Thursday, December 16, 2010

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on New START Treaty
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Madam President, I was on the floor last night and addressed my significant concerns with the omnibus and the dual-track process we are on right now. That statement has been made. I come this morning to address the START treaty, the New START treaty. I voted for it to come out of the Foreign Relations Committee to the floor. I want to go through my reasons for having done so. I wanted to talk about what the New START treaty is, not what it is not.

First, I want to pay tribute to Dick Lugar. He has been a bastion of strength on nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation issues for years. I thank Senator Kerry for the time he gave us to go through hour after hour after hour of hearings and hour after hour after hour of secure briefing in the bowels of the new Visitor Center, where we read the summary of the notes of negotiations on the treaty, where we read the threat initiative and the estimate of the terrorism threat initiative and all the classified documentation about which we cannot speak on this floor. These things are critical to our consideration as we debate this treaty.

I wish to talk about two Senators, one a Democrat and one a Republican. With all due respect to the chairman, it is not he. It is a Democrat by the same of Sam Nunn from Georgia, who chaired the Armed Services Committee, who, along with Senator Lugar, put together Nunn-Lugar and the cooperative threat initiative. I sought out Senator Nunn and Senator Lugar in my deliberations during the committee debate and my consideration of what I would do in terms of that committee vote and later a vote on the floor. I wish to make a couple notes about the success of the Nunn-Lugar initiative. Nunn-Lugar is a commitment to see to it that nuclear materials are secure. It is a commitment to see to it that loose nukes around the world don't fall in the hands of those who would kill my grandchildren, your grandchildren or all of us in the United States. I don't think it has been mentioned, but as a result of the Nunn-Lugar initiative, since 1991, since its formation, they have reduced the number of loose nukes in the world by 7,599.

Belarus, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan no longer have nuclear arsenals. Through that comprehensive threat initiative, they have destroyed the weapons, and they have turned weapons of mass destruction into plowshares that are powering powerplants. The nuclear threat initiative does not mean we get out of the business of having a nuclear arsenal. It means we get in the business of security for the nukes that are there and establish goals toward nonproliferation which to all of us is critically important.

My history as far as this goes back to the 1950s. It goes back to Ms. Hamberger's first grade class, when I remember getting under the school desk once a week to practice what we would do if a nuclear attack hit the United States. My history with this goes back to October of 1962 when, as a freshman at the University of Georgia, I stood in fear with all my colleagues and watched what was happening in Cuba, watched the blockade, watched the strength of John Kennedy, who faced the Russians down and ultimately prevented what would have been a nuclear strike against the United States and ultimately our strike against them in Cuba as well as in Russia.

Then I remember the night in October of 1986, when I had the honor to introduce Ronald Reagan in Atlanta the night before he flew to Iceland to begin negotiations on nuclear treaties at that time. In one speech made today, it has been referenced that Reagan rejected what Gorbachev offered at Reykjavik. That is correct. Reagan rejected not doing research and development and building a nuclear arsenal. But what he did insist on was verification of what both countries were doing so we could never have a situation of not having transparency, not having intelligence, and not knowing what the right and left hand were doing. It was out of that rejection and at his insistence that the beginning of the negotiations for the START treaty began. They were ultimately signed in 1991, under the administration of George H.W. Bush.

Until December 5 of last year, that START treaty had been in place. For those years, the United States had transparency. It had verification. It had cooperative communication back and forth between the two countries that controlled 90 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world. My history with this goes all the way back to climbing under a school desk, to introducing President Ronald Reagan, to 1 year serving on the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate.

My decision to support the treaty coming out of the committee were based on four principles. The first is inspections. It has been said the inspections have been reduced. What has not been said is the number of sites to inspect have also been greatly reduced. The number of inspections correspond with what is necessary to inspect the Russian arsenal and know whether they are complying with the treaty. Inspections are very important. We learned on 9/11 what happens when we don't have human intelligence on the ground where we need it. What happens is we get surprised. What happened to us on 9/11 is almost 3,000 citizens died at the hands of a heinous attack by radical terrorists because we didn't have as good intelligence as we needed to have. That is why I don't want to turn my back on the opportunity to have human intelligence on the ground in the Russian Federation verifying that they are complying with a mutual pact we have made with them and, correspondingly, the transparency they have to inspect our nuclear arsenal in the United States.

The second point I wish to make that caused me to come to the conclusion it was the right thing to do to support the treaty in committee was the verification process. I have heard some people say this verification process is not as good as the old verification process. I am not going to get into that argument, but this verification process is a heck of a lot better than no verification process at all, which is exactly what we have today.

Since December 5 of last year, we haven't had the human intelligence. We couldn't verify. Verification is critically important because with verification comes communication. With communication comes understanding, and from that understanding and communication comes intelligence. While our inspections are to make sure the quantity of the nuclear arsenal and the warheads and the delivery systems are within compliance, it also gives us interaction to learn what others may know about nuclear weapons around the world that are not covered by this treaty.

That brings me to one other point. It has been said by some that bilateral treaties are no longer useful in terms of nuclear power; we need multilateral treaties. I have to ask this question: If we reject the one bilateral treaty over nuclear power, how will we ever get to a multilateral treaty? We will not do it. I think it is important to have a bilateral treaty between the two countries that controls 90 percent of the weapons so we see to it, as other countries gain nuclear power, we can bring them into a regimen that requires transparency and accountability too.

You will never be able to do that if you reject it between yourself and the Russian Federation.

Now, the third thing I want to talk about for a second--I mentioned Senator Nunn before. He served as Armed Services chairman, and so did John Warner, who is a distinguish retired Republican Member of this Senate. They released a joint statement not too long ago and raised a point I had not thought of. If you will beg my doing this, I will read on the floor of the Senate one of the points they made that was supportive of this treaty. I quote from Senator Nunn and Senator Warner:

..... Washington and Moscow should expand use of existing Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers--which we--

Meaning Warner and Nunn--

and other members of Congress--

Meaning Dick Lugar--

established with President Ronald Reagan to further reduce nuclear threats.

For example, to improve both nations' early warning capabilities, the centers could exchange data on global missile launchers. Other nations could be integrated into this system. It could provide the basis for a joint initiative involving Russia, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on a missile defense architecture for Europe that would help address other key issues, like tactical nuclear weapons vulnerable to theft by terrorists. Indeed, when the centers were proposed, they were envisioned to help prevent catastrophic nuclear terrorism. These initiatives can go forward with a New START Treaty.

I thought that observation was very telling and looking prospectively into the future about, again, having the two nations--the Russian Federation and the United States--bring in other people, such as NATO, to be a part of a treaty and a missile defense system that is agreeable with all parties. The absence of negotiation, the absence of transparency, the absence of cooperation ensures that cannot happen.

My fourth point is this: The thing I fear the most as a citizen, the thing I fear the most as a Senator, and the thing I fear the most, quite frankly, as the father of three and grandfather of nine is a nuclear fissionable material getting into the hands of a radical terrorist. That is the fear that all of us dread.

It is critical, when we look at what the Nunn-Lugar initiative has done in the destruction of loose nukes--7,599--what the original START treaty, the foundation it gave us, to begin to reduce nuclear weapon proliferation without reducing our ability to defend ourselves and to launch strikes that are necessary to protect the people of the United States of America.

But I worry about one of the radical terrorists getting hold of one of these materials, and I fear in the absence of transparency, verification, and inspection, we run the risk, unwittingly, of playing into their hands and making that type of a material more and more available.

What is known as the Lugar Doctrine is very important to understand at this stage of the debate. In doing my research on the treaty, and the work that Dick Lugar and others have done on nonproliferation, I came upon what is known as the Lugar Doctrine. I would like to read it because it answers the question I just raised about a loose nuke getting into the hands of a rogue terrorist:

Every nation that has weapons and materials of mass destruction must account for what it has, spend its own money or obtain international technical and financial resources to safely secure what it has, and pledge that no other nation, cell, or cause will be allowed access or use.

That is as clearly and as succinctly as you can state the future fear that all of us have for this country and what might happen with nuclear weapons.

So in closing my remarks, I went through interviews with Sam Nunn, listened to the chairman and the ranking member, listened to the testimony, Ms. Gottemoeller, and all the others, read the documentation, which everybody else can read in the secure briefing room, and I came to the conclusion that verification is better than no verification at all; that inspections and transparency are what prohibit things like what happened on 9/11 from ever happening again, and that you can never expect multilateral negotiations with other countries that have some degree of nuclear power if the two greatest powers refuse to sit down and negotiate and extend the understanding they have had since 1991.

Only through setting the example, without giving in or capitulating a thing, do we hopefully give hope to the future that my grandchildren and yours can live in a world that will not be free of nukes but will be secure; that loose nukes are not in the hands of bad people; and we have transparency and accountability while still having the capability to defend ourselves and execute the security of the people of the United States of America.

It is for those reasons I supported the New START treaty in the committee, and I submit it for the consideration of the Members of the Senate.