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U.S.-Russia: Senate Should Attach Conditions to Treaty Approval, Analyst Says By Mike Nartker “As a legally binding agreement it [the treaty] is a sham, a mere ‘memorandum of conversation’ masquerading as a treaty,” said Christopher Paine, a nuclear program senior analyst with the council. “And that raises the question of whether the Senate can or should ratify the treaty in its present form, without the addition of significant binding conditions to cure the most serious defects.” Paine said he “was not persuaded that the document which lies before you rises to the level of what the legal profession would call a “legally cognizable” treaty obligation — that is, an agreement with binding, self-evident reciprocal obligations, such that an impartial authority, or the parties themselves, can reasonably ascertain these mutual obligations and adjudicate compliance.” “The present agreement brings to mind an old nostrum that was once very popular with some of our Republican friends: ‘A bad treaty is worse than having no treaty at all,’” Paine said in prepared testimony. “It may actually be quite apt in this case.” The Moscow Treaty imposes no limits on current or future U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, Paine said. It also does nothing to improve storage and security of Russian nuclear weapons and nuclear materials, he said. The treaty mandates that both the United States and Russia reduce their operationally deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads each, and the first article of the treaty sets a Dec. 31, 2012, deadline for both states to have done so. That date, however, is also the same date the treaty ends, Paine said. “Even the treaty’s sole purported limit, on ‘operationally deployed strategic warheads’ turns out to be hollow — a public relations stunt that expires the moment it enters into force,” Paine said. “Truly, this is the kind of arms control ‘treaty’ that even [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein could love.” Paine outlined several conditions that the Senate should impose before giving its advice and consent on the treaty. First, it should demand that the reductions be in place for a longer time than the treaty requires, by directing the president to accelerate the treaty reductions. The Senate should require the United States to reach the level of 1,700 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads by the end of 2007, Paine said. Second, the Senate should require the reducing the number of active reserve strategic warheads to below 1,000 within five years, Paine said. Any warheads above this level should either be destroyed or stored in facilities to be monitored by Russia. Third, Paine called on the Senate to require the United States to reduce its total warhead arsenal — including active and inactive warheads, both strategic and tactical — to below 3,500 within five years. Fourth, the Senate should require that dismantled nuclear weapon materials be placed under international monitoring and that the president issue an annual report describing the status of all nuclear weapon materials that are not deployed on weapons, Paine said. Finally, Paine urged the Senate to require its advice and consent if the president chose in the future to withdraw from the treaty (see GSN, June 12). Only with these conditions would NRDC support the treaty’s ratification, Paine said. “Without them, we believe the treaty is, for all practical purposes, meaningless. In that case, in order to avoid further damage to the integrity of the U.S. treaty process, we could not support ratification of the Moscow Treaty.” For further information, see: U.S.-Russia Nuclear Reduction Treaty Text (U.S. State Department) U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Moscow Treaty
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