The United States plans to destroy some of the leftover nuclear warheads that will result from deep reductions in delivery vehicles announced by U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday (see GSN, Nov. 14).  “We are talking about reducing and destroying the number of warheads to get down to specific levels, from significant higher levels today to significantly lower levels tomorrow,” Bush said at a question and answer session with high school students in Crawford, Texas, following the end of his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin (U.S. State Department transcript, Nov. 15).

U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice modified Bush’s message, however, in a press briefing yesterday.  “A number of them will be destroyed,” Rice said, but “we’ve got a little work to do on some of the issues about disposition of warheads.”

Treaty or Handshake?

Russia is interested in creating a treaty to implement the reciprocal nuclear reductions announced by the two presidents, Rice said, but the United States has so far demurred.

“We are more than willing to talk with the Russians about various levels of codification of such an arrangement.  We have not said ‘treaty,’” Rice said.  “We are prepared to make this verifiable in some form—perhaps even using some of the verification procedures out of former treaties,” she added (U.S. State Department transcript, Nov. 15).

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