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U.S.-Russia: Senate Committee Recommends Approval of Moscow Treaty By David Ruppe Signed by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin last May in Moscow, the treaty would remove several thousand nuclear warheads from front-line military service by 2012 (see GSN, May 24, 2002). The committee passed the resolution with conditions requiring a single report studying how U.S. nuclear reductions and nonproliferation assistance can help Russia implement the treaty and an annual report on U.S. and Russian implementation of the treaty. The next step is for the full Senate to agree to the treaty, needed for Bush to ratify the treaty. The treaty has been criticized for not requiring destruction of any weapons and for lacking specificity (see GSN, Aug. 5, 2002). “I want to reiterate my view that the goal of meaningful nuclear arms reduction can only be achieved by dismantling and destroying these weapons,” said Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who criticized the treaty, but voted for the resolution nevertheless. “I hope that it will be the first step in a more comprehensive binding plan to reduce the number of nuclear weapons that are stored and deployed by our two countries,” Feingold said in a statement. The treaty requires all but a maximum of 2,200 strategic warheads to be removed from each country’s respective bombers, submarines and missiles by the end of 2012. The treaty then expires, technically allowing the two countries to return those warheads to service the following day, officials and experts have said. The resolution recommended that the president continue strategic offensive nuclear reductions “to the lowest possible levels consistent with national security requirements and alliance obligations of the United States.” Bush administration officials have said they would pursue no further strategic arms reduction treaties with Russia. The resolution also urged the president work with Russia to improve Moscow’s accounting of its nonstrategic nuclear weapons and to ensure their security. Estimates of the size of the Russian nonstrategic stockpile range up to 12,000 warheads, which experts say are easier to steal than strategic weapons and easier to provide illicitly to other states or groups.
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