State Department Pushback on Washington Post Story
According to a Washington Post story published last week, the State Department reported that Russia is violating international chemical and biological weapons pacts. An excerpt:
“The new compliance report, obtained by the Washington Post, says that several issues raised in the 2005 version have been resolved, on subjects such as the movement of Russian road-mobile missiles and inspection of reentry vehicles. But the report may nonetheless fuel the debate over the new treaty, because it says a number of other compliance issues remained unresolved when the treaty expired last December. The unclassified version of the report does not identify them. To pass, the treaty will need at least eight Republican votes plus those of all 57 Democrats and the two independents. Most Republicans haven’t yet indicated which way they will go. In recent weeks, the battle over the treaty has intensified, with the Heritage Foundation launching a nationwide campaign against it, and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney branding it Obama’s ‘worst foreign policy mistake.”
The Heritage Foundation‘s Baker Spring comment on the issue:
“The State Department is sorely upset about July 28 headlines in the Washington Post and the Washington Times about a recent Department report on Russian noncompliance with several existing and past arms control treaties and how the Russian record could derail Senate approval of the new arms control treaty with Russia , which is called New START. It seems, however, that the State Department cannot keep its story straight.
“According to a report in Foreign Policy’s online journal “The Cable,” Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller asserts that Russian non-compliance with New START’s predecessor treaty, simply called START, was about minor technical issues. On the other hand, a State Department official speaking off the record is quoted as saying, “As far as State is concerned, cheating in any form would be a huge issue… so it absolutely would be something we would take very seriously.”
“So which is it?”
Tags: Baker Spring, Russia