Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, this takes $2 billion out of the tax cut. It provides $1 billion for COPS, and $1 billion for reduction of the deficit.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to reauthorize the COPS program through 2009. Since September 11, our local police have been asked to do more for their communities than ever before. Walk the beat. Be on guard against terrorists. Secure critical infrastructures. And gather intelligence on future terrorist acts when possible. Washington has a role in securing the homeland, but the burdens fall heaviest on our local communities. There are more than 700,000 police officers and sheriffs in the country, compared with nearly 11,000 FBI agents. It is our local police chiefs and sheriffs who are called upon more and more to protect us against the new threats from abroad. We had a sobering reminder this week. As President Bush braced the Nation for war in Iraq, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge ratcheted our alert level back up to orange and called all 50 governors to request that they provide an increased police presence at airports. Our mayors and police chiefs are hurting. Local budgets are incredibly tight--some communities have been forced to lay officers off, or to consider freeing criminals before their sentences are up, to cut costs. Even before 9/11, it was clear that the crime drop of the nineties was coming to a close. Last winter, the FBI reported that crime jumped for the second straight year. The FBI has had to necessarily refocus its resources. Recently, the Washington Post reported that the FBI has plans to ``mobilize as many as 5,000 agents to guard against terrorist attacks'' during hostilities with Iraq. The FBI's criminal surveillance operations ``would be temporarily suspended.'' Local police will be called upon to pick up the slack once the FBI is forced to pull almost half of its agents out of traditional crime-fighting work. The fight to secure our streets does not end with preventing terrorism. Crime is up again. The newest figures tell us the historic crime drop the nation experienced during the 1990s is over. Property crimes--offenses that tend to jump in a week economy--are rising particularly fast. The FBI recently reported a 4 percent hike in burglaries and motor vehicle thefts last year alone. Where fighting violent crime and bank robberies used to be among the FBI's highest priorities, the FBI is now focused on counter- terrorism efforts. Increasingly, local police departments, statewide crimefighting task forces and drug-fighting projects are being told by the Bush administration that they are on their own when it comes to fighting crime. What's worse, all of this is happening during a time of unprecedented economic hardship in our cities and States. States are facing dramatic budgetary shortfalls. A new report finds that budget gaps for State governments soared by nearly 50 percent in the past three months and state legislatures face a minimum $68.5 billion budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year. Mayors nationwide report that cities spent $2.6 billion through the end of last year on new security costs. The response of the administration to these concerns has been disappointing. This year, for the second budget cycle in a row, the President proposes to eliminate the COPS hiring program. COPS is the only initiative in the entire Federal Government that targets its resources directly towards police. There is no middleman. There is very little red tape. Police chiefs report they have never worked with such a responsive, effective Federal program. And yet the administration wants to shut it down. Since we created COPS as part of the 1994 Crime Bill, the program has awarded grants to hire and redeploy 117,000 police officers to the streets. 87,300 are on the beat. In the most recent year of hiring grants, 2002, 4,400 officers were hired or redeployed. The President's budget gives several justifications for shutting down COPS. First, the administration claims the program doesn't work, that it hasn't cut crime. That is a curious assertion. Crime dropped for seven straight years after COPS resources began to be put to use in cities and towns. There was a 28 percent drop in crime from 1994 to 2000. Two studies support the assertion that COPS grants help cut crime. One, released just this past November by the American Society of Criminology, found that COPS hiring grants have ``resulted in significant reductions in local crime rates.'' In 2000, the urban Institute concluded that COPS has had a ``broad national impact'' on the levels and styles of policing, and that it provided ``significant support for the adoption of community policing around the country.'' It's not just criminologists and think tanks who agree with me that COPS works. Leading law enforcement officials share the view. Last year, our friend and former colleague Attorney General Ashcroft called COPS a ``miraculous sort of success.'' He said, ``it's one of those things that Congress hopes will happen when it sets up a program.'' At a conference last July, the Attorney General endorsed the theory that COPS cuts crime. ``Since law enforcement agencies began partnering with citizens through community policing, we've seen significant drops in crime rates,'' he noted. The administration offers a second reason for wanting to eliminate COPS: The disparity between ``officers hired'' and ``officers funded''. Because COPS has funded 117,000 cops, but only 87,000 are on the street, the President argues, the program is not accountable. That assertion overlooks the operations of the Office of community Policing Services. Few Federal programs operate with as much oversight and internal review as does COPS. The disparity that seems to so concern the Administration is simple to explain: It takes time to hire a new cop. Once COPS awards a hiring grant, it can take anywhere from six to eighteen months to find, hire, train and deploy the new officer. There is no accounting problem. It is good public policy for police departments to take the appropriate amount of time to find suitable candidates for new community policing positions, and this discrepancy between officers funded and officers hired is the result. Post 9/11, COPS is about much more than fighting crime. It's about homeland security. The Attorney General again said it best last July when he noted that ``COPS provides resources that reflect our national priority of terrorism prevention.'' The new assistant director at the FBI in charge of coordinating with local law enforcement agreed: ``The FBI fully understands that our success in the fight against terrorism is directly related to the strength of our relationship with our State and local partners.'' These aren't my words. They're the words of the top cops. COPS does not just hire new officers. It requires these officers to practice community policing. Community policing is a philosophy that gives more power to line officers. They get assigned to fixed geographic areas. This decision-making power and neighborhood familiarity can be invaluable in a crisis, when relationships with community residents and the ability to make quick decisions is critical. Community relationships that come from COPS can also help unearth intelligence about potential terrorist actions. By taking cops out of their cars and having them walk the streets, police officers get to know the residents of the neighborhood where they're assigned. This has proven extremely effective at building trust and partnership between local police and the residents they protect. Community residents consistently sing the praises of community policing. It pays dividends by creating a climate in which neighborhood residents partner with police, not only providing police with valuable information about criminal activity in their neighborhood, but restoring overall confidence in the criminal justice system. We need to continue the COPS program. The Justice Department reports that for the past several grant-making cycles, demand for new police hiring grants has outstripped available funds by a factor of almost three to one. To meet this need, the legislation I introduce today authorizes $600 million per year over the next 6 years, enough to hire up to 50,000 more officers. We have made this portion of the program more flexible: up to half of these hiring dollars can be used to help police departments retain those community police officers currently on payroll. In another change from current law, a portion of these funds can be used for officer training and education. We make a key change to the current COPS program in the bill I introduce today. In response to the needs of first responders across the country, the bill authorizes a new, permanent COPS Overtime Program. This initiative, funded at up to $150 million per year for 6 years, will help ease the homeland security burdens faced by police departments across the country by reimbursing local police departments for the homeland security overtime expenses they incur. I was pleased that the Appropriations Committee included a 1-year, $60 million version of this program in the recently-passed omnibus appropriations bill. The permanent COPS Overtime Program in this bill builds on that appropriations provision. The legislation also provides funding for new technologies, so law enforcement can have access to the latest high-tech crime fighting equipment to keep pace with today's sophisticated criminals. Also included are funds to help local district attorneys hire more community prosecutors. These prosecutors will expand the community justice concept and engage the entire community in preventing and fighting crime. The statistics we have on community prosecutions are quite promising, and we should increase the funds available to local prosecutors, a piece of our criminal justice puzzle that has too often gone overlooked. I would like to thank the men and women of law enforcement for their service and heroism during these difficult times. They are up to the challenge, but we should support them any way we can. The bill I introduced today gives local police the support they deserve. I look forward to working with my colleagues to continue the COPS program.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me begin by saying I agree with the Senator from Michigan as well as my colleague from Wisconsin in that I believe--and, as the old joke goes, I have history to prove it--that the Senate has in the treaty power in the treaty clause of the U.S. Constitution an equal responsibility with the President of the United States. As the old joke goes, if you want to learn a subject, teach it. For the last 10 years, I have been teaching a three-credit course at the Widener University Law School on Saturday mornings on separation of powers issues. In one of the three parts of the course, ``What is treaty power? And who has what authority under the Constitution?'' I come down clearly on the side that the Senate has the authority to insist that any extension, or withdrawal, for that matter, from a treaty be confirmed by the Senate. We have a right to do that, I believe. But it is an open constitutional question. I will, unless we are ready to go to a second amendment, be happy to take a few minutes and go through what I believe to be constitutional law and history on this point. Let me cut through that for a moment and go to the place where I think it is not worth the fight on this particular treaty. I believe this treaty is so open ended and so, in some sense, amorphous and rests so much upon not merely the goodwill--I assume goodwill on the part of the administration--but on the intensity with which the administration believes this treaty should come to fruition that a provision that marginally increases the substance of the possibility of a substantive outcome which I support--which is getting down to 1,700 or below 2,200--that to jeopardize this treaty that rests on an awful lot on good faith over a genuinely serious constitutional fight which I think someday has to be resolved, that it is not worth the candle on this treaty and may in fact in turn, if we were to prevail--and I don't think we have the votes to prevail, but if we did prevail on this-- would be sufficient in my view for this administration to not pursue through the treaty mechanism this agreement. I want to remind everybody, the administration made it clear from the outset that they did not want a treaty. They did not want to have to come back to us with this treaty. Because of the steadfastness of Senator Helms, we agreed on the principle that we would insist that any agreement--we knew it was being negotiated in Moscow--be brought back before the Senate. So my concern is that this agreement, which the administration unilaterally and bilaterally supports--that is, with the Russians or without the Russians, and they don't really much care what we think about it anyway, whether it be in terms of a treaty--that they would be prepared to walk away from this over a genuine, legitimate, significant, constitutional issue and debate. White House Counsel in this administration and in Democratic administrations who have suggested that Senator Feingold, Senator Levin, and I are wrong about the prerogative of the Senate, I suggest, would be inclined to say to the President: You are going to do this anyway unilaterally--that is, move down to these ranges--you have said you are going to do it anyway; the treaty is so loose, it doesn't bind you much at all anyway; forget the treaty; just proceed on this course, and don't sign onto this principle on this fight. I was asked by the press how I could not be willing to go to the wall on this issue since I was the guy who went to the wall that resulted in the so-called Biden condition on interpretation of treaties, which was initially added to the INF Treaty in 1988. There was a simple reason. There was a lot more at stake in that treaty in terms of the substantive impact upon the strategic balance and doctrine. We also had a circumstance where the administration very much wanted that treaty. And it was an opportunity to set in law, in principle, the principles of treaty interpretation. So it was worth the fight, the stakes were high enough, and the administration was not likely to reject the underlying treaty if it passed, which it did. That is the practical distinction I would make. But let me speak just another 5 minutes or so to the constitutional side of this argument. Although it is not specified in the Constitution, I believe there is a concurrent power both the President and the Senate have; and that is, the power with regard to the termination of a treaty. Our history for over 200 years of practice is, though, decidedly mixed. At various times in our history, the Congress has directed or authorized the President to terminate a treaty. On a few occasions, the Senate alone has done that, terminated a treaty. The President has terminated a treaty without prior congressional authorization but then received subsequent approval by the Congress and the Senate. And the President has terminated treaties unilaterally. For example, Presidents have done so with several commercial treaties in the first half of the 20th century. President Lyndon Johnson gave notice of his intent to have the United States withdraw from a multilateral treaty on international aviation known as the Warsaw Convention. Although this notice was subsequently withdrawn, the Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on the treaty at issue, and did not challenge President Johnson's power to withdraw from it. More recently, President Carter unilaterally terminated the Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan in connection with diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic of China. President Carter also gave notice of the termination of several other treaties, most related to immigration. President Clinton withdrew from multilateral agreements, including our membership in the United Nations's Industrial Development Organization. The question of who has the power to terminate a treaty has never been definitively resolved by the Supreme Court. President Carter's decision to terminate the Taiwan Treaty was challenged by several of our Republican colleagues, and that case reached the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decision, though, does not provide much legal precedent, though perhaps it gives us some guidance as to how the Court might rule today. In Goldwater v. Carter--that was the case about withdrawing from the Taiwan Treaty, when we recognized the People's Republic of China--the Supreme Court vacated a decision of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit, a decision which had affirmed the President's power to unilaterally terminate a treaty. By vacating the lower court ruling, though, no legal precedent was left to stand. The Supreme Court decision commanded no majority. Four Justices invoked what I know my colleagues on the floor and the Presiding Officer fully understand; they invoked what is called the Political Question Doctrine and thereby decreed the case not a matter for the courts. The fifth Justice held the case should not be before the Supreme Court because it was not ripe for judicial review. The only Justice who addressed the merits of the case, Justice Brennan, held for the President's power in that case because he thought termination of the treaty with Taiwan was an act that necessarily flowed from the recognition of the People's Republic of China. He argued further that recognition power is clearly held by the President within the Constitution. The leading scholarly authority on the subject, the Restatement of Foreign Relations Law, of which the noted scholar, Columbia Law Professor Lou Henkin was a chief reporter, states: ``The President has authority unilaterally to suspend or terminate'' a treaty ``in accordance with its terms, or to make the determination that would justify . . . terminating or suspending an agreement because of its violation by another party or because of supervening events.'' The Restatement concludes that this power of the President is based upon his constitutional power to conduct foreign relations.'' The Restatement concedes, however, that the Senate has concurrent authority, and it could circumscribe the President's power by conditioning its consent--which is what I understood in the withdrawn amendment by my friend from Wisconsin--by conditioning its consent to that treaty on a requirement that the termination clause only be exercised with the consent of the Senate, which I happen to think we have the power to do as well. But without turning this into a seminar--which all of my colleagues understand this full well; I am not educating anybody on this floor as to something they do not already know--without going into any more of it, I believe the Senate has concurrent power it could exercise. I believe there will come a treaty which is of such consequence that the Senate will determine it must exercise that power. But whether it is wise to do so as is done in the Levin-Feingold amendment is another matter, in my view. In closing, I think Senators Levin and Feingold raise important legal and substantive concerns. I think it would prompt, in this case-- because it goes, in a sense, beyond this treaty the precedent we would be establishing--I think it would prompt--and obviously I don't know-- strong executive branch opposition, and all done at this point to make a legal point. No matter how much I agree with it, it is to make a legal point that does not substantively have much impact here. I think it is really better made for a treaty of more substance and consequence than this one. Let me make it real clear what I mean by that. I do not want to belittle this treaty. I do not mean to imply it is of no value. But I think, quite frankly, if we are to go to the point to take this to the wall, and we were to pass this amendment--and I realize it has been changed now; it is not as consequential as both the Senators would have liked, because the Feingold provision has been withdrawn, and as much as I would like it if we were going to set down a principle here, I think the consequence of its passage, if it resulted in this administration walking away from this treaty, would do much more harm than any possible good could be done by our adopting this amendment. The point made by the chairman is we are no worse off constitutionally on this unresolved, substantive issue because of the language unanimously added in the committee. So essentially what we are saying here--what I am saying here, and I think the chairman--and I am not suggesting he should associate himself with my remarks as to what the President's and the Senate's power is--but we are basically saying we have agreed to fight this fight another day on another treaty at another time. How do you define in treaty language what ``consult'' means? In declaration 6, we use the term ``consult,'' but it needs much less specificity there because it is even more vague. So I think you build in confusion, difficult to define, in even adding the Levin language. This is an uncomfortable position for me to be in, both intellectually and politically, to be not supporting this amendment. I want my colleagues to understand why. I want to make it clear, even though I agreed with the chairman that I would not, as the ranking member, support amendments beyond what we had agreed to in order to get this done, I want to make it clear to my Democratic colleagues, I am not in any way asking anyone to be bound by that. I am not trying to speak for the Democrats on that issue. I am giving my best advice as to how I think, for what it is worth, we can enhance the prospect that we really will, through this treaty, accomplish a momentum that relates to reducing the number of nuclear weapons each side has at its disposal. And ultimately, hopefully by the provisions we have in some of the declarations, we will not stop at this treaty. We will not stop at this methodology. We will try to move on to everything, including tactical weapons at some point down the road. That is my reasoning, for what it is worth. I am not going to support even the less constitutionally controversial provision of the Levin- Feingold amendment for the reasons I have stated. I pledge to my colleagues, assuming I am around and assuming we have the opportunity, God willing, to be able to establish this principle on a really significant agreement that we make, a mutual agreement or multilateral agreement with other parties in the world that promotes everything from arms reduction to our interest, this fight has to be made at some point. I just don't think it is worth the candle on this at this moment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield.

Mr. BIDEN. The difference is the declaration is not binding.

Mr. BIDEN. It is the same word, but the need for precision in a nonbinding declaration is a lot less important, in a judicial sense, than it is in a binding provision. That is the only point I was making.

Mr. BIDEN. Yes.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I have a minor point, but the Record should be clarified. When I was referring to what my friend from Michigan said about the difference between the declaration and his condition--one being binding, one not--I referred to the word ``consult.'' It goes beyond that. The ambiguous language really is in the declaration. In his proposal is ``any action relevant'' to paragraphs 2 or 3 of article 4 of the treaty, which is the action relevant to the extension or withdrawal--that is the language that was taken by him, properly so, from the declaration, and that is the part that is ambiguous, not the word ``consult.'' At any rate, it is a distinction without a great difference. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. Let me, as we say in this body, associate myself with the remarks of my colleague and say it in a slightly different way. The Senator is asking us to have the intelligence community monitor something that there is no capacity to monitor because there is no provision in the treaty requiring the monitoring. It is a little bit like saying we would like the President to report to us, on a yearly basis, the cost of the destruction or dismantling or taking off of alert or removing from a silo every missile that is removed by the Russians. That would be great, but it is not in the treaty. There is no provision. Regarding the ultimate criticism, the primary criticism the Senator from Massachusetts makes of the treaty is accurate. There is not much to this treaty. There is not much to it. As I said in my very long opening statement, the administration, when they testified before the committee, said: Look, we were going to do this anyway. We were going to do this anyway. So we told the Russians, in effect paraphrasing the Secretary of State, we told the Russians if you want to come along, come along; if you don't, you don't. The whole rationale of this administration is the bet that the cold war is over, it is truly and forever behind us. I hope they are right. This treaty affords few protections in the event of a heightened mistrust that develops, or a crisis. It doesn't have any protections. So we are not kidding each other, between now and 2012 the Russians could go out, if they were capable of doing it financially, and build 10,000 more nuclear weapons. They could dig 40,000 more holes for silos, if they had the money. There is nothing in this treaty that prevents that. I know we are all railing against what the treaty should have been; what, if we personally were negotiating it, we would have done. But, unfortunately, I say to my friend from Massachusetts, he has a tough call the rest of us must make. If you don't like what is in it, and there is a great deal that is not in it that we would like to have in it, vote against it. Vote against it. But you can't fix something that is not broken, in effect--the treaty has no verification. It has no requirement the warheads be destroyed. There is no requirement they be accounted for. There is no requirement that there, in fact, be any progress shown until December 31, 2012. If you view all of these deficiencies as fatal flaws, then vote no, just flat vote no because you cannot fix them. You cannot fix them. The only way I think we could fix them is if we get the administration and Russia and the United States on a positive track here. We have them on a track. The track is that upon which we have agreed. As Sam Nunn said, this is a good-faith treaty. That is the bottom line. The reason I am for this treaty is failure to ratify it, I believe, will be read as bad faith. Ratifying it demonstrates good faith, and our hortatory language--the message we have sent personally in terms of each individual Senator speaking to the administration--the language in our declarations and conditions and the amendments on the floor makes it clear to the administration that there is clearly a majority of Members of the Senate who would like to see more done. We are not criticizing what has been done. We just would like more done. I understand the frustration. Believe me. I understand the frustration. The greatest concern--and I think we have taken care of it--is if, in fact, the Russians do not have the engineering and/or financial capability of meeting the commitment they have made to reduce their deployed forces, we will help them. That is the best thing we can do. That is what we have done. I suggest we should support this treaty and we should oppose this amendment.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if I may respond to my colleague, I am not sure whether condition 2 requires the executive branch to list force reductions or force levels by warhead types. But I certainly think it is a good idea to do so, and I would urge the administration to do so. In addition, I think the administration should make a decision on warhead dismantlement. Quite frankly, my support for ratification of this treaty is based in part on the administration's assurance before our committee that at least some warheads removed under the treaty will be destroyed or dismantled, and I fully expect the administration to live up to this. So I think the Senator is making a very valid point.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I think that the new relationship between the United States and Russia can only be improved by taking nuclear weapons off alert status. By giving decision makers more time to react to disturbing information, this would lower the risk of a nuclear war caused by one side's mistaken belief that the other was attacking it. I am especially impressed, moreover, by the fact that Gen. Eugene Habiger, former Commander in Chief of the U.S. Strategic Command feels that the time has come to do this. I would note, however, that General Habiger warned that existing specific de-alerting proposals were often not viable.

Mr. BIDEN. The Foreign Relations Committee's report encourages the President to establish a commission of weapon system experts to undertake the review that General Habiger proposed. It adds that if the President does not do so, Congress could usefully act on its own, either to establish such a commission or, perhaps, to commission the National Academy of Sciences to set up such a group.

Mr. BIDEN. I agree with the Senator from North Dakota and the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar. During hearings last year on the Treaty of Moscow now before the Senate, several of our distinguished witnesses mentioned Russia's tactical nuclear stockpile, including former Senator Nunn. The smaller size and greater number of these weapons puts them at higher risk for theft by, or illicit sale to, terror networks such as al-Qaida.

Mr. BIDEN. Let me echo the comments on the chairman. After entry into force of the Moscow Treaty, getting a handle on Russian tactical nuclear weapons must be a top arms control and non-proliferation objective of the United States Government. I look forward to joining the chairman in holding hearings on this matter and in writing to the administration with the Senators from Indiana and North Dakota. A comprehensive approach to this problem, as the senior Senator from North Dakota suggests, is sorely needed.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join our esteemed chairman, Senator Lugar, in presenting the Senate this resolution giving the Senate's advice and consent to ratification of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, known in the vernacular as the Moscow Treaty. Let me state flatly at the outset, I urge my colleagues to support the treaty. On February 5, as Senator Lugar noted, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee approved this resolution unanimously. The committee did so, in my view, for two very good reasons. First, the Moscow Treaty should be ratified and implemented. It is true that there is much that the Moscow Treaty does not do, which I will discuss at some length. But virtually all of the witnesses at our hearing recommended the ratification of the treaty because its implementation would be a step toward a more secure world. Reducing each nation's deployed strategic warheads from approximately 6,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200, in my view, will move us further away from the cold war era and may--I emphasize may--and I hope promote a United States-Russian relationship based upon mutual cooperation. Second, in my view, while the resolution does not include everything we may want, it does address many of our concerns. It requires significant annual reporting by the executive branch on implementation of the treaty so that the Senate can oversee and support that implementation. These are important gains from an administration that first opposed any treaty at all and then pressed for a clean resolution of ratification. The administration has agreed to support and implement this resolution before the Senate. I think the country will benefit from that. But there is much the Moscow Treaty does not do. So in the spirit of not engaging in false advertisement, I think we should speak about that a little bit. It is very unusual, at least in my 30 years as a Senator working on many arms control agreements from the Senate perspective, that an arms control agreement by any standard be put forward the way in which this one has. In our hearings, the Secretary of Defense proudly compared the three pages of this treaty to the roughly 300 pages of the START treaty signed by the first President Bush. But that is just the beginning. Traditional arms control agreements usually involve the negotiated level of arms to which the parties will be held. They usually require the destruction of some weapons. Often they specify milestones that must be achieved in reducing those arms and bar withdrawal from the treaty unless there is a good reason to withdraw and the President gives or the other side gives 6 months notice. For decades, there has been emphasis on verifying that each party is complying with its obligations. We remember the famous phrase uttered by former President Reagan: Trust but verify. In addition, the United States worked to ban MIRV ICBMs in the START II treaty. I know the Presiding Officer knows, but for those who may be listening, the MIRV'd ICBM is a single missile, a single rocket upon which multiple nuclear warheads sit and when the rocket goes off and the head of the missile comes off, it contains more than one nuclear warhead, and you can independently target each of those nuclear warheads, in the vernacular. So we have thought for years and years, these are the most destabilizing weapons that existed, and we worked very hard, and the first President Bush worked very hard, to eliminate either side being able to possess these multiple warhead missiles with independently targeted warheads. It was contained in the START II treaty. We were hoping in START III to control tactical nuclear weapons. They are the weapons that are shorter range and are used at shorter distances, referred to as tactical nuclear weapons. We had hoped to have a de-alerting of weapons slated for later elimination. That is, the purpose we initially started off with was: Look, if we are agreeing we are going to get rid of these weapons, while we are going through the process of destroying them or taking them out of the silos or out of the bellies of submarines or out of the bellies of bombers, what we will do is we will de-alert them. That is, we will pull the plug. They will sit there, but they will not be aimed at anybody. They will not be on alert. So for the longest time our objective, for stability reasons and for security reasons, was to get rid of multiple warheads, to make sure we move to include tactical nuclear weapons which are destabilizing so we begin to reduce them and, third, to say while we are getting ready to destroy these weapons, or take them out of the inventory, we will de- alert them. That is, not keep them on a hair trigger. None of these objectives was achieved, or for that matter attempted, in the Moscow Treaty we are about to ratify--I hope ratify. For starters, the United States unilaterally set this treaty's arms control levels before any negotiation. Indeed, the administration saw no particular reason for this treaty in the first place. Initially they said they would not do it as a treaty. According to the Secretary of State: We concluded before the Moscow Treaty was negotiated that we could and would safely reduce to 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads, regardless of what the Russians did. Secretary Powell reports that President Bush then told President Putin: This is where we are going. We are going there unilaterally. Come with us or not, stay where you are or not. In short, the Moscow Treaty does not codify an agreement. Rather, it codifies two unilateral decisions to reduce strategic forces. That is not a bad thing, but it is not such a significant thing. Another way in which the Moscow Treaty differs from previous arms control agreements is that it does not require the elimination of any missiles, any bombers, any submarines, or any warheads. As a result, each party is free to stockpile its officially reduced weapons. We used to fight with our conservative friends on this floor who said we could not support such-and-such arms control treaty proffered from President Nixon through to President Ford and President Reagan and President Bush--we could not do it unless we were certain that the missile was destroyed, the warhead was destroyed, the submarine was destroyed. We used to hear what is going to happen is they are going to take these missiles and they are going to hide them in barns and they are going to hide them in the woods and they are going to hide them in camouflaged areas. Let's be clear what this treaty does. It says you have to get down to 1,700 to 2,200 of these within the next 10 years or so, but all you have to do is take them out of commission. You don't have to destroy them. You can stockpile them. You can put them in a warehouse. You can pile them up in a barn for ready reload. You can take them back out. You don't have to destroy anything. That is in fact what the United States plans to do with many of its reduced weapons. They are reduced, not destroyed. Trident submarines that are taken off nuclear patrol will be converted to other purposes--and could presumably be reconverted to carry strategic nuclear weapons, although at some cost. Bombers will also be converted; actually, their re-conversion to strategic nuclear uses might be rather difficult. According to recent press stories, the United States might use ICBMs to deliver conventional payloads. That would leave the missiles still available for use with nuclear warheads instead. And the administration says that about three-quarters of the reductions may be made simply by ``downloading''--that means by removing bombs and warheads from bombers and missiles, while leaving the delivery vehicles in service. What happens to those ``downloaded'' warheads? Of the thousands of warheads that will be ``reduced'' by the United States, many--perhaps almost all--would be retained in some form of reserve status, available to be returned to action in months, weeks, or even days. The Secretary of State did not indicate that some warheads would be dismantled. But the administration has yet to earmark a single type of warhead for dismantlement. For years, now, the Air Force has been prepared to give up the W-62 warheads on its Minuteman Three missiles. They will be replaced by the W-87 warheads that are removed from the Peacekeeper missile, which is to be retired. But the Defense Department seems incapable of letting go of the old warheads. I will move on. The Secretary of State did indicate, though, that some warheads would be dismantled, but the administration is yet to earmark a single type of warhead that we are going to dismantle. My support for ratification of this treaty is based in part on the administration's assurances for the record that ``some warheads are to be removed and will be destroyed or dismantled.'' Since the statement was made, however, there has been no action by the executive branch to turn this into a reality. I expect the administration to live up to Secretary Powell's commitment. If it should fail to do so, this would endanger the process by which the Senate gives advice and consent to the ratification of not only this treaty but every treaty in the future. An equal concern for me is the question of what the Russians will do with its reduced weapons. If it follows the lead of the United States, it will try to retain as many missiles and bombers as possible, and it will stockpile its downloaded nuclear weapons rather than dismantling them and disposing of the excess fissile material. Under this treaty, Russia can do whatever it wants with its so-called reduced weapons. But we have a stake in Russia's decision on this. That is because of the risk that Russia will not adequately protect the weapons and nuclear materials it has stockpiled. It is one thing for us to decommission, reduce our nuclear weapon and stockpile it. We have exceedingly tight security on such material. The Russians have incredibly, incredibly insecure facilities because they lack the money to be able to maintain these secure facilities. I worry that if Russia does not destroy them, that they will find themselves--and we will find ourselves--susceptible to the clandestine sale or the actual stealing of these materials, and they will fall into the hands of people who do not have our interests at heart. The only threat to our very existence is the accidental launch of Russian missiles, and that is why I still worry about the MIRV'd ICBMs. But perhaps the worst other threat to America is that some Russian nuclear weapons, or material with which they make them, could be stolen or diverted to rogue states or terrorist groups. The more weapons Russia stockpiles, the greater the risk not all of them will be properly safeguarded. To combat that danger, our chairman cofounded the Nunn-Lugar program to assist the Soviet Union--and now its successor states--in meeting their arms control obligations. Related programs in the Energy Department and the State Department help Russia to safeguard its sensitive materials, and to find civilian careers for its thousands of weapons scientists. These programs will have a major role to play in the years to come. With Nunn-Lugar, we can enable Russia to destroy its old delivery vehicles rather than mothballing them. Russian officials have already decided they want to move in that direction. Let me put something in focus, by the way. The entire budget for Russia for this fiscal year is roughly $40 billion. The entire Russian military budget is $9 billion. My neighboring States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey have budgets bigger than all of Russia. I suspect if you added up all their law enforcement and prison-related budgets, it probably exceeds the entire defense budget of Russia. Our defense budget, and I make no apologies for it, is between $350 and $400 billion. So I want us to keep this in focus. The ability of Russia to maintain and/or take the money to destroy this fissile material and mothball nuclear capacity is very limited, increasing the need for Nunn-Lugar, the threat reduction money, to be spent on American scientists with American contractors to go to Russia to destroy these weapons for them because they do not have the money to do it. U.S. assistance can also help Russia to secure and dispose of its excess fissile material. That is the stuff that makes nuclear explosions. That is the stuff that is the product from which chain reactions, nuclear chain reactions start. That is an urgent and continuing task, with or without this treaty. I think the administration understands this. The Secretary of State has laid it out: U.S. assistance helps to improve the security of Russia's nuclear weapons by improving their physical protection (fencing, sensors, communications); accounting (improved hardware and software); personnel reliability (better screening); and guard force capabilities (more realistic training). These improvements are particularly important because Russia faces a difficult threat environment--political instability, terrorist threats, and insider threats resulting from financial conditions in Russia. Translated: The Russian Mafia; translated: Departments seeking money to keep their folks employed doing things that are not in the interest of Russia, and clearly not in the interest of the United States. The Secretary of State also assured the Committee that: . . . we intend to continue to work with Russia, under the Cooperative Threat Reduction, CTR program, when and to the extent permitted by law, to make its warhead storage facilities more secure. Such U.S. assistance will also increase the security of the Russian warheads made excess as provided in the Moscow Treaty. The Secretary of State continued: If requested by the Russian Federation, and subject to the laws related to CRT certification, the Administration would be prepared to provide additional assistance for removing, transporting, storing, and securing nuclear warheads, disassembling warheads and storing fissile material, dismantling surplus strategic missiles, and disposing of associated launchers. I am pleased that the administration accepts the need to use Nunn- Lugar and related programs in implementing this treaty, and that the 2004 budget request has a 9-percent increase for Nunn-Lugar. That increase is probably spoken for, however, by the cost of building--belatedly--a chemical weapons destruction facility at Shchuch'ye. So I wonder, at least, whether enough fund are budgeted for Nunn-Lugar; I hope they are but I don't think they are. And I hope that the President will prevail upon his own party in the House to give him more than temporary authority to waive certification requirements for these programs. Nunn-Lugar efforts cannot achieve their maximum effectiveness if every year or so the funds dry up for months at a time, while waiting for Congress to permit another presidential waiver. The laissez-faire nature of the Moscow Treaty is also evident in the timing of its reduction requirement. This is very unusual. Under Article I of the Treaty, the reductions must occur ``by December 31, 2012.'' Until that date, there is no reduction requirement. Indeed, until that date, there is nothing barring each party from increasing its force levels. A party could even have more weapons than it has today, so long as it does not exceed START Treaty levels before that treaty expires in 2009. I don't expect that, of course, but there is nothing to prohibit it. And what happens on December 31, 2012. The treaty expires. If a party fails to achieve the reductions required by this treaty, the other party will have little recourse. The treaty codifies legally binding promises, but provides no way to make the Parties live up to them. This is a very unusual treaty. Most curious of all, perhaps, is the withdrawal provision in Article IV of the treaty. You might think that, with no obligations until the very last day of this treaty's existence, there would be little reason ever to withdraw from it. That is certainly what I think. Just in case, however, the treaty has what is probably the most liberal withdrawal clause in any arms control treaty. A party can withdraw with only 3 months' notice. There is no need for withdrawal to be due to ``extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this treaty [that] have jeopardized its supreme interests,'' as is required in the START Treaty signed by the first President Bush. Indeed, there is no requirement in this treaty to state any reason for withdrawal. I hope the administration is correct in its view that we no longer need verification. The Secretary of State said, ``in the context of this new relationship, a treaty with a verification regime under the Cold War paradigm was neither required nor appropriate.'' It may be that we need not care what Russia does. That might explain why the Moscow Treaty leaves it to each party to decide what weapons it is reducing and how it will do that, and sets no benchmarks for measuring progress between now and December 31, 2012. To this day, the Russian Federation has yet to say how it defines the term ``strategic nuclear warheads,'' or how its reductions will be made. We can only hope that his laissez-faire approach to arms control obligations will not lead to misunderstandings down the road. With no agreed definitions and no benchmarks, I respectfully suggest that there is lots of room for quarrels over whether a party will really be in compliance by December 31, 2012. Perhaps voluntary transparency by each party will assure the other that arms reductions are proceeding properly. I applaud the decision to establish a transparency committee under the U.S.-Russia Consultative Group on Strategic Security. But I am not reassured by the Secretary of State's statement that ``specific additional transparency measures are not needed, and will not be sought, at this time.'' It may be that continuing U.S. assistance to Russia under the Nunn- Lugar program and other assistance programs will give us such visibility into Russian forces that we will have no need of verification. But if we are to rely on that window, then--as I noted earlier-- President Bush ought to persuade House Republicans to let him waive the certification requirements that periodically stall the funding of our programs for months at a time because if there is no verification and no ability through the threat reduction program to look inside what Russia is doing, then we are operating in the blind. When the President requested that authority to waive provisions allowing him to move forward with Nunn-Lugar, it was people in his own party in the House who refused to make that authority permanent. Previous Presidents gave special attention to the need to do away with MIRVed ICBMs. The first President Bush achieved that in the START II Treaty. But Russia refused to let that treaty enter into force unless we continued to adhere to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. When the current President Bush pulled us out of the ABM Treaty, START II died. Why worry about MIRVed ICBMs? A MIRVed missile has multiple warheads. It's cheaper to put several warheads on a single missile than it is to build, house and launch several missiles. But if I put 6 or 10 warheads on a missile, and you can take that missile out with only 1 or 2 warheads by attacking first, then my military planners are going to be nervous. And that is precisely what can happen if my missile is an ICBM in a fixed silo. It may be powerful, but it is also a sitting duck. So my military planners are going to say to me: We need to be able to fire our missiles before the attacking missiles land on them. The nuclear theologians call this: ``Use 'em or lose 'em.'' Put another way, if Russia has MIRV'd ICBMs sitting in silos, and we get to a point--hopefully, that will never happen--in the next year, decade or two decades, and they know that one of our warheads can take out that multiple warhead ICBM they have on the ground, their military planners are going to say: You better strike first with that missile because if you don't, it will be taken out. And we are going to sit here and say: We know that is what their military planners are going to do, so we better take that missile out first. That is called destabilizing. That does not lend security or a sense of security. That is why the first President Bush, and every other President before him, said it was important, of any missile you get rid of, to do away with MIRVed warheads because they were destabilizing, they were on a hair trigger. This ``use 'em or lose 'em'' strategy is still in play. I will use radars and satellites to tell when somebody is attacking me. My command and control system will allow me to order a launch of my nuclear-tipped missiles within 10 minutes because that is all the time I will have between the warning of a possible attack and when the warheads will start falling on my MIRVed missiles. Now, if I am the United States, that works. But if I am Russia, my missile warning network is made of Swiss cheese. Some of my satellites do not even work if I am Russia. I lost some radars when the Soviet Union broke up. And worse yet, my rocket force troops are so poorly paid, so ill-housed, that sometimes they even go berserk and shoot each other. This is not a joke. They really do. So there are risks in basing our deterrent force on MIRVed ICBMs. And if Russia's nuclear-tipped missiles are ever launched in error, we in the United States are the ones most likely to suffer. But the administration is confident that none of this will happen. The Secretary of State told the Foreign Relations Committee: We cannot conceive of any credible scenario in which we would threaten to launch our strategic forces at Russia. The scenario . . . of Russia believing it faced a ``use it or lose it'' situation with its force of MIRVed ICBMs is therefore not a credible concern. As a former press secretary of mine used to say--Evelyn Lieberman-- ``My lips to God's ears.'' Hopefully, that is true. As a result, President Bush felt at liberty to tell President Putin: [Y]ou can do whatever you think you have to do for your security. You can MIRV your missiles, you can keep more, you can go lower. Do what you think you need. I sincerely hope the relationship between the United States and Russia has truly been transformed and that, as President Bush wrote in his letter of transmittal, ``Russia is not an enemy, Russia is a friend''--a friend, I might add, that is not with us right now on the Security Council and not with us with regard to Iraq, but that is a parenthetical note. Most of all, I hope that Russia feels the same way. If President Putin fears a U.S. attack, then it won't matter what President Bush has as his intent. If the Russian military fears a U.S. attack, their missiles may stay on a ``hair trigger'' alert even if President Putin does not share their fears. In short, the Moscow Treaty is a treaty that is long on flexibility accorded to each party and short on provisions intended to ensure compliance. That emphasis on military flexibility is the hallmark of this administration. It is an understandable response to dangerous times, but I think it is also a vision that ignores many of the political risks. This administration has also promoted a nuclear weapons policy that speaks of the use of new ``bunker-buster'' weapons against deeply buried targets, treating nuclear weapons as a handy tool just as any other weapon, and thus lowering the threshold for nuclear war. This administration also speaks of possible new nuclear weapons tests. This administration speaks of the possible use of nuclear weapons against states that neither have such weapons nor are allied with states that have them, contradicting previous American statements that we made in order to maintain other countries' support for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This administration has indicated possible preemptive attacks, perhaps with nuclear weapons, on states that we fear are preparing to do us harm--again, perhaps even if those states do not have nuclear weapons. I do not doubt that if we went through this list, issue by issue, we would find that the administration has understandable reasons for its actions. But in foreign affairs, understandable reasons are not enough. We need a sensible strategy. We need statecraft that offers what Thomas Jefferson called ``a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.'' In that respect, we risk alienating ourselves from those who could be of help to us in many areas. The issue may be to keep an American on a United Nations commission or whether to support an American use of force in Iraq. Chickens come home to roost. The fact is, we cannot take these unilateral positions irrespective, in my view, of world public opinion and then not expect to pay for it down the road somewhere. I would respectfully suggest, parenthetically, I think we are paying for some of that right now in the United Nations Security Council. This fixation with military power extends to the Moscow Treaty as well. How should we handle a treaty that calls for significant force reductions but also allows each party to keep its powder dry? Retired Senator Sam Nunn, former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has a good term for the Moscow Treaty. He calls it, not ``the Moscow Treaty,'' but the ``good-faith treaty.'' Senator Nunn adds: It expresses--and relies upon--good faith in our common interests and the common vision of our leaders. I think it is a pretty good way to characterize this treaty. But when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Sam Nunn added a very important point about the treaty. He said: If it is not followed with other substantive actions, it will become irrelevant at best--counterproductive at worst. Let me read that again. He said: ``If it is not followed with other substantive actions''--he means actions in terms of arms control and verification, and the like--``it will become irrelevant at best-- counterproductive at worst.'' I share his view. I support the Moscow Treaty because, on balance, it enhances our national interests. Put another way: To reject this treaty, in my view, would harm our national interest and, as I said at the outset, the relationship between the United States and Russia. The arms reductions in it do not go far enough, in my view, but they are better than nothing. There is no verification provisions, but good faith, information from START verification activities, and Nunn-Lugar may be a good substitute for verification. There is a risk that the Russians will rely upon MIRVed ICBMs that raise the threat of an accidental war, but there is also a chance that Russia will destroy those missiles as fast as they can pay for their destruction. The flexibility built into this treaty could undermine each party's commitment to reductions and its confidence that the other side will achieve them, but the Bush-Putin relationship, which is now being somewhat strained on North Korea and on Iraq, could lead to new patterns of cooperation that make further formal agreements unnecessary. May all the good outcomes come to pass, but they require a leap of faith. In the meantime, however, I worked with Chairman Lugar to draft a resolution of ratification that keeps Senator Nunn's admonition in mind. We must build on this treaty in order to ensure its success. The resolution before us strengthens congressional oversight of the Moscow Treaty implementation and highlights some of the areas on which the administration should build on the treaty to secure a safer world for ourselves and future generations. The resolution includes two conditions and six declarations. Let me briefly go through them. Condition (1) requires an annual report to the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees on how U.S. cooperative threat reduction and nonproliferation assistance to Russia can best contribute to enabling Russia to implement its side of the bargain. Reports subsequent to the initial report will be due on February 15 so that the Senate can take them into account as it considers the budget for programs for which the administration is calling. This is vital because U.S. assistance can bring about the weapons dismantlement the Moscow Treaty fails to achieve. Condition (2) requires an annual report to the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committee on U.S. and Russian strategic force levels; each party's planned reductions for the current year; each party's plans for achieving the full reductions by December 31, 2012. Further, it requires reporting on any measure, including verification or transparency measures, taken or proposed by a party to assure each party that the other will achieve its reductions by December 31, 2012. Condition (2) also requires information relevant to the treaty learned through START verification, and the status of consideration of extending the START verification regime beyond December 2009 when the START treaty is scheduled to expire; anything calling into question either party's intention or ability to achieve the full Moscow Treaty reductions by December 31, 2012; and any action taken or proposed by the parties to address such concerns. This report will provide a strong foundation for Senate oversight of the treaty's implementation. The first declaration in the treaty reaffirms the Biden-Byrd condition on the authoritative nature of executive branch representations to the Senate and its committees during the ratification process insofar as they are directed to the meaning and legal effect of the treaty. In other words, it says the President--this President or a future Democrat or Republican President--cannot reinterpret the treaty, cannot give it a meaning different than was suggested to us as what it meant. There is a second declaration. It encourages the President to continue strategic offensive reductions beyond those mandated by this treaty to the lowest possible levels consistent with national security requirements and alliance obligations of the United States. Declarations, I might note, for the Presiding Officer, who knows this well, are nonbinding. But this one makes clear that the Moscow Treaty should not be the end of arms control. President Bush also issued a joint declaration on May 24, 2002, with Russian President Putin that declared ``their intention to carry out strategic offensive reductions to the lowest possible levels consistent with our national security requirements and alliance obligations and reflecting the new nature of their strategic reductions.'' The joint declaration went on to call the Moscow Treaty a major step in this direction--not the final step, only a major one. The clear implication is that further reductions may follow. This declaration gives the arms reduction process the Senate's blessing, just as we did when considering ratification of START and the START II treaties. The third declaration states the Senate's expectation that the executive branch will offer to brief the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees on issues raised in the bilateral implementation commission, which is part of this treaty, on Moscow Treaty issues raised in other channels, and on any Presidential determination regarding such issues. Given the lack of verification or transparency provisions in the Moscow Treaty, the bilateral implementation committee established by article III of the treaty may play a major role in assuring that each party knows what the other party is doing and retains confidence that the reductions required by article I will be completed on time--a very important point, on time. Remember, there are no drop-dead dates here. The fourth declaration urges the President to engage Russia with the objective of, one, establishing cooperative measures regarding the accounting and security of nonstrategic--that is, or tactical--nuclear weapons, and two, providing U.S. and other international assistance to help Russia improve its accounting and security of these weapons. The first meeting of the U.S.-Russian Consultative Group on Strategic Security established a committee to examine these issues. The administration witnesses listed this as a top priority. This declaration, in my view, adds the Senate's encouragement to pursue the issue of tactical nuclear weapons. It does not call for bilateral agreement on reductions of those weapons because several outside witnesses said no Russian agreement to such reductions was likely. The fifth declaration before us encourages the President to accelerate U.S. force reductions where feasible and consistent with U.S. national security and alliance obligations. The Treaty's intended reductions may be achieved prior to December 2012. To me, the wisdom of faster reductions is clear. It will reassure the world of our commitment to reduced nuclear forces to a reasonable level as speedily as we can. They will also ease any possible Russian concerns about whether we will meet the one deadline in the treaty. Department of Energy and Air Force officials warn that absent additional resources, major bottlenecks would slow down an accelerated reduction effort. The Congressional Budget Office report on the treaty cites specific concerns in that regard. But those concerns relate to an effort to complete all reductions by the year 2007. I believe in the years after 2007, when the transfer of Peacekeeper warheads to the Minuteman III missile will have been completed, faster reductions will be much more feasible. There is declaration 6. It urges the President to consult with the Senate prior to actions relevant to article IV, paragraph 2, which relate to extending or superseding a treaty, or paragraph 3, which relate to withdrawal from the treaty. This declaration builds on the statement of the Secretary of State that ``the administration intends to discuss any need to withdraw from the treaty with the Congress, to include the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, prior to announcing any such action.'' The Secretary's statement could mean only that the administration would discuss with the Senate the need to withdraw when the decision has already been made. This declaration we have in the resolution goes further, by urging the President to consult with the Senate. One may discuss after the decision has been made, but one can only consult before a decision has been taken. The latter is what the Senate expects if this treaty is passed, and this expectation extends beyond the withdrawal issue to cover actions relevant to extending or superseding the treaty. It is vital that the executive branch consult with us when it is considering changes in a treaty. That way, Senators can raise any concern before decisions are made that might jeopardize the chances of securing our advice and consent to ratification. The resolution of ratification before us was recommended unanimously by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I believe it will make a real contribution to the success of this treaty, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it. To be sure, the resolution does not address every issue we could raise. It clearly does not speak to every declaration that I think should be included in this treaty, but neither is it the only venue in which to raise those issues. For example, consider what the Foreign Relations Committee's report of the treaty says about the proposal by GEN Eugene Habiger, former commander of U.S. Strategic Command: Members of the committee . . . share General Habiger's view that options for reducing alert status should be evaluated by those with significant expertise on the specific weapons systems in question. If the President does not order preparation for such analyses, Congress could require the analyses or establish a commission of weapons systems experts to undertake this task. Such commissions have been created before, some under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, and have proven useful in considering issues of such a technical nature. Senator Lugar and I do not think this resolution of ratification is a proper vehicle through which to establish such a commission, but unless something has changed, which I know it has not, we will continue to pursue this proposal in a venue other than this treaty. The committee's report also addresses two other issues we were unable to incorporate in the resolution of ratification. On verification and transparency, our report says: The committee believes that the absence of verification provisions in the Moscow Treaty makes confidence and transparency a high priority issue. . . . The United States should not only practice transparency, but also promote it, in close coordination with the Russian Federation. Our report goes on to say: The committee urges the President to use implementation of the Moscow Treaty as a means to foster . . . mutual confidence in the national security field. The report also calls attention to the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that further drawdowns in strategic delivery vehicles after 2007 could save some $5 billion. Our report adds: The committee recommends that the President give particular attention, as the Moscow Treaty implementation proceeds, to the possibility that modest further reductions in strategic delivery systems after 2007 could lead to significant cost savings without endangering the national security. The Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee can pursue both of these issues as they oversee the implementation of the treaty in the coming years, and I am committed to doing so, and I believe the chairman is as well. Some of my colleagues are concerned about still other issues. Several amendments may be proposed today. Some of them are amendments I would like to support, but I will not support any additional amendments because I think it is fair to say, speaking for myself, but I think it reflects the view of the chairman--he may have already mentioned it--we believe that in order to get the cooperation we had to add the total of eight declarations or conditions to this treaty, we would, in fact, oppose other amendments, some positive, some, in my view, very negative. So it will be my dubious distinction of possibly voting against some amendments that I think are useful because I think if that were to happen and we started to load this up, we might very well lose this treaty. I think it is very important. It is a mild exaggeration to suggest, but not very far off, that my view is that the value of the treaty is exceeded only by the danger of failing to ratify this treaty, and there is a danger, in my view, of failing to ratify this treaty. This is not a treaty, were I in charge of negotiation--as my Grandfather Finnegan used to say, this is not the whole of it--this is not all of what I would like to have seen in this treaty. I sincerely hope this further changes the atmosphere in the positive direction it has been changing, that this administration and the Russian administration will conclude we should be dealing with MIRV missiles, we should be dealing with tactical nuclear weapons, and we should be dealing with other genuine mutual concerns that we have. I am confident if we reject this treaty, if we bog it down and it does not get the necessary supermajority required, then it will make those possibilities impossible in the near term. So in each case, as these amendments are put forward, if they are, I will be guided also by the need to maintain administration support and Senate consensus regarding the resolution of ratification as a whole. I say to my Democratic colleagues on my side of the aisle, I do not presume to speak for them all. Generally, I do not think it is appropriate for the chairman or a ranking member to commit his or her party to a single position that that chairman or, in this case, the ranking member takes. I respect my colleagues who may come forward with amendments, but I hope they understand my rationale and why I will not be supporting those amendments, even the good ones, because there is no amendment I can see that is so significant that it would cure all the defects or all the things this treaty fails to address. The risk I am concerned about is bogging this treaty down. It is a good resolution, I say to the Presiding Officer, who knows that as well as or better than anyone present--he is one of the most informed people in this body on foreign relations and arms control issues. I think it will be implemented. The reporting it requires, I think, will enable us to do our constitutional duty of watching over the treaty in the coming years. Let's pass it and then work together to make it a success and work together to take the next steps we have to take. I would note to my chairman that there may be a resolution unrelated to any amendment to this treaty calling for the Senate to go on record in a much more forceful way to support a comprehensive non- proliferation strategy and Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction efforts. As I said in the chairman's absence, without verification, there are only two things that give me real solace, and they are the insight we get from the Nunn-Lugar initiatives and cooperative threat reduction, as well as the remaining verification process that exists within the START treaty which will expire three years before this treaty expires. But it will not, I assure my colleague, be as an amendment. It will not be as a declaration which we cannot amend. It will not be as a condition to this treaty. I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I do not plan on speaking on this issue very much longer except on each amendment at some point. I hope we can move as rapidly as possible because, again, the treaty is valuable, but it is dangerous if we do not pass this treaty. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. The answer is yes. I think what the Senator is attempting to do is very important. Let me explain to the Senator my perspective, and to state the obvious--I may very well be wrong about this. But let me tell my colleague why I honestly think what Senator Lugar and I came up with is, quite frankly, more likely to get at what we need. Condition 8 that has been referred to in the START treaty was a very new and important idea when we enacted it 10 years ago. It led the Clinton administration to use the Nunn-Lugar program to achieve a measure of transparency into the Russian fissile stockpiles in the mid- 1990s. In recent years, the United States has helped Russia to conduct a census of its civilian fissile material, but I doubt that either side is now prepared to allow access to the weapons stockpiles that are not on the civilian side of this equation. It would be my expectation that a report called for on the activities pursuant to condition 8 to the START treaty resolution of ratification would only tell us there are no negotiations toward a bilateral agreement, even though there are useful efforts underway on the Nunn- Lugar related programs. We already have a condition to the resolution before us that requires the Nunn-Lugar report; in other words, progress on Nunn-Lugar initiatives. We are required to have a report. While I will join the Senator in a letter, and I agree with what the Senator is trying to do, I honestly--not out of pride of authorship of what we came up with, but I honestly believe that what we did as a condition on the Nunn-Lugar programs on this treaty is, quite frankly, more effective than going the route of the condition 8 requirements in the START treaty. I hope I made that clear. Again, there is no disagreement I have with the Senator from Illinois. The bottom line is that what he has pointed out is, in my view, a real deficiency in this treaty overall. His legitimate attempt to take condition 8 of START and use it as a vehicle to stand in for the absence of a verification requirement in this treaty is useful. I honestly think, though, I say to Senator Durbin, the way we did it in the resolution is a more effective way of accomplishing what the Senator is trying to do than through condition 8 of the START treaty. I will conclude by saying, as I said in a necessarily lengthy statement laying out my interests, concerns, and the assets and deficiencies of this treaty when the chairman brought it to the floor, the treaty, as former Senator Sam Nunn said, in an overall context, can either be moderately helpful or it can be mischievous. I am paraphrasing. The absence of a verification provision worries me not so much because I think we are going to be put in jeopardy if they do not do what they are supposed to do, but because it is going to allow a future administration or Members of the Senate to do what they did when we had a verbal agreement on tactical nuclear weapons in the first Bush administration. It is going to allow some of our friends on the right, who are not going to like it when things are not going so smoothly with Russia, to say: See, these guys are liars. These guys do not keep their agreements. These guys are not doing what they said because we cannot verify that they have done what they said they were going to do. It leads to distrust because there is always, as my friend from Illinois knows, whether in the House or the Senate--and he has been here a long time--there is always a group in this body that trusts no agreement, none whatsoever, no arms control agreement, no matter how loosely structured. As Senator Helms, my good friend and the predecessor of the Presiding Officer, used to say: There is never a war we have lost or a treaty we have won. So it is axiomatic on the part of some, in the very conservative elements of our party, but clearly in the Republican Party, who say all treaties are bad ideas, they are just bad ideas. Absent verification provisions, we allow for misunderstanding to creep in over the next 10 years to what is basically a good-faith agreement until December 31, 2012, the drop-dead date when we know what has happened. I wish to make one other point because I think it will affect other legitimate points of view and amendments that are brought to the floor that I would be inclined to support. I remind everyone who may be listening--and I know my colleagues on the floor fully understand this--the President started off with a flat assertion that this would not be a treaty, the Moscow agreement. As a matter of fact, the day on which we had the police memorial service on The Mall--and I am part of that process--I was up on the stage, and the President, who has a great sense of humor and is really an engaging guy, walked up on the stage, grabbed my arm, and said: You owe me one, Joe. I looked at him joking and said: How is that, Mr. President? He said: You got your treaty. He was kidding about my owing him one. But the generic point was well taken. He never wanted this to be a treaty in the first place. The Senator from Indiana--I will not say the Senator from Indiana--the Senator from Delaware was vocal, vociferous privately and publicly with the President personally and on this floor that it had to be a treaty. The backdrop to all of this is, in terms of additional conditions that may or may not be added to this resolution, that if push comes to shove, I am convinced this President would not be disappointed if we did not vote for this. Let me restate that--he would be disappointed if we did not vote for it. But I am worried that, if certain amendments were added that he did not like, I do not think he would have any trouble saying, I would rather not have it as a treaty, and I will keep the verbal agreement, the executive agreement with Mr. Putin, rather than have it as a treaty and have to accept these conditions. It is very important this stay as a treaty as--flawed is the wrong word--but as incomplete as it happens to be. The Senator--I am not being solicitous--points out a deep and serious deficiency in this treaty, and I think the mechanism he chose to try to remedy it is, quite frankly, sound; but the remedy we chose to deal with the deficiency I think is a more likely way to achieve what we are seeking than condition 8 of the START treaty. Having said all of that, I will be happy to join the Senator in a letter, as strong as he would like to make the letter. I have already sent a few missives down to the President on my views on some of these issues, for what they are worth. I would be happy to join the Senator and sign with him a letter along the lines he has been talking about.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, my decision to vote for the omnibus spending bill late last night was a difficult one. It is the largest single spending bill ever passed by Congress. It represents work that should have been completed last fall, and crams into one bill what should have been 11 separate bills, each with its own separate debate and deliberation. This is no way to legislate, and the final product reflects that unfortunate process. I was gratified that many important obligations received funding, but unfortunately many others did not. At the same time, this massive document contains far too many provisions that were never exposed to the daylight of publicity and debate. My vote in favor of this bill was a very close call. First, the good news. Unlike an earlier version that I could not support, this bill restored funds for Byrne grants that local law enforcement agencies need in these dangerous times. In addition, I was able to add language that permits local police to use COPS money for the many hours of overtime involved as they meet the demands of homeland defense. Law enforcement projects in my State of Delaware, from State to county to local agencies, will receive $3.5 million in funds from that COPS program. But the bad news is that $3 billion for first responders was cut out of this legislation. Those are funds to support firefighters and police and local emergency response centers. Another $170 million was cut from the Transportation Security Administration, despite the obvious need for additional protection for our Nation's air, highway, and rail systems. Funds for port security and border security were also cut. The debate over these programs will continue soon, as we begin budget debates for the coming year and a security supplemental spending bill, and I will continue the fight to provide the citizens of this country all of the protection they need. And we must expose those last-minute, back-room deals that litter the thousands of pages of this legislation. Some are clear wastes of taxpayer money in these critical times. Others weaken important environmental protections, and have no place in these spending bills. On balance, I concluded that this legislation which allows the Federal Government to continue its important functions narrowly deserves my support. But there is much here that needs to be fixed, so the debate that should have occurred on this huge, complicated bill will continue.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, as you know, yesterday the Senate unanimously confirmed the nominations of John R. Adams to be a judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, S. James Otero to be a judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California, and Robert A. Junell to be a judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. I was in Delaware meeting with constituents and, accordingly, was unable to attend yesterday's votes. I wish to note for the Record, however, that I would have voted in favor of all three nominees yesterday, having voted to report favorably their nominations from the Judiciary Committee last week.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to condemn in the strongest terms the rejection yesterday by France, Germany, and Belgium of Turkey's formal request for defensive help under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty. This was the first invocation of Article 4 in the 54- year history of NATO. Article 4 mandates alliance members to consult ``whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.'' Fearing a preemptive attack by Iraq, Turkey requested Patriot missile batteries, AWACS radar planes, and specialized units for countering chemical and biological warfare. Sixteen of the 19 NATO members voted to grant Turkey its request. France, Germany, and Belgium, however, refused, thereby blocking the request under the alliance's consensus principle. Paris, Berlin, and Brussels argued that even this kind of defensive action by NATO would appear to commit the alliance to war before the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq had issued their second report this Friday. I have spoken at length on the situation in Iraq on the floor of this chamber and in many other venues. Today, therefore, I will restrict my comments to yesterday's action in NATO's North Atlantic Council, NAC, and the potential ramifications for the future of the alliance. Frankly, I am shocked and outraged at the behavior of France, Germany, and Belgium. I could easily give an emotional response, but I will not descend to the level of caricature and vitriolic insults that, unfortunately, one increasingly hears from Western European America- bashers. Nor will I indulge in blanket criticism. France is this country's oldest ally and in the last 12 years took part in the Gulf War, the Kosovo air campaign, and in Operation Enduring Freedom. Germany too has participated in recent military and peacekeeping operations and on this very day, together with the Netherlands, is assuming command of the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan. Belgium is also contributing troops to peacekeeping in the Balkans. This is, however, only part of the story. Recent history, unfortunately, gives us a foretaste of yesterday's action in the NAC. One might recall Belgium's refusal during the Gulf War to sell ammunition to NATO ally Great Britain. Or more directly applicable was the Bundestag speech early in 1991 by Mr. Otto Lambsdorff, then a leader of the German Free Democratic Party, opposing military shipments to NATO ally Turkey because of elements of Ankara's domestic policy. Germany's action yesterday was particularly distasteful, since that country's postwar economic miracle or ``Wirtschaftswunder'' was to a considerable extent built by the sweat of Turkish guest workers. Aside from moral considerations, the refusal of assistance to Turkey by these three countries gravely undermines the solidarity that is the bedrock of the North Atlantic Alliance. At first glance, their behavior is puzzling, since they surely know that the United States will stand by its Turkish ally and either unilaterally, or in conjunction with other NATO members, will provide the equipment that Ankara feels it needs. Already one European ally has stepped up to the plate. The Dutch Foreign Ministry has declared that ``the Netherlands is strongly opposed'' to the French-German-Belgian move and ``will go ahead with providing Patriot missiles to Turkey.'' The Dutch, in fact, have already sent an air force team to Turkey to prepare for the dispatch of the Patriot missile batteries, which will be manned by 370 Dutch military personnel. So since Turkey will receive defensive assistance, the French-German- Belgian refusal can only be seen as a symbolic gesture--a direct swipe at American leadership of the alliance--but one with more than symbolic importance. U.S. Ambassador Nick Burns declared that it is causing NATO to face ``a crisis of credibility.'' I would use a metaphor to describe yesterday's action: Paris, Berlin, and Brussels are playing with fire. If the United States believes that NATO is a hindrance to its security requirements, it will continue to bypass the alliance, and NATO will quickly atrophy. No serious observer believes that the European Union has either the capability or the will to provide a credible military alternative to a NATO deprived of American muscle. A security vacuum would quickly develop on the continent, thereby undoing more than a half-century of common effort and endangering the EU itself. Finally, let me address the faulty logic offered by France, Germany, and Belgium for their action yesterday. To repeat: their ambassadors argued that if NATO were to furnish Turkey with the defensive materiel it requested, it would appear that the alliance was committing itself to war before the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq had issued their second report this Friday. Paris, Berlin, and Brussels might be interested to learn that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will brief the members of the Security Council this Thursday on the status of contingency planning by the United Nations for humanitarian assistance for Iraq in the event of war. According to the argument used yesterday in the NAC by the French, Germans, and Belgians, the U.N.'s action, therefore, is hastening the outbreak of war. I fully anticipate that French President Chirac, German Chancellor Schroeder, and Belgian Prime Minister Verhofstadt will condemn Secretary General Annan for his recklessness.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased once again to join my colleague from New York, Senator Schumer, to talk about a bill that will help American families afford their children's college tuition. The bill we are reintroducing today, the Make College Affordable Act, will make up to $12,000 in college tuition tax deductible each year, while providing graduates with a tax credit to reduce the cost of their student loans. With the average college graduate earning 80 percent more than the average non-college, high school graduate, it is abundantly clear that in today's economy a college degree is an absolute necessity. When I went to college, it cost about $1,000 a year. That meant, for a family making about $12,000 a year, the cost of college was about 6 or 7 percent of that family's income. Today the average cost of room, board and tuition at a four-year public college has jumped to over $9,000 a year. The average cost of room, board and tuition at a private four- year college has jumped to over $25,000. What does this mean? This means that hard working American families are spending a larger percentage of their income than ever before to send their children to school. To attend my alma mater, the University of Delaware, it costs nearly 20 percent of a Delaware family's average annual income to cover costs. If that same family wants to send their child to a private university, approximately 50 percent of their income is required. This means that the average American family is likely to spend just as much, if not more, on their child's tuition as they are to pay in annual mortgage payments. I have said it before. How can we expect families to dream of a better and brighter future for their children, when the cost of attending even some public universities rivals their home mortgage payments? We can't. That is why in 1995, I first offered an amendment to permit a $10,000 tuition tax deduction. That is why in 1996 and 1997, I introduced my GET AHEAD bill which would have provided students and their families with scholarships, tax deductions, and college savings plans. We've made some good progress. A number of initiatives were incorporated into the 1997 tax bill. Today families have available to them the Hope Scholarship--a tax credit of up to $1,500 for the first two years of college, and the Lifetime Learning Credit--which permits a 20 percent tax credit on up to $10,000 worth of higher education expenses. Students can also claim a tax deduction for interest on student loans, have the opportunity to consolidate their student loans at low interest rates and beginning in 2001, have had the chance to deduct up to $3,000 in tuition expenses from their Federal income tax. And yet, we can and should do more to help qualified students attend the college of their dreams. This is why I introduced my Tuition Assistance for Families Act in January. This bill would expand current tuition tax credits, provide merit scholarships to graduating seniors, increase the maximum Pell Grant and raise the tuition tax deduction much like the bill before us today. I join my friend from New York today to introduce the Make College Affordable Act because it will allow most taxpayers to take up to a $12,000 tax deduction each year for college tuition and fees. For some families this would amount to a tax savings of more than $3,000 each year--$3,000 that can go toward their children's doctor visits, retirement savings, child care costs and yes, toward their annual mortgage payment. In addition to the tax deduction, the Schumer-Biden bill will provide a tax credit of up to $1,500 for the interest paid on student loans over the first five years of repayment. This credit will be available to individuals with incomes of up to $50,000, and families with incomes up to $100,000. When one considers that the average graduate is $16,928 in debt, you can imagine how quickly interest payments add up each year. We are hearing a great deal these days about tax cuts. How we choose to provide them, and who we choose to provide them to, is a reflection of our nation's priorities and values. What greater priority could there be than providing our children with a first class education. Let's be smart about our investments when considering the tax proposals that come before us. Let's help families provide their children with a better life through the promise of a college education. And let's not forget that the Make College Affordable Act will not only ensure a brighter future for all our children, it will help to guarantee an educated and prosperous America down the road.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased once again to join my colleague from New York, Senator Schumer, to talk about a bill that will help American families afford their children's college tuition. The bill we are reintroducing today, the Make College Affordable Act, will make up to $12,000 in college tuition tax deductible each year, while providing graduates with a tax credit to reduce the cost of their student loans. With the average college graduate earning 80 percent more than the average non-college, high school graduate, it is abundantly clear that in today's economy a college degree is an absolute necessity. When I went to college, it cost about $1,000 a year. That meant, for a family making about $12,000 a year, the cost of college was about 6 or 7 percent of that family's income. Today the average cost of room, board and tuition at a four-year public college has jumped to over $9,000 a year. The average cost of room, board and tuition at a private four- year college has jumped to over $25,000. What does this mean? This means that hard working American families are spending a larger percentage of their income than ever before to send their children to school. To attend my alma mater, the University of Delaware, it costs nearly 20 percent of a Delaware family's average annual income to cover costs. If that same family wants to send their child to a private university, approximately 50 percent of their income is required. This means that the average American family is likely to spend just as much, if not more, on their child's tuition as they are to pay in annual mortgage payments. I have said it before. How can we expect families to dream of a better and brighter future for their children, when the cost of attending even some public universities rivals their home mortgage payments? We can't. That is why in 1995, I first offered an amendment to permit a $10,000 tuition tax deduction. That is why in 1996 and 1997, I introduced my GET AHEAD bill which would have provided students and their families with scholarships, tax deductions, and college savings plans. We've made some good progress. A number of initiatives were incorporated into the 1997 tax bill. Today families have available to them the Hope Scholarship--a tax credit of up to $1,500 for the first two years of college, and the Lifetime Learning Credit--which permits a 20 percent tax credit on up to $10,000 worth of higher education expenses. Students can also claim a tax deduction for interest on student loans, have the opportunity to consolidate their student loans at low interest rates and beginning in 2001, have had the chance to deduct up to $3,000 in tuition expenses from their Federal income tax. And yet, we can and should do more to help qualified students attend the college of their dreams. This is why I introduced my Tuition Assistance for Families Act in January. This bill would expand current tuition tax credits, provide merit scholarships to graduating seniors, increase the maximum Pell Grant and raise the tuition tax deduction much like the bill before us today. I join my friend from New York today to introduce the Make College Affordable Act because it will allow most taxpayers to take up to a $12,000 tax deduction each year for college tuition and fees. For some families this would amount to a tax savings of more than $3,000 each year--$3,000 that can go toward their children's doctor visits, retirement savings, child care costs and yes, toward their annual mortgage payment. In addition to the tax deduction, the Schumer-Biden bill will provide a tax credit of up to $1,500 for the interest paid on student loans over the first five years of repayment. This credit will be available to individuals with incomes of up to $50,000, and families with incomes up to $100,000. When one considers that the average graduate is $16,928 in debt, you can imagine how quickly interest payments add up each year. We are hearing a great deal these days about tax cuts. How we choose to provide them, and who we choose to provide them to, is a reflection of our nation's priorities and values. What greater priority could there be than providing our children with a first class education. Let's be smart about our investments when considering the tax proposals that come before us. Let's help families provide their children with a better life through the promise of a college education. And let's not forget that the Make College Affordable Act will not only ensure a brighter future for all our children, it will help to guarantee an educated and prosperous America down the road.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader, Senator Frist, for accommodating my being able to speak at this moment. I rise today, after coming from a hearing of my Foreign Relations Committee, where Secretary Powell has just testified. I note at the outset that I, for one--and I think my view is shared by many--think Secretary Powell made a compelling and irrefutable case yesterday about Saddam Hussein's possession of and continued effort to hide his weapons of mass destruction and his desire to gain more. But I am fearful--that is the wrong word--I am concerned that our understandable focus on Iraq at this moment is taking focus off of what I believe to be an equal, if not more immediate, threat to U.S. interests and those of our allies. I speak of Korea. Last week we learned that North Korea has moved plutonium fuel rods out of storage and possibly towards a production--for everybody listening, this is complicated stuff and I will explain what I mean. They announced today they are beginning their 5 megawatt nuclear powerplant. What happens with that type of nuclear powerplant--which we, until now, had them shut down with the IAEA, when there were cameras and inspectors making sure it was shut down. What happens is they have fuel rods--as my friend knows well, fuel is a nuclear power, produces nuclear power. That spent rod--in other words, the byproduct of that process of generating electricity through nuclear power--that so-called spent rod is then taken out of that reactor and, because of the type of reactor this is, it is the byproduct of that reactor. It is a spent rod that has plutonium in it. Plutonium--and I am giving an unscientific analysis. Not that the American public could not understand it, but this is an unscientific analysis of how it works. That spent rod is then stored somewhere because it has a radioactive half life that is longer than any of us, or our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren are going to have. What we have always worried about is they would take that spent rod and move it to a plant not far from the reactor that generates electricity, such as the lights that are on in this Chamber, and they are put in a reprocessing plant. The reprocessing plant is another process by which that spent rod that no longer generates electricity, that has the fissile material in it, essentially takes that rod--it is a long rod and it looks like a big pole, sort of. When it is put in that reprocessing plant, within 1 month there would be enough plutonium--figuratively--that comes out of that rod that is in a different form--enough plutonium to construct one additional nuclear bomb. That material does not lend itself to easy detection. Geiger counters don't click when it passes through a detection area. It is very hard to pick up, like we pick up knives in suitcases going through at the airport. That plutonium is exportable and hardly detectable. It is the stuff of which a nuclear bomb is made. Correct, and prophetic! How then, do we explain the administration's muted response to the world's worst proliferator taking concrete steps that could permit it to build a nuclear arsenal? We can't afford to put this problem on the back burner just because we are preoccupied with Iraq and the war on terrorism. The administration needs to demonstrate the ability to walk, chew tobacco, and spit at the same time. If we follow the hard-headed engagement prescription, will it work? Will the North change course? I don't know. It's impossible to know for sure unless we try. I say the odds, frankly, are stacked against us, and would have been stacked against us even if we hadn't wasted the last 2 years. Pyongyang says it wants to resolve all of the United States' security concerns, including the ``nuclear issue,'' and will do so if the United States formally assures the DPRK of nonaggression. Is this price too high? Can the North be counted on to fulfill its side of the bargain? Prior to his departure for Pyongyang in 1994, President Carter was briefed by the State Department on the current situation in North Korea--its economy, military capabilities, diplomatic initiatives. He kept coming back to one question, ``What does North Korea want?'' He answered the question himself with one word: RESPECT. The underlying cause of the 1994 crisis and the current one are the same. North Korea is weak, isolated, and incapable of rescuing itself. Largely cut off from Chinese and Russian support, the DPRK is profoundly insecure. South Korea's economy has made possible a revolution in military affairs, and U.S. military prowess has been proved repeatedly in the Gulf, the Balkans, and most recently in Afghanistan. By contrast the North's conventional military forces are obsolete, its training budget minuscule. The North is one of the obvious targets of a new so-called ``preemptive'' military doctrine, and it is witnessing a military buildup in the Persian Gulf designed to oust Saddam Hussein from power in the very near future. The message to Pyongyang could not be more clear: ``Be afraid. Be very afraid.'' Fine, Deterrence works, up to a point, and I am not against reminding North Korea of our military prowess. But only comprehensive negotiations have a change to move Pyongyang back from the precipice it is approaching. The administration should overcome its distaste for dealing with Kim Chong-il and engage the North in serious, high level, bilateral discussions to end the North's nuclear program once and for all. Demanding that Pyongyang unconditionally surrender before the United States will engage in talks is a nice fantasy policy, but it has absolutely no hope in the real world. We should instead adopt a posture of ``more for more.'' The President is right when he resists ``paying'' North Korea to abide by the agreements it has already signed. But that is not what I'm talking about. The agreed framework left too much undone. Our objective should not be to restore the status quo ante. Rather, we need to seek the removal of all of the spent fuel rods from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor. We need verifiably to dismantle the North's highly enriched uranium program. We need to account for the 8-9 kilograms of plutonium ``missing'' since 1994, and do so sooner. rather than later. We need to get North Korea back inside the Nuclear Non- proliferation Treaty and return the inspectors to monitor the North's conduct. Long term, we need to address the North's development and export of ballistic missiles and its abominable human rights records. To get there, we must bring something to the table other than threats and insults. The North isn't looking for money from us. That can come from South Korea, Japan, our allies, in the form of trade, aid, investment, and war reparations. The North is looking for respect and security. These are precious commodities. The North must earn them. But in the end, it seems a small price to pay if the outcome is a denuclearized Peninsula with North and South living in peace. If you have a piece of plutonium that has a base bigger in circumference than the bottom of the jar I am holding up and about as half as thick and you have the right instrument, the right rifling effect--you know how a bullet that has gunpowder in it and a piece of metal at the end of it, the stuff that goes through your body, the bullet has to be directed some way; it has to be, in effect, ignited some way. What happens is you have a rifle with a firing pin. It has a long tube. You hit the back of it, and it explodes the gunpowder, fires this projectile through the rifle, through the long muzzle, and it goes certain distances based on its configuration. That is what happens when you have these two pieces of plutonium, if you can get your hands on them, and you put it in a nuclear device they call a rifle device. If you can smash those two pieces of plutonium together at the appropriate speed in the appropriate sphere, you can have, with just those two small pieces, a 1-kiloton bomb. A nuclear chain reaction starts when those pieces collide in the right circumstances. If one of those weapons is homemade--it does not have to be put in a missile. Because it is classified, I am not able to tell you, but I know my friend knows because he has full access, as I do. If we put that so-called rifle device which is, like that old saying, bigger than a bread box but smaller than a Mack truck--it is somewhere in between-- if you put that in place in a stationary position and detonate it, you would have been able to take down the World Trade Towers in, I believe it was 3 seconds--do not hold me to that, but very few seconds--and kill about 100,000 people according to our experts. Because this material is highly undetectable and moveable, it is of considerable concern. What does this have to do with anything? Why am I standing here when we may be able to go to war in Iraq if Saddam does not make the right choice? Why am I talking about this? What happened is, the North Koreans, who are trying to blackmail us and the world, who are the bad guys, who are doing the wrong thing and are doing it on their own--I am not suggesting anything we did produced that or made them do that--they are saying: We are going forward, and we just turned the light switch on in our 5-megawatt nuclear reactor that will only produce more spent rods--follow me?--the stuff from which you get plutonium, but we have 8,000 of these spent rods sitting in another location. But all we have to do is take these spent rods or the new ones we get and take them over to that reprocessing plant. We have not clicked the light switch on in that plant yet, but we promised you we would not switch the light on in our nuclear powerplant, and we are saying: No, we are out; we are out of the arms control regime; we are going ahead and switching the light on, and if you do not talk to us--basically, blackmail--we are going ahead and switching the light on in the reprocessing facility. That puts the President in a very difficult position, and I am not suggesting this is an easy call. At the end of December, the administration indicated that it intended to take a careful and deliberative approach to the emerging crisis on the peninsula. The emerging crisis occurred when they blocked the cameras of the IAEA, kicked the inspectors out, and they went dark; we did not know what they were doing. Fortunately, we have COMINT and HUMINT, my friend knows, a fancy way of saying human intelligence on the ground and satellites above, that give us a pretty good idea what they are doing because we know where the reprocessing plant and nuclear plant are. I think the administration took a fairly reasoned approach. They declared: We have months to watch this unfold and see what happens. Other administration officials, including the President, conveyed the importance of patience in assessing and responding to North Korean threats. Were North Korea 3 to 5 years away from acquiring additional nuclear weapons, this patience in diplomacy would be very appropriate. However, there are 8,000 spent-fuel rods in North Korea, which may now be moving out of storage, that can yield enough fissile material for five or six additional nuclear weapons. The time line for reprocessing this spent fuel is a mere 5 to 6 months, but it gets worse. The North Koreans are likely to reprocess plutonium from spent-fuel rods in small batches. They do not have to take the 8,000 spent-fuel rods and start to reprocess them, meaning that the plutonium emerges a few grams at a time. Enough plutonium to produce one nuclear weapon can be ready in less than 5 weeks, according to our intelligence people and our scientists at the laboratories, after the initial spent fuel--those 8,000 rods--enter the reprocessing plant, not 8,000 of them but some of them. The clock is already ticking, and I think it is important that the administration's assessment of the recent reports that North Korea has begun removing some or all of those 8,000 spent-fuel rods from those storage facilities--tell us how this development will impact on the overall policy of the administration in terms of patience. Just restarting this reactor could produce another 6 kilograms of plutonium, in addition to those that are sitting in these rods right now. If Pyongyang completes construction of two unfinished, but much larger nuclear reactors, it could produce as much as 275 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year. When the administration says North Korea's reprocessing, if they started, is not a crisis, it seems to me it makes a very unhealthy suggestion, and that is that the only use of this reprocessed plutonium, the stuff that can go right into a bomb, a nuclear weapon, that the only use they will use it for is to make another six or eight nuclear weapons. They have, we think, one or two nuclear bombs now, from the time we shut down the process. We worked out an agreement that they shut down the process, and everybody agrees it was shut down in 1994. I would have to agree with the administration because I think deterrence works. They seem to have a dual standard here. They say the reason we have to build a national missile defense is if deterrence does not work, and now they tell us basically: Do not worry, it does not materially change the situation on the peninsula if they get another three, four, five, or eight nuclear weapons. I think it does. Apparently they agree deterrence does work somehow or they would be much more worried about it. I then ask the question, What happens if they do not take this spent fuel? What happens if they do not take it and put it in a weapon? What happens if they take this plutonium from the spent fuel and put it in a little canister? I am told by my staff who is expert on Korea that their total trade surplus is about $400 million a year. If they have this spent fuel, I cannot imagine they would not be able to find buyers where they could pick up maybe $200 million for this. What would Iran pay for this spent fuel? They are trying to now generate the ability to reprocess their own fissile material. What about al-Qaida, who I might note is alive and well, unfortunately? Damaged but well, damaged but in business. Remember when we saw those pictures as we took Kandahar, when we invaded Afghanistan with the multilateral force? Remember a reporter--I forget which news organization it was, but I think it was one of the weekly magazines. I will not say which one. I remember clearly, and everyone else will remember when I say it, they went into a safe house, I believe it was in Kandahar, and came out with a diagram--a safe house meaning a house occupied by al-Qaida--of an attempt at what looked like how to produce a nuclear weapon. Then we got further information saying there was clear evidence that al-Qaida had been talking to two Pakistani nuclear scientists who know how to and have made nuclear weapons. So obviously these boys are trying to figure out how to make a homemade nuclear device. So I would like to think, and I agree the probability is North Korea is not likely to sell this--I should not say not likely--may not sell this plutonium. They may use it all for their own purposes. What if we are wrong and the ability to account for this material is virtually nonexistent, because it is so difficult to discern and determine where it is? The reason why our intelligence service, even after the agreed framework, is saying we think they have enough fuel, enough fissile material, plutonium from the past to have made one or two nuclear bombs by 1994, we do not know that. So what happens if we do not resolve this crisis, draw some red lines, make it clear what our intention is and talk with these guys? What happens if 6 months down the road they have started up the reprocessing plant and we know they have enough plutonium for 6 new nuclear weapons, and then we get an agreement? They are going to say we did not really produce X amount, we produced Y amount, or X minus whatever. Are we ever going to know where this material is? This is dangerous stuff. As I understand it, the Bush administration says--which is the preferred course--we do not want to be blackmailed. We have to put this into a multilateral context. Again, I find it interesting they never wanted to do anything multilateral but now with regard to Korea they want to be multilateral, which is a good idea. They say China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan have as much at stake as we do, even more. So what we are going to do--and it is correct if we can get it done-- we are going to say we will negotiate or talk with North Korea only under the umbrella of a multilateral meeting called by the community I just named, where we are one of the parties. What are the North Koreans saying? They are saying it does not matter what the rest of these guys think. We want to know what you think. We know if we do not get a nonaggression agreement in some form from you, our legitimacy continues to be at stake. Do we want to legitimize this illegitimate regime? No. But here is the horns of the dilemma. If we do not talk to them about what it is we insist on in order to suggest we get a nonaggression pact or some version of it, if we do not let it be known, we will never know whether there could have been an agreement, and we almost certainly know that in the near term there will be plutonium that is unaccounted for coming out of that country. My colleagues might say, oh, that is not true, Joe. All we have to do is we can take out those reprocessing plants--and we can, by the way. We can take them out in a heartbeat. We have the capacity. We know where they are. We can blow them up with our missiles, our jets, our standoff bombers. Guess what. There are roughly 8,000 pieces of artillery they have sitting within range of Seoul. One of our South Korean friends told us, we do not support you using force against the North. How can we go to war with the North when the South will not support us? Kind of fascinating, isn't it? China says they are prepared to talk with North Korea but you should not waste any more time. Talk to them. South Korea is saying you should talk to them. In a sense, the President is put on the horns of another dilemma. One says we should talk multilateral because that is the best way to deal with this, and all our multilateral partners whom we say should be part of the discussion say, no, you talk, which is unfair because China will not step up to its obligations and its own interest, in my humble opinion. So much is at stake for South Korea in terms of the potential carnage that would occur to South Koreans, in addition to the 37,000 American forces on the peninsula. They are saying, whoa, we are not for you taking out those reactors. We are not ready to have you call the bluff of the North. So what does the President do? Imagine being President of the United States and having to make the decision between shutting down a reactor you believe to be inimicable to your security interests, and knowing if you do, you may very well be in a position of starting a war--justified in literal terms, in my view--that would cause such overwhelming damage to the--and we would win the war, by the way, but it would cause such overwhelming damage to the very people we went to Korea in the first place to protect, the South Koreans. What do we do? I suggest the members of this administration have the answer if they listen to the people who are now in their administration. The Bush administration claims the ball is in North Korea's court. North Korea says the ball is in our court. From where I sit, the ball is stuck somewhere in the net, or not even in the net. You know how once in awhile when you were a kid you would fake a jumpshot from the corner and it would get wedged between the back corner and the rim? That is where the ball is right now. Somebody has to jump up and put the ball back in play. How does the ball get put back in play? There was a report written not long ago called The Armitage Report. He happens to be the No. 2 guy at the State Department now. In that report, Mr. Armitage and others-- including the following people: Paul Wolfowitz, the No. 2 guy at Defense; the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Peter Brookes; current Assistant Secretary of Intelligence and Research, Carl Ford, among others. They are all part of this Armitage Report filed before President Bush became President--called for a policy of hardheaded engagement, developing close coordination with our allies and backed by a credible threat of military force. Their prescription was remarkably close to that offered by former Secretary of Defense Perry, but has the tremendous political advantage of having been embraced by so many leading figures on the Bush foreign policy team, the people running the show now. What did Armitage advocate? Here are the key recommendations. First, regain the diplomatic initiative. U.S. policy toward North Korea has ``become largely reactive and predictable with U.S. diplomacy characterized by a cycle of North Korea provocation or demand and an American response.'' Good idea. Now the Bush administration claims the ball is in their court, as I said. The second recommendation was ``a new approach must treat the agreed framework as the beginning of a policy toward North Korea, not as an end to the problem. It should clearly formulate answers to two key questions. First, what precisely do we want from North Korea and what price are we prepared to pay for it.'' I am quoting from the Armitage report that Wolfowitz signed off on and Carl Ford signed off on, major players in this administration. They said, ``Are we prepared to take a different course if, after exhausting all reasonable diplomatic efforts, we conclude that no worthwhile court is possible?'' What diplomatic efforts have we exhausted? These are great questions, but the administration has yet to answer them. Indeed, the administration cannot seem to decide what it is about the north that bothers it the most. Is it human rights abuses or past support of terrorism, export of missiles, its military threat, or its nuclear program? To me, the priority must be a verifiable ending of North Korea's weapons program, particularly nuclear weapons. Everything else must be put off for another day. The third recommendation of the Armitage report: A U.S. point person should be designated by the President in consultation with congressional leaders and should report directly to the President. We have a fine man named Kelly out of the State Department, but he has no direct access to the President. This has not been raised up to that level because we are being told--I don't know why--that this is not a crisis. I think the American people and this Congress are fully capable of handling more than one crisis at a time. Iraq is a crisis. So we are told. Well, it is. But not in my view in terms of the immediate threat to the United States. Or the crisis could be in North Korea. Why can't we do both? President Bush has downgraded the special envoy position, thereby assuring that we cannot gain access to Kim Chong-il, the only man in North Korea with whom we can get a deal, or at least figure out what he is about. Fourth recommendation: Offer Pyongyang clear choices in regard to the future. On the one hand, economic benefits, security assurances, political legitimization. On the other hand, the certainty of enhanced military deterrence. For the United States and its allies, the package, as a whole, means we are prepared, if Pyongyang meets our concerns, to accept North Korea as a legitimate actor up to and including full normalization of relations. This is not Joe Biden writing this recommendation; it is Paul Wolfowitz. It is the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Armitage. What happened in a year and a half? What happened to change their mind? The good idea of the administration almost seems ready to be embraced. The President has spoken about bold initiatives toward the north but talk of carrots still has been undermined by the Bush administration's insistence that incentives are the equivalent to appeasement. Before my committee today, the Secretary of State says we have no intention to go to war with the north, et cetera, et cetera. The right words, right phraseology. The Secretary of Defense walked out of a hearing yesterday with the House Armed Services Committee and said this is an evil empire, something much more provocative. Accurate but provocative. The fifth recommendation by this committee that the notion of buying time works in our favor is increasingly dubious. Let me reiterate the fifth point of the report signed by Carl Ford, No. 2, over at CIA, Wolfowitz, No. 2 at Defense, Armitage, No. 2 at State: The notion that buying time works in our favor is increasingly dubious. President Bush, please, even if you don't want to enunciate it, in your mind, treat this as a crisis because, if it is not contained now, our options are only diminished as time goes by, not increased.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now return to legislative session.