Treaty with Russia on Measures for Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms--Resumed

Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Madam President, I join my colleague from Idaho in underscoring the difficulty we have on this issue. Most people on this floor don't have a full appreciation of what those of us in the West have to deal with. Two out of every three acres in Idaho are owned by the Federal Government. The Federal Government came in, in the mid-1990s, and forced the wolf upon the State. The Governor didn't want it, the legislature didn't want it, and the congressional delegation didn't want it. Nonetheless, the Federal Government brought us 34 wolves. Now they have turned into well over 1,000, and nobody knows exactly how many breeding pairs there are. The result is that there has been tremendous havoc wreaked on our preferred species in Idaho, the elk. We have done an outstanding job of managing elk, the preferred species, but they are also the preferred species for the wolf to eat. They are not vegetarians.

As a result, we have had a tremendous problem with wolves in Idaho, and we have brought a bill to the Senate to turn the management of wolves over to the State. All the other animals are managed by the State. We have done a great job for well over 100 years of managing two other difficult predators, the bear and various cats. We have done it responsibly, on a sustained basis, and we want to do the same thing with wolves.

The Federal Government has to let go of this. We have tried. We have the Federal courts that have stepped in. I don't quite understand how the Federal court can claim the wolf is still an endangered species, when they can turn 34 wolves into over 1,000 and the population has exploded. Nonetheless, they have. It is time for Congress to act.

I yield back to Senator Crapo.

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Mr. RISCH. Madam President and fellow Senators, I bring you what I believe to be the first amendment to the resolution of ratification. We have had a number of amendments that have been to the actual treaty itself. We have listened to objection after objection that: Oh, my gosh, we can't possibly amend the treaty because if we do, we are going to have to sit down and talk to the Russians again.

We don't have to worry about that with this amendment. This is an amendment to the resolution of ratification. It will not require that we sit down with the Russians and negotiate. Frankly, I don't know what is wrong with that. Frankly, I think it is a good idea after all the problems that have been raised with the treaty. But, nonetheless, if that is an overriding concern, you can set that aside and listen to the merits of the amendment.

I have to tell my colleagues that part of this I bring as a matter of frustration. I have been involved with this for months, and I am so tired of hearing about accommodation after accommodation after accommodation to the Russians. It appears, before we even started with this, the Russians said: Well, we are going to have to have in the preamble language that says missile defense is related to this, and we said no. We have to have the ability to protect our country and build missile defense. The Russians said it has to be in there. It is in there. The next thing we said: You know, for 40 years we have been doing this, and you guys have a 10-to-1 advantage over us on tactical weapons; that is, short-range weapons. We ought to talk about that because you want to talk about parity on strategic weapons. No, it can't be in there. We accommodated the Russians again. Every time we turn around and put out a problem here--just as we heard on this rail thing--every time we turn around and put out a problem that ought to be addressed, the people who are promoting this stand and apologize, they accommodate, they say it is OK, they overlook it, and we go on and on and on.

I am sitting here listening to this on the rails, and the one side says: Well, don't worry about it; they are never going to build this anyway. We pull up an article that says they are in the process of doing this. Well, yes, but don't worry about it because it is going to be counted anyway.

So I have something here that, hopefully, we are not going to apologize to the Russians for. We are not going to accommodate them. We are going to tell them that if you want a relationship with us, you have to be honest with us.

We all know, and it has been widely reported, that they cheat. They are serial cheaters. They cheated in virtually every agreement we have had with them. If we are going to have a relationship with them and press the restart button--and I think we should. We should press the reset button. We should have a decent relationship with them. But let's wipe the slate clean and let's start with the military equipment they have stolen from us. That is all this is about.

On August 8 of 2008, as we all know, the Russians invaded Georgia, and when they invaded Georgia, it was pretty much of a mismatch. They ran over the top of them, did a lot of bad things, and eventually there was a peace accord that was brokered by President Sarkozy, and the next amendment I have deals more in-depth with that.

But when they ran over the Georgians, the American military had just been there doing exercises with the Georgians because the Georgians were kind enough to engage with us and help us in Afghanistan. They were preparing to send troops to Afghanistan to help us. So we Americans went over there and we said: OK. We need to do some military exercises, engage in some joint training, so we can get you ready to go into Afghanistan. We are now preparing to leave. We have completed the exercises. We are preparing to leave. We obviously took a lot of our equipment over there, not the least of which were four American humvees. The four American humvees were shipped to a port in Georgia and were in the process of being shipped back to the United States. There is no argument that the title to these four humvees is with the people of the United States of America. They belong to me. They belong to you. They belong to the U.S. military. They belong to all of us.

The Russians, when they overran the Georgians and got to the seaport, found our humvees, and what did they do? Did they say: Well, yes, they belong to the Americans; we will put them on the boat that is supposed to go back to the United States? No. They said: We are going to take them, and they stole them. Today, they still have them.

The United States has asked for the four humvees back. But let me tell my colleagues where the four humvees are. If you want to see a picture of them, you can go to msn.com and search Georgia and humvees and you can see a picture of our humvees. Where are they? They are in the Russian Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow, Russia. That is where our four humvees are. What are they doing there? They are on display as a war trophy, taken by the Russians as a war trophy. Well, we weren't engaged in that war.

So if we are going to have a good relationship with them, is it too much to ask to give us back the property they stole from us a little over 24 months ago?

So this is an easy one to vote for. I have had discussions with my good friend from Massachusetts. He said this isn't related. This is absolutely related. We are entering into a marriage on a very important issue.

Shouldn't we ask that they give us our stolen property back? And shouldn't they say: Yes, we want to set the reset button too. We want to hold hands and sing ``Kumbaya.'' We want to be friends.

Well, that is fine, but give us back our stolen military equipment.

That is all this asks for. It doesn't jeopardize the treaty; it just says it goes into force as soon as they give us our four humvees back.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. RISCH. Madam President, first of all, to my good friend from Maryland, I agree with much of what he said about our relationship and the relationship between Georgia and Russia. I will speak about that in the next amendment I am going to offer, which is No. 4879, right after this one. I know the Senator didn't talk about our stolen military equipment by the Russians.

To my friend from Massachusetts, who responded to what I said, I say: Here we go again. This is exactly why I brought this amendment. We are again accommodating the Russians. Why can't we just once ask them to behave themselves and say: Look, this is not a big matter, but you are acting like a thief.

Do you want to see what they did? I made reference for you to go on the Internet to see the pictures, but here they are. If you are a good American, you can go there and you can watch your property right here being towed away by the Russians, back to Moscow, to put on display as a trophy. Here is another picture of it right here.

This is even better. This is one of our humvees being towed by the Russians. This humvee is headed back to Moscow, where it is now displayed as a trophy.

Is it too much to ask, where we are going to enter into this agreement and supposedly befriend and supposedly reset the button on our relationship, is it too much to say: Look, you stole from us. You are acting like a thief. Give us back the property we own.

Is that asking too much of the Russians? Can we not just once, instead of accommodating them, instead of apologizing for them, instead of saying we should not tie this to that or we will not get it, can we not just once say: Give us our stolen property back.

That is all we are asking here. It is not a big thing, but it does give us a clear indication of what they are thinking, of what their relationship is with us, of what they want their relationship to be with us.

This is not asking too much. This does not blow up the treaty. It simply says they pack up the four humvees and, and as soon as they do, the treaty goes into effect. That is not too much to ask.

I yield to my good friend from Massachusetts.

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Mr. RISCH. Madam President, somehow the debate about the relationship between Russia and Georgia and our relationship as far as Georgia is concerned has crept into this debate. This amendment has nothing to do with Georgia, other than the fact that is where the theft took place. The international criminal offense of theft of our military property took place in Georgia. That is the only thing Georgia has to do with this. This has nothing to do with the relationship. Amendment No. 4879 has a lot to do with it. When we get there, we will talk about that.

I regret my good friend from New Hampshire cannot support this amendment, because although I suspect I will support the resolution, we do a lot of these resolutions. We do the resolution and send it off to the Russians. They are going to be laughing up their sleeve at us, whilst they are fondling our equipment that they have possession of.

There are no teeth in these resolutions. We actually have the opportunity to do something to get our military equipment back. If they are acting in good faith, if they are people of good will, if they want a relationship with us, then they are going to have to make a choice: Do we keep four humvees or do we give them back so this treaty can go into effect? That is the choice they are going to have to make.

That is not too tough a choice to put on them. Do you want to continue to be thieves or do you want to be honest about this and deliver the goods you have stolen? There is nothing wrong about that. This gives us the opportunity, I say to the good Senator, to do what you exactly do on the resolution, but it is going to give it some teeth.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. RISCH. Madam President, with all due respect to my good friend from Maryland, this is exactly the right vehicle to bring this up. This is a vehicle of trust, and it is a vehicle that puts some teeth in an otherwise toothless thing.

As far as human rights versus this stolen property, this is very objective, it is hard, you can see it. The human rights violations I think are entirely different. They certainly are important. They certainly rise to as high a level, but this is objective.

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