new ids will be run affixed to a russian missiles and nuclear-capable bombers.e you ideas were applied only to russian road mobile missile in .

s.t.a.r.t. one.will p regular exchanges of new i.d. lo data will provide confidence and transparency regarding the existence and location of 700 deployed mi ossiles, even when there are non-deployed status,e some in the s.t.a.r.t. one did the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty also codifies and continue support in verification enhancementsad related to warhead loading on hessian icbms and sevened to int ninths. these enhancements originally s agreed to during the start oneen limitation allow for greater a transparent the and confirmingnr the number warheads on each vessel. under s.t.a.r.t. one and the inf treaty, the united states maintained a continuous on-siteo presence of up to 30 technicians to conduct monitoring and final assembly of russia and strategic systems come using solid rocket motors. while this portal monitoring isn

not continued underti new s.t.a.r.t., to phase out this te arrangement was made by the bush administration in anticipationor of s.t.a.r.t. one's exploration which would vastly lower rates, the russian missile production, continuous monitoring is not crucial as it was during the cold war. for the united states, the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty will allow for flexible modernization and w operation of u.s. strategic forces while facilitytrateg transparency regarding development and deployment of russian strategict forces. when the comments ballot counting rules.nting, with regard to warhead county incumbent new s.t.a.r.t. improves on the rules used in both s.t.a.r.t. one in the moscow treaty. under s.t.a.r.t. one companies to put missile or bomber wasa attributed a maximum number of r weapons for which it was always counted. each launcher of a missile or weapon also counted regardless p

of whether still performed nuclear ambitions are contained this r missiles. this resulted in inaccurate counts of warheads, missiles launchers. on wha under the moscow treaty, there was never an agreement on what constituted an operationally uployed strategic nuclear pares warheads. own consequently, the party used their own methodology counting which were as fell under the treaty's limits. under new s.t.a.r.t., one common set of counting rules will be used by both parties, regarding deployed in non-deployed and ded icbms, sobm in deployed on misss warheads on missiles and bomberd weapons.s so the data exchanged under this treaty will more accurately e reflect the modern deployment of their s.t.a.r.t. bomber and accounting rules are also different from s.t.a.r.t. one. e under new s.t.a.r.t. come each

nuclear weapons despite the aircraft stability to carryhat more, which reflects the modern fact that neither partypons on maintains bombers loaded with nuclear weapons on a continuous w basis.tart. this rule is not an invention of new s.t.a.r.t. it is consistent with president reagan's negotiating position. he proposed that bombers not be countelld at all because they ae not first-rate weapons and mcow that's not destabilizing.clude y it was a concession to moscow to include heavy bombers of arms strategic offensive arms in s.t.a.r.t. one. the president reagan neverheir agreed -- president reagan never agreed to count the maximum souh capacity as the soviets thought. those who have inexplicably criticize new s.t.a.r.t. bomber rules are advocating that is hic stored position of the soviet ui union, not our own.

to the department of defense plans ble to maintain up to 16ew nuclear-capable bombers under the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty, including a large number of b-52s, each capable of carrying up to 20 lcm's.ry capiy maintaining this standoff delivery capability will enable the united states to field a substantial number of penetrating weapons and the bomber leg of our triad. flexible accounting of one weapon per each d50 to gives ust immediate and powerful deployment flexibility, the something president break and protected as does the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. let me turn to tactical nucleart weapons.e some opponents of new start also contend the treaty should not be th rejec ratified because tactical nuclear weapons are not covered. rejection of this treaty would r make further limitations on russian tacticales nuclear arms far less likely.

some critics have overvalued the utility of russia's tactical and nuclear weapons and undervalued our deterrence tore them. only a fraction of these weapons could be delivered significantly beyond russia's borders. pursuant to the inf treaty, the united states and soviet union blogger code destroyed intermediate-range and shorter range nuclear armed ballistic missile in ground launch cruise missiles, which have a range between 55500 kalama nurse. hav in fact, most of russia's tactical nuclear weapons havesed very short ranges are used fordo homeland air defenses are borde devoted to the chinese border or are in storage. nuclear attack on nato countries is effectively deterred by nato convention superiority. our own tactical nuclear forces, french and british nuclear arsenals and u.s. strategic forces. in short, russian nuclearn our

weapons do not threaten our. strategic deterrent. our nato allies that northern s.t.a.r.t. treaty. it's important to recognize that the size differential to train nuclear arsenals did not come to pass because of america's inattention to f this point. bus during the first bushh admin is command ration, our national command authority with full participation by the military deliberately t made its decision to reduce the number of tactical nuclear weapons we deploy. they did this irrespective of russian actions because the threat of massive ground invasion in europe have largelyo evaporatedf due to the breakup f the former soviet union. msn or conventional capabilitier have improved to the extent that battlefield nuclear weapons were no longer needed to defend

western europe. in this atmosphere, maintainingr large arsenals of nuclearartilly artillery shells, landmines and short-range missile warheads was a bad bargain for us in terms of safety, alliance cohesion and proliferation risk. in my judgment, russia should make a similar decision. to that the risk to russia of crent maintaining their tactical nuclear arsenal in its currenty form are greater than these potential security benefit that those weapons might provide.usef they have not done this in part because of their threat bor particularly the borders to and china. an agreement with russia that as reduced, i., for an improved security round tactical nuclear arsenals is in the interest ofes both nations. rejection of new s.t.a.r.t.

makes it unlikely that a tac subsequent agreement concerning tactical nuclear weapons willutn ever be reached. encourages the president to engage the russian federation oe establishing measures to improve mutual confidence regarding accounting and security of russian nonstrategic nuclear toh weapons. finally, let me touch upon modernization. i would like to turn to the nuclear modernization issue. the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty will not directly affect the modernization for the missions of our nuclear weapons laboratories. the treatyy explicitly states quote, modernization and car replacement of strategic offensive arms may be carried out, end of quote. yet, senate consideration of nee s.t.a.r.t. has intensified debate on modernization and the stockpile stewardship program. here the end of the bush

administration, consensus risk developed that are nuclear weapons complex was at risk dued to years ofin underfunding.ved n in 2010, the senate approved an amendment to the defense kno authorization bill requiring a report to congress known as ther 1251 report. they plan to modernize our byhe nuclear weapons stockpile, 1251 report is amended by the administration committed to an investment of approximately period to sustain and modernize the united states nuclear gat, weapons complex, which according to secretary gates was a credible program for some modernization. pursuant to this report, the ret administration submitted a fiscal year 2011 request foriscr $7 billion in a nearly 7%010 increase their physical levels.y the plan was recently augmented

by an additional $5 billion in n funding. chirac tours of our nationale v laboratories wrote on december 1 that they were very pleased witd the updated plan, which providel adequate support to sustain the safety can security, reliability itd effectiveness of america's m nuclear deterrent under s.t.a.r.t. central limits.ations the resolution of ratification passed by the foreign relationsd commitment to ensure the safetyt reliability and performance of our nuclear forces through athe robust stockpile stewardshipit o program. the resolution includes a requirement for the president to submit to congress a plan forssd overcoming any future resource shortfall associated with his mi tenure at 1251 modernizationng plan. the resolution also declares a commitment to modernizing and replacing nuclear weapons delivery vehicles. in conclusion, it's imperative

we vote to provide our advicetr. and consent to the newmosthe s.t.a.r.t. treaty. most of the basic strategic republicansni and democratic administration to pursue nuclear arms control with russia during the last several days still exis at today. we are seeking mutual reductions in nuclear warheads and delivers vehicles that contribute to stability and reduce the cost of maintaining the weapon. we are pursuing transparency ofs ouren nuclear arsenals backed bs strong verification measures and fety formal consultation methods. nur we are attempting to maximize the safety of our nuclear arsenals and encourage global cooperation towards non-proliferation goals. we are hoping to solidify the united states russian cooperation on nuclear security matters while sustaining our knowledge of russian nuclear capabilities and intentions,

rejecting new s.t.a.r.t. wouldun permanently inhibit our understanding of russian nuclea, forces, would rake in our non-diplomacy worldwide, and wou potentially reignite arms budge competitions that would further strain our national budget. bipartisan support for arms reflec control treaties that have been reflected in overwhelming vote in favor of the inf treaty, thes s.t.a.r.t. one, s.t.a.r.t. two and the moscow treaty. i thank the chair, and i yie mr. president, this afternoon, the united states senate takes up an issue that is critical to our nation's security and we have an opportunity in doing so to reduce the danger from nuclear weapons in very real and

very measurable terms. we have an opportunity here to fulfill our constitutional obligation that requires the wo-ts vion that requires the >> it requires the united states senate to provide a ottwo-thirdo vote m of the members present. we must vote in favor of the treaty. the constitution, by do dinoig , insists on bipartisanship. it insists on a breath of to support that is critical to ourn foreign policy and to the security, definitions of our country. obvioly, r that obviously requires that we put politics aside and act inur the best interest of our inhe country. t i'm confident that in the next days at the senate this debate will be embraced in at derves substantive way that it deserves tomb be. look we look forward to welcoming constructive amendments from ou colleagues from the of the son we will obviously give them timo

suggestions. having an we certainly look forward to ofr having an important discussionn. about the security of our nation. we have been for a lot of months to get us to this point in time.thin i think it is indisputable thatd we have worked in good faith on our side of the aisle to try tou provide enormous latitude to h colleagues who have had treaty, questions about this treaty,s some of whom have opposed this y or other trees from the beginning, but who really wanted to engage in the process. i think the administration to their credit, the secretary and treaty and have been availablete throughout the process, annumbef enormous number of briefings and discussions, dialogues, phone vr calls. a very open effort. as open, incidentally, as any that i can remember in 25 yearsh in the senate, and i've been r

through this process withush, pe president reagan, bush, clintonk and others.n and i think this has been as open accessible and in depth and frankly as accommodating as anyt of those them is noti want t significantly more.in i want to begin by thanking my oiend and longtimeeable aocate knowledgeable advocate on behalf of th se nuclear common-sense, senator lugar. we all know he is one of the world's foremost experts on the sut of deliberation reduction. look very few senators here who can s look out and see a program thatc has been as constructive in reducing the threat to our nation that bears their name.ite the threat reduction program. as been an honor to work with senator lugar and have his wived

counsel in this process andortay equally importantly to have hisd courage in being willing to stand up for what he believes ie so deeply and what he knows will advance the cause of our nation. my comments to my colleagues. in what we are doing here in theses next hours and days, providing advice and consent is athat responsibility that has the obviously given only to the senate to. intende the founding fathers intended that the senate be able to risef above the petty ness of partisad politics. dodd as my friend, chris dodd said, d our friend said in his victory speech, the senate was designed to be different, not simply for the framers believed that theate senate could and should be the venue in which statesmen would s lift america up to meet its unique challenges. statesman.

that is the word that we need to focus on in these next days. too often in recent months the american people signaled that it the last election that the senate has been unable to lift america up to meet its challenges. too often we became one of thosr challenges. rather than cooperating or compromising we saw a blockadece after blockade and an inability to be able to address a number of issues. as senator dodd said, whatitutii determiness whether this institution works is whether the 100 of us can work together. so with the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty we have the opportunity demonstrate our to the worldnd d i would say to my colleagues day that just two days ago the prive foreign relations committee have entire united nations securitytn

council, which came here to washington with our ambassador,e dr. susan rice. was t much on their minds was this es sen question of could the united states senate rise? with the united states senate accomplices important goal whics has meaning, not just to us, butthemecause to them. they have joined with us in resolution 1929 in order to puto pressure on iran and not toth mention the long term efforts that we made with respect toe north d korea. so what we do here is going to be an expression of our able opportunity, our ability to be o people. clarify let me clarify one thing at thef outset of this discussion. tim we have enough time to do this treaty. out anybody who wants to come out here and claim, oh, no. can't do we don't have time. we can do it.forth, let

it's right before christmas.let let me just make it -- let me te just remind people, the original s.t.a.r.t. agreement which was s passed back in 1992 was a far more dramatic treaty then the st new s.t.a.r.t. the original s.t.a.r.t. treaty was formulated in the aftermath of the demise of the soviet. union. it was a huge uncertainty in t russia at that point in time. the soviet union had just a collapsed. unc yet, despite all of the going from some 10,000 nuclear warheads down to 6,000, the fulo senate needed only five days ofe four-time in order to approve the treaty by a vote of 93-6.rey the s.t.a.r.t. into a treatyr which followed it to about fouro years d later took only two days on the floor of the united arovd

states senate. it was approved 87-4. the moscow treaty, whichext actually resulted in the next be further big reduction because os the s.t.a.r.t., s.t.a.r.t. twopv was ratified by theed senate, bt not approved by russia because of what had happened with the abm, the unilateral pullout ofit the united states. it it was not ratified, but we the managed to go to the moscow treaty and resulted in furtherof reductions of some 1700-2000 weapons. a very dramatic reduction. that tree which did not have anh verification measures in it at o all, no verification, thaton t treaty took only two days on the floor of the senate, and it was approved by 95-0. hav so, mr. president, we have time to do this treaty if we approace

it seriously, if we don't have delay amendments, delay amendments.ndment i believe we have an opportunitt to embrace the fact that this a new s.t.a.r.t. treaty is aagreex common-sense agreement in thedue next step to reduce down 1550 si warheads and to tyenhance two stability between two countries that together between them possess some of 90% of the world's nuclear weapons.next ten it will limit russia over the te next ten years to those 1550 deployed warheads. 700 700 deployed delivery vehicles, it will give us flexibility in l deploying our own arsenal. we have huge flexibility in on deciding what we put on land, s. air, sea. at the same time it will allowme us to eliminate surplus weapons

that have no place in today'sste strategic environment.areoing in the new s.t.a.r.t. dee verificationpe provisions will deepen our understanding ofear russia's nuclear forces.rs, for the past 40 years the united states often at the instigation of republican presidents hasa used arms control with russia td increase the transparency and predictability of both of our news the -- nuclear arsenals. this has built trust. it has reduced the chances of an accident. it has stabilized our of relationship during times of crisis. it has provided for greaterdersa communication and understandinge asry everybody knows in makingnd military decisions and strategic sions, decisions o, one's understandint of the legitimacy of a teat particular threat and thehe immediacy of that threat and knowing what the intentions and actions of a potential adversart might be is critical to being

able to make wise judgments about what reaction might best be entertained. frankly, that trust is exactly why president george h. w. bushi signed the s.t.a.r.t. one en s.t.a.r.t. two treaties, and that is why they passed the nderwhelmingan bipartisan suppoa new s.t.a.r.t. is simply stands the shoulders of those two s agreements. not new, a few new components, a twists in terms ofst verification and other things,co but they are not fundamentallywe new. s on t they also stand on the trust anc the fact of the legitimate tha enforcement of that treaty over all of the years that s.t.a.r.te has been in effect. we are not beginning from unt scratch.

we have a 1992 until today record of cooperation and ofthas knowledge and increased security that has come to us because of the prior agreements. at's, that is, frankly to malaya was so pleased that president bush, george herbert walker bush, last the united states senate to ratify this treaty. to now, in addition to stabilizingn the u.s. russian nuclearrelashi, relationship new s.t.a.r.t. has a profound impact on our ability to be able to work to try to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in states like ron. bumight point out that in the seven months since presidentas y obama signed this agreement exh russia hasib already exhibited a greater cooperative attitude ins working with the united states e on a number of things, not the least of which is in supporting harsher sanctions against tehran, and they have suspended

the sale of the s300 air defense system to tehran. tehran. sat is critical.ere you know, we were struggling a o couple of years ago to try tostn strengthen the sanctions against tehran.bo there is a mdyember of this body who did not articulate at one point or another the need to move to the air on sanctions act. we finally did that, but we didn not have a partnership.ussia security council joined in that. effort. we could not get the united nations. now we have.has watch there is nobody who has watched this res the evolutionta of this restartd with russia who does noterationn understand that that cooperation has been enhanced by our signint of this treaty. to not ratify it now would be at very serious blow to that cooperative effort.uld ignite according to many experts it could ignite an opposite direction that would move us back into the kind of arms raceo

that we struggled so long to get out from under. so the fact is that we need to understand that relationship. i might and this -- at, i thinks that steve forbes in forbes j magazine wrote an article just n the othegr day urging the united states senate to ratifyt s.t.a.r.t. because he said it implication in terms of theide,i security component, the nucleary side.stro it has a very strong economic component. he is arguing for greater economicru engagement between ad russia and the west. he said that the s.t.a.r.t.hat relationship is critical to thac increased commerce, that countri increased economic strengtheninl between our countries. i hope my colleagues will look hrefully at a strong voice le

conservative voice like his that urges the ratification of this o treaty. now, in addition to the russian component of the relationship te new s.t.a.r.t. will help us kee. nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.f one of the greatest fears of our security community is thatgethat terrorists may not necessarily l get what we strictly call amaye nuclear bomb. they may be able to get nuclearg material through back channels and through the black marketatey because it has not beenaven't adequately guarded because wetho have not reduced the numbers ofd material. so they could get ahold of some of the material and make what is called the dirty bomb. that is a bomb that does not go- off in nuclear reaction, but which because of the nuclear material that explodes with it

has a very broad toxic impact on a very large community. a that is a legitimate realone concern and one of the reasons e why we drive so hard to reducear the nuclear actors in the worlde the original s.t.a.r.t. agreement was, frankly, theth foundation of the cooperative threat reduction program. that is simply put the most successful non proliferation effort of the last 20 years.rt o as james baker, former secretary of treasury, secretary of state said, i really don't think it would have been nearly as successful as it was if theass t russians had lacked the legallyf binding assurance of parallels r u.s. reductions through thenew i s.t.a.r.t. treaty.st so the new s.t.a.r.t. will strengthen our ability to lse continue to to to secure new low nuclear materials. without new s.t.a.r.t. withoutly

that ability to contain those abilities would be weakened.ss e it will help us address thengert lingering dangers of the old usr nuclear age while giving asble important tools to be able to combat the threat of the newe nuclear age. the sooner we approve it this safer we will become. that is why there is such an sur outpouring of support for this m treaty, mr. president. every single living former democ secretary of state, republican s and democrat supports this treaty. so the five former secretaries of defense and the chair and the vice chair of the nine / 11 for commission. so the seven former commanders of our nuclear forces. military, including admiraland o mollen and the service chiefs and our current nuclear commander all support this treaty as well.lt t ito is difficult to imagine an

agreement with that kind ofwh he backing from so many individuals who contributed so much to our f nation's security, almost all of abou whom know a lot more about each of these arguments that anyelf, senator, myself and everybody m here. they have been in the middle of this. over the last weeks every single favor of this treaty. suggesteshd we could not -- shod not rush to do this. mr. i have to tell you,alfe mr. president, only in thesh. united states senate would year-and-a-half be rushed. they have had an unbelievableeay opportunity to do this. the question is not why would we try to do it now, but why no wouldn't we. try for what reason? the four corners of the actualfe treaty, not talking aboutbout modernization. moderniza that is not in the four corners. notwithstanding that thenot witg administration has allowed delas

after delay after delay in ordel to help work with the center and provide adequate increases in is modernization, so much so that m the modernization is way above what it was under president bush or any prior administration, bur that is not in the four corners of the treaty. that is something you do because you want to maintain america'san nuclear force. ameri we all want to, which is why we provide that funding. the i believe that's the importancet here is to recognize that it has been more than a year since thes original s.t.a.r.t. treaty and its verification provisionsmorey expired. more than one year since we hadn inspectors on the ground in ther russia with access to their nuclear facilities. our every day for the past year our knowledge of their arsenal or whatever they're doing begins te diminish one step, one small amount at a time, cumulativelyhs over time, which is why ource cs

entire national intelligence community has come out and said, this treaty, in fact, will to advance american security and assistance to be able to know what russia is doing.ks let me point out two weeks ago r james clapper, the director of y national intelligence birds us h to ratify the new c-span2 andli, said i did the earlier, the nconer, the better.ationallige that is our national intelligence director. others have tried to suggest sqe again that this is a squeeze ine the last days. let me just say respectfully, i have already given you the timek the s.t.a.r.t. one took five days. s.t.a.r.t. two, five days. if we worked diligently there is nothing to stop us from finishing this in the time we have. we just have to stay here and make it clear that we are going g to to stay here.o the president wants us to, and harry reid is said that we wills until we get this done. the fact is the starting in juno

of 2009 over a year ago, a relations committee was briefed at least five times during talks with we met downstairs in the securet facilitiesh with the negotiators while they were negotiating. ber we met withe them before thene m negotiated. we gave them parameters that wed thought they needed to embrace in order to facilitate passesh e through the senate. we met with them while they were negotiating.hey were at least five times.s. senators from the armed servicer committee, from the intelligence committee, from the senate national security working group, which i cochaired along with senator kyle. whenever senator kyl wanted toai meet with that group we call the meeting. we met. and we call them and sat and talkedn the select committee on intelligence did its work.in the in the end if you counted up

more than 60 united states senators were able to follow the negotiations in detail over a 0d year timite frame. mwith senators also had additional opportunities to meet with the fegotiating team.lega o a delegation of senator's travee to geneva, was the demonstration helpeden make happen in order tt of meet with the negotiatorserei while the negotiations were so, going on. new so, mr. president, even thoughmy the new s.t.a.r.t. was formallys bbmitted in may, the fact is congress about this treaty th p before it is even signed. t the president made certain we and the input of the unitednt in states senate was taken into account in the context of those negotiations. no other senate, not next year could come back here and has replicate what this senate has n gone through in preparing for this treaty. we cannot replicate those bk

negotiations. you can't go back and give that's advice. it's done. that. we did that. it is our responsibility ton stand up and complete the taske on this because we put a yeare t and have some work into it.ave we have done the preparation. i' we haves the knowledge, and it s our responsibility. the fact is that over the last seven months this senate hasmmen even become more immersed in thd treaty. brief wein have had briefings, documed have been submitted. nearly 1,000 formal questions a, were submitted to the answered. administration and have been answered. we have the volumes of these by questions, all of west were rigt asked by senators completelyappn within their rights, totallyoce. inappropriate in the ratification process. we welcomed it. p i think it has produced a better record and a starter product. conducted 12 open and classified hearings.

we heard from more than 20mittes witnesses. the arms services committee and ed classified briefings of theiream around. we heard from robert gates, the secretary of defense, admiral mike mullen the commander of the strategic command, lt. general patrick o'reilly, the director of the missile defense agency every single person involved in circum this from secretary dates all the way through the strategic rd commander said. inhis negatively impactin america's it ability or to even impacted in t way that prevents us from doing exactly what we want with respect to a missile defense.ofe we also heard from the directors of the nation's nucleare chaed laboratories. the intelligence officials who are charged with monitoring the. threats to the united states,tid and we heard, as i mentioned previously several times, fromia negotiators of the agreement.

,e heard from officials whoadmin served in the nixonagan, administration. ford, carter, reagan, bush, bus, for one, clinton, bush for three. we heard from officials in every one of those administrations. fy you know what?istrations and overwhelmingly they told us we should ratify the new s.t.a.r.t. as i said, some of the strongess support comes from the militaryh on june 16th i chaired a nuclear hearing on the u.s. nucleardernf ap modernization of our nuclear weapons, plaques. general shelton, commander of the u.s. strategic command is responsible for overseeing our nuclear deterrent. he explained why the militarymis supports. he says if we don't get the a treaty the russians are not the constrained in their development td we have no insight into what they're doing. so it is the worst of both

possible worlds. o that is the head of our strategic command telling us if, you don't ratify this treaty ish the worst of both possible worlds. now, this treaty may have been negotiated by a democratic me of t president.hef some of the strongest support fm comes from republicans. five two weeks ago five former republican secretaries of state, five, henry kissinger, george phillips, james baker, lawrence, and colin powell wrote an article saying that they support because it embraces republican principles like strong wee verification. last week on the lees of rice published an op ed this said thd new s.t.a.r.t. treaty deserves bipartisan support when the as secretary rice wrote approving this treaty is part or our effort to stop the world's most dangerous weapons fromo

going to the world's most dangerous regimes. so if something we have notcarel considered this to be carefully i encourage them to revisit then voluminous record that has beena produced over the past itere a year-and-a-shalf. i look forward to reviewing it s here as we debate new s.t.a.r.t. in the coming days.ve in the end i am confident we will approve this treaty.t as t just as the senate approved they original s.t.a.r.t. treaty ine 1992. a at t senators who insisted on delay. there were senators who suggested that serious questions remain unanswered. and ther that is their privilege.ozensf there were senators who drafted dozens and dozens of amendments. in the end within five days the senate came together to approve the treaty 93-6. so, what is important that we te pay attention to as we look ateo the big picture here to the

national imperative, the security imperative behind thiso treaty and what our militaryng leaders and civilian leaders are urging us to think about, both tst and present.ention well, if you pay attention tonly the fax you can really come to e only one conclusion. that is that we have to ratify treaty. this treaty.ur some of our -- some of ourd supo colleagues have said that they can support the treaty if we address certain issues of the resolution of ratification. well, again, i hope they're listening. addressed we have addressed the issuesresn that they raised in the resolution of r ratification. ee i think many people may not evew be aware of how much we have puw into the resolution ofne over ratification and how much we lat have done over the past seven cn months to respond to thehe concerns that were raised during the consideration of the treaty. the draft resolution, pages

mr. president, is 28 pages long. it contains 13 conditions, three in the standings, the ten 10 declarations, and the conditionq will require action by the executive branch, the u understandings are formally fory communicated to the russians,ane and the declarations express ess clear language of what we in the senate expects to happen in the. next year. the that is the distinction betweenc those categories. this resolution currentlyious addresses every serious topicddd that we have addressed over the course of the last seven monthsf for example, on the issue of missile defense our military hay repeatedly and unequivocally ast your best that the new our s.t.a.r.t. does nothing to constrain our missile defense plans. the secretary of defense says it does nothingef to constrain our missile defense plants.s the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says it does nothing to constrain our missile defense

plans. the commander of our nuclear forces says it does nothing to . constrain our nuclear defenseknr plans. .. the greatest detail, much more than any senator, lieutenant general o'riley, the head of the missile defense agency, testified that in many ways the treaty reduces constraints on our missile defense testing. get that. the head of missile defense says this treaty reduces the constraints on our missile defense testing. he also testified that the russians signed the treaty full knowing that we are committed to the phased adaptive approach in europe. he said -- and let me quote him -- "i have briefed the russians personally in moscow on russians personally in moscow on i have briefed the russians personally and moscow on every n aspect of our missile defense developmt