John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 16, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I have said a couple times, during the course of our opening comments and subsequently, what a privilege it is to be working with Senator Lugar on this treaty. I listened to him talk, as I have heard before, about his experiences of traveling over to Russia and going through the process of establishing this extraordinary program. But the country and the world owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his leadership on this issue. His vision, together with Senator Nunn, has made a global difference, and he is properly recognized on a global basis for that. So I thank him for his comments calling every colleague to focus on this linkage of the threat reduction program to the START agreement and to the relationship that comes out of it. I know Senator Inhofe is here. I want to give him a chance. But I would like to say a few words before he does about the verification. I think it is important, as we go forward, to be very clear about the verification components of this treaty. A number of colleagues have requested the verification regime, and we may yet have further discussion on it. So let me make as clear as I can, this treaty has fully satisfied our intelligence community and our military community and our stockpile verification folks as to the verifiability of the treaty. Is it slightly different from what we had before with START I? The answer is yes. But, importantly, I wish to underscore why that difference exists because one colleague sort of raised the issue a little while ago. I think it was Senator Kyl who talked about why it was we might not have gotten them to do an extension of the START I treaty. Well, the reality is, it takes all parties to be party to that extension. The fact is, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus all dropped out of the nuclear game, and all those weapons were deposited into Russia. They were all party to that original agreement. But Russia made clear to the Bush administration, long before President Obama came to power, that they were not going to proceed with that same system anymore, and the reason was, they saw it as a one-sided structure. They felt they did not get anything out of it. We were the only ones who got something out of it. As long as they were not getting something, they made us--put us on notice, we are not continuing that one. That said, the new START succeeds in streamlining verification and tracking procedures, and it creates a new system, a state-of-the-art inspection system, and very strict reporting guidelines. The compliance and verification measures that are in the New START build on 20 years of verification experience, and they appropriately reflect the technological advances that have been made since 1991, as well as the difference of relationships between the United States and Russia because of the end of the Cold War. So colleagues need to look at those changes and measure it against the original benchmark, if you will. The fact is, New START's enhanced verification measures have a five-pronged approach, five different components. One, invasive, onsite inspections. Two, national technical means. We have always had that, but our national technical means have improved significantly. Without discussing them on the floor, I think colleagues are aware of the capacity of our national technical means. Three, unique identifiers that will be placed on each weapon. We did not have that before. Now we are going to have the ability to track each individual weapon, warhead, and count them. That is new. That is increased. Regular data exchange. We gain a great deal. They gain a great deal. It is a mutual process of exchanging data, which provides stability and assurances for both sides. Finally, prompt notifications of the movement of any weapons. The New START permits up to 18 short-notice, onsite inspections each year, in order to determine the accuracy of Russia's data and to verify the compliance. The fact is, this new system is every bit as rigorous as the system that existed previously. In fact, because of the change I described earlier, the Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan change--we had about 70 inspection sites previously, and those were the nuclear facilities in each of those different countries. But since three of them have now denuclearized, the result is, all the former Soviet Union's remaining nuclear weapons are centralized in Russia, and they are divided between 35 nuclear facilities. So we go from 70 facilities that we used to have to inspect down to 35. Thus, the decreasing number of annual inspections from 28 in START I to 18 in the New START is almost exactly the equivalent in terms of those allowed under START I because we are inspecting fewer places, and the inspectors are now allowed to gather more types of data during those inspections. The United States is also allowed to use national technical means, which would be reconnaissance satellites, ground stations, ships, all of them, to verify compliance. The treaty expressly prohibits tampering with the other party's national technical means. Third, Russia has to assign and inform the United States of the specific unique alphanumeric identifiers that are designating the deployed and nondeployed ICBMs and SLBMs and nuclear-capable heavy bombers. This information gives us a great deal more inside look with respect to the tracking patterns on Russian equipment throughout the full life cycle of any of those specific systems. Fourth, the treaty requires Russia to regularly provide to the United States the aggregate data on strategic offensive forces, including numbers, locations, and technical characteristics of deployed and nondeployed strategic offensive arms. Fifth, the New START establishes a comprehensive notification regime allowing us to track the movement of Russia's strategic forces and any changes in the status of their strategic weapons. The fact is, this agreement employs an enormously aggressive, forward-leaning, and effective verification system, and it has been predicated on decades of our doing this very thing with the same people. This is not new ground we are breaking. We know how to do this. We have built up a certain understanding of each other's capabilities, each other's idiosyncracies and resistances. We know how to do this. The verification system designed for this treaty is specifically designed to be less complicated, less costly, and more effective than the one in the original START treaty. I have a series of quotes, but I want our colleague to have an opportunity to speak. I will wait and later share with colleagues the number of different distinguished, respected, long-serving personalities within the intelligence community--former LTG Jim Clapper of the Air Force and others--all of whom have affirmed the ability of this verification system to do the job and protect the interests of the country. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY. I appreciate it.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I completely respect what the Senator from Arizona has just said, and we obviously want to give him time to lay any predicate to whatever he may perceive to be a flaw. For instance, as he raises the question about the MIRVing, as he just did-- and later, I will go through each of these points--but the fact is, the reason the Russians are MIRVing--which we all understand, and there are plenty of letters from the Strategic Command and elsewhere that will articulate the way in which they do not see that as a threat--the reason they MIRV is because they cannot afford to do some of the other things with respect to the numbers of missiles, so they put more warheads on one missile. We have preserved a very significant breakout capacity here. As General Chilton and others will point out, it is not a flaw at all. It is actually an advantage which is maintained in this treaty for the American strategic posture. I will go into that later. What the Senator describes as a flaw from his point of view I think the record will well state is sort of a preserved American advantage. That said, I respect, obviously--we want to get this joined. I think what the Senator has just laid out is very helpful. It will help us join the debate. But I do want to impress that the sooner we can get to some of these amendments, the more we can really discover whether something is, in fact, a flaw or is not a flaw and has been adequately answered.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, would the Senator yield?

Mr. KERRY. I want to compliment the Senator, and confirm on the record that Senator Kyl indeed brought to the attention of the administration and to all of us several points which the laboratory chiefs agreed were in deficiency. And he is absolutely correct, that while it is not directly within the four corners of the treaty, the modernization, per se, obviously if you contemplate reductions, you have to also be able to understand you are maintaining the capacity of your existing force. Senator Kyl has been diligent in pursuing that. I also applaud the administration for responding, and I think he would too, and acknowledging that. So he is correct, that I think this part of the record is an important one. We have met separately with Senator Inouye, with Senator Feinstein, and they have agreed with Senator Kyl, that they accept the need to continue down to the levels that the administration has put on the table, and they are committed to doing that. That said, let me also place in the Record a letter from our three laboratory leaders, Dr. George Miller at Lawrence Livermore, Dr. Michael Anastasio, who was just referred to at Los Alamos, and Dr. Paul Hommert at Sandia. I will read the relevant portion. I will put the whole thing in the Record. But here is what they say: We are very pleased by the update to the Section 1251 Report, as it would enable the laboratories to execute our requirements for ensuring a safe, secure, reliable and effective stockpile under the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan. In particular, we are pleased because it clearly responds to many of the concerns that we and others have voiced in the past about potential future-year funding shortfalls, and it substantially reduces risks to the overall program. We believe that, if enacted, the added funding outlined in the Section 1251 Report update--for enhanced surveillance, pensions, facility construction and Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities among other programs--would establish a workable funding level for a balanced program that sustains the science, technology and engineering base. In summary, we believe the proposed budgets provided adequate support to sustain the safety, security, reliability and effectiveness of America's nuclear deterrent within the limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads established by the new START Treaty with adequate confidence and acceptable risk. I think it is very important to sort of do that. I would think we have adequately addressed it, because there is also language in the resolution of ratification that embraces the modernization component. So I thank the Senator from Arizona. I think that has been a constructive component to helping us to be in a position to be able to ratify the treaty.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Arizona. I look forward with anticipation to when he returns to the floor with an amendment. We look forward to moving on that. I also regret that he will not be here, because I would like to be able to answer some of the concerns he raised, because I think there are answers to them. I think it is important obviously for that part of the record. Some of the questions that were raised were questions about verification. I will not take a long time, because I know the Senator from Nebraska and the Senator from Georgia are waiting to speak. In a letter from the Secretary of Defense to us regarding this issue of verification--and we may well have a closed session where we will discuss that to some degree. But in the letter, Secretary Gates writes to me, and, through me, to the Senate, saying: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs, the Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, and I assess that Russia will not be able to achieve militarily significant cheating or breakout under New START, due to both the New START verification regime and the inherent survivability and flexibility of the planned U.S. Strategic force structure. They have confidence in this verification regime. We need to have confidence in the leadership of our military, national security agencies, the intelligence agencies, and the strategic command, all of whom are confident we have the capacity to verify under this treaty. I ask unanimous consent to have that printed in the Record. The Secretary of Defense, Pentagon, Washington, DC, Jul 30, 2010. Hon. John Kerry, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: (U) As the Senate considers the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia, I would like to share the Department's assessment of the military significance of potential Russian cheating or breakout, based on the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on monitoring the Treaty. As you know, a key criterion in evaluating whether the Treaty is effectively verifiable is whether the U.S. would be able to detect, and respond to, any Russian attempt to move beyond the Treaty's limits in a way that has military significance, well before such an attempt threatened U.S. national security. (U) The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs, the Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, and I assess that Russia will not be able to achieve militarily significant cheating or breakout under New START, due to both the New START verification regime and the inherent survivability and flexibility of the planned U.S. strategic force structure. Additional Russian warheads above the New START limits would have little or no effect on the U.S. assured second-strike capabilities that underwrite stable deterrence. U.S. strategic submarines (SSBNs) at sea, and any alert heavy bombers will remain survivable irrespective of the numbers of Russian warheads, and the survivability of U.S. inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) would be affected only marginally by additional warheads provided by any Russian cheating or breakout scenario. (U) If Russia were to attempt to gain political advantage by cheating or breakout, the U.S. will be able to respond rapidly by increasing the alert levels of SSBNs and bombers, and by uploading warheads on SSBNs, bombers, and ICBMs. Therefore, the survivable and flexible U.S. strategic posture planned for New START will help deter any future Russian leaders from cheating or breakout from the Treaty, should they ever have such an inclination. (U) This assessment does not mean that Russian compliance with the New START Treaty is unimportant. The U.S. expects Russia to fully abide by the Treaty, and the U.S. will use all elements of the verification regime to ensure this is the case. Any Russian cheating could affect the sustainability of the New START Treaty, the viability of future arms control agreements, and the ability of the U.S. and Russia to work together on other issues. Should there be any signs of Russian cheating or preparations to breakout from the Treaty, the Executive branch would immediately raise this matter through diplomatic channels, and if not resolved, raise it immediately to higher levels. We would also keep the Senate informed. (U) Throughout my testimony on this Treaty, I have highlighted the Treaty's verification regime as one of its most important contributions. Our analysis of the NIE and the potential for Russian cheating or breakout confirms that the Treaty's verification regime is effective, and that our national security is stronger with this Treaty than without it. I look forward to the Senate's final advice and consent of this important Treaty. Sincerely, Robert M. Gates.

Mr. KERRY. One last quick comment. Senator Kyl knows these materials very well. He is an effective advocate for a point of view. But that does not mean that by saying those things, all of them have a factual underpinning or that they are, in fact, the best judgment as to what our military thinks or the national intelligence community thinks about the components of this treaty. Let me give an example. Senator Kyl has raised concerns about the conventional prompt global strike capacity. What he didn't say is, Russia very much wanted to ban strategic range conventional weapons systems altogether. We rejected that approach. The Obama administration said: No; we are not going to ban all conventional capacity. In effect, they decided to proceed along the same approach we used in START I. Ted Warner, the representative of the Secretary of Defense to the negotiation, testified in the Foreign Relations Committee, saying we agreed to a regime whereby conventionally armed ICBMs or SLBMs--for the folks who don't follow this, those are the intercontinental ballistic missiles or submarine-launched ballistic missiles--would be permitted. But, yes, they did agree to count them under the strategic delivery vehicle and strategic warhead ceilings. Senator Kyl sees that as a problem. All of our folks who negotiated this treaty and our military and our strategic thinkers see that as an advantage for the United States. That protects us. We are better off that way. Why? Because it would be extraordinarily difficult to verify compliance with a treaty that limited nuclear-tipped ICBMs and SLBMs but didn't count and, therefore, didn't inspect identical conventionally armed ICBMs and SLBMs. We couldn't tell the difference between them. We would be absolutely foolish on our part to allow the Russians to deploy additional ICBMs and SLBMs based exclusively on their assurance that they are not nuclear armed. How would we know? It is only by putting them under the counting that we, in fact, protect the interests of our country rather than creating a whole sidebar arms race which would make everybody less safe. Not counting those missiles would, in fact, create a new risk--the risk of breakout, that we allow the other side, Russia, the opportunity, even if there were no cheating, to simply leave the treaty and arm those missiles with nuclear warheads on very short notice, and we would all be worse off. In fact, what Senator Kyl was complaining about is something that makes us more stable. If we did what he is sort of hinting he might like to do, we could actually create greater instability, and it would be clearly much more likely to kill the treaty altogether. Some of these things get raised and they sound like there is reasonableness to them. But when we put them in the overall context of strategic analysis and thinking and the balance, the sort of threat analysis that attaches to any treaty of this sort, what we are trying to work through is sort of reaching an equilibrium between both sides' perceptions of the other side's capacity and of what kind of threat that exposes each side to. That is how we sort of arrive at that equilibrium. That is what has driven every arms control agreement since their inception. The Pentagon has made very clear that the global prompt strike is going to be developed, but it is going to be developed as a niche capacity. They think it is too expensive to do in huge numbers. It is also very clear that under the best circumstances, it is going to be a long time before that is ready to deploy. We have boost-glide vehicles still in the proof-of-concept test stage. Nobody has any imagination as to whether they will be ready in 10 or 15 years. The life of this treaty is 10 years. So we are looking beyond the life of the treaty for when they might or might not be ready. There are a host of other concepts out there about this. We are going to get a report from the Pentagon next year on what technologies they think are most promising. It is going to be exceedingly difficult to imagine bringing them online within the 10-year life of this treaty. Any concept of sort of revising things that make this treaty subject to some component of that is, in effect, a guise to try to kill the treaty. I say that about this one component of it. There are many others, many other similar kinds of arguments raised in the last hour. As we go forward, if an amendment arises, we will deal with each of them. I want colleagues to be aware there is more underneath some of these red herrings than may appear to the eye at first blush. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY. Well, let me say to my friend--and I appreciate his desire to try to be thoughtful about what the numbers are and about the treaty as a whole. I appreciate that. A couple of comments I want to make. No. 1, the administration is not linking modernization to the treaty. I think it is clear now to Senator Kyl. I read a letter before the Senator started speaking from the directors of the three laboratories expressing their satisfaction and gratitude with the levels of funding that have been put in there. I acknowledge that Senator Kyl was correct in finding some inadequacies in the original funding levels, and the administration, in good faith, has made up for those. What happened over in the House, happened over in the House. It was not instigated by the administration. In fact, the administration has countered that and made it clear that modernization is necessary as a matter of modernizing, in order to keep our arsenal viable. The second point I wish to make to the Senator, I hope the Senator does not vote against this treaty because he thinks somehow this is a step to some irresponsible slippery slide that takes us to ``zero'' nuclear weapons without all of the other things that very intelligent, thoughtful statesmen have talked about in the context of less nuclear weapons. But I should point out to the Senator, Dr. Henry Kissinger, who is an advocate for this concept, not as something we are going to do tomorrow or in the next, you know, 10 years perhaps, 20 years, 30 years, but as an organizing principle, as a way of beginning to think differently about how we resolve conflicts--because whatever you do that moves you toward a world of less nuclear weapons, because we have to get 67 votes here, clearly would build the kind of consensus that says we are doing things that make us safer. So it would have to be accompanied by the other country's transparency, by other countries taking part. It would also, I would say to the Senator, almost necessarily have to be accompanied by something that today is way out of reach, which is a kind of restraint on conventional weapon growth and involvement and the way in which we try to resolve conflicts between countries. It is no accident that George Shultz, Bill Perry, and Sam Nunn, as well as both of the 2008 Presidential nominees, Senator McCain and President Obama, have all agreed this is a principle worth trying to move toward. One thing is for certain: The road to a reduced number of nuclear weapons in the world, which would reduce the amount of fissionable material potentially available to terrorists, certainly doesn't pass through a nuclear Tehran. So if we are going to have our bona fides to be able to leverage North Korea and Iran, we need to at least prove we can put together a bilateral agreement between the two countries that have 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. I would hope my colleague would not view this--given all of the signoffs that have accompanied it, from our national security establishment, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from military leaders, from the national intelligence community, from our laboratory directors, our strategic commanders--all of them have agreed 1,550, the current number of launchers we have, the 800--this is going to permit the United States to maintain the advantages we feel we have today. I hope my colleague would look hard at sort of how Henry Kissinger and George Shultz and Bill Perry have framed this concept of moving in that direction as an organizing principle. I don't expect it in my lifetime. I doubt the Senator does. But I wouldn't vote against this treaty that provides a window into what the Russians are doing, provides verification, reduces the threat, and creates stability. I wouldn't link the two, and I would hope the Senator would not. I see the Senator from Arizona has arrived.

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Senator. We have incorporated into the resolution of ratification some 13 different declarations, understandings, and conditions. We certainly would welcome more if they are constructive and are not duplicitous. We have already addressed the missile defense issue, the rail-mobile issue, the verification issue. All of those have been addressed. But I welcome and look forward to working with the Senator in the next days to see if we can do that. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to thank and congratulate the Senator from Arizona for his important and impassioned comments about the situation in Russia regarding the rights of Mr. Khordokovsky, and I would associate myself with those comments. I would say to him, though, one thing. He asked the question, how do you trust Russia? That is precisely why this treaty is so important. A treaty is not built on trust. No one taught us that more than in those famous words of President Reagan: Trust, but verify. We do not have verification today. We are sitting here with no verification. We are in a forced position of ``trust,'' where we do not necessarily. So the sooner we get this treaty ratified, the sooner we provide a foundation underneath the important questions Senator McCain asked; which is, if you cannot trust them, you have to have verification. The whole point is, you build a relationship even in the worst of times so your country--our country--is more stable and more protected. During the worst of the Soviet Union, during the worst years of confrontation, we still built up a series of treaties of arms agreements and various other kinds of agreements in order to try to tamp down the potential for hostility. Our hope is, obviously, that we can do that as soon as possible here. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I wish to address a couple of points raised by Senator Kyl earlier, and I will address a good number more as the debate goes forward. Let me be very clear for the record ahead of time, because he opened his floor remarks this morning by asserting we don't have time to be able to consider this treaty before the end of the year. Then he said that even though the START I treaty--which I referred to yesterday and he specifically referred to my comments--he said even though it was completed in 4 days--maybe 4 plus, slightly--he said it wasn't done under the same circumstances. It didn't have to compete with other legislation and so forth. Well, that is incorrect. So let's set the record straight. On the same day the Senate held a cloture vote on the START I treaty and votes on two amendments related to the treaty, on that same day, it voted on the final passage of a tax bill. The following day, when the Senate voted on another amendment related to the treaty, it also agreed to the conference report on Interior appropriations, passed the DC appropriations bill, and debated and held two rollcall votes on the Foreign Operations appropriations bill. The following day, it completed the final passage vote on the START treaty. So if our predecessor Senate had the ability to do START I while it passed three or four other bills and held four or five separate votes on those other items, I think it is very clear we have the ability here to be able to do this treaty in the next days. More importantly, the Senate has been considering this treaty not just for the day and a half we have now been on it. We went on this treaty yesterday and some people chose to not even come to the floor and talk about it. Now we are back here waiting for amendments and no one has yet chosen on the other side to come and bring an amendment. We are ready to vote on the treaty. Fifty-eight Democratic Senators are ready to vote on the treaty. The only thing we are waiting for is the people who say we don't have time, who haven't brought an amendment to the floor. I clearly smell a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy strategy going on here. But they have to know that when flights are disrupted next week or people can't get home, we are here to do business, and I think it will be clear why we are not able to. So we are going to stay here. We have made that clear. The majority leader has made it clear, and the President and the Vice President made it clear. We are prepared to proceed forward on any amendment with respect to understandings, declarations, or conditions they wish to bring, and certainly to have a robust debate. I will also reiterate that starting in June of last year, the Foreign Relations Committee was briefed at least five times during the talks with the Russians. That is while the talks were going on. So we have a group of Senators almost 60 strong who at one time or another over a year and a half have been following these negotiations very closely. They have been briefed down in the secure facilities. They have been briefed by the negotiators, by the military, by the intelligence community. The Intelligence Committee has weighed in. The Armed Services Committee has weighed in. The National Security Group has had an opportunity to work on this. Since the treaty was submitted, there have been 12 open and classified hearings with more than 20 witnesses. The Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, the Commander of the Strategic Command, and the Director of the Missile Defense Agency have all urged us to pass this treaty. The question is beginning to be asked not why should we do it now; the question is why aren't we doing it now. I hope we can get some amendments and begin to proceed. At this point I might share a couple of other thoughts while we are waiting for a couple of other colleagues who requested time to speak. Senator Kyl asked the question: What do we get out of this treaty? He juxtaposed what he said the Russians get versus what we get and seemed to imply we are not getting very much. Well, I can assure the Senator from Arizona that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, the leaders of our Strategic Command, and others don't come before the Congress willy-nilly just to say, Hey, do this, because we don't get anything out of it. Every single one of them has articulated very clearly how they believe this treaty strengthens America's national security, advantages our leadership in the world, and positions us to be able to deal more effectively with Iran and North Korea. I have to say to my colleagues, you cede the right to come to the floor of the Senate and talk seriously about Iran and North Korea if you can't talk seriously about the ways in which this treaty enhances our ability to be able to put leverage on those countries. Before we pushed the so-called reset button with Russia, we didn't have their cooperation with respect to Iran. In fact, the Russians were very skeptical about the intelligence we were offering and putting on the table. It wasn't until we sat down with them face to face and went through that that they became alarmed and they began to see, indeed, this question of how we respond to Iran is deadly serious. As a consequence of that, Russia joined with the United States. I agree with my colleagues, the mere fact they are joining us is not a reason to embrace a treaty if the treaty doesn't do all the other things you need to provide stability and enhance your security. But when it does all those other things and you know the consequences of turning your back on all of those achievements is going to create a negative relationship, you ought to try to weigh that a little bit. It seems to me when someone's point of view comes specifically from the economic engagement, business world, somebody such as Steve Forbes writes that this is important to the economic component of our relationship and to that component of the reset button, I think we can see the breadth of impact a treaty such as this can have. Let me say a few more words about what we do get out of this. First of all--and this is as significant as any reason there is to be considering this--we get nuclear stability. The fact is that nuclear stability enhances the relationship between the countries so we can do a lot of other things that assist in stabilizing this important relationship in a time of crisis. The fact is, as I mentioned earlier-- we all know this--the United States and Russia possess 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. Any single one of those weapons accidentally released, stolen, or the materials in them, has the ability to be able to destroy any American city. That is a reality today. So both countries have decided it is in both countries' interests to reduce the dangers that arise when you have misunderstandings or mistrust without the verification that builds the trust, and it is important to establish limits on those weapons in order to achieve that. Predictability is what comes with this treaty. Transparency is what comes with this treaty. Accountability comes with this treaty. Without this treaty, we don't have the right to count their warheads. With this treaty, we have a specific counting and identifying mechanism which will provide for greater accountability and greater stability. Secretary Gates said very clearly: ``Russia is currently above the treaty limits in terms of its numbers.'' So they are going to have to take down warheads. How could it not be in the interests of the United States to have Russia reduce the number of warheads it has today? There are many other reasons. I see my colleague from North Dakota has arrived. I will go through a number of these others as the opportunity presents itself later. But I think there are a host of reasons that are very clear, and they are part of the record already and we will highlight them as we go forward, as to what we get out of this treaty and why this is directly in the interests of our country, and that is the only reason the President of the United States is submitting this treaty to the Senate. We need to pay close attention to the rationale our military and intelligence community has laid out to us of why they would like this treaty--as Jim Clapper, the head of the intelligence community has said, the sooner the better, the quicker, the sooner, the better. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order to return to legislative session be delayed and occur at 7 p.m., with the order then for recognition of the majority leader still in effect.

Mr. KERRY. Will the Senator--

Mr. KERRY. Will the Senator yield further?

Mr. KERRY. As the Senator knows, a legitimate certain amount of analysis has to be made by DOD in order to be able to submit to the Congress a plan that is realistic both in cost and judgment about what the size will be. Every single testimony, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff through Secretary Gates, has committed to the maintenance of a viable triad. That could not be more clear in this record.

Mr. KERRY. Absolutely.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, again--

Mr. KERRY. This is very important to the sort of understanding of where we are here and what the real differences are. All of these systems, all three--DOD has scheduled and put out a timeline. Now, they have to go through that process. The fact is, they have stated in the 1251 report that they are going to replace the Ohio class submarine when it commences scheduled retirement in 2027. I do not think President Obama is going to be there in 2027, unless there is some extraordinary transition in America. So this goes way beyond this administration in terms of a decision and in terms of a Congress. The Navy is going to sustain the existing Trident II through at least 2042. That is on the books right now with the robust life extension program. The current Minuteman life extension program will keep the fleet in service through 2030. And DOD has already begun the preparatory studies on replacement options, which will begin in 2012. And the soon-to-be- completed long-range bomber issue the Senator just raised is only on what type of new bomber is needed, not whether there will be a new bomber. So the future Congresses and future administrations are really going to make this decision. So to suggest that somehow the Obama administration can right now have this treaty held accountable to decisions where every one of those delivery platforms is going to be in existence well beyond the life and public service of any of us here I think is a completely inappropriate standard. I would ask my colleague, why a 2027 date and a 2042 date and a 2030 date and a commitment to a bomber, even though they do not know what kind of bomber, why that is not satisfactory?

Mr. KERRY. No, no, no. I appreciate that. And the Senator is always good about engaging in this.

Mr. KERRY. I just think it is important to get it out. I do not need that time. I think it is important. I want Senator Kyl to have his time--

Mr. KERRY. And I will not interrupt him, but I wanted to try to see if we could not engage a little in what the Senate does, which is debate.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arizona. I want to take a moment, though, to address this point he made--I think it is central--and then we can talk about it. Then I want to give Senator Casey an opportunity to speak. I say to my colleague from Arizona that a lot of us are scratching our heads trying to figure out what we have to do to get the Senator from Arizona to accept yes for an answer--yes on modernization, yes on our willingness to go forward and build a missile defense. It has been said again and again and again by the highest officials of our government--and I think the President will make some further statement about this, hopefully, within the next hours or the next day--that can indicate the absolute total commitment to proceed forward and the irrelevance of what the Senator is referring to in the context of a statement that is not within the four corners of the agreement, that has no legal binding authority at all--none. Don't accept my word for it. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, whom I know the Senator respects enormously, said the following on May 25: So you know the Russians can say what they want. But as Secretary Clinton said, these unilateral statements are totally outside the treaty, and they have no standing. They are not binding. They never have been. That is one statement. LTG Patrick O'Reilly is the Director of the Missile Defense Agency. He testified on June 16, and this is a yes: I have briefed the Russian officials in Moscow, a rather large group of them, in October of 2009. I went through all 4 phases of the phased adaptive approach, especially phase 4. And while the missiles that we have selected, as far as the interceptors in phase 4, as Dr. Miller says, provide a very effective defense for a regional-type threat, they are not of the size that have a long-range to be able to reach strategic missile fields. He says: It's a very verifiable property of these missiles, given their size, and so forth. It was not a very controversial topic of the fact that a missile given the size of the payload, could not reach their strategic fields. I have briefed the Russians personally in Moscow on every aspect of our missile defense development. I believe they understand what it is and that those plans for development are not limited by this treaty. So in the treaty ratification resolution--here I will make the Senator from Arizona happy, but I will also not please him. The happy part: If we want to be purely technical and sort of be kind of literal as to technical writing of some particular thing, can we say that article V has a limitation on strategic defense? Yes, in the most limited technical way we can say there is a limitation. The limitation is that we can't take intercontinental ballistic missile silos, other than the four already grandfathered--the new ones--and convert them into an interceptor missile silo. In that sense, we have limited something, but have we limited missile defense? As we think about it in its larger strategic context, the answer is, no, not one iota. Why? Because those particular silos cost more money, and in a deficit-conscious age, where we are trying to cut spending, it is a heck-of-a-lot smarter to dig a new hole, build a new silo that is more effective, more efficient, less costly, and does the same thing. That is our plan. So there is no limitation on the ability to actually deploy missile defense. So if we want to play a technical game on the floor and run away and say: Oh, there is a limitation here; that is terrible, well, you can do that, but it doesn't make sense. It doesn't actually limit the plans of this administration to go forward with real missile defense and with a system that allows us to intercept missiles fired from a silo in a missile field in the United States. What is more, if we do convert those other silos, we don't have a mechanism for determining what kind of missile is coming out of there. Is it an ICBM or an interceptor? What happens if we are firing one of those missiles to intercept a rogue missile from North Korea or wherever, and the Russians happen to misinterpret it and they don't know what it is--there is no plan or anything that says we can do that. In fact, we are safer, given the way the administration has decided to deploy this. Here is what the resolution of ratification says: It says in understanding No. 1, missile defense--and this is what we will vote on. It says it is the understanding of the United States that the New START treaty does not impose any limitations on the deployment of missile defenses other than the requirements of paragraph 3 of article V that I just referred to about the silos that we don't want to do anyway, which costs the American people more and will make us less safe. We don't want to do that. So that is in there. That is all that is in there. It then goes on to say that this provision shall not apply to ICBM launchers that were converted prior to the signature of the treaty. Then paragraph (b) says any additional New START treaty limitation on the deployment of missile defense, beyond that one I just referred to that we are talking about, including any limitations that come out of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, those would require an amendment to the New START treaty which could only enter into force with the advice and consent of the United States Senate. That is it. We have control over whatever might happen beyond that one simple silo issue. I respectfully suggest we ought to listen to the folks who are telling us what they have accomplished. The Secretary of Defense said, from the very beginning of this process more than 40 years ago, the Russians have hated missile defense. It is because we can afford it and they can't; and we are going to be able to build a good one and are building a good one, and they probably aren't. They don't want to devote the resources to it, so they try to stop us from doing it through political means. This treaty doesn't accomplish that for them. That is what Secretary Gates has said. This treaty doesn't accomplish it. I believe Secretary of Defense Gates. I believe GEN Patrick O'Reilly, who serves our country with one purpose. He is not a member of a party or here for politics. He believes he is defending the Nation. He says he told the Russians in full that we are doing phase 4. We are going forward. Finally, Secretary Clinton said to the Foreign Relations Committee that the Obama administration has consistently informed Russia that, while we seek to establish a framework for U.S.-Russian BMD cooperation, the United States cannot agree to constrain or limit U.S. BMD abilities operationally, numerically, qualitatively, geographically, or in other ways. I don't know how much more ``yes'' you can have in statements. One last thing with respect to the comment about how they can withdraw: Mr. President, they can withdraw for any reason they want, at any point in time, just by noticing us that they are going to do that. Guess what. So can we. Both parties have the right to withdraw. So this isn't some new component they can withdraw from. The point I make to my colleague--and he is very intelligent and knows these issues very well--the Senator from Arizona knows we can't unilaterally get another country to change its perception of how they may feel threatened. That is what drove the arms race for 50 years. If the United States of America has an ability to knock down their missiles that they think defend them, and all of a sudden they no longer believe those missiles can defend them because we can knock them down, what do you think they are going to do? They are going to scratch their heads and say: Wow, we ought to develop some method to guarantee that they can't knock them down, or that we have enough of them so that we can overwhelm whatever system they have that knocks them down. We went through this with President Reagan, and we have spent billions trying to pursue this. We understand that. The fact is, they are just stating a truism. Those are not my words; those are Dr. Henry Kissinger's words, who said all the preamble does is acknowledge that they believe there is a connection. We have stated simultaneously that we don't care if they believe there is a connection. We stated that. Secretary Clinton stated it, Secretary Gates stated it, and the President has said we are going forward with our phase 4. Now, it is not connected. There is no legal, binding connection whatsoever in this treaty. This treaty does not constrain America's capacity to develop a robust, qualitatively superior, improved system. If we do, we are going to make a decision, when we deploy it, to accept whatever consequences come with whatever shape and form we do deploy. But there is no restraint on our ability to do it. In fact, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle ought to be leaping at this opportunity because it, in effect, codifies America's intent and codifies our independence and capacity to go off and do what we are going to do. I wish I could get the Senator from Arizona to accept yes.

Mr. KERRY. Well, Mr. President, I want the Senator from Pennsylvania to be able to have his chance, and we are running out of time, but I disagree with the Senator with respect to the judgment he has made with regard to what it does or does not do, and we will have an opportunity to be able to further discuss that component of it. But let me remind the Senator of what Secretary Gates said this May. He said, under the last administration as well as under this one, it has been the U.S. policy not to build a missile defense that would render useless Russia's nuclear capabilities. It has been a missile defense intended to protect against rogue nations, such as North Korea and Iran or countries that have very limited capabilities. He went on to talk about the expense and capacity we have today. We are going to continue to develop whatever the best system is we are able to develop that could protect the United States of America. We support that. The administration could not be more clear in its determination to continue to do that, including phase IV. I will submit, when we get time and come back, further statements and further clarification to the Senator that hopefully can give him a comfort level that there is no dichotomy, that we are proceeding forward, and the Russians understand what we are doing. We should not misinterpret. Preambles have historically incorporated statements that one side or the other need for domestic consumption for their politics. There is no misinterpretation here about where we are headed, what we are committed to do, and I would think the recent announcement by the administration in Lisbon and the embrace of this effort through the European countries, our allies, would be strong testimony to the direction we are moving with respect to this missile defense. We will continue this. I look forward to doing that with my colleague. I thank him for his courtesy, and I look forward to further discussion. I yield the floor.