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Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation, July 2002 Moving Towards a Post-Arms Control Relationship: Rumsfeld Testimony on Moscow Treaty, July 17I. Statement by Secretary RumsfeldUS Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, statement as prepared for delivery to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 17. When President Bush took office last year, he made clear his determination to transform the Russian-American relationship - to put the hostility and distrust built up over so many decades behind us, and set our two nations on a course toward greater cooperation. Some naysayers insisted it could not be done. They looked at his agenda - his promise to withdraw from the ABM Treaty; his commitment to build defenses to protect the United States, its friends and allies from ballistic missile attack; his determination to strengthen the NATO Alliance by making new allies of old adversaries - and predicted that the US and Russia were on a collision course. Various commentators warned of an impending "deep chill" in US-Russian relations that would make it impossible to negotiate further nuclear reductions with Russia. More than one foreign official predicted that the President's approach would "re-launch the arms race." The Washington Post cautioned that the President's strategy risked "making the world less rather than more secure, and ... increasing rather than assuaging tension among the United States, its allies and potential adversaries such as Russia." The New York Times warned his approach "may alienate the Kremlin and give rise to a dangerous new arms race with Russia..." What a difference a year makes. None of these dire predictions came to pass. To the contrary, the US-Russian relationship is stronger today than perhaps at any time in the history of our two nations. Far from a clash over NATO expansion, we have cemented a new NATO-Russia relationship that will permit increasing cooperation between Russia and the members of the Atlantic Alliance. Far from causing a "deep chill" in relations, the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was greeted in Russia with something approximating a yawn. Indeed, President Putin declared the decision "does not pose a threat" to Russia. Far from launching a new arms race, the US and Russia have both decided to move toward historic reductions in their deployed offensive nuclear arsenals - reductions to be codified in the Moscow Treaty now before the Committee. Indeed, President Putin chose to announce the Russian reductions on the same day President Bush announced the US intention to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. In little over a year, President Bush has defied the critics and set in motion a fundamental transformation in US-Russian relationship - one that is designed to benefit the people of both our nations, and indeed the entire world. And the record shows that it is a transformation that began before the terrible events of September 11th. President Bush laid out his vision for a new relationship in a speech at the National Defense University on May 1st of last year. When he met President Putin for the first time a month later in Slovenia, instead of the predicted fireworks, the two presidents emerged from their discussions expressing confidence that our countries could put past animosities behind them. Not only had the meeting far exceeded his expectations, President Putin declared, but he believed that "Russia and the United States are not enemies, do not threaten each other, and could be fully good allies." President Bush announced they had both agreed that the time had come "to move beyond suspicion and towards straight talk; beyond mutually assured destruction and toward mutually earned respect ... to address the world as it is, not as it used to be." And over the course of the past year, they put those words into action. In the last 12 months, the Presidents of the United States and Russia had more interaction, and forged more areas of cooperation, across a broader range of political, economic and security issues, than at any time in the history of our two nations. Today, the United States and Russia are working together to develop new avenues of trade and economic cooperation. We are working together to fight terrorism, and deal with the new and emerging threats we will both face in this dangerous new century. And we are working together to reduce the number of deployed offensive nuclear weapons - weapons that are a legacy of the past, and which are no longer needed at a time when Russia and the US are basing our relations on friendship and cooperation, not fear of mutual annihilation. These are historic changes - changes of a breadth and scale that few imagined, and many openly doubted, could be achieved in so short a period time. Of course there is still a great deal of work ahead - and challenges to overcome. Our success is by no means assured. But we have an opportunity to build a new relationship for our peoples - a relationship that can contribute to peace, stability, and prosperity for generations of Russians and Americans. It is ours to grasp - or to let slip away. But let there be no doubt - it will require a change in our thinking - thinking in the bureaucracy, in the Congress, the press and in academic institutions. We have decades of momentum going in the opposite direction. We need to recalibrate our thinking and our approaches. In both our countries, there are those who are still struggling with the transition. Tolstoy said, "everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." There is a reason for that. Change is not easy - none of us wakes up in the morning wanting to change. Habits built up over many decades become ingrained, and are hard to break. Here in the US, there are some who would have preferred to see us continue the adversarial arms control negotiations of the Soviet era - where teams of lawyers drafted hundreds of pages of treaty text, and each side worked to gain the upper hand, while focusing on ways to preserve a balance of nuclear terror. This is an approach that President Bush rejected, insisting instead that we deal with Russia as we deal with all normal countries - in a spirit of friendship, trust and cooperation. Similarly, in Russia today there are those who are stuck in the past - who look warily at American offers of greater friendship and cooperation, preferring to keep us at arms length, while continuing to associate with the old allies of the former Soviet Union - dictatorial regimes characterized by political, religious and economic repression - the world's walking wounded. And there are others in Russia who want to see her embrace the future and take her rightful place in Europe - through increased integration with the Western industrialized democracies, and by embracing political and economic freedom, and the prosperity, high standard of living, domestic peace and thriving culture that are the product of free societies. Sometimes these divergent impulses can be found in the same people. Both of our nations have a choice to make - a choice between the past and the future. Neither of us can make that choice for the other. But each of us has an interest in the choice the other makes. The question for us is: what can we, who choose the future, do to support each other? For those of us in the business of national defense, our task is an important one: to clear away the debris of past hostility that has been blocking our path into the 21st century. Russia and the United States entered this new century saddled with two legacies of the Cold War: the adversarial relationship to which we had both grown accustomed, and the physical manifestation of that adversarial relationship - the massive arsenals of weapons we built up to destroy each other. In the past year, we have made progress in dealing with both. Last November, at the Crawford Summit, President Bush announced his intention to reduce the United States' operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads by some two-thirds - to between 1,700 and 2,200 weapons. Soon after, President Putin made a similar commitment. These reductions are a reflection of our new relationship. When President Reagan spoke to the students at Moscow State University in 1988, he told them, "nations do not distrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they distrust each other." Clearly, we do not distrust each other the way the US and Soviet Union once did. But what is remarkable is not simply the fact of these planned reductions, but how they have happened. After a careful review, President Bush simply announced his intention to cut our stocks of operationally-deployed nuclear warheads. President Putin did the same. When they met in Moscow, they recorded these unilaterally announced changes in a treaty that will survive their two presidencies - the Moscow Treaty which the Senate will now consider. But it is significant that while we consulted closely, and engaged in a process that has been open and transparent, we did not engage in lengthy, adversarial negotiations in which the US kept thousands of weapons it did not need as a bargaining chip, and Russia did the same. We did not establish standing negotiating teams in Geneva, with armies of arms control aficionados ready to do battle over every colon and comma. If we had done so, we would still be negotiating today. Instead, we are moving directly toward dramatic reductions in the ready nuclear weapons of our two countries - and clearing the way for a new relationship between our countries based on increasing trust and friendship. If you want an illustration of how far we have come in that regard, consider:
And, Mr. Chairman, we are working toward the day when the relationship between our two countries is such that no arms control treaties will be necessary. That is how normal countries deal with each other. The United States and Britain both have nuclear weapons - yet we do not spend hundreds of hours negotiating the fine details of mutual reductions in our offensive systems. We do not feel the need to preserve a balance of terror between us. We want the same for our relationship with Russia. There are those who do not see the difference in the size of these treaties as a sign of progress. To the contrary, they would have preferred a voluminous, legalistic arms control agreement, with hundreds of pages of carefully crafted provisions and intrusive verification measures. These critics operate from a flawed premise: that, absent such an agreement, our two countries would both try to break out of the constraints of this treaty and increase our deployed nuclear forces. Nothing could be further from the truth. During the Cold War, the stated rationale for arms control was to constrain an arms race. But the idea of an arms race between the United States and Russia today is ludicrous. The relationship between our two countries today is such that US determined - unilaterally - that deep reductions in our deployed nuclear forces are in the US interest. We would have made these cuts regardless of what Russia did with its arsenal. We are making them not because we signed a treaty in Moscow, but because the fundamental transformation in our relationship with Russia means we do not need so many deployed weapons. Russia has made a similar calculation. The agreement we reached in Moscow is the result of those determinations - not the cause of them. That is also why we saw no need for including detailed verification measures in the treaty. First, there simply isn't any way on earth to verify what Russia is doing with all those warheads. Second, we don't need to. Neither side has an interest in evading the terms of the treaty, since it simply codifies unilaterally announced reductions - and gives both sides broad flexibility in implementing them. Third, we saw no benefit in creating a new forum for bitter debates over compliance and enforcement. Today, the last place in the world where US and Russian officials still sit across a table arguing with each other is in Geneva. Our goal is to move beyond that kind of Cold War animosity - not to find new ways to extend it into the 21st century. Similarly flawed is the complaint that, because the Moscow Treaty does not contain a requirement to destroy warheads removed from missiles or bombers, the cuts are reversible and therefore not "real." Put aside for a moment the fact that no previous arms control treaty - not SALT, START or INF - has required the destruction of warheads, and no one offered objections to them on that basis. This charge is based on a flawed premise - that irreversible reductions in nuclear weapons are possible. In point of fact, there is no such thing as an irreversible reduction in nuclear weapons. The knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons exists - and there is no possibility that knowledge will be lost. Every reduction is reversible, given enough time and money. Indeed, when it comes to building nuclear weapons, Russia has a distinct advantage over the US. Today, Russia can and does produce both nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear delivery vehicles - they have open warm production lines. The US does not produce either ICBMs or nuclear warheads. It has been a decade since we produced a new nuclear weapon - and it would likely take us the better part of a decade to begin producing them again. In the time it would take us to re-deploy decommissioned nuclear warheads, Russia could easily produce a larger number of new ones. But the question is: why would we want to do so? Barring some unforeseen and dramatic change in the global security environment - like the sudden emergence of a hostile peer competitor on par with the old Soviet Union - there is no reason why we would re-deploy the warheads we are reducing. The reason to keep, rather than destroy, some of those decommissioned warheads is to have them available in the event of a problem with safety and reliability of our arsenal. Since we do not have a warm production line, it would be simply mindless for us to destroy all those warheads, and then not have them for back up in the event we run into safety and reliability problems - or a sudden, unexpected change in the global security environment. Russia, by contrast, has less need to maintain a reserve of warheads, since it has an active production capability. Mr. Chairman, if we had pursued the path of traditional arms control, as some suggested, we would not be proceeding with the reductions outlined in the treaty before you. Rather, we would still be at the negotiating table, arguing over how to reconcile these and other asymmetries between Russia and the United States. We would have had to balance Russia's active production capacity against the United States' lack of one.
And so on and so forth, ad infinitum. But the point is this: We don't need to "reconcile" all these asymmetries - because neither Russia nor the US has an interest in taking advantage of the other by increasing its respective deployed nuclear forces. The approach we have taken is to treat Russia not as an adversary, but as a friendly power. In so doing, we have been able to preserve the benefits attributed to arms control - the dialogue, consultations, lower force levels, predictability, stability, and transparency. But we have done so without all the drawbacks: the protracted negotiations; the withholding of bargaining chips; the legalistic and adversarial process that, more often than not, becomes a source of bitterness between the participants; and the extended, embittered debates over compliance and enforcement of agreements. The US and Russia are moving beyond all that. We are working to put that kind of acrimony and hostility behind us - and the adversarial process that was both a cause and effect of that hostility. Because Russia and the United States are no longer adversaries, our interests have changed. As enemies, we had an interest in each other's failure; as friends we have an interest in each other's success. As enemies we had an interest in keeping each other off balance; as friends we have an interest in promoting stability. When Russia and the US were adversaries, our principal focus was trying to maintain and freeze into place the balance of nuclear terror. With the recently completed Nuclear Posture Review, the United States has declared that we are not interested in preserving a balance of terror with Russia. Today, the threats we both face are no longer from each other - they come from new sources. And as our adversaries change, our deterrence calculus must change as well. That is why we are working to transform our nuclear posture from one aimed at deterring a Soviet Union that no longer exists, to one designed to deter new adversaries - adversaries who may not be discouraged from attacking us by the threat of US nuclear retaliation, just as the terrorists who struck us on September 11th were not deterred by the United States' massive nuclear arsenal. With the Nuclear Posture Review, President Bush is taking a new approach to strategic deterrence - one that combines deep reductions in offensive nuclear forces, with new conventional offensive and defensive systems more appropriate for deterring the potential adversaries we face. Taken together, this "New Triad" of offensive nuclear forces, advanced conventional capabilities, and a range of new defenses (ballistic missile defense, cruise missile defense, space defense, cyber defense) supported by a revitalized defense infrastructure, are all part of a new approach to deterrence and defense - an approach designed to increase our security, while reducing our reliance on nuclear weapons. Some have asked why, in the post-Cold War world, we need to maintain as many as 1,700-2,200 operationally-deployed warheads? The end of the Soviet threat does not mean we no longer need nuclear weapons. To the contrary, the US nuclear arsenal remains an important part of our deterrence strategy, and helps us to dissuade the emergence of potential or would-be peer competitors, by underscoring the futility of trying to reach parity with us. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, our decision to proceed with reductions as deep as the ones outlined in the Moscow Treaty is premised on decisions to invest in a number of other critical areas, such as intelligence, ballistic and cruise missile defense, and a variety of conventional weapons programs funded in our 2003 budget request. I urge the Senate to approve the 2003 defense budget as soon as possible. Others have asked why there is no reduction schedule in the treaty? The answer, quite simply, is flexibility. Our approach in the Nuclear Posture Review was to recognize that we are entering a period of surprise and uncertainty, when the sudden emergence of unexpected threats will be increasingly common feature of our security environment. We were surprised on September 11th - and let there be no doubt, we will be surprised again. Our intelligence has repeatedly underestimated the capabilities of different countries of concern to us. We have historically have had gaps in our knowledge of 2, 6, 8, and in at least one case 12 or 13 years. Indeed, the only surprise is that so many among us are still surprised. This is problem is more acute in an age when the spread of weapons of mass destruction into the hands of terrorist states - and potentially terrorist networks - means that our margin of error is significantly less than it has been. The cost of a mistake could be not thousands, but tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives. Because of that smaller margin for error, and the uncertainty of the future security environment, the US will need flexibility. Through the Nuclear Posture Review, we determined the force levels and the flexibility we will need to deal with that new world-and then negotiated a treaty that allows both deep reduction in offensive weapons and the flexibility to respond to sudden changes in the strategic environment. We are working develop the right mix of offensive and defensive capabilities. If we do so, we believe the result will be that nations are less likely to acquire or use nuclear weapons. None of these changes is in any way a threat to Russia. Far from it, this new approach to deterrence will help us to better contribute to peace and stability, and address the new threats and challenges the United States and Russia will face in the 21st century. In many ways, Russia now faces the most benign security environment it has enjoyed in more than 700 years. From the 13th century up till the dawn of the 16th century, Russia was subjected to Mongol rule; in the 17th century she was invaded by Poland; in the 18th century by Sweden; in the 19th century by France; and in the 20th century by Germany. Today, for the first time in modern history, Russia is not faced with a foreign invader with its eye set on Moscow. In the 21st century, Russia and the United States both face new and different security challenges - the threats of terrorism and fundamentalism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction to rogue states. The difference is that these are threats our two nations have in common - threats that we can face together. This means that we have entered a period when cooperation between our two countries will be increasingly important to the security and prosperity of both our peoples. We can work together to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction into the hands of terrorist movements and terrorist states. We can work together to support Russia's economic transformation and deeper integration into the Euro-Atlantic community - because a prosperous Russia will not face the same pressures to sell rogue states the tools of mass destruction. And we can work together to help Russia's transformation into a stable, free-market democracy. ... This treaty is by no means the foundation of that new relationship. It is just one element of a growing, multifaceted relationship between our two countries that involves not just security, but also increasing political, economic, diplomatic, cultural and other forms of cooperation. These reductions in the nuclear arsenals of our two countries are an important step in that process. The reductions characterized in the Moscow Treaty will help eliminate the debris of past hostility that has been blocking our way as we build a new relationship. The Treaty President Bush has fashioned - and the process by which he fashioned it - are a model for future cooperation between our two countries. We have achieved deep reductions, and enhanced the security of both our countries, without perpetuating a Cold War ways of thinking that hinder our desire for better relations. I urge the Senate to advise and consent to this treaty, and to approve a clean resolution of ratification. Source: Text - Rumsfeld urges Senate to consent on Moscow Treaty, US State Department (Washington File), July 18. II. Questions and AnswersSenator Joseph Biden (Democrat), Committee Chair: Mr. Secretary, I thought your statement was, obviously, very thorough and I thought your holding up of the START treaty and the Moscow Treaty illustrate a significant difference in both approach and in terms of detail and content. But you indicated, and I have your statement here, you said, "It's a reflection" - it says, "these three pages it took six months to negotiate. This is how much we trust each other in '91," you held up the START treaty, "and this is how much we trust each other today," and you held up the Moscow Treaty. Now, I don't doubt for a minute that that reflects the feeling of the administration. But one of the things that confuses me is that as much as we trust them, you don't trust them enough for us to go forward and build a plant in Shchuchye that will allow us to destroy up to 2 million chemical-tipped shells that Senator Lugar recently visited that as I know the size of some of them, that my 9-year-old granddaughter, if she was able, could put in her backpack and easily carry to school, to state a ridiculous example, because we're not talking about lifting large warheads. Senator Lugar has told us that he was told by the Russian military, and I stand corrected if I misstated, that one of those smaller shells, if they were detonated at the Dover Speedway, which can hold up to 120,000 people, would kill all 120,000 people. And with all this trust, even though public law - the so-called Cooperative Threat Reduction Act, Public Law 103-60, Section 1203d - says "Restrictions: Assistance authorized by this section," Section a, that's the one that allows us to spend money to destroy their weapons, "may not be provided to any independent state of the former Soviet Union for any year unless the president certifies to the Congress for that year that the proposed recipient is committed to each of the following" - and one of the following is [whether the recipient is] committed to complying with all relevant arms control agreements. ... Where's all this trust? I mean, you trust them to have a three-page treaty instead of a 700-page treaty, but you don't trust them enough to allow us to destroy up to 1 million, or up to 2 million chemical-tipped artillery shells. You confuse me. Maybe you can enlighten me. Rumsfeld: Let me see if I can reverse it. Biden: I knew you'd try. Rumsfeld: I think using the word "trust" in that context is not appropriate. I think it's a question of the administration supports the waiver and it is the Congress at the present time, I believe, that is the impediment to the waiver. Is that not right? Biden: No, it's not right. And let me be precise. You have concluded for the first time... Rumsfeld: Oh, OK, with respect to the certification. Biden: Yes. Rumsfeld: Right. OK. First of all, I have not concluded that. Biden: Oh, OK. Rumsfeld: Secretary Powell did and advised the president, and we were advised, and we agreed with him that he is not in a position to make that certification. You're quite right. It is, I believe, the first time that that's happened, in recent times at least. And I think that that is an honest, direct reflection of the situation. He is simply not able to look you and the world and the Senate committee in the face and say to them and the president that we can certify that they are, in fact, complying with all arms agreements. And, of course, you have the same kind of intelligence that we do that supports his decision. ... Biden: But, again, he doesn't have to certify anything other than that they're committed to comply. Now, again, if you don't think they're committed to comply with all relevant arms control agreements today, how in the hell could you sign an agreement with them that is based on so much trust in the future? ... Rumsfeld: First of all, the agreement that was signed in Moscow is an agreement that reflected something that the president of the United States announced he intended to do regardless of what Russia did. If Russia decided today to say they decided against this treaty, the United States, the president would recommend that we go forward. He has made a judgment, at the conclusion of the Nuclear Posture Review, that we can go from many thousands down to 1,700 to 2,200 and still have the kind of capability that this country will need for deterrence and defense. And therefore that issue about the treaty does not require trust. Biden: I got you. But I just wondered why you talked about it then. I mean, it was dramatic. I mean, what's difference does it make? I mean, you're going to do it anyway, so the fact we went to three pages has nothing to do with trust, does it? Rumsfeld: Well, I think so. I think it has to do with several things. It has to do with the president's conclusion that the old arms control approach was rooted in hostility and mutual assured destruction and distrust. And the approach that he has taken is that we ought to look at our own circumstances, put our two countries on a vector that they're going to have a more cooperative, a friendlier relationship, a more trusting relationship, and I think that's been a good thing for the country and I think it's been a good thing for the world. Biden: I don't disagree with that, and I don't understand why you just can't look at it practically as well and say, "Look, there are 2 million warheads there, they're ready to let us destroy them, and we should just go ahead and destroy them because it's clearly in our interest to do that." Rumsfeld: Well, Senator, that would require the secretary of state to recommend to the president something that he doesn't believe is a fact. He would have had to say that, "I can certify to that," and he concluded he could not, and in my judgment he was correct. He did say that it is nonetheless important to move ahead with the program that you're describing, and he asked for the waivers so that he could proceed with it. It is not a matter of not wanting to do it, it is a matter of not wanting to certify to something that he does not believe is a fact. Biden: Well, this is the first time I'm aware...of [that] we changed the standard of what he had to certify to. In the past, we used to look for evidence of any evidence that they have violated the treaty, and now we're saying we can't guarantee they haven't. That seems to me to be a little different. ... Hopefully you will use every bit of your influence to get the appropriate committees to give a permanent waiver quickly so we can get on with what is clearly in their interest so that we don't stop this mindless situation of refusing to act in our own interest and destroy weapons that clearly are able - are more likely to be available to dissidents within Russia and/or terrorist groups. And I suspect and hope you share that view. Because this is mindless, absolutely mindless. And maybe we can work together to get this permanent waiver. Let me move to a question about the cost... Can you tell me...how much its going to cost us to comply with this treaty? That is their cost associated with taking these warheads off the top of a missile or off a platform that is designed to fire the weapon. How much is it going to cost to do that? How many storage facilities do we have to build? ... And I might add, my understanding is, in the out-year budget, you are planning to build a new nuclear warhead manufacturing capability. I've been told that you want our support for that purpose. ... So how much is it going to cost to do these things? And the reason I ask is to give us some sense of what it's going to cost the Russians to focus on how much they're going to need or not need our help. So do we have an estimate of cost? Rumsfeld: I can give you a quick answer. The things we know we are going to do, one is to take out the 50 Peacekeepers with 10 warheads each for 500, and...move four Trident submarines out of the strategic force and to not maintain the nuclear capabilities on the B-1. Those are decided. The other ways or methods that we would go from moving down from the many thousands of nuclear deployed weapons down to the 1,700 to 2,200 has not been decided. Therefore it is not possible to calculate costs on the other aspects of it. That will be devised and developed as we move through the coming period. ... [W]ith respect to the nuclear facility, the Department of Energy I believe is what you are referring to. ... And what the interest is, I don't believe, in building a facility. I think the interest is in - at the present time I'm told it would take us two to three years to produce a nuclear weapon, and we've not produced a nuclear weapon in at least a decade to my knowledge. And the interest would be in reducing that down from two to three years to one year to 18 months, the ability to produce one. ... Senator Richard Lugar (Republican): Secretary Rumsfeld, I thought in your testimony that you made an extremely important point, and really in several ways, that each one of us has to learn to think anew about the relationship. ... And the president feels this and expresses this frequently. When Senator Biden and I were honored to be asked to come visit with the president and vice president, and Condoleezza Rice and Mr. Card over six weeks ago, they made this point in asking for our leadership in trying to gain assent to this treaty as rapidly as possible. And we've pledged to do that. But in the course of that conversation, fresh from this experience in Russia, I mentioned to the president, as Senator Biden has suggested, that we visit once again chemical weapons facilities and in particular the one at Shchuchye. And I mention that because that is one which the equipment to neutralize the sarin gas or the VX coming out of holes drilled in the bottom of each of these shells, ad seriatim, for six years, effectively eliminates about one-seventh of the chemicals that are now in Russia. Now, it's relevant to our discussion today because we had a very big debate in the Senate a while back on the Chemical Weapons Convention. That was really our last big treaty debate prior to this one, hearings like this one and so forth. The Senate deliberated, it was hardly unanimous and as a matter of fact it took weeks and months to convince our colleagues, but we ratified the treaty. The Russians may have been surprised that we did so. But they finally proceeded, too, but likewise with the assumption that we and others around the world would be helpful to them because they said, "We don't have the money really to destroy these weapons." Well, five years have passed. We're at half-time in the game, because it was a 10-year period. We're busy in our country trying to get rid of the weapons and we were going to do that unilaterally anyway. We'd already declared that. The Russians have yet to get through the first few pounds out of 40,000 metric tons. So the dilemma here is that in this year, as Senator Biden said, of all years, at a moment when we are talking about changing attitudes and so forth, and I expressed it very bluntly to the president, I said. "There are some worker bees somewhere in your administration, Mr. President, who really have a different idea about this." And Ms. Rice spoke up and said, "Well, they're not worker bees, they're high-level people." Well, fair enough, they're, sort of, floating up there. But somebody in the midst of all these negotiations really stopped the music because the net effect of not certifying means we have just stopped. Along the path in which we have war on terror, you and the president speak every day about the need that we have no intersection between these materials and the terrorists, and yet at the very moment we have opportunities to continue our progress we've stopped. Now the reasons given, as I understand are, first of all, that there were four biological sites - military biological sites the Russians have not given us access to. And that is correct as far as I know. I've not gotten into them, we've gotten into almost every place else, and these sites are an embarrassment to Russians. These scientists are refugees reaching out for us to help them... So it can happen, sort of, bit by bit if you work at it tediously. I think we're into all the chemical situations now at this point. But there's almost a theological argument that the 40,000 metric tons declared was not the right figure and, by golly, somebody wants to know what the right figure is. And I mention this because, candidly, this is the hold-up. Now the assumption by the administration was that, after all, we were running a supplemental and as you pointed out we need that money to fight the war. And we had an armed services authorization and I was going along and surely somewhere in there they might include this waiver to get the president out of the jam. But as we pointed out six weeks ago, it wasn't going to happen very fast, and it isn't happening fast, for all sorts of other reasons, parliamentary procedure here. And national security problems are being held up. Now, that's water over the dam. Eventually somebody will pass a bill here and something will happen out at Shchuchye, and the Norwegians now and the Germans, the English others have contributed and that is all to the good. And the Duma has appropriated more money this year. All I'm saying is as we take a look at the treaty we're looking at now, I believe more money is going to be required on our part to help them. ... This is one reason an ambitious treaty, and this is one, that's going to cost us a lot of money, just as the chemical weapons reduction is costing us a lot of money, is going to cost them some money, too. Now, they've pledged to do the chemical thing but nothing's happened, we're halfway in the game and nothing has occurred. All I'm saying is that before we go in eyes wide open to this treaty, we need to have a pretty guideline from our administration as to how it ever happens, how physically these weapons could ever be destroyed, how much it would cost, how much we plan to contribute, how much we want to ask of the G-8 or Japan or the Saudis or anybody else who has a real problem too we think in the world with all of this. ... As I say, these attitudes you talked about 10 years ago, eight years, some still prevail. I can find people in this body in the United States Senate, they say, "Not a dime for those Russians. As a matter of fact, we mistrust the whole business. What is the president thinking of in talking about a new relationship?" They don't see it at all. We see it here, these four of us that are talking to each other now. That's important because you are leading the country, you're asking us for a ratification that's important. But what we're asking you for is some guidance in terms of the pragmatism of a 10-year period of time, how it gets done. ... Now finally let me just conclude by [mentioning Russia's]...tactical nuclear weapons. And you are probably right, this [treaty] doesn't cover all of that. But it is something we probably ought to talk about. Secretary Powell indicated as much, that he'd like to talk about that. So would all of our European friends. I mentioned the Norwegians, but this would be true of the Danes, and it would be true of everybody. They're pretty close to those tactical weapons. And you've thought about this a great deal. All I'm saying is, if we can get some flexibility and Nunn-Lugar money to deal with that [I might help us deal with the problem]... And so I ask for your comment on this or all of it. Rumsfeld: Well, Senator Lugar, there is no question about that. You know from your meeting with the senior administration officials who were active in this subject that they share your concern about the security of nuclear weapons, ours as well as the Russians. And with respect to the cooperative threat program, my recollection is we've spent something like $4 billion; maybe it's more. ... And we have in the budget this year I think something between $500 million and $600 million. ... And that is not nothing. That's a good chunk of money. ... On the theater nuclear weapons, it is a worry. The Russians unquestionably have many multiples of what we have, I mean thousands and thousands. And the fact that we have a gap in our knowledge as to what that number is, that is enormous. It tells you how little we know about what they have, what they look like, where they are located, what their security circumstance is. Now I have raised this subject I believe in every single meeting I have had with the Russians. Secretary Powell indicated in his hearing here that he is interested in the subject. We are going to be meeting with the defense minister and the foreign minister in September again, and we are certainly going to have that back on the table. We were not uncomfortable not addressing it in this current treaty. The Moscow Treaty was addressed to offensive strategic systems. Theater systems are different. Furthermore, I don't know that we would ever want to have symmetry between the United States and Russia. Their circumstances is different and their geography's different. Their neighborhood is different. And I, for one, would understand it if at some point we ended up learning more and gaining a greater degree of confidence as to their security and their nature. But I would be perfectly comfortable having them have a good many more than we have, simply because of the differences in our two circumstances. So I'm not looking for symmetry, but I am looking for greater transparency. ... Senator Russell Feingold (Democrat): I believe that we covered a lot of ground in that hearing and that we began to explore the concerns that I and a number of members of this committee have regarding the issues of compliance and verification. Also the lack of a timetable for the reductions required by the treaty and that the treaty does not require that any nuclear warheads actually be destroyed. I'd like to reiterate my view that the goal of meaningful nuclear arms reduction can only be achieved by dismantling and destroying those weapons, and I look forward to more about how the DOD plans to implement these reductions. But in addition, I am also troubled by the language contained in Article 4 of the treaty, regarding the process by which one of the parties may withdraw from the treaty. I'm concerned that either of the parties would be able to withdraw with only three months written notice and without a reason. As you know...I found the president's decision to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to be troubling on both policy and constitutional grounds. And I discussed this at some length with Secretary Powell last week, and I am troubled by his contention that this administration apparently does not believe that it was required to consult with or obtain the approval of the Congress to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, and that such consultation and approval would not be required to withdraw from the Moscow Treaty. The Senate has a constitutional role to play in treaty withdrawal, and I am concerned that the administration is not taking seriously the role of the Senate in this process. I just have a couple of brief questions. Secretary Rumsfeld, under what specific circumstances would the administration contemplate redeploying strategic offensive nuclear weapons that have been removed from service - a warhead? Rumsfeld: The answer, I think, would fall into several parts. One, one of the worrisome things that could happen is the phone could ring and say that, "Mr. Secretary, you have a responsibility for the safety and reliability of your weapons and we're sorry to tell you but that we've got a safety problem or a reliability problem of your currently deployed weapons." And having warheads that are available that could replace some of those questionable, potentially unsafe, potentially unreliable weapons, it seems to me is a responsibility of the president to see that, in fact, we have that capability. Since we do not have an open production line, clearly the only way we could replace an unsafe or unreliable warhead would be if we had excess warheads in reserve. So that would be an instance where you might take a warhead and deploy it. A second possibility that one has to consider is a change in the security environment that was unexpected. We have had many, many unexpected things occur in my lifetime that were big surprises to our country, of a strategic nature. Changes in countries' leadership dramatically from one day to the next. There is also a great deal we don't know. I cited a number of instances where our intelligence capabilities simply doesn't allow us to know all the things that are going on. We can be surprised and we have been surprised. Third, a country could decide to - that they would like to sprint toward parity or superiority in nuclear capabilities. With not an open production line, the only way one could do anything if you decided you needed to, would be from reserve warheads and uploading -for example, if you don't have the full number of warheads on a specific missile that you could have, you could increase the number if you decided you needed that kind of capability, either for deterrence or for potentially for defense. Feingold: Well, I appreciate that direct answer. And I'd like to ask you if the administration will agree to consult with Congress before any directive for redeployment is issued and before any possible notification of withdrawal is announced? Rumsfeld: You're asking me things that are out of my lane, Senator. You know that's a presidential decision and the secretary of state would be the administration official who would be advising him on that. It seems to me that for the Department of Defense or the Department of Energy to do much of anything with respect to nuclear weapons we have to come to the Congress for money to do it. So to the extent there's that consultation process, obviously that takes place on a continuing basis, not with your committee but with the committees that have jurisdiction over energy and defense. With respect to the other aspect of it, did you say withdrawal from the treaty? Feingold: Withdrawal from the treaty. Would the administration agree to consult with Congress before any decision to withdraw from this treaty is announced? Rumsfeld: I can't describe what decision the president might make or what definition of consultation one might have. But there's no question but that in the event the president - just as with the ABM Treaty, the president discussed that publicly, it was debated and discussed and considered all across the globe, it was talked about with Russia on repeated occasions, it was talked about with our European allies in NATO. There were many hearings before Congress about pros and cons on that type of thing, and if that's consultation then that's consultation. If you're talking about approval, my understanding from Secretary Powell's responses to you, which I certainly concur with, is that the administration's judgment is that that's not a constitutional requirement. ... Senator Biden: I'd like to go back to this notion of need to verify, the need not to verify. ... You went and explained...in a very lucid manner why there was really no need for verification. You were going to go down to this number anyway. It was in our own interest to go down to this number. And we would have gone down to this number over this period of time regardless of whether or not the Russians were willing to go down to this number. ... [But] does it really not matter that you, that we can't verify any of this? ... Or...would we have been better off had we been able to verify or entered into some kind of agreement where we could fill in that gap of knowledge about what they have? Rumsfeld: That's a fair question. And let me answer it in several ways. First of all, the START treaty is in effect, and according to its terms, we do have those verification [procedures]... Biden: Let me make sure - but there's a three-year gap there. Rumsfeld: Three - from '09 [when START expires] to '12 [when the Moscow Treaty reductions are concluded]. Exactly. ... But between now and '09...there's plenty of time to sort through we'll do thereafter. Second, we do have national technical means. Third, we have agreed that we will meet and work through improved transparency and predictability with the Russians. Now, will we be able to do something that's better than the START treaty? I hope so. Do we have a number of years that we can work on that? Yes. And we're starting in September. So I think that that is not something that...ought to in any way stand in way of approving the treaty... If I could, Mr. Chairman, I was given a piece of clarification back here that's helpful to me, and I'd like to get the record corrected so no one goes out with a misimpression. I had in my head not a new production facility when I was answering that [earlier] question. I had in my head the ability to begin to test and I apologize. And I'd like the record to show that when I said the current ability is two to three years to be able to build a weapon I should have said "to test." And I suspect some people knew that, but I'm glad it was clarified. And I misspoke. ... Apparently the Department of Energy is, in fact, struggling to build a small-scale capability weapon lab, and that process... Biden: To construct new warheads...or actually build new warheads... Rumsfeld: Right - to do that. ... Biden: [D]id our desire not to have more stringent verification regimes as related to our systems play any part in not seeking additional verification capability beyond START I provisions that exist that could apply to the Moscow Treaty? Rumsfeld: The answer's flat no. Indeed we repeatedly raised verification and transparency and predictability issues. And the Cold War mindset felt that there simply wasn't time to do that, it's so laborious and difficult and thick. ... But I still believe we will end up having serious discussions about this, and we may even find better ways. The reason for transparency is that it develops confidence. And the United States is not going to do anything with respect to our activities that are going to be adverse to Russia's interests. And therefore we have an interest in transparency. ... Senator Lugar: [I]n your testimony you said, "Well, we want flexibility," and I don't disagree with that. Maybe some years the Russians want to get rid of 1,000 of these [warheads] and others do 500. Maybe the same for us in terms of our timetable and our budget and so forth. But at the end of the day we're talking about a 10-year period of time or at least some period of time even if you pledge a year or two in which this has to get done. And so it seems to me useful to, sort of, have a workload idea of how it happens and how we have some assurance it will happen. ... Do you have any further comments about this? Rumsfeld: Well, a few comments, Senator... The Russians have - the Soviets and their successor, the Russians, have had a pattern of not building, developing nuclear weapons with the same life of our nuclear weapons. We all know that. They have a shorter life. They also have a pattern of, on a dispersed basis, of moving warheads on and off and into the shop for repair and review and consideration. And we do not know, I think this is correct, at least I do not know, but I don't think we know, the number of weapons they can produce a year. We don't know the numbers of weapons that they have in the queue for destruction at any given time. We don't know the number that they can destroy in any given year. We do not know the extent to which they can dismember these and use piece parts for various aspects of new production. And we don't know what the remainder is, that is to say what's left over. There is a great deal we do not know. They are not leaning forward to discuss these things with us. They have parcelled out information that they felt appropriate for them to parcel out, but they have kept in a great deal of information. ... I'd like to add another thought, which ought to be a part of the record. And that is, if there is a lot we don't know about their nuclear capabilities and numbers and production capabilities and destruction capabilities; there's even more we don't know about their chemical and biological programs. They have been very, very, very tight. And the things we do know are what we know. They are the things they show us. And there may be a few things that we know we don't know but there are a pile of things we don't even know we don't know because we keep systematically learning more as we go along. ... Senator Biden: Was there a reason why you didn't try to fill in a verification piece between 2009 and 2012? Because...the Russians could be in compliance with the treaty by not doing a single solitary thing, not disabling a single warhead to the year 2010. And then tell us that they've disabled them all between 2010, 2011 and 2012. But other than national technical means, we have - there is no verification regime in place during that period...from '09 to '12. Is there a reason why you didn't try to put one in? Was it the expectation that we'd be, quote, "done by then" or... Rumsfeld: No. No, no. We did try. In other words, we did have this whole series of meetings. At the [Undersecretary of Defense Douglas] Feith and [Undersecretary of State John] Bolton levels, at the Rumsfeld and Sergey Ivanov and at Colin's level with Igor Ivanov we had a series of meetings. And for whatever reason, just getting what we got done consumed the time. We raised it, we pushed it and we're interested in it, in greater transparency and predictability, and we have alerted them and they're fully aware of it. We're going to be raising it right back up again in September. Biden: This is a welcome transformation, but, I mean, to have Bolton and Feith trusting like this is really amazing. This is an epiphany. These are the same guys who spent hours of my time beating my brains out about why we were going to take all those [risks] in the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Treaty. They're going to hide all these missiles in garages and roll them back out... And now, heck, we're going to sign a treaty we don't even worry we're able, you know, to verify for three years and we don't question why they won't be willing to let us verify. I think that's called being born again. Rumsfeld: Well, I don't know that. I think that it's important to realize that we spend months and months and months looking at the new security environment in the Nuclear Posture Review effort. We had all the senior military and civilian leadership. The president participated on a number of occasions. People from the National Security Council staff did. Secretary Powell did. And we worked through that and we came to a conclusion that it was in the best interest of the United States of America to go to 1,700 to 2,200. Now, we were ready and are ready today to do that regardless of this treaty. Therefore, it is not a matter of trust in that sense, because we're ready to do that. Biden: Again, I keep getting confused by you always going back and talking about how we trust them. That's the part that's confusing me. OK. I really - the only questions I have remaining relate to not again whether or not we should ratify this treaty. ... [B]ecause, you know, some press person said to me, "Well, Biden, if you have these concerns about these things that could happen, why are you for the treaty?" And I said, "You know, it's kind of like - a little like my car breaking down in the desert 20 miles from out of town - the nearest town. Someone comes along and says, 'Hey, look, I can give you a ride for four miles'." Get me four miles closer, I'm for it. This gets us four miles closer or whatever, so I'm for it. But I hope it's not the end of the ride. I hope we're going to be doing more and I expect that you may attempt in terms of transparency and other things. There is one last question, and I promise this will be the last one. Is there any sense - and you may not be able to answer this or want to answer, but is there any sense that, to the degree that we are transparent about doing what we say we're going to do anyway, that that will encourage and/or put pressure on them to be more transparent about what they need not at the moment be transparent about, that they are moving in the direction the treaty calls for? Do you see any correlation there? And if you do, what are the things that we are likely to do to demonstrate that transparency? And if you don't, then it doesn't matter. Just, kind of, curious. ... Rumsfeld: I don't know the answer to the question. I suspect not. That is to say, I don't think that if we were unilaterally even more transparent than we already are that we would necessarily get a sympathetic reaction to that. Source: US Department of Defense transcript, http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2002/s20020717-secdef1.html. © 2002 The Acronym Institute. |