Blog

Did the Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives sound the death knell for START? Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl said he would oppose a START vote, at least during the lame-duck session. From the Wall Street Journal:

“Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona said there wasn’t time to deal with his concerns over a treaty that would cut U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons deployments by about one third and restore weapons inspections that were halted nearly a year ago. Treaty ratification requires 67 votes in the Senate. Mr. Kyl’s decision likely pushes a vote to next year, when the Senate Democratic majority shrinks to 53 from 58.

“Mr. Kyl’s announcement took the White House by surprise. A White House official said that just last Friday, officials from the Defense Department, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. Strategic Command briefed the senator and offered an additional $4.1 billion over the next five years that he had demanded to modernize the remaining nuclear arsenal.”

The treaty would limit strategic warheads to 1,550 and launchers to 700 each. Republican senators have cited several concerns about START, including lack of verification and a link between missile defense and offense. These senators requested the treaty negotiating record, and the Obama administration has refused to turn it over. Republicans also suspect Russia and the U.S. entered into a secret agreement on missile defense, and the State Department has gone on record to deny it.

Earlier this week, we linked to the Heritage Foundation’s must-read START fact sheet. The treaty weakens our nation’s missile defense by reducing our stockpiles and imposing restrictions on our missile defense options. As the experts say, a lame-duck congressional session is not the time to ratify such a troubling treaty.

Columnist Frank Gaffney wrote about an arms hearing that took place this weekend, as well as U.S. Senator Jon Kyl resuming a leadership role in arms matters. From the Big Peace blog:

“Big Peace has learned that earlier this week Sen. Kyl arranged a private briefing for key colleagues – several of whom are members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees. The latter is to take testimony tomorrow from the directors of the national laboratories, the individuals charged with certifying that the nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile will work when they are supposed to, and won’t when they are not.”

As our nuclear stockpile ages (“Some of our nuclear weapons are so old they actually depend on vacuum tubes.”), and the “very best and brightest” aren’t choosing to work at laboratories like the one at Los Alamos, and our president isn’t exactly committed to maintaining nuclear supremacy, our weapons research and innovation continues to deteriorate.

“Senator Kyl is to be commended for his leadership in exposing his colleagues to such unhappy truths.  It now behooves the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committee to allow critics knowledgeable and concerned about these realities to make them part of the Senate’s deliberations on the wisdom of the New START Treaty – an accord that is explicitly designed to enshrine and advance the President’s goal of denuclearizing the world, an unachievable and actually undesirable objective. Absent corrective action by the Congress, the only country likely to be disarmed will be ours.”

DOD Buzz reports that Senator Jon Kyl is hinting he may oppose the confirmation of Representative Ellen Tauscher, nominated by President Barack Obama for Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

Kyl, who’s written a number of pro-missile defense op-eds, spoke yesterday at a morning meeting and quoted some of Tauscher’s statements on missile defense. According to DOD Buzz, a skeptical Tauscher wants more testing on the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system (GMD). She also expressed skepticism about a missile defense shield in Poland, saying the system would have to be proven viable before deployment (as one would expect).

An aide confirmed that Kyl would place a hold on Tauscher’s nomination.

Tauscher’s skepticism about systems like the GMD match the Obama administration’s. The Missile Defense Agency may face budget cuts as high as $2 billion, which would reduce testing of the GMD.

 
Representatives Jon Kyl and Ellen Tauscher both condemned North Korea’s missile launch. Kyl said (excerpted):

“This launch is yet another reckless display by one of the world’s most brutal and dictatorial regimes. It makes clear that the North Koreans are investing significant resources and effort to advance the capability of their missile systems.

“Clearly, missile defenses against threats from rogue regimes are more important than ever, and I urge the Obama administration to fully fund the Missile Defense Agency this year.

“North Korea is the world’s most prolific proliferator of ballistic missile technology so we should also be concerned about reports that Iranian technicians and observers were present in North Korea for this launch.”

In a joint statement with Representative Ike Skelton, Tauscher said (excerpted):

“We call on North Korea to cease any further ballistic missile launches and return to the Six-Party talks without any preconditions. We will support President Obama’s efforts to work with the international community to appropriately address North Korea’s actions.

“North Korea’s ballistic missile capability is a threat to the United States, our deployed forces, and our friends and allies in the region.

“The House Armed Services Committee has worked for many years to ensure that we have fully funded critical near-term missile defense systems, such as the existing Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, based in Alaska and California, the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.”

Conspicuously absent in both statements is any mention of ground missile defense in Europe, specifically, the urgent need to move forward on our agreements to build missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic.

 
Congressman Eric Cantor and Senator Jon Kyl published a piece on Politico.com about the need for missile defense funding.

In 2006, North Korea fired missiles into the Pacific Ocean, and some had the capacity to reach the West Coast of the United States. Cantor and Kyl note that since then, North Korea has become more assertive with its missile technology, preparing to test-fire long-range missiles and developing nuclear weapons. Rogue state Iran also is pushing the limits, successfully launching its first satellite last month. Additionally, sources report that Iran is enriching uranium, a necessary component in building nuclear weapons.

Now more than ever, we need a strong and comprehensive missile defense system, and that will require funding. An excerpt of the article:

“In the past two weeks, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee announced that he would ‘love’ to cut missile defense funding. Newspaper headlines report that the Obama administration is planning to make significant cuts in the missile defense budget. These cuts could include funds that would be used to deploy our missile defense assets to Europe — which NATO has twice stated is necessary to deal with the threat from Iran.

“That such a rollback of the system is being discussed is dangerous. That it is being discussed at the same time North Korea and Iran are carrying out aggressive, threatening activities is irresponsible and unacceptable.”

Does it make sense that our lawmakers want to cut missile defense spending just as rogue nations are improving their weapons and ignoring our warnings? As the U.S prepares to bargain with Russia on missile defense in Central Europe, will Russia guarantee us that it won’t sell arms to Iran? It seems suicidal to put ourselves in a weak position, but we’re witnessing it.

Read the rest of Cantor’s and Kyl’s article.