Peter Brookes on START Negotiating Record UPDATES
The Heritage Foundation‘s Peter Brookes wrote an op-ed for the Boston Herald about START discussions in the U.S. Senate. Several Heritage experts have suggested that senators request the negotiating record between Russia and the U.S. before ratifying the treaty.
“The Obama administration is urging the Senate to ratify the U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, but it won’t release the negotiating record for ‘New START’ to senators.
Denying the Senate’s requests raises suspicions about the treaty, which would reduce the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal by 30 percent and cut our missile silos, bombers and submarines by nearly 20 percent…Is there something in the blow-by-blow transcript of the talks with the Russians that the White House doesn’t want senators to see?”
One concern is whether President Barack Obama compromised our country’s security in exchange for Russia agreeing to additional sanctions against Iran. The president and his advisers have said START doesn’t limit our missile defense, but the president’s track record on missile defense doesn’t instill confidence.
“President Barack Obama & Co. have cut budgets of many missile-defense programs and put the kibosh early in their tenure on the Bush-era missile-defense system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic, aimed at Iran’s nuclear/missile programs. (It’s widely believed they deep-sixed the Polish-Czech program as a sop to the Russians in their near-incessant efforts to “reset” relations.)
“Then there’s the treaty preamble that acknowledges ‘the link between strategic offensive and strategic defensive armaments.’ This language, experts say, might limit American missile-defense. And, while the administration says the preamble isn’t part of the treaty, Moscow said on the day of the signing this spring that it will withdraw from the pact if U.S. missile defense is expanded or improved.”
Read the full article at the Boston Herald.
Update: Download a PDF copy of a letter signed by 11 U.S. senators requesting the administration to make certain witnesses available.
Tags: Iran, Peter Brookes, Russia, START