Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to make some general comments about the matter under consideration, and that being the possible ratification of the New START treaty.

First, let me say I come with what I think is a unique perspective, in that I sit on both the Foreign Relations Committee and the Intelligence Committee. In addition to that, I am rather new here so I have a fresh set of eyes, if you will, on these kinds of issues.

The ability to be able to talk about these issues and to debate them and then cast a vote is somewhat frustrating, and that is a view I share with my friend and the distinguished Senator from California, Senator Feinstein, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Just like her, my views of this matter are colored to some degree and are affected to some degree by matters that we can't talk about here and that we can't disclose. Nonetheless, that obviously cannot stop us from having hopefully as productive a discussion as possible about this subject matter, and it has been a productive discussion.

There are good things that have come out of this so far, and I am going to talk about those in a minute. But let me say one thing I have been impressed with throughout. I have sat through I can't tell you how many hours of meetings, of briefings, of actual field trips out to facilities, and all those kinds of things, but I have been impressed with the good faith of everyone who is working on this matter.

This is a unique situation that we as Senators have a constitutional responsibility to focus on. Our responsibility in this is equal to the President of the United States. A foreign treaty such as this, the Founding Fathers said, can only come into play if, on the one hand, the President of the United States signs off on it; and if, on the other hand, two-thirds of the Senators sign off on it. So our responsibilities are equal in that regard. As a result of that, all of us need to, in my judgment, approach this on a good-faith basis and on a what-is-best-for-America basis.

All of us have seen the people on TV who are very sarcastic about who is going to win and who is going to lose. The only ones we need to be concerned about who will win and lose are the American people.

I have come to some conclusions throughout this that are new to me. One, of course, is the fact--and these are some observations I want to make about the whole process--that everyone is approaching this in good faith. The second conclusion that I have reached--and I think is widely held--is that we are much better off if we have a treaty than if we don't have a treaty. I would, however, modify that by saying but not just any treaty.

Those are just observations, along with one other that I have, which is that there are some good things in this particular treaty, not the least of which are the things people have talked about here, and that is, first of all, having a relationship with the Russians; and secondly, having actual inspections, even though they are very attenuated, but nonetheless having inspections; and thirdly, having a table around which people can get around and discuss possible violations or accusations one might have against the other.

That brings me to the next subject I want to talk about, and that is the historical basis we find ourselves in.

The people who did this 40 years ago and actually started the dialog and took us to the first treaty with the Russians are real heroes. They are people who were patriots and people to whom we owe a great deal of gratitude. They have set this stage, if you would, for where we are today.

Probably the most important thing they have given us is a 40-year history of dealing with this. When they sat down at the table, they did the things they did to come to the agreements they did, but the overriding philosophy on the defense of the United States against Russia and the defense of Russia against the United States was that if either one launched against the other, the other would launch, which would ensure the mutual destruction of both parties. That has been the philosophy under which we have operated for the 40 years.

Over the 40 years--sometimes things take a long time to sink in, but I think the Russians have come to the conclusion, as Americans have come to the conclusion, that is not a good thing. The likelihood of either party pulling the trigger on the other, in my judgment, and I think probably in the judgment of most people, is not very likely. Is it possible? Of course, it is possible. Anything is possible. An accidental launch is possible--I do not believe from our side. Without going into the details of this, but through my intelligence work I have looked at the failsafe things we have in place, and I do not believe we are going to have an accidental launch. I do not have the same level of confidence with the other side.

Nonetheless, I believe the likelihood of either party doing this is highly unlikely. Where does that take us to today? The world has changed in 40 years. Forty years ago, when we sat down with the Russians, we were the two superpowers in the world. We were essentially the two that had these kinds of arms. We were worried about each other--for good reason.

Today that is a very different situation. I am much more concerned, and I think most people are much more concerned, about North Korea, about Iran, and for that matter some other countries that have nuclear weapons, as far as being a threat to us in the United States. One of the overriding concerns I have had and criticisms, if you would, is that we are focusing in this exercise, again on this 40-year history and relationship we have with Russia without bringing into the mix the other real issues--and there are real issues.

The first one I will talk about is modernization. That is one of the good things that has come out of this. There has been tremendous movement since the beginning of this on people's realization that our need to modernize our nuclear stockpile is very real. I commend the administration. I commend the chairman and the cochairman of the committee for pursuing that issue. Great strides have been made in that regard.

The other issue we are going to talk about a lot--in fact, my distinguished colleagues from Wyoming and Arizona are going to lay down an amendment in a moment about an issue that is of top priority to me, and that is the missile defense issue. I am going to talk more about the details of that when we actually get into debating this amendment. Suffice it to say, the concerns I have had and the criticism I have had of this process is we are still talking about this in terms that existed 40 years ago, instead of the terms of the real world we live in today, where we have an overhead threat from nations that we, in my judgment, have not adequately addressed.

I think one of the criticisms I have is we have missed an opportunity on missile defense. We did not miss that opportunity on modernization, but we have missed it on missile defense.

I am going to close with this. It brings me to my last two points. Time is important as you go through these things. I do not like us being up against the deadline we are up against when we have a matter of this magnitude we should be debating. That colors my judgment, what I think is the lack of time for consideration for the most deliberative body of the world to actually deliberate on this issue.

The last one that I have real difficulty with is a matter of what we call the transcripts. You heard me talk earlier about the fact that we have the same responsibilities as the President of the United States in making the decision on this. Yet he has access to the transcripts of the negotiators, and we have been denied access to the transcript of the negotiators, which gives me pause. Most reasonable people would not accept something, sign on to a contract--which is what we are doing with ratifying this--without knowing all the facts. I can tell you we do not know all the facts. That particularly becomes important. I am troubled by the missile defense issues we have. I would like to know what assurances were given to the Russians regarding missile defense, particularly when I read their independent statements, their third-party statements about this.

I would like to know what is in those transcripts. So that is a very difficult bridge I am going to have to cross.

Nonetheless, my vote on this depends upon the amendments--and there are real amendments addressing real issues in this discussion. My final vote is going to depend upon what actually happens in the amendment process.

I yield the floor for my distinguished colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain.

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Mr. RISCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have correctly identified the serious concerns that I and a number of others have. I am delighted to hear your invitation to attempt to clarify these matters where we can protect the American people, which is the highest objective that both he and I share.

Regarding the transcripts, I am not satisfied with a summary. I would like to see the transcripts. That is a point we can discuss at another time.

I thank the Senator for his consideration.

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