J. Kerrey

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. The answer is yes. The Senator from Virginia and I are looking at, I believe, the same thing.

Mr. KERREY. I am looking at the public law.

Mr. KERREY. My guess is it is pretty close. Public Law 105-85 says: (a) Funding Limitation.--Funds available to the Department of Defense may not be obligated or expended during fiscal year 1998 for retiring or dismantling, or for preparing to retire or dismantle, any of the following strategic nuclear delivery systems below the specified levels: (1) 71 B-52H bomber aircraft. (2) 18 Trident ballistic missile submarines. I note that under current law, I believe you have given flexibility to go from 18 to 14; at least you have allowed it to happen. (3) 500 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. (4) 50 Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles. All of which total, by my rough calculation, slightly more than 6,000, which is the START limitation.

Mr. KERREY. Yes, I do.

Mr. KERREY. Yes.

Mr. KERREY. The Senator is correct.

Mr. KERREY. No, I would be agreeable if the Senator from Virginia says----

Mr. KERREY. That may be what you are endeavoring to do, but I am not sure your amendment does it. You are saying with your amendment that you want to make certain President Clinton cannot do it but future Presidents could.

Mr. KERREY. That is an interpretation on which perhaps we should have a colloquy. If we can reach a conclusion that the President could do an effective review in short order, it may be, as I said, that I am going to declare victory and go home and maybe support your second-degree amendment.

Mr. KERREY. By effectively doing that, you are also saying that the current QDR, the current evaluation, is not valid; that the analysis that was done in 1997 by General Shalikashvili is not valid?

Mr. KERREY. No. It says concurrent, which, as I read the language of this amendment, would cause me not to vote for it. It doesn't preclude President Clinton or Bush or Gore from saying we can finish that part of the review faster than the rest of the review and have the Secretary of Energy submit it to Congress for congressional consideration. By the way, you can strike this provision and there is no guarantee at all that President Clinton is going to take any action. He hasn't thus far. He hasn't asked for authority.

Mr. KERREY. It is 1017 of the authorization--

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, in 1998, the Congress, for the first time in the history of strategic nuclear weapons policy, imposed upon a President a limitation on what that President could do in terms of reducing nuclear weapons. It imposed a floor at the START I levels, which is roughly 6,000 strategic nuclear weapons. It said the President could not go below 6,000, unless and until the Duma ratified START II. Last year, when I attempted to eliminate this restriction--which I believe is putting a position upon an Executive that would be very difficult to sustain if we were discussing this in the clear light of day, if it was understood by the American people that this was what we were doing--many people on that side of the aisle said: We believe this language will put pressure upon the Duma to ratify START II. The argument carried the day in a close vote of 54-46; the current policy was sustained. The language in the current law is section 1302 of the National Defense Authorization Act. It references that section 1017 of this particular legislation we are considering right now was held in law. Well, since that time, the Duma has ratified START II. I expected to bring this language to the floor this year with open arms. It worked. We put in a floor and said the United States could not go any lower, declared victory, and the Duma ratified START II. Instead, we have an alternative proposal the Senator from Virginia has offered that has a certain amount of appeal because it requires a strategic review of our nuclear force structure. After that review, it gives the President authority, subject to what the review says, to waive the provisions of 1302 if the President says it is in the national security interest to do so. It still puts us in a position--whether it is President Clinton or, if Vice President Gore wins the election, President Gore or, if Governor Bush wins, President Bush--the President will be prevented by Congress from reducing nuclear weapons below the START I levels, below 6,000, unless the President of the United States can accelerate a strategic review. I guess that is possible. I would like to find out from the authors of this second degree if that is their understanding. In other words, could President Clinton satisfy the requirements of this amendment by saying: My Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy are going to do an accelerated review? This language has to be concurrent with the quadrennial review and submitted no later than December 2001. Could the President accelerate that review on this particular question? If not, whoever the next President is, they are going to be held up at least until December of 2001 from doing so. That makes complete sense for America to do, in my judgment. One of the most compelling things that happened on this subject prior to our leaving for our Memorial Day recess was a remarkable speech given by the likely Republican nominee for President, Governor Bush, followed by a speech at the Naval Academy given by Vice President Gore, the likely Democratic nominee for President. The comments, which I found to be very striking and very encouraging, indicate a significant shift in our policy if the Republican nominee has any influence over the Republican Party platform. Governor George Bush, surrounded by the preeminent thinkers on the Republican side on nuclear strategy--former National Security Chief Brent Scowcroft, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger--they were all there standing with Governor Bush as he said the following: America should rethink the requirements for nuclear deterrence in a new security environment. The premise of the Cold War nuclear targeting should no longer dictate the size of our arsenal. As President, I will ask the Secretary of Defense to conduct an assessment of our nuclear force posture and determine how best to meet our security needs. While the exact number of weapons can only come from such assessment, I will pursue the lowest possible numbers consistent with our national security. If Governor Bush were President today, he would not think very kindly of Congress coming along and saying: We don't think you have been in office long enough; 9 years is not long enough, so we are going to ask you to do an additional review before you do what you say you are going to do here. It is an interference on the part of Congress at a time, in my view, that the President ought to be doing exactly what Governor Bush is suggesting; that is, to break out of the Cold War thinking, and has us saying we have to maintain our parity with the Russians; otherwise, it is not going to be possible to get the kind of arms control agreements we want to get. I must say, I find much to be commended in many things I have heard on the other side of the aisle having to do with missile defense, believing that in an era when we begin to reduce nuclear weapons, accidental and unauthorized launches from rogue nations, or the threat of them, are likely to increase as we draw down our nuclear forces. Missile defense becomes, in my judgment at least, an even more compelling part of our arsenal. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Alaska.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, it is somewhat difficult to get back to the somewhat arcane subject of how many nuclear weapons are needed after listening to the recitation of the Senator from Alaska of a short, very moving statement that in many ways gets to the heart of the mood we ought to be in when we are discussing our defense authorization bill, which is not just trying to answer the question how we authorize and defend the United States of America but how we give honor to those who have given the highest and most in service to this country. I appreciate very much the presentation by the Senator from Alaska of that memorial because I think it puts us indeed in the correct mood, which is, we ought to be writing this law so as to enable all of us to take action to defend the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, without regard to some previous ideology that we have held onto for a long time. We ought to do the right thing and not worry about whether or not we are going to find ourselves subject to criticism as a consequence of some group saying we didn't do enough, or we have done too much, and so on and so forth. It is that kind of thinking that is required if we are going to get the right number of nuclear weapons. We spend $15 billion to $20 billion a year on our nuclear weapons force structure. It is an oppressive effort. I happen to have the privilege of not just serving the people of the State of Nebraska but in the State of Nebraska is an effort and an organization known as STRATCOM. STRATCOM's entire mission is to operate the strategic nuclear force. The current STRATCOM CINC and I have a very good relationship, as I have with all other CINCs, because this mission is very important to the people of the State of Nebraska and to the people of the United States of America. I have had the opportunity on many occasions to be briefed, and I can state to my colleagues that we get our money's worth. These men and women work very hard. They are tireless in the execution of their duties. They want to make certain they follow the command and the orders that are given by the people's leaders--in this case, the Commander in Chief--who instruct STRATCOM on what to do through a Presidential directive. They are following orders. They put together target requirements. They put together a list of requirements that are called SIOP. SIOP determines what targeting is being done. Then it comes back to us, and it says this is what we need in order to follow the civilian orders. They come to us and say these are the resources we need in order to be able to accomplish that objective. It is very important for us to follow that because often times it will turn to the military. We turn to the STRATCOM and say such things as: Tell us the minimum level of deterrence. They come back and say: The minimum level is 2,500. We have to have 2,500 warheads. Remember, that 2,500 number comes as a consequence of an order they have been given by a Presidential directive. They have been given an order. That is where it comes from. Change those requirements and the number of warheads is going to be changed. It may be that a Presidential directive comes and says we need more. I do not know. But right now, without the lengthy review--I appreciate the lengthy force structure review that is in this authorization. That is basically the substitute--that we have a lengthy review that is going to be done. I urge my colleagues to think of several things. One, the Russians, first of all, are no longer the military threat they were in the cold war. It is a democratic nation. They have had three elections. They just elected their second President. We have partnerships with them in many different areas. We want their experiment in democracy and free markets to succeed. The chairman of the Armed Services Committee said earlier he believes the No. 1 threat to the United States of America is political instability. It is uniquely the case. In Russia, that is the case. Our mood toward the Russians ought to be that we want to partner with them and help them be successful in making this transition from an economy run by a central government--a Politburo--to a political system that is not limited to a single party but one that has selected its leadership. They are trying to make a successful transition. They need the partnership and they need the assistance of the world's leading democracy to make that likely to occur. No. 1, we are dealing with a dramatically different political situation. This is not the Soviet Union. It is Russia we are talking about. No. 2, everybody who assesses Russia right now understands that as a consequence of the catastrophic failure of the Communist economic system, and as a consequence of a number of other things associated with the decisions made by their political leaders, they have barely enough money to be able to make payroll for a dramatically reduced military, let alone be able to allocate the resources--though they are modernizing in certain areas--and their ability to provide the early warning that is necessary is woefully deficient and is weakening every single day, leading up to the possibility of increasing the likelihood of a false warning to their leadership. One of the things the President and President Putin agreed on is that we are going to have this site in Russia for the first time. But the Russians are going to be provided data that comes from U.S. computer analysis. They are not going to get it through their own system, or through their own overhead system, or through their own electronic surveillance; they are going to get it from us. It is likely to give them slightly more confidence. But it is not going to give them the kind of confidence that is necessary when decisions have to be made very rapidly not to put a launch against the United States even though the warning they get may be a false warning. The second thing colleagues need to understand as we think about imposing--that was a fundamental change in 1998--for the first time on the President that ``thou'' cannot go below the START I agreements, even though President Bush did it very successfully in 1991, is that we were not going to allow this President to do it in last year's debate. It was because we were putting pressure on the Duma to ratify. This year, it is a different argument that is being used; we are imposing upon the President an unusual and unprecedented restriction at a time when Russia is not able to come up with the resources they need to maintain the level at 6,000. They are begging us to go to 1,500. It may not be in our interest to go to 1,500, but it is unquestionably in our interest to assist them to go to lower levels since they can't maintain the levels they have now. It increases, in a paradoxical fashion, the likelihood of an unauthorized accidental launch and decreases the likely effectiveness, if we are going to have one, of an effective missile defense system because the Russians aren't going to launch 10 or 20. The Russians aren't going to launch a relatively small number of not very accurate missiles, as rogue nations might. They have very highly accurate missile systems and large numbers of them. They would launch in the hundreds, or perhaps in the thousands, based upon a warning that may be inaccurate. We are increasing the risk when we force the President to maintain at a START I level at a time when the Russians are saying we can't afford to maintain at that level and begging us to come to some kind of an agreement that enables them to go to lower levels. The last argument: Again, if you take a commonsense approach to this and just say what the targeting requirements are. A long time ago, or 6 months ago, much of this was classified. But increasing amounts of it are making their way into the public record. It is a very interesting problem because, again, the number of nuclear warheads begins as a consequence of a Presidential directive. It goes to STRATCOM. That Presidential directive is then fairly precise language. But it still doesn't tell the exact number. It gives them a set of instructions that they then follow. They produce what is called a SIOP. That SIOP has been read by a very small number of elected representatives. Very few elected people look at the targeting requirement. Recently, we have seen in published accounts some information which gives us some idea of the size of our capacity and the deadliness of our capacity. I believe as well it is an unwise conclusion that we ought to maintain at our current level. The Russian nuclear target of a 2,500 force structure would be slightly under the START II. START II would take us to 3,000. The Pentagon says we need 2,500 warheads. Again, that is based upon the Pentagon taking the Presidential directive they have been given at 2,500. We have 1,100 nuclear weapons we would put on nuclear sites, 3,500 on conventional weapon sites, 160 on leadership, and 500 nuclear weapons on war-supporting industry. These numbers tend to dull our thinking, making it difficult to assess just what it is we are talking about. Let's reverse it. Say the Russians have targeted American territory with 160 nuclear weapons. They don't have a nuclear weapon in the strategic arsenal that is less than the 15-kiloton weapon dropped on Hiroshima. We dropped two weapons in 1945 that ended the war in the Pacific. We had a vested interest in that. My uncle was killed in the Philippines. My father was part of an occupation, instead of invasion force. I believe Truman did the right thing. Nonetheless, it is impressive that two 15-kiloton weapons ended the war in the Pacific. We are talking about hundreds in this case. Imagine the Russians are only going to hit the United States with 160 nuclear weapons averaging 150 to 300 kilotons each. I don't need a complicated, detailed year-long strategic review to determine that 160 nuclear weapons hitting the United States of America would not just do slight damage; they would cause massive damage to our economy, to our political structures, to our social structures. They would produce monstrous losses to us. Ask Alan Greenspan what it would do to the economy. He seems to be the most trusted person right now in trying to get American people to be concerned about things going on in the world. It would produce tremendous and devastating losses. The same is true with Russia. Mr. President, 160 nuclear weapons inside of Russia would reduce Russia to a state of chaos. It wouldn't just damage their leadership and eliminate their leadership. It would do exactly the opposite, in my view, of what we would desire. It would produce the very political instability and chaos we seek to avoid. As a consequence, it likely would not be selected as an option, thereby producing, again, one of the great paradoxes of maintaining a defense system where we authorize $15 to $20 billion of scarce resources. The chairman of the committee talked earlier about the possible need to allocate additional money for retirees' medical care. There is no question we look across the current conventional forces and we don't have to look far to find a situation where we are flying the wings off the planes. We are having a difficult time sustaining levels of readiness. We are short on the conventional side. At a time when we are short, I don't believe we ought to be expending precious resources into areas that are likely to be unnecessary or that are unlikely to be used. I am arguing the President ought to go to lower levels. The President may disagree with me. In fact, up until now, the President has disagreed with me and hasn't gone to lower levels. That is why I was pleasantly surprised at that part of Governor Bush's speech prior to the Memorial Day recess where he said we ought to scrap the old cold war thinking. I agree. We need to assess what kind of weapons system we need to keep the people of the United States of America safe in light of the new political realities--not in light of the old mutual assured destruction reality, in light of the new political realities. I believe without extensive and expensive nuclear review, we would reach a conclusion of significantly lowering. I don't believe this Congress under any circumstance, whether the President agrees with me or not, should be imposing this kind of restriction. It ties the President's hands. It limits the President. It forces the President to do something that up until 1998 we had not required the President of the United States of America to do. Again there was an argument last year made that this would get the Duma to ratify START II on that basis. I said earlier to the distinguished Senator from Virginia, I was hoping perhaps my amendment would be accepted, declare victory, and we shake hands and say we had a good argument and there is no need to go further. Indeed, I ask the Senator from Virginia, it may be that what I ought to do is vote for the Senator's substitute, depending on what it is the Senator proposed to do. In this amendment, it appears to be that the President would have the authority to waive the restrictions of 1302 after a comprehensive review was done. However, in the language of the Senator's amendment, it merely says this is supposed to be done concurrently with the quadrennial review and due to operate in 2001. Does the Senator mean, therefore, that President Clinton couldn't ask Secretary Cohen and Secretary Richardson to do an accelerated comprehensive review of the nuclear force structure, and, as a consequence of that review, say perhaps the President says: I want to go to 5500, I want to go below because I think on that basis I could get the Russians to agree to accept changes in ABM that might even be acceptable to the Senator from Virginia --would that sort of accelerated review be possible? It appears it would be in the language of the Senator's amendment.

Mr. KERREY. I appreciate that, but there is nothing in the Senator's amendment that would prevent----

Mr. KERREY. Let's say Governor Bush is elected and he comes into office and says I have Brent Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, and Colin Powell. They have done a review from November to January and they have made a recommendation to go to lower levels. Does the amendment of the Senator allow a President-elect Bush to do that in short order?

Mr. KERREY. That is precisely what section 1302 does. Section 1302 says the President cannot go below the START I levels. For the first time, it restricted and tied the hands of a President in his own decisionmaking about strategic forces. That is what it did. I sought to strike it last year and was told the concern was the Duma might not ratify START II. They have done that. It seems to me the language gives the President, this President--I am asking the question because it affects whether or not I simply just declare victory myself and support your second-degree amendment. If your second-degree amendment gives the President the flexibility to waive, if he says, ``I have already done that review and I will submit to Congress the review that was done by General Shalikashvili in 1997,'' it may be we have agreement here. But if you are saying the intent of the amendment is to say President Clinton, after having been Commander in Chief for 7 years, is not sufficiently prepared to make this decision, we need a further review before he can make it, then I couldn't support the second degree.

Mr. KERREY. That would be an option for me. Mr. President, let me finish my statement, and I will yield to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. KERREY. I am anxious to hear the statement. As I said, it may be--expecting that the chairman, the Senator from Virginia, after listening to last year's debate, would merely this year declare victory and allow this provision to be struck, it may be I should declare victory and accept this amendment, if it does not restrict the Commander in Chief who has had plenty of time to review it--and he may not. As I said, up to now he hasn't agreed that going to lower levels in exchange for ABM is a good strategy--and he may not. It may all be moot as far as I know. But if it does not restrict this President, or the incoming President, to make a determination prior to December 2001, it may be that I should declare victory and go home as well. I want to repeat something I tried earlier to discuss. I do not think it is very well understood by many Members of Congress. I certainly do not think it is very well understood by the American people. I say that with great respect. It has been a voyage that has produced some surprising discoveries on my part as well. I am not suggesting I am smarter, more informed than anybody else. I am merely saying I spent time on this. I am deeply concerned that the threat to the United States of America of an accidental and unauthorized launch from Russia goes up every single day that we maintain the force structure as high as we currently have. We have plenty of safety. We have plenty of redundancy. We have plenty of capacity to tell whether we are actually being attacked or whether the signals are false. The Russians do not have any of that or they have a declining amount of it. We are forcing them to maintain at levels, in my view, that are increasing the danger to the people of the United States of America. The danger is enhanced as a consequence of our sort of presuming maybe there is no real risk. I put these numbers out. This is the minimal level. This is what the Pentagon said in 1997. It is what the Pentagon is currently saying is still valid: That the minimal level we need in the number of warheads is 2,500. The reason we need 2,500 is, according to the people who do the targeting--again, they are doing the targeting based upon a Presidential directive, presumably evaluated by the Congress after we do the directing and tell them what needs to be done--there are 2,260 vital Russian nuclear targets. These are on active alert. We are ready to attack. We are not talking about the kinds of missiles that might miss by a couple of miles. These things are going to hit. They are very accurate; they are very sophisticated; and they are very reliable. We have 1,100 nuclear targets. That is to say the Russians hold nuclear weapons. So 1,100 of our nuclear warheads --and we do not have one under 100 kilotons--are going to be targeted on 1,100 Russian nuclear sites. Then there are conventional sites, conventional weapons sites--500 targets; 500 targets. I urge my colleagues to get a map out of Russia and try to come up with 500 targets on top of 1,100 targets of nuclear weapon sites. Part of this debate needs to be done in the open so we can do a commonsense check as to whether or not we have more than we actually need, again forcing the Russians to maintain more than they can control. Mr. President, 160 leadership targets. These are the guys to whom we talk. We have a meeting with them: President Putin, would you agree to modify ABM? And oh, by the way, we have 160 nuclear weapons of 100 kilotons or more targeted on you and all the rest of the Russian leadership. Try to come up with 160 targets. Get a Russian map out and put 160 targets up, or 500 targets, on something called war-supporting industry. This is all published accounts. This is not me coming out of the Intelligence Committee or some top secret briefing; this is now published accounts of this targeting. It is vital for the American people to understand that; otherwise they are going to say to the Congress: Just keep doing what you are doing; it seems to be working. The longer we continue doing what we are doing, the more likely it is that the horrible, unimaginable disaster occurs and that is an accidental unauthorized launch against the United States of America on the people of America and that the people suffer as a result. I have no idea if President Clinton would do an expedited review and say: I am going to try to strike a deal with President Putin that will allow us to go to lower levels of ABM to solve the stalemate we have over missile defense. He may not take the option. Whether he takes the option or not, I believe it is unwise for us to be tying the hands of President Clinton. I think it would be unwise to tie the hands of President Gore, President Bush, or any President in this fashion. We had never done it up to 1998. There may have been a compelling argument prior to the Duma's ratification of START II, but there is no longer a compelling argument, in my view, and it would be a mistake for us to have this continuing limitation. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERREY. My amendment simply says: Strike section 1017 and insert the following: Sec. 1017. Repeal of Limitation on Retirement or Dismantlement--

Mr. KERREY. The Senator is not encroaching. I stand by and look forward to his argument.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield on that, the language of the Senator's amendment doesn't say that. That was the question I was going to ask the Senator from Colorado. It doesn't preclude the President from doing a review before December 2001. The Senator from Virginia was saying so long as it is Gore or Bush, it is OK; but if it is Clinton, it is not. This is June 6, the day Franklin Delano Roosevelt, while going through a Presidential campaign, authorized the landing on the beaches of Normandy. There was bipartisan support for it. He was running against Dewey at the time, and he was courageous enough to say we were going to have a bipartisan foreign policy. The thing that concerns me is that we are losing that. We are saying President Clinton can't do it. If it is Bush or Gore, fine, they can do it, but Clinton can't. I think that is a signal that we are not willing--for example, the Senator said earlier President Bush signed START II after the November election and authorized troops to go to Somalia late in his term. We understood it was late in his term and that he might not have won the election, but, by gosh, the President had the authority to make these decisions right up to the end of his term. This amendment seems to be saying, although I think the language of the amendment--I am trying to ascertain whether or not I should vote for this amendment because it appears the language would allow the President to do an expedited review. It doesn't say he can't have it done earlier. It may be that the Senator's intent is to prevent President Clinton from doing it. But I don't believe the language of the amendment does that.

Mr. KERREY. I ask the Senator from Colorado, is it his understanding that this language would prevent a President Bush from doing a review that could be done in 60 days from, let's say, either the time of his election or the time he is sworn in as President? Would it prevent an expedited review? Say he has Colin Powell or former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Henry Kissinger and George Shultz advising him, and the four of them say we believe he ought to go to 5,000, and the Secretary of Energy is going to notify Bush on February 1; would your amendment preclude that?

Mr. KERREY. First of all, I think it would be a very unwise thing to do. Again, as I indicated earlier, President Bush took action on START II after the election of 1992. President Bush committed troops to Somalia late in his term without getting my objection to do it. I wasn't going to draw a line in the sand late in his term if he saw a threat to this Nation. And if he had a policy, I would agree with that policy. I was not going to prevent him from doing it simply because it would be late. I think that would be inadvisable. I look at the language of the amendment. I don't see any need to do in the amendment what the Senator is saying. It seems to me that the language of the amendment says it has to be submitted by December 2001, but also there is language in there precluding President Clinton, if he could, to accelerate a review if he chose to. I am trying to get the Senator to talk me into voting for his amendment because it seems to me the language of his amendment would allow the President, if he chose to, to do the review just as President-elect Bush or President-elect Gore could do.