Tag Archives: Congress

After Years of Wantonly Declassifying Nuclear Secrets, D.O.E. Is Suddenly Seized with the Need to Protect Them — from Us

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday’s New York Times reported an astonishing
statement by
Department of Energy spokeswoman Brooke Anderson. In response to a comment on the Fox
Sunday program by Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) — to the effect that DoE was
delaying the
declassification of key passages of a highly critical report adopted last December by a select
House committee he chaired even after the CIA and FBI had “determined that [their]
release
would not harm intelligence-gathering sources or methods” — Ms. Anderson declared:

“We have been working with other agencies and Congress to declassify as much of the report
as
possible with out releasing information that would compromise intelligence sources or methods or
classified nuclear weapons information….Discussions are ongoing, but Secretary
Richardson
under no circumstances will bow to pressure and release sensitive nuclear weapons
information.” (Emphasis added.)

Protesting Too Much?

What makes this statement remarkable is not that the Secretary of Energy is determined to
protect
“sensitive nuclear weapons information.” That is, after all, as it should be. Rather, it is
extraordinary because that sentiment contrasts so sharply with the cavalier attitude about
such information that the Clinton Administration and its Energy Department have
exhibited until very recently.

This attitude was most evident in Executive Order 12958, signed by
President Clinton on April
17, 1995. E.O. 12958 calls for the automatic declassification by April
17, 2000 of all
documents containing historical information that are 25 years or older. While the order
allows a few exceptions in the name of protecting national security (notably, an injunction that
“nothing in this order shall supersede the [classification requirements of] the Atomic Energy Act
of 1954″), the practical effect of the order has been greatly to abbreviate the time and
necessarily to diminish the care with which documents are scrutinized prior to their release
to the public.1

What amounted to “pressure [to] release sensitive nuclear weapons information” (to coin a
phrase) came not only from then-Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary but from
declassification-devotes in the White House like then-NSC staffer Morton
Halperin and the current Chief of
Staff, John Podesta. Under such pressure, the Administration wound up
engaging in the
wholesale declassification of papers, including some containing Restricted Data (RD) or Formerly
Restricted Data (FRD). Those charged with doing so have been compelled to declassify DoE
documents by the file — if not by the box or by the shelf — on the grounds that the
time required
and the costs associated with a careful page-by-page review are in excess of what the Executive
Order and DoE budget will permit.

Last summer, several leading Members of Congress became alarmed about the Department of
Energy’s inattention to the need to safeguard “sensitive nuclear information” — i.e., information
that can, irrespective of its age, be of use to nascent nuclear weapons programs abroad.
Sens.
Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Bob
Smith (R-NH) wrote National Security
Advisor Sandy Berger to express their concern that “in a frenzied attempt to meet the deadline
mandated by E.O. 12958, officials are not taking proper care to ensure that Restricted Data and
Formerly Restricted Data that may be commingled with other classified information is not being
improperly released or scheduled for automatic declassification.”

The magnitude of the problem was described by the Washington Times on 31
July 1998. The
paper disclosed that the Department of Energy had inadvertently declassified extremely sensitive
information concerning: locations of overseas U.S. nuclear weapons storage facilities;
data
about U.S. nuclear weapons yields; Navy blueprints showing the exact firing sequence of a
nuclear weapon; a Navy document showing the design of nuclear weapons fuel capsules; an
Army paper detailing a gun-assembled nuclear weapon; data on British yield-to-weight
ratios for nuclear weapons; an Air Force document containing nuclear weapon design
information and another one concerning intelligence about Soviet nuclear weapons.

The Senators added:

“Our information is that the Secretary of Energy was made aware of [the
improper release during
declassification of sensitive data] in December 1995 and again in January 1996. The
National
Security Council staff was also briefed in January 1996. No remedial action was taken
as a
result of these meetings. In our opinion, this lack of action may be a very serious infraction
of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.” (Emphasis added.)

The Senators’ concerns prompted them to amend the FY1999 defense authorization act to
tighten
up procedures for reviewing this material and to require a presidential certification that it is
“highly unlikely” RD or FRD material is being released pursuant to E.O.
12958. It is worth
noting that Mr. Podesta and the Administration strenuously opposed this amendment and have
generally tried to thwart its implementation as intended. Among the senior officials who are said
to have contributed to this effort is Rose Gottemoeller, whose controversial
nomination to
become Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nonproliferation and National Security was recently
sneaked through the Senate without any effort being made to examine her role in the
unfolding
China scandal and other DoE security problems. 2

The Bottom Line

Welcome as it is, Secretary of Energy Richardson’s reported determination to safeguard
classified
information would be more convincing if it did not contrast so completely with the policies
pursued by the Clinton Administration at least until the news broke about China’s espionage at
Los Alamos. It would also be less suspect if its insistence on protecting the Nation’s secrets did
not serve the President’s understandable — but opprobrious — desire to prevent the American
people from reviewing evidence of serious misfeasance, if not malfeasance, concerning PRC
penetration of the American economy, political system and military-industrial and nuclear
weapons complex.

1 See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Clinton Legacy Watch # 30: America the
Proliferator (No. 98-D 145, 14 August
1998) and The Most Important Justification for Firing
Hazel O’Leary: Her Role in Denuclearizing the United States ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=95-D_90″>No. 95-D 90, 10 November
1995).

2 Additional reasons for concern about this nomination can be found
in the Center’s Decision
Briefs entitled Senate Given Another Opportunity to Reject Clinton’s
Policy of
Denuclearization: the Gottemoeller Nomination ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_166″>No. 98-D 166, 29 September 1998) and
Clinton’s Reckless Nuclear Agenda Revealed? Study Co-Authored By Candidate
For Top
Pentagon Job Is Alarming (No. 97-D 96, 12
July 1997).

Moment of Truth: Senate to Decide Today Whether To Deploy Missile Defenses As Soon As Possible

(Washington, D.C.): This afternoon, the United States Senate is slated to cast what may
prove to
be one of the most momentous votes of the 106th Congress: With the removal of
parliamentary
roadblocks that prevented action twice before on legislation that would make it the policy of the
U.S. government to deploy effective, limited national missile defenses as soon as technologically
possible, a clear majority now seems likely to approve the National Missile Defense Act
of
1999 (S.257) which would do just that.

In several hours of debate yesterday, opponents of this initiative argued what seemed a
half-hearted and certainly unconvincing case against deploying anti-missile systems to protect the
American people as soon as technology will permit. Even Senator Carl Levin
(D-MI), the
Clinton Administration’s principal Senate champion in resisting this bipartisan legislation
co-sponsored by Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Daniel
Inouye (D-HI), felt constrained to
profess a commitment to protecting the American people and to deploying effective missile
defenses just as soon as they were available — a reflection, at least in part, of the impossibility of
further arguing (as Sen. Levin long has) that there is no threat that warrants such defenses.

What’s Left of the Opponents’ Arguments

Reduced to its essence, the opponents’ case now seems to rest on three untenable
propositions:

  • “It Would Cost Too Much to Defend the American People.” As
    best-selling author Mark
    Helprin caustically observed in the 22 February 1999 edition of National Review
    which was
    largely devoted to the missile defense issue, “We spend three times what we spend on
    strategic defense on cookies and crackers, six times as much on sausages and prepared
    meats and ten times as much on lottery tickets.”

    Obviously, the cost of providing a missile defense pales beside the cost of losing even a
    single American city. Does anyone actually believe that if — God forbid — that
    were to occur, we would still be haggling about the cost of anti-missile systems?
    It is unconscionable that we are now doing so when, by spending what it takes, we
    might prevent such a loss from eventuating.

    It is particularly outrageous to allow false economies further to stymie the
    decision to deploy missile defenses insofar as there is an approach that could
    begin to provide protection for the American people for a fraction of what
    the Clinton Administration claims it is willing to spend in the next few years
    (i.e., $6.6 billion). According to a newly released study prepared by a blue-ribbon
    Commission on Missile Defense sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, 1 the
    United States could begin to field an effective, limited world-wide missile
    defense at sea for between $2-3 billion     within the next four years. This is
    possible thanks to the roughly $50 billion investment that the Nation has already
    made in the Navy’s AEGIS fleet air defense system. Even the Pentagon has had
    to acknowledge that such an approach is technically feasible and that the costs are
    nowhere near the $19 billion suggested in a news report published last month in
    the Washington Post. 2

  • “The U.S. Military Doesn’t Want Early Action on Missile Defense.” This
    is too ridiculous
    a statement to be treated seriously. The fact is that the U.S. military very much want
    a near-term missile defense — both to protect vulnerable forces overseas and the country they are
    sworn to defend. It’s just that their senior leaders have a hard time saying so in light of the
    armed services’ desperate funding shortfalls. At the low budget levels the Clinton
    Administration has provided the Pentagon — including this year’s modest “plus-up” 3 — the
    armed forces have insufficient resources to meet their current missions, let alone take
    on new
    ones like missile defense.

    This problem is enormously compounded by the Clinton Administration’s refusal to
    consider deployments of effective anti-missile systems via means other than one or
    two
    ground-based sites — a far more costly, and far less effective manner of defending
    America than would be possible with the AEGIS Option. What is more, the AEGIS
    Option would have the inherent capability to provide protection to U.S. forces and
    allies overseas, as well as for the American people here at home. This sort of flexible,
    affordable and near-term system would enormously appeal to the U.S. military if only
    they are allowed to pursue it.

  • “Protecting the A.B.M. Treaty is More Important than Protecting the
    American
    People.”     The last refuge of the die-hard opponents of missile defense is the 1972
    Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an accord signed with the Soviet Union under strategic
    circumstances
    so different from today’s as to be wholly unrecognizable. They claim that the United States
    has legal obligations under this treaty that prevent it from building missile defenses.

    In fact, rigorous legal analysis belies this claim. A study recently completed for the
    Center for Security Policy by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas
    J. Feith     and former Justice Department attorney George Miron,
    clearly establishes
    that the ABM Treaty lapsed under international law when the other party, the
    Soviet Union, became extinct.     4

    Even if the ABM Treaty were somehow still legally binding, the United States
    would have the right to withdraw from its restraints on six-month’s notice if its
    “supreme interests” were jeopardized. If this term in the Treaty’s Article XV had
    any meaning at all, it contemplated just the sorts of strategic circumstances the
    United States confronts today in a world in which Moscow no longer has a
    monopoly on threats to this country and its people.

    It is worth noting, moreover, that taking such a step is exceedingly unlikely to
    trigger a new arms race with Russia — the threat usually bandied about by the
    ABM Treaty’s devotees — given the Kremlin’s dire economic straits. These
    conditions make retaining Russia’s present level of strategic forces, let alone
    modernizing and greatly increasing their numbers, a virtual impossibility.

The Bottom Line

There are, in short, no longer any compelling arguments for further delaying the decision to
deploy missile defenses. It is past time for a commitment to such a deployment to become the
policy of the U.S. government. The leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives (which is
expected on Thursday to act favorably on a slightly different version of S.257 following an
unusual closed session featuring former Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld) 5 deserve
credit for their efforts to overcome the Clinton Administration’s opposition to such a necessary
policy change — and for their determination not only to proclaim it but promptly to begin its
implementation.

1 The Heritage Foundation’s study can be accessed via the World
Wide Web at the following
address: www.heritage.org/missile_defense.

2 According to an item in the Post yesterday, Lieutenant
General Lester Lyles, the director of the
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization asked Sen. Robert Smith (R-NH), chairman of the Senate
Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee, for permission to rescind a
statement using the inflated estimate of the costs of the AEGIS Option. Importantly, the
feasibility of U.S. hit-to-kill missile defense technology has just been demonstrated once again by
the Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile system in a test on Monday at the White Sands test range.

3 See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Despite Purported Addition of ‘Out-Year’ Dollars,
Clinton Still Balks at Deployment of Needed Missile Defenses ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=99-D_05″>No. 99-D 05, 8 January 1999).

4 The findings of the Feith-Miron study have also been confirmed by
a legal memorandum
prepared last year for the Heritage Foundation by the law firm of Hunton and Williams. See
Definitive Study Shows Russians Have No Veto Over Defending
U.S. (No. 99-P 11, 22 January
1999).

5 The unanimous conclusion of Secretary Rumsfeld’s bipartisan
commission on the ballistic
missile threat deserves credit with having set the stage for this week’s congressional action and,
hopefully, for galvanizing the country into action before anti-missile defenses are
needed. See
Wall Street Journal Lauds Rumsfeld Commission Warning On Missile Threat;
Reiterates Call
for Aegis Option in Response (No. 98-P
134, 16 July 1998).

The ‘Gathering Storm’: Will Clinton Persist in Ignoring Peril Arising from Emerging Threats to U.S. Control of Space?

(Washington, D.C.): One of the great tragedies of the 1998 election is the squandering it
represents of an all-too-rare opportunity: a chance to disabuse the electorate of its
misapprehension that the only public policy problems facing the Nation are education, social
security, race relations and other domestic issues. The reality is that the world is
becoming
ever more hostile to vital American interests and the United States is ever less equipped to
contend with the emerging challenges.

In his immortal memoir of World War II, Winston Churchill coined the term “the Gathering
Storm” to describe a period of widespread, blissful ignorance on the part of the public and a lack
of sustained attention by Western leaders — a period that ended in the most horrific conflict
humankind has ever known. The Republican Party appears to have contributed to its dismal
showing this week by failing to showcase areas of significant disagreement with the Clinton
Administration over security policy. At the very least, in so doing, it has left the public, and
therefore the Nation, ill-prepared for the coming maelstrom(s).

A Case in Point: Space Control

Shortly before the election, the Department of Defense submitted to the House National
Security
Committee a report concerning the military modernization program of the People’s Republic of
China, as required by the Fiscal Year 1998 Defense authorization bill. Among other alarms
sounded in this study entitled, Future Military Capabilities and Strategy of the People’s
Republic
of China,(1) was a description of the steps
being taken by the People’s Liberation Army to
exercise control of outer space — or at least to deny adversaries like the United States
assured use of that critical theater of military operations. Highlights of this section of
the
report include the following:

  • “China already may possess the capability to damage, under specific conditions,
    optical
    sensors on satellites that are very vulnerable to lasers    ….Given China’s current level of
    interest in laser technology, it is reasonable to assume that Beijing would develop a
    weapon that could destroy satellites in the future.”

  • “The ability to damage or destroy satellites will provide China with a strategic
    weapon
    against the U.S. military, which relies heavily on the use of spaced-based equipment for
    communicating with forces and detecting foreign military activities, from troop movements
    to missile launches    .”     (Emphasis added throughout.)

Wake Up Call for the Clinton Team?

Last January, forty-three retired flag and general officers, representing each of the uniformed
services, wrote President Clinton an open letter warning about the danger that would be posed to
U.S. interests and military capabilities should a hostile power acquire such a “strategic weapon.”
(See the attached.) The signatories, including former members of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) and dozens of officers who held major service and/or
Defense-wide commands, said in part:

    “We can think of few challenges likely to pose a greater danger to our future
    security posture than that of adversaries seeking to make hostile use of space — or
    to deny us the ability to dominate that theater of operations.

    “The stakes in this area were already clear six years ago. In Operation Desert
    Storm, Coalition forces enjoyed the uncontested use of space-based assets. As a
    result, they had a unique capability to assess and prevail on the battlefield. If the
    enemy had the benefit of similar capabilities (or the means to deny us some
    or all of these assets) that objective would have been achieved, if at all, with
    far greater loss of American lives.

    “What was true in 1991 will be even more so in the years ahead. Our
    experience tells us that the contribution made to U.S. national security in the
    future by space-based reconnaissance, communications, navigation and other
    systems will only continue to grow.”

In addition, the congressionally chartered, blue-ribbon National Defense
Panel (NDP)
declared in its December 1997 report entitled Transforming Defense: National Security in
the
21st Century that: “Unrestricted use of space has become a major strategic interest of the
United
States” and that we must have “the capability to deny enemies the use of space.” The NDP
concluded that: “Space power is an integral part of the revolution in military affairs and a
key asset in achieving military advantage in information operations….The United States
cannot afford to lose the edge it now holds in military-related space operations.”

The Bottom Line

The Defense Department’s acknowledgment of the emerging Chinese capability to achieve
“strategic” advantage via attacks on American space assets underscores the utter
disconnect
between the Clinton Administration’s rhetorical position on space control and its
actual
policy approach. In the newly released National Security Strategy for a New
Century, the
White House has reiterated its view that “Unimpeded access to space is essential for protecting
U.S. national security, promoting our prosperity and ensuring our well-being in countless ways.”
It goes on to assert that “We will deter threats to our interests in space and, if deterrence
fails, defeat hostile efforts against U.S. access to and use of space.”

Given this stated policy, it is not only disingenuous but irresponsible and outrageous
that the
Administration continues to oppose efforts to acquire the means to “defeat hostile
efforts
against U.S. access to and use of space.” The arguments made by the signatories of the
15
January letter for programs line item-vetoed by President Clinton in 1987 — the Clementine II
asteroid intercept experiment, the Army’s Kinetic-Kill Anti-Satellite, and the Military Space Plane
— remain as strong as ever. Despite the Supreme Court’s overturning of these vetoes on
constitutional grounds, the Administration continues to drag its feet on giving the United States
the space control capabilities it requires. If the 106th Congress appreciates the
necessity of acting
at long last to prepare for the “storm” now gathering, it could do worse than to start
with a
concerted effort to equip the U.S. military to exercise control of the strategic high ground of
space.

– 30 –

1. Copies of this study may be obtained via the Department of
Defense Public Affairs office.

How the 106th Congress Can Begin To Reestablish ‘Adult Supervision’ Over International Affairs: Kill the Kyoto Treaty

(Washington, D.C.): The next few weeks are likely to prove to be tough ones for U.S.
foreign
policy. No matter what happens in the election tomorrow, chickens hatched by the short-term,
expediency-driven strategies favored by the Clinton Administration are going to come home to
roost.(1)

A Bill of Particulars

    Russia

For example, there is the matter of Russia. Last week, the Kremlin formally
acknowledged
what has been obvious for months(2) — the Yeltsin
era is over. In a remarkable testimonial to the
Russian president’s irrelevance, his spokesman announced last week that Yeltsin will no longer be
bothered with day-to-day operations of the Kremlin, devoting himself full-time instead to
“revising the constitution.” Translation: Power is now concentrated in the hands of an extremely
dangerous enemy of the United States, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, and
his allies.

During his decades of service in the KGB, Primakov developed close personal ties to such
unsavory characters as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Hafez Assad and Libya’s Muammar
Quadafi. In his capacities as head of the intelligence service and as Foreign Minister, the career
spy promulgated what became known as the “Primakov Doctrine” — a foreign policy that
simultaneously secured aid from the West while thwarting its agenda at every turn. This policy
helped endear him to the emerging Russian “Red-Brown” coalition, an
axis of convenience between the Communists and the nationalists increasingly calling the shots in
Moscow.

These forces in the parliament, together with their soul-mates on the Primakov team of
warmed-over Soviet apparatchiks and oligarchs in the Kremlin, are effectively rewriting the
Yeltsin-dictated constitution without the president. U.S. policy interests are
unlikely to be served by
the changes now taking place in the Russian power structure — changes that are accruing
to the advantage of xenophobes and ideologues and that are unraveling the Yeltsin
“reforms” upon which the Clinton team had bet the farm.

    Iraq

Then there is the matter of the meltdown of U.S. policy towards Iraq. At this writing,
the
Clinton Administration is engaged in intensive hand-wringing about Saddam’s latest act of
defiance. With his complete suspension of “cooperation” (such as it has been) with the United
Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), the fat is squarely in the fire: Apart
from a
teetering sanctions regime, there is now no check whatsoever upon the restoration of Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction programs. Clearly, the UN is neither willing nor able —
with the
likes of Primakov wielding Security Council vetoes — to mount an effective response.
Consequently, President Clinton’s insistence (at least through the election) that the UN must take
the lead in responding to Saddam’s latest provocations can only further embolden the Iraqi
dictator.

    Serbia

Things are no better in Serbia, where the latest Clinton deal brokered with
another
ruthless thug, Slobodan Milosevic, is also not working out. The Butcher of Belgrade
has not
only gotten away with his most recent act of genocide, the “ethnic cleansing” of the Albanian
population of Kosovo. Milosevic is also demonstrating his complete contempt for the West in
general and the U.S. President and his special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, in particular. The
ongoing marauding by units of Serbian “special police” is keeping hundreds of thousands of
terrified Kosovar refugees displaced from shelter and at risk of mass annihilation as the Balkan
winter descends.(3)

The Kyoto Caper

Incredible as it may seem, instead of coming to grips with the immediate and long-term
implications of these serious foreign policy problems, Mr. Clinton’s major international
initiative of the week is supposed to be his signature on yet another defective treaty:
the
Kyoto Protocol to the Global Climate Change Treaty.

This action is intended to signal the Clinton Administration’s solidarity with environmental
zealots, starting with Vice President Al Gore, who have seized upon inconclusive scientific
evidence of a slight warming in the earth’s temperature to advance a Luddite campaign against
industrial society. Their principal villain: carbon dioxide (CO2) and the internal
combustion
engines and industries that generate it. (Interestingly, a new study by the Arlington-based
Greening Earth Society argues persuasively that “carbon dioxide increases will confer a net
benefit on society”!(4))

    Challenge to the Congress

As it happens, the Administration appears to have given the decision to sign
the Kyoto
Protocol, which requires significant cuts in U.S. emissions of CO2 and other
“greenhouse
gases,” no more thought than the shortsighted Clinton decisions to invest in Yeltsin, to rely
on Kofi Annan’s negotiations with Saddam and to authorize Dick Holbrooke to do another
deal with Milosevic. After all, the effect of signing the Protocol could be
to provoke a fight
with the Congress that the President apparently had hoped to leave to his
successor.

Under international law, the United States is bound to do nothing that would defeat the object
and
purpose of a treaty it has signed, even if it remains unratified, unless and until the government
makes known its intention not to adhere to the accord. Consequently, Congress, which has
overwhelmingly opposed the Kyoto Protocol, will be confronted with a different situation than
that of the past year. Since last December, the Administration has repeatedly tried — through
executive orders and programmatic action — to begin implementing the treaty without submitting
it for the Senate’s advice and consent. Should the President sign the Protocol, though,
the
U.S. will be obliged to begin taking steps that would enable it to meet the emissions
reductions schedule.

Congressional opponents of the Kyoto Protocol have rightly told the President that
if the
agreement is good enough to sign, it is good enough to submit for ratification. Of
course,
only the President can decide whether and when to submit a treaty for the Senate’s consideration.
If Mr. Clinton puts his signature on this accord, however, those who understand the
deleterious effects it will have on the Nation’s economy and security will have no choice but
to pursue legislation rejecting this treaty.(5) Test
votes suggest that the necessary two-thirds
majority may exist in both chambers to override Mr. Clinton’s certain veto.

The Bottom Line

The 106th Congress that will be elected tomorrow will have its work cut out for
it. Given the
wholesale failure of the Clinton Administration in the conduct of international affairs, and the
dangerous situations that have emerged at least in part as a result, the legislative branch must step
up to its constitutional responsibilities. A good place to start would be by rejecting the Kyoto
Protocol.

– 30 –

1. For more on the Clinton approach dubbed “Wimpy diplomacy”
after its leitmotif (“I’ll gladly
pay you Tuesday for a signing ceremony today”), see the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled
Clinton Legacy Watch # 32: ‘Wimpy Diplomacy’ — ‘I’ll Gladly Pay You Tuesday’
for a
Signing Ceremony Today (No. 98-D 172, 13
October 1998).

2. See Restoration Watch # 10: Consolidation of
Power by Primakov Marks the End of the
Line for Reform in Russia (No. 98-D 161, 10
September 1998).

3. Assertions today by State Department spokesman James Rubin to
the effect that “the trend is in
the right direction” in Kosovo and that “the humanitarian crisis has been averted” are, to put it
mildly, premature.

4. Copies of In Defense of Carbon Dioxide: A Comprehensive
Review of Carbon Dioxide’s
Effects on Human Health, Welfare and the Environment may be obtained by contacting the
Greening Earth Society at 703-907-6168 or via the Society’s web site
(www.greeningearthsociety.org).

5. See Casey Institute Symposium on Global
Warming Suggests Case for — and Costs of —
Kyoto Treaty Are Unsustainable (No. 97-R
188, 5 December 1997), Clinton Tries to Steal a
March on Kyoto Treaty: Will the Senate Allow Implementation Without
Ratification? (No.
98-C 42, 9 March 1998) and Is the Administration Lying to the Senate About
Kyoto’s Adverse
Impact on National Security — Or Just Kidding Itself? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-C_70″>No. 98-C 70, 23 April 1998).

Flash: Senator Leahy Opposes Landmine Arms Control Treaty

(Washington, D.C.): Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) — who takes pride in
being the Senate’s
most zealous champion of international efforts to limit the humanitarian damage caused by
anti-personnel landmines (APLs) — is in a bizarre position at the moment: At this
writing, he is
singlehandedly preventing the United States from ratifying an amendment to the
Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) that might save innocent civilian lives by
banning the use of certain types of landmines and establishing rules of war governing the
employment of other APLs.

Apparently, the reason for Sen. Leahy’s opposition to the present APL arms control
agreement is that it is too consistent with the battlefield requirements and operational
practices of the U.S. armed forces. His hope seems to be that, if he can scuttle the
Amended
Mines Protocol to the CCW in its present form, a new treaty will emerge in its stead
more like the
Anti-Personnel Landmine ban signed in Ottawa in December 1997 — a treaty that is neither
verifiable, effective, nor in the interests of the United States. href=”#N_1_”>(1)

The Amended Mines Protocol

The CCW’s Amended Mines Protocol attempts to reduce the humanitarian carnage inflicted
on
civilian populations by anti-personnel landmines in two ways: 1) by prohibiting the use of APLs
the U.S. military does not use (i.e., those designed to be undetectable or to explode when
mine-detection equipment is the area) and 2) by imposing restrictions on APL- use consistent with
the
standard operating procedures of the American armed forces.

The latter include limits on employment of long duration mines — which are solely responsible
for
the humanitarian problems posed by the use of these weapons. Areas in which they are deployed
must be marked and monitored so as to create a static and closely-controlled environment,
minimizing if not precluding civilian causalities. In addition, the Protocol prohibits the export of
landmines to countries which have not committed to observe the obligations of the Protocol.
These requirements will, if observed by other states, help bring their militaries up to the standards
of conduct observed by the United States.

To Sen. Leahy’s evident displeasure, however, the Amended Mines Protocol does
not preclude
the responsible use of short duration (so called “smart”) landmines. These mines, which
are
designed to self-deactivate or self-destruct within hours or at most a few days of their
employment, pose minimal risk to noncombatants. Their use is, moreover, judged by
present
and retired military commanders to be essential to the safety and combat effectiveness of
U.S. ground forces.(2)

Compare and Contrast with the Ottawa Landmine Ban

In a report issued on 10 October 1998 after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted
14-4
to approve the Amended Mine Protocol, the majority wrote inter alia:

  • “The [Ottawa] Convention served unique political purposes, rather than humanitarian needs.
    It was negotiated without any serious consideration to security concerns.
    Indeed, few
    delegations had military representatives at all. It also was negotiated in a forum with large
    numbers of non-governmental organizations protesting aspects of the U.S. negotiating position
    and otherwise criticizing the United States as being part of the land mine problem. href=”#N_3_”>(3)
    Additionally, a number of small countries such as the Seychelles, funded and emboldened by
    the various activist organization, repeatedly sought to embarrass the United States. It was, in
    short, an environment where serious consideration of national security issues could not
    occur.”

  • “The result is that the Ottawa Convention is a poorly-conceived, poorly-drafted document
    which fails to take into account any of the security concerns of the United States or its closest
    allies.”

  • “If other countries adhere to the Amended Mines Protocol, its technical limitations will make
    a
    substantial contribution to international efforts to reduce death and injury resulting from
    long-duration land-mine use. Indeed, if the Protocol had been in force and fully observed for the
    past thirty years, there would be little or no humanitarian APL problem today for the world’s
    remaining unexploded mines. The Committee recognizes that the Protocols’s specification,
    including the original concept of de-activation, were created by the United States and regards
    this as cause for particular commendation.”

  • “By restricting the use of long-duration APL while allowing full military use of
    short-duration
    APL, the Protocol strikes an appropriate balance between humanitarian concerns and military
    requirements for short-duration APL (as well as long-duration APL in static and closely-
    controlled environments such as Korea).”

The Bottom Line

Senator Leahy’s decision at the end of the current congressional session to object to the
Senate’s
consideration of the Amended Mine Protocol may reflect more than a desire to see the Amended
Mines Protocol reopened for negotiation — a process likely to result in it being rendered
incompatible with U.S. military requirements and unacceptable to the American government. The
Senator from Vermont’s obstructionism may also reflect an appreciation that his machinations on
behalf of radical landmine arms control initiatives no longer enjoy majority support from his
colleagues.

Indeed, Sen. Leahy was rebuffed by the Senate earlier this year when he attempted to
introduce
language into the FY 1999 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill which would have made it the
policy of the U.S. government to enter “as soon as possible” into the unverifiable, inequitable and
ineffective Ottawa treaty. In action on the Senate floor, this language was modified by an
amendment offered by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) which makes any such a policy change
contingent upon the receipt of written certification from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
Unified Combatant Commanders that “the signing of the [Ottawa] Convention is
consistent with the combat requirements and safety of the armed forces of the United
States.”(4) The Inhofe amendment passed on a
voice vote.

It will be ironic indeed if additional casualties are inflicted upon innocent civilians
because
Senator Patrick Leahy refused to permit the Amended Mines Protocol to the Convention
on Conventional Weapons to be adopted by the United States Senate in the closing
moments of the 105th Congress. It will be
scandalous if in addition, thanks to such
obstructionism, American servicemen are needlessly jeopardized or sacrificed to Sen.
Leahy’s monomaniacal arms control agenda.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
The Ottawa Landmine Ban: Hardly ‘Historic’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_187″>No.
97-D 187, 4 December 1997).

2. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Celestial Navigation: Pentagon’s Extraordinary
’64-Star’ Letter Shows Why the U.S. Cannot Agree to Ban All Landmines ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_97″>No. 97-D 97, 14
July 1997) and Fourteen of America’s Most Respected Military Figures Urge
Senate to Protect
U.S. Troops From Dangerous Landmine Ban (No.
98-D 111, 16 June 1998). See also the
Press Releases entitled Many of Nation’s Most Respected
Military Leaders Join Forces to
Oppose Bans on Use of Self-Destructing Landmines ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-P_101″>No. 97-P 101, 21 July 1997) and
Generals Al Gray, David Maddox Join Call for Senate to Protect U.S. Troops by
Opposing
Leahy Landmine Ban (No. 98-P 114, 19 June
1998).

3. Preeminent among the NGOs campaigning for the Ottawa
Convention was the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) — an organization that benefits from millions of U.S. tax
dollars yet aggressively pursues arms control agendas inimical to American security interests.
Among the many reprehensible actions taken by the ICRC in this connection was the seemingly
deliberate misrepresentation of data concerning civilian casualties inflicted by landmines.

On 26 June 1998, the CIA reported in a study entitled “Evaluating Statistics of Landmine
Casualties.” Among its highlights were the following:

    “Some often-quoted mine statistics include 26,000 landmine victims per year, $750
    million for treatment and rehabilitation, and $30 billion to clear an estimated 110
    million mines laid in some 60 countries. The primary source of the landmine injury
    data is the International Committee of the Red Cross, and much of the statistics
    quoted in the literature are extrapolations of the ICRC’s data. Most of the quoted
    figures and rates are gross misinterpretations of the original data derived without
    recognition of the limitations surrounding the collection.

    “No single organization is collecting reliable information on landmine victims that
    can be used for either national or international extrapolation. The ‘26,000
    landmine victims per year’ figure is based on old data from various sources that
    were inappropriately extrapolated using an unscientific casualty rate estimate.

    “The variations among the landmine statistics are partly the results of ill-defined
    case definitions, variation in data collection methodology and tools, duplicate
    recording, and lack of firm, standard population data for rate calculations.
    Without a standardized collection tool, it is possible to double- or triple-count
    landmine injuries.

    “The Surgical War Injury Database maintained by the International Committee of
    the Red Cross for the years 1991-96 listed some 26,000 war casualties in
    Afghanistan, of which about one-third are related to landmines. Newspapers,
    however, have quoted the 26,000 figure as the annual landmine casualty estimate
    — rather than total casualties over a five-year period — thus exaggerating the
    problem in Afghanistan by more than a factor of 10    .

    In addition, various reports have cited this figure as representative of the
    international problem     — rather than just Afghanistan, where the data were
    collected.” (Emphasis added throughout.)

4. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Give the Military a Voice — And Heed It — on
Landmine Policy (No. 98-D 156, 1 September
1998).

Omnibus Bill’s Defense Plus-Ups Offer Hope That Needed Priority Will be Given to Critical National Security Functions

(Washington, D.C.): The adage that one does not want to know what goes into the process
by
which sausages are made and laws enacted is nowhere more applicable than to the end-of-year
“goat-ropes” that produce Continuing Resolutions and omnibus appropriations measures. Even
by this standard, however, the almost entirely non-transparent, unaccountable method employed
to finish funding the federal government for Fiscal Year 1999 — a process made necessary by
President Clinton’s last-minute extortionist threat to shut the government down — is singularly
unappetizing.

Good for Defense

Because of the opaqueness of the manner in which the FY99 Omnibus Appropriations bill was
created, few — if any — know all that is in it. What is evident and particularly relevant
to the
foreign and defense matters with which the Center for Security Policy concerns itself, however, is
the more than $9 billion added by this legislation to address critical national security
shortfalls. According to press reports, these include:

  • Some $2 billion to improve intelligence capabilities of
    both the human and mechanical types.
    Every passing day demonstrates the necessity for better means of penetrating, monitoring and
    neutralizing potentially hostile actors. If properly invested — particularly in a wholesale
    revitalization of old fashioned “Humint” sources and methods    , href=”#N_1_”>(1) the introduction of new
    generations of small, affordable and readily reconstituted space-based intelligence
    assets,    (2) and improved
    counter-intelligence and information warfare capabilities href=”#N_3_”>(3)     — this
    expenditure could pay handsome dividends.
  • $1.9 billion to reimburse the U.S. military for the staggering costs of their
    peacekeeping
    operations in Bosnia.     Unless and until such funds are replenished, the armed forces are
    obliged to take them out of other accounts, notably from those associated with long-overdue
    modernization and other procurement requirements. Even when reimbursement is
    forthcoming, however, it is usually belatedly and sometimes insufficiently. A toll is thus
    exacted — one that should be prevented in the future by establishing henceforth that a
    separate
    account should be requested and approved by Congress for peacekeeping and similar
    “contingency” operations.     The Pentagon must no longer be seen as a slush fund from
    which
    these sorts of non-military/non-national security activities can be blithely underwritten.

  • At least $1.1 billion for “readiness”-related spending needs. Within the
    past few weeks,
    the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other Pentagon witnesses have finally acknowledged what has
    been clear for some time: The military is being “hollowed out” by the cumulative effects of
    serious shortfalls in maintenance as well as modernization programs. href=”#N_4_”>(4) As noted above, these
    funding shortfalls are compounded by the extraordinarily high operational tempos being
    demanded of the military (see above) and the plummeting morale and mass migration from the
    armed forces of skilled pilots and others being asked to do ever more with ever less.

  • $1.1 billion is a drop in the vast bucket that has been created in this area since
    1985 — the last year of real growth in defense spending. Still, it is a welcome
    signal of change in approach which must be massively reinforced in congressional
    action on the FY2000 budget.

  • $1.1. billion for remediation of the Year 2000 (Y2K) “bug” — a potential
    first-order
    catastrophe for the Defense Department, as well as for the computer-dominated society it
    exists to protect. Since the Center for Security Policy first raised a warning about this issue
    last February,(5) the Pentagon’s senior management has, to
    its credit, made mitigating Y2K’s
    effects on defense activities a top priority. The additional funds provided should be used,
    among other things, to conduct realistic end-to-end system tests of aircraft
    carriers, fighter
    wings, and large ground combat units.     We will not know until such tests are performed
    just
    how serious the impact of Y2K will be — and the Defense Department had better find out as
    soon as possible so as to develop triage techniques that will minimize the accompanying
    degradation in military preparedness. And
  • Roughly $700 million for counter-drug operations and
    approximately $385 million to
    enhance the security of U.S. embassies.     These are important national priorities and the
    Pentagon should not be obliged to pay for them out of its hide.

Accelerating Missile Defenses

Arguably most importantly, the Omnibus Appropriations bill is said to
provide nearly $1 billion
more in funding for missile defenses. Three areas where such funds are clearly needed
are:

  • At least $250 million plus-up for the Navy’s AEGIS fleet air
    defense-based wide-area
    anti-missile system.     Known variously as the Upper Tier or Theater Wide program, this
    “AEGIS Option” can — if allowed to be technology-paced rather than
    funding-limited     could
    put effective missile defenses capable of protecting large portions of the globe to sea in short
    order. If not dumbed down for policy reasons, such systems could begin to provide a
    defense
    for the American people,     as well as U.S. forces and allies overseas.
  • Whatever it takes to create the sort of test program geared toward early
    deployment     of the
    Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system. At present, the best
    case is that the
    Clinton Administration will continue to string this high-priority theater missile defense system
    along on a roughly one-test-per-year, go-nowhere basis. At worst, the Administration appears
    inclined to cancel it outright. Both approaches would be terrible mistakes. Instead, THAAD
    should be tested as aggressively as was the United States’ first series of ballistic missiles (which
    experienced some 17 failures before a success!) until all of the nagging — but relatively minor —
    reliability and production bugs are worked out, allowing the system can be put into the field
    where it is urgently needed as soon as possible.
  • Roughly $150 million to permit the purchase of a third Arrow battery for
    Israel.     By so
    doing, the United States can help America’s most important and reliable friend in the Middle
    East protect its people and potentially critical strategic assets like the seaport at Haifa and
    airfields in the Negev against the rapidly growing threat of ballistic missile attack.

The Bottom Line

Apparently, it will fall to the Congress to establish these sorts of
spending priorities for the
missile defense funds being made available by the Omnibus Appropriations bill in
subsequent
legislation and/or directive correspondence. In light of the urgent need to deploy anti-missile
defenses, this should be undertaken at the earliest possible time.

While the Congress is at it, work should be completed on a
legislative initiative left undone at
the end of this session: Adoption of the Cochran-Inouye bill (S.1873) that would make
it the
policy of the U.S. government to deploy missile defenses as soon as technologically possible. href=”#N_6_”>(6)
Senator Cochran has signaled his intention to move on such legislation early in the next session.
It is to be earnestly hoped that the filibuster that prevented — by a one-vote margin — the adoption
of such direction will no longer prove an impediment in the 106th Congress and that
the House of
Representatives, whose leadership deserves considerable credit for securing the additional funding
for defense in general and missile defense in particular, will next year move a counterpart measure
as an urgent item of business.

– 30 –

1. See Center Decision Brief entitled
‘Say It Ain’t So’: Ross’ Trilateral Intelligence Gambit
Threatens U.S. Security, Interests (No. 97-D
112, 14 August 1997).

2. See Center’s Press Release entitled
Top Defense Practitioners Establish That President,
Pentagon Must Ensure That U.S. Can Exercise ‘Space Dominance’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-P_08″>No. 98-P 08, 16 January
1998).

3. See, for example, the following Casey Institute
Perspectives: Asymmetric Threat: Defector
Confirms Moscow’s Lourdes Complex in Cuba Compromised Sensitive Gulf War Battle Plane
(No. 98-C 64, 10 April 1998);
Castro’s Cuba: A Classic ‘Asymmetric’ Threat ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-C_59″>No. 98-C 59, 3
April 1998); and No Apologies To Castro: Politicized Pentagon Study Misses
Abiding Nature
Of Threat From Cuba, Promotes Wrong Response (No.
98-C 54, 30 March 1998).

4. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Wanted: An End To The ‘Hollow’ Military — And
A ‘Feasible,’ ‘Practical’ Missile Defense (No. 98-D
167, 29 September 1998); Clinton Legacy
Watch #27: A Counterculture Assault on the U.S. Military and the National Sovereignty It
Safeguards (No. 98-D 121, 29 June 1998); and
Secretary Cohen Implicitly Confirms That
Gender Integration Conflicts With Good Military Order, Discipline and Readiness
(No. 98-D
103, 9 June 1998).

5. See the Center’s first Decision Brief on the Y2K
issue entitled Bridge To Nowhere:
Inattention To The ‘Millennium Bug’ Threatens The Nation’s Security, Economy In The 21st
Century (No. 98-C 24, 6 February
1998). See At Last, Clinton-Gore Publicly Address Year 2000 Bug
— But Continue To Lowball Problem, Duck Responsibility For It
(No. 98-C 132, 15 July 1998);
and New Theory For Clinton-Gore Silence On Y2K
Emerges As N.P.R., Gingrich Offer
Contrasting Views of the Danger (No.
98-D 106, 12 June 1998).

6. See Shame, Shame Redux: As Clinton Presidency
Melts Down, 41 Democrats Continue
Filibuster of Bill to Defend America (No. 98-D
160, 9 September 1998); Shame, Shame: By
One Vote, Minority of Senators Perpetuate America’s Vulnerability To Missile
Attack (No. 98-D 84, 14 May 1999); and
Senate Should Vote To Defend America ‘As Soon As
Technologically Possible’ (No. 98-D 79, 6 May
1998).

Senate Given Another Opportunity to Reject Clinton’s Policy of Denuclearization: the Gottemoeller Nomination

(Washington, D.C.): One month ago, the U.S. Senate signaled strong disapproval of the
Clinton
Administration’s “denuclearization” policies when forty-four Senators voted against legislation
billed by its sponsor as a “test vote” on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — ten more than
would be required to prevent ratification of that accord.(1)

The message to the White House should have been unmistakable: The Senate is
disposed to
reject wooly-headed disarmament schemes that threaten seriously to undermine, and in
due course to eviscerate, the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Reenter Rose Gottemoeller

It was astounding, therefore, that on September 18th President Clinton
announced that he was
nominating Rose Gottemoeller to a newly created post in the Energy
Department — Assistant
Secretary for Nonproliferation and National Security. After all, Ms. Gottemoeller has
long
been associated with some of the most wooly-headed of denuclearization proposals.

For example, as the Center for Security Policy noted in fifteen months ago, href=”#N_2_”>(2) Ms. Gottemoeller
was one of the authors of a troubling June 1997 report issued by the Committee on International
Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Science (NAS). Entitled The
Future of
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy, this study advocated a series of highly
controversial actions
with respect to the American nuclear deterrent — steps that, taken together, could have the
result effectively of unilaterally disarming the United States. Consider the following:

  • ‘De-alerting’: Ms. Gottemoeller and Company urged that “the operational
    and technical
    readiness of nuclear weapons for use” be degraded as a means of “decreas[ing] the chance of
    erroneous launch of nuclear weapons or a launch in response to a spurious or incorrectly
    interpreted indication of impending attack.”

    • This proposal identifies a real problem — the danger of Russian “loose nukes” — but
    advances a “solution” that will have an assured impact only on American defensive
    capabilities that are not the problem. With its stocks of “non-deployed” (and
    unaccounted-for) intercontinental-range missiles, mobile launchers and nuclear
    warheads, Russia could retain substantial capability to launch strategic nuclear strikes
    even if (against all odds) other elements of its arsenal were genuinely “de-alerted.”
    Then, there is the problem of deterring non-Russian threats if U.S. nuclear forces are
    effectively unuseable. The result of Ms. Gottemoeller’s proposal would be
    less, not
    greater, security for the United States.

  • ‘No-First-Use’: Ms. Gottemoeller and her colleagues believe that “the
    United States should
    adopt no-first-use of nuclear weapons as its declaratory policy at an early date.” Interestingly,
    the NAS study goes on to observe, almost as an afterthought, the real difficulty with such a
    recommendation: “Changing to a no-first-use policy will, of course, require consultation with
    allies to reassure them that the United States will meet, by non-nuclear means, its obligations
    to come to their aid in the event of a non-nuclear attack against them.”

    • As a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee today made abundantly clear, href=”#N_3_”>(3)
    the U.S. ability to come to the aid of its allies with conventional power is being steadily
    diminished by force structure cuts, the requirements of myriad peacekeeping and
    humanitarian missions and lack of funds needed to perform modernization and
    maintenance and to retain high quality personnel. As a result, the United States
    should, if anything, be working to maximize the credibility of its overall deterrent
    posture     — among other things, by assuring, not jeopardizing, the prospect of nuclear
    retaliation in the face of attacks on its allies.

  • No Missile Defense: Ms. Gottemoeller is an adherent to the theology of
    American
    vulnerability to missile attack from all quarters. As her NAS study put it:

    • “The [1972] Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty must remain the ‘cornerstone of strategic
    stability’
    as it was described by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin at the conclusion of the Helsinki Summit.
    The ABM Treaty is by no means a relic of the Cold War thinking as some assert. On the contrary,
    it remains a logical adjunct of the continuing reality of offense dominance in conflicts involving
    nuclear weapons.”

    A majority of Senators(4) now recognize what has
    eluded Ms. Gottemoeller and her
    fellow arms control ideologues: The post-Cold War world is one in which the
    United States clearly cannot afford to remain vulnerable to ballistic missile
    attack,     anymore than its allies and forward-deployed troops can.

  • No Nukes: Ms. Gottemoeller’s commitment to American vulnerability is
    all the more
    astounding in light of her study’s embrace of the proposition that there are circumstances
    under which the “prohibition” of nuclear weapons would, “on balance…enhance the security of
    the United States and the rest of the world.” It is not self-evident that the “continuing
    reality of offense dominance” would apply should nuclear weapons ever be
    “prohibited.”

    • Interestingly, the contradiction inherent in Ms. Gottemoeller’s muddled thinking in this
    area
    is even more evident in one of the few sensible passages from her National Academy
    of Sciences
    study:

    “It is not clear today how or when [comprehensive nuclear disarmament] could be
    achieved….Even the most effective verification system that could be envisioned would
    not produce complete confidence that a small number of nuclear weapons had not been
    hidden or fabricated in secret. More fundamentally, the knowledge of how to build
    nuclear weapons cannot be erased from the human mind, and the capacity of states to
    build such weapons cannot be eliminated. Even if every nuclear warhead were
    destroyed, the current nuclear weapons states, and a growing number of other
    technologically advanced states would be able to build new weapons within a few
    months or a few years of a national decision to do so.”

‘By Any Other Name’: Unfit

What is urgently needed in the Department of Energy — and indeed in the Clinton
Administration
as a whole — is not another addled denuclearizer in a senior policy-making position but
someone
who grasps the realities and requirements of U.S. deterrence in the current era. These
realities and requirements were much in evidence in the course of a High-Level Roundtable on the
subject of “The Future of U.S. Nuclear Deterrence” convened by the Center for Security Policy
on 15 July 1997.(5)

Among the sober-minded participants were: Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a
member of the Senate
Energy and Natural Resources Committee, before whom Ms. Gottemoeller will be appearing for a
confirmation hearing on Thursday; Hon. James R. Schlesinger, former Director
of the Atomic
Energy Commission, Director of Central Intelligence, and Secretary of the Departments of
Defense and Energy, the last position during Jimmy Carter’s presidency; Hon. Caspar W.
Weinberger, Secretary of Defense under the Reagan Administration; Dr.
Robert B. Barker,
former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy; and Dr. Troy
Wade, former
Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs.

The High-Level Roundtable explicitly addressed the Gottemoeller et.al. study —
including the
NAS’s call for “delegitimizing” and “abolition” all nuclear weapons. A starkly contrasting
consensus emerged from the Roundtable’s discussions — a consensus that Senators would be
well
advised to bear in mind when considering the Gottemoeller nomination:

  • The need for U.S. nuclear deterrence has not disappeared with the
    collapse of the Soviet
    Union.     Russia continues to build and deploy new nuclear weapons while constructing
    deeply
    buried command posts compatible with a nuclear war-fighting strategy. China has embarked
    on a concerted nuclear build-up involving at least two ballistic missile systems capable of
    striking the United States. And several dangerous rogue nations — including North Korea,
    Iran and Iraq — are aggressively pursuing both weapons of mass destruction and ballistic and
    cruise missile technology suitable for delivering them.

  • To be effective, a deterrent must be credible. Unfortunately, a number of
    factors are
    combining to call into question the credibility of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. These include
    incoherent declaratory policies concerning the use of American nuclear weapons and
    ill-advised arms control initiatives, notably, the Comprehensive Test Ban.

  • The U.S. capability to produce and maintain nuclear weapons is in a dangerous
    state of
    decline.     American weapons are aging rapidly, and bans on underground testing will
    make it
    difficult — if not impossible — to assure the future safety, reliability and robustness of the U.S.
    deterrent. In particular, real questions exist concerning the executability and efficacy of the
    Administration’s expensive Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program (SSMP). Even
    more problematic will be the Department of Energy laboratories’ ability to certify the safety
    and reliability of existing weapons until such time as the SSMP’s diagnostic facilities come
    on-line.

The Bottom Line

Since Rose Gottemoeller (and her NAS co-authors) cannot explain how a total and effective
nuclear ban could be achieved, it is dangerous and irresponsible to lend credibility to such a goal.
Indeed, under present circumstances, the mere pursuit of that goal calls into question the
judgment and realism of its proponents. And it would reflect very badly upon the
judgment
and realism of Senators were they to agree to place someone who advocates such a dangerous
and irresponsible denuclearization agenda in charge of “national security” at the Department of
Energy.

In light of the stakes, both the Senate Energy and Armed Services Committees should be
involved
in a careful evaluation of the Gottemoeller nomination — not the sort of bum’s rush the Clinton
Administration obviously had in mind in sending her name forward within days of the end of this
session of Congress.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
R.I.P. C.T.B.: Biden-Specter Amendment’s Phyrric
Victory Shows Decisive Senate Opposition to Clinton’s Flawed Test Ban ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_158″>No. 98-D 158, 2
September 1998).

2. This is not Ms. Gottemoeller’s first run at a confirmable position.
In fact, she was widely
expected to be appointed last year to the long-vacant position of Assistant Secretary of Defense
for International Security Policy — the Pentagon’s top official with responsibility for nuclear
weapons policy. In the wake of a recitation by the Center for Security Policy of Ms.
Gottemoeller’s views on nuclear issues in July 1997 (See Clinton’s Reckless
Nuclear Agenda
Revealed? Study Co-Authored By Candidate For Top Pentagon Job Is Alarming
(No. 97-D
96, 12 July 1997)), however, she was informed she would not be getting the job after all. At
the
time, the explanation was that the ISP position was being eliminated as part a reorganization of
the Office of the Secretary of Defense, thereby freeing up one of the statutorily limited Assistant
Secretary billets for use elsewhere. In the event, though, the expected bifurcation of the duties of
the Assistant Secretary for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence did not occur.
Following Ms. Gottemoeller’s placement in a non-confirmable position in the Department of
Energy (as Director of the Office of Non-proliferation and National Security), the Pentagon
leadership has not seen fit to use its one, now-excess Assistant Secretariat.

3. See Wanted: A ‘Feasible, Practical’ Missile Defense
— and an End to the Hollow Military
(No. 98-D 167, 29 September 1998).

4. See Shame, Shame Redux: As Clinton Presidency
Melts Down, 41 Democrats Continue
Filibuster of Bill to Defend America (No. 98-D
160, 9 September 1998).

5. For a summary of this important Roundtable Discussion, visit the
Center’s site on the World
Wide Web (www.security-policy.org) or contact the Center.

Shame, Shame Redux: As Clinton Presidency Melts Down, 41 Democrats Continue Filibuster of Bill to Defend America

(Washington, D.C.): For the second time in four months, forty-one Senate Democrats voted
to
prevent debate on a bill that would make it the policy of the U.S. government to deploy
effective anti-missile defenses of the territory of the United States as soon as technologically
possible.(1) This legislation — known as “the
American Missile Protection Act of 1998″ (S. 1873)
— is co-sponsored by a majority of the Senate, led by Senators Thad
Cochran (R-MS) and
Daniel Inouye (D-HI). When S.1873’s proponents again fell one vote short of
the sixty votes
needed to halt this filibuster, a harsh reality became clear: Each and every one of those
who
voted to obstruct Senate action on this measure — on both 13 May href=”#N_2_”>(2) and during this
morning’s proceedings — must be personally held accountable for leaving America
vulnerable to missile attack.

Dishonor Roll

The following are the legislators who bear this appalling responsibility (Senators whose names
are
accompanied by asterisks are standing for reelection in 1998):

Max S. Baucus (D-MT)

Joseph R. Biden (D-DE)

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

Barbara Boxer (D-CA)*

John Breaux (D-LA)*

Richard Bryan (D-NV)

Dale Bumpers (D-AR)

Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)

Max Cleland (D-GA)

Kent Conrad (D-ND)

Thomas A. Daschle (D-SD)

Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT)*

Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND)*

Richard J. Durbin (D-IL)

Russell D. Feingold (D-WI)*

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Wendall H. Ford (D-KY)

John Glenn (D-OH)

Bob Graham (D-FL)*

Tom Harkin (D-IA)

Tim Johnson (D-SD)

Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA)

Robert Kerrey (D-NE)

John F. Kerry (D-MA)

Herbert Kohl (D-WI)

Mary L. Landrieu (D-LA)

Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)

Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT)*

Carl Levin (D-MI)

Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD)*

Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL)*

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY)

Patty Murray (D-WA)*

Jack Reed (D-RI)

Harry Reid (D-NV)*

Charles S. Robb (D-VA)

John D. Rockefeller, IV (D-WV)

Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD)

Robert Torricelli (D-NJ)

Paul Wellstone (D-MN)

Ron Wyden (D-OR)*

Arguments a Majority of Senators Reject

Arrayed against this cloture-blocking minority were every Republican Senator and four
prominent
Democrats — Sens. Inouye, Fritz Hollings (SC), Joseph
Lieberman (CT)) and Daniel Akaka
(HI). By their votes, the latter demonstrated that a clear and bipartisan majority of the Senate
rejects the scare-mongering and distortions offered by the filibusterers. These include:

  • Claims made, among others, by Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and
    Joseph Biden (D-DE) to
    the effect that — if the Senate adopted S.1873 — the Russians would respond by building up
    “thousands” of additional nuclear weapons, ending the possibility for future reductions in such
    arms. Most experts agree, however, that Russia would have been hard-pressed to
    maintain
    its current nuclear arsenal — let alone to expand it significantly — even before its
    current
    economic and political meltdown.     With or without additional treaties, the Kremlin will
    almost surely have to cut back the size of its strategic arms as their existing delivery systems
    reach block obsolescence and as economic, industrial and strategic considerations preclude
    their replacement on anything like a one-for-one basis. href=”#N_3_”>(3)

    • More to the point, Russia is no longer the only nuclear-armed ballistic missile-wielding
    potential adversary with whom the United States may have to contend. As a practical
    matter, even if the Russian nuclear threat were to be substantially increased,
    the
    marginal additional danger thus posed to this country would pale besides the
    menace posed by a Kim Jong-Il or Saddam Hussein brandishing just a few long-range
    missile-borne weapons of mass destruction against which the U.S. has no
    defense.

  • The laughable contention that the opponents of S.1873 are really champions of missile
    defense    . Senators Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad
    of North Dakota have been absolutely
    steadfast in their opposition to the deployment of effective, national anti-missile systems.
    While they may try to conceal this reality from their constituents — by supporting development
    of an ABM Treaty-compliant missile defense that might at some point be based in Grand Forks
    — the reality is that any treaty-compliant system will not defend all of the United States
    and will not provide reliable defense against more than a handful of incoming missiles
    for such territory as it does protect. This sort of masquerade suggests, however, that at least
    some legislators are now starting to appreciate that there may be political
    consequences for
    opposing the deployment of missile defenses.

    • A variation on this theme was the purported desire not to deploy an inferior anti-missile
    system when a better one might be just around the corner. This subterfuge has been
    used repeatedly by opponents of missile defenses and other military hardware. It is a
    transparent scam, as anyone who understands that the only practical way to build
    defense equipment is to design, deploy and evolve it. As Senator Jim Inhofe
    (R-OK)
    noted in the course of today’s “debate,” the way to begin doing so in the missile
    defense area would be to modify the Navy’s existing AEGIS fleet air defense
    system     — an approach that offers vastly more flexible, comprehensive and effective
    anti-missile protection for both U.S. forces and allies overseas and for the American
    people — at far less cost than the so-called “3+3 deployment readiness program”
    favored by the Clintonites.(4)

  • Sen. Levin’s bizarre assertion that S.1873 was actually a “pro-proliferation bill.” If
    anything
    would be likely to dissuade rogue nations from proliferating missiles it would be the
    prospect that such missiles would be shot down.     In light of recent developments from
    Iran
    to North Korea to China to Iraq, it is a grave disservice to the debate (were one to be
    permitted to occur) to suggest that arms control is a more efficacious means of slowing, to say
    nothing of stopping, this dangerous trend.(5)

  • The canard that we should not deploy anti-missile defenses because doing so would take
    funds
    away from defenses against other delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction — from
    suitcase bombs to tramp steamers. The unpleasant truth is that the United States is not
    doing nearly enough to deal with any of these threats. Nor will it likely do so unless and
    until it abandons the posture of “assured vulnerability” that is the insidious legacy of the
    1972 ABM Treaty.

    • Just as prudent homeowners understand you need fire insurance even if you might
    experience a flood, common sense argues for ensuring that the United States has in
    place defenses against the evident weapons of choice for most of the United
    States’
    potential adversaries — ballistic missiles — as well as investing whatever is required to
    mitigate the risks of attacks from other quarters.

  • Not surprisingly, given the untenableness of these arguments — and their demonstrated lack
    of
    appeal to the American people(6) — it should come as no
    surprise that Senate opponents of
    deploying missile defenses routinely cite the authority of someone else to bolster their case. In
    late 1995, their poster-child was then-CIA Director John Deutch who, in the middle of a floor
    debate, unveiled a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that claimed the United
    States would face no threat of missile attack for at least fifteen years. href=”#N_7_”>(7)

    • In today’s debate, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh
    Shelton
    (USA), was the man whose counsel Senators were encouraged to accept uncritically.
    Unfortunately for the country, Gen. Shelton’s advice — the equivalent of saying “Wait
    until you see the whites of their eyes before you buy the musket“     —
    bespeaks a lack
    of common sense, not to say an absence of sound military judgment.

The Bottom Line

The shameful situation in which the Senate of the United States — long reputed to be the
World’s
Greatest Deliberative Body — is effectively denied the opportunity to debate and vote on a
measure as important as the American Missile Protection Act of 1998 is most immediately the
handiwork of Sen. Levin. In his capacity as the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee and the most cunning of anti-defense liberals, he has served as point man and
floor-manager for the filibusterers.

The filibuster mounted against S.1873 bears, however, the unmistakable imprint of the
Clinton-Gore Administration. The Administration understands all too well, what Alan Keyes
described in
a recent interview: “There are certain topics in America where people know the instant you have
the discussion, common sense is going to win the day. So don’t present the discussion. Keep
people from focusing on this issue because once we get into it, they will be persuaded. I think
that’s true of the effort with respect to missile defense.”(8)

The fact that the Clinton Administration is able to maintain the extraordinary party discipline
necessary to leave the Nation defenseless against ballistic missile threats, in the face of so much
evidence that this posture is reckless and a potential invitation to disaster, is all the more stunning
in light of the hemorrhage of political support the President has been experiencing among Senate
Democrats — even before the arrival on Capitol Hill this afternoon of Judge Starr’s portentous
report.

As one influential congressional staffer observed in the wake of today’s failed cloture motion
on
S.1873, Senate Democrats have twice been given a chance to provide the votes needed
to
begin defending America. It will now be up to the American people to provide those votes
— and we must all pray they will do so in the election this November.

– 30 –

1. For more on the Cochran-Inouye legislation, see the Center’s
Decision Brief entitled Senate
Should Vote to Defend America ‘As Soon As Technologically Possible’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_79″>No. 98-D 79, 6 May
1998).

2. See Shame, Shame: By One Vote, Minority of
Senators Perpetuate America’s Vulnerability
to Missile Attack (No. 98-D 84, 14 May 1998).

3. See What Can Possibly Come of a Moscow
Summit Under These Circumstances? More
Reckless U.S. Disarmament (No. 98-D 150, 24
August 1998).

4. See Irate Senate Supporters of the ‘AEGIS Option’
for Missile Defense Demand Release of
Favorable Pentagon Study (No. 98-D 119, 25 June
1998), Words to Live By: Speaker Gingrich
Asks Clinton to Use Speech to the Nation to Begin Protecting It From Missile
Attack (No.
98-D 15, 23 January 1998) and Validation of the Aegis Option: Successful
Test Is First Step
From Promising Concept to Global Anti-Missile Capability ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_17″>No. 97-D 17, 29 January 1997).

5. See Critical Mass # 2: Senator Lott, Rumsfeld
Commission Add Fresh Impetus to Case for
Beginning Deployment of Missile Defenses (No. 98-D
133, 15 July 1998).

6. See House Blocks Clinton Plans to Implement New
ABM Accords as Evidence Grows of
Enormous Public Support for Missile Defense (No.
98-D 143, 7 August 1998).

7. Congressional complaints about the politicization of this study
evident in its contorted
assumptions and pre-determined conclusion and the contorted assumptions required to reach it
prompted the chartering of a blue-ribbon panel chaired by former Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld. The Rumsfeld Commission laid waste to this flawed analysis and concluded that the
United States may already face a “zero-warning” missile threat. (For more on this
NIE, see the
Center’s Transition Brief entitled It Walks Like A Duck:
Questions Persist that Clinton CIA’s
Missile Threat Was Politically Motivated (No.
96-T 122, 4 December 1996).

8. This interview is one of dozens conducted in connection with a
documentary about America’s
vulnerability to ballistic missile attack currently being prepared by the Center for Security Policy.
For more information about this important project, contact the Center.

R.I.P. C.T.B.: Biden-Specter Amendment’s Phyrric Victory Shows Decisive Senate Opposition to Clinton’s Flawed Test Ban

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday, the U.S. Senate handed the first crushing defeat to a major
presidential arms control initiative since its de facto rejection in 1979 of the “fatally
flawed”
SALT II Treaty. Ironically, Senators did so in adopting an amendment offered by Sens.
Joseph
Biden (D-DE) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) — but by a 49-44 margin,
with opponents casting 10
votes more than are needed to prevent ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban
(CTB).

The amendment in question fences nearly $29 million in the FY99 Foreign Operations
appropriations bill for “expenses related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Preparatory Commission.” Its real purpose — as even its sponsors acknowledged in their fashion
— was more far-reaching: Sen. Specter called it “a test vote…as to the views of the Senate with
respect to the CTB.” Worse, Sen. Biden admitted that his opponents’ best argument was that the
amendment would effectively begin implementation of the CTBT prior to its
ratification. For
these reasons, the fact that the “test vote” mustered less than a majority of Senators and
far
less than a two-thirds majority effectively dooms this defective accord href=”#N_1_”>(1) and should
preclude its further U.S. implementation absent the Senate’s advice and consent.

Enter Senator Lott

This point was made authoritatively by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott
(R-MS) who, in a
brief but powerful statement at the end of debate on the Biden-Specter measure, declared:
“Anything less than 67 votes in support of this amendment will send a strong signal that
the Senate is prepared to reject this treaty.”

Sen. Lott — whose leadership of late on this and a number of other security policy matters has
been most commendable(2) — also made the following
substantive arguments against this initiative:

  • “I do want to urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. First, there is no
    treaty to
    monitor, and there will not be one in the foreseeable future. Until all 44 specified
    nations ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, it will not enter into force.     href=”#N_3_”>(3) So to be
    providing funds before we have anything to monitor seems very questionable to me.”

  • “We have not acted on this treaty. And certainly something of this magnitude should be
    given
    very serious, careful and extensive thought by the committee of jurisdiction and by the full
    Senate. We should not provide the funding that prejudges whatever the Senate may or
    may not do before it takes up the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.”

  • “I have grave reservations, I admit, about whether the CTBT is in America’s
    national
    interest. I am not convinced it is effectively verifiable. I am convinced it will limit
    our
    ability to maintain the safety and reliability of our vital nuclear deterrent.”

  • “Whatever the arguments for or against the treaty, putting millions in this
    organization
    does not make sense at this time. So I urge the defeat of this amendment.”

Senator Helms Argues for Defenses, Not More Phony Arms
Control

Sen Lott’s remarks were amplified by a statement submitted by Senator Jesse Helms
(R-NC), the
Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee which has jurisdiction over the CTB Treaty. Sen.
Helms warned in particular against squandering the Senate’s valuable time debating the merits of
a test ban at this juncture, especially in light of the other high priorities in front of it. He properly
identifies as paramount among these the need to rectify America’s vulnerability to missile
attack and to eschew new treaty arrangements proposed by the Clinton Administration
that would perpetuate and compound that vulnerability. href=”#N_4_”>(4) Highlights of Sen. Helms’
remarks included the following:

    “The last thing the United States needs is another arms control
    treaty    …It is time
    that the Foreign Relations Committee review the antiquated ABM Treaty, which
    precludes the United States from deploying a missile defense.     Sad to say, the
    Specter amendment plays into the hands of those who seek to detract attention from
    this effort….In presuming to fund the Preparatory Commission, and in attempting to
    dictate to the Foreign Relations Committee that CTBT consideration take precedence
    over the planned ABM Treaty hearings, the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter)
    obviously is willing to place a higher priority on the test ban than on protecting the
    American people from ballistic missile attack.

    “Finally…India’s (and Pakistan’s) [nuclear and missile tests] should make clear to
    all just how vital the U.S. nuclear deterrent is to the national security of the
    United States. What is needed, at this time, is not a scramble for an arms
    control treaty that prohibits the United States from guaranteeing the safety
    and reliability of its nuclear stockpile. What is needed is a careful,
    bottoms-up review of the state of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure, which I
    fear is in sad repair after six years of a moratorium.     I expect that, after
    undertaking such a review, the United States will find that the CTBT is the
    very last thing the United States should consider doing.    “

The Bottom Line

Senator Lott’s vote and that of 43 other Senators against the Biden-Specter
amendment
marks an important new high-water mark in the Republican-controlled Senate’s
performance of its oversight and advisory functions on security policy. It comes at a
moment when such functions have rarely been more needed by the Nation — as the fecklessness,
dishonesty and malfeasance of the executive branch becomes an embarrassment at home and an
ever-more-serious liability abroad.

With its vote on the Biden-Specter amendment, the Senate has surely saved the taxpayer the
$29
million the Clinton Administration proposed to squander on the CTB’s new multilateral
implementing organization. Far more importantly, it has taken a step that may preserve the safety,
reliability and effectiveness of America’s nuclear deterrent — something with which, as Sen. Lott
has observed, the Comprehensive Test Ban is incompatible.

It is to be hoped that the Senate will shortly dispatch with equal authority other treaties
unworthy
of its advice and consent — the two new ABM agreements and the Kyoto Protocol to the Global
Climate Change Treaty. By so doing, Senators can make clear that there is no legal basis
for
the insidious and unconstitutional practice of implementing such accords absent their
ratification and, it is to be hoped, demonstrate their determination to bring that practice to
an immediate halt with respect to the programs and resource allocations of the U.S.
government.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
India’s Nuclear Tests Show Folly of Clinton’s
C.T.B. (No. 98-D 86, 19 May 1998),
Death Throes of the C.T.B.? As George Will
Demonstrates, Claims for Test Ban Become Ever more Contorted, Untenable ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_102″>No. 98-D 102, 8
June 1998) and Warning to the Nuclear Labs: Don’t Count on ‘Stockpile
Stewardship’ to
Maintain Either Overhead Or Confidence (No.
97-D 183, 1 December 1997).

2. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Senator Lott ‘Grows’ in Office (No.
98-D 108, 15
June 1998).

3. This group includes the likes of India, Pakistan, North Korea and
Iran — a group which can
hardly be expected to take such a step, much less conform to the treaty’s requirements if in fact
they did.

4. Just such a question will be considered later this week when the
Senate votes to end cloture on
S. 1873, the American Missile Protection Act. For more information on this critical piece of
legislation, see the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled ‘My God,
The Threat is Right Now’ (No.
98-D 155, 1 September 1998) and Shame, Shame: By One Vote, Minority of
Senators
Perpetuate America’s Vulnerability to Missile Attack ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_84″>No. 98-D 84, 14 May 1998).

Will Senate Allow Implementation of CTB Without Ratification?

(Washington, D.C.): During consideration of the FY 1999, Foreign Operations Appropriations bill today, Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) intend to offer an amendment which would begin implementation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTB) prior to its approval by two-thirds of the Senate. Quite apart from the fact that this initiative deserves to be defeated on its merits, Senators should disavow any such affront to their institution’s constitutional prerogatives and responsibilities.

The Biden-Specter amendment would fence nearly $29 million in funds appropriated by the Foreign Ops. bill for the purpose of defraying "expenses related to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Preparatory Commission" — yet another international bureaucracy created by a multilateral treaty for the purpose of promulgating monitoring arrangements and other implementing procedures.

This amendment would have the effect of furthering an increasingly common Clinton Administration gambit: to implement its agenda through executive orders and by expending funds and otherwise adjusting federal programs to make them conform to unratified treaty requirements.

Congress should make unmistakably clear its determination to prevent such erosions of its authority. To its great credit, the House of Representatives did just that last July when it voted to reject the Administration’s bid to begin covert implementation of the Kyoto Protocol — an accord the President has refused to date to submit to the Senate. This welcome action occurred when an amendment to the House of Representatives’ Housing and Urban Development/Veterans’ Affairs appropriations bill offered by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) was defeated by a sizeable bipartisan majority. A similar effort should be made by the Congress with respect to the Administration’s bid to impose new constraints on missile defense programs, without forwarding its new Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaties for the Senate’s advice and consent.(1)

These implementation-without-ratification gambits are being employed for one simple reason: Neither the Comprehensive Test Ban, the Kyoto Protocol nor the new ABM treaties is likely to pass muster in the Senate. In the case of the CTB, the reason is fairly self-evident. As the Center for Security Policy noted on 19 May 1998(2):

 

    "…The inescapable truth, borne out by the recent Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests is that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will not prevent nations determined to have nuclear weapons from achieving their goal. It cannot even be relied upon to prevent them from conducting covert nuclear tests.

     

 

    "The only thing this treaty will surely do is deny the United States the one tried-and-true technique available to us to assure the safety, reliability and effectiveness of the American nuclear deterrent. By permanently precluding the sort of periodic, safe, underground testing used to find and fix defects in the Nation’s thermonuclear arsenal — and to minimize the susceptibility of that arsenal to accidents or functional obsolescence — the CTB would be worse than useless. It would actually be detrimental to U.S. security."

     

The Bottom Line

It is hard to imagine that the Senate would wish to be a party to the hoax that the Clinton non-proliferation policy in general, and its Comprehensive Test Ban in particular, constitute effective measures for dealing with the burgeoning nuclear threat. It is harder still to believe the Senate would want to waste $29 million on implementation arrangements for a treaty in which the United States may well not participate. But most especially, it strains credulity that Senators would want to authorize such an expenditure before they have given advice and consent to this accord.

For these reasons, among others, the Senate and the Nation will be well served if a majority of Senators vote to reject the Biden-Specter Amendment. Failing that, a vote by at least 34 Senators will be an early indication that the treaty is unlikely to pass muster when it finally is acted upon. It would, moreover, encourage conferees on the Foreign Operations bill to avoid the wasteful expenditure of $29 million for the CTB Prep Com. In this regard, the words of Majority Leader Trent Lott on 29 May 1998 bear repeating:

 

    "American policy should shift from a misguided focus on an unverifiable and ineffective [CTB] treaty that precludes maintaining the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent to a sustained effort to build international support for de-escalating the nuclear arms race in Asia. This should include multilateral sanctions and a complete reappraisal of U.S. export control, counter-proliferation and arms control policies."

     

– 30 –

1. See Center Decision Briefs entitled Chairman Helms Sets the Right Priorities on Pending Treaties: ABM Amendments, Kyoto Accord to Precede the Test Ban (No. 98-P 13, 22 January 1998), Senate Should Vote to Defend America ‘As Soon As Technologically Possible’ (No. 98-D 79, 6 May 1998) and No Implementation of Treaties Without Ratification, Period(No. 98-R 131, 14 July 1998).

2. See Center Decision Brief entitled India’s Nuclear Tests Show Folly of Clinton’s C.T.B. (No. 98-D 86, 19 May 1998).