Global Security Newswire

In a speech today on the Obama administration's nuclear weapons policy, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden is expected to call on the Senate to finally ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Wall Street Journal reported (see GSN, Feb. 17).

President Barack Obama's large fiscal 2011 budget proposal for nuclear arsenal monitoring would eliminate the need for additional nuclear tests, Biden is expected to say. He is also expected to urge left-leaning arms control supporters to not object to a proposed $624 million budget increase for nuclear weapons as the majority of that money would be spent on oversight of the U.S. stockpile.

The United States has not carried out a nuclear test in nearly 20 years. Biden is set to argue that the improving U.S. ability to scientifically assure a safe and operational stockpile illustrates that tests blasts previously used for that purpose are no longer needed, White House officials said.

The United Nations adopted the treaty in 1996. The pact, however, must be ratified by the United States and eight other nations before entering into force. It needs 67 votes to be ratified in the Senate, which previously rejected the treaty in 1998.

Further details of the speech, to be given at the National Defense University in Washington, were not available at press time.

The Obama administration hopes that movement forward on CTBT ratification could show other nations at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May that the United States is meeting its disarmament pledges and to drive home the point that nations such as Iran should adhere to their promises not to develop nuclear arms (see GSN , Feb. 3).

The White House must have support from some Republicans to succeed in its ratification drive. However, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a leading voice on nuclear issues in the Senate, has tied CTBT ratification to approval of a U.S.-Russian replacement agreement for the now-expired 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (see GSN, Feb. 12).

"The focus should be on getting the START treaty signed and ratified, building some arms-control confidence, then perhaps reviewing (the test ban treaty) at a later date," said one of Lugar's advisers, Andy Fisher. "The safety of our weapons is still in question without testing."

Biden is also anticipated to advocate for increased funding to improve the nation's nuclear-weapon facilities.

"We don't have the luxury of doing just one thing at a time," said nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund. "These problems are so serious, you've got to move them at several levels all at once" (Jonathan Weisman, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 18).