Mr. President, I wish I were on the Senate floor today able to be supportive of the chairman and ranking member of the committee. They have both given persuasive and eloquent statements about the…
Mr. President, I wish I were on the Senate floor today able to be supportive of the chairman and ranking member of the committee. They have both given persuasive and eloquent statements about the matter.
I come to the floor of the Senate with a different view. I come here very disappointed because I think we are beginning down a very troublesome road for this country. I want to talk a little about what all this means.
I know the issue is not an issue that rates at the top of the attention of the American people at the moment, this Government, or the press corps. This is an issue about whether there will be more nuclear weapons built in a world in which there are already too many nuclear weapons. This is an issue in which we are going to discuss the issue of nonproliferation, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons at a time when we have terrorism in this world that we worry could result in a terrorist organization acquiring a nuclear weapon and detonating a nuclear weapon in a major American city.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to show a couple of items on the floor of the Senate.
Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Lugar, is someone who has been a real leader with Senator Nunn on the Nunn-Lugar program, which I have been proud to support. It has been a program that has actually reduced the number of nuclear weapons and reduced the delivery systems for nuclear weapons. It is what we aspire to do. It is what our country should lead the world in doing, and that is to step away from the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the building of new nuclear weapons.
This is a piece of a wing strut from a Backfire bomber. This used to be flying in the air, part of a wing strut from a Soviet Backfire bomber that likely carryied nuclear weapons that threatened our country. We didn't shoot this plane down. This wing strut was sawed off. The wing was destroyed. The plane was destroyed. It was dismantled.
How did that happen? We actually paid for it. My colleagues, Senator Nunn and Senator Lugar, proposed legislation that allowed us to, with the Russians, actually begin to destroy and reduce delivery systems and nuclear weapons. So this bomber that carried a nuclear weapon, presumably to threaten this country, doesn't exist anymore. A piece of its wing is in my desk drawer in the United States Senate.
This is a vile of ground-up copper. This used to be part of a Soviet submarine, that prowled under the water with missiles and warheads presumably aimed at U.S. cities. Yes, this used to be a Soviet submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction threatening our country.
This was a hinge on a missile silo in the Ukraine, and that missile silo contained a missile. That missile contained nuclear warheads, presumably aimed at a U.S. military target or a U.S. city. This hinge, of course, is in my desk today, not in a field in the Ukraine. Where that missile used to sit, there is no missile. There is no missile silo. There are now sunflowers planted in that field in the Ukraine.
The Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus--all three countries--had several thousand nuclear weapons and are now free of all nuclear weapons.
How did all that happen? Was it by accident? No, no, it wasn't. This country embarked on a set of policies and proposals that resulted in the reduction of delivery systems and nuclear weapons.
Have we been enormously successful? I have described some successes, but we
have, oh, probably 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons remaining on this Earth. Far too many--25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons. We have much to do to step away from the abyss of having a terrorist organization or rogue nation acquire nuclear weapons and threaten our country or threaten the world.
We have all experienced 9/11/2001 where several thousand innocent Americans were murdered. That was an unbelievable terrorist attack on our country. It could happen again with a nuclear weapon. We are going to spend $9 billion or $10 billion this year building an antiballistic missile defense system to create some sort of an electronic catcher's mitt to catch an intercontinental ballistic missile someone might aim at our country armed with a nuclear warhead.
That is one of the least likely threats our country faces. We are going to spend close to $10 billion for a threat that is one of the least likely threats we face.
The most likely threat, perhaps, instead of an intercontinental ballistic missile coming in at 18,000 miles an hour aimed at an American city, is a container ship pulling up to a dock in a major American city at 3 miles an hour with a container that contains a weapon of mass destruction onboard, to be detonated in the middle of an American city.
Let me read for the Record, as I start--and I want to then talk about this specific agreement--I want to read an excerpt from Graham Allison's book. He is at Harvard. He wrote a book called ``Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe.''
I talk about 9/11/2001, several thousand Americans murdered by terrorists. The detonation of a nuclear weapon in an American city by a terrorist group will not mean several thousand Americans being murdered; it could likely mean several hundred thousand Americans being murdered, or more.
Let me read to you from Graham Allison's book. I am quoting:
On October 11, 2001, a month to the day after the terrorist
assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President
George W. Bush faced an even more terrifying prospect. At
that morning's Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefing,
George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, informed
the president that a CIA agent code-named Dragonfire had
reported that Al Qaeda terrorists possessed a ten-kiloton
nuclear bomb, evidently stolen from the Russian arsenal.
According to Dragonfire, this nuclear weapon was now on
American soil, in New York City.
The CIA had no independent confirmation of this report, but
neither did it have any basis on which to dismiss it. Did
Russia's arsenal include a large number of ten-kiloton
weapons? Yes. Could the Russian government account for all
the nuclear weapons the Soviet Union had built during the
Cold War? No. Could Al Qaeda have acquired one or more of
these weapons? Yes. Could it have smuggled a nuclear weapon
through American border controls in New York City without
anyone's knowledge? Yes. . . .
In the hours that followed, national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice analyzed what strategists call the ``problem
from hell.'' Unlike the Cold War, when the United States and
the Soviet Union knew that an attack against the other would
illicit a retaliatory strike of greater measure, Al Qaeda--
with no return address--had no such fear of reprisal. Even if
the president were prepared to negotiate, Al Qaeda had no
phone number to call.
Clearly, no decision could be taken without much more
information about the threat and those behind it. But how
could Rice engage a wider circle of experts and analysts
without the White House's suspicions leaking to the press? A
CNN flash that the White House had information about an Al
Qaeda nuclear weapon in Manhattan would create chaos. New
Yorkers would flee the city in terror, and residents of other
metropolitan areas would panic.
I continue to quote:
Concerned that Al Qaeda could have smuggled a nuclear
weapon into Washington as well, the president ordered Vice
President Dick Cheney to leave the capital for an
``undisclosed location,'' where he would remain for many
weeks to follow. That was standard procedure to ensure
``continuity of government''. . . . Several hundred federal
employees from more than a dozen government agencies joined
the vice president at this secret site. . . . The president
also immediately dispatched NEST specialists (Nuclear
Emergency Support Teams of scientists and engineers) to New
York City to search for the weapon. But no one in the city
was informed of the threat, not even Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
As the CIA's analysts examined Dragonfire's report and
compared it with other bits of information, they noted that
the attack on the World Trade Center in September had set the
bar higher for future terrorist spectaculars.
I won't read to the end. I ask unanimous consent that this document be printed in the Record at the end of my statement.
At the end of this process, they finally determined after about a month that this was not a credible threat. Dragonfire's report turned out not to be credible.
But at the time they took the report very seriously. They analyzed it this way: Was it possible that a Russian 10-kiloton nuclear weapon could have been stolen? Yes, it was possible. Is it possible a terrorist group could have acquired it? Yes. Is it possible it could have been smuggled into New York City? The answer was yes. And, if so, was it possible a terrorist group could detonate a nuclear weapon in a major American city? The answer was yes.
This is not fiction. I am reading an excerpt of a book of something that happened in October of 2001.
My greatest fear is that we do not yet understand the difference between what was and what is. What was, was a standoff called the cold war in which two major nuclear superpowers aimed massive numbers of nuclear warheads at each other, but understanding, under the concept of mutually assured destruction, called MAD, that if either attacked the other, the other would be literally vaporized by an avalanche of nuclear weapons. The result was that there was a standoff, a mutually assured destruction standoff, and although both sides in that Cold War--the United States and the Soviet Union--possessed the most unbelievably powerful killing machines known to humankind, they were not used. Neither side ever used them.
Fast-forward to today. The Cold War is over. President Bush, in fact, visited with the President Putin yesterday, in Russia. Times have changed, but this world still has somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 nuclear weapons, the loss of one of which could be cataclysmic for this world. The detonation of one nuclear weapon in a major city will change everything--everything--and be a catastrophe unlike any we have previously known.
If we have 25,000 or 30,000 nuclear weapons on this Earth, what is the responsibility of this great country? What is our responsibility? What burden falls on our shoulders? I submit it is the burden to provide world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons. That is our responsibility. That responsibility falls on us.
How do we do that? Listen, our country has provided leadership in a nonproliferation treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the test ban treaty. Our country has been moving always, telling the rest of the world we aspire to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Now we live in this age of terrorism where we see people who are perfectly content to kill themselves. They don't care. As long as they can take a weapon with them and kill themselves and many others with them, it doesn't matter to them. They are reaching for some higher glory, apparently.
In this age of terrorism, everything about nuclear weapons has changed. The loss of one nuclear weapon, the loss of one anywhere on this globe to a terrorist organization is going to be devastating.
So if that is the case, what does it have to do with what we are talking about today? We are now talking today about a country called India. India is quite a remarkable place--a wonderful country with wonderful people. It is a big country. It is trying to build an economy. You can read some books about what is going on in India and the discussions about progress--it is quite a remarkable place. Our country aspires to have a better relationship with India. I support that. I believe we ought to reach out to India and improve our relationship, cement our relationship.
I know there are some who see all of the geopolitical relationships on this Earth as aligning one way or the other. We align with this country to be a counterweight against this set of interests, and it is kind of akin to teams. So I confess to you, I come here today not perhaps understanding all of the sophisticated elements of counterweights
and the nuances of why someone believes it is essential, at this point, to allow India to produce additional nuclear weapons in order to create some sort of counterweight to China, but I want to talk about this issue. I was unbelievably surprised to read in the newspaper of the travels of Ambassador Burns, someone for whom I have high regard, and of the interest of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in going to India and reaching a deal without consulting Congress that I think begins to unravel, and undermine several decades of efforts in our country to tell the world: It is our responsibility and our major goal to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and try to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and reduce the nuclear threat.
We would not be in this position today with this bill with India if India had followed the example, for example, of South Africa. They secretly had nuclear weapons by the 1980s. But South Africa dismantled them prior to the transfer of power to the postapartheid government. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus had more than 4,000 nuclear weapons in those three countries when the Soviet Union was dissolved which they gave up in the years following. And I must say that my colleague Senator Lugar and others had significant successes in working with those three countries to accomplish that. So Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus are all now free of nuclear weapons.
Any nuclear deal--any relationship we have with another country that deals with nuclear power and nuclear issues should be judged, in my opinion, on whether it reduces the number of nuclear weapons. Does it reduce the nuclear weapons that exist or increase them? It is quite clear that what we are debating will result in an increase in nuclear weapons in India. I don't think there is much doubt about that. This bill fails that test, in my judgment.
Experts have warned that there is enough weapons-usable fissile material in the world to make about 130,000 nuclear weapons. A working nuclear bomb, we are told, can be made with as little as 35 pounds of uranium-235 or 9 pounds of plutonium-239. And the acquisition of a nuclear weapon by a terrorist is, in my judgment, the greatest threat that exists in our country.
Retired GEN Eugene Habiger, who commanded America's nuclear forces, said that nuclear terrorism ``is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.''
Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post recently:
The world is faced with the nightmarish prospect that
nuclear weapons will become a standard part of national
armament and wind up in terrorists' hands.
Former Senator Sam Nunn wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
We know that terrorists are seeking nuclear materials--
enriched uranium or plutonium--to build nuclear weapons. We
know that if they get that nuclear material, they can build a
nuclear weapon. We believe that if they build such a weapon,
they will use it. We know terrorists are not likely to be
deterred, and that the more this nuclear material is
available, the higher the risks.
Osama bin Laden has been seeking nuclear components since the 1990s. In 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a statement entitled ``The Nuclear Bomb of Islam,'' declaring:
It is the duty of Muslims to prepare as much force as
possible to terrorize the enemies of God.
And Osama bin Laden's spokesman announced that the group aspires ``to kill 4 million Americans, including 1 million children,'' in response to casualties supposedly inflicted on Muslims by the United States and Israel.
The more countries there are with nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear material and the more weapons each of them has, the greater the threat that one will be used by a rogue nation or will fall into the hands of terrorist groups.
Now, frankly, we have not been very aggressive as a country in recent years in stopping proliferation. Instead of talking about how we would reduce the number of nuclear weapons, we were on the floor of the Senate, during previous debates, talking about the fact that we need new nuclear weapons. Our country has said we need designer nuclear weapons; we need bunker-buster nuclear weapons. We have people openly speaking about the desire in this country to build additional nuclear weapons.
We attacked Iraq because we believed it possessed and was seeking nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. We are spending $10 billion a year, as I said, on missile defense for fear that North Korea already has nuclear weapons. And we are talking about serious issues with Iran in order to try to stop its nuclear program. And the No. 1 nightmare is that a terrorist group may acquire a nuclear weapon. No one in my judgment can credibly say that a world that has more nuclear weapons is a safer world. It is just not.
Nowhere in the world is the threat of nuclear terrorism more imminent than in South Asia. It is the home to al-Qaida which seeks nuclear weapons. It is an area where relations among regional nuclear powers are always tense: China, India, and Pakistan. India and China fought a border war in 1962. India and Pakistan fought three major wars, had numerous smaller scale conflicts since the partition of British India in 1947. Both India and Pakistan detonated nuclear weapons in 1998 and declared themselves as nuclear powers. And after that, all of us in the world held our breath as they began fighting a limited war in Kashmir.
Now, it has traditionally been the case that the United States has led the international community in efforts to deny India, Pakistan, and other nonnuclear States access to nuclear technology. That has been our traditional role. We have always been the one who said: No, no, no. We can't do that. We need to limit the capability of nations that will not sign up to nonproliferation.
We pushed for the nonproliferation treaty, which prohibits nuclear assistance to these so-called nonnuclear States, unless they agree to put all of their nuclear facilities under international safeguards and to give up the option of developing a nuclear weapon. That has been our position. It has always been our position.
Article I of the nonproliferation treaty obligates the recognized nuclear weapons States, including the United States, to:
Not in any way assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear
weapons State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear
weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
That is Article I of the nonproliferation treaty. We signed it. We helped write it. We supported it. It is what we believe in.
The United States helped form the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 1975 to help prevent the misuse of peaceful nuclear technology. In 1978, we passed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, which restricts nuclear commerce with States that don't agree to the full scope of the safeguards. We pushed for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1172 which condemned India's and Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests and called upon them to cease their nuclear weapons programs and join the nonproliferation treaty as nonnuclear weapons states. We did that.
In 1998, President Clinton imposed sanctions on both India and Pakistan, under section 102 of the Arms Control Act, which requires sanctions on any non-nuclear weapons state that has detonated nuclear devices.
Now, these policies did not stop India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs, but they did restrain them and they hindered them. In fact, that is precisely why we are here with respect to India.
The Bush administration has taken a different tact now. Their proposal is to provide ``full'' assistance to India's civilian nuclear program, while India keeps its nuclear weapons, which represents a complete abandonment of our traditional approach to nonproliferation.
I don't think you can come to the floor and argue that this is part of an approach we have always taken. This is a U-turn. This is a 180- degree change from the approach we have always had. The Bush administration formed an agreement that allows New Delhi to dramatically expand its stockpile of nuclear weapons and could ignite a regional arms race. That is what we have here. They can have reactors behind the curtain that will not be subject to inspection by anybody. That is part of the deal. It will undermine 30 years of nonproliferation efforts at the very time when we are engaged in these issues with North Korea and Iran.
It is a major, it seems to me, exception to the prohibition of nuclear assistance to any country that doesn't
accept international monitoring of all of its nuclear facilities. This is a major exception to that. And it also is one that gives legitimacy to a nuclear arsenal that India secretly developed, and it is not going to help us in any way. It will hinder us in convincing others to give up their nuclear weapons.
Now, India never signed the nonproliferation treaty. Because of that, Pakistan never signed the treaty. In the 1960s, India used both American technology and also Canadian technology and the nuclear fuel provided under what was called the Atoms For Peace Program to secretly build nuclear weapons. By doing so, New Delhi broke an explicit pledge to both the United States and to Canada about the use of technology and nuclear fuel only for peaceful purposes. In 1974, India conducted its first nuclear weapons test. It denied that it had done so. It said it was a peaceful nuclear test.
In May, 1998, they conducted a series of nuclear tests and declared themselves as a nuclear weapons state. In response, Pakistan did exactly the same thing and declared themselves as a nuclear state.
Because India has a shortage of domestic uranium, the application of the U.S. and international laws that prevent the sale of nuclear fuel and other nuclear assistance to them has seriously constrained its nuclear power industry and nuclear weapons program. All of us understand that India has energy issues. It has an expanding population and it wishes to build additional powerplants, nuclear powerplants, but it also wishes to build additional nuclear weapons. India's power reactors, we are now told, are operating at less than capacity due to fuel shortages and their utilization rates are expected to decrease even further. Very little uranium is leftover from its domestic supplies for India to turn to nuclear weapons. So in the past year-- couple of years--New Delhi has stepped up efforts to get our assistance in obtaining nuclear fuel and reactor components so it can increase its nuclear power. But the fact is, it will also increase its nuclear weapons programs.
Here is what the deal that is now brought to the floor of the Senate does: My understanding is that it obligates the United States to persuade the members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to change their rules which bar sales to India. It allows India to buy sensitive nuclear technologies, now forbidden under the nonproliferation treaty. It includes nuclear fuel, nuclear reactors, and advanced technology. This agreement would open the door to India's cooperation with France, Japan, and others who want to do business with India and who now have not been doing business with India because of the NPT. In return, in this agreement, India has agreed to allow the IAEA inspections and safeguards at 14 of their 22 planned nuclear power reactors. But eight of their nuclear power reactors will be placed behind a curtain. No one will be able to inspect them. That is where they will be able to continue increasing the production of nuclear weapons, and it is not-- you wonder, do they want to produce additional nuclear weapons? Let me quote directly from a senior adviser to India's nuclear program, December 2005, an article in The Times of India. Dr. Subrahmanyam says:
Given India's uranium ore crunch and the need to build up
our minimum credible nuclear arsenal as fast as possible, it
is to India's advantage to categorize as many power reactors
as possible as civilian ones to be refueled by imported
uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapons-
grade plutonium production.
This is clear:
Given India's . . . crunch and the need to build up our
minimum credible nuclear deterrent arsenal. . . .
That is what this is about in India.
We have those who support this, who say it is not perfect, but it is not bad. I don't know whether the contention on the Senate floor is going to be that this will not result in additional warheads. But I am clear, and I think everybody should be clear, it will. India will produce additional nuclear weapons. We believe, if that makes the world safer, I guess that is what one can argue. I do not believe that at all. I think the addition of nuclear weapons to the stockpile that exists in this world is a serious danger to the world.
Pakistan has already said: If you are going to give this deal to India, how about giving this deal to us? We might want to look at what we are doing. The administration just proposed, by the way, a big arms package for Pakistan: 36 Lockheed F-16C/D fighter planes, 500 JDAM satellite-guided bomb kits, 700 bunker buster bombs, 1,600 laser-guided bombs, 800 conventional bombs, 500 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, 200 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, 130 Harpoon antiship missiles, 115 self-propelled howitzers.
That is an arms package to Pakistan. But Pakistan would say: We have nuclear weapons. We exploded them. We showed you we have nuclear weapons. You are going to give this deal to build more nuclear weapons to India. We want that deal for Pakistan. We want to build more nuclear weapons.
What will China say? What will China say when they see this agreement and decide that India is increasing its stockpile? China will say: We want to increase the stockpile of nuclear weapons.
India is in the process of becoming a full-fledged nuclear power with a triad, an emerging triad. Aircraft? They have a number of types of aircraft used to deliver a nuclear weapon, or that could be so used, and land-based missiles and naval weapons.
I do not allege that India is a country that is an aggressor. That is not my point. I think our relationship with India is important. I believe we ought to connect with India. We ought to reach out to India. We ought to have an improved relationship with India. I don't know, maybe it is advantageous to have India as a counterweight in the region to China.
But, look, do any of us really believe that an agreement that pulls the rug out from under decades of positions we have held in this country on nonproliferation that results in the building of additional nuclear weapons advances our interests? Advances the world's interests? Of course not.
It falls on our shoulders as the nuclear power in the world. It is our responsibility to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Will our children or our grandchildren someday see a nuclear weapon detonated in a major American city? Will we see that? We didn't see it during the Cold War because we had mutually agreed destruction; that is, both countries, us and the Soviet Union, understood if one launched a missile or airplane containing a nuclear weapon to be detonated in our country, we would launch sufficient nuclear weapons to completely destroy their country and their society. Both sides understood that. Both sides understood we have arsenals that would destroy each other and neither side did. Neither side was an aggressor.
In an age of terrorism, all of that has changed. In an age of terrorism, if we do not embrace policies that stop the production of additional nuclear weapons, we have missed an enormous opportunity to prevent the detonation of a nuclear weapon in one of our cities. This agreement simply does not stop the spread of nuclear weapons. It doesn't prevent the production of additional nuclear weapons. This undermines that which we have described as our goal in the United Nations. It undermines that which we have for decades described as being our goal as a leader in nonproliferation. It provides the green light for India to produce additional nuclear weapons.
With all the sophisticated arguments in favor of this agreement, I fail to see how undermining decades of effort at nonproliferation and now providing a green light to India to produce new nuclear weapons, additional nuclear weapons, makes this a safer world. Quite the contrary. I think it is dangerous. I think this agreement is a horrible mistake. I think all of the sophisticated calculations mean very little when we have decided to send signals to the world that we do not oppose producing additional nuclear weapons; that we support that.
We are willing to decide to undermine the nonproliferation treaty. We are willing to ignore United Nations resolutions all because Ambassador Burns and Secretary Rice and the Bush administration said: You know what, we have all these calculations about weights and counterweights and geopolitical strategies and here is our new one. It is a new strategy that undermines decades of what ought to be the best virtue of this country, and that is providing world leadership, real world
leadership, aggressive world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent the building of more nuclear weapons and begin reducing the number of nuclear weapons that exist in this world.
As I said when I started, I regret very much I am on the other side of this issue from Senator Lugar. Senator Lugar has great credibility on these issues because he has done a very substantial amount of good work. I am not quite sure how I should describe this. I was extraordinarily surprised when I read the first account in the newspaper that it was likely that this agreement was going to be supported by my colleague and friend. I would say the same with respect to Senator Biden. I have great respect for them. So I am someone who comes to the floor of the Senate in disagreement. That doesn't mean I in any way disparage their abilities or their intellectual honesty in pursuing strategies they believe are best for this country.
I have very strong opposition to those who believe, however, that this in any way represents our best interests. I wish I could come to the Senate floor with a better message, but I do not. I believe one day we will look back on this with great regret. We have seen that in this decade already with some other decisions, information provided us with respect to Iraq and other decisions we have made. We have already, in my judgment, had opportunities to understand regret about policies undertaken that turned out to be not in this country's best interests.
I believe if we open the floodgates with this agreement, we will seriously undermine this country's best interests.
Exhibit 1
[From Blueprint Magazine, October 7, 2004]
Nuclear Terrorism--Book Excerpt
(By Graham Allison)
On October 11, 2001, a month to the day after the terrorist
assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President
George W. Bush faced an even more terrifying prospect. At
that morning's Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefing,
George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, informed
the president that a CIA agent code-named Dragonfire had
reported that Al Qaeda terrorists possessed a ten-kiloton
nuclear bomb, evidently stolen from the Russian arsenal.
According to Dragonfire, this nuclear weapon was now on
American soil, in New York City.
The CIA had no independent confirmation of this report, but
neither did it have any basis on which to dismiss it. Did
Russia's arsenal include a large number of ten-kiloton
weapons? Yes. Could the Russian government account for all
the nuclear weapon the Soviet Union had built during the Cold
War? No. Could Al Qaeda have acquired one or more of these
weapons? Yes. Could it have smuggled a nuclear weapon through
American border controls into New York City without anyone's
knowledge? Yes. In a moment of gallows humor, someone quipped
that the terrorists could have wrapped the bomb in one of the
bales of marijuana that are routinely smuggled into cities
like New York.
In the hours that followed, national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice analyzed what strategists call the ``problem
from hell'' Unlike the Cold War, when the United States and
the Soviet Union knew that an attack against the other would
elicit a retaliatory strike for greater measure, Al Qaeda--
with no return address--had no such fear of reprisal. Ever if
the president were prepared to negotiate, Al Qaeda had no
phone number to call.
Clearly no decision could be taken without much more
information about the threat and those behind it. But how
could Rice engage a wider circle of experts and analysts
without the White House's suspicions leaking to the press? A
CNN flash that the White House had information about an Al
Qaeda nuclear weapon in Manhattan would create chaos. New
Yorkers would flee the city in terror, and residents of other
metropolitan areas would panic. The stock market, which was
just then stabilizing from the shock of 9/11, could collapse.
American Hiroshima. Concerned that Al Qaeda could have
smuggled a nuclear weapon into Washington as well, the
president ordered Vice President Dick Cheney to leave the
capital for an ``undisclosed location,'' where he would
remain for many weeks to follow. This was standard procedure
to ensure ``continuity of government'' in case of a
decapitation strike against the U.S. political leadership.
Several hundred federal employees from more tan a dozen
government agencies joined the vice president at this secret
site, the core of an alternative government that would seek
to cope in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion that
destroyed Washington. The president also immediately
dispatched NEST specialists (Nuclear Emergency Support Teams
of scientists and engineers) to New York to search for the
weapon. But no one in the city was informed of the threat,
not even Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Six months earlier the CIA's Counterterrorism Center had
picked up chatter in Al Qaeda channels about an ``American
Hiroshima,'' The CIA knew that Osama bin Laden's
fascination with nuclear weapons went back at least to
1992, when he attempted to buy highly enriched uranium
from South Africa. Al Qaeda operatives were alleged to
have negotiated with Chechen separatists in Russia to buy
a nuclear warhead, which the Chechen warlord Shamil
Basayev claimed to have acquired from Russian arsenals.
The CIA's special task force on Al Qaeda had noted the
terrorist group's emphasis on thorough planning, intensive
training, and repetition of successful tactics. The task
force also highlighted Al Qaeda's strong preference for
symbolic targets and spectacular attacks.
Staggering the imagination. As the CIA's analysts examined
Dragonfire's report and compared it with other bits of
information, they noted that the attack on the World Trade
Center in September had set the bar higher for future
terrorist spectaculars. Psychologically, a nuclear attack
would stagger the world's imagination as dramatically as
9/11 did. Considering where Al Qaeda might detonate such a
bomb, they noted that New York was, in the jargon of national
security experts, ``target rich.'' Among hundreds of
potential targets, what could be more compelling than Times
Square, the most famous address in the self-proclaimed
capital of the world?
Amid this sea of unknowns, analysts could definitively
answer at least one question. They knew what kind of
devastation a nuclear explosion would cause. If Al Qaeda was
to rent a van to carry the ten-kiloton Russian weapon into
the heart of Times Square and detonate it adjacent to the
Morgan Stanley headquarters at 1585 Broadway, Times Square
would vanish in the twinkling of an eye. The blast would
generate temperatures reaching into the tens of millions of
degrees Fahrenheit. The resulting fireball and blast wave
would destroy instantaneously the theater district, the New
York Times building, Grand Central Terminal, and every other
structure within a third of a mile of the point of
detonation. The ensuing firestorm would engulf Rockefeller
Center, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building, and Madison
Square Garden, leaving a landscape resembling the World Trade
Center site. From the United Nations headquarters on the East
River and the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, to the
Metropolitan Museum in the eighties and the Flatiron Building
in the twenties, structures would remind one of the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Office Building following the Oklahoma City
bombing.
On a normal workday, more than half a million people crowd
the area within a half-mile radius of Times Square. A noon
detonation in midtown Manhattan could kill them all. Hundreds
of thousands of others would die from collapsing buildings,
fire, and fallout in the ensuing hours. The electromagnetic
pulse generated by the blast would fry cell phones, radios,
and other electronic communications. Hospitals, doctors, and
emergency services would be overwhelmed by the wounded.
Firefighters would be battling an uncontrolled ring of fires
for many days thereafter.
The threat of nuclear terrorism, moreover, is not limited
to New York City. While New York is widely seen as the most
likely target, it is clear that Al Qaeda is not only capable
of, but also interested in, mounting attacks on other
American cities, where people may be less prepared. Imagine
the consequences of a ten-kiloton weapon exploding in San
Francisco, Houston, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, or any
other city Americans call home. From the epicenter of the
blast to a distance of approximately a third of a mile, every
structure and individual would vanish in a vaporous haze. A
second circle of destruction, extending three-quarters of a
mile from ground zero, would leave buildings looking like the
Murrah building in Oklahoma City. A third circle, reaching
out one and one-half miles, would be ravaged by fires and
radiation.
Uncontrollable blaze. In Washington, a bomb going off at
the Smithsonian Institution would destroy everything from the
White House to the lawn of the Capitol building; everything
from the Supreme Court to the FDR Memorial would be left in
rubble; uncontrollable fires would reach all the way out to
the Pentagon.
In a cover story in the New York Times Magazine in May
2002, Bill Keller interviewed Eugene Habiger, the retired
four-star general who had overseen strategic nuclear weapons
until 1998 and had run nuclear antiterror programs for the
Department of Energy until 2001. Summarizing his decade of
daily experience dealing with threats, Habiger offered a
categorical conclusion about nuclear terrorism: ``it is not a
matter of if; it's a matter of when.'' ``That,'' Keller noted
drily, may explain why he now lives in San Antonio.''
In the end, the Dragonfire report turned out to be a false
alarm.
I want to say just one additional thing. I have two amendments that I intend to offer today. I do not intend to take a great amount of time with either of them. Both of them are very important. I wish to say to the chairman, I know he is working through this bill today. I want to be
cooperative but not so cooperative that I do not have an opportunity to fully explain amendments that I think are very important relative to what I just described.
The amendments I will offer, one has to do with requiring India to comply with what the U.S. is already required to comply with, the second relates to a United Nations resolution, that our country pushed, that represents American policy that appears to be completely contradictory to the underlying bill on the floor of the Senate.
I say to the chairman, I will have two amendments. I am prepared in a reasonable period to offer the amendments. I do have, with Senator McCain, an obligation at 12 o'clock for a few minutes off the Senate floor. We are going to be speaking to a group. But following that, I would be happy to come over and offer my two amendments if the Senator is willing to have me do that.
Mr. President, I missed the last point.
I will be off of the Senate floor for the other requirement that I have, but I will come back. My understanding is there is a proposal to perhaps try to modify one of my amendments?
Yes. I intend to offer the other amendment, debate it, and ask for a recorded vote on it. I will take a look at the proposed modification to see what that modification is, but I will try to be back on the Senate floor as quickly as possible to accommodate the Senator's interests in getting it done.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
I have two amendments to offer. I will be happy to offer and debate them in order and to work with the chairman on whatever arrangements he might wish for a vote on these amendments.
I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. President, this amendment is very simple and very short. Its brevity is contained in line 4 to line 6.
It is an amendment that says we will:
On page 5, beginning on line 15, strike ``Treaty; and'' and
all that follows through ``that exports'' . . . and insert
the following:
(9) to continue to support implementation of United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1172.
Let me describe what this means and why I am offering it. In May of 1998, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Security Council Resolution No. 1172 after India and then Pakistan, detonated nuclear weapons. The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution.
The resolution I have in my hand, in part, says that the Security Council is gravely concerned at the challenge that the nuclear tests conducted by India and then Pakistan constitute to international efforts aimed at strengthening the global regime of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and also gravely concerned at the danger to peace and stability in the region.
Continuing, it says that the resolution condemns the nuclear tests conducted by India on 11 and 13 May, 1998, and by Pakistan on 28 and 30 May, 1998, demands that India and Pakistan refrain from further nuclear tests, calls upon India and Pakistan immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programs, to refrain from weaponization or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons; it says the Security Council recognizes that the tests conducted by India and Pakistan constitute a serious threat to global efforts toward nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, urges India and Pakistan and all other states that have not yet done so to become parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without delay and without conditions.
That was the reaction of our country and of the United Nations in May of
1998, following the detonation of nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan, a point in time in which the world was very concerned about those actions.
Our country then led a multinational effort to pass a resolution in the United Nations, Resolution 1172. That resolution, which passed unanimously and which has become a resolution that represents our policy and our support for these basic tenets, is at odds with the underlying legislation being considered by the Senate.
I offer a piece of legislation, an amendment, that says it is still U.S. policy to support the implementations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172.
How does this square with what is before the Senate?
Resolution 1172 demonstrated that our country, the United States, and the rest of the international community, agree there should be no further nuclear weapons testing in South Asia and there should be an end to dangerous nuclear arms competition and no additional nuclear weapons produced. That resolution is as relevant today as it was in 1998.
Both India and Pakistan have violated Resolution 1172. They continue to build nuclear weapons, they produce fissile material for weapons in both of those countries, they continue to develop new nuclear-capable missiles.
No one in this Chamber would like to see, in my judgment, India or Pakistan resume nuclear testing.
Now, the Bush administration wants to lift international restrictions on nuclear trade with India. It is as if the United Nations Security Council resolution doesn't exist, never happened, doesn't apply to our country, doesn't apply to India. What does that say to North Korea? What does that tell the country of Iran?
This past July, the United States convinced the Security Council of the United Nations to call upon Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA and suspend its uranium enrichment program, stop work on a heavy water production. Iran has not complied and the U.S. working with other nation states on the Security Council to pass another resolution.
In October, the Security Council passed Resolution 1718, which condemns North Korea's nuclear test and demands that North Korea not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile. It also calls on North Korea to abandon all nuclear weapons in existing nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner; also, to give up its ballistic missile program.
But these resolutions on Iran and North Korea will, in my judgment, mean far less if the United States does not reaffirm its commitment to Resolution 1172 with respect to India and Pakistan.
As the world watches our actions--and we have Ambassador Burns and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rushing to India to negotiate these kinds of agreements that begin to untie and unravel decades of leadership by our country against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. As the world watches our actions, what will they learn from this discussion, from these actions by the Senate? Will they learn today that we remain committed to Resolution 1172 of the United Nations?
It would be, it seems to me, a huge step backward for the Senate to say that Resolution 1172, which was our policy, which passed unanimously in the United Nations, which called for the cessation of the production of additional nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan, if we were to tell the world that somehow that is no longer our policy, that is no longer operative--at least it is not operative with respect to India and Pakistan.
As I said earlier, the burden falls to us to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. It is our responsibility. We are the major nuclear superpower in the world. We inherit the requirement to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, try to prevent a cataclysmic terror attack anywhere in the world and especially against the cities of our country by a terrorist group who has a nuclear weapon. It is our responsibility to do that.
What then embraces that responsibility? What kind of things should we be doing in the Senate? Should we be deciding in the Senate that one way to do that is to allow the production of additional nuclear weapons on this Earth? Of course not, that is absurd. Will the underlying bill that is before the Senate allow the production of additional nuclear weapons? Of course, it will. Everyone agrees with that. We all understand that. If that weren't the case, there would not be a requirement to keep eight of the nuclear reactors behind a curtain that will never be inspected. We understand what is going on.
I read this morning the statement from one of the top advisers in India that said they have a responsibility to move quickly and aggressively to continue to build their nuclear deterrent. That is exactly what is at work here. Has our country now decided it is not our responsibility to stop this? Have we decided to be the green light to allow others to build additional nuclear weapons? Is that the junction we have reached? Not with my vote.
I understand all the arguments about the geopolitics and about India and China and counterweights and all of these issues. None of it, in my judgment, justifies a decision by the United States of America to send a signal to the world that we believe it is all right for anybody to begin producing additional nuclear weapons.
Our role, our responsibility, is to find ways today, on Thursday, November 16, 2006 to shut down the production of additional nuclear weapons, put pressure on those who want to build more nuclear weapons, to say to them it is not acceptable to us to have you building additional nuclear weapons.
Yes, that goes for India. It goes for Pakistan. It goes for China. It goes for all of those countries.
That ought to be our message. It ought to be unified. It ought not to be convoluted. It ought to be clear. Yet the underlying message with what is on the floor of the Senate--again, negotiated by Ambassador Burns and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, largely in secret; I read about it, by the way, in the Washington Post--the underlying message is we have decided to develop a relationship with India that is a counterweight to China in that region. One way to do that is to allow India to be able to purchase the things they need with which to produce additional nuclear power.
They have been prevented from doing that because they refused to sign the nonproliferation treaty. They refused to sign that treaty; therefore, they have had sanctions against them and resolutions at the United Nations enacted that have condemned the actions. And now, in one fell swoop, they are told: Never mind. It does not matter. We are friends, and that friendship transcends the sanctions that exist for those of you who have not signed the nonproliferation treaty.
I think this is a horrible mistake. Again, I do not question the motives of those who disagree with me. But we have made some very serious mistakes recently because some big thinkers made some big mistakes. This is a very big mistake. It is likely that the Senate will pass the underlying legislation today. I will regret that. But if it passes that legislation without reaffirming the basic support for Resolution 1172, this message today will have been a very destructive message to the rest of the world with respect to our country's leadership away from nuclear proliferation.
So, Mr. President, I would hope that we could have a vote on this resolution. I have a second resolution that I shall offer. But with that discussion of my resolution, I will yield the floor so my colleagues can respond to it.
Mr. President, just a couple of----
Mr. President, it is my intention to respond briefly to a couple of comments that have been made in objection to my amendment, and then to offer my second amendment, per agreement with the chairman. That would probably take me about 10 minutes, and to speak in support of my second amendment.
Mr. President, I listened intently to my two colleagues
who apparently cannot find the ability to support this amendment. I do want to make a couple of observations. One of my colleagues said that India is in full compliance with its commitments. Well, yes, that is true. And the reason they are in full compliance with their commitments is they do not have the commitments we have. They have not signed the nonproliferation treaty. They do not have the commitments that we would expect of them. So are they in full compliance with the commitments that do not exist? I do not know. I mean, I guess. It is not much of an excuse for India, in my judgment. I don't understand that objection.
The discussion of ``this agreement would cease if the following'' omitted one key issue: ``This agreement will cease if India continues to produce additional nuclear weapons.'' No, that was not included in this bill. Why? Because this agreement allows India to continue to produce additional nuclear weapons. That is at the root of this agreement; otherwise why would you have nuclear facilities put off limits behind a curtain, behind which India can produce additional nuclear bombs?
So this issue of that we have safeguards, and this agreement will cease if the following exists, does not include that this agreement will cease if India continues to produce additional nuclear weapons. Why doesn't it include that provision? Because all of us here know what is going to happen. What is going to happen is this agreement is going to pass, and our ally, a wonderful country, India, is going to be told by this country: It is all right if behind a curtain uninspected facilities continue to produce additional nuclear bombs. That is all right with us. It works fine with us. It is not all right with me. It does not work fine with me.
The past versus the future? I am glad we are not debating the Constitution. That is the past. Man, that is a couple hundred years past. What are the virtues of the Constitution? How about the virtues of the past, the efforts in the past at nonproliferation, the efforts in the past when we were serious about these issues? Really serious. And this country took it upon themselves to say: We are going to lead the way. We, by God, are going to lead the way because it is our burden. It is our responsibility.
We inherit that requirement. Yes, that is the past, and I am proud of that past. In fact, this morning I described part of that past, credited, I might say, to my colleague from Indiana and my former colleague from Georgia, and my colleague from Delaware. I hold in my hand a wing strut from a Soviet bomber that likely carried a nuclear weapon, which could have been dropped on an American city.
That wing strut came from an airplane that was not shot down. That airplane was sawed up by an agreement. That sawing of that Backfire bomber, whose wing strut I now hold, was paid for by American taxpayers. We destroyed nuclear weapons, no, not by battle, not through firing our nuclear weapons. We destroyed them by saws and other methods of destruction, paid for by the American taxpayer.
We destroyed nuclear weapons. Four countries that possessed them are now free of nuclear weapons. We destroyed delivery systems, Backfire bombers, missiles. Yes, that is the past, a past I am enormously proud of, a past we need more of, a past we need to learn from.
The future? The future is a process here by which we say: Do you know what. India, you are a good country--and let me join in that description of the county of India. But we also say: We don't care so much anymore you didn't sign the nonproliferation treaty. We don't care that you violated Resolution 1172 of the United Nations. That is all OK. And, in fact, we are going to tell the suppliers of the world that can supply you with things you need to produce nuclear power go ahead and do that. The sanctions are off. We have decided that our position has changed. It used to be that we and the rest of the world would not allow you to purchase that because you would not sign the nonproliferation treaty. We have changed our minds. In fact, we are going to tell the suppliers to furnish that to you, and you can use it behind the curtain with some of your facilities to produce additional nuclear weapons. You can do it because there will be no inspections.
That, frankly, is the circumstance of this legislation. So we have disagreement. I regret that. But I feel very strongly. I know my colleagues feel strongly about their position on this issue. I would just say, I hope we will not decide today as a Senate to say that Security Council Resolution 1172 does not matter because it is old. It is timeless. It is not old. It is timeless in its position of what we should stand for as a country.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Let me respond briefly. There is a very big difference between this and the agreement we had with the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union agreement, both sides, the United States and the Soviet Union,
decided they wished to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and the delivery systems of those weapons. As a result of that decision, both sides wishing to reduce both weapons and delivery systems, we embarked on a process that was very helpful to both countries and to the world and to world peace. This is very different. This is mutual interest.
But now, we are told it is in our mutual interest, us and India, to have India be allowed to produce additional nuclear weapons, not reduce nuclear weapons. Under this agreement, everyone will agree, India will be allowed to increase nuclear weapons. If India is allowed to increase nuclear weapons under this agreement, that is very different from the agreement we had with the Soviets by which we decided to reduce.
The point is, this agreement says it is in our mutual interest to allow India to increase its production of nuclear weapons. That is clearly not in our mutual interest, but that is what the resolution says.
Second, my colleague is right, none of this operates in a vacuum. This will not be in a vacuum, either. Pakistan will insist on producing more nuclear weapons. So will China. Pakistan has already told our country: If you are going to do this with India, we want you to do it with us. So this decision will not be made in a vacuum vis-a-vis India; this decision will have an impact regionally and around the world.
My colleague is very skillful in presenting his position. I admire both of my colleagues and their skill and determination as well. We just have a difference of opinion. I think this is a very significant mistake.
I have a second amendment which I will send to the desk and offer for its consideration and try to truncate the description of that very briefly, if that is appropriate to the chairman.
Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5182 and ask for its immediate consideration.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to offer a modification to the first amendment I offered today. The amendment had two line numbers in it that were made to the original copy of the legislation. That legislation was subsequently changed. So let me ask unanimous consent that on the initial amendment I offered today, on line 1, the reference to line 15 be struck, and it is line 8; on line 2, the reference to line 15 be struck, and it is line 9.
Mr. President, the second amendment I have sent to the desk says that before this United States-India agreement can go into effect, the President must submit to the Congress a written determination that India has committed to certain basic provisions consistent with U.S. nonproliferation goals and with the NPT, the nonproliferation treaty. It requires the President to determine that India has committed to, for example, putting all of its reactors that supply electricity to the civilian sector under the IAEA inspection regime. This would close a loophole that exists in the proposed agreement, and that loophole allows India to keep electricity-producing reactors out of the IAEA inspection regime. Eight of them will be out of the regime, and those eight are going to be behind a curtain, unable to be inspected, and able to produce the materials to produce additional nuclear weapons. Fourteen of the existing and planned nuclear reactors would be inspected, and eight of them would not.
If those other eight reactors produce civilian electricity, my amendment would require that India allow inspection of them.
The bill as now written would allow India to produce energy with nuclear reactors that are closed to IAEA safeguards. My amendment says that is a loophole which should not be allowed. If India can keep energy-producing reactors outside of these safeguards, why shouldn't other countries be allowed to do so? How will our country say to others: Well, we have special deals. We have loopholes here for one, but we are not consistent. There is no consistency with respect to our position on these issues.
The amendment also requires India to undertake a binding obligation not to assist, encourage, or induce nonnuclear weapons states to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. That is what our country has obligated itself to do under the nonproliferation treaty. It is what other nuclear weapons states have done as well, including Russia, China, Britain, and France. They have all agreed to and signed the nonproliferation treaty and agreed to that basic provision, a binding obligation not to assist, encourage, or induce nonnuclear weapons states to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons.
Lastly, my amendment requires the President to determine that India has committed itself to pursuing negotiations on measures directed at reducing nuclear stockpiles and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons. These are the same commitments, the very same commitments our country has made, the same commitments other nation states which have signed the nonproliferation treaty have made. So I believe it is appropriate that if we have this agreement with India dealing with the issue of nuclear weapons, they should be under the same obligations we are under. Even though they have not signed the nonproliferation treaty, we have. We have obligations under that treaty. They should accept the obligations under that treaty, in my judgment, even though they have not yet signed it.
This debate today has been interesting and, in many ways, very frustrating as well. I intend to support very aggressively the amendment offered by my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman. I believe that amendment is very important and at the root of much of what I have talked about today as well.
It seems to me this is a case for our children and our grandchildren about what kind of a world they are going to live in. It is interesting. If you just fast forward from 1960 to 1980 to 2000 and fast forward from 2001 to today, we went through a Cold War with the Soviet Union where we had heavy nuclear weapons, huge nuclear weapons with big bombers and powerful missiles aimed at each other, so we had a Cold War. Massive numbers of nuclear weapons were built. We had a standoff between our country and the Soviet Union. There was great concern and worry that somehow, something would happen in which someone would launch a missile or a submarine or an airplane would launch a missile with a nuclear weapon and we would start a nuclear war and our two countries would be obliterated. It didn't happen. Instead, we chose a much more constructive direction.
We and the Soviet Union began what is called arms control talks, and we reached arms control agreements. Those agreements began the destruction of weapons systems, delivery systems, nuclear weapons. I admit that a very small amount of those delivery systems and nuclear weapons were actually destroyed, but some of them were. It was actually moving in the right direction rather than the wrong direction. We developed a test ban treaty. We led the way. We said: We are going to no longer test nuclear weapons. We said that to the world. A nonproliferation treaty. We said this is important to do, and we were the leaders in saying this is the right course for the world. Now we are told: You know what, that is old-fashioned; that is the past; this is the future. I say that what we did then is timeless. These values don't change, the value of deciding that our future ought to be a future with fewer nuclear weapons rather than more nuclear weapons.
If anyone has listened closely, they will know there has been no refutation of the assertion that some of my colleagues and I have made that this agreement will mean we have more nuclear weapons produced. No one has disputed that. This agreement means we are signing up to have more nuclear weapons produced on this Earth. One--just one--nuclear weapon in the hands of a terrorist group pulling up to a dock in a major American city on a container ship at 2\1/2\ or 3 miles an hour
can potentially kill hundreds of thousands of American citizens--just one--and there are 30,000 out there. Can anyone here tell me that every one of those 30,000 is safeguarded and that no terrorist organization will acquire one? Can anybody tell me that is going to be the case?
I started this morning talking about a CIA agent called Dragon Fire who reported 1 month after 9/11 that a Russian 10-kiloton nuclear weapon had been stolen by a terrorist group and taken into New York City and was about to be detonated. That episode has been written about in a book. Most of us have heard of it. It was a time when for a month we didn't know if it was true or not. It wasn't disclosed publicly because there would have been mass hysteria if it was thought that a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon had been stolen from Russia and was now in New York City about to be detonated. It eventually was discovered that had not happened. But when they did the postmortem on that situation, it was understood that it was clearly possible. Russia had those weapons. They were not safeguarded well. They are not, and they were not. They could have been stolen. It could have been smuggled into a major American city by a terrorist group and it could have been detonated, killing hundreds of thousands of people. That is the consequence of one nuclear weapon. Just one. We have 30,000 or so on this Earth. What are we doing today? We are saying it is all right if they build more--in this case, India. It is OK if they build more.
This is not going to be done in a vacuum. What we do here today will have consequences for Pakistan, it will have consequences for China. You think they won't decide if India is going to be allowed to build more nuclear weapons that they won't build more nuclear weapons? Of course they will. That is what this is about.
I understand it is argued that this is geopolitics; you don't understand it; you can't see over the horizon. Maybe not. What I do understand is that this world will be a safer place with fewer nuclear weapons, this world will be a safer place if we care about nonproliferation, if we reduce the number of nuclear weapons, and this world will not be safer if at the end of today we have decided that we have given a green light to a world with more nuclear weapons.
I hope my colleagues will agree with me and support my amendment.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my second amendment be considered, notwithstanding the Harkin amendment that was previously offered.
Mr. President, let me ask the chairman. I wish to respond for 2 minutes to the comments which the chairman just made in opposition to my amendment prior to proceeding to the vote.
Mr. President, I will try not to take the 2 minutes, but it is important to point out the chairman, in responding--and I suspect the ranking member in his response--is saying this is a killer amendment. It is not offered as a killer amendment, but it is the case that my amendment would impose upon India exactly the same burdens that exist upon our country. My colleague, the chairman, said the President ``did not negotiate''--he started the sentence. That is what brings me to the floor--that the President ``did not negotiate.'' What he did not negotiate was a requirement and a burden on India which clearly is a nuclear weapons state. He did not negotiate a requirement and a burden on them that we ourselves assume under the nonproliferation treaty. My amendment would simply provide that requirement and that burden to the country of India.
I come from a town of 300 people. I have to relearn always the lessons of the Senate--and not just the Senate but the way the Government works. In my hometown you always call things just the way they are. You saw it, you spoke it, and described it. In this body, however, now we know that India has a nuclear weapon--has many of them. We know they have detonated them, and we know they are a nuclear weapons state. So we have decided as a country officially to describe India as a responsible state with nuclear technology as opposed to a nuclear weapons state. I don't know; maybe it works here. It doesn't work in my hometown. We have to call things as we see them.
We have responsibilities--all of us do. Our responsibility is, I think, toward nonproliferation, to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. I regret that the underlying piece of legislation is going to result in more nuclear weapons being built.
The second amendment I have offered is an amendment that simply says let us impose on those with whom we negotiate the same burdens we inherit ourselves. In fact, the United States negotiated with India in the way that exempts them from those burdens. I think that is fundamentally wrong.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, my amendment, in light of the underlying bill brought to the floor of the Senate, would express that we would continue to support the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172.
The reason that is important is it had been the policy of this country to not only author but to support that resolution after India and Pakistan exploded their nuclear weapons.
It calls on them to immediately stop their nuclear weapons development programs, refrain from weaponization or deployment of nuclear weapons, cease the development of ballistic missiles, and so on.
That has been a very important tenet of this country in supporting that United Nations Resolution 1172. Despite what we are doing in the underlying bill, I would hope this country and this Senate would express our support for that which we drafted and that which we encouraged the rest of the world to support some while ago.
Mr. President, the second amendment I had offered says that before the United States-India agreement can go into effect, the President must submit to the Congress a written determination that India has committed to certain basic provisions that are consistent with the U.S. nonproliferation goals and with the nonproliferation treaty. In other words, I would suggest that we should impose the same burdens on India as we have on ourselves. There is great reluctance to do that by this Chamber, but that was my amendment. I must say there is very little education in a third vote if I believe it weakens our efforts in nonproliferation nuclear weapons. So rather than have a third recorded vote, I will ask that we vitiate the recorded vote and vote on this amendment by voice.
