Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BIDEN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator for taking another look at this critical issue and again say that I agree with him on the need to get the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Air Force to submit their overdue studies.

Mr. BIDEN. I share the Senator's concern that we have still not received MRS '05 and the AoA. However, my conversations with the Air Force lead me to believe that both A and B model planes are expected to be flown by the Air Force for 20 to 40 years to come, whether in Active-duty, Reserve, or Guard units. While I know that no one in the Senate cares more about the safety of our military personnel than my colleague from Alaska, I remain concerned that some increased risk will be incurred by aircrews flying planes that have not had AMP upgrades. AMP also includes the installation of important safety features like Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System and an enhanced all weather navigational system, the Terrain Awareness and Warning System. Some of these systems were mandated by Congress after the tragic death of Secretary Ron Brown.

Mr. BIDEN. I understand, however, that the Committee is concerned about the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) for the C-5 As. Just to clarify, there are two models of C-5s in the Air Force, 76 of the older A-model and 50 of the newer B-model. The C-5's mission is to take heavy loads over a long-distance. It is capable of carrying more cargo farther than any other plane in the United States' military. In particular, the C-5 regularly runs missions to and from Europe and the Pacific and the United States. For this reason, compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization's rules in high-density flight areas is important for the entire fleet of C-5s. The AMP will bring C-5 aircraft into compliance with the new Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) standards established by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Compliance with GATM is important because it allows aircraft to use more operationally efficient airspace and lowers operational costs. This is one of the reasons that the Senate Committee on Armed Services specifically requested that the Secretary of the Air Force proceed to test AMP upgrades on both A and B models in its Fiscal Year 2001 Defense Authorization Report and that both defense committees in the House of Representatives supported this program for the entire C-5 fleet.

Mr. BIDEN. In that case, I think it important to consider the difficulty of proceeding with upgrading the C-5Bs without A models available to do regular missions to Europe where the compliance issues could become a problem. In addition, if I am correct about the continued use of the C-5As for decades to come, then not proceeding with the AMP for the A models will create a set of new problems. First, efficient use of aircrew members and crew interfly will be prevented because of the dissimilarities that would exist between A and B model avionics and navigation systems. This is particularly problematic when additional aircrew members are needed to meet Major Theater War requirements. Second, by attempting to maintain two separate avionics and navigation systems within the relatively small C-5 fleet (126 airplanes), additional spares and support equipment will be necessary with increased unit costs. Already, the C-5 has been particularly hard-hit by the lack of necessary parts. This is likely to exacerbate that problem. Last, the language will also create changes in the existing contracts for these on-going programs. Until we know for sure what MRS '05 and the AoA will say, creating this new difficulty does not make sense.

Mr. BIDEN. I appreciate that commitment by my colleague. I would also like to clarify with the Senator from Alaska that he supports proceeding with AMP for the B-models.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to endorse the measure to name the State Department's headquarters after one of the great leaders of the twentieth century--President Harry S Truman. Harry Truman symbolized the path that this country took during the ``American Century,'' moving from a small community in the American midwest, to the center of the world stage, where he helped rebuild a devastated Europe and contain Communism. Harry Truman might have stayed on his farm in Independence, Missouri, but World War I intervened and he found himself in Europe as a captain in the Field Artillery. The man whose poor eyesight had kept him out of West Point, was a hero on the battlefields of France. When he returned to Independence--and the beautiful Bess Wallace--his reputation as a leader in battle led to his election as county judge in 1922. In 1935 he was elected Senator from Missouri, and in 1945, he became President upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt. Truman's mother once said of him: (i)t was on the farm that Harry got his common sense. He didn't get it in town. It was this common sense--a hard-eyed pragmatism, really--that made him a great President. Having fought through the First World War in Europe, he was able to understand the ruin that faced Europe after the Second World War. This led to his support of the brilliant plan of his Secretary of State, George Marshall, who rebuilt Europe. It is not an exaggeration to say that our European allies own the peace and prosperity that they have enjoyed for the last two generations to Truman and Marshall. It was also this hard-eyed pragmatism that gave Truman a clear view of the Communist threat that come on the heels of World War II. He laid out--and acted upon--the Truman Doctrine--in 1947, when he provided $400 million to fight the spread of Communism in Greece and Turkey. In 1949, he joined with Europe to form the alliance that contained the Soviet Union for nearly 50 years--NATO. And, although we were weary of war in 1950, he sent American forces to defend South Korea from incursions by the Communists of North Korea. Harry Truman's foreign policy decisions were never easy. Europe's reconstruction, fencing in Communism, creating NATO, required clear vision, and a decisiveness that had nothing to do with favorable poll numbers or reelection prospects. Those are the attributes that made Harry Truman a great President--an ability to see what needed to be done, and the willingness to do it. Because President Truman's greatest legacy was in international affairs, it is fitting that his name be bestowed on the State Department's main building. I hope that it will provide an inspiration to our diplomats, as they seek to defend the interests of our country, and the world.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 30 more seconds.

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, and the managers for yesterday accommodating my interest in this. I thank Senator Hatch for his leadership and look forward to us having the bill on the floor in its own right in the near term. I yield the floor and thank the Senator.

Mr. BIDEN. I say to the managers of the bill--if I can get Senator Warner's attention--as Senator Warner knows, the manager of the bill, the chairman of the committee, and Senator Levin knows, I had planned to offer the Violence Against Women Act as an amendment. In the meantime, the fellow with whom I have worked most on this legislation, and who has played the most major part on the Republican side of the aisle on the violence against women legislation has been Senator Hatch. He and I have been working to try to work out a compromise. We think we have done that on the violence against women II legislation, reauthorization of the original legislation. Because of his cooperation and his leadership, actually, I am prepared to not offer my amendment. But I do want the Record to show why. It is because of Senator Hatch's commitment and leadership for us to move through the Judiciary Committee with this and find another opportunity to come to the floor with it. With the permission of the managers, I will yield--without the Senator from Minnesota losing his right to the floor--to my friend from Utah to comment on the Violence Against Women Act.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment that addresses a problem that I have seen directly impact the moral and readiness of units at the base I am most familiar with, Dover Air Force Base. First, I want to thank the committee for all of its hard work on this issue and for accepting this amendment. Despite the fact that we in Congress have increased the funding levels for spare parts for the past three years, the supply of spare and repair parts for the C-5's at Dover has been inadequate. What does this mean? It means maintenance crews must work two-to- three times as hard because they have to cannibalize parts from other airplanes. It means planes that should be performing missions are being used for parts so that other planes may fly. It means that planes spend between 250 and 300 days on average in depots, waiting for regular maintenance, modernizations, and part replacements. At Dover, from 1997 to 1999, an average of 7 to 9 C-5 aircraft were not available because of a lack of parts. This is out of a total fleet at Dover of only 36 aircraft! In addition, the average manhours required for cannibalizations during that period was between 800 and 1,000. Those are additional hours, above what is normally expected to replace a part. Think of that in terms of a typical 40 hour work week--that's 20 to 25 additional weeks of work! Clearly, our maintenance teams cannot be expected to continue working like this. These are highly skilled professionals who are willing to sacrifice for this nation because they know how important the C-5's mission is to national security. It is absolutely wrong of this nation to continue to ask them to make those sacrifices year in and year out. We must get them the tools, and in this case, the parts, to do their jobs the right way. In his testimony March 3, 2000 before the Readiness Subcommittee of the Armed Service Committee, Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten Peters talked about the problem, pointing out that, ``The C-5 related MICAP rate had increased over the last two quarters by 36 percent.'' Just to clarify, MICAP rate is defined by the Secretary ``as the total hours a maintenance technician waits for all the parts that have been ordered to fix an aircraft.'' In that same testimony, the Secretary also said, ``The impact of these additional MICAP hours has been a decline in readiness.'' The problem is not just a Dover problem. On March 7, 2000, Major General Larry D. Northington, the Deputy Assistant Secretary (Budget) for the Air Force testified on the problem of parts shortages throughout the Air Force to Readiness Subcommittee. He pointed out that we must look at all aspects of this problem. ``We must, therefore, expect significant spares investments for along time to come. We also need to understand that mission capable rates are not a product of spares funding alone. It requires dollars, deliveries of the right parts, trained and experienced technicians, and, over time, a sustained effort to upgrade the fleet to achieve higher levels of reliability and maintainability.'' In other words, this is not a problem that can be solved by increased funding alone. We must also look at the entire structure that is supposed to be delivering parts and making sure we have adequate numbers of experienced people to maintain aircraft. In addition, we have to look at long-term modernization. I am very pleased that this committee has fully supported the three C-5 modernization programs that are critical to improving reliability and maintainability--High Pressure Turbine Replacement, Avionics Modernization Program, and Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program. Already, the High Pressure Turbine replacements that have occurred has meant that engines stay on their wings at least double the time they had in the past before needing to be removed for maintenance. This is an easy mid-term fix that is already paying for itself. For the longer term, new engines are essential. The Committee authorized full funding for the necessary testing and design to put new engines on the C-5 and to replace antiquated parts that are particularly prone to breaking. The C-5 engine was one of the first large jet engines ever made. Commercial planes are a good 5 generations of engines beyond the C-5. It is no wonder that there are no longer parts suppliers available. In fact, it can take up to two years to get parts because manufacturers no longer make those parts and so new versions must be created. Two years is not acceptable. With new engines, reliability will increase and operations and maintenance costs will go down. This not only means enhanced readiness, it also means that our military personnel doesn't have to work 20 to 25 extra weeks a year. In addition, the committee fully supported the Avionics Modernization Program. This program will ensure that C-5's can fly in operationally more efficient airspace under the new Global Air Traffic Management System. In addition, this program improves the safety of aircrews by installing systems like Traffic Collision and Avoidance Systems (TCAS) and enhanced all weather navigation systems. Clearly, as the committee recognized, we cannot justify delaying these important upgrades to the entire C-5 fleet. Until these modernization programs are completed though, the immediate problem is the day-to-day maintenance needs. Foremost among those needs is that parts be available to keep planes flying and that the cannibalization rates be reduced. The current situation cannot continue. It daily hurts the morale of our personnel and lowers the readiness of our military force. The C-5 is the long-legged workhorse of our strategic airlift fleet. It carries more cargo and heavier cargo further than any other plane in our inventory. It is what gets our warfighters and their heavy equipment to the fight. It is also what gets humanitarian assistance to needy victims quickly enough to make a difference. My amendment simply requires the Secretary of the Air Force provide two reports to Congress, one by January 31 and one by September 30 of next year on the exact situation of C-5 parts shortages, what is being done to fix this problem, what the impacts of the problem are for aircraft readiness and reliability ratings, and what the impacts of the problem are for personnel readiness and retention. It is my hope that such a thorough review will allow us to take the necessary steps to fix this problem once and for all. I know that the Air Force is concerned and taking steps to improve the parts shortage problem. I want to make sure that those efforts are comprehensive and that the hardworking men and women at Dover Air Force Base get some relief.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me for a comment without he losing his right to the floor?

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I and my colleagues--Senators Roth, Kennedy, and Thurmond--are reintroducing an amendment that the Senate passed last year to provide long overdue justice for the two fine military officers, Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short. Last year the Senate voted to include this amendment in the Defense authorization bill, but because the House had not considered such a provision, it was not included in the final conference report. This year, having had time to consider the facts, the House Armed Services Committee included the exact same language that the Senate passed last year in their fiscal year 2001 Defense authorization bill, which passed the full House on May 18. I also want to remind my colleagues that this resolution has the support of various veterans groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. It is also a move supported by former Chiefs of Naval Operations, including Admirals Thomas H. Moorer, Carlisle Trost, J.L. Holloway III, William J. Crowe, and Elmo Zumwalt. As most of you know, Admiral Kimmel and General Short commanded U.S. forces in the Pacific at the time of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Afterwards, they were blamed as completely responsible for the success of that attack. I will not go through an exhaustive review of this case. I think the amendment itself provides the facts and the record from last year's debate was also quite thorough. Instead, I want to review the reasons I think this is the right action to take. For me, this issue comes down to basic fairness and justice. It was entirely appropriate for President Roosevelt to decide to relieve these officers of their command immediately following the attack. Not only was it his prerogative as Commander in Chief, he also needed to make sure the nation had confidence in its military as it headed into war. So, I can understand the need, at that time, to make them the scapegoats for the devastating defeat. What I do not accept is that the decisions of this government in those extreme times have been left to stand for the past 59 years. To be more specific, it was a conscious decision by the government to actively release a finding of ``dereliction of duty'' a mere month after Pearl Harbor. Not one of the many subsequent and substantially more thorough investigations to follow agreed with that finding. Even worse, the findings of the official reviews done by the military in the Army and Navy Inquiry Boards of 1944--saying that Kimmel and Short's forces were properly disposed--were classified and kept from the public. Think about it. We are a nation proud to have a civilian led military. The concept of civilian rule is basic to our notion of democracy. This means that the civilian leadership also has responsibilities to the members of its military. The families of Admiral Kimmel and General Short were vilified. They received death threats. Yet, Admiral Kimmel and General Short were denied their requests for a court martial. They were not allowed to properly defend themselves and their honor. Whatever the exigencies of wartime, it is unconscionable that government actions which vilified these men and their families should continue to stand 59 years later. It is appropriate that government action be taken to rectify this. There are very few official acts we can take to rectify this. The one suggested by this amendment is to advance these officers on the retirement list. They were the only two officers eligible for such advancement after Congress passed the 1947 Officer Personnel Act, denied that advancement. I also want to point out that I do not believe this is rewriting history or shifting blame, instead, it is acknowledging the truth. The 1995 report by then Undersecretary Edward Dorn said, ``Responsibility for the Pearl Harbor disaster should not fall solely on the shoulders of Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant General Short, it should be broadly shared.'' To say that and then take no action to identify others responsible or to rectify the absolute scapegoating of these two officers is to say that military officers can be hung out to dry and cannot expect fairness from their civilian government. Again, with civilian leadership, comes responsibility. This advancement on the retirement ranks involves no compensation. Instead, it upholds the military tradition that responsible officers take the blame for their failures, not for the failures of others. The unfortunate reality is that Admiral Kimmel and General Short were blamed entirely and forced into early retirement. As Members of Congress we face no statute of limitations on treating honorable people with frankness and finding out the truth so that we can learn from our mistakes. By not taking any action to identify those who Undersecretary Dorn says share the blame, we have denied our military the opportunity to learn from the multiple failures that gave Japan the opportunity to so devastate our fleet. This is not to say that the sponsors of this amendment want to place blame in a new quarter. This is not a witch-hunt aimed at those superior officers who were advanced in rank and continued to serve, despite being implicated in the losses at Pearl Harbor. Instead, it validates that the historic record, as it is becoming clearer and clearer, is correct to say that blame should be shared. This amendment validates the instincts of those historians who have sought the full story and not the simply black-and-white version needed by a grieving nation immediately following the attack. So, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment again this year. Quite simply, in the name of truth, justice, and fairness, after 59 years the government that denied Admiral Kimmel and General Short a fair hearing and suppressed findings favorable to their case while releasing hostile information owes them this official action.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. The Senator is welcome.

Mr. BIDEN. I will answer on the Senator's time.

Mr. BIDEN. It is in the latest Time magazine. Mr. Krauthammer is a very bright fellow. The thesis of his piece is that no one really listened to what George W. had to say. Everybody misunderstood what he meant when he stood up, with Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell and George Shultz standing behind him, and laid out his position, at least his position on nuclear weapons and on national missile defense. He said that what Governor Bush really means is that this is a new era. No more arms control, period. START I, START II, START III, START anything, START V--no more. He ends his article by saying we should make our judgments about whether to reduce our weapons or to increase our weapons, or whether to build a national missile defense, irrespective of anything other than what we believe should be done at that moment. And that dictates, he says, the end of arms control. That is what this debate is about. Cut through all the haze here. The problem with the Senator from Delaware, the Senator from Michigan, the Senator from Nebraska, and my two colleagues on the floor now, is that we know too much about this. We are like nuclear theologians. I have been doing this for 28 years. I used to know what the PSI of the Soviet SS-18 missile silo was. That is very valuable information for someone to have to walk around with. The old joke is that we have forgotten more about these details than most people ever learned. In the process, we also forgot what this is really about. What is the logic of the Warner amendment? The logic is that this President cannot enter into any more agreements. Really he doesn't need an agreement to go down, but what they are worried about is that he could decide, either with Russian President Putin or without Putin, to take numbers down to the START II levels, and that that will be offered as a sign of good faith to Putin that the President, in fact, is ready to go lower, which is what the Russians want in a START III agreement. This is about arms control. Let's cut through all the malarkey. Before this next 12 months are over, in the next administration-- Democrat or Republican--it will finally be out in the open. This place will be divided between those who say that arms control has a place in our strategic doctrine and those who say it has no place. We are getting there. We are getting there, inching to it. They are feeling their way, I say to my friend from Nebraska, feeling their way around this because, up until now, arms control has been the Holy Grail of both Republicans who are informed and Democrats who are informed. Nobody except the wackos has been flat opposed to any arms control. But there is a feeling emerging in the intellectual community on the right, as well, that what we should be doing as the United States of America, because of our overwhelming military political and economic superiority relative to the rest of the world, not just the Russians--is taking advantage of the luxury of dictating outcomes without consultation. My friend from Virginia knows that a lot of his friends and my acquaintances in think tanks on the right believe what I just said. I am not saying the Senator does. But that is the genesis, the root, the cause of this debate--a legitimate debate to have. But they are just a little afraid, in this election year, to say they don't like arms control: If we are elected, no more arms control. We will adjust, or not adjust, to the levels that we choose independently, not in the context of a negotiation with anyone else. That is what this is about, with all due respect to my friends who support the amendment; even if they don't think that is what it is about, that it is just logical, rational, political purpose. Think what you are saying. You are telling the President of the United States of America: you can't go down--although, by the way, constitutionally we probably can't do this. He is Commander in Chief. Nobody has been more aware than I of the prerogative of the Senate as it relates to the war clause and the Constitutional relationship of the authority between the executive and legislative branches relative to the ability to use force and/or control the forces we have. The reason that there was a provision on the Commander in Chief was not to allow Presidents to go to war unilaterally. It was rather to make sure Congresses didn't tell George Washington he could or could not move troops out of Valley Forge. They had a bad experience during the Articles of Confederation. So they wrote it in saying, hey, don't tell the Commander in Chief he can't steam here with the fleet or he can't move the flanks there, or he can't move troops from one place to another. That is what somebody should do day to day. We are telling him in the law and in the Warner amendment that he cannot reduce force numbers to something that has been negotiated and that everybody says makes sense. Let me return to the Krauthammer piece, entitled ``The End of Arms Control; George W. Bush Proposed a Radical New Nuclear Doctrine. No One Noticed.'' Byline: Charles Krauthammer. Concluding paragraph: We don't need new agreements; we only need new thinking. If we want to cut our nuclear arsenal, why wait on the Russians? If we want to build a defensive shield, why ask the Russians? The new idea--extraordinarily simple and extraordinarily obvious--is that we build to order. Our order. Read my lips. No new treaties. That is what this is about. Whether old ``W'' knows it or not--and I don't know that he does; I mean that sincerely; he may know more than all of us on the floor combined; he may know as little as it appears that he knows; I don't know--this approach says ``no new treaties.'' That is what this is about. So I would like us to have national elections. There should be a national referendum as well. We should have a national debate on that. I urge my friends to come out of the closet completely. Let's have an up-or-down debate. It is a little embarrassing to make the case for the Warner amendment on either logical grounds or constitutional grounds or political grounds, based on the way it is now. It doesn't add up. I thank the Chair. I see my time is up. I thank my colleagues, and I have a feeling this is only the beginning of what is going to be a big, big, long debate--not on this particular amendment, but for this Nation. Exhibit 1 June 12, 2000. There have been two revolutions in nuclear theology since the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction became dominant four decades ago. The first came in 1983. President Reagan proposed that defensive weapons take precedence over offensive weapons. The second happened last week. It came from George W. Bush and was almost universally misunderstood. Bush was said to have proposed the primacy of defensive weapons over offensive weapons. That is old news. In fact, he did something far more important: he proposed the end of arms control. This seems strange to us. For more than a generation we have been living in a world in which arms control is the norm. But for all of history before that, it was not: if you needed a weapon to defend yourself and had the technology to build it, you did not go to your enemy to get his agreement to let you do so. When the world was dominated by two bitterly antagonistic superpowers, arms control made sense. Barely. The world was made marginally safer by the U.S. and the Soviet Union having a fairly good idea of, and a fairly good lid on, the nuclear weapons in each other's hands. For the U.S. it was important because of a rather arcane doctrine called extended deterrence: we pledged to defend Western Europe not by matching the huge Warsaw Pact tank forces (which would have been outrageously costly) but by threatening nuclear retaliation against any conventional invasion. Not a very credible threat to begin with. And as the Soviets overcame the American nuclear monopoly, it became less credible by the year. We needed arms control to ensure that there would be enough American nuclear firepower (relative to Moscow's) to make our security guarantee to Europe at least plausible. As I said, arcane. But then again, the whole arms race with the Soviets had a distinctly academic, almost unworldly quality. It was really a form of bean counting. Like money to billionaires, it had little intrinsic meaning: it was just a way of keeping score. Perhaps most important, arms control gave the Soviets and us something to talk about at a time when there was very little else to talk about. We were fighting over every inch of the globe, from Berlin to Saigon. So, every few years, we would trade beans in Geneva, shake hands for the cameras and thus reassure the world that we were not going to blow it up. But now? That late-20th century world of superpowers and bipolarity and arms control is dead. There is no Warsaw Pact. There is no Soviet Union. What is the logic of tailoring our weapons development against various threats around the world to suit the wishes of a country--Russia--that is not longer either an enemy or a superpower? Yet that is exactly what President Clinton has been intent on doing in Moscow this week. He is deeply enmeshed in arms- control negotiations (1) to revise the treaty that radically restricts America's ability to defend itself from missile attack (the ABM treaty) and (2) to set new numbers for American and Russian offensive missiles (a START III treaty). The parts of this prospective deal that are not anachronistic are, in fact, detrimental to American security. One of the reasons the development of an effective missile defense has been so slow and costly is that the ABM treaty prevents us from testing the most promising technologies, such as sea-based and space-based weapons. Even today, we cannot test a high-speed interceptor against any incoming missile traveling faster than 5 km per SEC, because the Russians are afraid it might be effective against their ICBMs. This is quite crazy. It means that because of a cold war relic, the U.S. has to forgo building the most effective defense it can against nuclear attack by a rogue state such as North Korea. But Bush's idea is significant because it goes beyond questioning why we should be tailoring our defensive weapons to Russian wishes. He asks, Why should we be tailoring offensive weapons--indeed, any American military needs--to Russian wishes? He proposes to reduce the American nuclear arsenal unilaterally. The Clinton idea--the idea that has dominated American thinking for a generation--is to hang on to superfluous nukes as bargaining chips to get the Russians to reduce theirs. Why? Let the Soviets keep, indeed build what they want. If they want to bankrupt themselves building an arsenal they will never use--and that lacks even the psychologically intimidating effects it had during the cold war--let them. We don't need new agreements; we only need new thinking. If we want to cut our nuclear arsenal, why wait on the Russians? If we want to build a defensive shield, why ask the Russians? The new idea--extraordinarily simple and extraordinarily obvious--is that we build to order. Our order. Read my lips. No new treaties.

Mr. BIDEN. I won't.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the Kerrey amendment is a sensible proposal that merits bipartisan support. The Joint Chiefs of Staff decided many years ago under the Bush administration that we could safely go below START I force levels. President Bush signed START II, and the Senate approved it in 1996. Now the Russian parliament has approved START II. That treaty cannot enter into force yet, due to differences over the ABM Treaty, but both the United States and Russia could usefully go below START I levels. The Joint Chiefs have consistently opposed the statutory ban on going below START I levels. As General Shelton said to Senator Levin in an answer for the record. The cold war is over. . . . The Service Chiefs and I feel it is time to consider options that will reduce our strategic forces to the levels recommended by the Nuclear Posture Review. The START I legislative restraints will need to be removed before we can pursue these options. The ban that the Kerry amendment would repeal is a hindrance to rational planning and resource allocation. It makes us maintain forces that are not needed, at the expense of more pressing needs. As General Shelton replied to Senator Levin: ``Major costs will be incurred if we remain at START I levels.'' The Warner second-degree amendment would retain this ban for another year-and-a-half, for no good reason. It would prevent the President of the United States from implementing strategic force reductions that are supported by our military leaders. It would also prevent his successor from implementing such reductions for nearly a year, and from deactivating any of those forces for another 30 days beyond that. This is not just a slap in the face of our President--although it is surely that. It is also a slap in the face of the likely Republican nominee for President, Governor Bush of Texas. Two weeks ago, Governor Bush proposed cuts in U.S. forces below the START II level--not just below START I, but below START II. Governor Bush said: ``The premises of Cold War nuclear targeting should no longer dictate the size of our arsenal.'' He may think that the White House is the home of cold war thinking. If the American people should ever elect Governor Bush to be our President, however, he'll find that the cold war is alive and well a couple of miles east of the White House--in his own party. Governor Bush added, 2 weeks ago: . . . the United States should be prepared to lead by example, because it is in our best interest and the best interest of the world. This would be an act of principled leadership--a chance to seize the moment and begin a new era of nuclear security. Would the Warner amendment allow him to seize the moment? Not for many months. Imagine our new President negotiating with President Putin of Russia in 2001. Putin says: ``Let's do START III.'' President Bush (or President Gore) replies: ``Heck, my Senate won't even let me go under START I. Come back next year!'' Hamstringing the President in this way is silly, and we all know that. The Joint Chiefs opposed it; the future Republican nominee for President wants to go far beyond it; and the Congressional Medal of Honor winner from Nebraska, whom the Senator from Virginia praised just last night, would never undermine our national security. Let's stop playing games. Let's defeat the Warner amendment and support the Kerrey amendment. Mr. President, I will respond to some of what I have heard in today's debate. My dad has an expression: Sometimes what people say is not what they mean, even though when they say it, they think they may mean it. That sounds confusing. I always used to wonder what he meant by that. I think I understand it better now. The Senator from Virginia has an amendment that, with all due respect to him, is bad logic, bad law, and bad politics. I know him to be a much more informed fellow. I have asked myself why, why does he have this amendment? What is the real reason? I am not suggesting duplicity. I am not suggesting any kind of treachery, but why? Why would you have an amendment that says a President cannot do what a previous President said was proper to do and all the military people then and since then have said we should do? Why would you do this? It has dawned on me that we are finally getting to the place--I suggest humbly--that I predicted we would get to 18 months ago. We are finally coming out of the closet in the real debate. The real debate is whether there should be arms control any longer or not. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks a piece by Charles Krauthammer on this very point.

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield for just a second, those demarcation protocols to the ABM Treaty were protocols that we--not the Duma--asked for. We asked for them. We said we will not ratify the extension of START II deadlines unless you, the Russians, allow us to test these theater missile defenses, which you claim are in violation of the ABM Treaty. Unless you amend the ABM Treaty to allow us to do this and also ratify START II, we will not ratify START II extension or go to START III. Right?

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--I am not sure I will--I ask for a continuation of the quorum call for another 3 minutes, if I may. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, will the chairman yield for another response? I will be very brief. Let me make an analogy for the chairman. Say we have a contract with someone on the rental of an apartment building. We say we want to renegotiate that contract to be able to rent to build 12 more units on that apartment building. We say: By the way, although parking is no part of this lease, we want to renegotiate our parking lot agreement with you as well. Before we agree to go into a new deal with you on the building, we want to get 10 more parking spaces. The guy who owns the building says: Wait a minute. I don't want to. I will only negotiate with you on the building. We say: We are not going to do it unless you give us more parking spaces. That is what we did here. They said they want to go to START III. We said we are not going to do that unless you give us more parking spaces--unless you allow us to do something the ABM does not allow us to do right now. You give us the ability to test these missiles at a faster speed to be able to intercept your missiles that are called theater nuclear missiles. You allow us to do that. If you do not, we are not going to renegotiate a deal on the whole building. Do the parking, or we will not even talk about the building. That is what we said. We said allow us to amend ABM, or we are not going to go down to these levels. That is what happened.

Mr. BIDEN. I am sorry?

Mr. BIDEN. Well, I would respond rapidly by saying that we have enough trouble figuring what happened in this Chamber, let alone a new parliamentary body in a place called Russia. I think what they did was to put those conditions on because we had said we wanted these protocols. We negotiated with them. They cannot anticipate that we in the Senate do not want to do what our Presidents have negotiated with them to get done. But there is a little concern by them about this Senate like we are concerned about them. They are saying: Look, you negotiated a START II treaty with us, and you also negotiated demarcation protocols with us that you asked for. We didn't say we want new protocols to allow certain missiles to fly at certain speeds, et cetera. We didn't ask for that. You came to us and you said that. We agree. If you are going with the whole package you negotiated with us over the years, we are in on the deal. If you are not going with the whole package you negotiated with us, we are not in on the deal, because we don't know what you are about. I think that is what they are thinking. That is what I think. Keep in mind that the demarcation protocols the Senators are talking about are not protocols that the Russians initiated. They did not sit down and say: By the way, let's accommodate your ability to have theater missile defenses. We said: We want to be able to do that. And we went to them. They said: We don't want to do anything on the protocol. We said: You have to. So there were negotiations for several years. And they said OK. Finally, they signed it. That is what I think. I don't know. I have enough trouble figuring out this place, let alone the Duma.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I will object, unless I can be assured that I have an agreement to 1 hour equally divided. If I can be put in the order after Senator Smith, I will not object.