Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. That is correct. By the way, it is much stronger than any President wants. It is section (E) of the amendment we sent. I will read it to the Senator: Withdrawal from Treaty.--If the President determines that nuclear testing is necessary-- The antecedent to that is the lab Directors say it-- to assure, with a high degree of confidence, the safety and reliability of the United States nuclear weapons stockpile, the President shall consult promptly with the Senate and withdraw from the Treaty pursuant to Article IX (2) of the Treaty in order to conduct whatever testing might be required. It is pretty strong.

Mr. BIDEN. Yes.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator for his response. I will raise this when we get to the amendments. I wish to point out there is one other ultimate safeguard. The ultimate safeguard is in the amendment, our last provision, which says, if, in fact, we do not fund the stockpile and that causes the laboratory Directors to say, ``We cannot certify,'' and that means the Secretary of Energy says, ``We cannot certify,'' the President of the United States, upon that determination, must withdraw from the treaty and allow us to begin to test. I am amazed at the arguments that are being made on the other side.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will take a minute to respond. I understand the point made. We have 6,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles that are on line right now. The Russians have a similar number. After you get by that, the numbers drop off precipitously. China is down in the teens. This unilateral disarmament notion or, as explained by the distinguished Senator from Arizona, I understand his point, but what are we doing? Are we going to give up? Are we freezing in place the fact that we stay at 6,000, and if they take the worst case of a stockpile that is in atrophy versus the dozen or more that the Chinese have? I mean, come on. Come on. You know, if you told me the Chinese had 6,000 nuclear weapons, MIRV capability, thermonuclear yield, or if you told me the Koreans and Libyans had that and the Russians had that, then you would have an argument. After the Soviet Union and then our allies, it drops off precipitously into double digits, max--max. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues on the Democratic side who want to speak on this treaty, if I am not mistaken, there is less than 1 hour--approximately 1 hour--left under the control of the Senator from Delaware, and 13 Members wish to speak to it; and, further, if my Republican colleagues conclude that they wish to yield back their time, the time is going rapidly as we approach this vote. I urge Senators, if they wish to speak, to be prepared, as my friend from the State of Connecticut is, to speak for 5 minutes. I yield 5 minutes to my friend from Connecticut.

Mr. BIDEN. I yield 10 minutes to my friend from Virginia.

Mr. BIDEN. The Senator, as usual, puts his finger on one of the incredible flaws in our opponents' reasoning. They engage in circular reasoning. It goes like this: Without spending money on the Stockpile Stewardship Program, roughly $4.5 billion a year for 10 years, we will not be able to attain, when the shelf life of these weapons is reached 10 years out or more, a degree of certainty that they are reliable and safe. You say: OK, we will fund it; we are for it, and the President sends up that number. Then they say: But we have a problem. Our Republican friends in the House won't vote for that much money, and we had to fight too hard to get it and they probably won't do it next year. The reason why, they go on to say, I am against this, although I think if we funded it, it would work and it would make sense, is my Republican colleagues in the House probably won't fund it; therefore, I can't be for this treaty because you guys are not funding the stockpile. I find that absolutely fascinating, but it is the circular reasoning which is being engaged. It strings together a group of non sequiturs that end up leading to a conclusion that makes no sense. The Senator has been here longer than I. Can he imagine, if we vote this treaty down and other nations begin to test, and those who voted it down are saying, by doing that, we think the United States should be able to test, can you imagine this or future Congresses coming up with $45 billion to perfect a Stockpile Stewardship Program which purpose and design is to avoid nuclear testing, to spend $45 billion for the redundancy? Can the Senator imagine us doing that?

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Massachusetts, this is another part of the circular reasoning. What I heard this morning on the floor and heard all day on Friday went like this: Without us being able to test, our 6,000 strategic nuclear weapons are going to become unreliable--which is ridiculous in my view. I strike the word ``ridiculous.'' Which is highly unlikely. I am trying to be polite. It is hard. Then they say because it is going to become unreliable, two things are going to happen. One is that our allies are going to conclude that our deterrent is no longer credible and, therefore, they are going to lose faith in us. What they are then going to do is decide--Japan and Germany, which are nonnuclear powers--to become nuclear powers, and we are going to be escalating the arms race by passing this treaty. The same day in an unprecedented move, to the best of my knowledge, the leader of Germany, the leader of France, and the leader of Great Britain sent an open letter to the Senate saying: We, Germany, Japan, and France, have ratified this treaty. We strongly urge you, the Senate, to ratify this treaty in the interest of your country as well as ours. One of those signatories was the Chancellor of Germany, the very country my friends on the other side say, if we pass this treaty, Germany will go nuclear. I guarantee--I cannot guarantee anything. I will bet--I guess I am betting my career on this one--I will bet you anything that if we turn down this treaty and it is clear that it cannot be revived, within a decade Germany and Japan are likely to be nuclear powers, particularly Japan, because what is going to happen is, India and Pakistan are going to continue testing. They will not sign this treaty. They say they will sign it now if we do. They will not sign the treaty. As India tests more and they move to deployment, China will test more. China will test in order to determine whether or not they can build smaller, lighter thermonuclear devices where multiple numbers can be put on missiles. They will move from 18 nuclear weapons to God knows how many. Then Japan, sitting there in the midst of that region, is going to say, mark my words: We, Japan, have no choice but to become a nuclear power. We have spent 50 years of our strategic and foreign policy initiatives to make sure that does not happen. But that is what will happen. So now, at the end of the day, are we likely to be more secure 15 years from now with the scenario I paint? Which is more likely? Is it more likely that turning down this treaty is going to turn Japan and Germany into nuclear powers, increase the total nuclear capacity of China, and move India and Pakistan further along the nuclear collision path? Is that more likely? Or is it more likely--which is their worst case scenario--that what is going to happen is we are not going to fund the stockpile, we are not going to be able, in 10 years, to count on the reliability of our weapons, the weapons lab Directors are going to come to the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Defense and say, we can't certify any more Messieurs Secretaries, and they go to the President of the United States and say, we can't certify, and the President is going to say, oh, that is OK; don't worry about it. We are going to be bound by the treaty. Which is a more likely scenario? What do you think? Which is more likely, that even if the stockpile degrades, any country, from China to our allies, is going to say, gee, their B-60 M-11 may not function as they thought it would, and maybe they will only be able to fire off 4,900 strategic hydrogen bombs. Maybe they will only be able to do that; therefore, they have lost their deterrent capacity. They no longer have credibility. That is what you have to accept. You have to accept those kinds of arguments to sign on to the notion that most of our Republican friends are arguing. Which is the more likely scenario? I would respectfully suggest that 85 percent or 80 percent of the American people are right. They figured it out. They figured it out. So I hope I have responded, in part at least, to the Senator's question.

Mr. BIDEN. I yield the floor to my friend.

Mr. BIDEN. The Senator is very nice to say that. Seldom procedurally. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, that may be the first time my procedural judgment has ever been ruled to be correct on the floor of the Senate. I am very happy the Senator suggested I ask that.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will respond very briefly and then yield to my friend from North Carolina. My knowledge of Senate procedure pales in comparison to the Senator from North Carolina. I am not being solicitous. That is a statement of fact. But it is my understanding that the only procedural means by which we could move from this treaty to other business without a vote would be if there were a motion to move from the Executive Calendar to the legislative calendar. That would, as I understand it, require 51 votes. That is the only thing of which I know. I do not know if anyone is going to do that.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes. I respect the Senator from Maine very much, as I do the Senator from Indiana, who put out the five-page statement on why he opposes the treaty. I want to speak to some of the things that some Senators have spoken to. First of all, the Senator from Maine says we have to deal with the facts as we know them. I hope she will keep that in mind when she votes on missile defense. I hope the rest of my colleagues, who say we have to deal with the facts as we know them, keep that in mind when we vote on missile defense. I find it fascinating some of the very people who push the missile defense and the abandonment of the ABM Treaty--where we have only had basically one successful test, which is a far cry from what we are going to need to be able to develop a missile defense initiative--are the same ones saying: But we can't go ahead with this treaty because we don't know everything. I respectfully suggest the ability of the scientific community to shoot multiple nuclear weapons out of the sky in the stratosphere and make sure not a single one gets through is an even more daunting and challenging program than the Stockpile Stewardship Program. But they seem to have no problem to be ready to abandon the ABM Treaty, which has been the cornerstone, since Nixon was President, for our arms control regime. But they have no faith. I find that fascinating, No. 1. No. 2, I also find it very fascinating that everybody keeps talking about nonverifiability. I have heard more than once this morning--not from the Senator from Maine but from others --the dictum of President Ronald Reagan: Trust, but verify. That is constantly brought up: There is a reason why we can't be for this treaty. We can't verify it. They say this treaty is not perfectly verifiable. That is true. But it is a red herring. This body has never demanded perfect verification. Consider Ronald Reagan's treaty, the INF Treaty, that eliminated land-based intermediate-range missiles. That treaty was signed by President Reagan, the same man who coined the phrase: Trust, but verify. Was the INF Treaty verifiable? Give me a break. No; it was not verifiable. It was not. Listen to what the Senate Intelligence Committee said in response to Ronald Reagan's assertion: Trust, but verify my INF Treaty. The Intelligence Committee said at the time: Soviet compliance with some of the Treaty's provisions will be difficult to monitor. This problem is exemplified by the unresolved controversy between DIA [the Defense Intelligence Agency] and other intelligence agencies over the number of SS-20's in the Soviet inventory. Ground-launched cruise missiles pose a particularly difficult monitoring problem as they are interchangeable with long-range Soviet sea-launched cruise missiles. This the INF Treaty did not ban. We are concerned that the Soviets could covertly extend the range capability of a cruise missile, or covertly develop a new ground-launched cruise missile which prohibited long- range capability. . . In an INF/START environment. . .the Soviet incentive to cheat could increase because of a greater difficulty in meeting targeting requirements. Still, this Senate and my Republican colleagues--from Dick Lugar, who quotes that he fought for the INF Treaty, and others, had no problem saying that was a verifiable treaty. The ability to hide these things in barns, to hide them in haystacks, was greater than the ability of someone to muffle a nuclear explosion. But no, I did not hear anything over on that side. I did not hear anybody saying: No, that's not verifiable. I guess that was a Republican treaty. Maybe this is a Democrat's treaty. Maybe that is how they think about it. But I find this absolutely fascinating. It really--if my staff gives me one more suggestion, I am going to kill them. It says: The INF was approved 93-5. I thought I kind of made that point clear. But at any rate, let me point out what else the Intelligence Committee said about that INF Treaty. It said: Since no verification and monitoring regime can be absolutely perfect-- Let me read it again: Since no verification and monitoring regime can be absolutely perfect, a central focus for the Committee-- That is the Intelligence Committee-- has been to determine whether any possible infractions would be of sufficient military significance to constitute a threat to our national security interests. This calculus is one which the Senate should bear in mind in its consideration of the treaty. The Senate Intelligence Committee was right in 1988, and their standard is right today, even though this is pushed forward by a Democratic President instead of a Republican President. To impose this utterly unrealistic standard of verifiability on Bill Clinton's test ban treaty, when no such standard was imposed on Ronald Reagan's INF Treaty, may be an effective ``gotcha'' in politics, but it clearly does not look to the national interest of the United States. No inspection--no inspection--by the way, for onsite inspections in the INF Treaty, unless it was on prearranged sites. By the way, those of my colleagues who point out that we have to get 30 or 50 votes, our negotiators are pretty smart. We have 30 to 50 votes based on categories. Let me tell you how membership on that committee would be determined. The Executive Council is the decisionmaking body of the Treaty Organization. Among other things, it authorizes on-site inspections. There are 51 seats on the Council, divided geographically. Ten seats are allocated to parties from North America and Western Europe. Of these, the treaty provides that ``at least one-third of the seats allocated to each geographical region shall be filled taking into account political and security interests, by States Parties in that region designated on the basis of the nuclear capabilities relevant to the Treaty. . . . The chief negotiator, Stephen Ledogar, told the Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday that ``this is diplomatic language'' that assures that the United States gets a de facto permanent seat on the Council. Moreover, he said that there was an agreement among the Europeans and us that we would always have a seat. Makeup of the Council is: Africa, 10 seats; Eastern Europe, 7 seats; Latin America, 9 seats; Middle East/South Asia, 7 seats; N. America/W. Europe, 10 seats; East Asia/Pacific, 8 seats. There are 2-year terms. A quick review of the candidates for seats that we should expect, in almost all instances, to get all the votes of the West Europe/North America group. So we start with 10. Aside from Yugoslavia, Russia, and one of two others, the Eastern Europe group comprises strong United States allies. So that's another 5-7 votes. Similarily, many of the Latin American states are either: (1) strong allies or (2) strongly favor the test ban. So we should usually get most of those 9 votes. That gets us very quickly to the low-mid-20s, in most instances--even being conservative and assuming that we don't get all the votes in the above 3 groups. That leaves Africa, 10 seats; Middle East/South Asia group, 7 seats; and the East Asia, 8 seats. There is where our work, depending on the makeup of the Council at the particular time, could get a little harder. But even there the rosters have U.S. allies, or proponents of non- proliferation. It is hard to see how we will not get to 30 in most instances. In truth, it is more likely that most U.S. inspection requests, based on our intelligence and the data from the International Monitoring System, will be easily approved. It should also be noted that, unlike the U.N., Israel is a member of a regional group, and will automatically get a seat on the Council under a special rule that guarantees that one seat within each region be filled on a rotational basis. We can get 30 votes. We can get 30 votes any time we want. The reason why is we set up the committees the way we did. The flip side of that is, it will be hard for them to get 30 votes because the fact is that our intelligence community is saying we do not want onsite inspections in the United States. I don't know what treaty these folks are reading. Let me make a second point. Here is the one lately that really gets me: The Soviet Union is going to be able to develop very small tactical nuclear weapons that, in fact, will lead to a different strategy in terms of their conventional defense. Guess what. We should all be standing up on this floor going hooray, we did it, because I remember last time we debated this issue of strategic weapons. What were we saying? I watched, by the way, with great interest Dr. Edward Teller last night. I watched a long documentary because I used to have to debate him around the country on SALT. He was wrong then; he is wrong now. We used to argue that the real concern--I have been here for 27 years--was the Soviets seeking a first strike capability. Remember? The Soviets are seeking a first strike capability. And all of their actions were designed to do that. That is why they were building these new massive SS-18s with 10 nuclear warheads, independently targeted, et cetera, et cetera. Through the leadership of a Republican President, we have an agreement whereby they are going to dismantle those if we get the treaty, the START treaty, passed. So guess what we are worried about now. The exact opposite. We are worried now that they don't have a first strike capability, that they aren't seeking nuclear predominance, but they are acknowledging their conventional forces are so bad they need tactical nuclear defense on their territory. As they say in my church, examine your conscience, folks. Take a look at what this is. We hear this thing, and the public says: Is it true, Joe, they really are developing a new tactical weapon? My response is, it probably is true. But guess what. They now have 10,000 tactical nuclear weapons. I yield myself such time as I may consume. They are worried now that they are going to be able to develop another smaller tactical nuclear weapon, as if this treaty has anything to do with that. Come on. Come on. What we should be doing is rejoicing in the fact that the whole emphasis in the Soviet program has shifted to a recognition that they have to defend their homeland--their judgment--and they do not have the conventional forces capable of doing that--their judgment--and so they are developing, allegedly, a very small tactical nuclear weapon--their judgment. Does that shift the strategic balance? Give me a break. Give me a break. I find this one of the most fascinating debates in which I have ever been engaged. I don't know what we are talking about. When my friend from Kentucky stands up and says, I thought we decided against unilateral disarmament, me, too--an are-you-still-beating-your-wife kind of question. Who is talking about unilateral disarmament? Where is that anywhere in this treaty? Where does it say that? Where does it imply that? That is like my standing up and saying: I am very surprised my friends who oppose this treaty want to go to nuclear war; I am very surprised they are advocating nuclear war. That would be equally as unfounded and outrageous a statement as the assertion this treaty is unilateral disarmament. I will repeat this time and again, and I will yield the floor in a moment. My problem is, we have a President of the United States of America who has sent a formal message to the Republican leader asking that a vote on this treaty be delayed. Apparently, there is a consensus on the other side, thus far at least, not to allow it to be delayed. This is the total politicization of a national security debate. Could anyone have imagined before this came up, if a President of the United States of any party said: This issue, which is of the gravest consequence to the United States of America, I respectfully ask that you delay a vote on it, could anyone have imagined anything other than a response that says: Mr. President, we will concur with the delay, unless it was for stark political reasons? I can't fathom this one. I can't fathom this. I wasn't sure the President should have sent the letter in the first place. If this treaty is defeated and India and Pakistan test, we are going to find ourselves in the ugliest political brawl we have seen in this place since Newt Gingrich left the House. You are going to have Democrats standing up on the floor saying: The reason why India and Pakistan have tested is because the Republicans defeated this treaty and gave a green light. That is not a provable assertion, but mark my words, we are going to hear it. Then the response is going to be even more political. We ought to take a deep breath. My mom always said, when you lose your temper, take a deep breath, count to 10. Not that I have ever lost my temper in my life. You can tell I am not at all passionate about any of these issues. But let us count to 10. The President of the United States has asked this treaty vote be delayed. It seems to me it is common courtesy and totally consistent with national interests to grant that request. I will speak to other aspects of this. Let me conclude by saying two things: One, to move to a very small tactical nuke on the part of the Russians is an absolute outward admission that they lack the capability in their minds for fighting the conventional war. Twenty years ago, we would have paid billions of dollars, if the Russians had come to us--I say to my friend from Massachusetts who knows a great deal about this-- we would have been prepared to vote to pay them $10-, $20 billion if they would stop developing intercontinental range missiles that had the capacity to penetrate our airspace and in all probability hit hardened targets here. If they had said to us, we won't do that but we are going to build a very small tactical nuke, we would have paid them to do that. Now we hear on this side, if we pass this treaty, they are going to build tactical nuclear weapons that are very small, smaller than the 10,000 they now have and are able to have and legally can have. That is a very bad thing. That is why we should reject this treaty. So we encourage the Chinese to go from 18 to 800 or 8,000 nuclear weapons that have MIRV capability and are thermonuclear in capacity. That is wonderful reasoning. There are legitimate arguments against this treaty, which I believe do not rise to the level of being against a treaty, but I haven't heard them made this morning, with all due respect. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, it was not my intention--I thought the Senator from North Carolina, in effect, acknowledged that I should take the question from the Senator from the State of Pennsylvania. I apologize.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am not propounding the questions. I am just trying to answer the question. I hope I answered the Senator's question.

Mr. BIDEN. I yield to the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin.

Mr. BIDEN. That is not what he said, if I may interrupt, if I could quote what he said.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I see my friend from the great State of Montana is up to speak. I ask the chairman of the----

Mr. BIDEN. Yes, I would be happy to yield.

Mr. BIDEN. In response to my friend from Pennsylvania, I will say that I, obviously, cannot speak for the President. But he has gone awfully far. He says: ``I believe that proceeding to a vote under these circumstances would severely harm the national security of the United States, damage our relationship with our allies, and undermine our historic leadership,'' et cetera. ``Accordingly, I request that you postpone consideration of [this] Test Ban Treaty on the Senate floor.'' Unless there is something incredible that is likely to happen in the next 8 months, the President is not going to be--and I realize this is a legitimate worry on the part of some; that the President will wait until the middle of an election year and raise a political issue by forcing people to vote for or against this treaty--but the likelihood of changing the votes of 22 Republican Senators between now and the election is zero, I would respectfully suggest. So what the President has done here is done the only thing I think a chief executive--Democrat or Republican--should do; that is, he did just as Jimmy Carter did when he asked for SALT II to be taken down. He did not make a commitment he would not try to have it brought up. That is not what his letter said. What he said is: Bring it down. Don't vote on it now. It is not in the national interest. To have a President of the United States say, the treaty I, in fact, negotiated--I want to go on record as saying you should not consider it at all during the remainder of my term in office, surely damages his ability to deal internationally. So I think he is observing the reality of the circumstance, which means that there will be no vote next year on the floor of the Senate-- for if that were the case, you might as well go ahead and have the vote now. The letter Jimmy Carter sent--and I shall read it--said: In light of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I request that you delay consideration of the SALT II Treaty on the Senate floor. The purpose of this request is not to withdraw the Treaty from consideration, but to defer the debate so that the Congress and I as President can assess Soviet actions and intentions, and devote our primary attention to the legislative and other measures required to respond to the crisis. As you know, I continue to share your view that the SALT II Treaty is in the national security interest of the United States and the entire world, and that it should be taken up by the Senate as soon as these more urgent issues have been addressed. Sincerely, Jimmy Carter. This letter of the President of the United States--this President-- goes a lot further than President Carter went in pulling down SALT II. But for the President to go beyond that, it seems to me, is to be beyond what we should be asking any executive. The Senator from Virginia has worked mightily to try to resolve this. He has gone so far as to draft a letter which a number of Senators are likely to sign, if they have not already signed, saying: In addition to the President asking this be brought down, we the undersigned Senators ask that it be brought down. And we have no intention of bringing that treaty up next year. We do not think the treaty should be brought up in the election year. To make the President, from an institutional standpoint, guarantee that he is now against the treaty that he ratified, it seems to me, is to be going beyond institutional good taste.

Mr. BIDEN. For a question, I would be happy to yield.

Mr. BIDEN. Parliamentary inquiry: How much time is under the control of the Senator from Delaware?

Mr. BIDEN. He said it will give North Korea ``an obvious reason not to ratify CTBT.'' He did not say it will give them reason to produce nuclear weapons.

Mr. BIDEN. Surely.