district court in denver with the department of revenue in colorado, and i think there'll be be a plenary injunction hearing shortly on that, and we will see what the court says. >> host: scott peterson, when you were working with the state of south dakota in their tax policy department, was this an issue? >> guest: yeah, it was. we've been -- i tell -- you know, you talked about we've been doing this for a decade. we've actually been doing this for 70 years. south dakota adopted their sales tack in 19 -- tax in 1932, and two years later they adopted the use tax because they wanted to start collecting their sales tax. it's 100% sales tax state. we did everything we could to get sales tax collected. we were, we -- as a directer of sales tax, i was under instructions to be as aggressive as i could be on defining nexus, defining physical presence to try to get everybody to collect.

>> host: and? >> guest: we were -- >> host: let's take ll bean for an example. >> guest: no success whatsoever. none. >> host: located up in maine. >> guest: maine. nice company. i buy their shirts for my father-in-law. they have a legal only base to collect sales tax where they have stores. presumably, distribution facilities, but i don't know how they actually distribute their products. they would be subject to the colorado reporting requirement, presumably because of their size. i assume they're -- they might be subject to the new york click through battle. i don't know how they market it -- >> guest: i don't know if -- >> guest: i don't know if they have affiliates. no, we were never successful in the getting them to collect. >> host: so what's the next step in furthering this policy or this policy debate? mr. cerasale, what are we going to see next? >> guest: i think we're going to see the court decisions. i think that what happens in new

york, what happens in colorado will then set a new framework, a new ground level of where we are. i think that scott's group will continue to try and get more and more states to join the streamline sales tax agreement. we will probably fight the main street fairness act bills in congress saying that they really haven't streamlined. we like to use the phrase doesn't have to hit me here, hopefully that it's streamlined in name only and try and go more into streamlining. and i think that eventually as bloat sales -- remote sales become larger and larger it may well be that states will start to streamline more. >> host: final word. same question. >> guest: states won't have any choice. you're going to start seeing amazon type stuff everywhere

with because the sphwhert is truly amazing, and it's revolutionizing retailing in this country. if you can't get that sales tax collected, the sales tax will die. >> host: this is "the communicators." scott peterson is with the streamline sales tax governing board, jerry cerasale, direct marketing association, and grant gross with the idg news service which serves pc world, computer world, info world, net work world and cio magazines as well as 300 other technology-related magazines and 400 web sites worldwide. thank you, gentlemen, for being on "the communicators." >> guest: thank you. >> guest: thank you for having us. >> if you missed any of this discussion on how internet companies are collecting sales taxes, you can see it again tonight in prime time. "the communicators" airs each monday night at 8 p.m. eastern, 5 pacific here on c-span2.

>> coming up next, former government officials discuss the wikileaks release of classified state department documents and its impact on u.s. diplomacy. >> every weekend on c-span3 experie american history tv starting saturday at 8 a.m. eastern. 48 hours of people and events telling the american story.

hear historic speeches by national leaders and eyewitness accounts of events that shaped our nation. visit museums, historical sites, college campuses as leading historians delve into america's past. american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> now, a discussion on the wikileaks release of classified state department documents. former u.s. government officials talk about its impact on the future of u.s. diplomacy. from the heritage town caution in washington -- foundation in washington, this is about 90 minutes. >> good afternoon. on that first wonderful snowy day of washington d.c. as our radio personalities are probably already hearing, it's time to abandon cars now regardless. we do welcome everyone to our louis lairman auditorium, as well as those who will be viewing us on a future occasion

on the c-span network. we would ask everyone to check cell phones have been turned off as a courtesy to our presenters and those recording the session, and we will, of course, post the program later today on our web site for everyone's future reference. our internet viewers are always welcome to e-mail us at speaker@heritage.org with questions during the program or comments following. hosting our discussion this morning is ambassador terry miller. ambassador miller serves as directer of our center for international trade and economics. he directs the center's ongoing research into the role of free markets and international trade and fostering economic growth around the world. prior to joining heritage, he was a diplomat and public servant. in 2006 president george w. bush appointed him as ambassador to the united nations' economic and social council. before that he served as deputy assistant secretary of state for economic and global issues. overseas ambassador miller has served in italy, france,

barbados and new zealand including as head of the u.s. observer mission to unesco. he also headed the u.s. delegation to the u.n. conference on trade and development in 2004 and was the lead negotiator for the monterey consensus on financing for development. please join me in welcoming my colleague, ambassador terry miller. terry? [applause] >> thank you very much, john. let me add my welcome to all of you to the heritage foundation today and particularly to those of you who have braved the washington weather to join us here in person. as you will hear during our discussion today, the theft and disclosure of a large amount of u.s. government classified information through wikileaks presents formidable challenges to our diplomatic, defense and legal establishments. we're going to have to rethink what we communicate within the u.s. government and how we

communicate. we're going to have to repair breaches of faith with foreigners who have shared information with us in the past but will be more reluctant to do so in the future. we're going to have to restore -- and this may be the hardest part of all -- our reputation for competence. first, i'd like to say that this was a predictable and preventable occurrence. predictable because of the growth in both the quantity and the dissemination of the information of classified information throughout the u.s. government. tens of thousands of people had access to this information. legitimate access to this information. unless you believe in a world without sin or error, then you must be prepared for treason or treachery or, indeed, accidental

disclosure. we will always have traitors, we'll always have accidents. but we can limit the damage that they do. that brings me to the preventable part. there are massive failures of both design and management in our system that make it susceptible to the kind of catastrophic failure represented by the wikileaks disclosures. the first failure of design in our system involves the erosion of hierarchy within our foreign policy, defense and intelligence establishments. the erosion of hierarchy, the diffusion of power and responsibility requires the same kind of increase and diffusion of information throughout the system. that leads to the violation of what is probably the most important principle of secrecy which is to limit the number of

people who have access to the secret information. to be blunt, there are too many people in the loop. the basic question that must be asked and emphasized is, who has a need to know? those people, and no others, should have access to secret information. and with very few exceptions that access should be granted on a case-by-case basis, not general access to all issues at all times. the second principle is not to treat a secret that which is trivial or unimportant. we have procedures in which it's too easy to classify information. far too much information gets classified as a result. things that don't need to be secret are treated as such. this leads to a certain casualness of mind about what to

write and how to write it. the reaction of some of my foreign colleagues to the recent leaks has been, i can't believe you guys put that on paper. well, i agree. we also have too many levels of secrecy. individuals classifying information for the u.s. government get to ask themselves questions like, will this do just a little bit of harm if it's released, or will it do massive amounts of harm? can it be released safely next year or in five years or never? um, we need to be asking one question only; is something a secret or not? is there a compelling public reason to hide something from the general public? if so, then we need to hide it. don't make it available to thousands of people who may not understand its significance.

finally, there are technical, systemic failures. the u.s. government data runs primarily on closed systems with nodes of interaction -- some technical and some personal with public systems. we need to do a much better job of guarding those connections. now, the subject of our conference today is the black eye to u.s. diplomacy from these leaks. fortunately, i don't think that the reputation of u.s. diplomats has suffered much, at least not with the u.s. public as a result of these disclosures. for the most part, we found out that u.s. officials are saying the same things in private that they say in public. we have no conspiracies, no deceptions on the part of u.s. diplomats or senior officials. the same, of course, cannot be

said for foreign officials whom we find in some cases saying very different things to us in private than they are saying in the public. those revelations have caused embarrassment and, perhaps, worse to those people, and they're certainly going to reduce the free flow of information to u.s. diplomats in the future. now, about that flow of information. the first question i would ask is, who is reading this material? most embassy reporting is read by a very small number of people in washington. for some embassies there may only be two or three people throughout the u.s. government that actually read an embassy's cables. the material disclosed by wikileaks is probably getting far more attention now than it ever got in its initial formal distribution within the u.s.

government. the information that our senior decision makers need is not raw data, it's not thinly-disguised gossip, but rather information and analysis that has a direct bearing on our ability to defend ourselves. our interests, our diplomats are still capable of providing such information and analysis, but it now floats in a sea of information of often uncertain providence or meaning. we need much more attention to separating the wheat from the chaff and be more of that attention needs to be in the field. the basic question before committing any information to a communications channel should be, what value does this add to our understanding of any real issue or of a government's interests, our positions or even in the way in which a foreign individual or leader might act in a crisis. if answer is, well, it doesn't

add much, then it probably shouldn't be put in a cable or written in the first place. if -- as government expands and information becomes for diffuse, there's a time when individuals were given substantial authority and held accountable for results. in today's greatly expanded state department, individual authority, responsibility and accountability are all greatly reduced. and they've been replaced in part by bureaucracy, a bureaucratic system and process. the wikileaks disclosures came about as a result of a breakdown within those bureaucratic procedures. given the size and complexity of the systems and information flows in question, such

breakdowns are inevitable. surely step one should be to reduce the size of the flow of information and the number of people who have access to it. thereby reducing the risks when a disclosure does take place. i'd like to close with just a few recommendations. first, i think we need to clamp down on the use of classification authority. we need to reeducate our employees and our diplomats to the idea of working in an environment in which you can count on nothing being secret or secure. we these to train people to think before they write. we need to rethink the concept that there are different levels of secrecy. something should either be secret or not. in handling secret material, we need to reinvigorate the concept of limiting access to those with a need-to-know.

we need the to redesign our systems to eliminate the nodes of connection between secret and nonsecret channels of communication. and finally, we need to make it hard to classify information and, also, hard to access it. i'm going to end with just one sort of extraneous thought almost. and that is, why do we save everything within the u.s. government? in my view, we'd pen fit greatly -- benefit greatly from a type of secret communication in which information is transmitted and then destroyed. the written equivalent, in this effect, of an oral, private conversation. i know that historians and lawyers love a written record, and i understand that that can be useful when we have questions of accountability. but an obsessive devotion to

archiving everything -- and that's what we do in the u.s. government now -- that obsessive devotion is increasingly debilitating to the actual process of communication and will be even more so following the disclosures of wikileaks. we've put together an outstanding panel to discuss these issues in greater depth here this afternoon. and i want to introduce them to you now. lisa curtis is senior research fellow in the heritage foundation's asian studies center focusing on america's relations with india, pakistan and other south asian countries. before joining heritage in august of 2006, lisa was a member of the professional staff of the senate foreign relations committee where she was in charge of south asia issues for then-chairman senator luger. lisa has also served as a white house-appointed senior adviser, an analyst with the central

intelligence agency and in the foreign service where she was assigned to embassies in pakistan and india. paul rosensway is a visiting fellow for the douglas and sarah allison center for foreign policy studies. he's founder of red branch consulting, pllc, providing legal and strategic advice on national security and privacy concerns to individuals, companies and and governments. from 2002 to 2005, paul was senior legal research fellow in the heritage foundation's center for legal and be judicial studies where he specialized in civil liberties, national security and criminal law. he's also served as deputy assistant secretary for policy in the department of homeland security and as acting assistant secretary for international affairs. and last, collie stimson.

before joining heritage in 2007, culley served as the deputy assistant secretary for defense for detainee affairs where he advised the secretary on detainee issues worldwide including at guantanamo bay, iraq and afghanistan. while at the pentagon, he also chaired the pentagon's joint detainee coordinating committee and co-chaired the defense senior leadership oversight committee. he's also served as an assistant u.s. attorney for the district of columbia and as a criminal prosecutor, defense attorney and law professor. so we're going to start with lisa curtis. >> thank you, terry. and thank you all for coming and braving this weather. now, i spoke at a panel on wikileaks about a month ago which was approximately ten days

before this latest tranche of diplomatic cables were released. now, what i said in that panel which was, basically, focused on the afghanistan and iraq war archives that were released in july and then subsequently again a few months later on afghanistan was that most americans were already aware of the general thrust of the information released in the documents. i also noted that these reports were not necessarily the crown jewels of u.s. intelligence, meaning they did not contain the most highly-guarded secrets on which sensitive u.s. policy decisions are made. that said, the release of the reports as the most recently released diplomatic cables clearly compromises u.s. national security, and, you know, i want to differentiate between the dumps. the afghanistan/iraq war cables

that were released revealed, you know, u.s. battlefield techniques, ways of communicating, intelligence gaps, you know, all of this information that our enemy on the battlefield can exploit. and even groups like am nsse inter-- amnesty international faulted the wikileaks for revealing the names of iraqi and afghan civilians who were cooperating with the coalition forces highlighting that such recklessness put people's lives in the jeopardy. also with the previous releases of information i noted that our allies called into question their willingness to share sensitive information with u.s. officials. and, unfortunately, after this latest release of diplomatic cables, i think this point would only be reinforced to them. so while the release of the iraq and afghanistan war archives

seemed to indicate that julian assange had a strong anti-war agenda and that he may have even hoped to spark a broad-based anti-war movement here in the u.s., the release of the diplomatic cables shows assange has an even larger anti-u.s. agenda which involves sabotaging the ability of the u.s. goth to -- government to conduct relations with foreign governments. and this is quite ironic since it is the practice of international diplomacy which allows nations to communicate effectively, to cooperate, to negotiate and, yes, even to avoid wars. so it is a bit mind-boggling that julian assange thinks he is doing the right thing by upending u.s. diplomacy. simply makes no sense. now, no one is disagreeing with the obvious need to be able to expose government corruption and even misguided policies, but this sort of nondiscretionary

massive dumping of classified information onto the internet is not the way to go about it. now, since the reports were only recently released, about two weeks ago, and only about 2,000 of the apparently quarter of a million reports that they intend to release have actually been posted on wikileaks, we cannot yet predict what the full impact of the situation will be. the media has reported that some countries are already limiting the number of american diplomats who can attend meetings, and they're not allowing diplomats to take notes. yet other embassies seem to have not experienced any changes regarding their interacts with foreign government -- interactions with foreign government officials. and and secretary clinton went to great lengths to make clear that the opinions that were expressed in many of these cables don't reflect official u.s. policy, they're simply spot

field reporting coming from officials in the field. now, interestingly, some of the commentary in the u.s. media has noted how professional, balanced and well written many of the cables are which means, you know, the release of the cables may have actually lifted the opinions of of some about the work of diplomats. i think people often think of diplomats as attending lavish parties, signing treaties. however, these cables reveal that our diplomats are working very hard, often under difficult circumstances and with difficult partners, to achieve very worthy goals like keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists on one end to reducing conflict and even promoting democracy and human rights. now, every government -- not just the u.s -- requires the ability to have protected conversations with both foreign officials and with human rights activists, democracy workers and journalists.

this is the bread and butter of the diplomatic service. because of the wikileaks fiasco, people will simply not trust their american counterparts or be willing to share information that could help solve many of these global problems. there also is concern about the safety and security of the foreign service nationals. these are the local nationals of the host country who work in the embassy, they help set up meetings, they gather information. so they're often referenced in the diplomatic cables, so there's some concern about their safety since they are living in these host countries. now, i agree with terry that the wikileaks phenomena is like hi to create a shift back to more traditional policies of sharing information on a strict need-to-know basis. there's likely to be a backlash against the concept of broad information sharing which we have seen in the post-9/11 world

in this both the -- in both the intelligence and policy making community. so i would say with regard to information sharing, interagency information sharing, we're now in the post-wikileaks world. now, hopefully, the barn door will not be completely shut down since, clearly, breaking down barriers to information sharing has helped secure the u.s. homeland. so my hope is that people are, use discretion. certainly, there will have to be more scrutiny in deciding who gets access to information, and terry explained very well why that's the case. but at the same time i think that we have all benefited from the increased information sharing when it comes specifically to threats to the homeland. so it's, clearly, a balancing act we have here. now, my specialty is south asia, so i've focused particularly on the impact on u.s. policy in south asia. and there have been some interesting developments.

one was the reporting of faith wikileaks in pakistan in order to create propaganda against its arch enemy, india. a pakistani news agency fabricated a report ha said there were cables reporting on indian meddling in pakistan, and when it was learned that this was, indeed, a complete fabrication, the newspapers that ran the story were forced to apologize to their readership to maintain their credibility. and the online news agency itself said it regretted the release of the story, and it noted the consequent erosion of its public credibility. but i think this was a rather bizarre case, and it's unlikely to happen again. so the wikileaks when it comes to the diplomatic cables that were released are most unhelpful when they involve sensitive relations like the ones, the one between the u.s. and pakistan.

interestingly, i think the pakistan cables, though, represent a case in which people of the public can see how complicated and difficult it is to pursue diplomacy in a country in which the leadership is so fragmented. and this is the kind of thing people know already, but seeing it in if black and be white, i think, certainly brings the issue home. and another interesting point is some pakistani commentators have even pointed out that the wikileaks show that the americans really don't have such awful intentions toward their country and that, perhaps, the pakistani media needs to cut its bombast against the american government. one op-ed writer wrote, for example, and i'm quoting now, that wikileaks has provided the pakistani nation another chance to reconsider and revisit so many disconnects that it holds between the realities and its perceptions about the way the

world is to be shaped. so i'm not saying that the wikileaks will contribute to lessening anti-americanism in pakistan. i'm merely noting that the impact of wikileaks has been unpredictable in some cases. so in conclusion, i doubt julian assange will be perceived by most americans as a hero. i, for one, am certainly glad he did not receive time's person of the year award. many americans view him as someone who does not have the best interests of the american people at heart and is playing fast and loose with u.s. national security. thank you. >> thank you, lisa. paul? >> good afternoon, and can i join my co-panelists in thanking you for braving the weather here in washington and coming out to listen to us. my, my goal or function on this panel is to talk a little bit about the wikileaks from a cybersecurity/internet

architecture perspective. and i confess at the outset that that leads me to some places that are a little different from where i think terry and lisa are in terms of their thought about the way going forward. to my mind, the fundamental takeaway lesson from wikileaks is that the death of secrecy isinevitable. or to put it in a more technological frame, the half-life of secrets is decreasing as we go forward. that is shot to say that there will be -- not to say there will not be secrets in the world ahead of us. so long as there are, is value in the secrecy of information, there'll be incentives for people to maintain it. but the virtue of the internet, the major virtue of the internet is that it serves as an open architecture for the conveying

of information at a distance almost instantaneously. .. >> some of the fundamental purposes of american diplomacy and national security. so with that as a kind of background to what i see as the absolutely reality that no amount of american policy or any

country policymaking is going to change, what lessons about cybersecurity or keeping secrets within that context do i think we can learn from the wikileaks. for me the first and foremost lesson is one that everybody in the cyber domain tend to forget, which is that most of the problem is with human factors, which is to say notwithstanding the fact we live in a world in which there are espionage attacks outside of the system, or attacks, things that are external to the system, often, indeed most of the time, the threats to the security of the systems, the information assurances of the data that you are holding our from insiders. either by mistake as when people mistakenly give away their password to a friend, trusting him not understanding in doing so they are compromising the system. or in the case that is at hand,

if reports are to be proven, and i would hasten to add i would assume kind of a truth of public reports about how the cables were expelled traded from the american system by pfc. manning. but, of course, he's been charged and not convicted cities and counter a presumption of innocence. but if those reports about him are accurate, you know, an insider who purposely gets, as kerry said, until the outlaw sin, we are going to experience that. so the first set of things that i think we should take away from an event like this is that we need to do a better job of security vetting. it's really simple. we need to define who gets access. i'm not sure that means we need to cut back on the number of people to get access, so much as we need to make sure that the people are granted access to america's secrets are deserving of it. and more important, one of the lessons i think that gets lost all too often in the security

realm is the need for continuous vetting. which is to say that as i understand the history, there are indications in a persons past that might indicate that as as time went on a private manning was growing more frustrated with this life in the army. there would have been indicators of an attitude. so one of the pieces that we want to deal with is not just granted people access that constant vetting of who gets access over time. but a second piece that i think we assuredly need to learn from this is that america needs to upgrade the systems assurance utilities of its programs. that we have a system that does not alert on the downloading of 250,000 files at a time is a

remarkable thing. now, granted it required, you know, this is not like you can put a light switch and do a systems upgrade to all dod systems worldwide overnight. you can't. and i certainly understand that it will be a process that needs to be paid for and rolled out in a way that doesn't interfere with ongoing operations, all that sort of things. but at the same time, that's a commonplace in the operating systems of major companies throughout the united states and throughout the world. when people do engage -- people have access to system engage in an unusual pattern of downloading excessive quantities of information it gets an alarm. and so much as a security function that needs to be performed. likewise, within the american systems there needs to be, there ought to be programs that monitor unusual patterns of

access to information. it makes to me perfect sense that a private in an intelligence unit near iraq might need access to cables that are derived from the iraq embassy. there may be relevant information from the. kind of broad and your lens, you could say yes, iran and maybe afghanistan and jordan and israel, saudi arabia. but when he's accessing information in cables from holland or venezuela or mexico, or north korea, to cite a whole host of cable traffic that has apparently been accessed, that's just somebody who is engaging in a pattern of activity that is outside the zone of the types of things that one would expect for a person in that situation. and it again, it's not trivial to design that might monitor that access and provide that kind of analysis of the patterns

of activities of people with access to systems. but at the same time it isn't impossible. indeed, it is also the type of system that is in place in many countries in the united states, and some of our more highly classified regimes, in u.s. government agencies. so that's a perfectly reasonable expectation, i would think. i would, i think, disagree with, gently, with some of what terry said about a third possibility of a lesson learned. which is that we need to clamp down on information sharing and go back to a need to know mechanism here and as well, that we need to start limiting the amount of information that we collect and exercising some filtering the for information becomes part of the collection of u.s. data. i think that that would be the

wrong way. for one thing i think the lesson we learned from 9/11 is that we need to really break down and need to know here time and make it a need to share paradigm. and that is the most effective way of breaking down silos and coordinating information amongst u.s. government agencies for counterterrorism purposes and counterinsurgency purposes. i would be reluctant to welcome back the idea of a need to know kind of paradigm. because inevitably in a u.s. government where agencies protect their turf jealously, that will be seen as a signal to return to pre-9/11 moves up nonjury. so i wouldn't go in that direction. and the other piece is the thing that we learned not just on 9/11, but from all forms of kind

of internet data aggregation and analysis that have occurred in the last 20 years is that you never know what the relevant factoid is going to be to a piece of analysis going forward. and we shouldn't be editing ourselves at the front and and purging from our datasets, things that we can't possibly know might well be relevant going down the line, right? what we hav have in the internes a system with a much greater capacity for data integration and analysis than we've ever had in the past. it's a system that is allowing us to discover new patterns of human activity, whether it's social activity on facebook, or criminal activity in bank fraud, or terrorist activity or patterns of activities on insurgencies in iraq. and that comes about not by limiting your data intake at the

front end, but rather by using better analytical tools, better algorithms, for assessing the significance of data in the midst of the process. never knowing what the right piece of data will be at the end. who would have known, who would have known that the travel patterns to afghanistan of david headley, that happen before 9/11, we're going to be relevant to a post-9/11 investigation? we wouldn't have. and, indeed, with the wrong set of prisons we might well have discarded that information. now we have a much better sense that we can't know in advance what the necessary information will be. so on that, one little piece, i think i might diverge from my colleagues on the panel, and say that the promise of data aggregation and data analytics is not met i cutting back on

sharing on data intake but is better met of the threats from wikileaks are better met by ensuring that the right, only the right people have access to the data. and ensuring that people inside the system are monitored. you know, one of the things people say about the internet, everyone has lost their privacy on. that's not necessarily true, but the one set of people who should lose all the privacy our systems users inside the u.s. government secret and top secret networks. with that, i think i have been like 10 minutes and i will pass along. >> thanks a lot, paul. cully? >> thank you, terry, for posting this and i am so delighted to be here with lisa and paul and i welcome you hardy souls who braved a whopping one inch of snow, that would be three by the time we get out of here. of course, washington, one flake turns into a gridlock on the roads as you all know. my task is to discuss the legal parameters here, namely whether

or not assigned or wikileaks or both can be held criminally liable. and i would say at the outset that because i'm a command in the united states navy, the reserves, i'm an order by the secretary not to read the wikileaks leaks. i haven't. so my remarks are based more generally on the law as i know it, and then certain reporting about what has been a leak. i think paul is under the same structure as well. spirit thanks to making that clear. >> because it is a security clearance, his capacity as a business owner. wikileaks is an intentional dissemination of hundreds of thousands of war related classified and sensitive u.s. cables, while our country is engaged in armed conflict into theaters of war counter theaters of operation, has no doubt as

you all know open a vigorous debate about whether wikileaks or its founder, julian assange, can or should be held criminally liable. as i said at the outset. some see assange as a trader, or a spy as a legal matter. traders are people within the countries usually citizens who are attempting to harm the country so they can be tried for treason. or a criminal who should be prosecuted under the espionage act which is a discussion issuer. today on capitol hill there was a hearing before the senate house judiciary committee on his very topic. are other palatable flaws which have been much debate, laws especially the legal laws. others who i would characterize where a small group perhaps see wikileaks, assange as a hero, a courageous person that should be applauded for his actions in making transparent what should never have been hidden from the

public in the first place. i sorely don't subscribe to the second category. there's no doubt in my mind from the various positions i've held that the information disseminated by wikileaks has damaged our national budget. i associate with myself with all the remarks but in sicily the concern with lisa eloquently laid out and has talked about in the past. it certainly harmed our diplomatic efforts. imagine if you were foreign deployed in an embassy somewhere, certainly in the middle east or in a sensitive area and your job among other things was to report back on the day-to-day happenings around you. you would take applause, i think, as your natural instinct in terms of carrying out your functions reporting exactly what you're seeing, even this

disclosure. and no doubt this has cost other negative collateral consequences to the united states and our allies, some of which we probably haven't even in counted yet or thought through where it can become obvious to us. i believe the primary beneficiary of the wikileaks is the enemy. however, you want to define it. connecticut enemy on the ground, taliban, al qaeda and those associate with it but others who want to see the degradations of the united states, the eyes of the united states be harmed in the eyes of the world. that being said, this saga which i believe will continue because as we all read, wikileaks has not only promised to disseminate more information but as according to what i have read, pushed out of their information

to various co-conspirators so that if something bad happens to assange, they would push out the information. this saga highlights what i think is the natural equipoise any free society, as my old boss ken wainstein testified earlier today before the house judiciary committee where he said quote, on the one hand to protecting government government secrets and event you are uploading for cinema protections for the press, unquote. now, whether wikileaks is a traditional media outlet, i think it certainly open to debate. but there can be no doubt that if it are julian assange were prosecuted in the united states, they would claim and wrapped themselves in the protection of the first amendment. they are a media outlet, however broadly defined. so let's to quote my old boss in

a different context, let's begin our legal analysis with a known note. and then let's move into somewhat murkier territory. first as we all know the army has charged u.s. army private first class bradley manning among other things willfully delivering and transmitting classified information to an individual not authorized to receive it. and according to news reports, many provided classified information to wikileaks. i have a copy of the charge sheet here. something i am somewhat familiar with, but as we all know as paul correctly pointed out, bradley manning is present and -- is presumed innocent and present and unless and until he is proved guilty by legal and competent beyond a reasonable

doubt and he enjoys that presumption of and. but what about assange and wikileaks? the fact that many can be prosecuted is not in doubt. he can. it was a service member. he was on active duty. during the time he a leslie committed the act. he will be prosecuted. how that turns out, nobody knows how the case will turn out. not assange, a foreign national, wikileaks, nonregistered entity, entity not registered in the united states, can it be prosecuted? before we try to peel the back a little bit let's put some indisputable facts on the table. first it's a given i think, my colleagues have touched on this quite well, my want to talk about in a legal context. it's a given that is and has for sometime overclassification of information in our government. no doubt about it.

when i was the deputy assistant secretary, as i'm sure, you all coming of your regular computer class screen very and you have your classified. when you get ready to use that, i'm sure this has happened to you, you had your screenwriter and when you want to send an e-mail to somebody, you have no choice but to classify one level or another. and then you and you alone made that decision. and it wasn't black and white. you decided based on your current experience how to classify it. i have no doubt that someone thinks, may have been on a regular internet. i don't know. but that's neither here nor there. that said, it's not necessarily a legal problem, overclassification. it's a policy challenge. and the fact that we all classified information is a dubious legal defense for manning i believe are anyone

else properly charged leaking possession and/or disseminating classified information. some including paul and me, others, have argued that congress may find it necessary in this age of the internet of instant indication to update the espionage act of 1917. and our recent brief but hopefully helpful web memo is available outside, and revisions come asked and revisions to that act would not cover prior conduct unless you charged it under what we talked about in our paper, a continuing course of conduct which may be a stretch, it may work, it may not. let's focus on little bit more closely on the espionage act because i want you to think through into the language, the language matters, before i wrap up my thoughts. remember, it's a 1917 act, it's

been updated over the years. the crux of the act says quote, whoever for the purpose, specific intent language, of obtaining information or national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information was to be used to the injury of the united states receives, obtained our attempt to receive from any person blah, blah, blah. is guilty of espionage. all right. now congress today started actually continued this debate about whether the act is really encompasses all of the right language for this age that we live in. but i would cautious congress not to rush to defend the espionage act without knowing all the facts in this case. and the fact that i suspect even our own department of justice is still gathering. and has the same goes, i would to just incomplete facts would make bad law as well.

third, there's danger in rushing to a legal judgment. as the stakes in this case are too high. let me illustrate why i say that. many commentators and politicians, including senator dianne feinstein, have concluded that the espionage case begins with assange and it's clear. clearcut, cut and dry. other folks like former bush administration policy attorney jack goldsmith, they are not so sure as they have written -- recently written about. why i'm so angry at assange for allegedly violating the espionage act and not just as earth at the new times for publishing the very same classified information? or why are we just as angry and intent on getting bob woodward 40 classified information he solicited and been published in his recent book, obama wars? that goes to the very heart of

the solicitation of classified information, what's the difference ask a slippery slope. classified information from manning if that's what he got and publishing it is not much different than a newspaper reporter our authors soliciting -- soliciting source and then publishing it, so goes the argument. these are a few of the legal arguments for and against prosecuting assange for a violation of the espionage act or soliciting classified information or the like. but rather that engage in a very rush to judgment, legal judgment that i have just flagged, allow me to suggest the way forward. this is where i will conclude. it seems to me, and maybe i'm old-fashioned, that there is simply no substitute for a thorough, penetrating and exhaustive investigation into all the facts and circumstances around this entire affair. in my experience, this type of

investigation takes a long time, and oftentimes cannot be accomplished without the use of the grand jury. and it -- its awesome subpoena power. it's because of these exact concerns regarding the first mmo protection for the media, however broadly confined, the department of justice, our top prosecutor, has internal rules for press related cases. and those rules i would argue serve a vital interest, which in the long run is more important than anything julian assange is out there. freedom of the press. those facts once developed may be prosecuted to conclude that any number of statutes have been violated. that may or may not include espionage or solicitation or obstruction of justice, or conspiracy. they may conclude, however, that there is no way of prosecuting assange under current law. thank you. >> thank you very much, cully. now it your turn in the audience

to ask questions of our panelists, or to make comments as you would see fit. if you have a question or comment, please raise your hand and wait until we bring you a microphone so our participants who are online, in the media watching us, can also hear your question. and please also identify yourself, and then ask your question. [inaudible] >> you talk about the faction in pakistan have people after the lease would you the united states. if the view, you know, the people have changed are impacted. there are a lot of conspiracies in pakistan as you know. about a lot of things.

part of the conspiracy that people have been talking about is united states trying to get hold of nuclear weapons, taking control. and one of the cables actually can from the conspiracy that's exactly, you know, happened. united states tried to take out political nuclear material from this lab. and i think that people see about united states, the united states wants to take control of nuclear weapons in pakistan. how would you comment on that? because you talked about different aspects. >> and just to clarify, i am not with the u.s. government anymore so i am not under the same restrictions that these gentlemen are, but i decided as a research analyst in the public realm and against the fact that

these wikileaks cables have been released, i'm not going to certainly mind the information bar, you know, exploited or take advantage of it. but at the same time i'm commenting on some of the things that are making it into the south asian press. and so i am familiar with the cable that you raised, and i would say that i think you're right. i think it has reinforced skepticism from a large part of the pakistani public on the nuclear issue. that is a deeply sensitive issue for pakistanis. and, unfortunately, i think the u.s. media has fed some of the suspicion. unfortunately, i think has been a lot of hype surrounding this issue. they look at it as a low probability, high risk scenario. of terrorists actually accessing

pakistani nuclear weapons. it is something that we have to pay attention to, but at the same time it's not as if taliban elements are going to take over pakistan and all of a sudden have their finger on the button. i think the threat is more and can see as a threat. that gradually over time people with sympathy to some of these melting groups would gain access overtime, technology and these issues. but that said, the cable in question talk very much about cooperation. there's nothing said about the u.s. of trying to steal the uranium. it's a negotiation that is taking place between u.s. government and the pakistan government about safeguarding pakistan's nuclear assets. so unfortunately i think the reality is yes, it will

reinforce concerns in pakistan that the u.s. is trying to denuclearize pakistan. but i think if you really read it closely, you become it would be seen that this is a cooperative effort between the u.s. and pakistan to simply safeguard those materials so they don't fall into the hands of terrorists, that the u.s. goal is not to denuclearize pakistan. it is simply to make sure that that nuclear material stays out of the hands of terrorists. >> thank you. more? >> my name is john with ml strategies am a question i guess what the primary to mr. simpson, but the whole panel can discuss it. just with regards to senator lieberman's shield act, which was a brought up just to show if that goes to the heart of the problem, if congress is acting too quickly, maybe legislating

on issue. just her thoughts and comments on that. >> as you know, we don't endorse specific aspects of legislation or pieces of legislation and of itself. but many comment generally on that. i read it. i have a copy of it right here. it's a short act. the espionage act has been held to cover noncitizens. the shield act as currently drafted, the draft i have, does not. and so it's questionable whether assange, the shield act would, in fact, reach assange or people associated with wikileaks. i believe, jonathan, and this i think is related to your question, that the extent to which the investigation is thorough could show that, based

on actual facts, too many occasions between people at wikileaks, assange himself, people acting on behalf of assange and the manning of the world, again, manning is present it -- presumed it. that wikileaks is not at all a media organization. the more likely it is that either assange or wikileaks what people associate with wikileaks would be brought under the existing criminal law of the united states. the further, in other words, the further away it looks like a media organization the more likely the first amendment and tenements are touched on will come to pass in a viable defense, and the more likely that is the prosecutors will be able to move forward with the original criminal charges. and that would involve the shield act as it is currently drafted. i don't a weather, paul would

agree. spent on a former prosecution -- i tend to agree with all that. i also tend to think that a section of the espionage act and the shield act was very narrowly and carefully drawn to address the disclosure of cryptographic. it's been moderately effective in its own right. it seems to me that if we are going to down the road of trying to fix our espionage laws to address issues like assange and terrorism, the right way is not to try to shoehorn a change that we're not quite sure if it's of the second order into a statute that is pretty effective under the terms as it is. i'm not going to be an advocate in favor of not and many of the espionage laws to get at assange. i think it's a reasonable thing for congress to want to do.

i would be happy for them to take a little more time, step back and think about all other categories, types of information and all the different means by which information is disclosed, and see if there isn't a way, i believe it is, of drawing distinctions between mainstream media organizations to report news and add value come and things like wikileaks which i tend to think of more as just a means of communication as a telephone directory. ..

>> would it be too late to address the wikileaks/assange scenario, and given the fact we read that he has a lot more information that he has yet to disclose, if thought through in a timely manner and properly debated in our open society and passed and signed into law, it could potentially cover future disclosures in a way that doesn't offend the first amendment. >> thanks. we had a question down here. >> i'm jim pierce, retired foreign service officer. and i continue to work for the state department part time, so i have to make it very clear i'm not speaking for or on behalf of the state department. among other things that i've done recently is teach the course on cable writing, and,

yes, i have updated by powerpoint slides. [laughter] paul mentioned a couple of things which i think are absolutely spot on which is the first one, how can you download a quarter of a million documents and a huge alarm bell doesn't go off? i have to assume they're fixing that as we speak. that's just an incredible oversight. another point you mentioned was access. if you're working in iraq, you need is's to embassy cables out of baghdad, but venezuela doesn't make sense. and, actually, i think that system is sort of already in place. when i would check into a new place and set up my siprnet account, i would tell the technicians i need access to certain kinds of cables and certain areas of the world. so that one, i think, is going to work too.

the one i don't think will work is the idea we could have a revised security clearance procedure which would identify people like pfc manning. i was a counterintelligence officer. i did thousands of security clearances. you'll never catch people like that in the security clearance process. it just doesn't work that way. and finally, i have a suggestion. maybe you could pass this around. one of the things that might mitigate some of the damage -- and i'm speaking as a person who has written thousands of cables for the state department -- we use names. now, not all the agencies in the government use names. for example, the cia, other intelligence agencies do not on purpose use names. they refer to, perhaps, something like a government official or some way of fudging

that. maybe the state department should go that route. i don't like it myself. it doesn't read well to begin with. but what do you think about that, going to a no-names policy? >> lisa, you -- >> yeah. i think it could work in some cases, particularly if, you know, the second or third secretary talking to somebody you could, certainly, not identify by name but give a sort of characterization or description. but, obviously, when it comes to high-level discussions, it matters who you're talking to because, you know, sometimes there are differences within high levels of the government. so you have to know what that individual is thinking and saying. so maybe, you know, somehow it could be separated out that, you know, the sort of lower level diplomats who are meeting with human rights worker, journalists, democracy activists, you know, low-level government officials, sure. but i don't think it's going to be -- you're not going to be able to do it in all cases. you know, there's also other

channels for reporting very sensitive conversations that does not appear are going to turn up on wikileaks, which is good. so there are other channels even within the state department reporting for very sensitive information. and perhaps those will be relied on more now. we can only speculate. but i just wanted to raise something that's sort of tangentially related to the information access issue. like i said in my remarks, i think it's a balancing act. i think i agree with both sides here. we, obviously, the information sharing has done very good things for protecting the homeland, but at the same time i just think it's inevitable that we're going to go back to this strict need-to-know basis for sharing. but also i have a bit of a difference with terry on the issue of archiving. i think it's extremely important to keep archives of information

and for the simple purpose that if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it. and i think that, you know, we have a lot of declassification projects now, george washington university and, you know, declassifications are done, i guess, every 25 years or upon request. i think that's very useful. i think that helps to refine u.s. policy. people in the public realm like myself and the others on the panel can have more informed background and understanding of the way u.s. policy was conducted in years past. and the problem with wikileaks is it's so recent, and you still have the same people working in the embassy trying to meet with the same people who the reporting is released to which makes it more difficult for them operationally and for other reasons. but i just wanted to state that i had -- i still think archiving of information is extremely important. >> i'd like to adjust a comment

to that. i agree completely that there have been systems in place, there are systems in place now that should, should have prevented the downloading of 250,000 documents, and we do have systems that aim at restricting information on the basis of need to know within the u.s. government. so somebody in iraq is not necessaryily or should at least raise eyebrows if they start or accessing cables from venezuela. but the advancement of technology particularly through things like the internet has resulted in a degrading of the checks and balances that we had in place to control that information or control is's to that information -- access to that information, and i think we're going to need to have our procedures within the u.s. government evolve and evolve very quickly to account for those changes in technology.

there's, obviously, a tension here between the need of the public to have access to information and our o desire for the greatest possible freedom of information. and i would just remind people that the motto of the heritage foundation is building an america where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish. so, clearly, we have an interest and a desire to forward access by the public to as wide a range of information as possible. and yet we're talking in the wikileaks case about a dissemination of information that, to me, goes beyond freedom and really gets into the sphere of anarchy where you have someone that's trying, really, to bring down the orderly processes of government and diplomacy. and i think our, obviously, our legal system will have to evolve in a think deliberate manner, ad

that's going to take some time. but i think administratively the executive branch ought to in the immediate future make some significant efforts to tighten up. >> jim, up with of the concerns -- one of the concerns i have as a military officer, and i said this on one of the cable news networks right after the first tranche came out that lisa referred to is the real need for people at the pointiest end of the spear in battle to receive realtime, accurate intelligence information with respect to targeting or other information that's helpful in the prosecution of their mission. and i worried at the time, and i still have this concern, that we've grown accustomed to fighting wars this way. you know, the advent of technology has pluses and minuses, but in war i think more

information is better than less information. and being able to push forward information that accurate, timely and focused on that war fighter has been invaluable. i mean, i can tell you having been a jag and a joint special operations task force exercise, being a lawyer for the seals, being able to relay information here to the seal on the ground and getting a live feed from the seal on the ground back here to execute the in mission, the misn wouldn't get done if we couldn't do that. and so i worry about the keg degradation of the ability to do that, but i also equally worry about some pfc having access to stuff that he should never have access to in the first place. or if he does have's to it -- access to it, downloading um

teen thousand i cables without a bell going off. so i think it would fundamentally change the way we do war in our modern military if we didn't have the ability to push information or, god forbid, that wikileaks gets ahold of that type of realtime information that's being streamed and somehow pushes it forward. i think then you could make the case even stronger that there's a specific intent to injure somebody, and they're charged like, for example, manslaughter could be levied existence the person that -- against the person that puts it forward because that puts the person in real danger. >> more questions? over here. >> hi there. i think it was paul that made the comment about the press, and i would say espionage is espionage, and hiding behind the shield of the press should not change that. i would be really concerned with

having -- i could see members of congress saying, well, we these to license members of the press in order to -- and only they would be able to report on information. i could see that happening. and that would concern me greatly. >> i guess i'm more optimistic than you. i can't see congress no matter how ill i think of them doing something that beknighted, and i can't see the courts of america letting that stand. i do think that what we might see is an attempt to construct a definition of what constitutes press activities that tries to distinguish between traditional, mainstream press or even press on the web and blockers. i mean, i have a blog, right? am i a press person? i don't think so, and that's because i think there's a difference between me -- even though my blog has my opinions on it -- and george will. because he's in "the washington post." and be a lot more people listen to his opinion.

it's a hard line to draw. and i think that it will not be, it'll not be something that we get right the first time. on the other hand, i am convinced that there's a way of describing the difference that encompasses a legitimate distinction between the press activities that we've all come to rightly rely upon as a bulwark of freedom in america, and i like terry's anarchistic nihilistic almost activities of those who would use the system to destroy -- so i'll go out on a limb here, and i'll predict congress will not go for a press licensure scheme in the next five years. >> let's hope not. [laughter] any other questions? yes. >> ken mcintyre here at heritage. just circling back to liability. have we established that it's purely a government mess up? in other words, the kind of

information that cully talks about, couldn't we find out that maybe whoever supplied the technology or the consultant, the vendor has some fault here, that maybe the stuff was supposed to do something it didn't end up doing in the way of safeguards? is. >> let me be annoying and play law professor and give you a lawyerly answer, maybe. i doubt it. i doubt it because that would be a difficult defense to mount. think about it in practical terms. you are charged under your current job as a pfc or a lieutenant or whatever you are in the military with not disclosing classified information. in fact, you've signed documents, nondisclosure documents. there are lawful general orders in place that says you cannot disclose classified information. you don't have the ability as a member of the military to distinguish between whether something's properly classified or not.

it either is or isn't. you can't be half pregnant. and so just because the vendor created a product that creates some sort of sieve or loophole or something, if a document says classifyied, it's not to be disclosed under the rules which you're living. if you disclose yourself of it, you'd have a hard time making that defense. i just do as a practical matter. >> >> i will add, though, that your point and the point that jim made and the point that terry's made all do come together. somewhere along the line something in the system's architecture went wrong whether, whether it's the, that the right system alerts weren't put in because of the speed with which the classified information system was constructed in iraq. possible, you know? or that the vendor didn't put something in that was supposed to do -- there are any number of

places where the particular technical flaw that let this happen without anybody noticing occur, you know? in my world, for example, none of the siprnet and top secret level computers that i had had address bl hard drives, addressable cd-rom drives. so it was just physically impossible to do it, and it had no plug-ins. so, obviously, one of the things that was happening was we were using equipment that had that hard, hardware capability in it. i assume because we were trying to build something quickly that was necessary in a theater of war and be, you know, getting the really special equipment out from the united states and, you know, is more challenging than buying it off the shelf there and making do. so somewhere along the line some systems assurance process failed. i have absolutely no idea which

of it is, whether it was a hardware failure, software failure, but somewhere the process failed. that's absolutely clear. >> we've got just a few minutes left. it's obvious in our discussion we've raised a lot of issues that are technical, procedural, moral, ethical, legal, process questions of all kinds and policy questions, and what i'd like to do in the brief time we have left is just to give each of our panelists a chance to offer a final thought. lisa? >> um, i guess, you know, just to reiterate that, you know, governments -- not only the u.s -- require an ability to have protected conversations not only with other foreign officials, but with people in country in order to advance

democracy and human rights. there has to be a way to protect those conversations and, frankly, in any business you have requirements to be able to protect information. so i think, you know, that is something that many people have overlooked in this whole process. and, like i said, i think we have yet to see the full impact of this wikileaks phenomena, but we certainly have to go back and reiterate some of the traditions. i mean, i did work for the u.s. government for 16 years. you take an oath when you accept that public service, so it's important to keep those standards of taking your commitments as a public servant and given the privilege of access to classified government material. and that is one of the issues

that we need to keep first and foremost in our minds as we move forward on this wikileaks case. thank you. >> thank you, lisa. paul? >> i'll make two points and try and lift from it pieces keeping with my theme that this is a re-- this incident is a reflection of the fundamental nature of the internet. one piece that we didn't discuss much today but is worth remembering is that the internet makes it possible for people to exercise asymmetric power which is to say it empowers individuals to act in ways to the detriment of biggation-states. i think the -- big nation-states. i think the best example of that in this little story here is the apparent fact that assange has released an encrypted insurance file that supposedly contains some of the most secret things that he threatens to allow, give the dedescription key for --

decryption key for. nobody's going to break it anytime soon, so that gives him an almost unassailable refuge against, against maybe even prosecution if what's in that file is enough to scare, say, the united states government from going after him. not knowing what's in it, you can't make that prediction, but certainly, it makes him, puts him on a level playing field -- more of a level playing field than you would expect an individual to be able to do. and the second and even more kind of fundamental thing i think that is happening is that the reaction of activists on the web to the arrest of assange is demonstrating that same principle of asymmetry in a

really interesting way. i have a vision that the internet kind of grew up without a lot of government lal control because -- governmental control because governments didn't realize how important it was going to be. and the first response to the misuse of the internet by governments in the wake of wikileaks was to mobilize what they consider to be their normal avenues of power. they put pressure on paypal to shut down the financing, they put pressure on mastercard and amazon to cut off servers. that's exactly how sovereigns exercise their power, through influence on real-world, kinetic world actors to take action in the cyber world. and it's really fascinating that, to watch as the hacktivists fight back. and they're not fighting back in the kinetic world, they're fighting back in the cyber world with dds attacks and trying to mess up, you know, the paypal systems and stuff like that.

so what we're seeing through the prism of wikileaks is a fascinating effort by sovereigns -- in this case the united states government, but you can think of china with its great firewall or other countries that have tried to control the internet -- sovereigns trying to reclaim control over this new, new thing in cyberspace. and the denizens, the citizens of cyberspace fighting back in an, anonymous, organized way. and it's fascinating. i don't know where it's going to turn out, but just thought i'd lift up above wikileaks to something bigger. >> thank you, paul. cully? >> um, i'm going to try to stay in my lane. [laughter] and suggest that if we fast forward six months or a year from now, we'll find that our laws as currently written were completely adequate to the task.

assuming a thorough investigation took place. that we won't need to upgrade the espionage act, we won't need to give a good housekeeping stamp of approval for approved media. but i think, perhaps, there's a throughput point that we should note, and that is something jim said that has got me thinking for the remainder of the panel, and that is if you believe the press reports, manning was starting to exhibit troubling behavior. major hassan, the ft. hood shooter, was exhibiting troubling behavior. and i think if you start peeling back the onion a little bit and start looking at some of these bad actors who commit criminal acts, arguably -- of course, they're both presumed innocent until proven guilty -- you'll

find that perhaps for a lot of reasons many of which are troubling in and of themselves, political correctness one of them, the problem was there for us to see from the very beginning. we just didn't want to do the right thing to take charge and stop the access that hassan had to patients, manning had to classified information. and that goes to paul's broader point that -- and i think your point, jim, in one way -- and that is maybe, yes, there's a systemic need to look at things and ratchet back, but it's the individual that we these to look at who has the clearance, who has the ability to have access to x, y and, and z that we neede mindful of understanding that each of us is an individual, autonomous person. but people in positions of power sometimes abuse that power. and so i think it's sort of a greek tragedy in a way that it goes back to a story that was told thousands of years before we were alive, that it's the

individual that we need to focus on as much if not more than the system. >> thank you, cully. please join me in thanking all of our panelists. [applause] >> later today a forum on u.s. refugee policies. panelists examine whether some refugees trying to immigrate to the u.s. are facing delays due to being mislabeled as terrorism suspects. hosted by the hudson institute, the event gets under way at noon eastern. live coverage on c-span3. >> tonight on "the communicators," with the holiday season in full swing, a discussion on internet sales tax

with scott peterson of the streamline sales tax governing board and jerry cerasale of the direct marketing association. that's at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> every weekend on c-span3 experience american history tv starting saturday at 8 a.m. eastern. 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. hear historic speeches by national leaders and eyewitness accounts of events that shaped our nation. visit museums, historical sites and college campuses as top history professors and leading historians delve into america's past. american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> the u.s. senate returns live shortly here on c-span2. the u.s./russian nuclear s.t.a.r.t. treaty is on the agenda today, mutual inspections of u.s. and russian nuclear arsenals. and now to live coverage of ther

u.s. senate here on c-span 3. c-span2. the chaplain : let us pray. merciful god, look on our lawmakers with kindness and teach them to do your will. show them how to live for your honor and to be instruments of your peace. rescue them from the traps that keep us from national prosperity for you are our shelter and strength. keep them from fear, even if the earth is shaken and mountains fall into the ocean depths.

stay with us, mighty god, ruling our hearts, our nation, and our world. we pray in your sovereign name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., december 20, 2010. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable mark pryor, a senator from the state of arkansas, to perform the duties of the chair.

signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. ao mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: following leader remarks the senate will proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the new start treaty. we have two amendments now pending to the treaty, the thune amendment regarding delivery vehicles and the inhofe amendment dealing with inspections. we hope to vote in relation to the thune amendment between 12:00 and 1:00 p.m. today and dispose of the inhofe amendment later this afternoon. at 1:30 the senate will recess and reconvene at 2:00 p.m. in closed session in the old senate chamber. following closed session the senate will reconvene in open session in the senate chamber. we are going to be out of session for that one half-hour period of time, mr. president, to allow this, final sweeps so this will be completed. as a reminder last night, cloture was filed on the continuing resolution and the

start treaty. a cloture vote on the continuing resolution will occur at a time to be determined tomorrow morning. we need to act as quickly as possible for the current c.r. expires tomorrow at midnight. the filing deadlines for the first-degree amendments to the start treaty is 1:00 p.m. today. senators will be notified when any votes are scheduled. mr. president, i would also say that, to my friends on the other side of the aisle we can advance these votes not necessarily on the start treaty, but we certainly could on the c.r. and get that out of the way today. we have two issues that we're going to have to vote on. one is the start treaty. we have to complete work on that. and we have to complete work on the 9/11 for those emergency workers who have been devastated with illnesses as a result of all the toxins they sucked in

during the time they were working there. some are really ill. i hope we can get that done quickly. i'm working with the republican leader on nominations which we made little progress on that. i hope to do better. we look forward to cooperation to finish this work. last year we were here this time up until christmas eve. i hope we don't have to do that this year. it certainly wouldn't be to the liking of everyone here. we don't need to. we hope everyone will cooperate and let us move forward. has the chairman announced the business for the day?

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, over the weekend i indicated i would be voting against the start treaty. this morning i'd like to explain my decision in a little more

detail, and i'll begin with the most obvious objection. first and foremost, a decision of this magnitude should not be decided under the pressure of a deadline. the american people don't want to us squeeze our most important work into the final days of the session. they want us to take the time we need to make informed and responsible decisions. the senate can do better than to have the consideration of the treaty interrupted by a series of controversial political items. leaving aside for a moment any substantive concerns -- and we have many -- this is reason enough to delay a vote. no senator should be forced to make decisions like this so we can tick off another item on someone's political checklist before the end of the year. yet, looking back over the past two years, it becomes apparent why the administration would attempt to rush this treaty. and it's in this context that we discover another important reason to oppose it.

i'm referring of course to the administration's pattern of rushing to a policy judgment and then subsequently studying the problem that the policy decision was intended to address. a pattern that again and again created more problems and complications than we started out with. first there was the executive order to close guantanamo bay without any plan for dealing with the detainee population there. as we now know, the administration had no plan for returning terrorists who were held at guantanamo to yemen, and it's still grappling with questions how best to prosecute khalid sheikh mohammed. next was the president's rush to move the intelligence community from interrogating captured terrorists without any consideration as to how to deal with them. whether they were captured on the battlefield or at an airport in detroit. this became all the more concerning when the president announced his surge strategy in

afghanistan which predictably led to more prisoners. and even in announcing the strategy itself, the president decided to set a date for withdrawal without any sense at the time of what the state of the conflict would be in july of 2011. then there was the administration's approach on don't ask, don't tell. the president announced his determination to repeal this policy during his campaign before the military had time to study whether this change in policy was in the best interest of combat readiness, before senior enlisted staff and noncommissioned officers of the military had testified and before those who are currently serving had told us whether in their expert opinion the policy should be repealed. moreover, when the commandant of the marine corps suggested the change would harm unit cohesion, he was promptly ignored. the administration has taken the same cart before the horse approach on the treaty before us. in this case the president came

to office, the long-term plan to reduce the nation's arsenal of nuclear weapons and their role in our national security policy. the plan envisioned a quick agreement to replace the start treaty that was allowed to expire with no bridging amendment for arms inspections followed by efforts to strengthen international commitments to a nonproliferation treaty. reconsideration of the comprehensive test ban treaty and further reductions of nuclear arms over time. and he spoke of ultimately reducing nuclear weapons to global zero. in other words, the new start treaty was just a first step and it needed to be done quickly. leave aside for a moment the fact that the new start treaty does nothing to significantly reduce the russian federation's stockpile of strategic arms, ignores the thoufs tactical weapons in the russian arsenal and contains an important concession linking missile defense to strategic arms. we had to rush this treaty,

according to the logic of the administration because it had become an important component in the effort to reset the bilateral relationship with the russian federation. it was brought up for debate prematurely because it was the first step in a predetermined arms control agenda. the senate's constitutional role of advice and consent became an inconvenient impediment. the debate overt mccain amendment to strike the language in the preamble of the treaty was instructive. the language in the preamble concerning missile defense is harmful to our foreign policy because of how it will be viewed not by our president, but how it will be viewed by our allies in europe and by the russians. the result government opposed the bush administration's plan to place ten silo-based missiles in poland and a fixed radar installation in the czech republic. although the bush administration reached agreement with the government of our two allies and

proposed ballistic missile defense posed no threat to russia's overwhelming ability to strike europe and the urpbgs russia sought to coerce our eastern european allies. the mccain amendment would have removed any strategic ambiguity that the russian federation will exploit to intimidate nato members. many of our nato partners have been slow to accept the concept of territorial missile defense and rest assured that they will be slower to fund the program. it is certainly -- it is a certainty that if the language in the preamble survives and this treaty is ratified, the russians will mount a campaign to obstruct missile defense in europe. there is no good argument for having voted against the mccain amendment which would have significantly improved this treaty. the principal argument raised against the mccain amendment was that any amendment to the treaty would result in a state

department having to return to negotiation with the russian federation. that may be true, or the amended treaty could be considered by the russian duma. in either case the argument brings into question the senate's role in providing advice and consent to ratification. if it is the position of the majority that the treaty cannot be amended, as the senate was untaoeubl amend so -- unable to amend so many other matters before us these last weeks of this session why have any debate at all? this leads to the subject of verification, the second matter of serious concern. although the senate will meet today in closed session to discuss the flawed nature of the verification procedures envisioned by the new start treaty, the majority has filed cloture and stated that the treaty cannot be amended. the senior senator from missouri, the vice chairman of the intelligence committee, has provided his views to the senate on this matter, and i joan him in his concerns -- i join him in

his concerns. senator bond has provided a classified assessment of the details related to verification and chances of breaksout of the treaty's warhead limits which is available for all senators to review. to quote the vice chairman of the intelligence committee, "i have reviewed the key intelligence on our ability to monitor this treaty and heard from our intelligence professionals. there is no doubt in my mind that the united states cannot reliably verify the treaty 1,500 limit on deployed warheads. i agree with the conclusion that the new start treaty central warhead limit of 1,550 cannot be conclusively verified. the new start treaty allows the russians to deploy missiles without a standard or uniform number of warheads. the limited number of warhead inspections provided under this treaty also limits the access of

our inspectors to an upper limit of 3% of the russian force. it can be said this treaty places higher confidence and trust -- in trust than on verification. compounding these concerns is the history of russian treatyy violations. as the state department's recent report son arms control compliance make clear, the russians repeatedly violated provisions of the start treaty, the chemical weapons convention, the conventional forces in europe treaty and the biological weapons convention. this is not a track record to be rewarded with greater trust. it's a reason to take our verification duties even more seriously. despite my opposition to this treaty, i hope the president remains committed to modernizing the nuclear triad. the war on terror required an expansion of our nation's ground forces, the marine corps, the army and our special operations forces and our near-term

readiness. as we continue the effort to dismantle, defeat and disrupt al qaeda, we must also plan for the threats that our country will face in the coming decades. we must invest not only in the delivery systems and platforms that will preserve our nuclear delivery capability, such as the next-generation bomber, nuclear submarines, and a new intercontinental ballistic missile, but also in the strike aircraft and navy forces required to control the pacific rim as economic growth and the military capabilities of china increase. although the president decided there is value in pursuing a disarmament agenda, this country may determine in the coming years to place a greater reliance upon the role of strategic arms and we must remain committed to defense modernization. our nation faces many challenges in the coming decades, some economic, some strategic. it would seem shortsighted to think that as north korea, iran,

and others work to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities we could draw our arsenal down to zero. so i will oppose this treaty. i thank the chairman and ranking members of the foreign relations, armed services, and intelligence for the service that they provided the senate in reviewing it. it's unfortunate that something as important as the senate's consideration of a treaty like this one was truncated in order to meet another ash terror deadline or the wish -- ash tear deadline or the wish list of the liberal base. and it is also unfortunate that we would be deprived of this role. as debate over this treaty has intensified over the past few day, these and other concerns have become increasingly apparent to a number of senators and to the american people. we should wait until every one of them is addressed. our top concern should be the safety and security of our

nation, not some politician's desire to declare a political victory and host a press conference before the 1st of the year. americans have had enough of artificial deadlines set by politicians for attention. they want us to focus on their concerns, not ours, never more so than on matters of national security. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the following treaty which the clerk will report. the clerk: treaty, calendar number 7, treaty with russia on measures for full reduction and limitation of strategic defensive arms. the presiding officer: the snoer fro--the senator from mas. mr. kerry: thank you, mr. president. i'm delighted to be able to say a few word words in response toe

minority leader. he and i came to the united states senate together, in the same class, and i appreciate the difficulties of his job and certainly the difficulties of corralling any number of the different personalities. the same is true for the majority leader. these are tough jobs. but i would say to my friend from kentucky that just because you say something doesn't make it true. and our friends on the other side of the aisle seem to have a habit of repeating things that have been completely refuted by every fact that there is. our old friend, patrick moynihan, used to remind all of us in the united states senate and in the country that everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not

entitled to their own facts. john adams made that famous statement that facts are stubborn things, and facts are stubborn things. the facts are that this treaty is not being rushed. this treaty was delayed at the request of republicans. this treaty was delayed 13 times separately by senator lugar to respect their desire to have more time to deal with the modernization issue, which the administration has completely, totally thoroughly dealt with in good faith. i'd like to know where the good faith comes from on the other side occasionally. they put extra money in. they sat and negotiated. they sent people to arizona to brief senator kyl personally. for weeks we delayed the process

of moving forward on this treaty in order to accommodate our friends on the other side of the aisle. and now, fully accommodated, with their requests entirely met, they come back and say, oh, it's being rushed. well, mr. president, today marks our sixth day of debate on the new start treaty. that's a fact. six days of debate on the new start treaty. now, they'll come to the floor and say, well, we had an intervening vote here, an intervening vote there. sure, mr. president, that's the way the united states senate works. and that's the way it worked when they passed the first start treaty in five days. we're now spending more time on this treaty than we did on a far more complicated treaty, at a far more complicated time. the fact is that if we go through today, which we will, on this treaty -- and depending on what happens with cloture and

when the other side decides they want to vote, we can be here for nine days on this treaty, which is more time than we would have spent on the start treaty, start ii treaty, and the moscow treaty. the time it took other senates to deal with three treaties, these folks are complaining about for the time to take one treaty. and it's going to be more time. it's astounding to me, and i hope people in the country will see through it. when the leader comes to the floor and says that our national security is being driven by politics, we really need to step back for a moment and calm down and think about what's at stake. this treaty is in front of the united states senate, not because of some political schedule; it's because the republicans asked us to delay it. we wanted to hold this vote before the election. and what was the argument then by our friends on the other side of the aisle? oh, no, please don't do that.

that'll politicize the treaty. and so, in order to not politicize the treaty, we made a decision on our side to accommodate their interests. having accommodated their interests, they now come back and turn around and say, oh, you guys are terrible. you're bringing this treaty up at the last minute. i mean, is there no shame ever with respect to the arguments that are made sometimes on the floor of the united states senate? is the idea always, just say it, just say it, say it enough. go out there and trapt and somewhere it'll stick, maybe in the right-wing blogosphere or somewhere else, people get agitated enough and believe somehow that this is being jammed. this treaty is on the floor for the sixth day. it's a simple add-on treaty to everything that has gone before over all the years of arms control. and it's a simple add-on treaty and extension of the start i

treaty. this is not a new principle. it's not complicated. it's particularly not complicated, mr. president, when the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the director of national intelligence, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, every prior republican secretary of state all say, ratify this treaty, rat nigh it now, we need it now. -- ratify it now. we need it now. seriously, i scratch my head. the place where we have arrived at, where the national security interests of our country are going to get wrapped up in ideology and politics and all of the things that have commanded everybody's attention over the course of the last couple of years. we did have an election a few months ago -- a few weeks ago. it has been much referred to by

our colleagues. and it did signal the need to do some things differently. one of the things it signaled to do differently is something like the start treaty, where the american people expect us to come to the floor and do the nation's business, particularly the business of keeping america safer. we've had an excellent debate so far. the two amendments that were proposed were rejected overwhelmingly, 60-30, i think, was the last one. we had a number of people that were absent. but 60-30 is a pretty pronounced statement by the united states senate. it seems to me the senator from kentucky just seder the major argument -- the senator from kentucky just said the major argument for not approving one of those amendments is that it would require us to go back and renegotiate. no -- no, mr. leader, that's not the major argument.

that's an argument that underscores the major argument. the major argument is, the language has no meaning. the language doesn't affect missile defense. the major argument are the fac facts, the substance, the substance of which is the preamble language has no impact whatsoever on what we're going to do with respect to missile defense, and everybody who has anything to do with missile defense in this administration has said that. that's the major argument. in addition to which the major argument is also that henry kissinger and donald rumsfeld and secretary gates have all said that that language that has no legal impact is just an expression of a truism, the reality that offense and defense have a relationship. i mean, are we not capable in the united states senate of ov

overlooking nonbinding, nonlegal, nonimpacting language that acknowledges a simple truth about the relationship of offense and defense in the nature of arms control? that's all it does. that's the major argument. it just happens that, in addition to having no impact on our defense and no impact legally and no impact that is binding, in addition to that, it also requires going back to the russians and regorkting the treaty -- and renegotiating the treaty. and as we'll show in the classified session today, there are a lot of reasons why that doesn't make sense from the security interests of the united states of america. so, you know, it's not that we shouldn't do our job of advice and consent, but our job of advice and consent requires us to process the facts. it requires us to think seriously about what those facts are and how they impact this treaty. and if the senate does it job of

thinking seriously about this treaty, it will separate out language that has no impact and no meaning whatsoever on our national missile defense plans or on the treaty itself. now, i don't know how the president could make it more clear than in the letter that he wrote to the united states -- to the leadership in which he said, as clearly as possible, "the united states did not and does not agree with the russian statement. we believe the continued development and deployment of u.s. missile defense systems, including qualitative and quantitative improvements to such systems, do not and will not threaten the strategic balance with the russian federation. regardless of russia's actions in this regard, as long as i am president" -- president obama said -- "as long as the congress provides the necessary funding, the united states will continue to develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect the united states, our deployed

forces, and our allies and our partners." i don't know how, mr. president, you can make it more clear than that. those are the facts. those are the facts. it is my understanding that today the joint chiefs will all be submitting an additional statement for the record here to make it clear that it is their view that this treaty has absolutely no negative impact whatsoever on our missile defense and that they believe it is entirely verifiable, and they want to see it ratified. so the issue of advice and consent here is whether we're going to follow the advice of those that we look to on military matters, on defense intelligence matters, on security matters, those state statespeople who have argued these treaties and negotiated these treaties through the years. the chairman of the joint chiefs

of staff, the joint chiefs, the commander of the u.s. strategic command -- this is secretary gates speaking -- "and i assess that russia will not be able to achieve militarily significant cheating or breakout under the new start." "our analysis of the n.i.e. and the potential for russia cheating or breakout confirms the treaty's verification regime is effective." so, mr. president, i hope that facts will control this debate, that the security interests of our country will control this debate, that those who have created this record for the united states senate to weigh -- we have been on this treaty for a year and a half, not just for six days. 60 members of the united states senate -- armed services committee, foreign relations committee, national intelligence committee, the national security working group, which i cochair

with senator kyl -- have all met and considered this treaty. some people have gone to geneva to actually meet with the negotiators. the negotiators have met with us here before the treaty was even signed, we were weighing in on this trevment and we've considered it in over 21 hearings and meeting over the last course of months. this is not six days. let's not kid the american people. this is not six days. three other treaties, one of which had no verification at all. that treaty received a 95-0 vote. the american people voted for us to stop the politics. they voted for us to act like adults and do the business of this country, and i believe voting on this treaty in these next hours and days is our opportunity to live up to the hopes of the american people. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana.

mr. lugar: mr. president, a great deal of our day will be spent on discussing the verification regime of the new start treaty. a part of that will be in closed session. but i want to initiate additional debate this morning on the new start verification regime. the important point is that today we have zero on the ground verification capability for russian strategic forces given that start 1-expired more than a year ago. opponents of new start's verification regime emphasized a peculiar argument, in my judgment. on the one hand we're told we don't need new start because it's a cold war relic and modern

aptproefps arms control should be -- approaches should be sought. on the other hand opponents lament the start i verification regime. i would ask my colleagues which one should it be? should we prefer modernized verification for a post cold war that reflects the lack of an arms race and our military's desire for a flexible force structure? or should we resort back to cold war verification? mr. president, the fact of the matter is that president bush's moscow treaty approved by a vote of 95-0, as the chairman just mentioned, contained no verification whatsoever. some would cite this as a modern approach to arms control; failed to mention that the moscow treaty explicitly relied on start i's verification regime. as i noted start i expired more

than a year ago. i would point out parenthetically, mr. president, that at numerous hearings of the senate foreign relations committee, those who extolled the virtues of the moscow treaty, as i pointed out, ratified 95-0, indicated we were in a new day. when we asked in that particular context how about verification, they said there's already verification under start i. we pointed out even then it would expire in december of 2009. but it was fully anticipated by those advocating the moscow treaty that we would have another start regime by that point or that verification apparently would not be needed at all. some senators say we could have just extended start i and kept the moscow treaty in place. this again overlooks the fact that our military in particular

disliked aspects of start i and advocated for a more flexible approach in start ii or the new start. under start, the united states conducted inspections of weapons, their facilities, their delivery vehicles and warheads in russia, kazakhstan, ukraine and byelarus and these inspections fulfill a crucial national security interest by greatly reducing the possibility wee. we would be surprised by future advancement in russian weapons technology or deployment. only through ratification of the new start will united states technicians return to russia to resume verification. new start verification should not be evaluated by cold war standards. during the cold war, we wanted to constrain the arms race and kpwaouf stability by

encouraging -- improve stability by encouraging a shift away from icbms with multiple warheads. neither of these objectives remain today. start was negotiated at a time when the former soviet union had more than 10,000 nuclear warheads on more than 6,000 missiles and bombers, most of them targeted against united states and our allies. under new start, the united states and russia each would deploy no more than 1,550 warheads for strategic deterrence. seven years from entry into force, the russian federation is likely to have only about 350 deployed missiles. this smaller number of strategic nuclear systems will be deployed at fewer bases, as has been pointed out earlier in the debates. while we inspected 70 facilities under start, many of these have now been shut down in recent years. under new start, we'll be

inspecting only 35 russian facilities. it is likely that russia will close down even more bases over the life of the treaty. both sides agreed at the outset that each would be free structure its forces as it sees fit. a view consistent with that of the bush administration. as a practical economic matter, conditions in russia preclude the massive restructuring of the strategic forces. for the united states, the new start treaty will allow for flexible modernization and operation of u.s. strategic forces while facilitating transparency regarding the development and the deployment of russian strategic forces. the treaty protocol and annexes contain a detailed set of rules and procedures for verification of the new start treaty. many of them drawn from start i. negotiators took the experience

of on-site inspections that was well honed during start i and tailored it to the new circumstances of today. the inspection regime contained in new start is designed to provide each party confidence that the other is upholding its obligations while also being simpler and safer for the inspectors to implement, less operationally disruptive for our strategic forces, less costly than the start regime. secretary gates recently wrote to congress that -- and i quote -- "the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the joint chiefs of the commander u.s. strategic command, and i assess that russia will not be able to achieve military significant -- militarily significant breakout under new start due to both new start verification regime and

the inherent survivability and flexibility of the planned u.s. strategic force structure." end of quote. that is a very important statement, in my judgment, mr. president, that secretary gates with the affirmation of all the above officials of our government say that russia will not be able to achieve militarily significant cheating or breakout under new start given the verification procedures that we have outlined. predictably, recent verification and compliance reports covering start have chronicled cases where we disagree with russia about start i implementation. yet, despite these issues, neither party violated start one's central limits. we should not expect new start will eliminate friction, but the

treaty will provide a means to deal with such issues constructively as under start i. the resolution of ratification approved by the foreign relations committee of the senate requires further assurances by conditioning ratification on presidential certification prior to the treaty's entry and force of our ability to monitor russian compliance and on immediate consultations, so a russian breakout from the treaty will be detected. for the first time in any strategic arms control treaty, a condition requires a plan for a new start monitoring. some have assert that had there are too few inspections in new start. the treaty does provide for fewer inspections compared to start i, but this is because fewer facilities will require inspection under new start. start i covered 70 facilities in

four soviet successor states, whereas new start only applies to russia and its 35 facilities. therefore, we need fewer inspectors to achieve a comparable level of oversight. new startles maintains the same -- new start also maintains on-site inspections. end of quote. that's start i. namely ten per year. baseline inspections that were phased out in new start are no longer needed because we have 15 years of start i treaty implementation and data on which to rely. if new start is not ratified for a lengthy period, the efficacy of our baseline data would eventually deteriorate. new start includes the innovation that unique identifier as -- quote -- "u.i.d.'s" be affixed to all russian missiles and nuclear-capable heavy bombers. u.i.d.'s were applied only to

russian rogue mobile missiles in start i. regular exchanges of u.i.d. taeu at that will provide -- data will provide confidence and transparency of the location of 700 deployed missiles, even when they are on nondeployed status, something that start i did not do. the new start treaty also codified and continues important verification enhancements related to warhead loading on russian icbms and slbms. these enhancements allow for greater transparency in confirming the number of warheads on each missile. under start i and the i.m.f. treaty the united states maintains a continuous on-site presence of up to 30 technicians. they conduct phopb to, final spweuf russian cohesion systems

using solid rocket motors. while this portal monitoring is not continued under new start, the decision to phase out this arrangement was made by the bush administration in anticipation of start i expiration. with vaster lower rates of russian missile production, continuous monitoring is not crucial as it was during the cold war of asbm's during the cold war. the moscow treaty's verification shortcomings were dismissed during debate in the senate in 2003 because we were told there would be time to fix them before start 1 expired, something we failed to achieve. so, mr. president, the only binding treaty regime of any kind in place is the moscow treaty which itself will desire in december 2012. the moscow treaty contains no

counting rules and no verification. mr. president, to illustrate the benefits of new start compared to the moscow treaty, we will have data on the number by type of the deployed, fixed land-based icbms and slbms and their launchers. this is not in the moscow treaty. secondly, we will have data on the number by type if they exist of deployed and nondeployed rogue mobile and rail -- road mobile and rail mogul icbms and their launchers and the production of icbms. this too is not in the moscow treaty. we will know thanks to new start, preinspection procedures, the actual number of warheads in place on each icbm or slbm subject to the inspection. the warhead inspection portion of a new start inspection on a deployed missile is used to confirm the accuracy of the declared data on the actual number of warheads in place on a

designated deployed icbm or slbm. this is not in the moscow treaty. and we will now have data and inspections for the number of warheads and icbms and slbms. for the first time we will have identification and tracking of all nondeployed russian missiles, not just the road mobile missiles, a unique verification it system under new start. we will have declarations, notifications and inspections on the aggregate number of deployed missiles. we will have data on the technical parameters for ballistic missiles through technical exhibitions inspections for missiles. and we will have data on the number by type of deployed heavy bombers, both those that are equipped for nuclear-capable weapons and those that are not. and the number by type of

formerly nuclear capable heavy bombers, training aircraft and heavy bombers, conventional munitions that no longer carry nuclear munitions. we will have data communications on delivery vehicles. we will have tracking, notification and inspection of the production of icbms for mobile launcher device icbms to confirm the number of icbms for mobile launchers of icbms produced. and we will have data and inspections on the elimination of declared facilities. mr. president, the bottom line is that every senator should ponder today that we have zero on-the-ground verification capability for russian strategic forces, given the fact that start i expired on december 5, 2009. those who wish to reject this treaty and rely on the moscow

treaty enjoy the same result: zero verification -- because the moscow treaty contained none. mr. president, i appreciate that we've had vigorous debate not only on the verification procedures but likely upon missile defense and for that matter the entire negotiation of the treaty. but i would say that, in my judgment, it is very important, given the outline that i've explained this morning, no verification -- none anticipated until we pass the new start treaty -- unless there are those -- and there have been throughout the history of these debates -- who simply do not like treaties with the russians, who would prefer no treaty, who anticipate that someday perfection may come and some negotiation will take place that

is purely not in sight if rejection of this twret to be recorded. i believe it's imperative for our national defense and our national security, mr. preside mr. president. that is a personal judgment. it is one that i strongly advocate. this is why i believe the progress on the new start fret is extremely important for the national security of our country. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, procedurally, we have two amendments right now that are pending, my amendment number 4833 and the thune amendment number 4841. mine is concerning verification. his is concerning delivery systems. we will have, it is my understanding, up until 1:30 when we go into closed session, to debate these. it would be my hope that members who want to debate would confine their debate just to these two amendments because if they don't and if we let the time get beyond us, there won't be as many people -- the people won't be heard on these amendments.

ei know that the senator from north dakota wants to speak, and i would just encourage anyone wanting to speak on the treaty, other than these two amendments, defer to those who want to speak on these amendments. i ask now a unanimous consent that -- i ask not a unanimous consent request. it is just something that i think is the appropriate thing to do. these are very significant amendments, both of them. i would comment also that -- and a good way to do that, if someone wants to talk about the treaty other than these two amendments and there is somebody that wants to talk about the amendment, i would hope that they would defer to who wants to talk about these two amendments. leat me that i can a comment about thabout the comments of te senator from massachusetts. when you talk that we have been on this treaty for years and months and all that. i would remind him, i am in a unique situation because i am on both the armed services and

foreign relations committee. we have had a lot of hearings. in the foreign relations committee we've had 16 hearings, a total of 30 witnesses. of the 30 witnesses, 28 were in favor of the treaty, two were opposed to the treaty. what we attempted to do is to get a broader exposure to this very significant treaty, this issue, and i think that for that reason we do need to take more time because we've only heard one side. then, on the other thing, the idea stated that this is just an add-on from the other treaty. let's keep in mind when the start i treaty came up, that was between two superpowers. the ussr and the united states. and that's not the scene today. one of the problems i have with this treaty is it is a treaty between the united states and russia. when -- this is not really whe where, in my opinion, where the threat s the threat is with iran. the threat is with north korea.

every time we get an assessment on north korea, we're wrong. they have more than we believe they have. our intelligence will confirm that we have. then we're put in a position where we know that they're trading with countries like iran. and iran right now has -- is in a position to, according to our intelligence, not even classified, they would have a delivery system with a nuclear warhead by 2015. so there's where we -- the issue of missile defense comes in. and i know that the argument we've gone back and forth on this thing -- an missile defense. i would still say this: that when you have the russian foreign minister lavrov saying we have not yet agreed on the missile defense issue and we're trying to confirm how the agreement reached by the two presidents correlate with the actions taken unilaterally by washington and added that the obama administration had not

coordinated its missile defense plans with russia. and when you have one of the -- very opening day on april 8 in prague, the russians saying that the treaty can operate and be viable only if the united states of america refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities, quantitatively and qualitatively. now, we can sit around and say, you know, that this isn't going to affect that. but, nonetheless, that's on record. that's down there. so we have some russians who really believe that. that's not on my amendment. i just wanted to comment that there's a reason for take the time here, and i'm not going to get into the debate as to whether or not we should have done it before the election or after the election. i will say this: a lot of the things have come up in this lame-duck have come up because the chances of getting these things through are greater than they would be after eight or nine new senators come n but the fact is, these eight or nine new senators have all joined in a letter asking us -- asking us

in here, could you refrain from ratifying this very significant treaty until we have a chance to look at it because we're the ones, we're the new -- the senate coming n so anyway, i think that's a good argument. let me get back to my amendment, 4833, and kind of kick it off here, i know we have a lot of people who want to talk about this amendment. and let me just share my thoughts first. the -- right now there are, under the new start treaty, 180 inspections over ten years. that's 18 a year. versus what we had in the start i, 600 over 15 years. do the math there. it's a drop from 40 inspections a year to 18 inspections a year. in just a minl say why i believe that it's necessary, it would be good to have actually more than we had during start i. the inspections under new start, they inspect to verify the elimination of nuclear weapon

delivery systems that have fundamentally changed from those of start i. in start i -- start i required some of the elimination of sites. so we didn't at that time have to set up a mechanism to look and see if these are actually eliminated because we knew at that time that they were. but now we have no way of knowing whether those sites have been reactivated. we don't know that. in fact, the test is being used under this new start treaty would be to view the debris. the debris that she is that systems were eliminated. well, it could very well be that they could destroy a system, there would be a lot of debris. and there could be three 0 or four more systems that they don't destroy. and they could spread the debris around. it is not a very good test as to what is actually happening. now, under the other -- the second problem i have is that under the new start 24 hours of advance notice is required

before an inspection, which is quite a dramatic increase -- under the old start treaty was nine hours advance notice. and i think if you walk into this and assume the russians aren't going to cheat, that's fine then. but i'm not willing to do that. because in a minute i'll document the things that they said they would do they have not been doing. so, if anything, i think we should have certainly the -- no longer a warning than under the old start treaty of nine hours. the amendment triples the number of inspections under the new start from the two types of inspections specified under the new start treaty. type 1 and type 2 inspections. type 1 inspections refer to the icbm bases, sandinistan bases, the air bases to confirm -- accurate data on the number of deployed and nondeployed

warheads located on icbms, slbms, and heavy bombers. type 2 refers to inspections at formerly declared facilities to confirm that those facilities are not being used for the purposes inconsistent with the treaty. that would have been inconsistent with staimplet. -- with start i. yot that's what we talked about a minute ago. i don't see that there's any verification in terms that is meaning follow verify on the type 2. but type 1eu7b specks would increase from 10 to 30 a year. type 2 it would increase from 8 to 24. a total of 54 inspections. on july 20, 2010, the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy -- that's james miller -- testified before the senate arms services committee -- i was there. he said that russia cheating or break out, as they sometimes say -- a kinder phrase -- under the treaty would have little effect

because the u.s.'s second-strike strategy nuclear capability. well, i just disagree with that. i mean, you know, and if this is something where we have people who agree and disagree, certainly we should fall down on the side of protection for the united states. and i think, as you get to the argument saying that we need -- we don't need as many inspections because we have a smaller number of facilities to inspect or the smaller size of the nuclear arsenal, as in new start, the larger the impact of cheating has on strategic nuclear balance. this is kind after hard thing for people to understand. but increasing the number of type 1 and 2 inspections is critical to the new start verification because the total number of inspections has been dramatically reduced. so by having the facilities reduced means they are much more concerned. let me quote a few of the people that have weighed in on this

issue. the former secretary of defense, harold brown, explained -- we're taking about back in 1991. this goes all the way back to 1991 when they were looking into the future and saying, this is something we think is going to happen. harold brown, who was the secretary of defense at that time, 1991, explained why in this case in his testimony before the senate foreign relations committee on the original start treaty. this was october 23, 1991. "verification will" -- looking into the future, where we're today -- "verification will become even more important as the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons on each side decreases because uncertainties of a given size become a larger percentage of the total force as occurrence." now is he the only one who believes this? no, because former secretary of arms control, john bowl ton stated just this year may 3, he

said "while verification is important in an arms control treaty, verification becomes even more important at lower warhead levels." that's where we are now, lower warhead levels. in 1997 brent scowcroft said, "current force levels provide a kind of buffer because they are high enough to be relatively sensitive to imperfect intelligence and modest force changes." now, listen to this. he said, "as force levels go down in the balance of nuclear power can become increasingly delicate and vulnerable to cheating on arms control limits, concerns about hidden missiles and the actions of nuclear third parties." yesterday when we were having this debate, i commented -- or acknowledged -- that we -- both the senator from massachusetts and i have been aviators for a number of years. i recalled going across siberia in a flight across the world.

he look down there at time zone after time zone after time zone of wilderness. that's not the way it is in our country. that's what brent scowcroft was saying. that as the force levels go down and the balance of nuclear power can become increasingly delicate to cheating on arms control limits, concerns about hidden missiles and actions of nuclear third parties. and then in may of this year, the senate foreign relations committee, former secretary james baker, summarized the new start verification regime is weaker than its predecessor, testifying to congress that the new start verification program does not appear as rigorous or extensive as the one that verified the numerous and diverse treaty obligations and prohibitions under start i. this complex part of the treaty is even more crucial when fewer deployed nuclear warheads are allowed than were allowed in the past.

so i think we have this unanimity of people who believe that as the level comes down, the inspections become more critical. and i think that we also have to look at the fact -- and i know it's not nice to say and this offends a lot of people -- but russia cheats. every arms control treaty we had with them -- we had a recent thing. i think it was in the summer of this year with the report on foreign country compliance. and this is what our report said. it starts out with the start, it says there are a number of long-standing compliance issues, such as obstruction to u.s. right-to-inspect warheads raised in the start treaty warhead compliance that remain unresolved when the treatyy expires. biological weapon convention. in 2005 the state department

concluded that -- quote -- "russia maintains a mature offensive biological weapons program and that it is, its nature and status have not changed." this was in this report that we had. in the 2010 report, the state department report states this: "russia confidence-building measure declaration since 1992 have not satisfactorily documented whether its biological weapon program was terminated." they said the same thing five years later that they said back in 2005. we don't know right now. they were supposed to be eliminating that program, the biological weapons convention. they didn't do it. chemical weapons, in 2005 the state department assessed that -- quote -- "russia is in violation of its chemical weapons convention obligations because its declaration was incomplete with respect to declaration of production and development facilities.

in 2010, the state department again stated that there was an absence of additional information from russia resulting in the united states being unable to ascertain whether russia has dedeclared all of its chemical weapons stockpile, all chemical weapons production facilities and all of its chemical weapons development facilities. all they're saying is now, five years later, after they have been warned in 2005 that they have to do this, that they are in noncompliance, they are still in noncomplains. that's chemical weapons. conventional forces, the report ♪ russia has resulted in no one compliance. a report says according to u.s. officials, the u.s. believes russia moved short-range nuclear tactical warheads to facilities near nato allies as recently as this spring. i think if you look at the record of russia, they don't

tell us the truth. they agree to something, then they don't do it. that's why verification, probably it may be the most significant frailty in this new start treaty that needs to be addressed. for starters, i just want to repeat that we have fewer inspections now under this treaty. the idea that you can determine by the debris that remains after something that was supposed to be destroyed is, to me, it's a nonstarter. the advanced notice, the fact that we now give them advance notice three times as long as we did at one time, and weapons decrease, be i think everybody agrees that we need to have more of the opportunities to inspect. lastly, the fact that russia cheats. now, i would yield the floor at this point. and i don't see anyone around that wants to talk about these two amendments. so i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. inhofe: i yield. -- would the senator yield? mr. dorgan: of course. mr. inhofe: i would like to ask the senator since there may be some that would like to come down and talk on these amendments, how long -- the general subject is the missile defense or the treaty, about how long he'll be talking on something other than specifically these two amendments? mr. dorgan: mr. president, i would estimate about 15 to 20 minutes maximum. mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president, i spoke yesterday to most of the arguments. i don't think there is a need to go back over most of them. i appreciate the arguments and concerns of the senator from oklahoma. i think i'll let that stand where it was, and we'll see if another senator comes to pick up. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: mr. president, this is a very significant and

important issue. as i indicated previously, we deal with a lot of issues here in the h united states senate, some less relevant, some more important. we often treat the serious too lightly and the light too seriously. in this case i think everybody understands that negotiating a treaty with the russians dealing with arms reductions is critically important. that's what this is. i don't think when you talk about nuclear weapons that there are other issues that are similar to it. if, god forbid, before sundown today we learn that a nuclear weapon has been obtained by a terrorist group or a rogue nation and detonated in the middle of a major city on this planet earth, and hundreds of thousands of people are killed, life on earth will change forever. this is a big issue, a very important issue.

i just described the horror of a circumstance where a nuclear weapon was detonated in a major city on this planet. we have 25,000 nuclear weapons that exist on this planet. and question is, are we able to find a way to systematically reduce the number of nuclear weapons and, therefore, reduce the threat of the use of nuclear weapons? while at the same time trying to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and rogue nations. these days it seems to me the question of the nuclear threat is very different than when previous treaties were negotiated. and the reason for is that is we have found a new enemy on this planet. it's called terrorism. terrorists who are happy to give up their lives as long as they can take the lives of others. that terrorist threat and the threat that a terrorist

organization might acquire a nuclear weapon and then very happily detonate that nuclear weapon and kill hundreds of thousands of people, innocent people, that is a very serious problem. and that's why there is a new urgency to not only arms control and arms reduction negotiations, but to the passage of treatyies that are in fact negotiated. we have successfully negotiated various arms control treaties. i will not go through the list of successes as i did previously. but we have been very successful in reducing the number of nuclear weapons and the number of delivery vehicles, bombers and submarines and intercontinental ballistic missile missiles. we have fields where sunflowers go when missiles once were planted aimed at our country. that is a success, in my judgment. there is just no doubt that what we have done over the years has

been successful. and, yet, there remains on this planet some 25,000 nuclear weapons. now, i have listened to this debate, and i don't believe there is anyone involved in this debate that represents bad faith. i think there is differences of opinion. i believe people who come here and offer amendments believe in their heart that they're pursuing the right strategy. but in some ways it also seems to me to be kind of the three or four stages of denial. that is you take a position, and when that is responded to, then take a second position. i wasn't there -- if i wasn't there, i didn't do it. if i did it, i'm sorry. the stages of detphaoeurl pretty interesting to -- denial are pretty interesting to me. let me go through a few of them. some are very worried in this chamber if we proceeded with start without adequately funding

the nuclear weapons complex and funding the necessary investments in our current nuclear weapons stockpile, the investments for modernization, the investments for life extension programs and so on, if tkwaoe that without add -- if we did that without adequate funding for that, that would be a serious problem. the fact is president obama proposed adequate funding in coordination with those who are raising that question, particularly senator kyl was raising that question a great deal. he and i talked about it a substantial amount because i chair the subcommittee that funds the nuclear weapons complex and the life extension programs and the modernization programs. while most other areas of the federal budget were being trimmed or frozen or held static, we increased, at president obama's request, the nuclear weapons line-item in the budget that deals with modernization and lifetime extension programs and so on. we increased that by nearly 10%

in the past fiscal year. and then another 10% in this fiscal year. and then on top of a 10% increase and a 10% increase, another $4 billion increase thrown on top of all of that. i don't think anyone can credibly suggest there is now a problem with funding. the president kept his promise and then did more than that. two 10% increases taking us to $7.6 billion. and then on top of that, adding another $4 billion in five years. it's hard to find another part of the budget that has been as robustly funded. again, as chairman of the subcommittee that funds this, i believe that we have done what was necessary and much more to satisfy the concerns expressed by those who worried that the funding wouldn't be there. this president said it will be there. he made those proposals with two big increases, and then an even larger third increase.

that ought to just lay to rest that subject for good. will our current stockpile be properly maintained with life extension programs and modernization expenditures? the answer is, yes, it's clearly kwrefplt the funding -- it's clearly yes. the funding has been made available and there ought not be debate about that any longer. now the question of time. some have said, and i heard this morning on television one of my colleagues say, well, this is being rushed through at the end of a session. that's not true. that's an example of what i described previously on the floor of creating a nude tph*u reality and -- creating a new reality and inventing a reality and debating off that new invention. that's not true rushing that through. we have had meeting after meeting after meeting. i'm on the national security working group. all through the negotiation with the russians of this treaty, republicans and democrats on that committee were called to secret session and briefed all

along the way to say here's what's going on. the negotiators who say here's where we are, here's what we're doing. we were always kept abreast of all of that. and so, there's nothing at all that is running away quickly at the end of a session to try to get this done. this is -- in fact, this has been delayed much longer than, in my judgment, i would have preferred. but, nonetheless, we're here. and it seems to me that this ought not be part of the routine business of the congress. this is an arms control treaty, nuclear arms reduction. this ought to be one of those areas that rises well above that which is the normal business in a congress. but there is just no credibility at all to suggest this is being rushed. i can just recall day after day sitting in secret sessions with negotiators telling us along the way, here's what we are doing. they met with republicans and democrats. we met all together in a room in

the capitol visitors center and had briefing after briefing after briefing on the national security working group, and it includes most of those in this chamber who have spoken on this issue. it is not the case that there is somehow members -- there were members of congress uninformed about what was happening. all of us were informed. this administration, i thought, did an exceptional job of coming to us to say we want to keep you advised and informed of what we're doing. it just isn't the case at the end of this session it's being rushed through. it should have been done a few months ago. i wish it had been, but it hasn't been. so, therefore, we find ourselves at this intersection. we shouldn't let anybody believe that this is being pushed and rushed without time to consider. all of us have had ample time over many, many months and over a year before that while the negotiations were taken place to seriously consider and be a part of what this is and what it means for our country.

the other issue that's being raised constantly is it will limit our capabilities with respect to missile defense. again, it is just not the case. i understand what people have been reading in order to make that case, but every living secretary of state from the republican and democratic administrations have come out in favor of this treaty. everyone. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has made a very assertive strong statement in support of this treaty. they didn't do that because somehow we are limited on missile defense. in fact, the president has written to us and said that is not what exists with respect to an agreement between us and the russians. it just is not. yesterday it was -- well, this doesn't include tactical weapons. no, it doesn't. we do need to include tactical weapons. i wish it had been part of the moscow treaty. it wasn't. i wish it would be part of this treaty. it wasn't. that doesn't mean we should stop progress on the strategic

weapons limitations, a reduction of the number of strategic nuclear weapons. why would you not take the progress in the area of limiting strategic nuclear weapons and delivery of vehicles -- airplanes, missiles, submarines and so on -- with which those weapons are delivered. why would you not take the progress that exists with respect to limiting strategic weapons? of course we should do that. i don't disagree with those who are worried about tactical weapons. so am i. so is this administration. all of us would have loved to have an agreement on tactical nuclear weapons five or six years ago. but that was not the case. so now we work on this and this provides measurable reductions in the number of nuclear warheads and measurable reductions in the delivery vehicles for those warheads -- bombers, missiles, submarines, and so on. it would be unthinkable, it seems to me, for our country to decide, no, this is not the direction in which weement to move. -- in which we want to move.

as indicated earlier, on every occasion when we have debated the issue of arms control and arms reduction, understanding it is our responsibility it falls on this country, the united states to assume the leadership -- on every occasion when we have debated the issue of trying to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on this planet and reduce the number of delivery vehicles and the threat from nuclear weapons, we've done that exclusive of this new threat which now casts a shadow over everything that we talk about, and that is the threat of terrorism. a new threat in the last decade. terrorists who are very anxious to take their own lives, if they can kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of others. the specter of having a terrorist group acquire a nuclear weapon and detonating

that nuclear weapon on this plan eliminate is change life on the planet as we know t and so it is a much more urgent requirement that we finally respond to this by continuing this relentless march to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and to try to make certain that we keep nuclear weapons out of the hand of terrorists, to reduce the number of rogue nations that would have nuclear weapons. that is our responsibility. it's our leadership responsibility in this country. the signal we send to the world with respect to this vote and others dealing with arms control and arms reductions is unbelievably important. and that's why this vote in this chamber at this point is so urgent. now, i mentioned terrorism, and it is -- it's now a few days before christmas. last christmas we were reminded about terrorists once again. a man got on an airplane with a

bomb sewn in his underwear. he was preceded bay man getting on an airplane with a bomb in his shoe. and the list goes on. perfectly interested in bringing down an entire planeful of people. they were interested -- terrorists were -- in killing several thousand americans on 9/11/2001. but they are even more interested in acquiring a nuclear weapon and killing hundreds of thousands of people somewhere in a major city on this planet. that's why this responsibility, the responsibility to negotiate, continuing to negotiate and negotiate and negotiate treaties that represent our interests -- yes, they have to represent our interests; and this one does. look at the list of people who support this treaty. i've brought out before charts that show all of the republicans and democrats, the folks who have worked on these things for so long -- secretaries of state and military leaders and former presidents. it is -- it is our responsibility to make progress here.

and i -- frankly, aim -- as i said, i don't suggest there's bad faith on the part of anybody who stood up with their opinion. that's not my susmghts i think people of this chamber are people of good faith. but it seems to me that some have not yet understood the increasing urgency now to address this issue. this issue is in our national interest. this issue with the russians, this treaty with the russians was negotiated very, very carefully representing our national interests. yergs on verification -- yes, on verification representing our national interests. it represents our interests in every other way -- missile defense -- we didn't give up anything with respect to missile defense. and so as i hear some of my colleagues come to the floor very concerned about these issues, all of them -- all of them -- are responded to easily, in my judgment. the money -- we're spending more

money than has ever been spent on the nuclear weapons complex to make sure that our nuclear weapons work. the previous head of nnsa said "i would have killed for a budget like they now have for the life-extension program and the modernization program." i would have killed for that he said. he was the man who ran the nnsa program under the previous president, president george w. bush. so money is not an issue. clearly that's not the an issue. time -- this is not being pressed into a tiny little corner with an urgent time requirement. this has been delayed and should not have been delayed. but it's sufficiently important to stay here and do this and to hope that the work that's been done on a bipartisan basis in the committee can be supported by the entire senate. let me say that i started earlier -- and i know it's easy

to compliment people in this chamber and you don't compliment those with whom you disagree, i suppose. but let me compliment, if i might, senator kerry and senator lugar, because the work they have done, which is very strongly bipartisan, to bring this treaty to the floor of the senate for ratification is, i think, a representation of the best of the united states senate. it's the way this place really ought to work. searching out, holding hearings and hearings and hearings, the best thinkers on all these issues, to come and give us their advice about these matters. they did that. there's nothing -- nothing that this issue is represented by respect to pushing it into a tight time frame. they have done this the right way, the right kind of hearings, the right kind of consultation, and now we've come to the floor of the senate and said, this is urgent. let's get this done. and so i just wanted to come

today. i was driving to work this morning and i was seeing they're building the martin luther king jr. memorial over on the mall. and i recalled a what he had said once. he said, the means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. he said, we've learned the secret of the atom and forgotten the sermon on the mount. well, the secret of the atam is something we have recently learned. in more recent years the specter of having more nuclear weapons on this planet and the spectrum of terrorists obtaining one, results in our proceeding to ratify treaties. it is, as i indicated, it is our responsibility. this responsibility for stopping the arms race rests on our shoulders and, yes, we must do it in our national interest, protecting our self as we do. but, in my judgment, this treaty meets every one of those

measures and i'm pleased to support it and pleased to be here to say, i hope the rest of my colleagues will look at what senator chirr and lugar have done and come to the floor of the senate with robust support for the what i think is some outstanding work. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: i know the senator from south disheerk and he wants to speak. i'm not going to be long. i just want to take advantage of this moment with the senator from north dakota here on the floor to say a couple of things. first of all, i'm very grateful to him personally for the comments that he's made, both about my and senator lugar's efforts here. i appreciate them enormously. but more importantly, i really -- the senator is going to be leaving the united states senate at the end of this session. and i really want to say that there are few senators that i think combine as many qualities of ability as does the senator

from tornlg dakota. he is one of the most articulate members of the united states senate. he's one of the most diligent members of the united states senate. he's one of the most thoughtful members of the united states senate. and i've had the pleasure of serving with him on the commerce committee. i have seen how creative and determined he is with respect to the interests of consumers, on internet issues, on fairness issues, on consumer issues, which he's taken an enormous interest in. and he's -- as head of the policy committee for i think almost ten years or so, he's been responsible for making sure that the rest of us are informed on issues, and is a kept us regularly -- and he's kept us regularly up to date on the latest thinking. he's put together very provocative weekly meetings with some of the best minds in the country so we think about these things. so i just want to say to him

personally through the chair how well-served i think the citizens of north dakota have been, how grateful we are for his service, how extraordinarily lucky we have been to have someone representing one of our great 50 states as effectively as he has. i think he hack a sue besh -- i think he has been a superb united states senator and he will be much-missed here. mr. thune: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: i want to speak to an amendment that i have pending at the desk. i want to make some comments relative to where we are on this process because there's ban lot said -- there's been a lot said about republicans not wanting to vote on this or trying to delay this. but i think you have to admit

that we have now talked about missile defense, which i think is a valid issue with respect to this treaty, very significant issues of disagreement with regard to how it treats missile defense. we've had a discussion about tactical weapons, which in my judgment also is a very important issue relative to our national security interests and the interests of our allies around the world, and we've had a debate go b. verification which the senator -- senator inhofe, the senator from oklahoma, his debate is currently pending. those issues are all valid and substantive issues to debate and discuss with regard to this treaty. the amendment that i offer will deal with the issue of delivery vehicles, which is something that is important as well where this treaty is concerned. so i would simply say that i think it's consistent with our role in the united states senate to provide advice and consent. if it were just consent, if that's what the founders had intended, we could rubber stamp this. but we have a role in this

process. that role is to look at in great detail thiesheses and make sure that the united states national security interests are well-erved by a treaty of this importance. and so, i think that the words of the treaty matter. i think the words of the preamble matter. and i'm not going to relitigate the debate that we've h.r. had on missile defense. but i do believe that if you have language in a preamble to a document like this, not unlike the preamble that we have in our constitution, which is frequently quoted, i it has meaning. to suggest that the preamble doesn't mean anything, that it is a throw-away, throw-away language, misses the point to me it matters. i think it matters to the russians. and i don't think that if it didn't it would be in there. that's why i believe that having this linkage between offensive missile defense and -- or offensive strategic arms and defensive strategic arms in the

preamble, it is in there for a reason. somebody wanted it in there obviously. and it has weight beyond what has been suggested here on the united states senate. and i would also argue as well that the signing statement which we've already talked about, where the russians made it very clear that -- in the signing statement in prague in april 8, 2015, the treaty can operate and be viable only if the united states of america refrains from developing its missile defense exablghts qualitatively or quantitatively. and if you tie that back to article 14, the withdrawal clause of the treaty, where it talks about being able to withdraw for exceptional circumstances, you can see the pretext where the russians may decide to withdraw from this treaty. so missile defense is at an inconsequential issue. it is a very important issue with regard to this treaty and the amendment that was offered on saturday and voted bonn attempted to address that. and i'm -- unfortunately, that failed. i hope we have subsequent opportunities to get at the

issue of missile defense, because i certainly think it is an unresolved issue, in my view, and the view of many of us. the amendment that i offer today, mr. president, is very straightforward and modest. it would simply increase the number of deployed delivery vehicles -- in other words, bombers, submarines, and land-based missiles -- allowed for in the new start treaty from 700 to 720. simply adds 20 additional vehicles to the number in order to match up with the administration's plan presented to the senate for fielding 720 delivery vehicles rather than the 700 called for in the text of this treaty. before i continue be, i want to ask, mr. president, that senator scott brown of massachusetts be added a as a cosponsor to this amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: for those who may be unfanal with some of the terminology used in these arms control treaties, such as the term "delivery vehicles," it is important to understand that delivery vehicles simply means the nuclear triad of systems,

bombers, submarines, and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles or icbms sometimes referred to as launch vehicles. this triad is very valuable because it is flexible. mean that if god forbid we would suffer a nuclear attack, those who attacked us can never be sure that they have knocked out our ability to respond with a nuclear strike. solve without to deliver nuclear weapons, an adversary would not take seriously our responsibility to avert a nuclear attack. as numbers get reduced, it comes -- begins to have an impact on whether we can effectively retain the triad, making it more likely that our nation would have to eliminate a leg of the triad. mr. president, on july 9 of 2009, in an armed services committee hearing, i asked general james cartwright, the

vice chairman of the joint chiefs, about the administration's commitment at that time to reduce our strategic delivery vehicles to somewhere in the range of 500 to 1,100 systems. general cartwright respond that he would -- quote -- "be very concerned if we got down below those levels about midpoint." meaning he would be concerned if the negotiated number fellow 800 delivery vehicles. the treaty caps delivery vehicles at 700, substantially below the number general cartwright stated a year and a half ago. the treaty makes this odd distinction between deployed and nondeployed delivery vehicles and the treaty's proponents will point out the total cap for the treaty is 800 deployed and nondeployed systems. of course there is a letter from general cartwright in the committee report accompanying the treaty stating he's

comfortable with the distinction between deployed and nondeployed delivery vehicles and overall limits to delivery vehicles. but it's important, mr. president, to understand that the administration has not articulated how it will deploy a nuclear force conforming to the number of 700. instead the administration has presented a plan for how it will deploy 720 delivery vehicles. that is the motivation behind this amendment. i find it very troubling if the administration is yet to articulate how it will deploy a nuclear force structure that would conform to the number of 700. the comprehensive plan for delivery vehicle force structure the administration was required to present to congress under section 1251 of the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill known as the 1251 report provides a very troubling lack of specificity concerning force structure under the new start treaty. specifically, the administration fact sheet on the section 1251

report explains that the u.s. nuclear force structure under this treaty could comprise up to 60 bombers, up to 620 icbms and 240 submarine launched ballistic missiles. the only number that is a certainty in the 1251 report is the number of slbms. i hope the senators with the number of bomber base will pay attention to this report. under the explanation roeud by the administration 1251 report has numbers adding up to 720 vehicles, it is mathematically impossible for the united states to make such a deployment and be in compliance with the limit of 700 deployed strategic nuclear deliver vehicles. clearly additional reduction decisions will be made with respect to u.s. force structure under this treaty and obviously those reductions will come out of bombers and/or icbms.

secretary gates and admiral mullen acknowledged in a hearing before the senate armed services committee on june 17, 2010, that further reductions would still be required to meet the treaty's central limits. it went on to argue because the united states will have seven years to reduce its forces to these limits, they did not find it necessary to identify a final force structure at this point, meaning the senate will commit the united states to delivery vehicle force of 700 without knowing how that force will be composed. mr. president, compounding this problem of not knowing what the final force structure will look like is the fact that the obama administration conceded to russian demands to place limits on conventional global strike systems by counting conventionally armed strategic ballistic missiles against the 700 allowed for delivery vehicles. for those who are unfamiliar with global strike, it is simply a program that would allow the united states to strike targets

anywhere on earth with conventional weapons in as little as an hour. development of these systems is an important niche capability that would allow to us attack high-value targets or fleeting targets such as weapons of mass destruction, terrorists and missile threats, a recent defense science board report states -- and i quote -- "the most mature option for prompt long-range conventional strike is the ballistic missile." and building on the legacy of these intercontinental ballistic missile weapons systems provides a relatively low-risk path to a conventional weapons system with global reach. again, end quote. yet, this treaty, mr. president, will not permit us to develop this low-risk concept for conventional prompt global strike without having an impact on the central limits under this treaty of 700 delivery vehicles. to be very blunt, this treaty with a so poorly negotiated, for

every icbm or slbm deployed with a conventional warhead, one less nuclear delivery vehicle will be available to the united states. this one-for-one reduction in deployed nuclear forces is one we can ill afford at the levels of delivery vehicles allowed under this treaty. when the commander of the u.s. strategic command, general chilton, testified before the armed services committee on april 22 of 2010, he specifically said that we could not replace the deterrent effects of nuclear weapons with a conventional capability on a one-for-one basis or -- and i quote -- "even ten-for-one basis." treaty proponents will point out there are other potential new conventional prompt global strike systems on the drawing board that may not fall under the treaty's limitation. but why are we tying the hands of future administrations who

may need to quickly field such systems, especially since converting icbms to carry a conventional warhead are the most advanced systems we have right now on conventional prompt global strike? the senate should not rat fight treaty -- not ratify the system without knowing how global strike systems may be counted. according to the department of defense, an assessment on treaty implication for conventional prompt global strike proposals will not be ready until early 2011. if we pass this treaty now, senators won't know the details of this important issue until the treaty enters into force when it's too late. adopting my amendment would provide a hedge against the issues that are raised by the conventional prompt global strike niche capability and its impact on the treaty's limit of 700 delivery vehicles. 700 delivery vehicle limit and conventional prompt global

strike counting against that number we will have fewer delivery vehicles and disincentive to develop and deploy conventional prompt global strike as a result. moreover, why should we accept these constraints in a treaty that was supposed to be about strategic nuclear weapons? mr. president, while we are required under the treaty to cut the number of delivery vehicles to the bone, russia will not have to make any similar cut to their delivery vehicles, leaving one to wonder what we received in return for this significant concession. the treaty essentially requires the united states to make unilateral reductions in delivery vehicles, as russia is already well below the vehicle delivery limits and would drastically reduce its arsenal with or without this treaty. as the c.r.'s writes, russia has 620 launchers and this number may decline to 444 total

launchers. this would likely be true whether or not the treaty enters into force because russia is eliminating older missiles as they age and deploying newer missiles at a far slower pace than that needed to retain 700 deployed launchers. end quote. so i want to just to put a fine point on that, mr. president. esectionly what we're doing here -- essentially what we're doing is we have in our arsenal about 856 delivery vehicles today. we are reducing that down to 700. we're taking a significant haircut, significant cut in the number of delivery vehicles that would be available to us. the russians, on the other hand, are currently only at 620 launchers, delivery vehicles, already well below the 700. on the attrition path that they're on would very soon be down to about 400 deployed launchers and 444 total launchers. so the united states made huge

concessions with regard to delivery vehicles in this treaty, and the russians have concede nothing on this point. it seems to me at least this is another area in which we made significant concessions and received very little in return. mr. president, we're binding ourselves to the number of delivery vehicles we negotiate with russia, even though we have security commitments to extend our nuclear deterrent to more than 30 countries while russia has none. given the geographic realities that we deal with in the world, the united states strategic nuclear forces are part of how the united states provides this extended deterrence. as we face an uncertain future where nations like china continue to modernize their nuclear forces, we will need to be able to hold more potential targets at risk to deter attacks. we need to be careful about reducing delivery vehicle levels. this report would use the number of 720 vehicles as the ceiling

for delivery vehicles under the treaty rather than the current number of 700 reflected in the treaty. some of the my colleagues will probably warn that even this modest amendment is a treaty-killer amendment. but article 2, section 2, of the constitution says that the president shall have power by and with the advice and consent of the senate to make treaties. when the other side admonishes us about treaty-killer amendments it becomes apparent we are supposed to be a rubber stamp for this treaty, wanting us to provide our consent but not our advice. it should be made clear what a treaty-killer amendment s. it is a remedy to make an amendment twreut which new start -- treaty which new start opponents do not wish to stop. one thing should be clear, mr. president, the senate cannot kill new start in the way that some are suggesting. if the senate gives its consent

to new start with amendment to the text, that just means the treaty is sent to russia for its approval with the amendment. the ball will then be in russia's court. the c.r.'s has out lined in the study in the role of the senate, amendment to propose changes in the actual text of the treaty. they amount, therefore, to senate counter offers that alter the original deal agreed to by the united states and country. simply put, an amendment to the treaty text would not kill the treaty. it would require russian consent to the amendment as a matter of international negotiation. if russia chooses to reject that amendment, it will not be the senate that kills the treaty, but the russian government. as a side note, mr. president, i believe it's important to recall that general chilton's support for four new start levels was predicated on no russian cheating. he testified to the senate armed services committee on april 2, 2010, that one of the assumptions immediate when the

nuclear posture review was complete was -- quote -- "an assumption that the russians would be compliant." it has been pointed out how many times russia has been a serious violator of arms control agreements. mr. president, in conclusion, reducing u.s. strategic nuclear forces, especially with delivery systems, is a very serious matter that has received insufficient attention. we have little to gain and much to lose if we cannot be certain that the numbers in new start are adequate. i think it's worth noting. former defense secretary schlesinger testified on april 29, 2010 -- and i quote -- "as to the stated context of strategic nuclear weapons, the numbers specified are adequate though barely so." end quote. again, this is a modest amendment that takes into account the administration's own force structure plan of 720

delivery vehicles. this amendment would simply use the administration's 1251 report force structure plan of 720 delivery vehicles and make that the ceiling for delivery vehicles under the treaty rather than the current number of 700 that's reflected in the treaty today. so, mr. president, i would ask my colleagues to support this amendment. i would simply say that with regard to maintaining a triad, a system of bombers, icbms and slbms, that in order to do that, a 700 number ceiling makes that very complicated. if you assume 420 icbms and 240 slbms, that he is leaves you room -- that leaves you room for bombers but not a lot of room. if you go from the 720 number to the 700 number, if you went to 700 and took it out of bombers, you would be down to 40 bombers.

we have 96 b-52's, 21 that are nuclear capable or nuclear weapons we use with nuclear launch vehicles to use for extended deterrence around the globe taorbgsd going down to a -- going down to a number of 40 would be a two-thirds reduction in the number of bombers we have available to us to provide that type of extended deterrence. it strikes me, mr. president, that we are getting perilously close with this number from moving from a triad to a diad and furthermore tying our hands when it comes to our ability to have the necessary delivery vehicles at our disposal if and when that time would ever come. so again, a very straightforward amendment. takes the number from 700 to 720, and it's consistent with the 1251 report and what the administration says that they can accommodate in terms of launch vehicles, and i hope that my colleagues will support it. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president,

before i say a few words about the amendment, let me see if i can get an agreement from my colleagues. we've we have a lot of colleagues asking when we're going to vote, and we need to have some votes. we've only had two votes on amendments after six days. obviously, i could notify table, but i don't want to do that -- at least not yet. i would ask if we could set up the time to have a vote on the senator's amendment at 12:30? mr. thune: i would say to the senator from massachusetts, that i think that we're prepared to debate. the senator from oklahoma wants to talk at length, i think, about the verification issue. i don't think we're prepared at this point to enter into a time agreement for any time certain on votes. and until we can get some indication from our colleagues about who would like to speak on this amendment, it would be very difficult to do that. mr. kerry: well, i would say to my colleague, well, we're getting into the sixth day of debate. i didn't say mass is coming. it is surprising to me that we

don't have any indication of who would like to speak on this amendment. mr. thune: well, i think, mr. president -- or, i should say, mr. president, i'd say to the senator from massachusetts, we do have, i think, others who want to speak not only on this amendment but also on the amendment of the senator from oklahoma. and these are, i said, are both very significant, substantive amendments that deal fundamentally with the issues that are important to this treaty, and i don't think that we're prepared at this point to cut off that debate, and until we get some indication from some of our colleagues about who else might want to come down here and speak to either of these issues, i would object to entering into any kind of a time agreement for that. mr. kerry: i accept that. and the point i'm trying to make is, nobody is -- i think we have not -- we've allowed each of the prior amendments to come to an up-or-down vote. we haven't tabled them, which is an often-used practice here, as everybody knows. we could have debated all last

night. there was nobody here to debate. now we're here debating. we're happy to leave time for debate. but i would ask my colleagues if they couldn't inquire who might want to come so we could -- at least try to out of courtesy to our colleagues give them a sense of what the schedule might be and then we could set a time for debate, allowing everybody time. i'm not suggesting in any with a that the topics we've discussed are not important. they are important and they're worthy of debate and discussion. so we welcome that. but i'd like to see -- i'd yied for a question, mr. president. mr. inhofe: yes, in addition to what senator thune has said, let me comment that there are several people who said that they wanted to go into the closed session first and address things having to do with my amendment and his amendment before a vote. i think that's the critical thing that i'm concerned with. mr. kerry: i respect that. and i'm perfectly comfortable if we were able to set a time even

after that closed session. i think everybody would feel good if we could try to find a tievment but i understand the need to try to want to have that session and that's the senator's right and we respect that. but maybe we could find the time when we come out of that session. we could have a couple of votes back to back and i think that would help a the although of people here. mr. president, let me just say that i want to thank the senator from south dakota for his amendment. it is one that is worthy of some discussion, and obviously some of that discussion is going to have to take place in the context of the classified session. but let me just say this. he said that one of the arguments that will be used is that this will result in going back to the russians and having to renegotiate the treaty. that's not a casual argument. i mean, it is not a small thing. but it's not the principal reason -- it's one of the reasons, obviously, why i think this amendment is ill-advised.

but, most importantly, this amendment is unnecessary. and i think all of us on our side have a very clear understanding of the importance of delivery vehicles with respect to our national defense. but here's what we'v bev to bale the comoantses -- but here's what we have to balance the comments of our colleague from south dakota against. the join chiefs of staff, the commander of u.s. tree genetic command, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and others have all determined that we can safely reduce our deployed icbms and our deployed slbms and our deployed heavy bombers -- the three legs of the triad -- that they could be reduced to the 700 number. now, that figure was picked, obviously, after an enormous

amount of thinking by all of those parties concerned -- the strategic command, the air force folks, the navy, slbm and so forth -- and they did so only after seeing the results of force-on-force analyses, of exactly where that would leave us in terms of america's response should there, happily in the current atmosphere, be the unlikely event of a nuclear confrontation. now, obviously, we need to think about these things in that larger context. -- of sort of where we are today, what direction are we moving in, what's the relatety. and as the senator knows, without going into any details, that force-on-force determination was made not just in the likelihood of a russian-u.s. confrontation with you -- but in a multiparty

confrontation. and again we'll discuss some of that later. now, the senator is -- so the gravamen of the senator's complaint is that he is concerned that the administration has failed to thus far state precisely how it's going to reduce the deployed icbms, intercontinental ballistic missiles and slbms, submarine-launched ballistic missiles. how do you meet this? i want the chairman to weigh in here. the administration has made it clear that it intends to maintain 20 launchers on the 12 ballistic missile submarines that we keep operationally deployed, meaning that our submarine force will account for 240 of the 700 limit. we agree on that. that leaves room for 460

deployed delivery vehicles combined from the two other legs of the triad, from the icbms and from the heavy bomber forces. now, the senator also said that the administration has said in its 1251 report that it hasn't made a final decision on going all the way up to the 420 icbms. or all the way up to 60 bombers. or somewhere in between. that decision has not been made. in other words, out of the total deployed delivery vehicle limit of 700, the administration has left itself some room to maneuver to make a decision on 20 of its icbms and bombers. and under the agreement, we have seven years -- seven years of room here -- before we have to meet that limit. now, when asked about this sort of available time of seven

years, general chilton, the commander of our strategic command, told the armed services committee for the record -- quote -- "the force structure construct is reported in the section 1251 report is sufficient to meet the nation's strategic deterrence mission. furthermore, the new start treaty provides flexibility to manage the force drawdown while maintaining an effective and safe strategic deterrent. as a technical matter, the senator's amendment would require the president to go now back to the russians, move the limit up from 700 to 720, even though the military is perfectly comfortable with the level that we have. that's when you begin to get into the question, hey, if they're telling us that this is good and comfortable and we can do what we need to do in this context, i might add, of a very different russia, very different u.s., very different set of

strategic demands at this moment, why would we reopen the treaty for renegotiation? so, i have more to say on this, particularly on the subject of the prompt global strike, because the prompt global strike, likewise, is not impacted negatively by this, and there are a number of reasons why we have options as to how we arm certain legs of the triad and what we choose to do. i think it's important to point out also dish think this is important -- i think it's important to point out also -- i think this is important -- under -- there may be some concern -- i understand the geography of the senator's representation. so there may be some concern from some senators and the comments that the senator made. he said those of you who have people concerned with the icbm bases or the slbm bases, et

cetera, or the bomber bases need to be focused on this. let me be clear that the administration has made it clear, none of the three icbm bases are going to be closed because of the new start treaty. we're maintaining all of them. what's more, the administration has made it clear that it's committed to the icbm force in the years to come. and it has update -- and in its update 12-d 51 report, the minuteman iii will remain in force and then be replaused by a follow-on icbm to be derld. and if people are concerned about cutting bombers, senators should remember that to meet the new start's limits, we are not going to need to eliminate any bombers. we plan to simply convert some bombers to a conventional role at which point they will no longer count towards the treaty limits. so with that stated as part of the record, i would yield five

minutes to -- or such time as the senator from michigan would like to consume, the chairman of the armed services committee. mr. inhofe: it was my understanding we had kind of an informal arrangement, we'd be going back and forth. and i would like to be recognized. but if it is -- mr. kerry: i understand that. i think we had the two senators both speak smed f. i'd like to just yield to the chairman from the armed services committee for five minutes and then we'll come back. mr. inhofe: okay. the presiding officer: the senator michigan. mr. levin: the amendment would amend the treaty by changing one of the elements of the treaty, which is the number of deployed strategic force forces that we . under the treaty the limit 1700 but the critically important part to our military is that each side would have the ability to change the mix to reach 700 as it suits our respective needs.

the amendment of senator thune would alter the limit of 700 to 720 deployed slbms, heavy bombers equipped with nuclear arms and icbms. now, these limits, as the chairman of the foreign reels committee has just said, were agreed upon only after careful analysis by u.s. military leadership, particularly general chilton, who is the commander of our u.s. strategic command and the man responsible for these strategic systems. senator kerry has quoted general chilton, and i want to just add one additional quote of his which he testified to before the armed services committee on july 20 of this year. july chilton stated that the force levels in the treaty meet the current guidance for deterrence for the united states. and by the way, that guidance