Senator Reed Rises in Support of Kennedy-Feinstein Amendment

Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise in support of the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment. First, we should explain the terminology better because there is a suggestion implicit in many of the comments today that a low-yield nuclear device is something akin to a big conventional weapon.

Nuclear weapons are sui generis, the most horrific weapon that man has ever developed. Under this bill we remove a ban on the research and development, and therefore testing and deployment of so-called low-yield weapons, 5 kilotons or less.

Let me put that in perspective. The weapon dropped on Hiroshima was 14 kilotons. The weapon dropped on Nagasaki was 21 kilotons. A 5-kiloton weapon, a 1-kiloton weapon, is a significant weapon causing significant damage.

When we talk about low-yield nuclear weapons, it is almost like talking about a small apocalypse because nuclear weapons have apocalyptic qualities in their destruction and in their fear.

As a result, for more than 50 years we have attempted to put them beyond use. This language in this bill lowers that threshold dramatically. It says we will begin after a 10-year prohibition not just research, but this bill takes away the prohibition on developing, engineering, testing, and deploying weapons. Low-yield weapons. But again, those low-yield weapons have fantastic power.

I heard some of my colleagues talk about the fact if we had such weapons like this we surely would have gotten Saddam Hussein. Dropping a weapon, even a "low-yield nuclear weapon," in an urban area will create incredible collateral damage. Not as much, of course, as a 400-kiloton weapon but the damage is huge. In fact, Sidney Drell, a physicist and arms control advocate, calculated that a 1-kiloton weapon penetrating at 40 feet, a penetrating type weapon, would create a crater larger than the impact area at the World Trade Center and put about 1 million cubic feet of radioactive material in the air. If we had dropped such a weapon on Baghdad, we would not be in Baghdad today. Our troops would be ringing the city waiting for the radiation to clear and trying to minister to the civilians.

The notion we need these weapons for military purposes is unsubstantiated. There is no military requirement for a so-called low-yield nuclear weapon.

In testimony before the Armed Services Committee on April 8, 2003, Ambassador Brooks, the head of NNSA, testified after a question from Bill Nelson:

Well, is there a requirement in your opinion for a new low yield?

Ambassador BROOKS: No.

Senator Bill Nelson. Is there a requirement for such a weapon under consideration or being developed?

Ambassador BROOKS: There is no requirement being developed. To the best of my knowledge there is no requirement under consideration. There is no military need for this weapon.

That is the testimony of the administration.

I am sure there are many people who would say yes, it is nice to study. There are lots of things that are nice to study. But without a military requirement for such a weapon, why are we abandoning a significant prohibition that has aided, I believe, our efforts in trying to tame or at least contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons?

It seems to me counterintuitive that one could argue, as I think some of my colleagues do, the way to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons is to build more nuclear weapons. I don't think that makes sense.

There is a suggestion also throughout the discussion this afternoon that this is just about research, nothing else. I was intrigued by this notion and I asked Ambassador Brooks about it at a hearing. His initial justification for the language requested by the administration was it would, in his words, "remove the chilling effect on scientific inquiry that could hamper our ability to maintain and exercise our intellectual capabilities to respond to needs that one day might be articulated by the President."

I asked a very obvious question. Why didn't the administration simply send up a modification to section 3136, the ban, simply to carve out language that will allow research but still would maintain the prohibition against engineering, development, testing, and deployment? I said:

For example, the language could simply say: It shall be the policy of the United States not to produce a low-yield nuclear weapon, including precision low-yield nuclear weapon.

Ambassador Brooks replied to my query:

It is accurate that that would eliminate one of the concerns I have with the language, though the language now does have, we fear, a potentially chilling effect on R&D and, as you described a possible modification, it might not. So speaking narrowly from the prospect of trying to get a robust advanced concept program working, language like that might be entirely suitable.

But that is not what this legislation includes. Not a limited exception to research, but a categorical elimination of the ban on research, engineering, development, testing, deployment of so-called low-yield nuclear weapons.

It is pretty clear here we are really not talking about just research. In fact, I hope this amendment of Senator Kennedy and Senator Feinstein passes. I support it. If it fails, I am prepared to offer language that will, in fact, limit it just to research.

Now, we also heard before the committee that one of the reasons we need this research project is so scientists can continue to work on it, maintain their skills. It turns out if that is the case, there are plenty of opportunities with existing weapons in the inventory to go ahead and hone those skills.

Even if such opportunities were not readily available, to give up a significant and recognized prohibition on at least one class of nuclear weapons simply to satisfy technical training would at least suggest to me that other ways should be found to train our scientists, and other ways, I think, could be found to train the scientists.

There is also a perception, I think inherent in the discussions here—and I have alluded to it in my initial comments—that the effect of one of these so-called low-yield weapons is that it will produce less collateral damage. That is true, but less than what? Less than the bomb at Hiroshima which, to my recollection, took over 100,000 lives. Are we willing to engage or use or tactically employ weapons that only take, in one fell swoop, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 lives and claim they are low yield and therefore innocuous? There is nothing innocuous about the weapons we are talking about.

I believe very strongly that it is incumbent upon this Senate to maintain the ban. I think it is wise policy. I think it is a policy that has given us advantages as we have urged other nations to refrain from the development of nuclear weapons.

There are some discussions about whether arms control has succeeded or failed. I think many times we point to those cases in which countries acquire nuclear weapons, but we fail to recognize the many instances where countries have given up their nuclear weapons—such as several countries in the former Soviet Union like the Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan. Because of the spirit of the nonproliferation treaty and because of the efforts of the United States and other countries urging that they become compliant with the nonproliferation treaty, these countries voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons. I do not know that today, if they were watching what we are doing here, they would be so eager to give up their nuclear weapons.

So we lose a great deal more than simply this language in the bill. I think we lose a diplomatic advantage, in terms of the goal which I hope we are still pursuing, which is the elimination, I hope, or certainly the containment, of nuclear weapons.

I urge all my colleagues to think very clearly and to recall several, for me, salient points. These are weapons of horrendous effect. Don't think low-yield, think small apocalypse. These are weapons that have no military requirement today.

What we do here will be emulated by other countries. That is the nature of world leadership. We have a chance to preserve at least this aspect of arms control, which will give us the opportunity, I hope, to argue for even more, and more effective means of nonproliferation.

I urge my colleagues to support the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment.

I yield my time to the Senator from Michigan.