Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. negotiator for the successor agreement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty yesterday strongly refuted any suggestion that Russia had cheated on its obligations under the expired pact (see GSN, July 29).

"Russia was in compliance with START's central limits during the treaty's lifespan," Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Moreover, the majority of compliance issues raised under START were satisfactorily resolved. Most reflected differing interpretations on how to implement START'S complex inspection and verification regime."

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April signed the "New START" agreement. The deal would require the two nations to cut their fielded strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 warheads and limit their respective deployed nuclear delivery vehicles to 700, with another 100 platforms allowed in reserve.

The treaty must be approved by lawmakers in Moscow and Washington before entering into force. The White House in May formally submitted the agreement to the Senate, where 67 votes are needed for the pact to achieve ratification in the United States. At least eight of those votes would have to come from Republicans in this Congress.

A vote on the treaty by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the panel with jurisdiction over the pact and the accompanying resolution of ratification, could take place next week.

Gottemoeller's comments came after the State Department this week released an unclassified report on nations' compliance with nonproliferation and arms control agreements over the last five years, including the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Foggy Bottom asserted that Russia had addressed a number of concerns cited in a similar 2005 report regarding its compliance with the first START pact, including issues on mobile missiles and examinations of re-entry platforms.

For instance, Russia's re-entry vehicle "covers" in some cases hampered U.S. inspectors from ascertaining whether the top section of a missile contained more than the number of warheads attributed to a weapon of that type under the agreement, according to the unclassified report.

As of 2005, Moscow had also failed to declare certain road-mobile ICBM launchers when they first left their production facility, as required by the treaty. That issue, too, was resolved.

Yet Russia failed to address other compliance deficiencies ahead of the 1991 agreement's end date last year, according to the report. The unclassified document does not elaborate on specific problematic areas.

"Notwithstanding the overall success of START implementation, a number of long-standing compliance issues that were raised in the START treaty's Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission remained unresolved when the treaty expired on Dec. 5, 2009," the report states. It also notes that the former Cold War adversaries "worked through diplomatic channels" to achieve "effective resolution of compliance issues and questions."

The Russian Foreign Ministry yesterday criticized "tendentious evaluations in the report concerning Russia's fulfillment of the provision of the START treaty."

"It may be recalled that the Russian side promptly took all necessary measures to address these concerns and at the time of termination of the START treaty the U.S. did not express any claims concerning implementation of the treaty," the ministry said in a prepared statement.

Gottemoeller asserted that the "START treaty was well-implemented and its implementation was a success, in our view." While "compliance issues did arise" over the course of the agreement's 15-year lifespan because there were "difference in interpretation at times," she told lawmakers.

When the treaty went out of force last December "not all those questions had a chance to be resolved," according to Gottemoeller. "It's my understanding that most of them were minor technical issues."

Her comments did not sit well with the Armed Services Committee's ranking Republican, John McCain (Ariz.), who demanded to know whether Russia was in compliance with its international obligations and to "learn why our negotiators agreed to a significantly weaker verification regime than that of the original START treaty it is to replace."

Under the proposed arms control agreement, each side could conduct up to 18 "short notice" on-site inspections each year, according to Edward Warner, who served as the Defense Department's representative to the treaty negotiations. The previous treaty allowed 28 such visits each year.

Inspections are to be divided into two groups. "Type 1" inspections would be conducted at operating bases for ICBMs, SLBMs and nuclear-capable heavy bombers and would examine both deployed and nondeployed systems, he told the panel.

The new agreement requires fewer inspections annually at operating bases, while achieving many of the results, according to Warner. "That means less disruption to our operating forces on an annual basis," he said.

"Type 2" inspections would focus on nondeployed strategic systems, as well as confirming that "formerly declared facilities" had been eliminated or converted to other uses, said Warner, who served as the U.S. chairman of the inspections working group during the negotiation of the treaty. Sites covered under these inspections would include storage facilities and test ranges, he said.

Each side would be allowed to conduct 10 "Type 1" inspections and eight "Type 2" inspections annually, Warner told lawmakers, adding that the number of installations subject to scrutiny has dropped to 35 from 70 under the first treaty. Inspections through that agreement covered facilities in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, as the Soviet nuclear complex was spread across those now-independent nations.

"That really means this argument that we have a much weaker inspection regime I think is very questionable," Warner told the committee.

Allegations of cheating would be raised in the Bilateral Consultative Commission, the body stood up to oversee implementation of the new agreement, or at "higher political levels," he said.

When asked by McCain if cheating matters, Gottemoeller replied: "Absolutely, sir." She went on to say that if the Russians intended to cheat "it would be an enormously serious matter for the United States of America. It would be taken up at -- in diplomatic channels and, if serious enough, at the highest political level."

The senator also sharply criticized the proposed treaty for its potential to stymie U.S. missile defenses, returning to what has become a familiar line of attack for GOP lawmakers.

The treaty does not propose binding limits on such systems, though its preamble notes a connection between offensive and defensive weapons. Moscow issued a unilateral statement before the treaty's signing declaring that it could pull out of the accord if Russian leaders determined their nuclear deterrent was threatened by any buildup of U.S. missile defenses.

McCain called the statement a "clear, legally binding limitation on our missile defense options."

Other Treaties

McCain also grilled Gottemoeller over whether Russia was complying with the conventions prohibiting the development and use of biological and chemical weapons.

"We now have a report from the State Department that the compliance issues from the last START treaty remain unresolved, and that the Chemical Weapons Convention has not been adhered to, and they may not be in compliance with international convention banning biological weapons," he said.

The compliance report says it is uncertain whether Russia has fulfilled its commitments under the Biological Weapons Convention. Meanwhile, the State Department could not say whether Russia fully declared its chemical weapons capabilities and whether it is meeting its arsenal destruction and verification commitments.

The diplomat said she believes that Russia is working hard to eliminate its chemical stocks; however there is a "lack of clarity" on its biological weapons program. She noted that when the program was revealed in the 1990s, the then-Soviet Union said it would provide information on the effort.

Those details have yet to be released, according to Gottemoeller.

Last month, Russia acknowledged it would not meet the 2012 CWC deadline for total elimination of its chemical warfare materials (see GSN, June 30). The United States has also said it could not keep to that schedule.

In its statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the report is a "rehash of old complaints about Russia's adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention."

"The lingering so-called uncertainty on the American side about whether Russia fulfills its obligations under Article I of the [Biological Weapons Convention] (not to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain biological agents, toxins, biological weapons, equipment and means of delivery not intended for peaceful purposes) could have been eliminated a decade ago, if in 2001 the U.S. had not blocked multilateral negotiations on the development of a verification mechanism for the convention," the Foreign Ministry said.