full backgrounds, we can provide that, but i will quickly, beginning on my right is ambassador tom pickering from the united states. ambassador jianmin wu from china. i am sorry. i just got the order wrong. on my immediate right is evgeny velikhov from the russian federation comment and from india, ambassador khan from pakistan, ambassadorsachan from japan, and tony lake from the united states. malcolm rifkind from the united kingdom, major-general tong from the people's republic of china, we also have on the phone with us igor yurgens from moscow. igor yurgens is the chairman of the management board of the institute of contemporary development and enjoys close ties with the presidential administration in russia. i am very briefly going to give you the main results of our deliberations to date. i will make one introductory point, there is a general consensus among the commission that whatever impact, positive impact nuclear-weapons may have had in terms of enforcing deterrence and stability during the cold war, any residual benefits of these weapons have been more than overshadowed in recent

. >> tom pickering. >> the question of practicality, less up in the atmosphere than the issue of realism. if you look at the last chart called summary, you will see two regions, it is important to understand the practicality of the proposal. the time that it has normally taken to negotiate significant strategic disarmament agreements, an average of 24 years, it projects 14 years to reach a series of agreements and an additional seven years to complete the dismantlement. the second piece of practicality is how rapidly can countries dismantle? the plan, as you will see from the charts which you have, very carefully attuned to the rates which in the past, both russia and the united states, the two largest holders, have pursued the dismantlement of actual weapons. if you look at those rates, you can understand the time allowed for the practical dismantlement is sufficient to accomplish that task in the proposal we have put forward. >> i will make one more point on the issue of realism because it is critically important point. oh commissioner, ambassador bajpai, was mentioning that at point w