[Senate Hearing 106-262]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-262
FINAL REVIEW OF THE COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY (Treaty Doc.
105-28)
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 7, 1999
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
61-364 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
PAUL COVERDELL, Georgia PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
BILL FRIST, Tennessee
Stephen E. Biegun, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Morning Session
Page
Kirkpatrick, Hon. Jeane J., senior fellow, American Enterprise
Institute and former U.S. Permanent Representative to the
United Nations................................................. 7
Prepared statement of........................................ 12
Ledogar, Hon. Stephen J., former Chief Negotiator of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.................................. 15
Prepared statement of........................................ 20
Weinberger, Hon. Caspar W., former Secretary of Defense.......... 14
Prominent Individuals and National Groups in support of the CTBT. 3
Former Laboratory Directors oppose the CTBT...................... 27
Letter from Physics Nobel Laureates in support of CTBT........... 34
Afternoon Session
Albright, Hon. Madeleine K., Secretary of State.................. 72
Prepared statement of........................................ 75
Garwin, Dr. Richard L., senior fellow for science and technology,
Council on Foreign Relations, New York, NY..................... 112
Prepared statement of........................................ 117
Nuclear Testing--Summary and Conclusion--JASON report.... 131
Kerrey, Hon. J. Robert, U.S. Senator from Nebraska, vice
chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence..................... 60
Lehman, Hon. Ronald F., former director, Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency, Palto Alto, CA............................. 101
Prepared statement of........................................ 105
Levin, Hon. Carl, U.S. Senator from Minnesota, ranking minority
member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 58
Shelby, Hon. Richard C., U.S. Senator from Alabama, chairman,
Select Committee on Intelligence............................... 54
Prepared statement of........................................ 56
Wade, Troy E., chairman, Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy and
Business, Las Vegas, NV........................................ 109
Prepared statement of........................................ 111
Warner, Hon. John W., U.S. Senator from Virginia, chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 52
Letters from six former Secretaries of Defense and Henry
Kissinger opposing CTBT................................ 63
Senate Consideration of Major Arms Control and Security
Treaties--1972-1999............................................ 81
Letters from former Ambassadors Wisner and Oakley in support of
CTBT........................................................... 82
Article from the Washington Post, Oct. 7, 1999, entitled ``The
Next President Will Pay the Price'' by George Perkovich........ 87
Response of Secretary Cohen to question asked before the Armed
Services Committee on October 6, 1999.......................... 134
(iii)
FINAL REVIEW OF THE COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY (Treaty Doc.
105-28)
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1999
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
Morning Session
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:35 a.m. in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jesse Helms
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Helms, Hagel, Smith, Thomas, Grams,
Biden, Kerry, and Boxer.
The Chairman. The committee will come to order. This is the
final hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee on the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We extend our sincere welcome to
our first panel, Hon. Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of
Defense for President Reagan, Hon. Jeane Kirkpatrick, former
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and Hon. Stephen
Ledogar, former chief negotiator of the CTBT.
I have already welcomed Mr. Ledogar in person, and I
welcomed Cap Weinberger, and Jeane Kirkpatrick is on her way. I
am confident in any event following the testimony by these
distinguished witnesses this morning, the committee will
convene a second session this afternoon in which we will hear
from the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services
Committee, Senator Warner.
We agreed to go back and forth to try to make our case, and
also the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee,
Senator Levin, as well as the chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, Senator Shelby, and the vice chairman of that
committee, Bob Kerrey, Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, and we will
hear from the distinguished Secretary of State, Madeleine
Albright, and finally from the third panel of arms control
experts, former acting director Ronald Lehman, chairman of the
Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy and Business, Troy Wade,
and from Dr. Richard Garwin of the Council on Foreign
Relations.
So I suggest by the end of the day it will be difficult for
anyone to credibly contend that the CTBT has not been
thoroughly discussed and debated.
Now then, I have a feeling most people know where I stand
on the treaty, and so I am not going to engage in extended
oratory this morning except to say this. I sense a clear
consensus is emerging in the foreign policy community against
Senate ratification of the CTBT. Here is why.
Four former Directors of Central Intelligence have weighed
in against the CTBT, including two of President Clinton's CIA
Directors, Jim Woolsey and John Derish. Two former chairmen of
the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Tom Moore and Admiral John Vessey are
likewise strongly opposed, and yesterday the Senate received a
letter signed by six--count them, six--distinguished former
Secretaries of Defense, Cap Weinberger, who is with us today,
thank the Lord, Frank Carlucci, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld,
Jim Schlesinger, and Mel Laird.
And it occurs to me that such unanimity among the former
Secretaries of Defense in opposition to an arms control treaty
is almost without precedent, and I might say that the present
distinguished Secretary of Defense, whom I admire greatly and
enjoyed greatly, served in the Senate with him, when he was a
Senator he strongly opposed this treaty.
In any case, perhaps we should be reminded that it's not
the Republicans who asked for this vote. It was forced upon us
by the President and all 45 Senators on the other side of the
aisle. They wrote me a letter. I have never had a letter from
so many distinguished Americans in my life, 45 Senators on the
other side of the aisle, but the fact remains, if this treaty
is brought up to a vote next Tuesday, I believe it will be
defeated.
Now, there is only one way that the President can call off
that vote next Tuesday. He must formally request in writing
that (a) the treaty be withdrawn, and (b) that the CTBT not be
considered for the duration of his Presidency.
Now, if the President does that, then the CTBT will be
effectively dead, just as SALT II was effectively dead after
President Carter made a similar written request of the Senate,
and if Mr. Clinton does not submit a written request, we will
proceed with the vote, and I am confident that the CTBT will be
defeated, so the President has the choice to make.
Perhaps your testimony today, Secretary Weinberger, and
Ambassador Kirkpatrick, will serve to convince the President
that the time has come to make such a request and a commitment.
If not, I know your testimony will certainly be informative to
many Senators as we proceed with the vote next Tuesday.
Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by saying I love
you, but I find your characterizations interesting. This is the
final hearing that is true. I would argue it is the first
hearing as well as the final hearing, but that is not worth
getting into right now.
And as it relates to a clear consensus of the foreign
policy community, I would ask, rather than take the time now,
to enter in the record a list of prominent individuals
including the present and five former chairmen of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, as well as 32 Nobel laureates, et cetera, and
so if we can duel on who supports what, I am confident that
there are more prominent Americans, particularly scientists,
who support this than oppose it, but at any rate, I would ask
unanimous consent that they be put in the record.
The Chairman. Of course. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
Prominent Individuals and National Groups in Support of the CTBT
(September 20, 1999)
current chairman and former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff
General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff
General Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General David Jones, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Admiral William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
former members of congress
Senator John C. Danforth
Senator J. James Exon
Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker
Senator Mark O. Hatfield
Senator John Glenn
Representative Bill Green
Representative Thomas J. Downey
Representative Michael J. Kopetski
Representative Anthony C. Bellenson
Representative Lee H. Hamilton
directors of the three national laboratories
Dr. John Browne, Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory
Dr. Paul Robinson, Director of Sandia National Laboratory
Dr. Bruce Tarter, Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
other prominent national security officials
Ambassador Paul H. Nitze--arms control negotiator, Reagan
Administration
Admiral Stansfield Turner--former Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency
Charles Curtis--former Deputy Secretary of Energy
other prominent military officers
General Eugene Habiger--former Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Command
General John R. Galvin--Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
Admiral Noel Gayler--former Commander, Pacific
General Charles A. Horner--Commander, Coalition Air Forces, Desert
Storm, former Commander, U.S. Space Command
General Andrew O'Meara--former Commander U.S. Army Europe
General Bernard W. Rogers--former Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; former
NATO Supreme Allied Commander
General William Y. Smith--former Deputy Commander, U.S. Command, Europe
Lt. General Julius Becton
Lt. General John H. Cushman--former Commander, I Corps (ROK/US) Group
(Korea)
Lt. General Robert E. Pursley
Vice Admiral William L. Read--former Commander, U.S. Navy Surface
Force, Atlantic Command
Vice Admiral John J. Shanahan--former Director, Center for Defense
Information
Lt. General George M. Seignious, II--fomer Director Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency
Vice Admiral James B. Wilson--former Polaris Submarine Captain
Maj. General William F. Burns--JCS Representative, INF Negotiations,
Special Envoy to Russia for Nuclear Dismantlement
Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll, Jr.--Deputy Director, Center for
Defense Information
Rear Admiral Robert G. James
other scientific experts
Dr. Hans Bethe--Nobel Laureate; Emeritus Professor of Physics, Cornell
University; Head of the Manhattan Project's theoretical
division
Dr. Freeman Dyson--Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton University
Dr. Richard Garwin--Senior Fellow for Science and Technology, Council
on Foreign Relations; consultant to Sandia National Laboratory,
former consultant to Los Alamos National Laboratory
Dr. Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky--Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center, Stanford University
Dr. Jeremiah D. Sullivan--Professor of Physics, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Herbert York--Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of
California, San Diego; founding director of Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory; former Director of Defense Research and
Engineering, Department of Defense
Dr. Sidney D. Drell--Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford
University
national groups
Medical and Scientific Organizations
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Medical Students Association/Foundation
American Physical Society
American Public Health Association
American Medical Association
Public Interest Groups
20/20 Vision National Project
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
Alliance for Survival
Americans for Democratic Action
Arms Control Association
British American Security Information Council
Business Executives for National Security
Campaign for America's Future
Campaign for U.N. Reform
Center for Defense Information
Center for War/Peace Studies (New York, NY)
Council for a Livable World
Council for a Livable World Education Fund
Council on Economic Priorities
Defenders of Wildlife
Demilitarization for Democracy
Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (ECAAR)
Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental Working Group
Federation of American Scientists
Fourth Freedom Forum
Friends of the Earth
Fund for New Priorities in America
Fund for Peace
Global Greens, USA
Global Resource Action Center for the Environment
Greenpeace, USA
The Henry L. Stimson Center
Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (Saugus, MA)
Institute for Science and International Security
International Association of Educators for World Peace (Huntsville, AL)
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
International Center
Izaak Walton League of America
Lawyers Alliance for World Security
League of Women Voters of the United States
Manhattan Project II
Maryknoll Justice and Peace Office
National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans (NECONA)
National Environmental Trust
National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament
Natural Resources Defense Council
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Nuclear Control Institute
Nuclear Information & Resource Service
OMB Watch
Parliamentarians for Global Action
Peace Action
Peace Action Education Fund
Peace Links
PeacePAC
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Plutonium Challenge
Population Action Institute
Population Action International
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Public Citizen
Public Education Center
Saferworld
Sierra Club
Union of Concerned Scientists
United States Servas, Inc.
Veterans for Peace
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation
Volunteers for Peace, Inc.
War and Peace Foundation
War Resistors League
Women Strike for Peace
Women's Action for New Directions
Women's Legislators' Lobby of WAND
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
World Federalist Association
Zero Population Growth
religious groups
African Methodist Episcopal Church
American Baptist Churches, USA
American Baptist Churches, USA, National Ministries
American Friends Service Committee
American Jewish Congress
American Muslim Council
Associate General Secretary for Public Policy, National Council of
Churches
Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men's Institutes
Church Women United
Coalition for Peace and Justice
Columbian Fathers' Justice and Peace Office
Commission for Women, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
Church of the Brethren, General Board
Division for Church in Society, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Division for Congregational Ministries, Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America
Eastern Archdiocese, Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch
The Episcopal Church
Episcopal Peace Fellowship, National Executive Council
Evangelicals for Social Action
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Friends United Meeting
General Board Members, Church of the Brethren
General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist Church
General Conference, Mennonite Church
General Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church
Jewish Peace Fellowship
Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs, Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America
Mennonite Central Committee
Mennonite Central Committee, U.S.
Mennonite Church
Methodists United for Peace with Justice
Missionaries of Africa
Mission Investment Fund of the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America
Moravian Church, Northern Province
National Council of Churches
National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA
National Council of Catholic Women
National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
New Call to Peacemaking
Office for Church in Society, United Church of Christ
Orthodox Church in America
Pax Christi
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
The Shalom Center
Sojourners
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
United Church of Christ
United Methodist Church
United Methodist Council of Bishops
Unitarian Universalist Association
Washington Office, Mennonite Central Committee
Women of the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, I welcome the opportunity to
discuss the test ban treaty. This afternoon, when the Secretary
of State appears before us, I have a slightly longer statement
as to why I support the treaty and believe the Senate should
give its ratification to the treaty.
This morning I would like to briefly set the stage for the
debate that is about to commence. Thirty-six years ago last
month, less than a year after the United States and the Soviet
Union came to the brink of nuclear war, the U.S. Senate gave
its advice and consent to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, a pact
banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere. Only a handful of our
Senate colleagues were here at that time, long-serving legends
like Strom Thurmond, and Robert C. Byrd, and Dan Inouye, and
possibly one or two others.
But although the geopolitical circumstances have changed,
as have the names and the faces of the United States Senators,
in some ways the debate today is very familiar. Then, as now,
there were questions about our ability to maintain a strong
nuclear deterrent under the treaty. Then, as now, there were
questions about whether a country whose capital is Moscow would
cheat.
Then, as now, there were concerns about the ability of the
United States to effectively verify the treaty. Then, as now,
there were concerns about American leadership if we failed to
ratify the treaty. Then, as now, the Joint Chiefs and the
administration of the day devised safeguards to assure that the
United States would adhere to the treaty and maintain a strong
nuclear deterrent force.
The story since 1963 is one in which those whom I would
call the realistic optimists were in my view proved right, and
those who I call the visceral pessimists did not see their
fears realized.
Our deterrent posture did not suffer, even though we gave
up a test that surely gave us more confidence in our weapons
systems than we could gain through underground tests alone. We
gained worldwide respect for reining in the nuclear arms race
which 5 years later translated into the U.S. diplomatic success
in negotiating a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the treaty
banning nuclear weapons in Latin America, treaties that have
succeeded in constraining our nuclear proliferation, and we
gave our own people hope that the cold war would not lead to
the white heat of nuclear holocaust.
Eight years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there
is great disagreement in this country about our foreign policy
objectives and our role in the world, but surely there should
be no disagreement that we should still pursue a strategy of
containment, this time directed not against an ideological foe,
but against the spread of dangerous weapons and technology.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits any
nuclear test explosion, is a key component to that strategy.
Thirty-six years ago, Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen,
for whom this building is named, reached across the aisle and
supported a treaty negotiated by President Kennedy.
In his speech on the Senate floor, Dirksen quoted a famous
Republican from his home State of Illinois, and I quote, it is
the true--quoting Abraham Lincoln--``The true role in
determining to embrace or reject anything is not whether it
have any evil in it, but whether it have more evil than good.
There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost
everything, especially of Government policy, is an inseparable
compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the
preponderance between them is continuously demanded.''
Lincoln's words commend themselves to us now. This treaty
is a good treaty. It is not a perfect treaty. No treaty
produced by over 100 nations will ever be, but it has a lot of
good in it. The benefits which I will discuss this afternoon
and will debate today I believe clearly outweigh the risks, and
I hope my colleagues will study it closely and come to the same
conclusion.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and look forward to hearing from
our witnesses.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Biden. On the theory that
ladies go first, Ms. Kirkpatrick, if you will present your
case. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEANE J. KIRKPATRICK, SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE AND FORMER U.S. PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE
TO THE UNITED NATIONS
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
for inviting me to testify before this distinguished committee
on this vitally important subject.
I accepted your invitation, Mr. Chairman, because I believe
it is essential that this Nation's defenses be adequate to cope
with the growing dangers we face from hostile powers possessing
weapons of mass destruction and effective means of delivery.
Mr. Chairman, I have had a good deal of intensive exposure
to this subject first, a consequence of having served on
President Reagan's Blue Ribbon Presidential Task Force on
Nuclear Products in 1985, on the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board from 1985 to 1990, on the Defense
Policy Review Board from 1985 to 1992, and then, after having
been appointed by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in 1991 and
1992, I chaired the Failsafe and Risk Reduction Committee,
generally referred to by its acronym as the FARR committee,
which was charged with reviewing the United States nuclear
command and control system.
This experience made a strong impression on me concerning
the dangers of proliferating nuclear and missile technology. As
everyone who is interested in these matters knows, a number of
countries are capable of producing and delivering nuclear
weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. The number has
increased, and is increasing as we speak, and it includes
several of the world's most aggressive, repressive,
destructive, and dangerous countries, North Korea, Iran, Iraq,
as well as a Russia less stable than we would prefer, and a
China less benign.
We know, moreover, that other regimes with little regard
for the rule of law or human rights work to acquire weapons of
mass destruction, and that against these weapons the United
States can rely only on its nuclear deterrent. We have no other
defenses against weapons of mass destruction.
The current dangers have been documented and described in
the past year with great clarity by the Rumsfeld and the Cox
Commissions. The Rumsfeld Commission, which had unprecedented--
and I quote now--``unprecedented access to the most sensitive
and highly classified information,'' concluded that, ``The
threat to the United States posed by these emerging
capabilities is broader, more mature, and evolving more rapidly
than has been reported and that several countries, including
Iraq, will be able to inflict major damage on the United States
within about 5 years,'' and that was written in 1998, that is,
they started counting in 1998.
The Cox Commission describes the shocking success of China
in buying and stealing the most advanced U.S. thermonuclear
missile and space technology, which was quickly made available
to other governments, enabling China to ``pose a direct threat
to the United States, our friends and allies, or our forces.''
We know from the work of the Rumsfeld and the Cox
Commissions that at least two countries which already have
nuclear weapons, North Korea and China, have recently engaged
in intensive successful efforts to upgrade the weapons and the
missiles which carry them.
It is disturbing to me, Mr. Chairman, that President
Clinton has not been mobilized to make the defense of the
American people against these proliferating threats a top
priority. Instead, confronted with these dangers, President
Clinton and his administration have placed one obstacle after
another in the path of the development of an effective missile
defense. They have imposed disabling requirements and
unnecessary delays on the development and deployment of
effective national and theater missile defenses.
The President has urged that we give priority to preserving
an extended, outmoded ABM Treaty interpreted to be maximally
constraining on us. Now he urges on us the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty, which would commit the U.S. Government to carrying
out no nuclear tests--ever.
The United States has already lived through the longest
ever moratorium on tests. Now, with the CTBT, he proposes to
extend that moratorium forever. There are several reasons why
it would be imprudent for the United States to make this
commitment never to conduct another explosive nuclear test. I
will summarize briefly those which seem to me most compelling.
First is the fact that our Government takes its commitments
seriously. If we were to sign this treaty, we would feel bound
by its terms. We would not feel free to violate it, as many
governments will. We would not conduct explosive tests if we
signed this treaty.
Second, as everyone knows, the treaty cannot be verified.
The CIA has recently publicly acknowledged that it cannot
detect low-yield tests. It bothers me that we will not know
when and if they are cheating, and some will surely cheat us.
Third, I learned from my service on the Blue Ribbon and
FARR committees, Mr. Chairman, that the safety and reliability
of our nuclear stockpiles cannot be taken for granted, but must
be monitored. Testing is a vital part of ascertaining and
maintaining the reliability and safety of our nuclear weapons.
It is also a necessary step in modernizing our nuclear weapons.
Testing is vital to maintaining the reliability and
credibility of our nuclear deterrent and our confidence in it.
The authors of this treaty understand how important testing is
to maintaining the viability of nuclear weapons. The preamble
to the treaty, which I think everyone should read, states, and
I quote, ``Recognizing that the cessation of all nuclear weapon
test explosions and all other nuclear explosions by
constraining the development and qualitative improvement of
nuclear weapons and ending the development of advanced new
types of nuclear weapons constitutes an effective measure of
nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation in all its aspects.''
That is pretty clear, and a second item in the preamble
asserts, and I quote, ``Further recognizing that an end to all
such nuclear explosions will thus constitute a meaningful step
in the realization of a systematic process to achieve nuclear
disarmament.'' That preamble makes interesting reading, and I
recommend to the Senators who will vote on this treaty that
they should read the treaty and they should read the
expectations of its authors.
The fourth reason that I oppose the ratification of the
treaty, is that our deterrent--that nuclear deterrent which
will be so weakened by the ratification of the CTBT--is more
important to the security of Americans today, with rogue States
developing the capacity to attack our cities and our
populations, than it ever has been, because Americans and their
allies are more vulnerable today than we ever have been.
Mr. Chairman, the threat to Americans, its cities and
populations, is here and now. It has expanded dramatically, not
only because of systematic Chinese theft of America's most
important military secrets, and because of the inadequate
policies governing the safekeeping and transfer of technology
of this administration, but also because several countries who
are signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT]
have violated their commitments under the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
They signed the nonproliferation treaty, served in IAEA
governing boards, and violated their commitments. They made a
commitment in signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and
I quote now, they have already made a commitment quote, ``not
to transfer or in any way assist, encourage, or induce any
nonnuclear weapons State to acquire nuclear weapons,'' close
quote, and also, ``not to receive the transfer of nuclear
weapons or other explosive devices, not to manufacture or
otherwise acquire, not to receive assistance in the manufacture
of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.''
The system resembles an honor system at a university. You
promise neither to cheat nor to assist anyone else in cheating,
and to report anyone who does that comes to your attention.
China is not a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty. Russia is, so are Iran, Iraq, and Libya. These are all
States that have been seeking and alas, acquiring, nuclear
capacities. India, North Korea and Pakistan are not
signatories, but Iran, Iraq, and Libya are. China is not,
Russia is. All are engaged in proliferation--either by offering
nuclear technology and weapons, or by seeking it and accepting
it.
Obviously, whether or not a government has signed the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has little impact on their
behavior with regard to proliferation. Some who signed it,
violate it. Some who have not signed it are also engaged in the
same activities.
That is, I think, the critical point concerning what I
think of as the arms control approach to national security. You
just cannot count on it. We cannot rely on this treaty to
prevent countries that are actually or potentially hostile to
us from acquiring and testing and sharing nuclear arsenals and
ballistic missiles. The evidence is clear. I think it is clear,
anyway.
Why, then, does President Clinton, whose decisions have
diminished, delayed, and denied us development and deployment
of effective missile defenses, now urge on us a treaty which
would endanger the reliability of the nuclear deterrent, which
is our only defense, against a nuclear attack.
Mr. Chairman, the President and some of the supporters of
the treaties argue that the action of the Senate in ratifying
or rejecting this treaty will determine whether the world ends
nuclear tests and proliferation forever, and I have heard
several Senators say that in the last 48 hours, and you
probably have, too. But that is not true, Mr. Chairman.
China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, just to name those
countries at random almost, do not follow our lead. They are
not waiting urgently to see what we are going to do so that
they can do likewise. I wish they were. The world would be
safer if they did.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to call the committee's
attention to the governance of the organization which will
administer this treaty. This I might say is of particular
concern to me. I note that all State parties are members, will
be members of the organization, not simply nuclear powers, but
all, basically all those countries which signed the treaty,
which is about 194--I think that is the right figure. That is
approximately right--will be members. No State party can be
excluded--under the organizing rules.
This organization will operate as the United Nations
General Assembly does on the basis of one country, one vote,
with an executive council which is based on geographical
representation. Now, think about this. On that executive
council, which will be the most important central governing
body, Africa is allotted 10 seats. I do not think there is yet
a nuclear power in Africa. I hope there is not.
But they are allotted 10 seats, Eastern Europe, where there
have been two or three nuclear powers, are allotted 7 seats.
Latin America is allotted 9, the Middle East and South Asia, 7
each, Western Europe and North America, 10, Asia, 8.
I would like to note that no one is guaranteed a seat on
this executive council. The United States has the same chance
of being chosen to sit on the executive council as, shall we
say, Jamaica.
Not only will this organization make policies for this
vitally important issue about whose importance we have heard a
great deal in the last few days, but the countries making
policy will not necessarily be world powers, as powers with
nuclear weapons, or with any experience with nuclear weapons.
They will simply be member States who have signed on the CTBT.
Not only that, there will be a technical support group, but
that technical support group will be chosen by the same
executive council which I have just described, which is chosen
by people the overwhelming majority of whom do not themselves
have any experience or competence with nuclear questions, much
less nuclear weapons.
``Each State party shall have the right to participate in
the international exchange of data, and to have access to all
data made available to the International Data Center.'' This is
a very interesting provision, and it parallels a provision in
the resolutions establishing the International Atomic Energy
Agency.
The International Atomic Energy Agency was itself,
conceived and founded for the purpose of preventing
proliferation of nuclear weapons, and it has been, through the
years, staffed by a good many men of great professional skill
and of genuine expertise and dedication, but not only has the
IAEA not been able to stop proliferation, it has more than once
served itself as a source of proliferation. This is the irony
of the harm that good men do, and the harm that good
organizations conceived with the best of intentions do.
The IAEA has more than once served as a source of
proliferation, as member States take from it technical
information and reactors ``for peaceful uses,'' it is always
said. The fact is, we know that several rogue States have
managed to take from the IAEA and their membership on the IAEA,
under the rules of the IAEA, the reactors and the technology
with which they have launched their own projects for creating
atoms not for peace, but for weapons.
I believe that the CTBT organization will also serve as a
source of technical expertise--in much the same way that the
IAEA has served as a source of technical expertise, and that
those who today claim the treaty will end nuclear testing once
and for all will be greatly shocked, but it should not surprise
the rest of us.
I just might remind you, Mr. Chairman, that at the time
that Iraq was sitting on the governing board of the IAEA--at
the very same time that it was engaged in massive efforts to
build its own nuclear capacity and to make war on all of its
neighbors.
Mr. Chairman, President Clinton and his administration are
once again urging Americans to take what amounts to a long step
toward unilateral nuclear disarmament at a time of
unprecedented vulnerability for the United States. I believe it
is enormously important that the Senate reject this treaty.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Kirkpatrick follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeane K. Kirkpatrick
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to testify before this
distinguished Committee on this vitally important subject.
I accepted your invitation, Mr. Chairman, because I believe it is
essential that this nation's defenses be adequate to cope with the
growing dangers we face from hostile powers possessing weapons of mass
destruction and effective means of delivery.
Mr. Chairman, I encountered this subject and became concerned about
this issue, as a consequence of having served on President Reagan's
``Blue Ribbon Presidential Task Force on Nuclear Products'' in 1985; on
the ``President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB)'' from
1985 to 1990; on the Defense Policy Review Board from 1985 to 1992.
Then, after being appointed by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in
1991-1992, I chaired the ``Fail Safe and Risk Reduction'' Committee
(generally referred to by its acronym as the FARR Committee) charged
with reviewing the United States Nuclear Command and Control System.
This experience made a strong impression on me concerning the
dangers of proliferating nuclear and missile technology. As everyone
who is interested in these matters now knows, the number of countries
capable of producing and delivering nuclear weapons and other weapons
of mass destruction, has increased and is increasing as we speak, and
includes several of the world's most aggressive, repressive,
destructive countries--North Korea, Iran, Iraq--as well as a Russia
less stable than we would prefer and a China less benign.
We know, moreover, that other regimes with little regard for the
rule of law or human rights work to acquire weapons of mass
destruction, and that against these weapons the United States can rely
only on its nuclear deterrent. We have no other defense.
The current dangers have been documented and described in the past
year by the Rumsfeld and Cox Commissions. The Rumsfeld Commission,
which had ``unprecedented access to the most sensitive and highly
classified information'' concluded:
That, ``the threat to the United States posed by these
emerging capabilities is broader, more mature, and evolving
more rapidly than has been reported.''
That, ``several countries, including Iraq, will be able to
inflict major damage on the United States within about five
years.''
The Cox Commission describes the shocking success of China in
buying and stealing the most advanced U.S. thermonuclear missile and
space technology (which they quickly made available to other
governments) enabling China to: ``Pose a direct threat to the United
States, our friends, and allies or our forces.''
We know from the work of the Rumsfeld Commission and the Cox
Commission that at least two countries which already have nuclear
weapons--North Korea and China--have recently been engaged in
intensive, successful efforts to upgrade the weapons, and the missiles
which carry them.
It is disturbing to me, Mr. Chairman, that President Clinton has
not been mobilized to make the defense of the American people against
these proliferating threats a top priority.
Instead, confronted with these dangers, President Clinton and his
Administration have placed one obstacle after another in the path of
development of an effective missile defense. They have imposed
disabling requirements and unnecessary delays on the development and
deployment of effective national and theater missile defenses.
The President has urged that we give priority to preserving an
extended, outmoded ABM Treaty interpreted to be maximally constraining.
Now, he urges on us the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which would
commit the U.S. government to carrying out no nuclear tests--ever.
The United States has already lived through the longest-ever
moratorium on nuclear tests. Now with the CTBT he proposes to extend
the moratorium forever.
There are several reasons that it would be imprudent for the United
States to make this commitment never to conduct another explosive
nuclear test. I will summarize briefly those which seem to me most
compelling.
First is the fact that our government takes its commitments
seriously. If we were to sign this treaty, we would feel bound by its
terms. We would not feel free to violate it at will as many governments
will. We would not conduct explosive tests.
Second, as everyone knows, this treaty cannot be verified. The CIA
has recently publicly acknowledged that it cannot detect low-yield
tests. It bothers me that we will not know when they are cheating and
some will cheat.
Third, I learned from my service on the Blue Ribbon and FARR
Committees that the safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpiles
cannot be taken for granted, but must be monitored. Testing (banned
forever by this proposed treaty) is a vital part of ascertaining and
maintaining the reliability and safety of our nuclear weapons. It is
also a necessary step in modernizing our nuclear weapons.
Testing is vital to maintaining the reliability and credibility of
our nuclear deterrent.
The authors of this treaty understand how important testing is to
maintaining the viability of nuclear weapons. The Preamble to the
Treaty states, and I quote:
Recognizing that the cessation of all nuclear weapon test
explosions and all other nuclear explosions, by constraining
the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons
and ending the development of advanced new types of nuclear
weapons, constitutes an effective measure of nuclear
disarmament and nonproliferation in all its aspects,
Further recognizing that an end to all such nuclear
explosions will thus constitute a meaningful step in the
realization of a systematic process to achieve nuclear
disarmament.
Fourth, that deterrent has never been as important to the security
of Americans as it is today with rogue states developing the capacity
to attack our cities and our population. Americans and their allies are
more vulnerable than we have ever been.
Mr. Chairman, the threat to Americans, its cities, and populations,
is here and now. It has expanded dramatically, not only because of
systematic Chinese theft of America's most important military secrets
and because of the inadequate U.S. policies governing the safekeeping
and transfer of technology, but also because several countries who are
signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty have violated their
commitments under the Treaty. Specifically, they have violated
commitments:
``not to transfer . . . or in any way assist, encourage, or
induce any non-nuclear weapon State to acquire nuclear weapons
. . .''[Article I]
``not to receive the transfer . . . of nuclear weapons or
other nuclear explosive devices . . ., not to manufacture or
otherwise acquire . . . not to receive assistance in the
manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices . . .''[Article II]
China is not a signatory of the NPT. Russia is. So are Iran, Iraq
and Libya. North Korea, India, and Pakistan are not signatories.
Obviously, whether or not a government has signed the NPT has little
impact on their behavior with regard to proliferation.
That is the critical point concerning the arms control approach to
national security. We cannot rely on this treaty to prevent the
countries that are actually or potentially hostile to us from acquiring
and testing nuclear arsenals and ballistic missiles. The evidence is
clear.
Why then does President Clinton, whose decisions have diminished,
delayed, and denied us development and deployment of effective missile
defenses, now urge on us a treaty which would endanger the reliability
of the nuclear deterrent--which is our only ``defense'' against a
nuclear attack?
Mr. Chairman, the President and some other supporters of the
Treaties argue that the action of the Senate in ratifying or rejecting
the treaty will determine whether we end nuclear tests and
proliferation forever. But that is not true. China, North Korea, Iraq,
Iran do not follow our lead.
Finally, I should like to call the Committee's attention to the
governance of the organization which will administer it. I note: ``All
State Parties are members. No State Party can be excluded.'' It will
operate on the principle of one state, one vote, with an executive
council that based on geographical representation, comprising, Africa
is allotted ten seats; Eastern Europe seven, Latin America nine, the
Middle East and South Asia seven; Western Europe and North America ten;
Asia eight.
``Each State Party shall have the right to participate in the
international exchange of data and to have access to all data
made available to the International Data Centre.''
Mr. Chairman, the International Atomic Energy Agency, conceived to
prevent proliferation, and staffed with a good many first class
professionals has not only been unable to stop proliferation, it has
more than once served as a source of proliferation as member states
take from it technical information and reactors--for peaceful uses it
is always said.
The CTBT organization will also serve as a source of technical
expertise. Those who today claim the Treaty will end nuclear testing
once and for all will be greatly shocked. But it should not be a
surprise to the rest of us.
Mr. Chairman, President Clinton and his Administration are once
again urging Americans to take what amounts to a long step toward
unilateral nuclear disarmament--at a time of unprecedented
vulnerability. It is enormously important that the Senate reject this
Treaty.
The Chairman. A very fine statement, Ambassador
Kirkpatrick. I appreciate your coming so much.
Mr. Secretary Weinberger, we are delighted to have you here
this morning.
STATEMENT OF HON. CASPAR W. WEINBERGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE
Mr. Weinberger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. It is always a privilege for me to testify before a
committee of such distinction. I am honored to be here. I have
a very short statement, and would be glad to try to take any
questions after that.
Mr. Chairman, the essence of this question seems to me to
come down to, if we need nuclear weapons, we have to know that
they work. That is the essence of their deterrence. If there is
uncertainty about that, the deterrent capability is weakened.
The only assurance that you have that they will work is to
test them, and the only way to test them is the most effective
way to test them, and all of the discussion in other
committees, and a great deal of the discussion in the public,
has been an attempt to show that the stockpile stewardship
program will be an effective way of testing them all, although
everyone agrees that it is not as effective as testing them in
the way that we have done in the past with underground
explosions, with all the precautions to prevent any of the
escape of the material into the atmosphere.
You will have all kinds of statements made that the
stewardship stockpile program will be tested by a computer
model. We have had some less than reassuring statements that
the computers that can do this best will be available in 2005,
or 2008, which is a tacit admission that in the meantime the
stockpile stewardship program as it is presently constituted is
not an effective way of testing, and the only way to be sure
that these weapons will work, and will be able to do their
unique task, is test them, and test them in the most effective
way possible.
The only way to test them is to do it by the means that we
have used before that we have now eschewed for the time being,
so basically the question comes down, as Ms. Kirkpatrick said,
whether we are going to abstain from testing in perpetuity.
All of this discussion is about lesser means of testing,
and it is not a question of stopping testing. The treaty does
not purport to do that, and even when it purports to do that,
as Ms. Kirkpatrick points out, and I agree fully with her, we
are not going to be able to rely on many of the rogue countries
that will do whatever is necessary to acquire this capability.
Nothing will encourage proliferation more than to tell
these countries that the big stockpiles in the United States
have not been tested, or that stockpiles of other countries
have not been tested effectively, and if they think that is the
case, they will be encouraged to believe that the deterrent is
not as effective as it should be, and that they will be
encouraged to try to acquire the kinds of weapons which,
through the testing that they can do, whether they promise to
or not, will make them effective.
There is an extraordinarily naive editorial, which I have
to call your attention to, in the New York Times. It says, the
treaty's main effect would be to halt programs in other
countries. It adds, that since no new nuclear weapons can be
reliably developed without testing, ratification of the treaty
by enough countries would freeze the nuclear weapons race
worldwide. That to my mind is a degree of naivete that is
extremely dangerous and is also, incidentally, not very true.
You have countries that have tested. You have two countries
in the last year that have tested and demonstrated that they
had nuclear capability in India and Pakistan. We have a number
of weapons in our stockpile that have essentially been rebuilt,
essentially been inspected from time to time, and deterioration
has been found.
As is inevitable, the aging process affects weapons also,
Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, and when a new component is put in
to replace an old component, you do not know if it is going to
work. You do not know if they are going to mesh together.
There is something--I do not know how many, but close to, I
think it is safe to say, thousands of moving parts in these
terrible weapons, and you have no way of knowing that all of
these things are going to mesh by consulting a computer,
particularly not if you have to wait till 2008 to get the kind
of computer that will be reasonably reliable. So the question
really comes down to is the kind of testing that is being done.
Other countries will test, other countries may be sure, or
they may not be sure that theirs will work. If they are sure we
have not received the absolute assurance that ours will work,
we will not have any idea of being able to stop the
proliferation of those countries trying. Any uncertainty about
the effectiveness of our deterrent weakens that deterrent.
The whole point of a deterrent is the ability to be able to
let hostile nations know, and let the world know that should an
attack come, we have the capability of responding. Not a
pleasant concept, not a good idea, but we do not make the world
in which we live. We have to rely on the kinds of weapons we
have to keep the peace.
And so I think the important thing to bear in mind here,
Mr. Chairman, is really what the treaty means, and in the
essence, the treaty means we would be committing ourselves in
perpetuity, forever, not to use the most effective means of
being able to assure us and the world that our stockpile works,
and for that reason I would very much oppose the treaty, and I
would hope the Senate would, too.
Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you, sir. Mr. Ambassador, we would be
glad to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN J. LEDOGAR, FORMER CHIEF NEGOTIATOR
OF THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY
Ambassador Ledogar. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of
the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you
about the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which is before the
committee for consideration.
First, a few things about my background, which I would
mention only because I think they are relevant to what I'll say
about the treaty. After 4 years as an active duty Naval aviator
and 5 years in private industry as a lawyer, I joined the
Foreign Service and served for 38 years before retiring 2 years
ago.
Most of my career I worked in political-military affairs
and arms control, including stints as deputy chief of mission
to NATO, press spokesman and member of the delegation to the
Vietnam Paris peace talks.
And I'd like to point out that I'm a strong believer in
nuclear deterrence and I know how central nuclear deterrence is
to NATO. During my last 10 years of full time service, I was
privileged to be an ambassador under Presidents Reagan, Bush
and Clinton, serving in turn as head of several U.S.
delegations in Vienna and Geneva. I was chief U.S. negotiator
from start to finish of the CTBT. Currently, I'm a part-time
consultant to the Department of State on national security
matters.
As I understand your invitation, Mr. Chairman, I'm not here
to give this committee the authoritative administration pitch
on CTBT. Secretary Albright and others will do that. Rather,
I'm here primarily as a resource to help recall and detail key
elements of the treaty as they were fought out in the
negotiating trenches between 1993 and signature in September
1996.
I should say, however, that not surprisingly, I fully
support the treaty, believing that it is very much in the
security interests of the United States. It was carefully
negotiated by me and my multi-agency delegation throughout,
always acting on fully cleared front channel instructions. And
I'm prepared to try to explain and defend all of it's key
provisions and, if my memory serves, to try to give you any
background you might be interested in having.
In the short time I have in this opening statement, I'll
limit my discussion to just three issues that I believe are
sources of some confusion. Over the course of the last few
days, I have heard opinions expressed on the question of the
CTBT's scope, it's verification provisions, and it's entry into
force provisions. Some of the debate suggests to me that
aspects of the negotiations have not yet been fully understood.
I hope that I may help to shed some light on these issues.
Last, I would like to address the likely international
repercussions should the Senate fail to give its consent to
ratification.
First of all on the scope. Let me address that issue as it
develops in the negotiation. As the name suggests, the treaty
imposes a comprehensive ban on all nuclear explosions, of any
size, in any place. I have heard some critics of the treaty
seek to cast doubt on whether Russia, in the negotiating and
signing of the treaty, committed itself under treaty law to a
truly comprehensive prohibition of any nuclear explosion,
including an explosion or experiment or event of even the
slightest nuclear yield. In other words, did Russia agree that
hydronuclear experiments which do produce a nuclear yield,
although usually very, very slight, would be banned and that
hydrodynamic explosions, which have no yield because they do
not reach criticality, would not be banned.
The answer is a categoric ``yes.'' The Russians as well as
the rest of the P-5 did commit themselves. That answer is
substantiated by the record of the negotiations at almost any
level of technicality and national security classification that
is desired and permitted. More importantly, for the current
debate, it is also substantiated by the public record of
statements by high level Russian officials as their position on
the question of thresholds evolved and fell into line with the
consensus that emerged.
It is important to recall that each of the five nuclear
weapons states began the CTBT negotiations desirous of a quiet
understanding among themselves that some low level of nuclear
explosions or experiments that did produce nuclear yield would
be acceptable, at least among themselves, despite the broad
treaty prohibition of ``any nuclear weapon test explosion or
any other nuclear explosion.'' Until August 1995, the beginning
of the final year of negotiations, the U.S. pushed for
agreement on a very low threshold of nuclear yield.
Our position was not popular among the P-5. Because of our
greater test experience and technical capabilities, we could
conceivably gain useful data from events of almost
insignificant yield. The other four argued that they needed a
higher threshold in order to gain any useful data. In some
cases, the thresholds they pushed for were politically
impossible to square with the notion of a comprehensive test
ban. Russia, for example, insisted that if there was going to
be any threshold among the five, it would have to allow for so-
called experiments with nuclear yields of up to 10 tons of TNT
equivalent.
The dispute among the five threatened to halt the
negotiations, as it became increasingly known to others that
the five were squabbling with each other about how much wiggle
room would be left to them when they signed onto a text that
said simply that nuclear explosions would be banned.
And as the arcane and jargon filled complexities of the
nuclear testing communities in Novaya Zemyla, Lop Nor, Mururoa
and Nevada became more widely understood, the non-nuclear
states and broad public opinion increasingly insisted that the
five should be allowed no tolerance, not even for the smallest
possible nuclear yields. A ban should be a ban. The answer to
this dilemma should be no threshold for anybody. In other
words, zero should mean zero.
On August 11, 1995 President Clinton announced that the
United States was revising its prior position on the threshold
question and would henceforth argue to the other four nuclear
weapons states that no tests that produced a nuclear yield
should be allowed to anyone under the treaty. The Russians, who
were miffed at being taken by surprise, climbed down from their
original positions slowly and painfully. It took until April
1996 before they signed onto the sweeping categoric prohibition
that is found in the final text. They never did like the word
``zero'' which was bandied about in public and actually once
used by Boris Yeltsin.
Instead, they announced that they embraced a treaty with no
thresholds whatsoever. In the confidential negotiations among
the five nuclear weapons states that went on the entire time
the broader CTBT negotiations continued, it was clearly
understood that the boundary line, that is, the zero line,
between what would be prohibited to all under the treaty and
what would not be prohibited, would be precisely defined by the
question of nuclear yield or criticality. If what you did
produced any nuclear yield whatsoever, it would not be allowed.
If it didn't, it was allowed.
Another issue I would like to address is how the treaty's
verification regime developed and how it benefits the United
States. I will leave it to others more expert than I to provide
more precise assessments of U.S. monitoring capabilities. The
point I would like to stress here is that the U.S. succeeded in
the negotiations in getting virtually every thing the
intelligence community and other parts of the government wanted
from the treaty, wanted and were prepared to pay for, to
strengthen our ability to detect and deter cheating and to seek
appropriate redress if cheating did occur.
At the same time, we succeeded in getting virtually
everything the Defense Department and others wanted to insure
the protection of sensitive national security information. Let
me give you several examples.
Concerning the use of national technical means, the United
States fought like mad to win acceptance of a state's rights to
use evidence acquired through national technical means as it
saw fit when requesting an onsite inspection. But we did not
want to be forced to reveal any information we believed would
be better kept private. Now, this was a ``red line'' issue for
the United States. Many of our negotiating partners were
adamantly opposed to giving the U.S. what they considered was a
clear advantage and a license to spy.
Yes, it is true that the U.S. has satellite surveillance
and intercept capabilities that surpass anything others have,
but is it logical to penalize and ignore the evidence of the
tall person with good eyesight who can see the crime committed
across the room? Eventually the U.S. position prevailed and is
incorporated in the treaty.
This treaty provides for onsite inspections on request by
any treaty party with the approval of the executive council. No
state can refuse an inspection. The U.S. position from the
start was that onsite inspections were critical to provide us
with added confidence that we could detect violations. And, if
inspections were to be effective, they had to be conducted
absolutely as quickly as possible after a suspicion arose,
using a range of techniques with as few restrictions as
possible.
However, the U.S. also had to be concerned with its
defensive posture as well as an offensive one. It was necessary
to insure that sensitive national security information would be
protected in the event of an inspection on U.S. territory. The
U.S. crafted a complicated, highly detailed proposal that
balanced our offensive and defensive needs. There was
resistance from some of our negotiating partners. However, by
the time we were through, the treaty read pretty much like the
original U.S. position paper that had been put together jointly
by the Departments of Defense, Energy and State, the
intelligence community and the then existing Arms Control
Agency.
I would like to touch on the composition of the
International Monitoring System, four networks of different
types of remote sensors encompassing 321 stations. I believe I
have heard questions about its value added. The intelligence
community, working through the larger interagency community,
had a list of requirements. They wanted certain technologies
and they wanted certain stations that would fill gaps and
complement existing national monitoring capabilities.
The U.S. delegation delivered nearly everything requested.
You have only to look at the coverage that would be established
if the treaty enters into force, the coverage in Russia, China
and the Middle East, to see the augmentation of U.S.
capabilities and the range of technologies to appreciate the
potential value added of an International Monitoring System.
Some people have criticized the treaty because it does not
provide for sanctions against the state, it has violated it.
This criticism strikes me as ill-informed. Consistent with
traditional U.S. policy, I was under strict instructions to
object to the inclusion of sanctions. The U.S. view, which I
believe this committee strongly endorses, is that we will not
agree to appoint an international organization to be not just
the investigator and special prosecutor, but also the judge,
jury and jailer. The U.S. reserves for itself the authority to
make judgments about compliance. And, we reserve for a body
higher than the one established by this treaty, namely, the
United Nations Security Council, in which we have a veto, the
authority to levy sanctions or other measures. This is U.S.
policy and this policy is reflected in the treaty.
Now a word on the treaty's entry into force requirements.
These have been the topic of much discussion and have even been
offered as a reason for why the U.S. should postpone its
ratification. As you know, the treaty does not enter into force
until 44 named states have deposited their instruments of
ratification. The named states are those that have nuclear
research or power reactors and were at the same time members of
the Conference on Disarmament.
It is true that this requirement erects a high barrier. It
also, in my opinion, reflects a core reality from which there
is no escape. The treaty would not work without the
participation of all five nuclear weapons states and the three
so-called threshold states, India, Pakistan and Israel, who are
not yet bound by the nonproliferation treaty.
The U.S. would not foreswear all future testing if China
and Russia were not similarly bound, and vice versa. China ties
its adherence to India, India to Pakistan, and so forth. It's
an interlocking reality--a political reality among the eight.
Israeli adherence is demanded by all. In my opinion, it did not
much matter what exact formulation was used. The reality was
that all eight were required.
It does not follow that the U.S. can afford to wait until
the other 43 have ratified the treaty. I have always believed
that if you want something, you must get out in front. That is
the American way. We must lead, not follow meekly behind. It is
our burden and our advantage that other states will follow our
lead. The day the United States submitted its ratification of
the Chemical Weapons Convention, China and four other countries
followed, the same day. Cuba, Iran, Pakistan and Russia
followed shortly thereafter.
What if the U.S. chooses not to ratify this treaty? I
believe my experience in the CTBT negotiations and many years
of representing the United States in multilateral diplomacy
render me competent to speculate on the international reaction
to such a possibility. I am not given to hyperbole, but I
believe it is not an exaggeration to say that there will be
jubilation among our foes and despair among our allies and
friends.
Iran, Iraq, North Korea and other states that harbor
nuclear aspirations surely will feel the constraints loosening.
Our allies and other friends will feel deserted and betrayed.
The global nuclear nonproliferation regime will be endangered.
Some isolationists may not believe this regime is worth
protecting and that the U.S. can take care of the problem
itself. But we need cooperation in my judgment from states like
Russia and our European allies, if only to help control exports
if we are to prevent states from acquiring nuclear weapons.
France, for example, which has already ratified the CTBT, will
be even less responsive to U.S. pleas to contain Iraq and Iran
if the U.S. walks away from this treaty, whose successful
negotiation the United States led.
I am not an expert on South Asian policy, but I believe
that if the U.S. fails to ratify the CTBT, we should brace
ourselves for more Indian tests. Pakistan, of course, would
match India test for test.
The Chairman. Mr. Ambassador, would you forgive me please?
We have a vote on and I suggest that Senators go cast their
votes and I will stay here, then it may save time.
Senator Boxer. Mr. Chairman, I just wondered, when we come
back, we will have an opportunity to question, is that correct?
The Chairman. Sure.
Ambassador Ledogar. I only have about two more sentences.
China will not ratify the test ban if the U.S. does not. We
can expect China to put itself in a position to resume testing,
especially if India tests, and the chain reaction may not end
there. Japan could face pressure to reconsider its nuclear
abstinence if China and India buildup their nuclear forces. And
Russia, of course, remains a wild card.
I trust you will have questions and I am prepared to
respond.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Ledogar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Stephen J. Ledogar
Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for
this opportunity to speak to you about the Comprehensive Nuclear Test
Ban Treaty, which is before your committee for consideration.
First, a few things about my background which I mention only
because I think they are relevant to what I will say about the Treaty.
After four years of active duty as a Naval Aviator and five years in
Private Industry as a lawyer, I joined the Foreign Service and served
for 38 years before retiring two years ago. Most of my career, I worked
in Political-Military Affairs and Arms Control including stints as
Deputy Chief of Mission to NATO, and press spokesman and member of the
delegation to the Vietnam Peace Talks in Paris. I am a strong believer
in nuclear deterrence and I know how central it is to NATO. During my
last ten years of full time service, I was privileged to be an
Ambassador under Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, serving in turn
as head of several U.S. delegations in Vienna and Geneva. I was chief
U.S. negotiator from start to finish of the CTBT. Currently, I'm a
part-time consultant to the Department of State on national security
matters.
As I understand your invitation, Mr. Chairman, I'm not here to give
this committee the authoritative administration pitch on the CTBT.
Secretary Albright and others will do that. Rather, I'm here primarily
as a resource to help recall and detail key elements of the Treaty as
they were fought out in the negotiating trenches between 1993 and
signature in September 1996. I should say, however, that, not
surprisingly, I fully support the Treaty believing that it is very much
in the security interests of the United States. It was carefully
negotiated by me and my multiagency delegation throughout, always
acting on fully cleared front channel instructions. I'm prepared to try
to explain and defend all its key provisions, and if memory serves to
try to give you any background you might be interested in having.
In the short time I have in this opening statement, I will limit my
discussion to just three issues that I believe are sources of some
confusion. Over the course of the last few days, I have heard opinions
expressed on the question of the CTBT's scope, its verification
provisions, and its entry into force provisions. Some of the debate
suggests to me that aspects of the negotiations have not yet been fully
understood. I hope that I may help to shed some light on these issues.
Lastly, I would like to address the likely international repercussions
should the Senate fail to give its consent to ratification.
scope of the ctbt
First, let me address the scope of the CTBT. As the name suggests,
the Treaty imposes a comprehensive ban on all nuclear explosions, of
any size, in any place.
I have heard some critics of the Treaty seek to cast doubt on
whether Russia, in the negotiation and signing of the Treaty, committed
itself under treaty law to a truly comprehensive prohibition of any
nuclear explosion, including an explosion/experiment/event of even the
slightest nuclear yield. In other words, did Russia agree that
hydronuclear experiments (which do produce a nuclear yield, although
very, very slight) would be banned, and that hydrodynamic explosions
(which have no yield because they do not reach criticality) would not
be banned?
The answer is a categoric ``yes.'' The Russians, as well as the
other weapon states, did commit themselves. That answer is
substantiated by the record of the negotiations at almost any level of
technicality (and national security classification) that is desired and
permitted. More importantly for the current debate, it is also
substantiated by the public record of statements by high level Russian
officials as their position on the question of thresholds evolved and
fell into line with the consensus that emerged.
It is important to recall that each of the five nuclear weapon
states began the CTBT negotiations desirous of a quiet understanding
among themselves that some low level nuclear explosions/experiments
that did produce nuclear yield would be acceptable at least among
themselves despite the broad treaty prohibition of ``any nuclear weapon
test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.'' Until August of 1995,
the beginning of the final year of negotiations, the U.S. pushed for
agreement on a very low threshold of nuclear yield. Our position was
not popular among the P-5. Because of our greater test experience and
technical capabilities, we could conceivably gain useful data from
events of almost insignificant yield. The other four argued that they
needed a higher threshold in order to gain any useful data. In some
cases the thresholds they pushed for were politically impossible to
square with the notion of a comprehensive test ban. Russia for example
insisted that if there was going to be any threshold among the five it
would have to allow for so-called experiments with nuclear yields of up
to ten tons of TNT equivalent.
The dispute among the five threatened to halt the negotiations as
it became increasingly known to others that the five were squabbling
with each other about how much wiggle room would be left to them when
they signed onto a text that said simply that nuclear explosions would
be banned. As the arcane and jargon filled complexities of the nuclear
testing communities in Novaya Zemyla, Lop Nor, Mururoa, and Nevada
became more widely understood, the nonnuclear states and broad public
opinion increasingly insisted that the five should be allowed no
tolerance--not even for the smallest possible nuclear yields. A ban
should be a ban. The answer to this dilemma should be no threshold for
anybody; i.e., zero means zero.
On August 11, 1995, President Clinton announced that the United
States was revising its prior position on the threshold question and
would henceforth argue to the other four nuclear weapon states that no
tests that produced a nuclear yield should be allowed to anyone under
the treaty. The Russians, who were miffed at being taken by surprise,
climbed down from their original position slowly and painfully. It took
until April of 1996 before they signed onto the sweeping, categoric
prohibition that is found in the final text. They never did like the
``zero'' word which was bandied around in public (and actually used
once by Boris Yeltsin). Instead, they announced that they embraced a
treaty with no threshold whatsoever. In the confidential negotiations
among the five nuclear weapon states that went on the entire time the
broader CTBT negotiations continued, it was clearly understood and that
the boundary line--the ``zero line'' between what would be prohibited
to all under the treaty and what would not be prohibited--was precisely
defined by the question of nuclear yield or criticality. If what you
did produced any yield whatsoever, it was not allowed. If it didn't, it
was allowed.
ctbt verification regime
Another issue I would like to address is how the Treaty's
verification regime developed and how it benefits the U.S. I will leave
it to others more expert than I to provide precise assessments of U.S.
monitoring capabilities. The point I would like to stress here is that
the U.S. succeeded in the negotiations in getting virtually everything
the intelligence community and other parts of the government wanted
from the Treaty to strengthen our ability to detect and deter cheating
and to seek appropriate redress if cheating did occur. At the same
time, we succeeded in getting virtually everything the Defense
Department and others wanted to ensure the protection of sensitive
national security information. Let me give you several examples.
Concerning the use of National Technical Means, the U.S. fought
like mad to win acceptance of a state's right to use evidence acquired
through NTM, as it saw fit, when requesting an on-site inspection. But
we did not want to be forced to reveal any information we believed
would be better kept private. This was a ``red line'' position for the
U.S. Many of our negotiating partners were adamantly opposed to giving
the U.S. what they considered was a clear advantage and a license to
spy. Yes, it is true that the U.S. has satellite surveillance and
intercept capabilities that surpass others', but is it logical to
penalize and ignore the evidence of the tall person with good eyesight
who can see the crime committed across the room? The U.S. position
prevailed.
This Treaty provides for on-site inspections on request by any
Treaty party and with the approval of the Executive Council. No state
can refuse an inspection. The U.S. position from the start was that on-
site inspections were critical to provide us with added confidence that
we could detect violations. And, if inspections were to be effective,
they had to be conducted absolutely as quickly as possible after a
suspicion arose, using a range of techniques with as few restrictions
as possible. However, the U.S. also had to be concerned with its
defensive posture, as well as an offensive one. It was necessary to
ensure that sensitive national security information would be protected
in the event of an inspection on U.S. territory. The U.S. crafted a
complicated, highly detailed, proposal that balanced our offensive and
defensive needs. There was resistance from some of our negotiating
partners. However, by the time we were through, the Treaty read pretty
much like the original U.S. paper put together jointly by the
Departments of Defense, Energy and State, the Intelligence Community,
and the then-existing Arms Control Agency.
I would like to touch on the composition of the International
Monitoring System--four networks of different types of remote sensors
encompassing 321 stations--because I have heard questions about its
value added. The intelligence community, working through the larger
interagency community, had a list of requirements. They wanted certain
technologies and they wanted certain stations that would fill gaps and
complement existing national monitoring capabilities. The U.S.
delegation delivered nearly everything requested. You have only to look
at the coverage in Russia, China and the Middle East, and the range of
technologies, to appreciate the potential value added of the IMS.
Some people have criticized the Treaty because it does not provide
for sanctions against a state that has violated it. This criticism
strikes me as ill informed. Consistent with traditional U.S. policy, I
was under strict instructions to object to the inclusion of sanctions.
The U.S. view, which I believe this Committee strongly endorses, is
that we will not agree to appoint an international organization to be
not just the investigator and special prosecutor, but also the judge,
jury, and jailer. The U.S. reserves for itself the authority to make
judgements about compliance. And we reserve for a higher body, the
United Nations Security Council in which we have a veto, the authority
to levy sanctions or other measures. This is U.S. policy. This is the
Treaty's policy.
entry into force requirements
The Treaty's entry into force requirements have been the topic of
much discussion and even offered as a reason for why the U.S. should
postpone its ratification. As you know, the Treaty does not enter into
force until 44 named states have deposited their instruments of
ratification. The named states are those that have nuclear research or
reactor reactors and were members of the Conference on Disarmament.
It is true that this requirement erects a high barrier. It also, in
my opinion, reflects a core reality from which there was no escape. The
Treaty would not work without the participation of the five nuclear
weapon states and the three so-called threshold states, India, Pakistan
and Israel, who are not yet bound by the NPT. The U.S. would not
foreswear all future testing if China and Russia were not similarly
bound. China ties its adherence to India. India to Pakistan. And
Israeli adherence was demanded by all. In my opinion, it did not much
matter what the exact formulation was. The reality stood that all eight
were required.
It does not follow that the U.S. can afford to wait until the other
43 have ratified the Treaty. I have always believed that if you want
something, you must get out in front. This is the American way. We must
lead, not follow meekly behind. It is our burden and our advantage that
other states will follow our lead. The day the United States submitted
its ratification to the Chemical Weapons Convention, China and four
other countries followed. Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia followed
shortly thereafter.
What if the United States chooses not to ratify this treaty? I
believe that my experience in the CTBT negotiations and many years of
representing the U.S. in multilateral diplomacy, render me competent to
speculate on the international reaction to such a possibility.
I am not given to hyperbole, but I believe it is not an
exaggeration to say that there will be jubilation among our foes and
despair among our friends. Iran, Iraq, North Korea and other states
that harbor nuclear aspirations surely will feel the constraints
loosening. Our allies and friends will feel deserted and betrayed. The
global nuclear nonproliferation regime will be endangered. Some
isolationists may not believe this regime is worth protecting: that the
U.S. can take care of the problem itself. But we need cooperation from
states like Russia and our European allies in controlling exports if we
are to prevent states from acquiring nuclear weapons. France, for
example, which has already ratified the CTBT, will be even less
inclined to heed U.S. pleas to contain Iraq and Iran if the U.S. walks
away from the Treaty, whose successful negotiations the U.S. led.
I am not an expert in South Asia policy, but I believe that if the
U.S. fails to ratify the CTBT we should brace ourselves for more Indian
tests. Pakistan, of course, would match India test for test. China will
not ratify the test ban if the U.S. does not. We can expect China to
ready itself to resume testing, especially if India tests. And the
chain reaction may not end there. Japan will face pressure to
reconsider its nuclear abstinence if China and India are developing
nuclear forces. And Russia, of course, remains a wild card.
I trust you have questions about the negotiating history or certain
Treaty elements. I would be pleased to provide whatever information I
can.
The Chairman. All right. We are going to hopscotch on this.
The Senator from Minnesota will take his 5 minutes and then I
will go and Chuck Hagel has already gone and will come back. We
have to play a tag game here.
Senator Grams. Thank you very much. I will not be able to
come back, so I am going to stay and keep the hearing going
until some of the others come back so I have the opportunity to
ask some questions and again, I appreciate your being here and
your testimony.
You know the original official negotiating position of the
Clinton administration in Geneva was to have a treaty which,
one, had a definite duration, 10 years; two, permitted low
yield tests, 4 pounds, and was also verifiable. Those were some
of the conditions they set out with.
If the administration had negotiated a treaty along those
lines, I think it would have had a better chance of being
ratified today. Instead, I think we have ended up with a treaty
of unlimited duration, zero yield, which is clearly
unverifiable. So my question is, and I'll start with Ms.
Kirkpatrick, do you think it was wise for the Clinton
administration to move so far from what was our original
position?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. No, Senator Grams, I do not. I
think the original position was a reasonable one, which
provided--first of all, it provided for verification and
verifiability, but it also provided for entering the treaty
regime with the provision that it would not last forever. We
could see how it worked. We could see how other nations behaved
in that regime and if it didn't work in 10 years, it would
self-destruct.
I think that was reasonable and workable, and I think this
one is not. It is too sweeping, it is too universal, it is
binding for too long, and it is unverifiable, as I said in my
testimony.
Senator Grams. Mr. Ledogar, maybe I would ask you to answer
the same question. Where the administration began with and
where we ended up with seems like a huge shift, and I know you
were a part of the negotiating. Maybe you could answer that
question as well.
Ambassador Ledogar. Yes, I would be glad to. I agree with
Ambassador Kirkpatrick that it was a reasonable position. One
problem was that it was totally non-negotiable. We had no
support, not a single country, not our best friends would
support the so-called ``10 year easy-out'' proposal which was
originally put on the table by us. And that attitude sprang
from a number of events, but I would say that the then ongoing
Nonproliferation Review and Extension Conference was very
important in setting up a contrast that was thrown back at the
United States delegation. Critics said that you are asking for
the unlimited extension of the nonproliferation treaty and yet
you will commit yourself only to 10 years' duration of the test
ban. And having charged up that hill many times and taken quite
a few hits, I was among those that asked Washington to
reconsider. It was a tough decision but the interagency finally
decided that they could reconsider, with a set of safeguards,
and resort to the supreme national interest clause, which is
very important to the presentation, including to this
committee, of the whole package before it.
Mr. Weinberger. I think it was a very unwise thing. It is a
part of the whole process that an agreement is far more
important than the content, that all you want is the agreement,
and you'll do anything to get the agreement, and this means
that you have to change a well-considered position because
somebody else won't agree to it.
If we had adopted that philosophy and that practice during
President Reagan's term, we would not have a treaty that bans
all intermediate range nuclear arms today, and longer range
weapons, the intermediate range. That was the--when we went in
with the zero option originally in October, I think it was, of
1981, we were pretty well laughed off the international stage
because we were proposing something that everybody knew the
Soviets would never agree to, so it was clearly just a ploy by
Mr. Reagan and on and on and on and all the editorials poured
out about what a terrible thing it was to do. Seven years
later, they agreed to it, word for word, practically speaking.
We held firm. We felt the content was far more important than
getting an agreement.
And here is exactly the opposite philosophy prevails. If
you want an agreement, you have to do what everybody else
wants, regardless of how the content affects the United States
or doesn't affect the United States. So I think it was a very
unwise thing to do and I think the results are before us.
Senator Grams. It seems I hear the same about the Kyoto
treaty. The agreement was worth more than the contents. Let me
quote what John Holliman--I think you know John Holliman,
senior Clinton arms controller, who criticized this. And some
of the things he had to say, and I quote, ``the United States
views on verification are well known. We would have preferred
stronger measures, especially in the decisionmaking process,
for onsite inspections and in numerous specific provisions
affecting the practical implementation of the inspection
regime.
``I feel no need to defend this view. The mission of the
Conference on Disarmament is not to erect political symbols,
but to negotiate enforceable agreements. That requires
effective verification, not as the preference of any party, but
as the sine qua non of this body's work.
``On verification overall, the treaty tilts toward the
defense in a way that has forced the United States to conclude
reluctantly that it can accept barely the balance that
Ambassador Romaker has crafted.'' And I apologize, I don't have
my glasses on so it is hard for me to see all this.
So there are some concerns there. Also, we have been
discovering defects within our own stockpiles right up until
1992 and I think, Ms. Kirkpatrick, you have mentioned that we
have been under a ban for testing for many, many years now, so
we are already far behind in some of these areas. But finding
defects up until 1992 in the test ban.
So one might wonder why since 1992 not a single warhead has
been relined, in other words, removed from the inventory
because of concerns over performance and safety. Is it because
somehow by magic our stockpile self-perfected in 1992, or is it
that we cannot discover defects without nuclear testing itself.
Ms. Kirkpatrick?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Senator Grams, I think it is
uncertain, at best, how effective the various kinds of
simulations are or will be. The efforts that we make without
testing, without explosive testing, to verify the reliability
and condition of our stockpiles yield uncertain results and I
think we cannot have confidence in them at the level that we
could previously have confidence.
Senator Grams. Again, without being able to verify all the
testing, Mr. Weinberger, can we count on having a reliable
stockpile without testing?
Mr. Weinberger. No, we cannot, and even if we wait until
2007 or 2008 when these new computers come online, as the
Secretary of Defense testified yesterday and today, you will
still not have the kind of reliability that you get from
explosive testing. It is a substitute for it. It is something
less good. And that is what the treaty does, it forces
everybody to use, if they all complied with it, to use
something that is less effective than the most effective method
of testing for reliability so it doesn't ban testing, it
doesn't ban proliferation, it doesn't ban anything except the
most effective means of testing.
Senator Grams. But that is only for some of the most
sophisticated. When you have some less sophisticated nuclear
weapons you wouldn't need this type of testing, would you, so
it still puts us at a disadvantage.
Mr. Weinberger. Well, yes, and it is the old story about an
inaccurate nuclear weapon can still do an enormous amount of
damage and that is why you want to have them tested, to make
sure that they will do the job for which they are intended. It
is a horrible job, but our deterrence, our safety depends on
it.
Senator Grams. Mr. Ledogar, I read an article earlier this
week that Mr. Adamov, who heads up the nuclear programs in
Russia, and when Mr. Weinberger mentioned about the new
computers coming online, the most sophisticated computers, the
report basically stated that somehow the administration had
given him the impression that the United States, if they would
sign this treaty, would provide them with these type of
computers in order for them to do similar type of tests on
computers. Now, these are things, computers we do not want to
sell.
We have had many arguments on the floor of the Senate
about, worried about having this kind of technology stolen from
us at the labs, but yet are we willing to give this information
to the Russians in order for them to do computerized testing
without doing actual testing? Was that part of the plan at all,
or is this report in error?
Ambassador Ledogar. The report is not in error insofar as
it reflects what the Russian general said. It is in error
insofar as it suggests that the United States would even
consider giving those sophisticated computers to the Russians.
Now, I have had that on the authority of very senior officials
at the Department of Energy. I was not on the trip, and I only
have personal knowledge of the news stories.
Senator Grams. So you are saying this administration would
not commit and has not, behind closed doors, indicated to the
Russians that we would share this type of computer information
with them. We have not done that.
Ambassador Ledogar. That is correct. However, Senator, I
must say that I am not technically an administration spokesman.
I am a contractor now.
Senator Grams. Maybe we can ask Madeleine Albright this
afternoon.
Ambassador Ledogar. This afternoon you have the
opportunity. If I may say so, with all due respect, if I
believed, as Secretary Weinberger does, that the stockpile is
already or will quickly in the future become unreliable, I
certainly would not support the treaty, but I believe the
opposite, and I think that the bulk of the evidence--provided
that the science-based stockpile stewardship program continues
to be funded, and that the annual certifications with the
cooperation of the Congress continue to take place--gives the
assurance that, should there be any problem in the future, it
will be discovered, and that if it is discovered, the
appropriate steps will be taken, and it is on that basis that
this administration and the bulk of supporters of ratification
believe that it is safe for us to go forward without explosive
testing.
The amount of other testing that goes on is stupendous, and
very expensive. This afternoon you will have Dr. Garwin, and I
would hope that you could put to a highly qualified nuclear
physicist like him the questions and get the assurances that
are the basis for my beliefs.
Senator Grams. Thank you. We have many experts on both
sides. That is what makes this debate so much harder to
understand. I have to turn the gavel over to Senator Hagel, and
also I would like to ask to place statements by the current
laboratory directors in support of testing into the record, if
I could, at the same time.
[The statements referred to follow:]
Former Laboratory Directors Oppose the CTBT
``I urge you to oppose the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). No
previous Administration, either Democrat or Republican, ever supported
the unverifiable, zero yield, indefinite duration CTBT now before the
Senate. The reason for this is simple. Under a long-duration test ban,
confidence in the nuclear stockpile will erode for a variety of
reasons.''
Roger Batzel, Director Emeritus, response to
a request for views by Chairman Helms, October
5, 1999.
``Without nuclear testing, confidence in the stockpile will
decline. The U.S. capability to develop weapons will be degraded by the
eventual loss of all nuclear test experienced weapons experts who
developed the stockpile.''
``. . . For the U.S., the CTBT would be a `catch-22': without
nuclear testing, there is a growing uncertainty in our estimates of
stockpile reliability; without nuclear testing, experts cannot quantify
this uncertainty.''
John Nuckolls, Director Emeritus, response to
a request for views from Chairman Helms,
September 29, 1999.
``I have seen and studied a copy of your letter you wrote to
President Clinton on January 21. I was impressed by your statements,
and I am happy you made them.''
``. . . The point I must make is that, in the long run, knowledge
and ability to produce nuclear weapons will be widely available. To
believe that, in the long run, proliferation of nuclear weapons is
avoidable is wishful thinking and dangerous. It is the more dangerous
because it is a point of view that the public is eager to accept. Thus
politicians are tempted to gain popularity by supporting false hopes.''
Edward Teller, Director Emeritus, letter to
Chairman Helms, February 4, 1998.
``Of course, if nuclear testing were allowed, we would gain greater
confidence in the new tools. We could validate these tools more
readily, as well as validate some of the new remanufacturing
techniques. One to two tests per year would serve such a function quite
well. Yields of 10 kt would be sufficient in most cases. Yields of 1 kt
would be of substantial help.''
S.S. Hecker, Director of Los Alamos National
Laboratory, response to Senator Kyl, September
24, 1997.
``From a purely technical standpoint, some level of nuclear testing
would be a useful addition to the SSMP to address the effects of aging-
related changes on weapon safety and reliability, and to validate the
capabilities of the next generation of weapon scientists and their
experimental and computational facilities, particularly in addressing
hydrodynamic phenomena related to boosted primaries.''
C. Bruce Tarter, Director of Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, response to
Senator Kyl, September 29, 1997.
``A strong Stockpile Stewardship and Maintenance Program is
necessary to underwrite confidence. A program of 500-ton experiments
would significantly reduce the technical risks.''
Joint statement by Laboratory Directors,
1995.
Senator Hagel. Senator, thank you. Let me add my welcome to
our three highly admired and distinguished witnesses. I would
like to ask each of you a question. Ambassador Kirkpatrick and
Secretary Weinberger, you obviously have laid out a rather
compelling sense of why this treaty should be defeated, and
with that compelling testimony I would ask each of you what,
then, should we do? What is the answer? Rewrite a treaty, start
anew, do not pay attention to it?
You lay out the threats of this new borderless world we
live in rather directly, and in a compelling way. I think what
we need to do now is, as we deal with the immediacy of this
issue, move forward. We must take this out of the political
swamp that it has found itself in and deal with the relevant
issues, and that is, how do we build a better world a safer
world for mankind? I would be most interested in your thoughts,
Madam Ambassador.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Senator Hagel, thank you very much.
Do you mean not simply with regard to nuclear weapons, but a
better world, period?
Senator Hagel. Well, any advice you can proffer, but I
would like you to stay focused on this, because we hear great
debate about how this is a bad treaty and we should defeat it
and drive a stake through its heart, but what, then, should we
do?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I think there is a kind of dynamic
that takes over in negotiations when they are underway, but
whether that dynamic is more helpful or more hurtful varies in
different circumstances. I think that it would be useful,
frankly, to go back to the beginning. I think the negotiating
positions which have been described, the original positions of
this administration, were sound negotiating principles. They
were sounder.
I have spent a good deal of time negotiating in the U.N.
context, in situations where you are seeking agreement of 185
countries, or 195 countries. What happens is that one gives
more and more--if one is not very alert, very determined, and
frankly, ready to end without an agreement, It is absolutely
essential to be aware of this in negotiations on a subject as
important as this.
I think one must be prepared to end such a negotiation with
no agreement--on the CTBT, for example, and I think had the
administration done that, had they entered the negotiation with
that determination, and clarity about their bottom-line
principles--the three principles we heard described, we might
not have gotten the treaty, or we might have gotten a better
one. I do not think it matters much whether there is a CTBT in
which 190 countries have signed on, because most of those
countries are not ever going to be players in the world of
nuclear weapons and nuclear war. Most of those countries really
have no stake in the subject, except the stake of fallout and
the pollution of the globe, that everyone has.
But they constitute a major influence in the negotiations
themselves because all of the countries, or virtually all of
the countries who are member States of the U.N. are also state
partners in the treaty. The structure of the U.N. becomes
important too, and so do the various blocs, the nonaligned
bloc, for example, the G-77 take bloc positions, even though
most of their members have no direct involvement in these
issues of these questions, but they exercise significant
influence in the negotiating process.
Senator Hagel. Are you saying we should go back and
renegotiate?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I would go back and renegotiate. I
would go back and renegotiate on the basis of some different
principles, and one of those principles would be an
understanding with both parties that any treaty which we
brought from the negotiation might not have all the members as
signatories.
What would be essential would be that the nuclear powers be
signatories, and maybe a few others. I am not saying only
nuclear powers should be able to participate, but they should
be the principal participants in any negotiation. All the
countries in the U.N. really do not need to participate in such
negotiations, I think you have a better chance of getting a
better product if you undertake the negotiations on that basis,
and in that spirit.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. Secretary Weinberger.
Mr. Weinberger. Well, sir, if your goal is simply to get an
agreement, then probably you would have to do what we did here,
which was to give up a soundly considered, carefully crafted
position, give it up easily, give every essential element of
it, just so we can get an agreement. This is the syndrome that
bothers me, because the agreement then becomes far more
important than the context, and I think that we did have a
well-considered position we went in with. If we could not get
anybody to agree with it, well then, so be it, we would not get
an agreement, but you would have a lot better than a bad
agreement which prevents us from doing the necessary things we
have to do to give the greatest assurance we possibly can that
this nuclear deterrent works. Your margin for error here, Mr.
Chairman, is extraordinarily small. You are not allowed to be
very wrong about a guess as to whether this works or not, and
that would lead me to conclude that we should have the most
effective means of testing available to us.
We are not preventing other countries from testing. We are
simply preventing ourselves, and if they comply themselves with
having a less effective method of testing, if you really want
to see, I think the most fundamental way to deal with this
problem, then I think what we should do is what we should have
done and what we started to do in 1983, and that is to develop
an effective defense against these weapons. The knowledge that
there is absolutely no defense, and that we remain committed to
a treaty that forbids any effective defense, the ABM Treaty--
which incidentally the Soviets started to violate within 2
weeks of the time they signed it--then you have the greatest
encouragement to other countries, rogue countries,
particularly, to feel that if they get this weapon and there is
not going to be any defense against them, they will then be in
a position to overcome their smallness, or their
insignificance, otherwise in order to have the kind of military
capability that will enable them to engage in nuclear
blackmail.
So the best method of all to deal with this problem is to
concentrate everything we have got on getting an effective
defense against it, not some half-hearted attempts to satisfy a
few polls or something of that kind, but a genuinely effective
method of defending against these weapons.
It can be done. We finally had a test that demonstrates one
method of doing it. We lost 10 years between 1993 and the
present time, which we could have been working on all of these
things and which we have not done. We started in 1983, we got a
program in 1983, and we remained fully committed to an ABM
Treaty which absolutely forbids any kind of effective defense.
Defense is the answer to this kind of thing.
Senator Hagel. My friend and colleague is up, and so if it
is OK, Mr. Ambassador, I will hold my questions.
Senator Biden. That is OK. Go ahead.
Senator Hagel. Senator Biden, thank you very much. Just a
quick question to both Ambassador Kirkpatrick and Secretary
Weinberger. The consequences of the United States defeating
this treaty, as Ambassador Ledogar referenced, as we have heard
an awful lot about, which I think there is some relevancy
attached to that, the consequences around the world, would you
give me a succinct answer? Is it real? Is it not real? Is it
important if we defeat this? If we go ahead on Tuesday, what
consequences will there be for the United States in the future
of efforts to deal with proliferation?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Senator Hagel, I truly believe that
the consequences would be very much less than almost all of the
extravagant statements that I have heard in the last 48 hours
about what would happen if the U.S. did not ratify it.
Most countries are simply not that concerned about our
policies. That is just a fact. We do not have the kind of
influence over the policies and behavior of other countries
that the comments are predicting, these dire consequences for
U.S.-nonratification suggest.
I just think they are mistaken. They should go to the U.N.
and try influencing a few countries to support votes and
policies on highly worthy subjects, and you will find out very
quickly how really impotent we often are in securing a large
number of other countries' support, and following our example.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Weinberger. Well, Senator, I agree with Ambassador
Kirkpatrick completely. I think that the consequences will be a
certain amount of editorial hand-wringing, but nothing that is
in any sense substantive. Does anybody believe, as it was said
this morning, that all these constraints that now bind people
will be gone? What constraints does Kim Song-il feel under,
what constraints does Saddam Hussein feel under? If they can
get nuclear weapons they are going to get them.
They have some. They have some of the components. They are
not going to let anything like this stand in their way. The
United States reaction I think would be basically, if we
defeated the treaty on the grounds that have all been put forth
over the course of the debate, I think the basic reaction among
people who are realistic about such things would be that the
United States has declined to bind itself to having an
ineffective deterrent.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Thank you. Time is short. Maybe we will get
a second round here, but I thought one of the purposes, and it
may not meet, from your perspective, I say to you, Mr.
Secretary, and you, Ambassador Kirkpatrick, was to not merely
deal with the North Koreas, but to make sure that--or not make
sure, impact on the ability of China, for example, to move to a
MIRV system to be able to effectively, as you worried about,
deal with what stolen data they have.
You referenced the Cox committee, Ms. Kirkpatrick, which I
think is perfectly legitimate, and you indicated that one of
the reasons you were opposed to this treaty, among many--you
named many--was that what will happen here is that, look at
what the Chinese did, and you cited the Cox report.
Well, the Cox report says, and this is a quote, found that,
quote, ``the PRC does not likely need additional physical tests
for its older thermonuclear warhead designs, but since signing
the CTBT in 1996, the PRC has faced a new challenge in
maintaining its modern thermonuclear warheads without
physically testing,'' and they go on to state that ``given the
limited number of nuclear tests the PRC has conducted, the PRC
likely needs additional empirical information about the
advanced thermonuclear weapons performance.''
And it goes on to point out that unless they can test well
beyond 1 kiloton, which we are confident we can pick up, they
cannot effectively use the stuff they stole, so it seems to me
you are arguing against your own interest here, if you are
worried about the Chinese being able to use this technology,
and every one in our intelligence community suggests we are
able to detect the kind of yield they would have to engage in
to be able to use it.
Then one of two things happens. Either we observe, and they
go ahead and they sign--by the way, the treaty does not come
into force unless they sign, so unless they sign, and among
others, it does not come into force no matter what we do, but
if they sign, and if the only way the experts with whom I have
spoken--and I, like you, I have spent hundreds of hours on
this.
I have spoken to the lab directors. I have spoken to all
the folks who know a lot more than all four of us, or all 15 of
us, or all of us in this room about the detail of this process.
They all acknowledge in order to be able to use it, they have
got to be able to test it. The way they would have to test it,
we can figure it out, so that leaves them in the position of
either signing and then violating, in which case article 7
allows us, or safeguard 7 allows us to withdraw from the
treaty, period, boom, withdraw from the treaty. We do not have
to do anything else. We do not have to ask anybody, do
anything.
And then on the issue of--and I am doing this because we
only have 6 minutes, and I will get to specific questions in
the second round if we have one.
On the issue you both raise of the inability to modernize,
you point out that this would limit our ability to modernize.
Well, we are--does anyone doubt that our sophistication is
exponentially greater than any other country in the world in
terms of our ability to make quantum leaps in modernization in
the sophisticated field of strategic weapons? I know of no one
who ever has made that assertion, including the three of you.
Therefore, if we are constrained from modernizing, it is
overwhelmingly the case every other nation is even more
constrained from modernizing.
Now, the one thing you have both educated me about in your
testimony over the years is the degree to which a missile
defense technology will function is in direct proportion to how
sophisticated the array of offensive weapons coming in is.
There is no one I have ever, ever, ever spoken to, including
all the scientists out of your administration, and continuing
in this administration, who has said that we are not better
prepared if we do not have multiple warhead reentry vehicles
aimed at us to counter them with a missile defense.
That is one of the reasons why you did a brilliant job in
START in moving along and setting in process the idea that we
would no longer have multiple warheads on tops of missiles.
Now, you all are saying here, if we do not have this treaty
we acknowledge the ability of the sophisticated nations to MIRV
their systems increases, add a minimum increases, I would argue
increases gigantically, but increases, and yet you are now
saying what you should be relying on is a missile defense.
It seems to me if you want a missile defense, and a missile
defense that is likely to work in the relatively near term, the
fewer nations that are able to MIRV, the better off we all are.
And so my question is this. Do any of the three of you
think that the ability for the nuclear States to move to
MIRV'ed capacity they do not possess is harder or easier, under
this treaty? Just that one question, MIRV'ed capability.
Do you think it is harder or easier, because we all know,
as you know, most people do not know, to MIRV you have got to
take these big old ugly things, make them lighter, make them
smaller, make them more compact, make the yield of the
plutonium package able to be boosted in a way as a consequence
of the ignition package, as most people in here would know it,
and that is a very sophisticated process that not a single
scientist I have ever spoken to says can be done without
nuclear testing, and nuclear testing in yields that are
detectable.
And so explain to me how it makes sense, if you want a
missile defense system, to be against this treaty.
Mr. Weinberger. Senator, that is a perfectly good argument,
but it overlooks one point and that is the sophisticated
knowledge which you speak of so correctly has been stolen.
Senator Biden. But it cannot be used if it cannot be
tested.
Mr. Weinberger. Yes, it can be used. The new light warhead
we spent years and millions of dollars has now been given to
China one way or another, and they are able to use it perfectly
well, so for this treaty to have any effect of banning, to have
any effect on a country that wants to develop this kind of
capability, the question is, it is irrelevant.
Senator Biden. For the record, if you could submit the name
of one scientist----
The Chairman. Let us go ahead, and you take 6 more minutes.
Senator Biden. I just want to--if I could just followup
with 10 seconds, if for the record, and not now, you can name
one scientist of consequence who will tell the committee or you
that they can use the stolen package without testing it, if you
can submit one serious scientist who will tell me that, I would
appreciate it very much, and you have time. We are probably not
going to vote soon.
Mr. Weinberger. Your assumption is they are prevented from
testing if we sign this treaty, and my assumption is that if
they want to develop--if they are going to use any method they
have to do it, and if we find out they have broken the treaty,
Senator, we pass resolutions, we say it is a terrible thing,
editorials are written, and they go right on doing what they
want to do.
Senator Biden. So your primary concern is, we will not have
the will?
Mr. Weinberger. The primary concern is not to give them the
capability of doing that whether there is a treaty or not, and
unfortunately a lot of that has already been done.
Senator Biden. I have great respect for you, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Weinberger. I share the respect for you, but I think
your argument is totally full of holes where the security of
the country is concerned.
Senator Biden. I have not found a single scientist to take
issue with what I said. If you can produce them, I would be
delighted.
The Chairman. I want to be fair to everybody, including the
witnesses, and Secretary Weinberger, if you wish to add
anything, you go right ahead.
Mr. Weinberger. I am sorry.
The Chairman. I want you to have adequate time to respond
to the various questions, so go right ahead.
Mr. Weinberger. Thank you. That was the point that I wished
to make, that it is very imperative that we try to get a
defense, it is very imperative that we recognize that in the
world in which we live, rogue countries, countries like North
Korea and Iraq and others, are certainly going to try to get
every capability they can, and China, as we already know, has
one way or another acquired this extremely valuable technology,
and will certainly make every effort to use it, regardless of
whether we do or do not sign this treaty.
The Chairman. Now, I have got something I am going to say
on that, but the Senator from California has been waiting and
waiting, so you proceed with your time.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I am glad
to be here in this committee on a very important issue, and I
think just following up on the last exchange between Senator
Biden and the Honorable Caspar Weinberger, I would say that
listening to Mr. Weinberger, my sense of it is he is saying,
well, we sign the treaty, and then China goes ahead and does
these tests, and what have we gained?
The bottom line is, if they sign the treaty and they break
the treaty, we can get out of the treaty, so I think what is
important for us, and it sort of gets back to what Senator
Hagel was driving at, is what do we really do to make our
people safer from this threat?
Now that we have won the cold war, proliferation is a very
important issue. I am sure we all agree on that. But we have a
disagreement on how we get to the place we want to get, where
our people are safer.
Now, after reading both sides, and I have to say as I look
at this, it is sort of a sad situation, it seems to me that
Republicans are lining up mostly opposed--there is a few
exceptions, and there is a bipartisan group who supports, and I
am going to go into who those people are.
I worry about our foreign policy becoming partisan, either
side, because the one thing I have noticed in all the years I
have been in Congress, it has been a very long time, and I
would say to my friend Caspar Weinberger, we remember each
other from the days I was on the Defense Committee over on the
House side.
I always believed that military policy, foreign policy
needed to be bipartisan, and we were so strong when we were,
and I worry that this argument is taking another shape and
form, and I am very concerned about that, because I think it
weakens us, and I want to talk about what weakens us in the
world. It is when we are divided, one from the other, and so I
hope we can pull together at some point, however we dispose of
the matter that is before us.
But as I look at the people who are for this treaty, and I
read the comments of our President and our Vice President, but
in addition to that, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Shelton, who says he supports it because he believes
that those six important conditions strengthen us, they make
us--he says it would reduce conflict and reduce tensions.
And former Joint Chief of Staff under Ronald Reagan,
William Crowe, supports the treaty and says that the safeguards
will strengthen U.S. intelligence, and John Shalikashvili
supports it. He signed a statement that said it would
strengthen our ability to verify.
Colin Powell, former chief of Staff under George Bush
supports it, and he signed a very powerful statement.
Thirty-two physics Nobel laureates support it from
institutions from all over this country: Princeton, Brown,
University of Washington, UC-Berkeley, MIT, Illinois Institute
of Technology, Cornell, Columbia, Bell Labs, Gaithersburg,
Florida State, University of Texas, Harvard-Smithsonian, Ohio
State--and I ask unanimous consent to put this statement that
they made into the record.
Thank you so much.
The Chairman. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
A Letter from Physics Nobel Laureates
To Senators of the 106th Congress:
We urge you to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The United States signed and ratified the Limited Test Ban Treaty
in 1963. In the years since, the nation has played a leadership role in
actions to reduce nuclear risks, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty
extension, the ABM Treaty, STARTs I and II, and the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty negotiations. Fully informed technical studies have
concluded that continued nuclear testing is not required to retain
confidence in the safety, reliability and performance of nuclear
weapons in the United States' stockpile, provided science and
technology programs necessary for stockpile stewardship are maintained.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is central to future efforts to
halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Ratification of the Treaty will
mark an important advance in uniting the world in an effort to contain
and reduce the dangers of nuclear arms. It is imperative that the CTBT
be ratified.
Philip W. Anderson--Princeton University--1977 Nobel Prize
Hans A. Bethe--Cornell University--1967 Nobel Prize
Nicolaas Bloembergen--Harvard University--1981 Nobel Prize
Owen Chamberlain--UC, Berkeley--1959 Nobel Prize
Steven Chu--Stanford University--1997 Nobel Prize
Leon N. Cooper--Brown University--1972 Nobel Prize
Hans Dehmelt--University of Washington--1989 Nobel Prize
Val L. Fitch--Princeton University--1980 Nobel Prize
Jerome Friedman--MIT--1990 Nobel Prize
Donald A. Glaser--UC, Berkeley--1960 Nobel Prize
Sheldon Glashow--Harvard University--1979 Nobel Prize
Henry W. Kendall--MIT--1990 Nobel Prize
Leon M. Lederman--Illinois Institute of Technology--1988 Nobel Prize
David M. Lee--Cornell University--1996 Nobel Prize
T. D. Lee--Columbia University--1957 Nobel Prize
Douglas D. Osheroff--Stanford University--1996 Nobel Prize
Arno Penzias--Bell Labs--1978 Nobel Prize
Martin L. Perl--Stanford University--1995 Nobel Prize
William Phillips--Gaithersburg--1997 Nobel Prize
Norman F. Ramsey--Harvard University--1989 Nobel Prize
Robert C. Richardson--Cornell University--1996 Nobel Prize
Burton Richter--Stanford University--1976 Nobel Prize
Arthur L. Schawlow--Stanford University--1981 Nobel Prize
J. Robert Schrieffer--Florida State University--1972 Nobel Prize
Mel Schwartz--Columbia University--1988 Nobel Prize
Clifford G. Shull--MIT--1994 Nobel Prize
Joseph H. Taylor, Jr.--Princeton University--1993 Nobel Prize
Daniel C. Tsui--Princeton University--1998 Nobel Prize
Charies Townes--UC, Berkeley--1964 Nobel Prize
Steven Weinberg--Univ. of Texas, Austin--1979 Nobel Prize
Robert W. Wilson--Harvard-Smithsonian--1978 Nobel Prize
Kenneth G. Wilson--Ohio State University--1982 Nobel Prize
Senator Boxer. I think this is important. The labs all
support it, the current people in the labs, and the other thing
I am trying to search for as I look at who falls in each place,
who has been really influenced by the cold war, and who is
ready to get beyond it into where we are today, and I think we
have to take the lessons of the cold war and be very, very wise
about what we learn, but also understand that it is a new day,
and we have to look at things in, therefore, I think a
different way.
I want to say a comment about Ms. Kirkpatrick's statements
on the President, because I support her right to her views, and
she has very eloquently stated those, and she is very strong on
those, but I also feel I want to put my strong views on the
record when she said, and I am trying to remember exactly. The
record will show. I believe she said the President is not
defending the people against the most important threat of
nuclear weapons, and I think that is a fairly safe repetition
of what she said.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. No, I did not, Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. Well, we will go back to the record, but I
would say that she said that his policies on nuclear weapons
are not--because he is not doing enough on the missile defense,
but we will get back to the exact words, but it was something
like that, and I just want to say in the record that it was
under this administration that we had the first successful test
of a national missile defense, on October 2.
It is under this administration that we have the stockpile
stewardship program, which we are spending $4.5 billion. I do
not think any President who did not believe we needed to retain
our nuclear deterrence would spend $4.5 billion in a time when
we are so much worried about expenditures, so that started 3
years ago.
We are spending $32 billion a year on our nuclear arsenal,
and so I really just wanted to take issue with that statement,
and if I am incorrect in your exact words, well, the clerk will
get those words back to us.
But I worry about that, because I think every President,
Republican or Democrat, goes to sleep at night and the one
worry on his, and perhaps some day her mind will be the safety
of the American people. I think this President is no different.
Now, we may disagree on how we get from A to B, but I guess
my question to the opponents of our treaty, our distinguished
panel who oppose it, what do they take issue with John
Shalikashvili, what do they take issue with Colin Powell, what
do they take specific issue with William Crowe, what do they
take specific issue with the lab directors, what do they take
specific issue with the Nobel laureates, because I think what I
will do is take that critique and send it back to these fine
people, who I think reflect bipartisanship in their position
and want to see if they feel your points are valid and they
would change their opinion on the treaty. That is my question.
The Chairman. Do you want somebody to answer it?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I would like to. I would like to
begin with a comment about the spirit of bipartisanship.
Senator Boxer, I might say that I have testified before the
Senate several times, and the House, repeatedly during these
long years of President Clinton's tenure, and I have almost
always done so in support of some administration policy.
I, for example, strongly supported NATO enlargement, and
took a lead in the support of the administration's policies on
NATO enlargement. I supported the Dayton Accords again, and
took a lead in the support of the Dayton Accords, and the
deployment of U.S troops in support of the Dayton Accords. I
very strongly supported the administration's decision to engage
in Kosovo, and met repeatedly and testified repeatedly in the
House and the Senate on that issue.
And so I would first just like to say that I have
personally engaged in more bipartisan, if you will, foreign
policy in the last 6 years than almost anyone I know. I cannot
support the administration's policy with regard to the CTBT
because I really very deeply disagree.
Let me just state what I said.
Senator Boxer. I do have it in front of me.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. You know what I said was, it is
disturbing to me that President Clinton has, after talking
about the fact that virtually everyone--and I cited the
Rumsfeld and Cox Commission reports, but there are others that
agreed that there has been really a serious proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and capacities, and of leakage of
missiles, and missile technology, and that what I suggested was
that President Clinton has not given--in the face of all of
these threats, the President has not been mobilized to make the
defense of the American people against these proliferating
threats a top priority.
Now, why do I say that? I say that because I believe if he
made it a top priority, he would have long since moved to the
support of an effective missile defense, because there is
really only one way to defend the American people against these
proliferating threats, and it is by an effective missile
defense. This treaty will not defend the American people.
Senator Boxer. Well, we just disagree on that.
The Chairman. The chair cannot tolerate a debate here. She
made her statement. You challenged part of it, and I thought
she was entitled to time to state what she says she really
said, and I think she is right about that.
Now, I will give you another minute.
Senator Boxer. That is very sweet. I will wait until my
friend finishes her statement.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I have completed.
Senator Boxer. Well, I think again, what is highly
disturbing to me is that obviously there are always other ways
to defend a country.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. No, there are not.
Senator Boxer. Excuse me. There are differences in view.
There are some people who do believe you can defend this
country if you have this treaty. That is why the leaders of the
military in this country support it, because they say in their
very own words in their statements that it will, in fact,
lessen the threat of war, so to say that President Clinton has
not put this as a top priority simply because he does not agree
with your opinion on how to protect the people, it seems to me
to be a subjective statement that is unfair and I think is not
good for this country, to have that kind of personal attack.
That is my view.
But we disagree, and I fully respect your right to your
view on that, as I am sure you respect my right to disagree
with you.
The Chairman. Very well. Thank you.
Now, I have not had any time. Much has been said today, Mr.
Secretary, about the Cox report, and what the Cox report has
said, and what the Cox report did not say, and I think several
liberties have been taken with what the Cox report did not say,
but let me read what the Cox report did say, according to
Christopher Cox, the chairman of the Select Committee.
He said, ``the Select Committee did, however, make findings
that may be relevant to the Senate's consideration of arguments
that America's long history of nuclear tests obviates the need
for new tests, and that preventing other Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty signatories from testing will cement America's
technological advantage.''
Then he goes on to say, ``in fact, because of the
vulnerability of U.S. nuclear test data to theft through
espionage, the PRC may be able to obviate or reduce the need
for its own further testing, relying instead on the American
data.'' Now, that is what you were saying.
Now, on October 5, Robert Bell, at a press conference--and
I do not know him, but he apparently is one of the spinmeisters
down at the White House. He cited the Select Committee's report
in support of the administration's position that the Senate
should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Now, I understand also that the administration officials
have cited the report in their briefings to Senate staff. Then
he goes on to say, the Select Committee--that is, the Cox
report--``the Select Committee made no recommendation for or
against ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.''
Now, I am running into this all the time, who said this,
and everybody's for the treaty, et cetera, et cetera, and those
few who are against it, well, I have got a list this long of
people, great Americans who have served this country well, and
I do not like the inference that there is something lacking in
their patriotism.
Let me continue with the Christopher Cox letter about the
Cox report. He says, thus, ``the relative technological
advantages the United States enjoyed by virtue of our extensive
testing may be lost as a result of our adherence to the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty regime in such circumstances.''
Now, if that is an endorsement of the treaty, I fail to
recognize it.
Then he goes on to say, ``furthermore, if the PRC has
acquired U.S. nuclear weapons computer codes, it implicitly
possesses the ability to evaluate the limitations of U.S.
nuclear weapons systems. This information can be used to inform
future PRC missile defenses. Without the ability to test, the
United States will be unable to modernize its own nuclear
arsenal to avert such defenses, and will be forced to rely on
warhead designs whose limitations and shortcomings are well-
understood by potential adversaries that may in the future not
only include the PRC, but also other countries to which it may
proliferate.''
All right. Other findings of the Select Committee, and this
is Chris Cox, the Cox report, that has been referred to here so
often. He says, other findings of the Select Committee, that
is, the Cox report as it is popularly known, ``other findings
are relevant to the question of whether the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty is in the case of the PRC verifiable.
``The Select Committee found that the PRC has acquired
classified information about nuclear testing using miniaturized
fusion explosions. This inertial confinement technique would be
of special usefulness to the PRC should it choose to violate
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.''
And finally, he says the Select Committee found that ``the
PRC could further accelerate its nuclear development violating
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and testing
surreptitiously.''
Do you have any comment about that?
Mr. Weinberger. I think there is no question as to the
correctness of the Cox committee's findings and conclusions
with respect to that. The problem, again, we keep going back to
is, our nuclear stockpile necessarily degrades, it necessarily
has problems with it as it ages, as do all weapons systems.
Individual components can be picked out, they can take them
apart, they can find one that is apparently visibly not in the
kind of condition it should be. It is replaced. Whether that
replacement part is going to work with the rest or not, we will
not know, and you have the same changes that have occurred.
There is also a great many more safety factors that can be
put into nuclear warheads that we do not have in our older
systems, and when they are added to the newer systems, or when
they are built in, they need to be tested, too.
All of this is an extraordinarily complex process, and it
consists of thousands, as I say, of moving parts, and it is not
known whether many computers that are around now, and I do not
think even the ones we are waiting for in 2007 and 2008, will
be able to tell us whether it actually will work under these
kinds of conditions.
So if we want to have a nuclear deterrent, and apparently
everybody agrees we should have one, or at least most people,
then we have to know that it works, and if we want to know that
it works, we have to test it. We have to test it in the most
effective means possible, and this treaty denies us the right
to test it in the most effective means possible.
We have stopped testing. Prior to the time we stopped
testing, Dr. Barker, who served with me in the Defense
Department, redlined--that is, he took offline a number of
nuclear weapons six times prior to the time we stopped testing
because, he said, they were no longer reliable, and they had to
be repaired. They had to be fixed as a result of the test.
Since the testing ended there have been no weapons
redlined. The assumption seems to be that since we stopped
testing everything is fine. Well, I cannot share that
assumption. I do not think that is correct, and I do not want
to take a chance.
You just are not allowed any margin for error in this
business, Mr. Chairman, and this treaty gives a very large
margin for error, not only to us, but to any other country that
has the stockpile or hopes to acquire them, and certainly when
we deny ourselves the right to defend against them, the very
least we can do is to make sure that our own offensive weapons
are in working order.
The Chairman. One other point, and this is a point of
personal privilege. I have known Ambassador Kirkpatrick a long
time. I have never, never known her to shade the truth or to be
less than anything explicit in what she has said. If she is
anything, she is very, very clear in what she writes and what
she says and I don't mean to offend anybody, but I have got to
take up for Jeane Kirkpatrick.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, on a similar point of personal
privilege, I share that judgment. I disagree with her judgment.
She is straightforward, on point. I think she is wrong
sometimes, but I do not doubt for a moment her integrity. I do
not doubt for a moment her clarity and I do not doubt for a
moment that she means what she says.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. I disagree with her. I think she is wrong.
The Chairman. Well, I do not think she is wrong.
Senator Biden. I know that. That is the issue.
The Chairman. Now, since I have not had any time before, I
want to go one step further in a question and that would be for
the Ambassador, who after all, was, I believe you were the
chief negotiator for this treaty, were you not?
Now, I have heard over and over, sir, repeated claims by
the administration that the CTBT before the Senate is, and I
quote, ``the longest sought, hardest fought prize in the
history of arms control,'' end of quote. Now, if there is
anything expansive, that declaration seems to me to fit, but
that is neither here nor there. Then it goes on to say, that it
has been the negotiating objective of every President since
Eisenhower, they say.
Now, sir, we both know that that really is not so. Why is
the administration making such inaccurate statements when not a
single President before the current one ever sought a zero
yielding definite duration CTBT? Can you explain it to me?
Ambassador Ledogar. I would like to begin by agreeing that
that is pretty colorful language and easy to pick apart. I
think that what the authors are trying to recall is that
approaches to the question of nuclear testing, and trying to
curb it and to halt it, have gone back many, many years. And
the famous statements by President Eisenhower at the end of his
administration in connection with the passage of the Limited
Test Ban Treaty and the Threshold Testing Treaty and so forth.
But I wonder if I could, while I have the floor, in the
change of the Senators during the voting I did not get a chance
to respond to Senator Hagel's question, and I would like to be
very brief.
The Chairman. You certainly can, but let me finish my line
because I have a commitment I have got to go to and Chuck, I am
going to ask you to take the gavel when I finish here. But yes,
sir, I want everybody to have his or her say. We have
established now that this business about the longest sought,
hardest fought prize in the history of arms control is bull. Is
that right?
Ambassador Ledogar. That is not my word. That is not my
characterization, no.
The Chairman. Well, how would you characterize it?
Ambassador Ledogar. Hyperbole.
The Chairman. That is a fancy way of saying ``bull.''
Now, the truth of the matter is that even the current
administration, the Clinton administration did not initially
favor a permanent zero yield test ban. You know that.
Ambassador Ledogar. Originally, that is true, Senator.
The Chairman. Now, I refer you to the statement that John
Holum made in Geneva in 1996, just for the record. He said,
among many other things, and I am quoting him precisely,
``Among many other things, the treaty does not contain our
original proposal for an option to withdraw from the treaty at
the 10-year mark without citing reasons of supreme national
interest and our proposal that the treaty's scope provide room
for so-called hydronuclear experiments with very small nuclear
yields.''
Now, was John Holum's characterizations and comments the
characterizations on your original negotiating instruction from
the administrations, was he saying what you were supposed to
say?
Ambassador Ledogar. Yes, but Mr. Chairman, as I think we
all know, these negotiations take a long period of time. Things
change during the course of the negotiations. Original
instructions are often modified for a variety of reasons
including historical, technological, financial, political
developments that occur. For example, Secretary Weinberger
alluded to the very successful negotiation on intermediate
range nuclear forces that spanned over about a half a decade. I
think he should also have pointed out that in the process many
things changed, most importantly, at the expense of billions of
dollars, we deployed hundreds of intermediate range nuclear
weapons of our own. Also there was a change in the leadership
in Moscow. And of course the zero zero thing which was
considered difficult at the origin of the INF became a reality
at the end of that 5 year period. Similar things happened in
this negotiation.
The Chairman. I respect you, sir, and I accept what you
say, but it is true the treaty proposed to the Senate is not
what the Clinton administration initially supported. Is that
not true?
Ambassador Ledogar. That is true.
The Chairman. I thank you, sir, and I thank all three of
you, and I am going to turn the gavel over to the distinguished
Senator from Nebraska, and I apologize for having to leave, but
I do appreciate your coming, and if you will stay further to
respond to Senators who have arrived since we started this
hearing.
Senator Hagel [presiding]. Senator Kerry.
Senator Kerry. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank
the panel for taking the time to be with us and share an
obviously deeply held point of view by a number of people who
oppose the treaty. I find myself a little bit baffled by some
of the intensity of the confidence and reliability questions,
particularly given the way the treaty has been structured.
One of the benefits of my years in the Navy was that I went
to nuclear chemical biological warfare school and got to learn
a little bit about some of this, and wear some of the
protective clothing and deal with it, and it was a fascinating,
fascinating learning experience. What puzzles me about this
debate is, based upon what we know about the complexity of a
warhead and how to put one together, and particularly based on
the experience of the United States, and if you were to ask
people at Hiroshima or Nagasaki about confidence levels, even
in an early model, they would be pretty blunt about the
confidence level if the United States threatened to drop even
an early model nuclear weapon, let alone the sophistication we
have today in our manufacturing processes.
Now, I would be amazed if 10 years from now I were to ask
any of you sitting at this table if we took at random 10
warheads from our many thousands and I offered you a choice, I
said I am going to drop these 10 on your home town, I think
each of you would say, please do not do that. Am I correct?
Would you not, Madam Ambassador?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Of course.
Mr. Weinberger. I would rather not have any.
Ambassador Ledogar. Of course.
Senator Kerry. And the reason is, you have a pretty good
confidence level that 10 years from now one of them is going to
go off, if not all 10, is that not correct?
So what are we talking about here in terms of deterrence?
There is a 10-year review in this treaty. There is a series of
safeguards adopted by the President and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff that say that if at any time confidence and reliability
is insufficient, we pull out.
Are you saying to me that in a 10-year period of time you
believe the confidence level of those 3,000-plus that we might
get to under START, or the many thousands more, is somehow not
going to have the same confidence level that you just
determined to any dictator, to anyone anywhere on the face of
this planet that they want to run the risk that if we fired 100
of them, 200 of them, it is not the end of humankind as we
understand it?
Mr. Weinberger. Some of them will work, some of them will
not.
Senator Kerry. Wait a minute, do not dismiss it with some
of them will work, some of them will not. What I remember
learning in school 30-plus years ago was, it does not take more
than the number on my two hands, to pretty much take care of
business.
Mr. Weinberger. Well, if you do not have any defense
against it.
Senator Kerry. I am game for defense, Mr. Secretary. That
is a moot issue now. We are going down the road of missile
defense. We just had a very successful test, most of us have
adopted the notion that we ought to have some reasonable----
Mr. Weinberger. I do hope so.
Senator Kerry. But let us come back to deterrence.
Mr. Weinberger. I think, Senator, as you point out, some of
them will work, some of them will not, but your confidence in
the total package does degrade over time, and that is an
important element of deterrence, the entire amount are going to
work and do the job.
Senator Kerry. Well, let us talk about that, too.
Mr. Weinberger. One thing I would like to talk about, if I
might, and that is, you talk about the idea that we have the
right to withdraw if our national interest is affected.
Senator Kerry. Supreme national interest is the word.
Mr. Weinberger. The fact of the matter is, we have that
same kind of provision in the antiballistic missile treaty, and
this President has announced he will never use it. This
President has said, we based our entire defense on the ABM
Treaty. That kind of a clause, Senator, is only useful if you
have an administration that understands the importance of
pulling out.
Senator Kerry. But they are very different. They are truly
different. This safeguard says that if the President is
informed by the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy,
advised by the Nuclear Weapons Council, the directors of DOE's
nuclear weapons laboratories, and the Commander of the U.S.
Strategic Command that a high level of confidence in the safety
or reliability of a nuclear weapon type which the two
Secretaries consider to be critical to our nuclear deterrent
could no longer be certified, the President, in consultation
with Congress, would withdraw from the CTBT under the supreme
national interest.
Mr. Weinberger. Senator, do you have the President's
response to that? Do you have his exact statement as to what he
said? He said, in the event I were informed by the Secretary of
Defense and Secretary of Energy and the Vice President of the
Nuclear Weapons Council, the directors of the Energy
Department's nuclear weapons labs, and the Commander of the
U.S. Strategic Command that a high level of confidence in the
safety or reliability of a nuclear weapons deterrent, which the
two Secretaries consider to be critical to our nuclear
deterrent, could no longer be certified, I would be prepared,
in consultation with the Congress, to exercise our supreme
national interest rights under the CTBT in order to conduct
whatever testing might be required.
That is something far less than a commitment, and that is
the kind of thing you get from this administration, if you
pardon me.
Senator Kerry. It says right here that there is a
requirement to consult with us.
Mr. Weinberger. Well, he is not part of that requirement.
Senator Kerry. On the contrary, he said he would.
Mr. Weinberger. He said he would be prepared to----
Senator Kerry. I do not want to get sidetracked, because
this is very important. It seems to me that the President of
the United States, whoever it might be, he or she, would have a
remarkably hard time contravening all of the parties we have
just named, as well as facts.
I mean, we are all Americans. We are all sitting here with
the interests of the country's national security in mind. I
cannot imagine being informed by all of them, as responsible
Members of Congress, and not breaking down the walls of the
White House saying, you folks better respond to this, if it is
a legitimate threat.
What we are trying to do is establish sort of where we are
today in this context, Mr. Secretary. I do not want some willy
nilly silly treaty signed onto. I certainly do not want the
interest that I wore a uniform to protect negated. I do not
want that. But I fail to see--I mean, let me be more blunt
about it. What is the component of a nuclear warhead that you
believe would deteriorate over 10, 15 or 20 years that could
not be replaced, or ascertained as to its degradation
sufficiently?
Mr. Weinberger. It could be replaced, but will a
replacement work in conjunction with the other parts?
Senator Kerry. Well, let us look at that in a practical----
Senator Hagel. Senator Kerry, let us get to Senator Biden.
We have been keeping with a 10-minute rule here, and allow
everybody a chance to say something and respond, and we will
come back around.
Senator Kerry. Fair enough.
Senator Biden. Well, let me just pick up there.
Mr. Secretary, I thought you said in your statement that at
present the security stockpile is not effective. Is that what
you said?
Mr. Weinberger. I am sorry.
Senator Biden. I thought you said in your original
statement--please correct me if I am wrong--that at present the
security stockpile safeguards are not effective.
Mr. Weinberger. Not as effective as they should be.
Senator Biden. Does that mean we should resume testing now?
Mr. Weinberger. I think we should reserve to ourselves the
right to resume testing whenever we feel that it is essential
to our national interest. To deny ourselves that right I think
is against the national interest.
Senator Biden. What I am asking you is, do you think it is
in our national interest now to resume testing?
Mr. Weinberger. I think I would feel more comfortable if
more testing were done than has been done since 1992. I think
it is significant that up to that time we had four or five
occasions in which we were told that we could not use the
weapons that we had in the stockpile and they should be
redlined, and that since we stopped testing, there has been no
similar statement made, no similar request made. That, I think,
is significant.
Senator Biden. The explanation I got for that when I asked
the lab directors was that technology has moved way on beyond
when you were Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Weinberger. I hope it has.
Senator Biden. That is what they say. I would point out
that what we had from 1953 there was a tri-lab study. The three
laboratories studied our stockpile surveillance methods in
1996, and they reported the following: there were 830 recorded
findings of defects in our nuclear stockpile from 1958 to 1993.
Less than 1 percent of these defects were found as a
consequence of nuclear testing. Nuclear testing was not
required. In 1 percent of the tests, which was 8.3 of them.
Excuse me. That is not true. Yes, that is right. All but one of
those nuclear tests involved items that were in the inventory
before 1970 and are not in the inventory any more.
So this idea--and Dr. Robinson, Director of Sandia, said,
what I can say is that the kinds of stockpile problems that
would lead to such an erosion in our confidence seems highly
unlikely during the next 5 to 10 years, and he is talking about
when the computers come on.
But my question is this. The whole idea of our inability to
exchange warheads, for example, that we could not exchange
warheads, I hear opponents constantly say that. We have done it
twice without nuclear tests. We have taken the B-61 and made it
the B-61 mod 11 earth-penetrating device, a new warhead. No
tests. We were able to do it. I mean, no nuclear tests.
And we also have done the same thing--well, I want to make
sure I am absolutely accurate. I will not repeat what I think
is the case, but I do know with regard to that single warhead
we did that without any tests, and so we did change the nature
and capability of a warhead in our arsenal with absolute
confidence on the part of the scientists at the three
laboratories to certify it without any tests.
Now, there is no question, I heard--I hear Senator Warner
say, because he has given me the privilege of attending all of
the Armed Services Committee hearings, and was kind enough to
allow me to question as well, he has said it is irrefutable
that weapons systems degrade. That is true, no question about
it. It is irrefutable the older we get, our memory degrades.
Now, maybe someone 90 years old has a better memory than
the average person who is 15 years old, but the person who is
90 years old had a better memory when they were 12. That is
irrefutable. Irrefutable. I am still listening to your
testimony. People are still listening to mine after 27 years,
and I am older. My memory is not as good. Yours is not as good.
That does not mean that we should discount what you say, any
more than this notion--it is a matter of relative change.
And so the question I would get to, instead of these broad
statements, no one that I have heard has indicated that the
degradation in weapons systems that may have occurred from the
time we stopped testing till now has had any impact upon our
reliability, or the reliability of either the safety and/or the
reliability of the weapons, meaning that they will explode when
we shoot them off, and so--and by the way, the Cox Commission
report, let me quote from it.
Cox himself said, quote, ``the CTBT, if it were enforced,
and that is the big issue, would be a means of preventing the
more rapid weaponization and development of a new PLA nuclear
weapons.'' That was stated in the report May 25, 1999.
Now, I did not suggest and I do not imply that Mr. Cox is
for this. He is a loyal Republican in this case. I would be
dumbfounded if he was for this, dumbfounded if he would be for
this treaty for a lot of other reasons. He may have substantive
reasons of being against it, because it cannot be verified, but
not because it puts us at worse prospect of dealing with the
Chinese.
A last point I will make, and my time I see is up, this
notion, Madam Secretary, or Madam Ambassador, of exchange of
data, you equate the IAEA with the sharing of data here. The
only sharing of data here are seismic readings and emissions. I
have not heard a single person suggest that any of the sharing
of the information that would be required to be had here
relative to someone violating the treaty has any utility for
any upstart nation, like IAEA did, any utility to allow them to
develop any weapons.
Now, it may help them develop their seismic capabilities,
their meters to develop earthquake detection or something, but
it has zero--zero. The analogy, unless I am missing something,
is absolutely inappropriate.
Now, did you mean to suggest they could learn from this
data, that they could learn, under page 17, section B,
international monitoring system, paragraph 16 and 18, which is
what we are talking about here, do you mean to suggest that
they could learn from the data shared anything that could help
them in developing nuclear capability? Was that your assertion?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. My understanding, Senator Biden, is
that all member states will have access to the data from the
monitoring.
Senator Biden. But let me explain what it says. It says,
``international monitoring systems shall comprise facilities
for seismological monitoring, radio nuclei monitoring,
including certified laboratories, hydroacoustics monitoring,
infrasound monitoring receptive means of communication, and
that shall be supported by an International Data Center and a
technical secretariat.'' That is the monitoring. It is not
monitoring of how they fly, or how they explode, or anything
like that. It is if they exploded.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. My understanding is they would have
access to the data center, and the access to the data center
could, in my understanding be quite useful.
Senator Biden. Let me ask, if I may, and I know my time is
up----
Senator Hagel. Take one more minute, Senator.
Senator Biden. Since you negotiated this, assume----
Ambassador Ledogar. First of all, you are right, Senator,
that the International Data Center has nothing but unclassified
information. It is available to--all of it, which is an
enormous amount, available to all State parties. Each State
party may say, I only want some of it, and set up its own
filtration system.
In a different part in the appendix, in the verification
protocol to the treaty, there are safeguards in there that
refer to what I think Ambassador Kirkpatrick might be referring
to, namely that international inspectors onsite, whether or not
they can or cannot profit with roving eyes and sticky gumshoes
and so forth, and we have built into this treaty a series of
measures that make that extremely difficult.
Senator Biden. That is the onsite inspection?
Ambassador Ledogar. That is the onsite inspection, that is
right, and incidentally, onsite inspection is an essential
difference between what we are trying to install here and the
IAEA regime.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. Let me roll it over onto my time,
Senator Biden, if Secretary Weinberger has anything to say
about this.
Mr. Weinberger. Well, I think it is a little late to be
worried about what they might be able to see in the monitoring
of a treaty that is not yet in force, when they have already
got the vital data. They have got the warheads, and that is the
critical point. They already have them. They have tested,
proven warheads. That would have saved them at least 15 years
of work on their own, the Chinese, under the Cox report, and
that is the critical factor here.
I think there is a possibility, with the monitoring regime
that is set up, that they might be able to learn a little bit
more, but the fact of the matter is that they have already got
the vital data. They have got the warhead itself.
Senator Hagel. This afternoon, when we come back in about
an hour, we are going to have, as my colleagues know, the
chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and
the ranking member as well as the chairman of the Armed
Services Committee and the ranking member, and I suspect we
will want to get into some of this with them.
I would just add, before I move on to a couple of questions
I have, that it is my understanding that much of the data we
are talking about here is previously classified data, so the
current data we are not sure of, but I would hope that we will
reengage this with our intelligence brethren this afternoon.
Now, not so that you feel unloved and unrecognized,
Ambassador Ledogar, you still want to respond to a question
that I had asked earlier, and you did not have time to do that,
and if you would still like to respond, we would like very much
to hear your response.
Ambassador Ledogar. Thank you, sir, and I recognize that I
am a treaty supporter, so my answer is not precisely to your
question, which was, as I recall, if you do not like this
treaty, what do you propose instead.
So with that caveat, let me say that I would like to make
clear my judgment that if you kill this treaty, you have killed
an international treaty for as far into the future as I think
we can see. It is not so that you could begin for the P-5 an
alternative arrangement. You could not, with the P-5 plus the
3. That just simply would not work, and the international
pressures are significant.
Now, a key question which I wish you had continued is, if
this treaty is killed, and we the United States resume nuclear
testing, then what? Or if the treaty is killed, and we continue
the moratorium, then what? And then you get into two other
important hypotheses that I wish there were time to speculate
about, but that is the distinction I wanted to make, and I
thank you.
Senator Hagel. Thank you, and I am grateful for your
followup. Let us stay on some of this same area. In Ambassador
Kirkpatrick's testimony--I am going to read a little bit of it
back just to familiarize all of us with what she said.
Quote, Ambassador Kirkpatrick said, ``finally I should like
to call the committee's attention to the governance of the
organization which will administer it. I note all state parties
are members. No state party can be excluded. It will operate on
the principle of one state, one vote, with an executive council
that is based on geographical representation comprising,'' and
so on and so on, and if you recall that exchange in her
testimony, that seems to me to be a rather important element of
this treaty for all the reasons that I think we all vividly
understand. Would you care to comment on Ambassador
Kirkpatrick's point?
Ambassador Ledogar. Yes, thank you very much, I would,
because first of all the United States is guaranteed a seat on
the executive council. So is Russia, so is China, so is
Britain, and so is France.
Now, those guarantees are not in the treaty text. Those
guarantees are inside arrangements among our regional groups,
informal arrangements, but nevertheless, it was made quite
clear by each of the nuclear weapons states that everyone was
equal except we, in our respective groups, were more equal than
others, so that we have de facto permanent seats on the
executive council.
Senator Hagel. Does that work by election?
Ambassador Ledogar. The rotation is set, at least in the
Western group. I do not know the details about how the other
groups settled their arrangements. In the Western group we have
agreed on a rotation out for at least the next 20 years after
entry into force.
Senator Hagel. Does that concern you?
Ambassador Ledogar. It certainly concerned me, to be sure,
and I was under very strict instructions to be sure that in any
circumstance the U.S. would always be on the executive council,
and we did that.
Senator Hagel. And by virtue of how, by what would that be
the case, that we would be guaranteed a seat, if it is not
written into the treaty?
Ambassador Ledogar. Because it is written into an informal
side document just among the Western groups. I am being
referred to page 131, but I do not have time to read it.
Senator Hagel. What happens after 20 years?
Ambassador Ledogar. It would in essence rotate back to the
beginning again, because all the countries in the groups are
provided for.
Senator Hagel. Meaning that we may not have a seat?
Ambassador Ledogar. No. We will always have our permanent
seat.
Senator Hagel. By virtue of the side agreement?
Ambassador Ledogar. By virtue of the side agreement.
Senator Hagel. Let me ask Ambassador Kirkpatrick if she
wishes to respond to any of that, because I think this is a
very important part of what we are doing here, regardless of
the technicality of the importance of all these issues, and
they are important, but the governance of this is pretty key in
my opinion.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I think it is very key, which is
why I mentioned it. Usually----
Senator Hagel. Excuse me, Madam Ambassador, would you pull
your microphone up just a little bit?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I said, I think it is very
important, which is why I mentioned it in my testimony. I think
too often these issues get ignored. I suppose when you said the
side agreement, you mean an informal side agreement, however.
Senator Hagel. Is that correct, an informal side agreement?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. It is not the members of the
Western group.
Ambassador Ledogar. That informal agreement provides for an
orderly change-over for at least the next 20 years, but the
treaty itself provides for a seat for--let me read it, if I
may, and I am reading from page 130 of the text before you.
``At least one-third of the seats allocated to each
geographical region shall be filled taking into account
political and security interests by States parties that in that
region are designated on the basis of the nuclear capabilities
relevant to the treaty, as determined by international data, as
well as all or any of the following indicative criteria in
order of priority determined by each region.
``First, number of monitoring facilities of the
international monitoring system, second, expertise, experience
in monitoring technology, third, contribution to the annual
budget of the organization.''
Now, that is a diplomatic way of saying we are more equal
than others, and so are other key countries.
Senator Hagel. Let me ask Ambassador Kirkpatrick to respond
to that.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Well, I would only say that it can
be read that way, but it could also be read to guarantee the
inclusion of major nuclear powers.
Now, I think that in the Western group we deal in
confidence for the most part--I expect that that informal
assurance would be honored by the Western group.
I would also add, however, that if it is--and I think it is
desirable that the United States be guaranteed a seat, or
effectively guaranteed a seat. I would also point out, however,
that we constitute a real minority, a rather small minority of
a large executive council, and it is unlikely that the
decisions will be made on technical grounds.
U.N. bodies are very highly political bodies. Most people
who have not functioned in the U.N. do not understand this, and
I wish every one of you would spend a session at the United
Nations. It does not function as almost anyone expects that it
does, and it is chastening to be a minority in a body in which
a large majority of whom are united by other interests. It is
my recommendation to you that before you recommend another
treaty to us which has such a governing body, I hope you will
go spend a session at the United Nations, in the General
Assembly.
Senator Biden. A point of clarification. The Western group
gets 10 seats, and one-third of them get to sit on this
executive committee? There is 10 seats on the council?
Ambassador Ledogar. No, there are 51 seats.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. The executive committee.
Senator Biden. There is 10 seats for North America on the
council, right?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. No, North America and Western
Europe.
Senator Biden. Well, if by that time, if there is 10 seats
and we do not get one, there is room for Britain and France,
the other two nuclear powers, then something has really gone
wrong, and we will be out of this treaty anyway. If that has
gotten to the point where with 10 seats the United States does
not get one on the council, I find that--I mean, if you all
envision a world like that, I am with you, man, let us bomb
them now. Let us not wait.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. People in the United Nations,
Senator Biden, become irritated with the United States from
time to time, and they exclude us from important bodies, as we
were excluded from the Budget Committee for the last 2 or 3
years. We were never excluded from an important committee while
I was there, I would like to say.
Senator Hagel. Let me exercise the prerogative of the
chair, because I know you all have to leave. You have been here
for 2\1/2\ hours, which we are grateful for two yes or no
questions. Any other side agreements we do not know about?
Ambassador Ledogar. Considering the formal word
``agreement,'' I would have to say there are no other side
agreements. There are memoranda. There are, including some
classified documents, memoranda of understandings and letters
that have been exchanged. They are summarized in the material
that has been put before you in unclassified fashion,
particularly page 4 and page 5 of the article by article, about
the scope explanation.
Senator Hagel. So----
Ambassador Ledogar. The answer is no, there is no agreement
that you do not have before you.
Senator Hagel. Are side agreements binding in this treaty?
Ambassador Ledogar. Well, they are very strong, but they do
not have the force of international law.
Senator Hagel. But they are not binding.
Gentlemen, ladies, thank you. I am sorry to do this. I know
our colleagues have more questions and time, but I know at
least two of you have to be out of here by 1. You have been
here for 2\1/2\ hours. The committee stands in recess until 2
p.m.
[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the committee adjourned, to
reconvene at 2 p.m., the same day.]
FINAL REVIEW OF THE COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY (Treaty Doc.
105-28)
----------
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1999
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
Afternoon Session
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:45 p.m. in room
SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jesse Helms
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Helms, Hagel, Smith, Grams, Brownback,
Ashcroft, Frist, Biden, Kerry, Feingold, and Boxer.
The Chairman. The committee will come to order. The Foreign
Relations Committee now resumes its final hearing on the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And what an array of colleagues
we have there, Mr. Biden.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, that would scare any adversary
away.
The Chairman. I do not know what the protocol is, but first
we are going to hear from the distinguished chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner, who will
report on the 3-days of extensive CTBT hearings the committee
held this week, and he is joined by the distinguished ranking
member of the Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin.
And then we will hear from the chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, Senator Shelby, who will report on his
committee's findings on this treaty, and from the vice chairman
of that committee, Senator Bob Kerrey. And on our second panel
we will hear from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is
in my office next door and I will wave to her, and she is
coming to hear you herself.
And finally, we will hear from several distinguished arms
control experts, former ACDA director Ron Lehman, chairman of
the Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy and Business, Mr. Troy
Wade, and Dr. Richard Garwin, senior fellow for Science and
Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, and in the
interest of time, I'm going to forego any further comments.
Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, I would forego my opening
statement until our colleagues have finished, but I would like
to before the Secretary speaks to make an opening statement.
The Chairman. You bet. You bet. Senator Warner.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN WARNER, U.S. SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA
Senator Warner. Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, colleagues, I
think this is a very wise opportunity for this group to provide
for this committee and for the public our individual views and
those views relating to what do we do now with regards to the
procedural situation confronting the U.S. Senate, a situation
that was not of your making, Mr. Chairman, or mine or others.
Mr. Chairman, first I have for some 30 years been involved
in national security issues beginning in 1969 when I went to
the Department of Defense and now 21 years on the Senate side
in the Armed Services Committee, and the subject of this
category of weapons, the nuclear weapons, has been foremost in
my work these many, many years. I have looked at this treaty, I
have studied this treaty, and to the extent I could force my
mind open, I have carefully evaluated superb testimony that the
Armed Services Committee has received in the past 3 days.
I would vote today against this treaty. I would not
recommend that this President or, indeed, the successor
President start testing. And mind you, Mr. Chairman, given that
the tests in Pakistan and India occurred, the law which
precluded testing is now vitiated. That is a small footnote.
But, Mr. Chairman, the key to this thing is as follows: We
have had witnesses on both sides of every issue, conscientious
persons, persons who have dedicated 10, 15, 20 years of their
life to providing America with a strong nuclear deterrent. They
honestly differ. I say to you, Mr. Chairman, and members of
this committee, there are honest differences on both sides
leaving clearly a reasonable doubt, and I come from the old
school that it should be beyond any reasonable doubt if we are
going to take a step that affects our vital security interests
for decades to come, indeed possibly into perpetuity as it
relates to this cadre of weapons.
The United States today possesses the strongest
conventional force. Russia's conventional force is dwindling.
The NATO countries are cutting back. Indeed, our allies, Great
Britain and France, are cutting back on conventional forces.
The nuclear arsenals are taking on, particularly in Russia, a
greater and greater significance with regard to their military
and strategic planning.
And at that very time we cannot take any step, most
particularly this treaty in its present form, that would weaken
that deterrent. It is that deterrent, Mr. Chairman, that
prevented any confrontation of a significant nature on the
continent of Europe for 50 years. We celebrated here in the
Nation's capital just months ago the 50th anniversary of NATO,
NATO not having been involved in a major conflict for those 50
years, and now, of course, we have had the Bosnian conflict
situation in Kosovo. But it was that nuclear deterrent that
held at bay the Soviet Union, and now this treaty puts that in
jeopardy.
The witnesses that have come before our committee, the ones
that had the most difficult time, I believe, were the uniformed
witnesses because they want to do what they can to support
their Commander in Chief, but they gave us their best
professional advice. Others who have retired likewise submitted
statements.
But, Mr. Chairman, the key to every single uniformed person
today supporting this treaty is the safeguard provision which
says you can pull out 5, 10, 15 years hence if the President
cannot certify that that stockpile is credible and safe.
Now, Mr. Chairman, our committee under my guidance and that
of my colleague stayed very clearly to our jurisdiction, the
military implications. But I hope you will develop,
particularly with the Secretary of State, the question that
needs to be answered--what happens if we pull out of that
treaty 5 or 10 years hence, what happens to those nations that
placed in us full faith and credit as we went ahead--that will
not happen, but anyway if we went ahead and ratified this
treaty, what happens to those nations? We leave them out there
hanging naked 10 or 15 years from now. Naked in the sense that
they have not taken such steps as they may wish to develop a
nuclear deterrent, but more importantly, by taking that action
and pulling out, we have to signal to the world that we have
less than full faith and credit in the effectiveness of our
nuclear stockpile as a deterrent and for safety.
Let me touch on safety a minute. I have seen these weapons.
I have actually gone up and touched them, just out of
curiosity, and I asked General Shelton the following question:
In his career, had he handled them, and he said of course he
had, all of them.
And I said, put yourself in the uniform of a young sailor,
an airman or marine today that has to deal with storing the
weapons, that has to deal with bringing them out from time to
time and putting them in the various launch platforms, be it
submarines, airplanes or whatever the case may be. And you
cannot say to that sailor, that airman, that marine that it is
absolutely safe for you to deal with those weapons. And there
are many civilians that likewise have to work with them, and
these weapons are stored and collocated in various places in
America, and indeed, Mr. Chairman, beyond our shores. What do
you say to nations as they are following this that are
providing the host facilities for storage that there could be a
point in time when we do not have the degree of confidence in
the safety of these weapons?
Mr. Chairman, I hope and I have had the privilege of
working with my good friend Senator Levin, Senator Biden, some
others just as colleagues do, we have all been here two decades
or more, to see whether or not there is not--and I know the
Chair has spoken to this--is not a means by which we can bring
reasonable and open and rational minds together to work what is
in the best interests of not only our Nation, but indeed the
world, and at this time not to bring to finality by vote a
decision on this treaty. I hope that that is done, but if the
committee is interested at some point, I would be glad to give
you the benefit of one Senator's view as to how it can be done,
but I would be presumptuous at this point in time.
I think I should yield to my other colleagues. I have
covered the principal points. I may have a point or two after I
listen to them. I thank the Chair.
The Chairman. Very good. Senator Shelby.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD C. SHELBY, U.S. SENATOR FROM ALABAMA
Senator Shelby. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden,
colleagues. It is a privilege for me to appear before this
committee at this time to present my views as the chairman of
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. I am and I want to
be very specific here. I am speaking in my capacity as chairman
of the Intelligence Committee, but I should make it clear that
I am not, Mr. Chairman, speaking for the entire committee. I
think that is important.
Due to the limited time available, the Intelligence
Committee has not, Mr. Chairman, prepared a full committee
report on the capability of the United States to monitor
compliance with the CTBT. Furthermore, members of the committee
have differing opinions on this issue.
Mr. Chairman, I intend at the proper time to vote against
the resolution on ratification. I will do so for a number of
reasons, but primarily because it is my considered judgment as
chairman of the Intelligence Committee based upon a review of
the intelligence analysis and on testimony this week from the
intelligence community's senior arms control analysts that it
is impossible to monitor compliance with this treaty with the
confidence that the Senate should demand before providing its
advice and consent for ratification.
Mr. Chairman, simply put, at this point I am not confident
that we can now or can in the foreseeable future detect any and
all nuclear explosions prohibited under the treaty. While I
have a greater degree of confidence in our ability to monitor
higher yield explosions in known test sites, I have markedly
less confidence in our capabilities to monitor lower yield and/
or evasively conducted tests, including, Mr. Chairman, tests
that may enable states to develop new nuclear weapons or
improve existing weapons.
At this point I should point out that while the proponents
of the treaty have argued that it will prevent nuclear
proliferation, the fact is that some of the countries of most
concern to us--North Korea, Iran, and Iraq--can develop, Mr.
Chairman, as you know, and deploy nuclear weapons without any
nuclear tests whatsoever.
With respect to monitoring, in July 1997, the intelligence
community issued a national intelligence estimate entitled
``Monitoring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Over the Next 10
Years.'' While I cannot go into the classified details here
this afternoon, I can say that the NIE was not encouraging
about our ability to monitor compliance with the treaty or
about the likely utility of the treaty in preventing countries
like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq from developing and fielding
nuclear weapons. The NIE identified numerous challenges,
difficulties, and credible evasion scenarios that affect the
intelligence community's confidence in its ability to monitor
compliance.
Mr. Chairman, because the details are classified and
because of the inherent difficulty of summarizing a very highly
technical analysis covering a number of different countries and
a multitude of variables, I recommend that members, including
the members of this committee, review this document with the
following caution: Based on testimony before the committee this
week, I believe that newly acquired information requires
reevaluation of the 1997 estimates, assumptions, and underlying
analysis on certain key issues. The revised assumptions and
analysis appear certain to lead to even more pessimistic
conclusions.
While the intelligence community has not yet provided the
committee with a written analysis of those issues, the
transcript from Tuesday's hearings in the Senate Intelligence
Committee is available to Members. Many proponents of the
treaty place their faith, Mr. Chairman, in monitoring aids
provided under the treaty such as the international monitoring
system, IMS, a multinational seismic detection system, and the
CTBT's onsite inspection regime, OSI. Based on a review of the
structures, likely capabilities, and procedures of these
international mechanisms, Mr. Chairman, neither of which will
be ready to function for a number of years, and based on the
intelligence community's own analysis and statement, I am
concerned that these organizations will be of at best limited
if not marginal value. I believe that the IMS will be
technically inadequate. For example, Mr. Chairman, it was not
designed to detect evasively conducted tests which, if you are
Iraq or North Korea, are precisely the kind you are going to
conduct. It was designed, as you know, Mr. Chairman, with
diplomatic sensitivities rather than effective monitoring in
mind, and it will be 8 to 10 years before the system is
complete.
Because of these factors and for other technical reasons, I
am afraid that the IMS is more likely to muddy the waters by
injecting questionable data into what will inevitably be highly
charged political debates over possible noncompliance. As a
result, the value of more accurate, independently obtained U.S.
information will be undermined, making it more difficult for
the U.S. to make a case for noncompliance if it were to become
necessary.
And with respect to OSI, I believe that the onsite
inspection regime invites delay and confusion. For example,
while U.S. negotiators originally sought an automatic green
light for onsite inspections as a result of the opposition of
the People's Republic of China, now, the regime that was
adopted allows inspections, as you know, Mr. Chairman, only
with the approval of 30 of the 51 countries on the executive
committee. Members of the committee will appreciate the
difficulty of rounding up the votes for such a supermajority.
Mr. Chairman, I am also deeply troubled by the fact that
the inspected party has a veto, a veto over including U.S.
inspectors on an inspection team and the right of the inspected
party to declare areas up to 50 kilometers off limits to
inspection. I understand these provisions are mere limitations
sought by Saddam Hussein on the UNSCOM inspectors, which leads
me to believe that some of the OSI standards could be what is
cut out for Iraq.
As a result of these and other hurdles, Mr. Chairman, even
if inspectors do eventually get near the scene of a suspicious
event, the evidence, which is highly perishable, may well have
vanished.
One final but critical matter that raises questions both as
to Russian intentions under the CTBT as to our monitoring
capabilities is the recently reported activity at Russia's
Arctic test site. The Washington Post, as all of you know, last
weekend reported that Russia continues to conduct possible low-
yield nuclear tests at its Arctic test site reportedly in order
to develop a low-yield weapon, new low-yield weapon that will
be the linchpin of a new Russian military doctrine.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA cannot
monitor such tests with enough precision to determine whether
they are nuclear or conventional explosions. Such activities,
Mr. Chairman, will be of particular concern because there is
evidence, including public statements from the Russian First
Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy that Russia intends to
continue to conduct low-yield hydronuclear tests and does not
believe that these constitute nuclear tests prohibited by the
treaty.
Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence, I have tried to convey
some very serious concerns with the practicality of this treaty
and that is extremely difficult to do in an unclassified forum
such as this in a short time.
I urge my colleagues as they consider their position on
this treaty that they immerse themselves in the details because
it is in the details where the fatal flaws of the document lie.
For further information on this, I urge Members to review the
transcript of this week's Senate Intelligence Committee, and we
will have it available in a secure place. Mr. Chairman, thank
you for your indulgence.
[The prepared statement of Senator Shelby follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Richard C. Shelby
Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden: It is a privilege to appear before you
as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to present
my views on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
I am speaking in my capacity as Chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, but I should make it clear that I am not speaking for the
entire Committee. Due to the limited time available, the Committee has
not prepared a full Committee report on the capability of the United
States to monitor compliance with the CTBT. Furthermore, Members of the
Committee have differing opinions on this issue.
I intend to vote against the Resolution of Ratification. I will do
so for a number of reasons, but primarily because it is my considered
judgment as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, based on a review
of the intelligence analysis and on testimony this week from the
Intelligence Community's senior arms control analysts, that it is
impossible to monitor compliance with this Treaty with the confidence
that the Senate should demand before providing its advice and consent
to ratification.
I shall leave it to another day to elaborate on my concern that the
Treaty may be a stalking horse for de-nuclearization. Its operative
sentence, after all, on its face bans any nuclear explosion. This
prohibition raises a question about the viability of any nuclear
deterrent. There may be an explanation. But it is not in the Treaty
text.
Simply put, I am not confident that we can now, or in the
foreseeable future, detect any and all nuclear explosions prohibited
under the Treaty.
While I have a greater degree of confidence in our ability to
monitor higher-yield explosions in known test sites, I have markedly
less confidence in our capabilities to monitor lower-yield and/or
evasively conducted tests, including tests that may enable states to
develop new nuclear weapons, or improve existing weapons.
I should also point out that while proponents of the Treaty have
argued that it will prevent nuclear proliferation, the fact is that
some of the countries of most concern--for example, North Korea, Iran,
and Iraq--can develop and deploy nuclear weapons without any nuclear
tests at all.
With respect to monitoring, in July 1997, the Intelligence
Community issued a National Intelligence Estimate entitled ``Monitoring
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Over the Next 10 Years.''
While I cannot go into classified details, I can say that the NIE
was not encouraging about our ability to monitor compliance with the
Treaty or about the likely utility of the Treaty in preventing
countries like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq from developing and fielding
nuclear weapons.
The NIE identified numerous challenges, difficulties, and credible
evasion scenarios that affect the Intelligence Community's confidence
in its ability to monitor compliance.
Because the details are classified, and because of the inherent
difficulty of summarizing a highly technical analysis covering a number
of different countries and a multitude of variables, I recommend that
Members review this document, with the following caution:
Based on testimony before the Committee this week, I believe that
newly acquired information requires a re-evaluation of the 1997
Estimate's assumptions and underlying analysis on certain key issues.
These revised assumptions and analysis appear certain to lead, to
even more pessimistic conclusions. While the Intelligence Community has
not yet provided the Committee with a written analysis of those issues,
the transcript from Tuesday's hearing is available to Members.
Many proponents of the Treaty place their faith in monitoring aids
provided under the Treaty: the International Monitoring System (IMS), a
multinational seismic detection system, and the CTBT's On-site
Inspection regime (OSI).
Based on a review of the structure, likely capabilities, and
procedures of these international mechanisms--neither of which will be
ready to function for a number of years--and based on the Intelligence
Community's own analysis and statement, I am concerned that these
organizations will be of, at best, limited or marginal value.
I believe that the IMS will be technically inadequate. For example,
it was not designed to detect ``evasively'' conducted tests, which, if
you are Iraq or North Korea, are precisely the kind you are going to
conduct.
It was designed with diplomatic sensitivities rather than
effective monitoring in mind; and
It will be eight to 10 years before the system is complete.
Because of these factors and for other technical reasons, I am
afraid that the IMS is more likely to muddy the waters by injecting
questionable data into what will inevitably be highly charged political
debates over possible noncompliance.
As a result, the value of more accurate, independently-obtained
U.S. information, would be undermined, making it more difficult for the
United States to make a case for non-compliance if it were to become
necessary.
With respect to OSI, I believe that the Onsite Inspection regime
invites delay and obfuscation. For example, while U.S. negotiators
originally sought an ``automatic green light'' for on-site inspections,
as a result of the opposition of the People's Republic of China, the
regime that was adopted allows inspections only with the approval of 30
of the 51 countries on the Executive Committee. Members of the
Committee will appreciate the difficulty of rounding up the votes for
such a super-majority.
I am deeply troubled by the fact that if the U.S. requested an
inspection, no U.S. inspectors could participate in the inspection, and
we could send an observer only if the Inspected Party approved.
I am also disturbed by the right of the inspected party to declare
areas up to fifty kilometers off-limits to inspection.
I understand that these provisions mirror limitations sought by
Saddam Hussein on UNSCOM inspectors, which leads me to believe that OSI
stands for ``Option Selected by Iraq.''
As a result of these and other hurdles, even if inspectors do
eventually get near the scene of a suspicious event, the evidence--
which is highly perishable--may well have vanished.
One final, but critical, matter that raises questions both as to
Russian intentions under CTBT and as to our monitoring capabilities is
the recently-reported activity at Russia's Arctic test site.
The Washington Post last weekend reported that Russia continues to
conduct possible low-yield nuclear tests at its Arctic test site,
reportedly in order to develop a new low-yield weapon that will be the
linchpin of a new Russian military doctrine. The Washington Post also
reported that the CIA cannot monitor such tests with enough precision
to determine whether they are nuclear or conventional explosions.
Such activities would be of particular concern because there is
evidence, including public statements from the Russian First Deputy
Minister of Atomic Energy, that Russia intends to continue to conduct
low-yield hydro-nuclear tests, and does not believe that these
constitute nuclear tests prohibited by the Treaty.
Mr. Chairman, I have tried to convey some very serious concerns
with the practicality of this Treaty and that is extremely difficult to
do in an unclassified forum and in such a short time.
I urge my colleagues, as they consider their position on this
Treaty that they immerse themselves in the details, because it is in
the details where the fatal flaws of document lie.
For further information on this topic, I urge Members to review the
transcript of this week's testimony before the Intelligence Committee.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, thank you for the opportunity to
testify before this distinguished committee.
The Chairman. Very good. I thank you, sir. Carl, Senator
Levin.
STATEMENT OF HON. CARL LEVIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN
Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Biden,
and colleagues. Thank you for inviting us to testify about our
own beliefs, but perhaps even more importantly, what we have
heard in our hearings in our own committees.
President Eisenhower stated almost 40 years ago that the
failure to achieve a nuclear test ban would, in his words,
``have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any
administration, of any decade, of any time, and of any party.''
The central question that we face, however, every one of us
as Senators, is whether or not this treaty will make us safer
or less safe; whether it will make us more secure or less
secure as a Nation.
The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our top
military leadership, civilian and uniformed, support this
treaty. That is the testimony that we heard. It was strong
testimony. It was not testimony which was qualified by any
personal reservation that they are trying to support their
Commander in Chief, or that they are doing the best they can.
It was their own personal view, directly stated to us, looking
us in the eye because we asked them, eyeball to eyeball, do
you, Chairman Shelton, do you, Secretary Cohen, support the
ratification of the treaty, and they said that they do.
General Shelton, who is our current chairman, of course, of
the Joint Chiefs said the following: That the test ban treaty
``will help limit the development of more advanced and
destructive weapons and inhibit the ability of more countries
to acquire nuclear weapons. It is true,'' he said, ``that the
treaty cannot prevent proliferation or reduce current
inventories. But it can restrict nuclear weapons progress and
reduce the risk of proliferation.''
In short, our top uniformed military leader, General
Shelton, said the following: ``The world will be a safer place
with the treaty than without it, and it is in our national
security interest to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty.''
The whole world, including nuclear weapons powers and
countries that might want to become nuclear weapons powers, is
going to be watching what the Senate does with this treaty. And
our action will affect the willingness of other nations to
refrain from future nuclear testing.
Rejection of this treaty will have a profound negative
impact in the battle against proliferation of nuclear weapons.
India tests, Pakistan tests, and we tell them, stop testing,
you are endangering yourselves, you are endangering the world.
For heaven's sake, stop your testing. If we are not willing to
ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, what standing do we
have to urge India, Pakistan, or any country to stop testing?
Over 150 nations have signed this treaty, including all of our
allies, by the way.
There has been reference made to the fact that our allies
depend upon our nuclear deterrent, and they do and have, and
that our allies who store these weapons depend upon their being
safe, and they do. Our allies recommend that we support this
treaty, those very same allies that depend on our deterrence
and rely upon our nuclear weapons to be safe because they
frequently are being stored on their land. Every one of our
NATO allies, plus South Korea and Japan--over150 nations in
all--have signed this treaty.
Now, the question has been raised whether or not somebody
could cheat, and this is what Secretary Cohen's statement
relating to that is: ``Is it possible for states to cheat on
the CTBT without being detected?'' And here I am quoting him.
``The answer is `yes.' We would not be able to detect every
evasively conducted nuclear test and from a national security
perspective, we do not need to. The U.S. will be able to detect
a level of testing, the yield and number of tests by which a
state could undermine the U.S. nuclear deterrent.''
So although you cannot be certain that nobody can conduct a
test with a very small yield, what Secretary Cohen is telling
us and has told us is that any militarily significant test can
be detected, that they cannot gain military advantage over us
by cheating at those low levels. That is his position. That is
the Joint Chiefs' position, not just my position, but their
position. It also happens to be mine, but that is obviously not
as important.
In addition, both Secretary Cohen and General Shelton have
pointed out that this treaty, if it comes into effect, will
increase our ability to observe and monitor tests because it
will create an international monitoring system of 320
monitoring stations in 90 countries.
They also have testified to us that they have looked at the
full range of intelligence information, including the up-to-
date current information which has been referred to by our good
friends who have already testified. So that both Secretary
Cohen and General Shelton have looked at the same intelligence
information that they have referred to in their testimony and
that we have looked at, and they have reached the exact same
conclusion that they reached before, namely that this treaty is
in our national interest and can be adequately effectively
verified, although you cannot perfectly verify a low-yield
test.
Finally, we had the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons
lab directors in front of us today. The lab directors say that
with two things they are, quote, ``onboard.'' Now, that's the
term that they used this morning. Their testimony varied. It
was not one statement for three directors. And there was a
variation between their testimony. But when I asked them,
point-blank, are you onboard under two conditions, their answer
was yes, that they are onboard with the treaty. One is that the
safeguards, all six, be incorporated formally in the resolution
of ratification, and second that there be robust funding of our
stockpile stewardship program by the Congress. Those are
critically important conditions to them and, as our good friend
Senator Warner said, it is important also to General Shelton
and to Secretary Cohen.
I believe the defeat of this treaty would be disastrous to
our effort to reduce proliferation, but let me just close with
one suggestion. There are many of us who have not yet either
reached a conclusion or feel that we have enough of a record to
reach a conclusion. There are many of us that feel this is the
wrong time to vote on ratification for many different reasons.
Some of us because there is that national intelligence estimate
which Senator Shelby or Senator Warner made reference to. In
fact, I think the chairman made reference to it, an ongoing
national intelligence estimate.
There are many reasons that our colleagues, at least many
of our colleagues, think it is best not to vote at this time on
this treaty. There is precedent for a delay in voting on the
treaty. There was a vote scheduled on the Chemical Weapons
Convention when our good friend Bob Dole came out against the
treaty, just as the current leading Republican candidate for
President has come out against this treaty. And what we did as
a Senate was that we delayed the vote on the Chemical Weapons
Treaty in order to try to keep it out of politics to the extent
we possibly could. We delayed that vote until after the
Presidential election. And then we took the time to add some
reservations and add some conditions to the resolution of
ratification. We took that deliberative time to do that.
We cannot do that under this unanimous consent agreement.
This unanimous consent agreement binds us to one amendment by
the majority leader and one amendment by the Democratic leader.
That is it. No reservations, conditions, declarations,
statements, understandings, motions, things that you folks on
this committee are experts at.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, others on this committee, over
the years you have lent your efforts to adding reservations,
conditions, qualifications to treaties, and you have improved
treaties in the process. We cannot do that under the current
unanimous-consent agreement under which we are operating. We
are restricted. That inhibits the deliberative process of this
body. It is not in keeping with what the Senate should be and
historically has been, which is a body that deliberates
carefully on treaties, and then lends or doesn't lend its
advice and consent to those treaties.
So I would hope that, for many reasons, we would consider
delaying the vote on this treaty next week. I think that
significant progress has been made through these hearings, but
for many of us there is much more information that is needed,
and I think for all of us from an institutional point of view,
it would set a very bad precedent not to be able to offer
reservations and other qualifications and amendments to a
treaty that is being considered by the U.S. Senate.
I have taken a bit too long, and I again thank our Chair
and Senator Biden. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you. Senator Kerrey.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT KERREY, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEBRASKA
Senator Kerrey. Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, members of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I thank you for your
invitation to testify and discuss the issues of verification
and monitoring on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
As Senator Shelby, the chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence has just testified, under normal
circumstances our committee would call witnesses, collect data,
and then submit a very detailed report to the Senate on this
matter. However, given the condensed nature of the debate, like
the chairman, I also regret that we have only had opportunity
to hold a single 2 hour hearing and that the committee has not
prepared a full report.
I come before this committee in my capacity as vice
chairman of the committee and as Senator Shelby as well has
said earlier, I speak for myself, and have not polled
Democratic members of the committee to determine their views.
The key phrase that I make in declaring that my estimate is
that we can effectively monitor and verify compliance of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is the phrase effectively monitor
and verify. This declaration, Mr. Chairman, is made instead of
an absolute declaration of verification. I believe, I say with
great respect to members of this committee, that absolute
verification is an unattainable standard, though it is a
standard some have applied to establish as a benchmark for
ratification, no treaty from the Convention on Literary and
Artistic Copyrights to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights to the one that we are considering today, the
CTBT, is absolutely verifiable.
The central question, I believe, should be, using existing
assets, can the United States of America effectively monitor
and verify this treaty, and my answer is, yes. This conclusion,
Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, is supported by
testimony that was offered yesterday by General John Gordon,
the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. It is also based
on briefings that we have received on the topics, this
committee has received over the years, and most importantly,
Mr. Chairman, it is based upon an assessment of our current
capability to monitor as well as our plans to modernize and
improve our capability to do MASINT and to collect the data
needed to monitor anything that we are concerned about in this
world. We are the world's best at monitoring what is going on
in the world. And if the United States of America says that we
cannot effectively verify, I would suggest it will be difficult
for any nation to reach the conclusion that they can
effectively verify this treaty or any modification of this
treaty.
Mr. Chairman, I have heard some argument on last Sunday's
Washington Post article on which it was reported that the CIA
found that the data from the seismic sensors and other sources
were insufficient to confirm the source of recent seismic
activity in the Russian Arctic region of Novaya Zemlya, that
this is reason enough to oppose this treaty.
Mr. Chairman, again, there are not nor will there ever be
enough seismic sensors in the world to catch a country that is
cheating at the margins. The important fact is this: We do have
the capability today and we will continue in the future to
catch any country whose activity would threaten our ability to
defend U.S. national security interests. We are today not only
highly capable, we are the most capable nation at the detection
of nuclear detonations. The United States has today the
capability to detect any test that could threaten our nuclear
deterrence. The type of test that could be conducted without
our knowledge could only be marginally useful and would not
cause a shift in the existing strategic nuclear balance.
In addition, Mr. Chairman, the United States has the
capability to detect the level of testing that would be
required for another country to develop and weaponize and
advance thermonuclear warheads. These are existing national
capabilities. These key capabilities will continue without
Senate action on the CTBT, but with Senate action and the
action of 16 other named nuclear nations, we will be able to
increase our detection assets.
Our ability to monitor the treaty will be enhanced by
access to the more than 300 monitoring stations that will make
up the CTBT's international monitoring system, and the CTBT
requirement for installation of 17 monitoring stations in the
Middle East, Lebanon, and China, 31 in Russia will improve our
ability to verify this treaty.
Mr. Chairman, in the coming decades our intelligence
agencies are going to be increasingly tasked with monitoring
global nuclear testing. The creation of additional tools and
resources that will come as a result of the CTBT will not
decrease the safety of the American people. It will increase
security.
We also discussed, Mr. Chairman, two additional ways in
which I believe the CTBT will enhance U.S. national security.
First, a fully implemented CTBT will all but halt the ability
of threshold states from establishing an effective and reliable
strategic nuclear force. The inability of nations like Iran and
North Korea to conduct nuclear tests will make it much less
likely for them to become nuclear powers, and our ability to go
to the United Nations Security Council to obtain multilateral
resolutions of sanctions will minimize the go-it-alone U.S.
efforts we are far too often forced to use.
Along the same lines, the inability of existing nuclear
states to conduct further nuclear tests will impede if not
cease their efforts to make technological advances and yields
in miniaturization, advances already achieved by the United
States.
As my friend and our former colleague, Senator Jim Exon
said after returning from the Nevada Test Site, ``No American
general would trade our nuclear forces for another nation's.
Given the overwhelming capability of the United States, I
recognize the test ban would clearly be in our national
interest.''
Bluntly speaking, Mr. Chairman, we have the most effective
and deadly nuclear force in the world. Therefore, to maintain
our existing edge, it is in our interests to ratify the CTBT
and to halt the nuclear development advancement of other
nations.
To conclude, Mr. Chairman, the greatest threat to the
safety of the American people is the nuclear legacy of the cold
war. To confront this threat we need to employ a wide array of
tools. We need to work with Russia to achieve further
reductions in our nuclear arsenals, we need to fund the
cooperative threat reduction program which assists the Russians
with eliminating their nuclear weapons, we need a strong
intelligence capability, we need to continue to pursue national
missile defense, we need to maintain a rigorous military and
the will to use it when our national interests are threatened,
and finally, Mr. Chairman, we need the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty.
The CTBT alone, however, will not protect the American
people, but used in conjunction with these other resources, it
will help check the proliferation of nuclear weapons, improve
our national capabilities to detect global nuclear activity and
enhance the United States' national security.
Again, I thank the chairman and I thank the chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee for inviting me to testify.
Senator Warner. Mr. Chairman, could I just add a fact? My
distinguished colleague quoted extensively from Secretary Cohen
and General Shelton. I would like--I would like to have the
opportunity to provide as a part of my statement the statements
by six Secretaries of Defense, former, led by Secretary
Schlesinger, who presented strong points that we should take
into consideration as well as Dr. Kissinger by letters. The
chairman talked about the intelligence which we cannot discuss
here factually, but it will be before all Senators in S-407 as
a part of your record and our record.
[The information referred to follows:]
The Honorable Trent Lott
Majority Leader,
United States Senate,
Washington, DC.
The Honorable Tom Daschle
Democratic Leader,
United States Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Lott and Daschle:
As the Senate weighs whether to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT), we believe Senators will be obliged to focus on one
dominant, inescapable result were it to be ratified: over the decades
ahead, confidence in the reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile
would inevitably decline, thereby reducing the credibility of America's
nuclear deterrent. Unlike previous efforts at a CTBT, this Treaty is
intended to be of unlimited duration, and though ``nuclear weapon test
explosion'' is undefined in the Treaty, by America's unilateral
declaration the accord is ``zero-yield,'' meaning that all nuclear
tests, even of the lowest yield, are permanently prohibited.
The nuclear weapons in our nation's arsenal are sophisticated
devices, whose thousands of components must function together with
split-second timing and scant margin for error. A nuclear weapon
contains radioactive material, which in itself decays, and also changes
the properties of other materials within the weapon. Over time, the
components of our weapons corrode and deteriorate, and we lack
experience predicting the effects of such aging on the safety and
reliability of the weapons. The shelf life of U.S. nuclear weapons was
expected to be some 20 years. In the past, the constant process of
replacement and testing of new designs gave some assurance that weapons
in the arsenal would be both new and reliable. But under the CTBT, we
would be vulnerable to the effects of aging because we could not test
``fixes'' of problems with existing warheads.
Remanufacturing components of existing weapons that have
deteriorated also poses significant problems. Manufacturers go out of
business, materials and production processes change, certain chemicals
previously used in production are now forbidden under new environmental
regulations, and so on. It is a certainty that new processes and
materials--untested--will be used. Even more important, ultimately the
nuclear ``pits'' will need to be replaced--and we will not be able to
test those replacements. The upshot is that new defects may be
introduced into the stockpile through remanufacture, and without
testing we can never be certain that these replacement components will
work as their predecessors did.
Another implication of a CTBT of unlimited duration is that over
time we would gradually lose our pool of knowledgeable people with
experience in nuclear weapons design and testing. Consider what would
occur if the United States halted nuclear testing for 30 years. We
would then be dependent on the judgement of personnel with no personal
experience either in designing or testing nuclear weapons. In place of
a learning curve, we would experience an extended unlearning curve.
Furthermore, major gaps exist in our scientific understanding of
nuclear explosives. As President Bush noted in a report to Congress in
January 1993, ``Of all U.S. nuclear weapons designs fielded since 1958,
approximately one-third have required nuclear testing to resolve
problems arising after deployment.'' We were discovering defects in our
arsenal up until the moment when the current moratorium on U.S. testing
was imposed in 1992. While we have uncovered similar defects since
1992, which in the past would have led to testing, in the absence of
testing, we are not able to test whether the ``fixes'' indeed work.
Indeed, the history of maintaining complex military hardware
without testing demonstrates the pitfalls of such an approach. Prior to
World War II, the Navy's torpedoes had not been adequately tested
because of insufficient funds. It took nearly two years of war before
we fully solved the problems that caused our torpedoes to routinely
pass harmlessly under the target or to fail to explode on contact. For
example, at the Battle of Midway, the U.S. launched 47 torpedo
aircraft, without damaging a single Japanese ship. If not for our dive
bombers, the U.S. would have lost the crucial naval battle of the
Pacific war.
The Department of Energy has structured a program of experiments
and computer simulations called the Stockpile Stewardship Program, that
it hopes will allow our weapons to be maintained without testing. This
program, which will not be mature for at least 10 years, will improve
our scientific understanding of nuclear weapons and would likely
mitigate the decline in our confidence in the safety and reliability of
our arsenal. We will never know whether we should trust Stockpile
Stewardship if we cannot conduct nuclear tests to calibrate the
unproven new techniques. Mitigation is, of course, not the same as
prevention. Over the decades, the erosion of confidence inevitably
would be substantial.
The decline in confidence in our nuclear deterrent is particularly
troublesome in light of the unique geopolitical role of the United
States. The U.S. has a far-reaching foreign policy agenda and our
forces are stationed around the globe. In addition, we have pledged to
hold a nuclear umbrella over our NATO allies and Japan. Though we have
abandoned chemical and biological weapons, we have threatened to
retaliate with nuclear weapons to such an attack. In the Gulf War, such
a threat was apparently sufficient to deter Iraq from using chemical
weapons against American troops.
We also do not believe the CTBT will do much to prevent the spread
of nuclear weapons. The motivation of rogue nations like North Korea
and Iraq to acquire nuclear weapons will not be affected by whether the
U.S. tests. Similarly, the possession of nuclear weapons by nations
like India, Pakistan, and Israel depends on the security environment in
their region, not by whether or not the U.S. tests. If confidence in
the U.S. nuclear deterrent were to decline, countries that have relied
on our protection could well feel compelled to seek nuclear
capabilities of their own. Thus, ironically, the CTBT might cause
additional nations to seek nuclear weapons.
Finally, it is impossible to verify a ban that extends to very low
yields. The likelihood of cheating is high. ``Trust but verify'' should
remain our guide. Tests with yields below 1 kiloton can both go
undetected and be militarily useful to the testing state. Furthermore,
a significantly larger explosion can go undetected--or be mistaken for
a conventional explosion used for mining or an earthquake--if the test
is ``decoupled.'' Decoupling involves conducting the test in a large
underground cavity and has been shown to dampen an explosion's seismic
signature by a factor of up to 70. The U.S. demonstrated this
capability in 1966 in two tests conducted in salt domes at Chilton,
Mississippi.
We believe that these considerations render a permanent, zero-yield
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty incompatible with the Nation's
international commitments and vital security interests and believe it
does not deserve the Senate's advice and consent. Accordingly, we
respectfully urge you and your colleagues to preserve the right of this
nation to conduct nuclear tests necessary to the future viability of
our nuclear deterrent by rejecting approval of the present CTBT.
Respectfully,
James R. Schlesinger.
Frank C. Carlucci.
Donald H. Rumsfeld
Richard B. Cheney.
Caspar W. Weinberger.
Melvin R. Laird.
______
Henry A. Kissinger,
October 13, 1999.
The Honorable Jesse Helms
Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee,
United States Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman:
As you know, I--together with former National Security Adviser
Brent Scowcroft and former CIA Director and Deputy Secretary of Defense
John Deutch--had recommended in a letter dated October 5th to Senators
Lott and Daschle and in an op-ed in the October 6th Washington Post
that a vote on ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty be postponed to permit a further discussion and clarification of
the issues now too controversial. This having proved unachievable, I am
obliged to state my position.
As a former Secretary of State, I find the prospect that a major
treaty might fail to be ratified extremely painful. But the subject of
this treaty concerns the future security of the United States and
involves risks that make it impossible for me to recommend voting for
the treaty as it now stands.
My concerns are as follows.
Importance of Nuclear Weapons
For the entire postwar period, the American nuclear arsenal has
been America's ultimate shield and that of our allies. Though we no
longer face the same massive threat that we did during the Cold War,
new dangers have arisen. Our nuclear arsenal is our principal deterrent
to the possible use of biological and chemical warfare against America,
our military, and our allies.
Verification
Almost all experts agree that nuclear tests below some yield
threshold remain unverifiable and that this threshold can be raised by
technical means. It seems to me highly dangerous to leave such a vacuum
regarding a matter fundamentally affecting the security of the United
States. And the fact that this treaty is of indefinite duration
compounds the problem. The CIA's concerns about recent ambiguous
activities by Russia, as reported in the media, illustrate difficulties
that will only be compounded by the passage of time.
Supporters of the treaty argue that, because of their small yield,
these tests cannot be significant and that the treaty would therefore
``lock in'' our advantages vis-a-vis other nuclear powers and
aspirants. I do not know how they can be so sure of this in an age of
rapidly exploding technology and whether, on the contrary, this may not
work to the advantage of nations seeking to close this gap. After all,
victory in the Cold War was achieved in part because we kept
increasing, and not freezing, our technological edge.
Nuclear Stockpile
I am not a technical expert on such issues as proof testing, aging
of nuclear material, and reworking existing warheads. But I find it
impossible to ignore the concern about the treaty expressed by six
former Secretaries of Defense and several former CIA Directors and
National Security Advisers. I am aware that experts from the weapons
laboratories have argued that there are ingenious ways to mitigate
these concerns. On the other hand, there is a difference between the
opinion of experts from laboratories and policy-makers' confidence in
the reliability of these weapons as our existing stockpile ages. When
national security is involved, one should not proceed in the face of
such doubts.
Sanctions
Another fundamental problem is the weakness of the enforcement
mechanism. In theory, we have a right to abrogate the treaty when the
``supreme national survival'' is involved. But this option is more
theoretical than practical. In a bilateral treaty, the reluctance to
resort to abrogation is powerful enough; in a multilateral treaty of
indefinite duration, this reluctance would be even more acute. It is
not clear how we would respond to a set of violations by an individual
country or, indeed, what response would be meaningful or whether, say,
an Iranian test could be said to threaten the supreme national
survival.
Non-proliferation
I am not persuaded that the proposed treaty would inhibit nuclear
proliferation. Restraint by the major powers has never been a
significant factor in the decisions of other nuclear aspirants, which
are driven by local rivalries, and security needs. Nor is the behavior
of rogue states such as Iraq, Iran, or North Korea likely to be
affected by this treaty. They either will not sign or, if they sign,
will cheat. And countries relying on our nuclear umbrella might be
induced by declining confidence in our arsenal--and the general
impression of denuclearization--to accelerate their own efforts.
For all these reasons, I cannot recommend a vote for a
comprehensive test ban of unlimited duration.
I hope this is helpful.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Kissinger.
Senator Warner. The key thing, Mr. Chairman, is that on
their own initiative the intelligence community decided they
had to update this NIE as it regards to detecting illegal tests
on their own initiative. They informed our committee they would
not be finished with that until early next year. That concerns
me greatly, and every Senator should examine to the extent they
have conducted that investigation what they have found.
Last, we are substituting 50 years of proven capability of
testing with actual tests underground by and large, certainly
in the last two decades, for a system which is barely on the
blueprint design boards, and it is going to take in the
testimony of the lab directors today anywhere of from 10 to 20
years to put in place that computer, largely computer system to
give this great Nation of ours the confidence to some degree in
the credibility of the system and the safety of the system.
Also, much has been said about monitoring. I hope this
committee looks in very carefully to the fine print of this
treaty which says that 30 nations must concur in the right of
this Nation of ours or another nation to go and do an onsite
inspection, and that group of 30 nations could consist of
voting members like Iraq, Iran or you name them.
Now, Mr. Chairman, we have just finished an operation in
Kosovo where with 19 other nations bonded together by a
protocol treaty called NATO had some difficulties among
themselves dealing with the operation that proved to be
completed here after 74 days. What is the chance that 30
disparate nations in what period of time are going to agree on
an onsite inspection?
Last, this treaty, Mr. Chairman, is designed to prevent
this Nation of ours to modernize. It does not stop other
nations from doing whatever they wish if they do not want to be
a part of it, and in no way does this treaty lay a finger on
terrorists or rogue nations that want to gain access and use
these weapons in an antithetical way to the interests of our
security and our allies.
Senator Biden. But, Senator, is it not true that there is
no treaty if these other nations do not sign it?
Senator Warner. Beg pardon?
Senator Biden. Is it not true there is no treaty if these
other nations which have nuclear capacity do not sign?
Senator Warner. That is all part of the ratification I
think is your point----
Senator Biden. Yeah, right.
The Chairman. Senator Shelby.
Senator Shelby. Mr. Chairman, I want to associate myself
with the remarks of the distinguished chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, Senator Warner. He said it well. But I
would ask again that every member of this committee and the
Senate come to S-407 in their time and look at some classified
information that I believe that you owe it to yourself before
you vote.
Senator Kerrey. Mr. Chairman, if I could disassociate
myself with the comments made by both my friends, first of all,
as to the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies
producing a new NIE, there is no definitive end date here. We
are constantly evaluating our capacity to monitor and the risk
to the United States of America, so no one should presume,
well, we have the definitive, final, end-of-the-game report
that is going to come due next year. This is a constant
process.
Again, I underscore for emphasis, nobody on the face of the
Earth is better at monitoring risk to the Nation and the people
in that nation than the United States of America. We have the
best monitoring capability of anybody right now, and the
central question is not can I monitor something bad that is
going on out there, but can I monitor something that will shift
the strategic balance and put us at risk.
If it does not shift the strategic balance and put at risk,
it is not something that should cause us, it seems to me, to
fly off and say that the Nation is imperiled.
Senator Levin. May I just have one moment. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. First we currently have a safe and secure nuclear
stockpile without testing, and we have not tested for about 7
years. The program, the stockpile stewardship program which we
are relying on is not 10 or 20 years off. It is being utilized
right now to certify to every one of us that our weapons
stockpile is safe and secure. Those lab directors, when asked
point-blank by me whether or not, while this stockpile
stewardship program is being enhanced, whether or not they can
give us that stockpile certification if given the resources by
this Congress, and if those other safeguards are in place,
their answer is they believe they can. And if they cannot
certify, they will not, and under the specific safeguards
provisions that the President has proposed and that we would
adopt, we are giving notice to everybody in advance that we
would consider it our supreme national interest to resume
testing if needed, if those lab directors and the Secretaries
of Defense and Energy cannot give us a certification that our
inventory is safe and reliable. So this is not like some rinky-
dink system that is far off. We are investing billions of
dollars each year and have for many years. We rely on the
stockpile stewardship program right now. There have been three
certifications under that system. And it is a fact that it
would take 30 of 50 nations in order that we could have
inspection, that is true.
Most of those nations, thank God, are not like Iraq and
Iran. Most of those nations are our allies, and just because a
few of those 50 nations might be some we could not rely on,
when you go down that list, you will see that the vast majority
of those nations are nations that we would rely on, and do rely
on every day as allies, and have an abhorrence and a fear of
nuclear weapons that is such that they would be highly
supportive of an inspection in order to see whether somebody
had cheated on this treaty.
Senator Shelby. Mr. Chairman, I hope we will all do the
right thing, but I trust that we will be careful in what we do.
The Chairman. So do I. John, do you have a comment or a
question?
Senator Kerry. I have a bunch.
The Chairman. All right.
Senator Biden. Go ahead, John, but I have a couple for my
friends.
The Chairman. We gave him short shrift this morning.
Senator Kerry. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, sir. Let
me just, if I can begin, I really find this debate somewhat
extraordinary to some degree because there are reasonable
people who are thinking about their nation. I personally would
really hope we do not have a vote, and I have expressed that to
the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and to the
leadership, and that is not because I am trying to save the
Republican Party from itself. That is because in my judgment,
it would deal us a really enormous long-term injury for a lot
of different reasons that I do not have time to lay out now,
but in the debate we may.
But, you know, it is extraordinary to me to hear some of
these arguments. Thanks to you, when you were Secretary of the
Navy, I got to go to nuclear chemical biological warfare
school, and I learned then you can drop these weapons, and they
do not go off. I learned about one point detonation, I learned
about some of the mechanical and electrical safety measures
that are involved, and I know and you know as former Secretary
of the Navy and as chairman of the committee that the notion
that somehow Americans are unsafe with a weapon that is sitting
there, some component of which may deteriorate is simply
extraordinarily inaccurate and, in fact, scary to people in a
way that it should not be.
Senator Warner. I do not wish to scare them, but I
respectfully disagree.
Senator Kerry. The fact is that every electrical and
mechanical component can be inspected and replaced. In point of
fact, if that were our fear, we could rebuild each warhead. In
fact, we have rebuilt. We have the B-61 that was changed in
1988 and certified without any nuclear test. Safety is not
dependent on a nuclear explosion. Safety is dependent on the
safety mechanisms working, and all of them can be tested
without a nuclear explosion.
So no one should say to the American people that
deterioration over the years somehow puts them at risk for a
matter of safety.
Now, second, I asked the question earlier this morning of
Ambassador Kirkpatrick and Secretary Weinberger, and they
answered it, I thought, correctly and honestly. And the
chairman was not here. We have 6,000 or so warheads today we
hope under START II to get them down to 3,500. We hope if we
ever get to START III we will get them down to 2,225. If you
were offered the option 10 years from now or 20 years from now
with our current safety mechanisms and verification capacities
to take 20, 30 of those warheads out of our entire arsenal and
we offered you the option of dropping them on North Carolina or
Virginia, I guarantee you you would say please do not do that
because you know as well as I do the better percentage of them
are going to go off, if not all of them.
Now, deterrence is built on a perception of threat. It is
built on somebody's supposition that something might happen.
That was the entire mutual assured destruction theory that took
us through 50 years successfully, and to suggest that in a mere
15 or 20 years with the current level of inspection, the
current level of computerization, the current level of
technological capacity of this country, the odds on 100 or 500
or a thousand of those multiple thousands not being able to
explode and provide deterrence is extraordinary. Why,
otherwise, I ask the chairman would Japan and all these other
countries that depend on us for their deterrent umbrella, why
would they be the signatories and why would they be saying
please, United States of America, sign this? Have they lost
their senses about their own national security? No. I believe
they are tuned in to the reality of deterrence in a way I do
not completely understand. I know this, that if you do not have
this verification process in place and monitoring of the other
systems, you guarantee that every nation in the world is in a
free-for-all, but if you have it, you have the best opportunity
of all to try to create a regimen, a protocol under which we
rein in what we have fought for 50 years to rein in. It is
incomprehensible to me that people would want to reject that.
The Chairman. All right, who wants to answer that?
Senator Warner. Quickly, I respectfully disagree with your
hypothesis. I think time could take its toll and could affect
safety.
Senator Kerry. Even if you replace them every 5 years?
Senator Warner. Senator, we have dismantled so much of our
infrastructure to do exactly what you speak of. There is only
one nation now building new weapons, and that is Russia, a new
tactical weapon, and we have got to be cautious about that.
And second, with all due respect to my distinguished
ranking member, I have to tell you that the stockpile is safe
today and tomorrow and for the foreseeable future predicated on
test data that was done in the past 50-plus years by actual
test.
The system coming on line, the SSP, as we call it, is
heavily dependent on computers and unequivocally in our
testimony in response to my questions and others', that system
will not be up and fully ready for 5 to 20 years, depending on
the lab director you ask. So I think that is imperative that
the Senate understand that.
Senator Kerry. The only response I make, Mr. Chairman, in
fairness is, under the safeguards that I believe any President
would wisely adopt, you can pull out of this treaty.
Senator Warner. And what is the consequences to the world
when you do that?
Senator Kerry. It is better to have been in it and gone
down the process because the only reason you would pull out is
because it is falling apart, because you cannot safeguard your
future, and that is why you would make that decision. The
consequences of that are no different from the consequences
that you are proposing we adopt today.
The Chairman. Please, please. Our staff is already fussing
at me. Of course, I am enjoying this, but we have got Madeleine
Albright, and whereas I would like to hear you folks, I would
rather hear her.
[Pause.]
The Chairman. Senator Biden has an opening statement, and
then we will hear from the distinguished Secretary of State.
Welcome.
Secretary Albright. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Biden. Welcome, Madam Secretary. At the outset, I
want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing. It
has been over 2 years since the President submitted this
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and since that date it
has not gotten the attention it should, but I welcome today's
hearing. I think it is better than us not having done it, but I
am not sure it is what we should have done.
I believe very strongly, Mr. Chairman, the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty is manifestly in the security interests of the
United States, and I believe that the Senate should give its
advice and consent. As the chairman will recall, we have met
from the time he has been chairman on a regular basis, and he
always asks me what my priorities are, and he will recall I
have indicated to him consistently the single most important
thing I think this committee can do is attend to this treaty.
Ratification of the test ban treaty is in our national
security interests because the treaty is going to help reduce
the ability of nations to join the nuclear club or to field
sophisticated nuclear weapons they do not now have.
Madam Secretary and Mr. Chairman, no treaty is perfect. No
treaty can guarantee perfect security, but the example of the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is illustrative. Three decades
ago when the NPT was signed it was commonly believed that
dozens of nations would soon possess nuclear weapons. Today
there are just seven nations that acknowledge having the
weapons and one or two more that may have constructed a nuclear
device. Undeniably the nuclear test ban treaty, the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty in my view has been successful in
containing proliferation. We always hear how it has failed.
Remember, before it was signed, everyone was talking about a
couple dozen nations having the capacity, the nuclear capacity.
Similarly, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I believe, will
constrain nuclear proliferation because it will be difficult
for countries who have never tested to be sure that the weapons
they have tested will work and for those who have tested to
make any significant change in their arsenal.
The United States having conducted over 1,000 tests in five
decades or about one every 2 weeks has an extensive data base
of knowledge and breathtaking stockpile stewardship program to
ensure the reliability of our nuclear stockpile without further
testing. I would note parenthetically here that I have spoken
at length with the two gentlemen who designed the stockpile
stewardship program. I have listened to all the directors of
the laboratories including former lab directors, and I do not
hear anybody, anybody, anybody, anybody, anybody saying what is
implied, and that is that our stewardship stockpile program now
has put our stockpile in jeopardy or there is any reasonable
prospect of that happening anytime in the future.
Additionally, the CTBT will make it harder for other
nations who have not conducted many tests to modernize their
nuclear arsenals. For the last two decades--excuse me, for the
last 2 years extensive investigations have focused on whether
the People's Republic of China may have stolen key secrets from
U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories. Such espionage, of course,
is a matter of grave concern. But I challenge everyone to
consider this: China can make far more progress in modernizing
its nuclear arsenal by testing than it can from a mere analysis
of whether the nuclear secrets they have stolen from us can be
used.
If we fail to certify or ratify the CTBT, China will be
free to stay out of the treaty, and it may feel free to resume
testing. The result would be that China, with a far more
advanced arsenal than it possesses today, could obtain--would
have a far more advanced arsenal than it possesses today than
it could possibly obtain under the treaty.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is in our interests
because it can contain the advances of nuclear arms in South
Asia as well. Seventeen months ago India and Pakistan each
conducted a series of nuclear tests. Aggressive diplomacy on
the part of the administration has so far prevented these
countries from testing further or deploying those devices on
ballistic missiles. They will probably join the treaty and have
indicated that they will do so, but our failure to join I
predict would result in a destructive and costly nuclear arms
race in which the people of both those nations and indeed the
world will be losers. The CTBT is in our interests because it
will enhance our ability to determine if other nations have
tested by establishing a global network of monitoring stations,
well over 300 stations, in fact, many of which complement our
own vast monitoring capabilities now.
The treaty requires installation or upgrades of dozens of
stations in key areas of interest to us, including 31 stations
in Russia, 11 in China, 17 in the Middle East. These are
obviously not places where we can just go and set up shop, so
they will make a considerable contribution to overall
monitoring.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, the CTBT is in our interest because
it will cap the nuclear programs of the existing nuclear
powers, thus giving our military planners greater certainty
about the arsenals of possible adversaries. There is much more
to say, and over the coming days we will debate many of the
fine points of this treaty. These points are important, and the
reason why we should conduct several hearings to review this
treaty, several more than we have had, but I urge everyone to
stay focused on the central question, will we be better off in
a world without nuclear testing than we will be in one with
nuclear testing?
We have not tested a nuclear device since 1992. We have
established a 10-year $45 billion program to ensure that we do
not need to test again. No other nation with nuclear weapons
can match this. We have the financial resources, the existing
nuclear know-how, the scientific community second to none, and
a strong bipartisan commitment to nuclear deterrence, and no
rogue state can develop a nuclear weapon without conducting
tests that will almost certainly be detected and will prompt a
swift and strong international reaction. I think that is a
decidedly one-sided deal in our favor.
The world is watching the Senate. Will we choose to enhance
our security and increase stability with a treaty that will
constrain or will we allow the expansion of nuclear capability
and destroy a 40-year foundation that has been underway of
moving away from the use of nuclear weapons, a reduction in the
nuclear weapons and arms control or will we set out on a path
of proliferation? It is almost that simple and it is that
complicated, Mr. Chairman.
I thank you again for having this hearing. I hope that
better heads prevail and we are able to continue this process,
but if we have to vote on Tuesday, which I am prepared to do,
and will vote for the treaty, it will be the single most
important vote anybody on this committee will cast and will
have cast in my view, and it will set the path for this Nation
and determine the circumstances under which my granddaughters
will live more than any other thing that we do. I welcome you,
Madam Secretary, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me
to make an opening statement.
The Chairman. Well, you are certainly welcome. We have a
decision to make, this being a very active Senate these days. I
see the one light, meaning a vote is on. I dislike Senators
going and coming while the Secretary is speaking. Would you
prefer that we all go and come back quickly? I think I would
rather.
Secretary Albright. Yes, thank you.
The Chairman. We will stand in recess and go vote and then
come right back.
[Recess.]
Senator Hagel. Madame Secretary, if you are prepared, I
have been empowered by the chairman, scary thought as that is,
to welcome you officially and get you started. We know you have
other things to do. And we are again grateful for you being
here. We look forward to your testimony. So tally ho.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, I am ready to vote.
Senator Hagel. I was not given that much power.
STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT, SECRETARY OF STATE
Secretary Albright. Thank you very much, Senator Hagel, and
other Senators. I really thank you for the opportunity to
testify today on behalf of a treaty that will make the world
safer and America more secure. The Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty or CTBT is not a panacea. It will not guarantee that
nuclear weapons spread no further. No pact or policy can ensure
that. But the treaty will make it more difficult and dangerous
for countries to develop and modernize nuclear weapons. That
is, without question, in the national security interests of the
United States.
Under the treaty, America would retain a safe and reliable
nuclear deterrent, but by preventing testing, the treaty will
inhibit the development of more advanced weapons by other
nuclear weapons states and make it harder for countries that do
not now have such weapons to build them.
Our Nation has the world's most advanced nuclear
capabilities. In the past we conducted more than 1,000 nuclear
explosive tests. Our most experienced and eminent nuclear
scientists and the heads of our testing labs agree that we do
not need to continue these tests in order to maintain an
effective deterrent. We can keep our weapons fully safe and
reliable under the provisions of the treaty and the special
safeguards President Clinton has proposed. This view is echoed
by our senior military leaders, including General Hugh Shelton,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and four of his predecessors, and
has been supported consistently by the chiefs of all our Armed
Services.
America's ability to protect its security without testing
is not new. We stopped conducting nuclear explosive tests in
1992. In recent years such a moratorium has been broadly
observed around the world, but as the exceptions in South Asia
last year indicate, restraint depends now almost entirely upon
goodwill.
Since America has no need and does not plan to conduct
nuclear explosive tests, the essence of the debate over the
CTBT should be clear. It is not about preventing America from
conducting tests. It is about preventing and dissuading others
from doing so. It is about establishing the principle on a
global basis that it is not smart, not safe, not right and not
legal to conduct explosive tests in order to develop or
modernize nuclear weapons.
By banning such tests, the treaty removes a key tool that a
modernizer or a proliferator would need to develop with
confidence small advanced nuclear warheads. These are the
weapons that can most readily be concealed and that can be
delivered by ballistic missiles. They are the most threatening
to others and to us. No country could be confident of
developing them under the CTBT.
Some say the treaty is too risky because countries might
cheat, but by approving the treaty what exactly would we be
risking? With no treaty, other countries can test without
cheating and without limit. The CTBT would improve our ability
to deter and detect clandestine nuclear weapons activity in
three ways. First, every signatory would be required to accept
intrusive monitoring. Second, the treaty establishes a
comprehensive international verification regime with more than
320 data gathering stations of four different types that can
register nuclear explosions anywhere in the world. A great deal
of information collected by these sensor stations would not
otherwise be available to our intelligence community.
Third, the treaty would give us the right to call for
onsite inspections when we have evidence a test has occurred.
Obviously we will continue to make full use of our own national
technical means, but we will have more extensive access in more
countries of interest under the treaty than we would ever have
without it. And the more countries that support and participate
in the treaty, the harder it will be for others to cheat and
the higher the price they will pay if they do.
Mr. Chairman, some have suggested that the treaty is not
verifiable because we cannot be absolutely certain of detecting
very low yield tests. Strictly speaking, that is true with or
without the treaty, but by improving our capacity to monitor,
we are much more likely under the treaty to detect such tests
and consequently to deter them.
The CTBT prohibits all explosive tests, and we would take
any sign of cheating very seriously, but our citizens should
know that low-yield explosions would be of little use in
developing new or more advanced weapons systems, and we are
confident that we would detect and deter any tests that could
damage U.S. security interests.
Another criticism I have heard of the treaty is that it is
premature. We should wait, some say, both until our ability to
detect even the smallest test is 100 percent, which may never
happen, or until every country about which we are concerned has
ratified the treaty first.
I can only reply that that is a recipe for followership,
not leadership. The purpose of our national security policy
should be to help shape events, not simply observe them. We
want other countries, including Russia, China, India, and
Pakistan to ratify this treaty and undertake a binding
commitment to refrain from nuclear explosive tests.
But how can we convince them to do so if we will not? If we
wait, why should not they? Waiting is not a strategy. Waiting
is the absence of a strategy. If we believe nuclear restraint
is the right approach, we should ratify this treaty and mark a
path for others to follow. After all, we heard the same
arguments during the debate on the chemical weapons convention.
Opponents said we should wait, but once we decided to move
ahead, five countries, including China, chose to submit their
ratifications on the same day we did. Cuba ratified a week
later, and Iran, Pakistan, and Russia followed within 8 months.
Over the past 2 days I have been asked whether I would
prefer to see a vote on this treaty delayed rather than have it
voted down. I have only one real preference, and that is to see
the treaty approved as soon as possible. The reason is not
sentiment but sense. This treaty would help America. I hope
that Senators who now oppose the CTBT or who are undecided will
think very carefully about what the consequences would be if
the treaty were not approved. Because it would be a national
security tragedy if the world's greatest deliberative body
killed a treaty that our Nation has sought for 40 years by
failing properly to deliberate on and appreciate its merits.
Under those circumstances, we would have preserved the
right to do something we have no need and no intention of
doing, while giving a free pass to those who may want to
conduct nuclear explosive tests and could one day do us harm.
We would have ignored the best national security advice of our
top military leaders. We would have missed a priceless chance
to improve our ability to detect and deter nuclear tests. We
would have denied the vision and betrayed the dream of the two
Presidents who first proposed and pursued the comprehensive
test ban--Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy--and we would have
done damage to American interests in every region.
In Asia, by throwing away a valuable tool for slowing the
modernization of China's nuclear arsenal and by sending a very
confusing signal to North Korea. In South Asia by cutting the
legs out from under our efforts to persuade India and Pakistan
to sign and ratify the CTBT. In Russia by reducing our
credibility on nonproliferation issues with a government we
have continually urged to take proliferation seriously. In the
Gulf by easing worldwide pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear
ambitions. And in Europe, the Americas, and around the globe by
disappointing our allies and friends, many of whom have
ratified the treaty and are without exception urging us to do
the same.
Senators, in recent years I have traveled to every corner
of the world. I have met with senior officials from most
nations. In that time I have not heard a single expression of
doubt about the overwhelming power and reliability of our
nuclear deterrent or about our ability and resolve to defend
America's vital interests.
What I have heard are questions about whether America would
continue to lead in reducing the threat that nuclear
proliferation poses to every citizen in every country. I have
heard the concern that we would insist on reserving the right
to conduct nuclear explosive tests and thereby give every
country with a potential to develop nuclear weapons a green
light to do so.
Let us be clear. It is potential proliferators who need to
test. We do not. It is those who might wish to modernize. We
set the standard for modernization. By approving the CTBT, we
can go far to lock in a technological status quo that protects
us without threatening others.
At the same time, we would strike an historic blow against
the spread of nuclear weapons. But if we send this treaty down
to defeat, we will fuel ambitions and fears that could multiply
the number and danger of nuclear weapons even as the new
century dawns.
In recent days I have heard opponents refer to this treaty
to ban nuclear explosive tests as dangerous. Call me illogical,
but I believe that given where the United States now stands in
the world, it is unrestrained nuclear explosive tests that are
dangerous.
I know this treaty cannot eliminate all the risks that we
and our families face, but like President Clinton, Secretary
Cohen, American military leaders past and present, and our
Nation's allies from Ottawa to Paris and London to Tokyo, I am
convinced this landmark agreement will reduce those risks. I
urge each Senator to think carefully before voting to put
partisan considerations aside and to cast your vote in support
of American leadership on behalf of a safer world and in favor
of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Twenty years from now when my grandchildren are living in a
world where there are more nuclear powers, they might look at
me and say, Maddy, which is what they call me, and they might
say, weren't you Secretary of State in 1999 when people
considered whether we should test or not? How come the testing
went on? Did you not do something about it?
And I am going to say to them, I did my damnedest for them
to make sure that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty passed, and
I hope that when you look at your grandchildren you will be
able to say the same thing. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Albright follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Madeleine K. Albright
Mr. Chairman and Senators, thank you for the opportunity to testify
today on behalf of a Treaty that will make the world safer and America
more secure.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, is not a panacea. It
will not guarantee that nuclear weapons spread no further. No pact or
policy can ensure that. But the Treaty will make it more difficult and
dangerous for countries to develop and modernize nuclear weapons. That
is, without question, in the national security interests of the United
States.
Under the Treaty, America would retain a safe and reliable nuclear
deterrent. But by preventing testing, the Treaty will inhibit the
development of more advanced weapons by other nuclear weapons states,
and make it harder for countries that do not now have such weapons to
build them.
Our nation has the world's most advanced nuclear capabilities. In
the past, we conducted more than 1,000 nuclear explosive tests. Our
most experienced and eminent nuclear scientists, and the heads of our
testing labs, agree that we do not need to continue these tests in
order to maintain an effective deterrent. We can keep our weapons fully
safe and reliable under the provisions of the Treaty and the special
safeguards President Clinton has proposed.
This view is echoed by our senior military leaders, including
General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and four
of his predecessors. And has been supported consistently by the chiefs
of all our armed services.
America's ability to protect its security without testing is not
new. We stopped conducting nuclear explosive tests in 1992. In recent
years, such a moratorium has been broadly observed around the world,
but--as the exceptions in South Asia last year indicate--restraint
depends now almost entirely upon good will.
Since America has no need and does not plan to conduct nuclear
explosive tests, the essence of the debate over CTBT should be clear.
It is not about preventing America from conducting tests; it is about
preventing and dissuading others from doing so. It is about
establishing the principle on a global basis that it is not smart, not
safe, not right and not legal to conduct explosive tests in order to
develop or modernize nuclear weapons.
By banning such tests, the Treaty removes a key tool that a
modernizer or a proliferator would need to develop with confidence
small, advanced nuclear warheads. These are the weapons that can most
readily be concealed; and that can be delivered by ballistic missiles.
They are the most threatening to others and to us. No country could be
confident of developing them under the CTBT.
Some say the Treaty is too risky because countries might cheat. But
by approving the Treaty, what exactly would we be risking? With no
treaty, other countries can test without cheating, and without limit.
The CTBT would improve our ability to deter and detect clandestine
nuclear weapons activity in three ways.
First, every signatory would be required to accept intrusive
monitoring.
Second, the Treaty establishes a comprehensive international
verification regime, with more than 320 data gathering stations of four
different types that can register nuclear explosions anywhere in the
world. A great deal of the information collected by these sensor
stations would not otherwise be available to our intelligence
community.
And third, the Treaty would give us the right to call for on-site
inspections when we have evidence a test has occurred.
Obviously, we will continue to make full use of our own national
technical means. But we will have more extensive access in more
countries of interest under the Treaty than we would ever have without
it. And the more countries that support and participate in the Treaty,
the harder it will be for others to cheat, and the higher the price
they will pay if they do.
Mr. Chairman, some have suggested that the Treaty is not verifiable
because we cannot be absolutely certain of detecting very low-yield
tests. Strictly speaking, that is true with or without the Treaty. But
by improving our capacity to monitor, we are much more likely under the
Treaty to detect such tests and consequently to deter them.
The CTBT prohibits all explosive tests; and we would take any sign
of cheating very seriously.
But our citizens should know that low-yield explosions would be of
little use in developing new or more advanced weapons systems. And we
are confident that we could detect and deter any tests that could
damage U.S. security interests.
Another criticism I have heard of the Treaty is that it is
premature. We should wait, some say, both until our ability to detect
even the smallest tests is 100 percent, which may never happen; or
until every country about which we are concerned has ratified the
Treaty first. I can only reply that this is a recipe for followership,
not leadership.
The purpose of our national security policy should be to help shape
events, not simply observe them. We want other countries, including
Russia, China, India and Pakistan to ratify this Treaty and undertake a
binding commitment to refrain from nuclear explosive tests.
But how can we convince them to do so if we will not? If we wait,
why shouldn't they? Waiting is not a strategy; waiting is the absence
of a strategy. If we believe nuclear restraint is the right approach,
we should ratify this Treaty and, mark a path for others to follow.
After all, we heard the same arguments during the debate on the
Chemical Weapons Convention. Opponents said we should wait.
But once we decided to move ahead, five countries, including China,
chose to submit their ratifications on the same day we did. Cuba
ratified a week later, and Iran, Pakistan and Russia followed within
eight months.
Over the past two days, I have been asked whether I would prefer to
see a vote on this Treaty delayed, rather than have it voted down. I
have only one preference, and that is to see the Treaty approved as
soon as possible. The reason is not sentiment, but sense. This Treaty
would help America.
And I hope that Senators who now oppose the CTBT, or who are
undecided, will think very carefully about what the consequences would
be if the Treaty were not approved. Because it would be a national
security tragedy if the world's greatest deliberative body killed a
Treaty that our nation has sought for forty years by failing properly
to deliberate on and appreciate its merits.
Under those circumstances, we would have preserved the right to do
something we have no need and no intention of doing, while giving a
free pass to those who may want to conduct nuclear explosive tests and
could one day do us harm.
We would have ignored the best national security advice of our top
military leaders.
We would have missed a priceless chance to improve our ability to
detect and deter nuclear tests.
We would have denied the vision and betrayed the dream of the two
Presidents who first proposed and pursued the--comprehensive test ban--
Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy.
And we would have done damage to American interests in every
region.
In Asia, by throwing away a valuable tool for slowing the
modernization of China's nuclear arsenal; and by sending a very
confusing signal to North Korea.
In South Asia, by cutting the legs out from under our efforts to
persuade India and Pakistan to sign and ratify the CTBT.
In Russia, by reducing our credibility on nonproliferation issues
with a government we have continually urged to take proliferation
seriously.
In the Gulf, by easing worldwide pressure on Iran to curb its
nuclear ambitions.
And in Europe, the Americas and around the globe, by disappointing
our allies and friends, many of whom have ratified the Treaty and are--
without exception--urging us to do the same.
Senators, in recent years, I have traveled to every corner of the
world. I have met with senior officials from most nations. In that
time, I have not heard a single expression of doubt about the
overwhelming power and reliability of our nuclear deterrent, or about
our ability and resolve to defend America's vital interests.
What I have heard are questions about whether America would
continue to lead in reducing the threat that nuclear proliferation
poses to citizens in every country. I have heard the concern that we
would insist on reserving the right to conduct nuclear explosive tests,
and thereby give every country with the potential to develop nuclear
weapons a green light to do so.
Let us be clear. It is potential proliferators who need to test; we
do not. It is those who might wish to modernize; we set the standard
for modernization. By approving the CTBT, we can go far to lock in a
technological status quo that protects us without threatening others.
At the same time, we would strike an historic blow against the spread
of nuclear weapons.
But if we send this Treaty down to defeat, we will fuel ambitions
and fears that could multiply the number and danger of nuclear weapons
even as the new century dawns.
Mr. Chairman, it just so happens that about three weeks ago, I was
blessed with my fourth grandchild, and first granddaughter. Her name is
Madeleine.
I hope I am not being selfish when I say that I want Madeleine and
others her age to grow up like those of us on both sides of this table
in one respect could not. I want her to grow up free from the fear of
nuclear attack. I believe that the CTBT will give her and her
generation a better chance. I fear that without the Treaty, the spread
of nuclear dangers could create risks even graver than those we faced.
In recent days, I have heard opponents refer to this Treaty to ban
nuclear explosive tests as dangerous. Call me illogical, but I believe
that, given where the United States now stands in the world, it is
unrestrained nuclear explosive tests that are dangerous.
I know this Treaty can't eliminate all the risks that we and our
families will face. But like President Clinton, Secretary Cohen,
American military leaders past and present, and our nation's allies
from Ottawa to Paris and London to Tokyo, I am convinced this landmark
agreement will reduce those risks.
I urge each Senator to think carefully before voting, to put
partisan considerations aside; and to cast your vote in support of
American leadership, on behalf of a safer world, and in favor of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Madam Secretary, I apologize for being so
late, but three people grabbed me on another matter.
Before we routinely turn to our first round of questions, I
feel obliged to ask you a question about a matter that was
brought to the committee's attention this morning by the
administration's CTBT negotiator, Ambassador Ledogar.
When asked, the ambassador confirmed the existence of a
previously undisclosed side agreement relating to U.S.
membership in the CTBT Executive Council. I did not even know
that existed, which shows what I know. He also confirmed the
existence of other side deals contained in memoranda and
jointly agreed notes.
Now, I do not get hot and bothered about things of this
sort, but it does concern me when I learn about secret deals on
the side. Maybe they are perfectly innocent, but do you want to
talk about why these exist and how they exist and how it began?
Secretary Albright. Well, first of all, let me just say in
terms of what you were asking about the creation of the
Council, that is part of how this Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
is going to work, and we can give you more information on that,
but let me just say that during the negotiation of the CTBT,
the nuclear weapons states did consult regularly including on
questions related to the scope of the treaty, and these
consultations led to the achievement of a shared understanding
that all nuclear explosions, however small, including low-yield
hydronuclear tests, are prohibited and subcritical experiments
are not prohibited.
A shared understanding was also achieved that the treaty
does not prohibit a range of activities, none of which would
involve nuclear explosions. I think there are no secret
agreements attached to this, but whatever documentation we have
we obviously will be glad to share with you.
The Chairman. That was going to be my next suggestion. If
you furnished us information probably it would just go in the
file and never matter, but you know how it is.
Secretary Albright. Obviously. No, we would be pleased to.
The Chairman. Let us see. I asked the Ambassador about the
White House's claim that CTBT is, quote, and this expression or
this phrase has been used time and time again, ``the longest
sought, hardest fought prize in the history of arms control,''
and that it has been the negotiating objective of every
President since Eisenhower. He stated that that was hyperbole
and admitted that not a single President before the current one
has ever sought a zero yield indefinite duration CTBT. I just
wonder if that does not carry the hype a little bit far, and
maybe it happens on the side I happen to be on, and it is one
of the rare occasions when you and I are on opposite sides, but
do we have to do that sort of thing or do you know some
hyperbole? I called it bull, but he said, well, I prefer to
call it hyperbole.
Do you agree with your chief negotiator that the treaty
proposed to the Senate is not what the Clinton administration
initially proposed?
Secretary Albright. Well, first of all, I do not know what
you want to call it, but the truth of the matter is that it was
President Eisenhower who first put forward the idea that there
be a ban on testing of nuclear weapons, and then President
Kennedy had a limited test ban, and really it is an issue that
has been out there ever since the beginning of nuclear testing
because I think those Presidents and subsequent ones have been
very concerned about the dangers created to everybody by
nuclear testing and have tried to limit it, and I think that--
so I think that--I try not to use hyperbole, but I do believe
that this is a much sought after treaty that has been sought
after for a long time by many, many Presidents.
It also is very much a part of an overall proliferation
strategy or nonproliferation strategy. We are not the only
country in the world that has nuclear weapons, and we are also
a part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and what
happened as a result of that was that, first of all, when there
was the moratorium that passed in 1992, there was a push that
there should also be a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty along with
a unilateral moratorium. Then when we were reviewing the NPT in
1995, we made a good faith commitment to the nonnuclear
countries that we would do everything we could to work on a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. That has been the push.
Those negotiations have all been taking place--not
bilaterally as our treaties with the Soviet Union and Russia
have, but multilaterally, and in that kind of a negotiation,
there is always a lot of give and take. We did not get
everything that was our maximum position, but we did get
everything that we needed, and I think, sir, you appear as all
of you that are legislators know that as you are coming forward
with something that you really want, you have an ability to
negotiate down to your bottom line and get what you really
need, and in the meantime clearly in the negotiating process
you put down your maximum demands, and we, as I said, we did
not get everything we wanted, but we got everything we needed.
The Chairman. Now, my impression is that Eisenhower and
everybody else insisted on low-yield testing and a time limit
for the treaty. Am I mistaken?
Secretary Albright. Excuse me, and a time?
The Chairman. And a time limit on the treaty.
Secretary Albright. Well, I think that what they wanted was
to get what they could. Their dream was to be able to have a
treaty that made sure that we were safe and that we would be
able to maintain our superiority, and at the same time make
sure that there would not be problems in terms of others being
able to develop their nuclear weapons.
We believed, and there has been a lot of discussion about
the zero yield, there were discussions about whether there
should be higher levels, and ultimately after the discussions
in committees, it was decided that it was better to have a zero
yield rather than a low yield because it is easier, frankly, to
measure, and we got agreement from the Chinese and the Russians
that it was appropriate to have a zero yield in this treaty,
and this treaty is permanent, but it does permit for a 10-year
review.
The Chairman. Good. If I might ask Mr. Holum, he is not
testifying, but he could possibly nod yea or nay if he is
familiar with this statement. Among many other things, the
treaty does not contain our original proposal for an option to
withdraw from the treaty at the 10-year mark without citing
reasons of supreme national interest, and our proposal that the
treaty's scope provides room for so-called hydronuclear
experiments and very small nuclear yields.
Is that a statement that you are familiar with?
Secretary Albright. Yes.
The Chairman. As a matter of fact, you made it, did you
not?
Secretary Albright. Yes.
The Chairman. I just wonder if it is a fair
characterization of your original negotiating instructions from
the administration.
Secretary Albright. I can. If you want, let me give you a
fuller answer here. During the initial phase of the
negotiations, the United States did seek to make a small
exclusion for itself to allow for very low-yield hydronuclear
tests. However, others asked for exclusions also on a much
larger scale which would have been contrary to our
nonproliferation objectives.
In principle, we were not able to oppose others' exclusions
unless we decided to move to a zero yield treaty that would be
equal for all. In 1995 the report of the JASON group of
distinguished scientists concluded that we did not need
hydronuclear tests to maintain the safety and reliability of
our nuclear stockpile which removed reservations about zero and
allowed us to propose the zero as a solution, and getting
others to reassess downward and eventually to accept zero was a
victory for the United States. And zero, moreover, was
recognized as better for us because it is easier to verify, as
I said, the difference between zero and some limited level of
activity than between one level of activity and a higher level.
So we were pleased with that, and I think that the fact also
exists as one of the aspects of the treaty as it was
transmitted to you that we can withdraw, it does not matter
whether 10 years or any years if the President on advice from
the Department of Defense--Secretary of Defense and Secretary
of Energy thinks that the reliability of the stockpile is not
there or other reasons for supreme national interest. So that
exists. It is not within a timeframe. It is available to us at
any time that we feel our national security is threatened.
The Chairman. Thank you for that. Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Thank you very much. Again, welcome, Madam
Secretary. There is a lot of things I would like to explore
with you here. Let me begin by saying that I, along with a
number of my Republican colleagues with whom I have been asked
by the Democratic leadership to confer about the scheduling of
this vote, are concerned about the possible consequences of
rejection. Speaking only for myself, I think the prospects for
rejection are in direct proportion to how little discussion
there is. My view is the greater the discussion, the greater
the debate, the more time we have to discuss it, the more it
will become apparent why this is so important.
I would like to ask permission, Mr. Chairman to enter in
the record a list of the duration of time that we took to hold
hearings and also debate on the floor of the Senate the last
five major arms control treaties we have had.
The Chairman. Without objection, of course.
[The information referred to follows:]
Senate Consideration of Major Arms Control and Security Treaties--1972-
1999
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty/SALT I (approved 1972)
8 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings
18 days of Senate floor consideration
Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (1988)
23 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings
9 days of Senate floor consideration
Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty (1991)
5 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings
2 days of Senate floor consideration
START I Treaty (1992)
19 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings
5 days of Senate floor consideration
START II Treaty (1996)
8 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings
3 days of Senate floor consideration
Chemical Weapons Convention (1997)
14 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings
3 days of floor consideration
NATO Enlargement (1998)
7 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings
8 days of floor consideration
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (submitted 1997)
1 day of Foreign Relations Committee hearings (scheduled)
Senator Biden. Now, I asked Frank Wisner and Robert Oakley
to advise me on the impact of a negative vote on India and
Pakistan in particular. Wisner was Ambassador to Egypt under
President Bush and Ambassador to India under President Clinton,
and Oakley was Ambassador to Pakistan under Presidents Reagan
and Bush, and their letters are short and to the point, and
with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to read them,
and then maybe the Secretary could respond.
This is from Mr. Oakley--Ambassador Oakley:
``Dear Senator Biden, you asked my views on the effects of
action by the U.S. Senate to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty. In my judgment, the effects would be dangerously
negative for the United States security interests.
``First, in the long term, there would be a significant
erosion of constraints upon further development of nuclear
capacities and capabilities around the world. The United States
has been the leader in seeking limitations upon current
capabilities as well as convincing other countries not to
develop such capabilities. There would be important political
downside effects upon this effort since the United States would
be seen as turning away from its basic policy of restraint.
Second, in the near term, the climate and freedom for nuclear
testing created by reversal of U.S. basic position would be an
incentive for new countries such as Iran to test when they are
ready. Russia and China might well conclude they have the
freedom to test. The most troubling in the immediate future
would be the virtual invitation to India to start implementing
a new nuclear doctrine recently proposed by its national
security advisory board. This doctrine calls for a major
increase in India's nuclear capabilities which could only be
achieved by more testing. Pakistan has already made it clear
that it would follow India in more testing, and given the
prevailing tensions in the subcontinent, the nuclear arms race
which could well ensue would be extremely dangerous.''
Senator Biden. Signed Robert B. Oakley.
And the following from Ambassador Wisner.
``Dear Senator Biden, I understand that Members of the
Senate are currently debating the issue of Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty. I regard early passing of this treaty as America's
highest national importance and hope that your arguments in
support of its passing can result in the right and necessary
outcome.
``As Ambassador to India from 1994 to 1997 I was intimately
involved in matters related to CTBT and India's willingness to
sign the treaty. Since my departure from government, I have
also followed closely the negotiations with New Delhi and
Islamabad which are aimed at convincing those governments to
accept CTBT. If the United States delays the decision and
rejects the treaty, I am confident the United States runs a
serious risk of India abandoning the treaty and Pakistan will
follow suit. Consensus in favor of treaty signature in India is
not yet fully formed, and if it is, the consensus will be weak.
Many thoughtful Indians with a voice in national defense policy
believe India needs to test further its nuclear capacity. What
India does, Pakistan surely will do.
``In the event that India and Pakistan walk away from the
CTBT, the United States will face an even more complicated
nuclear proliferation problem, in the world at large.''
Senator Biden. And it goes on from there. Sincerely, ``in
closing, let me repeat my hope that the U.S. Senate will ratify
. . .''.
That, coupled with a--well, let me just ask you to respond.
Do you share their concern about the impact of a negative vote
on India and Pakistan restraining or failing to restrain their
move toward further reliance upon nuclear weapons?
Secretary Albright. Well, I do not want to engage in
hyperbole, but in spades I agree with what they have said
because I think that we are very concerned about the
possibility here that we have two countries side by side that
have very serious differences and have now the potential of
nuclear weapons, and we believe that the U.S. ratification
remains critical in order to get them on board.
[The full text of the letters referred to follows:]
American International Group, Inc.,
70 Pine Street,
New York, NY, September 30, 1999.
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden
United States Senate,
439 Dirksen Bldg., Washington, DC.
Dear Sen. Biden: I understand that members of the Senate are
currently debating the issue of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. I
regard the early passage of this Treaty as a matter of the highest
national importance and hope that your arguments and support of its
passage will result in the right and necessary outcome.
As Ambassador to India from 1994 through 1997, I was intimately
involved in matters related to CTBT and India's unwillingness to sign
that Treaty. Since my departure from government I have also followed
closely our negotiations with New Delhi and Islamabad which are aimed
at convincing those two governments to accept CTBT. If the United
States Senate delays a decision or rejects the Treaty, I am confident
that the United States will run a serious risk of India abandoning the
Treaty. Pakistan will follow suit. A consensus in favor of a Treaty
signature in India is not yet fully formed and if it is, the consensus
will be weak. Many thoughtful Indians with a voice in national defense
policy believe India needs to test further its nuclear capability. What
India does, Pakistan will surely do.
In the event that India and Pakistan walk away from CTBT, the
United States will face an even more complicated nuclear proliferation
problem in the world at large. The signal will be visible to all that
the Treaty has been grievously weakened and the international community
is unable to control weapons testing. This state of affairs cannot be
helpful to the United States and to the hopes all of us have to reduce
the threat of the use of nuclear weapons in the world. Put differently,
I do not wish to contemplate treaty failure here followed by a
breakdown with India and Pakistan and the effect these moves will have
on rogue states like Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea.
In closing, let me repeat my hope that the United States Senate
will ratify CTBT and do so very soon.
With best wishes,
Sincerely,
Frank G. Wisner,
Vice Chairman, External Affairs.
______
Institute for National Strategic Studies,
National Defense University,
Washington, DC, October 1, 1999.
Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
United States Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Biden: You asked my views on the effects of action by
the United States Senate to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
In my judgement, the effects would be dangerously negative for the
United States security interests.
First, in the long term, there would be a significant erosion of
constraints upon the futher development of nuclear capabilities around
the world. The United States has been the leader in seeking limitations
upon current capabilities as well as convincing other countries not to
develop such capabilities. There would be an important political
downside effect upon this effort since the U.S. would be seen as
turning away from its basic policy of restraint. Second, in the nearer
term, the climate of freedom for nuclear testing created by the
reversal of the basic U.S. position would be an incentive for new
countries such as Iran to test when they are ready. China and Russia
might well conclude that they have freedom to test. Most troubling, in
the immediate future, it would be a virtual invitation for India to
start implementing the new nuclear doctrine recently proposed by its
National Security Advisor Board. This doctrine calls for a major
increase in Indian nuclear capabilities, which can only be achieved by
more testing. Pakistan has already made clear that it would follow
India in more testing. Given the prevailing tension in the sub-
continent, the nuclear arms race which could well ensue would be
extremely dangerous.
Sincerely,
Ambassador Robert B. Oakley (Ret.),
Distinguished Visiting Fellow.
Senator Biden. Let me ask you one more question before my
time is up. I am sorry to interrupt you, but my time is about
to expire. You have more than anyone else that I am aware of in
the last--in the recent past, the last several years met with,
spoken with our allies--Japan, Germany, nonnuclear powers,
Britain, France, et cetera. It has been asserted by the Senator
from Virginia and some others that they, if we sign this
treaty, they will lose faith in our nuclear deterrence, and
they, in turn, will be inclined to either upgrade their own--
proliferate their own nuclear capability, that is upgrade it,
and/or become nuclear powers in the case of Japan and Germany.
Would you be willing to comment on that assertion?
Secretary Albright. Well, first of all, I believe that they
are all counting on us to lead the nonproliferation fight and
to make sure that they--that our deterrent is strong as a
result of the fact that others cannot test. Therefore, they are
counting on us to keep the lead in nuclear nonproliferation.
Otherwise they might, in fact, be put in a position where they
do have to do other things to strengthen themselves. We are
providing them the ability to make sure that they do not have
to get into a position of strengthening.
Senator Biden. Have they all signed?
Secretary Albright. Yes. Well, the ones that--France and
the United Kingdom have ratified. Germany and Japan have. All
NATO allies have signed and 15 have ratified.
Senator Biden. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you.
Senator Hagel. John, thank you, and welcome Madam
Secretary, nice to have you here, and we are grateful that you
are giving us a sense of the dynamics of the importance of what
we are discussing.
On a serious note but maybe a lighter side of that, I
appreciated very much your comments regarding your
grandchildren. A couple of weeks ago I was in Nebraska with my
6-year-old and my 8-year-old, and we were at a Dairy Queen,
which is a very popular place in Nebraska. I was in the Dairy
Queen, and we were buying Dilly Bars, I am not sure what
flavor, but one of my many enlightened, insightful constituents
began to shower me with praise on the kind of effective
representation I was bringing to Nebraska, which I allowed to
go on for as long as we could all stand it.
Whereupon this enlightened gentleman said, and, Senator,
nice to have you back in the State, I know you always
appreciate spending time with your grandchildren. I took your
grandchildren issue rather seriously.
Secretary Albright. It just goes to show you how much older
I am than you are.
Senator Hagel. No, I think it is the job. But you have
really cut to the essence of what this is all about. The
objective is to make the world safer for mankind, and I think
we all tend to miss that occasionally when we get consumed with
technical issues and details.
But with that said, I have stated, Madam Secretary, that I
am undecided, and I am undecided because, Senator Biden and
others have said it rather clearly, I think we need more time
to understand what the consequences are, what the issues are,
what the details are. With that in mind, I have worked my way
along through this. I am sorry our friend Senator Kerry is not
here because he had dazzled us with his technical brilliance,
and he attributed that all to being in the Navy.
Well, I am just an old Army man, so I did not have the
benefit of that brilliant technical background, but I do have a
couple of questions on the governance of this treaty. I think
when we define it down, no matter what we have, how it is
governed and how we live by the conditions is pretty critical.
You noted in your testimony that of the three issues that you
felt were important, in your words, the CTBT would improve our
ability to deter and detect clandestine nuclear weapons
activity. The treaty would give us the right to call for onsite
inspections when we have evidence a test has occurred.
I would very much appreciate you enlightening the committee
on how that works. This morning one of your predecessors at the
United Nations, Ambassador Kirkpatrick, got into this in some
detail, laying out the representation of the governance
committee, the executive council, who gets votes. There were
some, I thought, rather disturbing aspects of that as to who
would we be guaranteed a seat on the executive council. That is
when it came up, by Ambassador Ledogar, that in fact that was a
side deal, that wasn't in the language. I would appreciate it
if you could take us through that because we heard from some of
the chairmen of the committees this afternoon preceding your
testimony that it would take a 30-nation concurrence in order
to get an onsite inspection.
Secretary Albright. Well, first of all, let me describe a
little bit how the onsite inspection would work. It is designed
to permit timely and effective inspections, while guarding
against abuses, and the treaty's Executive Council must vote on
whether to approve a request for an onsite inspection within 96
hours from the time of request, and as stated, such decisions
have to be taken by 30 of the Executive Council's 51 members,
and we can bring whatever evidence we choose, including what is
gathered by national technical means to the table to get the
vote.
The countries that will be on this council are selected by
region, and clearly there is no question in my mind that the
United States would be one of the countries that would be a
part of this. Now, you do have to get the vote of the other
countries in order to have this happen, and we believe that
they will be selected by random from regions that, given the
evidence that would be brought to the table, that it would be
very difficult for any country to stop onsite inspection taking
place.
We also have the possibility that if we see that there has
been a questionable event, is ultimately we can bring questions
to the Security Council as we did, for instance, when we were
concerned about what was going on in North Korea. So I do think
that we have a way to get our case in a timely way to the
Executive Council of the organization as it is set up. I do not
have concerns about that.
Senator Hagel. You do not? Ambassador Kirkpatrick did, and
she regaled us a little bit on real life at the United Nations,
which you know a little something about. So you do not think
that is a concern?
Secretary Albright. No. And I think some of the things we
did was to have protection ourselves, is in terms of making
sure that countries that we did not like or had problems with
would not be able to have open access to our sites, and so we
are able to have special procedures which would allow to us not
have every aspect of our own sites inspected in every way.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Boxer, do you not want to come up
here? You are sitting down in San Diego.
Senator Boxer. It is OK. It is all right. I have a good
bird's eye view of everybody, and it works just fine.
The Chairman. I recognize you.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for your
courtesy and, again, for having this debate. I do agree with
Senator Biden, I feel the more we debate it, the more the case
is made, but then, you know, I have a prejudice in favor of it.
I know a couple of our colleagues are against it and a couple
are undecided. I would like perhaps to hear from them
afterwards.
But let me just put this into my perspective, as everybody
does. When I was a child in grammar school and risking letting
everyone know my age, although it is public information, those
were the days of the real threat of a nuclear war, and in my
public school, in my grammar school, we had to go underneath
the desk, we had drills, and we were taught if we went
underneath the desk and covered our eyes like this, we could
survive a nuclear strike. We also had dog tags, like the Army,
like they had in the Army. We were so proud to wear those. We
felt so important. We did not realize the purpose of it was if
we were annihilated, someone would know who we were.
So the kids in my generation really did not know that much.
The kids in later generations after me started to realize what
this was all about. When I got to the House in 1982,
Congressman George Miller and his Republican allies set up--he
is a Democrat. His Republican friends set up a bipartisan
Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, and one of
the first hearings we had was on the threat of nuclear war and
what it was doing to our kids, and I will never forget sitting
in that room listening to the young people express their fears
of going to bed at night not knowing if the Soviet Union and
America were going to just explode these bombs. So they really
knew what was happening. And then when the cold war ended and
we all thought the threat was over, it was an incredible sigh
of relief I think across this land from all sides.
Now here we sit at a moment in time that I think is
absolutely a turning point, and I think as we have looked at
the problems of the treaty, which I think is very important
that we do that, as I see it, the main problems are the
verifiability and the assurance that our stockpile stewardship
program is working well, and each member is going to decide for
himself or herself whether they feel comfortable with it, but I
think the important thing here is that any President in the
future, as the Secretary of State has clearly told us, can get
out of this if they feel we have taken too much of a risk with
this treaty. They do not need a Senate vote, it is not going to
get bogged down in some of our rules. If there is a supreme
national interest, we can get out of it, and I think it is
important for us to look at the risks of this treaty and then
the risks of not going forward with it. And I think what
Senator Biden has tried to do, if I could get his attention for
a minute--Senator Biden, I think what you have tried to do, it
is important because I want to ask you about something if the
Chairman will allow, is talk to us about the threat of us not
going forward, and he has raised some issues in certain parts
of the world, and so has the Secretary of State in my home
State yesterday raised those issues, particularly in the India,
Pakistan region.
The reason I wanted to catch my friend's attention is I
thought there was a phenomenal article. It was today in the
Washington Post by someone who you know very well, George
Perkovich, who worked with you for a long time.
Senator Biden. Yes, we do not want to ruin his reputation
by letting everyone know that.
Senator Boxer. The reason I bring it up is I feel that in
this very, very brief article, which I would ask unanimous
consent that we may place in the record, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Chairman, may we place this in the record?
[The information referred to follows:]
[From the Washington Post, Oct. 7, 1999]
The Next President Will Pay the Price
(By George Perkovich)
If the Senate eventually fails to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, there will be another victim besides the one Senate Republicans
intended. For it is not only President Clinton who will be harmed by
the action but the person who takes office as president--and many
Republicans presume it will be one of their own--in 2001. The new
president will face nuclear shock waves around the world, bereft of
bipartisan support when he most needs it.
Here are some likely scenarios:
India will probably conduct more nuclear weapons tests.
India's nuclear scientists and hawkish strategists want a sophisticated
arsenal, ranging from small tactical weapons to huge hydrogen bombs.
They also wish to overcome doubts about the technical performance of
the weapons tested in May 1998. More tests would satisfy them and their
potential military ``customers'' that they can mimic the great powers.
Conversely, ratifying the test ban treaty would tether the nuclear
hawks and allow India to concentrate on the economic route to major
powerdom. India's leading statesmen, Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, recognize this and want to
avoid a costly and dangerous arms race. A Senate rejection of the test
ban treaty would undermine these statesmen and badly complicate
increasingly vital U.S.-Indian relations.
Pakistan would match India test for test. This would lead
to the kind of arms race that Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton have
sought to block in the subcontinent. Lest an arms race seem
inconsequential, it should be recalled that India and Pakistan just
battled in Kashmir. The fighting came closer to erupting into an all-
out war and possible nuclear escalation than was reported. If more
testing occurs and hawks in both countries are unleashed, defense
spending will increase. Pakistan will move closer to bankruptcy. This
will heighten the risk of Taliban-like groups gaining power in
Pakistan, metastasizing cells of intolerance, aggression and anti-
American terrorism that would bedevil the next American president.
While China has signed the test ban treaty, it will not
ratify it if the United States doesn't. China assumes that rejection
means Republicans want to conduct more nuclear tests; otherwise, why
wouldn't they ratify? In this case, China will make preparations to
resume nuclear testing, especially if India conducts more tests. China
possesses only some 20 long-range, single-warhead missiles capable of
striking America. This poses no serious threat to the U.S. deterrent.
China has conducted some 45 nuclear explosive tests, the United States
1,030. The test ban is valuable precisely because it constrains the
kind of weaponry advances that the Chinese military might otherwise
wish to make with purloined American design information.
Japan will face pressure to reconsider its nuclear
abstinence if China and India build up nuclear forces. Test ban
opponents in Washington argue that American ballistic missile defenses
should reassure Japan that it does not need to hedge its bets. However,
the Japanese, like U.S. allies in Europe, recognize the technical and
strategic problems posed by inevitably less-than-perfect defenses.
Indeed, Senate rejection of the test ban paired with aggressive
promotion of ballistic missile defenses will prompt China and Russia to
feel that the United States is bolstering its capacity for nuclear
coercion and possible first use. Moscow and Beijing will augment their
nuclear offenses to counter defenses. In this context, Japan (and NATO
allies) will feel more rather than less threatened. The next American
president could then confront a crisis in alliance relations.
Globally, rejection of the test ban will endanger the
nuclear nonproliferation regime. In 1995 the international community
agreed to extend indefinitely the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on
the promise that the nuclear weapon states would complete a test ban
treaty by 1996. This was the minimal disarmament condition that the
world would accept from the United States and the other nuclear states.
The 187 parties to the nonproliferation treaty will meet next April to
review the status of the treaty. If the Senate rejects the test ban, we
can be sure that measures to tighten nonproliferation controls and
maintain sanctions on Iraq will be opposed by an outraged international
community. Instead of being the champion of nonproliferation, the
United States will be seen as the rogue state of proliferation.
Again, isolationists may say, ``Who needs the nonproliferation
regime? If we feel threatened by proliferation, we can take care of it
ourselves.'' But the U.S. interest in keeping countries such as Iran
from acquiring nuclear weapons requires cooperation from states such as
Russia and our European allies in controlling exports. Washington's
persuasive powers will be seriously undermined by roguish behavior on
the test ban treaty.
Republicans in the Senate who want both to defeat the test ban and
elect a Republican president should be careful what they wish for. If
they reject this treaty they will create conditions that no new
president could welcome. Given that the United States could ratify the
treaty and still legally escape from it if a threat to national
security emerged, the next president would likely wonder, ``Whose idea
was this?''
Senator Boxer. The scenarios that he talks about, and I
will put them, I will say them because the powerful words that
he uses and the way he does it is so amazing. He says if we do
not do this treaty, and I say this especially to my friends
that are undecided on it, India will probably conduct more
nuclear weapons tests. India's nuclear scientists and hawkish
strategists want a sophisticated arsenal, and then Pakistan
would match--and as Senator Biden said, the good voices in
India would be overwhelmed by this. Then Pakistan would match
India test for test, and this would lead to the kind of arms
race that Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton have sought to
block in this area.
Then he goes over to China, and he says, while China has
signed the test ban treaty, it will not ratify it if the U.S.
does not. China assumes that rejection means the U.S. would
want to conduct more nuclear tests. Otherwise, why would they
not ratify, and in this case they will make preparation to
resume the testing.
Then he talks about Japan, I will not go into that. And our
allies, and how crushed they would be and how they would lose
confidence in us, and then I think a very crucial issue, Mr.
Chairman, that we all care about, both sides of the aisle,
Iran, how can we go to our friends and say, do not give Iran
the technology, so it seems to me all of these things that are
outlined here in this article are very, very important for us
to consider as we answer the question, what are the risks of
going into the treaty and what are the risks of staying out?
What I do not want to see happen is future generations of kids,
whether it is my grandchild or anybody else's children or
grandchildren to have to go back to going under the desk to
have to go back to that fear that they articulated, and so I
have a brief question. I know my time is up.
Do you think that what is stated here in this article is a
possibility, that it would have this type of nuclear, if you
will, in quotes, ``chain reaction throughout the world'' where
we are now going to see the tests and all the rest?
Secretary Albright. Well, I read the article myself this
morning with great interest, and I was very pleased to see that
it tracked very much with my own thoughts and a great part of
my testimony. I do think that we would open up the gates again
of potential testing.
For me, there are several ways to look at this treaty, and
I know that there are many legitimate scientifically based
questions that the lab people have answered or the Secretary of
Energy has answered. I have looked very carefully at the
stewardship program and how it works and what things are coming
on line. I have obviously been very concerned about
verification, and I have said to myself that every arms control
treaty that we have ever signed is not perfectly verifiable,
but what we make is the assessment that whatever cheating takes
place is nothing that can really hurt our overwhelming nuclear
power, so we have to be realistic about that.
So there are many ways to look at this from the technical
aspect and the scientific aspect and all the language in these
documents, and I hope that every Senator actually will look
very carefully at that. But there is the other argument, which
I think is just plain logic, which is, if we do not want to
test, and we have said that we will not test, why would we not
take the step of having a treaty that would prevent others from
testing? It is not as if we are asking ourselves to do
something we would not do otherwise. We are asking others to do
what we have already done in order to prevent this kind of
chain reaction that you have described that is so evident, and
I can tell you from having spoken now, I think I spoke to 84
ministers in New York during the General Assembly. CTBT was in
all my talking points. They all agreed that we need to have a
nuclear nonproliferation regime, that the proliferation of
nuclear weapons is the single greatest danger that faces our
planet, and so for me I can go either technical on you and do
all this or logical, and logical here is why, why would we want
to give others the right to test or the ability to test if we
have decided not to? That is the answer for me.
The Chairman. Senator Smith.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, I
appreciate you being with us. I come to this hearing truly as
one of those Senators undecided and with an open mind. I also
come to this hearing with a predicate of a cruel reality, a
terrible truth that nuclear weapons have kept wars, since
Nagasaki, have kept wars regional in their expanse and
conventional in the ways in which they have been fought. And so
while I hate the thought of nuclear war, I realize nuclear
weapons have kept us from a worldwide conflagration.
I guess with that in mind I am anxious to know, and I guess
I am appealing to your technical knowledge, if our stockpile
stewardship, we are betting so much on that because what is at
stake is the credibility of our nuclear deterrent, it seems to
me.
Now, I know what I am about to say is not a very good
hypothetical, but I have an old car at home I really like and I
have a computerized trickle charger on it, and even if the
battery works when I want to drive it every few times a year,
it does not run very well because machinery needs to be
operated. I am not suggesting we go firing nuclear missiles
around, but I am concerned if we are--if the stockpile
stewardship program is adequate to provide the verification, to
provide the credibility that we need in order to prevent
nuclear holocaust in the future.
Secretary Albright. Let me say this, obviously I think we
all have questions about, you know, our nuclear stockpile as
our crown jewels, I guess, if you want to put it that way in
terms of our ability to defend ourselves. In the reading that I
have done and the testimony I have heard from those who really
are experts in this, the heads of the labs, they have, as was
said to you previously by the Senators who were here, they may
disagree about some timing, but they do not disagree about the
fact that they can do the job.
We have also now said that they would have $45 billion over
a 10-year period to be able to update and keep going all of the
various parts of the stewardship program, and I think that I
have confidence in the way that it has been described to me
about how various components of that stewardship program, first
those that are on line already and those that are being brought
on line in order to make sure that the stewardship program can
carry out everything that it is supposed to do.
Now, there is no question that deterrence, per se, will
continue because I agree with you that deterrence has kept,
certainly for the United States, has kept us safe. What it does
really, this treaty, it bans the bang but not the bomb. We will
continue to have that.
Also, all parts of our nuclear arsenal are constantly being
tested. They just will not be being exploded. I think that,
again, in the testimony that Secretary Richardson provided and
others, to me I feel that we do have the know-how to keep
updating it and rebuilding it, and it is not quite like your
car. Paying a little bit more attention to it, maybe----
Senator Smith. I am sure you do, and that is a very poor
analogy. But I just know that machinery does not work very well
if you do not use it. That is true of all kinds of machinery
that I have ever known. And so I am hoping that as you and I
bet the future security of our grandchildren upon this program
that you, as one of our political leaders, have the confidence
that it is worth that.
Secretary Albright. And I do, Senator, I do. Let me just
say this, if at any stage we believe that we do not, and that
something has gone wrong in terms of the stewardship program,
the President, any President will have the right to withdraw on
the basis of supreme national interest.
Senator Smith. And how difficult a decision will that be? I
mean, if technology takes a quantum leap and renders a lot of
this obsolete, at that point do you think the President of the
United States, whoever he or she may be, has the ability under
this treaty to say we abrogate it and we are going on to
another level?
Secretary Albright. I think that obviously this would be
done after careful thought and on advice from the Secretary of
Defense and Secretary of Energy, I would hope actually on the
side the Secretary of State might be asked, but I think that,
yes, I do believe that if there is a question of supreme
national interest, I think it would be irresponsible of any
President not to withdraw if there was a question.
Senator Smith. Flexibility has been one of my questions,
and I appreciate your answer. While I have a little bit of time
remaining, from what I have learned today about the inspection
regime, onsite inspections that I am not going to be able to
put much confidence in our ability to actually go and inspect
something if 30 members of this organization, of this
convention will have to approve United States' inspectors going
in, and having seen the way Saddam Hussein runs our inspectors
around, I frankly do not have much confidence in onsite
inspection being, frankly, worth risking our grandkids on.
So I guess my question is, is it your view that such
explosions as could be a threat to us we have the ability to
detect them independent of any international committee?
Secretary Albright. Yes. The scientific information that I
have been given would indicate that those explosions that in
any way would harm us or would undercut our ability to have
that deterrent are detectable, and that we are confident that
we can detect tests that would permit the development of new
high-yield weapons that could have an impact on our deterrent,
and we would have sufficient notice to respond.
At lower yields I think it is very important, if I may
continue, that we think that Russia, for instance there have
been some activities at their test sites, as at ours, frankly,
but there is no conclusion that Russia has tested above the
zero yield.
Senator Smith. As you talk about that, do you think Russia
has the same interpretation of zero yield as we?
Secretary Albright. Yes. We went through a negotiating
process on this. That is correct, yes.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
The Chairman. I am trying to be fair in the time of
Senators in the recognition of them. We have two Senators, one
of whom has not had one bite at the apple today, Sam Brownback,
and I think you had one brief period. If it is all right with
you, I am going to let them. Is that OK? The reason I bring
this up is because we generally go from side to side. So, Sam,
you have not had a bite at the apple, you go first.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do
not refer to you, Madam Secretary, as an apple. But the
Chairman is very kind, and I know he does not refer to you in
that way, either.
Senator Kerry. Does that mean you are going to bite anyway?
Senator Brownback. No, not at all. Thanks for coming to the
committee. Always appreciate you coming here. I want to look
back, and you talked about going on the technical basis or just
a reasoning basis, and look at it in a reasoning basis. The
problem I am having with this treaty at this point in time is
this point in time. It appears to me that we are talking about
taking an irreversible step. Now, some might say there are ways
that you could reverse your field here, but we are in essence
taking an irreversible step at a time that the world is in
great flux on nuclear weapons issues.
We have all noted India-Pakistan testing in recent times.
Whether they will continue to or whether they will not, testing
taking place in Russia has been brought up by the chairman of
the Armed Services Committee. We have Iran, Iraq that we all
know about of desiring to be nuclear capable countries that
have not--that have signed but not ratified the treaty, and I
just--I look at that universe, Madam Secretary, and I get real
concerned that we are taking a step that we are going to sign a
major treaty that puts our--puts it in blood for us that we are
not going to do this at a time you have so many other places in
play and desirous of doing things, and I really question the
thought process that says that if the U.S. does this, then they
will follow or they will come along with it.
I look at that list of nations that I have just listed, and
I cannot within them think to myself that, OK, if we would just
ratify this, that is going to make the Iranians or the Iraqis
ratify. I just have a real question about that. If we would
just ratify this, that is going to make the Chinese step
forward and do that, if we would just ratify this, that is
going to make the Russians step forward, even though they have
announced a new doctrine in their nuclear weaponry that they
are pursuing. If we would just ratify this, that they will come
along. As I rationalize and I think rationally, look at this, I
do not see that.
And then you can go to the South Asia area where we have
been most concerned recently on India and Pakistan, and I think
for good, legitimate purposes where you have got two nations
that have been at war previously and then developing nuclear
capacity which I think there is some other issues we ought to
actually be discussing there other than just nuclear. I think
we ought to be talking conventional weaponry and building
better and broader relationships with both nations, and we were
just sending you some broader authority that sanctions can be
waived, that I have worked on and members of the committee here
swallowed pretty hard to do that. But it is to build a broader
relationship.
I question that this is not a good time for us to be making
this what I would perceive, and I think many would, an
irreversible step with so many countries in play still, with so
many countries not really given to following U.S. leadership
that are doing these things, and I think we are not at a proper
moment, and I have appreciated your testimony and I would
appreciate your thoughts in response to that rationale.
Secretary Albright. Well, actually, first of all, let me
thank you on the waivers that we now have for India and
Pakistan. I think that that is very important, and that they
will help us move forward in being able to have a better
relationship with both countries, and I met with both foreign
ministers while I was in New York. We can talk more about this
some other time, but I would like to thank you on that.
Let me just say, I kind of look at this from a different
angle, which is I think this is exactly the time because, first
of all, I will keep repeating this because I think it is worth
repeating. We have no intention of testing because we have no
need to test, and there has been a moratorium in place put in
by President Bush--there was a decision that we made that we
had done enough testing and that through our various--the
stockpile stewardship program, we have a way of making sure
that our nuclear deterrent is safe, and if I might say among
the six safeguards here that we have is the maintenance of the
nuclear labs at a level to guarantee continued progress in
nuclear technology, to maintain the capability to test again
should the need ever arise. So we are not going into
Rumplestiltskin mode here. We are ready to go, and basically we
have decided not to test.
So the question is why do this now, and it is in order to
prevent exactly the countries that you are talking about from
taking the next step that they might be willing to take. I have
already talked about Russia. China, for instance. I think they
could not probably develop their MIRV warheads for existing
systems, and they could not exploit the information that they
might have obtained. Everybody has been concerned about what it
is they could have obtained through espionage. They cannot use
that unless they can test. This would prevent that from
happening.
For India and Pakistan, it is an opportunity here to
constrain a potential arms race and to limit lighter and
smaller, more efficient warheads. As far as North Korea and
Iran are concerned, this treaty would sharply limit their
ability to develop small, efficient warheads that could be
mounted on longer range missiles, including the North Korean
Taepo Dong-2, which is what we have been working to try to get
a moratorium on that. And it constrains their ability to
exploit the missile that is the potential threat to the United
States.
So I think here, this is why this is the exact moment to do
this. Now, the other point, we have found previously, and I
mentioned this, when we finally ratified the Chemical Weapons
Convention it brought along the other countries because they do
look to us for leadership. The other point I think as a safety
feature, if you are interested in this, this cannot go into
effect unless all 44 of those designated countries do, in fact,
ratify. So if we ratify and those others do not, it does not go
into effect. It is a safety feature of that kind.
So for me this is basically we lose nothing because we do
not want to test, we prevent them from testing, and doing the
kinds of things that I listed. We have a way out if we find
that we have a problem because we can do supreme national
interest, and meanwhile, our labs have been directed to keep us
in tip top shape via virtue of other methods which, short of
testing which we do not need, will make our nuclear deterrent
reliable.
Senator Brownback. I thank you for comments, and, Mr.
Chairman, for your holding of the hearing. I think you are
willing to step out a little further in faith and presumption
that they are going to follow our lead than I would or that by
us signing that we are going to be willing to reverse field
later if they do not verify. I think we put very high stock in
the fact that if we ratify, well, that is it, even if they do
not come along. I think you are going out in steps of faith
that I am not quite willing to assume at this point.
Secretary Albright. Could I ask a question here, which is
the following: Why do we think, you think that we lose anything
by getting them to stop testing? That is the question. Because
we are not limiting ourselves in any form. And if they do not
ratify, if those countries that you mentioned do not ratify,
this treaty does not go into effect.
Senator Brownback. Well, I disagree with your presumption
that we do not limit ourselves. I think this is a very big step
for a Senate to ratify a treaty like this, saying that this is
what we believe should be the case when you have so many other
players out there that are still looking, testing, and not
really willing to follow the United States' lead. The countries
I listed I do not think will be following our lead. Iran and
Iraq I know for certain will not be following our lead. I
highly question the other countries that we list. To me, voting
on this, and you have got a treaty that you are doing this
with, that is taking a step that I do not think you back away
lightly. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your patience in holding
the hearing.
The Chairman. Senator Grams.
Senator Grams. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Madam
Secretary, again, I also add my thanks for you taking the time
to be before the committee today. I have gone through all my
questions. I can tell maybe when the hearing has gone on long
enough that every question or good question has already been
asked, so I am going to try to ask one of the old questions and
just do it in a different way so I have something to say here.
But I appreciate it.
I know we could line up experts on both sides of this
argument. We have heard people say this is the right time, this
is not the right time, we can verify, we cannot verify. It
seems like there is people on both sides of the argument.
We are taking, as I think Senator Brownback just said, a
leap of faith here in some concerns, I know like the lab
directors who Senator Levin said today when he asked them point
blank, are you onboard, they said yes, but also we have got
statements from lab directors that say in order to contribute
to a long-term confidence in the U.S. stockpile, testing of
nuclear weapons should be done.
Of course, if nuclear testing were allowed, we would gain
greater confidence in the new tools, another quote from a
purely technical standpoint, ``some level of nuclear testing
would be useful.'' Another quote, ``a strong stockpile
stewardship and management program is necessary to underwrite
confidence.'' So I think even some of the experts have been
able to be on both sides of this issue, so I think you see how
tough of an issue it is, I think, for some of us to come to a
conclusion.
You have said this is the right time. We are being asked to
vote basically up or down on a treaty, you know, there has been
questions of whether the administration negotiated a position
on the treaty different from what where we started, of having a
definite duration, permitting low-yield tests, it was a
verifiable treaty, we are now doing something different than
that. Article 15 dealing with reservations that says the
articles out in the annexes to this treaty shall not be subject
to reservations. The UC that we have on the floor if we take a
vote is basically unamendable, so we are being asked to vote up
or down on a treaty.
Do you think this is the best time to vote on this treaty
or would you go along with maybe some of the suggestions that
have been made that this vote not happen for maybe another 2
years?
Secretary Albright. Well, first of all, let me say that I
am very glad that this hearing has taken place, and I think
that I respect all the questions that have been asked and have
been very pleased to answer them. I also do think that the
kinds of questions that you have asked of a technical nature
all need to be answered in a way that satisfy you.
Just briefly, I can say that on some of the issues that
have been raised by the labs, work is in progress on this, and
they have been given not an inconsequential amount of money,
$45 billion to work on it, which presumably is in order to be
able to carry through on this kind of work to make sure that it
can be done. I would hope very much that this conversation
would not lead to our saying that we want to resume testing. I
think that would be a U-turn of such major proportions that it
would undercut our entire proliferation, our nonproliferation
policy, and I think would be a very, very serious consequence
for this country if we were to even contemplate that when we do
not need to.
In order to answer your question, let me just say that I do
believe that this is an important treaty, that it deserves
careful consideration. It is one of the, you know, landmark
huge treaties that we have been--we have negotiated and you
have been asked to ratify. I think that the process has been
artificially constrained, and it does not give time to reach a
careful judgment, and I think that the leadership ought to work
out some kind of a serious process to give this treaty the
careful attention it deserves at a later date.
Senator Grams. One other question I wanted to ask and I had
asked it of the earlier panel, but a lot of faith would be put
in computerized testing and not actual testing of weapons. And
there was an article this week in the New York Times, I think
it was, Mr. Adamov, who is the Russian Minister of Atomic
Energy, talking about having those supercomputers and the
article included, Russia has long sought to acquire powerful
American computers able to do this. And he said in the article,
``the United States should share some of its computer
techniques so that other nations can better assess the
reliability of the nuclear arsenal without testing.''
He went on to say, ``conditions should be established that
all nations who possess nuclear weapons would have the same
opportunity to engage in computer simulations.'' The Russians
have long asserted the Clinton administration promised to
provide such advanced abilities to Russia if the Kremlin agreed
to the test ban. Does that mean under this negotiation, or has
the administration given any indications that it would somehow
share this generation or the next generation of our computer
abilities with the Russians?
Secretary Albright. Let me say that we have made no such
promise, and we will not do that.
Senator Grams. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. Let me make a
couple of points while my colleagues, all of whom, the two
gentlemen who are still here, who I respect greatly, and they
raise questions that I think warrant further exploration, and I
won't take the full time now, but I asked my staff while you
were testifying, Madame Secretary, to get the makeup of the
executive council.
You know, you need 30 votes on the executive council to be
able to have an onsite inspection, and the question has been
raised by many would we actually really get 30 votes, and the
analogy that is used by Ms. Kirkpatrick before you testified
was the United Nations, and you can't do anything in the United
Nations, et cetera. I actually went down the list, or I did and
my staff did, and Africa gets 10 seats, Eastern Europe 7, Latin
America 9 and the Middle East and South Asia 7, North America
and Western Europe 10, East Asia 20. If you add these up and
you look at each of the nations, we get right away to 23 or 24
certain votes.
And then the states, even the states that are not certain,
let us take Eastern Europe, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria,
Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary--Georgia
because they are afraid of Russia, they are afraid of Iran and
Iraq. Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania,
Slovakia, Slovenia, these are all votes. These are all votes,
because in their naked self-interest they are going to want to
make sure that Iran and Iraq, the people they view as their
enemies to be, they are potential threats unrelated to us.
So if you go down the list here, I just say to my
colleagues, and I will put this in the record, it seems to me
pretty darned easy to get to 30 votes, not because 30 nations
love us, but because it is in their naked self-interest. In the
Middle East section they get 7 seats, 26 eligible folks, right?
What do you think Turkmenistan or the Arab Emirates,
Uzebekistan and Yemen, do you think they are going to say, Nah,
we do not want them to check whether or not Iraq and Iran are
blowing up nuclear weapons? Do not worry about it; it is OK by
us, because we do not like the Ugly Americans? I mean, I just
think people should look at the list and look at other
countries' self interests. Again, obviously, you cannot
guarantee anything.
[The information referred to follows:]
Biden Staff Analysis of Likely CTBTO Executive Council Voting
A quick review of the candidates for seats indicates that we
should expect, in almost all instances, to get all the votes of
the West Europe/North America group. So we start with 10.
Aside from Yugoslavia, Russia, and one or two others, the
Eastern Europe group comprises strong U.S. allies. So that's
another 5-7 votes.
Similarly, many of the Latin American states either: (1) are
strong allies; or (2) strongly favor the Test Ban. So we should
usually get most of those 9 votes.
That gets us very quickly to the low-to-mid-20's, in most
instances (even being conservative and assuming that we don't
get all the votes in the above 3 groups).
That leaves the Africa group (10 seats), the Middle East/
South Asia group (7 seats), and the East Asia group (8 seats).
There our work, depending on the makeup of the Executive
Council at the particular time, could get a little harder.
But even there the rosters have U.S. allies, or proponents
of nonproliferation.
Thus, it is hard to see how we won't get to 30 in most
instances.
In truth, it is more likely that most U.S. inspection
requests, based on our intelligence and the data from the
International Monitoring System, will be easily approved.
Senator Biden. With regard to this issue of the United
States will not test, I find it kind of fascinating that the
Senator just indicated, which is legitimate, that we have got
these supercomputers and the Russians are saying, and every
other nation, everybody forgets, because we focus on the trees
instead of the forest here, everybody else we hear from today.
From the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, we heard
from Mr. Schlesinger yesterday. The chairman was kind enough to
give me an opportunity to participate as an ad hoc member of
that committee, about how our allies and our enemies are going
to lose confidence in our ability to verify that our stockpile
is reliable and that it is safe.
Now with regard to our enemies, quote, unquote, ``That is
how they view it.'' Russia and China--I do not consider Russia
my enemy, but that is how it is considered, right? They are
going to--so the argument went yesterday, and we will hear on
the floor, they are going to say, You know, those Americans,
you cannot rely on those 6,000 weapons because they are not
testing anymore, so now is our chance.
That is the implication of it. When in fact the Russians
are saying, Hey, this ain't fair, you have got these
supercomputers; you guys are going to know your weapon system
is reliable; we are not going to know. Give us the computer
system. I mean, Mr. Chairman, the way we argue in the
alternative here, we say, Hey, our system is not reliable, but
look at those Russians. They are trying to get hold of our
system. How to deal unreliably without testing?
Then we say, Well, we are not going to--we will not be
allowed to modernize, but you know what, if this goes forward,
those other nations will modernize.
Well, give me a break. We by far and away are more
sophisticated than any other nation in the world, and if we
cannot modernize, how the heck are they going to modernize?
And so my point, the thing I would like you to speak with
me about a second, Madame Secretary, and I will end this, is
that we are in a position where we have decided not to test. I
do not know, have you heard, has anybody from the foreign
policy establishment on the center right, where you would find
those who do oppose--and a lot there do not oppose--but who do
oppose the treaty, has anyone suggested publicly, and is anyone
on this committee suggesting we should resume testing?
I mean, that is a legitimate question. I sincerely mean it.
Has any significant name in the foreign policy establishment
said to you publicly or privately that we should resume
testing?
Secretary Albright. No, no one has. And I think the
question here is where do these questions lead to, because that
is the problem. It leads to the supposition that you might want
to test when we do not want to test, when we have been the lead
in not testing.
Senator Biden. My time is up. But I am sorry to do this to
you and I will end, because there is another panel, but the
second point I would make is, if you cut through the concern of
the people I most respect, and I respect some of the very same
people my Chairman does, people like Schlesinger, people like
Ms. Kirkpatrick, people like Caspar Weinberger, you cut through
it all and here is the real objection and it is legitimate.
(a), even though we can get out, we will not have the will to
get out; (b), we do not have the political will.
No. 2, that even though the circumstance would not allow
any President, this or the next one, to unilaterally begin
testing, because the political climate would be so
counterproductive if they did that, even though that is the
case, and we will not be testing, it is better to not sign on
to a treaty, because we want to hold off that possibility to
test.
The third thing you hear is, the third legitimate argument
I think is, You know, if you stop testing you lose an entire
generation of nuclear scientists who learned a lot about
nuclear weapons by the testing. That is an argument Schlesinger
and others make. It is legitimate. It is legitimate, but I do
not understand how they do not understand, if you are going to
spend $45 billion in those laboratories, how you are not going
to attract an entire new generation who are going to be even
more sophisticated.
So, Mr. Chairman, I have gone beyond my time as usual. But
you are kind to let me do it. There are legitimate arguments
against this treaty. I respectfully suggest none of them have
to do with verification, with our ability, our stockpile not
being reliable, et cetera. I think they go to deeper
fundamental questions, which is always the case, why my friend
says, as--I forget who he always quotes, but he quotes somebody
and says, ``We have never lost a war or won a treaty.'' I think
that is something that is the fundamental dividing line here on
this, and it is a legitimate one, but I think we should argue
it up front, talk about the forest, not just the little, tiny
trees in the forest. But I thank you for being here.
Secretary Albright. Thank you. Let me just say two words
here, one on the list that you read. A lot of those countries
were the countries--were the countries that were in the NPT
review who were the ones who said go for a comprehensive test
ban treaty. So that is part of our faith with them, so why
would they not, in fact, want us to be able to have those kinds
of onsite inspections? It is for their benefit.
Let me say on the last point you make about the treaties,
I, along with all of you, have spent a major portion of my
adult life looking at arms control treaties and there always
are these questions. What do we do then? They are not perfect.
They can cheat, and as Ronald Reagan said, ``Verify''--here, I
think, ``Do not trust; verify.'' I think we, in the end, all
based on that, everything that is important can be verified.
The problem here is we have to understand--that I happen to
believe that we are better off because of the arms control
treaties we have had. They are not perfect; neither is this
one. But it is beyond my understanding as to why, when we are
not going to test, and in my belief should not test, and have
the best scientists in the world with the state-of-the-art,
that they have $45 billion now to even improve, why would we
give a license to those countries that want to test the ability
to do so with impunity when we can actually get our arms around
the nuclear arms race and strangle it.
The Chairman. Madame Secretary, I am one of the culprits in
thinking that we could cover more territory than we have been
able to cover today, and I am so apologetic to the third panel,
but if they will persevere, I will. But I do have one question
that bothers me, and I must ask it.
We, when we questioned John Holum as to why the treaty
fails to define what it purports to ban, he gave me a very
confusing response. He said, and I quote him, ``The course of
negotiations confirmed our judgment that it would have been
difficult and possibly counterproductive to specify in
technical terms what is prohibited by the treaty.''
Now my question is, one of them, is the reason that it
would have been difficult and counterproductive to pursue such
a definition because other countries interpret the treaty to
permit low-yield testing? Do you feel it does?
Secretary Albright. I believe that this treaty is zero-
yield. And that is the basis on which it has been presented to
you.
The Chairman. Well, that is not a yes or no.
Secretary Albright. Undersecretary Holum?
The Chairman. We are all friends here. We are just trying
to get to the truth.
Mr. Holum. The basic answer is that there was a history
going back to the threshold test ban treaty and other treaties
that no yield--that zero means no testing at all. It was
discussed extensively as Ambassador Ledogar went into, I
believe, earlier today in his testimony. Among the nuclear
weapons states, the only ones having any capability to do
something very small, they had a long history of negotiations
among themselves back and forth and came to an agreement, as
Ambassador Ledogar described, that zero means no yield. And all
other countries understand it that way, as do the five nuclear
weapons states.
The Chairman. Well, he handed me a note, which is correct.
The treaty does not say zero; it does not define its terms at
all. That is the point I am making.
Mr. Holum. But it does ban any nuclear test explosion or
any other nuclear explosion, and in the negotiating record it
is very clear that that means there cannot be any critical
yield from a nuclear event. You can do things that do not go
critical; you cannot do things that do.
The Chairman. What I am getting at, of course, is the
Russian Government has clearly stated the view that
hydronuclear testing is permitted. Now, there is a chart
somewhere over there that contains a quote from the Deputy
Minister of Atomic Energy stating this view. Now, this is a
senior Russian Government official, and I am sure there are
plenty of other Russians claiming that they will adhere to a
zero-yield ban, but the fact of the matter is Russia has stated
a need to develop a new low-yield tactical nuclear weapon and
has stated the intent to conduct nuclear testing despite CTBT.
That is correct, is it not?
Secretary Albright. Let me state here, Mr. Chairman, some
Russian officials that have not been involved in the
negotiations appear to be confused about its limits. The
negotiating record that Ambassador Ledogar described said that
zero means no nuclear yield, however small, and that is the
standard we will apply. The Russians described their test site
activities as subcritical. That is the same thing we are doing.
That is, those that do not have a chain reaction.
The Chairman. I think I understand that. But Russia has a
clear pattern of activity at its nuclear test site and this is
the bottom line. How is it possible to reach any conclusion
other than that Russia does not interpret the test ban in the
way the United States of America does?
Mr. Holum. I just encourage you to look closely at what
Ambassador Ledogar has produced, and the record of the
negotiations, it is the same as the legislation here. You rely
first of all on the terms of the law and then on the
legislative history to identify what the agreement means, what
the legislation means. And it is, although Victor Mikhaylov
would very much like to have the treaty say something other
than it does and have it mean something other than what it
does.
The Chairman. I get more confused as we get into this
thing, and I am almost sorry I did it. Are you saying that the
Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy does not know his Government's
position on nuclear testing? Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Holum. It appears to be that that is the case, because
he is saying something that is inconsistent with what his
Government agreed to in the Conference on Disarmament in
Geneva.
The Chairman. Very well.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, why does he not answer the
rest of your question? I do not think he did, in all due
respect. The chairman said that how can you interpret based
upon what is going on in Russia now, not verbally, but in terms
of quote, ``the alleged testing''? How can you interpret that
they mean anything other than something less than zero? Is
there any evidence, conclusive evidence, that they are testing
nuclear weapons now?
Mr. Holum. No, there is not. There is activity at the test
site, as the Secretary said, and I am sure most of you or many
of you have had the briefing that the CIA has generated on that
subject. There is no conclusion in that, and I cannot go into
it in detail here, but there is no conclusion in that that they
are doing anything that would violate the threshold or the
level of permitted activity in this treaty.
The Chairman. Well, what is the activity at the test site?
Are they playing poker or something?
Mr. Holum. Well, we are doing the same thing, Mr. Chairman,
at our test site that they claim to be doing at theirs. We are
doing subcritical experiments; we are setting off high
explosive devices with material that serves the function of
fissile material to see that it works. We are going that close.
But as soon as it becomes critical, it violates the treaty. If
it produces a nuclear yield, then it violates the treaty
threshold.
Senator Biden. In other words, Mr. Chairman, you can have
an explosion that can be detected that is not a nuclear
explosion. It can be an explosion for the stuff that blows off
the nuclear explosion. And I understand the way a nuclear
weapon works, there is an explosion, a high explosive that is
not a nuclear device that in effect detonates the nuclear
device.
Mr. Holum. That is right.
Senator Biden. And you can test that to determine whether
that works, right?
Mr. Holum. That is right. You can test all the way up, but
I feel as a lawyer, I feel very uncomfortable answering
questions on that when you have Dick Garwin on the next panel,
who knows everything there is to know about that.
The Chairman. Maybe we can get an answer that clears up my
confusion from that panel. But seriously, I thank both of you,
Madame Secretary, I know this has been a grueling experience
for you, particularly since you came across the country to do
this. And I appreciate it very much.
Secretary Albright. Thank you. Actually, it has been quite
enjoyable. I appreciate the fact that you had the hearing, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. We have a vote on, and
we would invite the third panel to come to the table if they
are still waiting.
[Pause.]
The Chairman. Let us see. We have two out of three, and
there in a moment will be our good friend Ron Lehman, who is
former Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and
Mr. Troy Wade is seated in the middle chair, the chairman of
the Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy and Business from Las
Vegas. And last, but not least, Dr. Richard L. Garwin, senior
fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York City.
Now, I am sorry we are so late getting started, but we did
the best we could, and we tried to do too much in one day, and
you are paying for it. Back when I was a boy in grade school,
we used to say, that will learn you, darn you. But why do we
not start with you, Ron? And you can begin your statements, and
I will go as far as I can until one of the other Senators gets
back. And you understand the predicament we are in. And I
welcome all of you, and I am grateful to all of you, and the
next time we will not treat you this bad.
STATEMENT BY HON. RONALD F. LEHMAN, FORMER DIRECTOR, ARMS
CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT AGENCY, PALO ALTO, CA
Mr. Lehman. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I know the hour is
late, but I am prepared to stay and help as best I can. I was
asked to prepare a statement but I did not get the invitation
until 2 days ago, so if I had had more time, it would have been
much shorter. But I was asked also to try to address many of
the issues that--but there are so many that there is no way
that I could. Nevertheless, given the hour, perhaps I should
submit the longer statement for the record. Or would you prefer
that I go through it in some detail?
The Chairman. Please submit the statement, but that does
not eliminate my desire for you to discuss the issue.
Mr. Lehman. All right, then let me try to capture some of
the issues that are a bit different than others than have been
raised, perhaps. I focused on this issue, as you know, for many
years and have been before this and other committees many
times, but I want to emphasize today that I am here solely in
my personal capacity and that none of my views are the views of
any administration or organization or institution with which I
am now or have been associated.
Having said that, I think you will find a tremendous
consistency between what I say today and what I have said in
the past. But of course, there is some modification to reflect
changes on the international scene.
I think what I want to highlight is the difference between
my testimony this time and the tone of my testimony in the
past. In the past, I have really been fortunate to come before
this committee and stress accomplishments, but today I think
what I would really like to talk more about is what it is we
are failing to do. And when I say ``we,'' I mean the entire
foreign policy establishment of the United States, and frankly
I mean both the legislative and executive branches and I mean
concerned citizens and individuals such as myself.
What the United States has failed to do at the end of the
cold war is to articulate a strategy that sustains the momentum
that we had achieved at the end of the cold war in building a
better and safer peace. And I would like to highlight some of
the reasons why that is so. Despite the best of intentions of
talented people in and out of government, we as a Nation have
not been able to deal with powerful trends such as
globalization and technological advance which have created new
difficulties as well as new opportunities. In part, we have
failed to deal with the legacies of the past, such as regional
instabilities, ethnic conflicts, economic resentments,
geopolitical ambitions and domestic political divisions
overseas and at home.
I think that we have also forgotten some of the basic
principles that led to the success of the arms control
revolution at the end of the 1980's and in the early 1990's.
Those basic principles placed an emphasis on high standards of
military merit, pressing the verification envelope, and
creating the geo-strategic conditions for progress. The current
debate over the ``zero-yield'' Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
reflects all of those factors--new forces, painful legacies and
neglect of the basics.
To put the current discussion in perspective, it might be
useful to remember how we got to where we are. The history of
nuclear testing arms control is complex and sometimes colorful,
not always dignified, but always an important reflection of
broader forces in play. The history is too lengthy even to
summarize here, yet a clear American approach to the question
of nuclear testing had emerged over the years. The primary
contribution of nuclear testing limitations had been achieved
by the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty which banned tests
everwhere but underground and thus dealt with health and
environmental dangers associated with large nuclear tests in
the atmosphere. These dangers were reduced somewhat further by
the 150-kiloton restraint on underground testing of the 1974
TTBT, although dissatisfaction with its verification provisions
(and those of the PNET of 1976) delayed ratification for 16
years.
Concerns about compliance with the TTBT while the U.S.
continued a moratorium, however, ultimately led to the ``fly-
before-buy'' Joint Verification Experiment and subsequently the
Verification Protocols to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty in the
PNET. These protocols were negotiated with the very closest
consultation with this committee and the rest of the Senate.
The resulting process and protocols radically transformed
onsite inspection, set a new standard of effective
verification, and resulted in the Senate giving consent to
ratification unanimously by a vote of 98 to 0.
Although the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Carter
administrations had explored more comprehensive negotiated and
codified limitations on nuclear testing, none was able to
achieve them, even given the easier standards of verification
and military merit which had been developed in those earlier
periods. All ultimately were compelled to explore more limited
approaches to test bans in terms of less binding moratoria, or
reduced yields, or partial bans, or time limitations, or
combinations of these.
By the end of the cold war, U.S. policy had evolved a step-
by-step approach to nuclear limitations that was cautious, and
for good reason. Nuclear testing limitations were of
increasingly limited arms control value in the superpower
context. More useful approaches to arms control than nuclear
test limitations were now possible, and increasingly we were
exploring ever more cooperative and intrusive threat
reductions.And frankly, the nuclear testing issue also had a
greater potential to be divisive at home and abroad, thus
diverting resources from more valuable nonproliferation efforts
such as regional peace processes, ``loose nukes,'' a timely
cutoff of unsafeguarded fissile material production, and the
growing concern about biological weapons and terrorism.
If arms control is narrowly defined, the arms control merit
of nuclear testing limitations was seen as of increasing
utility and increasing danger to the U.S., the lower the limit.
It was not a straight line, but generally that was the case.
Why? Because the wrong nuclear testing limitations could put at
risk the nuclear deterrent of the United States and undermine
security guarantees and relationships under which other nations
felt it possible to forgo nuclear options of their own.
The impact of nuclear testing limitations on the U.S.
nuclear deterrent is a lengthy discussion of its own. I am
prepared to address these issues, but in the interest of
brevity let me simply highlight several points related to arms
control. The United States has never been fond of qualitative
arms control measures because so often they work against
advanced industrial democracies. The democracies look to
technology to compensate for manpower and to free resources for
other public goods. Limits on science and technology are
difficult to define and frequently harder to verify than
quantitative limits, so qualitative contraints here again tend
to favor closed, authoritarian societies, all other things
being equal (which, of course, they actually never are).
But more importantly, democracy as we practice it demands
accountability. To maintain our nuclear deterrent we must be
able to demonstrate to the American people and their elected
officials that the weapons in the stockpile are safe, secure,
reliable, and appropriate to their missions. When two
physicists differ dramatically in their assessments,
responsible officials want to know the truth. Nuclear testing
has often been the only way certain disputes could be resolved
with the necessary finality. Inherent in the debates over the
``spirit of the CTB'' are pressures to codify ignorance and
police thinking in ways that create tensions with U.S.
interests, democratic responsiblity, and even the scientific
method.
The most compelling reason that the United States never
walked away from the CTBT as a long-term goal was
nonproliferation. Yet even here, there were serious concerns
about the impact of the CTBT. All but a handful of states
(Cuba, India, Israel, Pakistan primarily) are already parties
to the nonproliferation treaty. Except for the five nuclear
weapons states, these parties are obligated not to have nuclear
weapons programs and thus should not have nuclear weapons to
test. The main thrust of the CTBT actually involves very few
states. Often the CTBT was seen in the West as a halfway house
for those states outside the NPT into the NPT. The problem is
that some in those states saw the CTBT as an alternative regime
to the nonproliferation treaty, one based on a more egalitarian
principle under which all parties would be free to have nuclear
weapons. They just could not test them.
The danger is the CTBT then becomes a halfway house out of
the NPT, or at least a less restrictive alternative approach to
nonproliferation. This need not happen, but it could if we are
not careful. Already it has become common in public discussion
to speak of proliferation as having occurred only after a state
has tested its nuclear weapons. This erosion of standards is
very dangerous and again reflects the mistaken belief that
proliferators must always test their weapons to have confidence
in them. This involves more mirror imaging than is warranted.
The proliferators' needs are not the same as ours.
Also, as technology such as supercomputing advances and
spreads, more and more states will be able to have confidence
in more and more nuclear weapons capability without testing. To
address these problems, the United States and like-minded
states must work to address fundamental regional security
concerns. Above all, it must avoid the neo-Kellogg-Brandism
that would have us substitute grandiose global pledges for the
hard work of creating the conditions for a safer world by
engaging states and regions of concern. Already we have seen in
the context of the CTB a worsening of the situation in South
Asia.
Still, it would be wrong to say that the CTBT only relates
to a few. Many of the parties to the nonproliferation treaty
have said their commitment to remain in the treaty is realted
to the implementation by the nuclear weapons states of article
VI of the treaty. The NPT commits the nuclear weapons states to
a cessation of the nuclear arms race and commits all parties to
work toward general and complete disarmament. Most of these
states have taken the position that the achievement of a CTBT
is required under article VI, but most have also said that
article VI also requires the ultimate elimination of all
nuclear weapons themselves. And the official policy of the
United States remains that this, too, is an ultimate goal.
How does the United States reconcile this view with its
view that the nuclear umbrella and security guarantee it
provides to key allies also is necessary for nonproliferation?
The answer always has been that the United States will not give
up its nuclear weapons until the conditions have actually been
created in which they are no longer necessary. To do otherwise
would result in powerful pressures for nuclear proliferation.
Half the world's population lives in countries that have
nuclear weapons, and if we do not deal with the legitimate
security concerns of the others, more states will seek their
own weapons of mass destruction programs.
If a CTBT were to shatter confidence in safety, security
and reliability of the American nuclear umbrella, they may do
the same. If we invoke safeguard F, involving the supreme
national interest clause, we may provoke or legitimize similar
acts by proliferators. This safeguard carries almost the entire
weight of the argument for this CTBT, yet it puts the United
States in a ``damned if you do, damned if you do not''
situation with respect to nonproliferation, especially if there
are states simply looking for a pretext to test.
Mr. Chairman, it is my personal view that the arms control
arguments for a zero-yield CTBT are not compelling and that the
nonproliferation impact of any CTBT can be very uncertain and
involve foreseeable dangers as well as unintended consequences.
A better way to proceed is a step-by-step process in which
constraints are related to advances in verification, advances
in a validated stockpile stewardship program, development of an
appropriate weapons stockpile for a post-cold war and testing
limited environment, and advances in global and regional
security. Unfortuantely, all of this is about why we did not
want to be where we are now.
But we are here now. What should be done now? Without this
treaty or with it, we should continue to work with other
nations, but most particularly with countries of concern to
advance a more cooperative, but realistic security
relationship. With or without this treaty, we should continue
to address verification and compliance challenges, and I
believe that should also include those associated with nuclear
testing restraints. With or without this treaty, we should
exploit a vigorous stockpile stewardship program so that we can
have confidence in our deterrent while also demonstrating the
maximum restraint possible. With or without this treaty, we
must continue to develop and implement a more coherent,
bipartisan strategy for building a safer world.
If this treaty were time limited, were not zero yield,
provided restraints at more verifiable levels, provided more
clearly for the legitimacy of further testing (if and when it
is needed), were not so prone to ever more restrictive
interpretation down the road, and if conditions were such that
the stated nonproliferation objectives could actually be
achieved, then the debate would not be so intense.
Unfortunately, this treaty, signed already by the United
States, is none of these things, and there is no easy way to
fix it.
To approve this treaty may undermine years of
accomplishment in arms control and nonproliferation. Yet
expectations about this treaty have been built up around the
world and here at home. The case for this treaty is weak, but
unfortunately, the explanations for why the conditions for this
treaty do not exist have also not been made even to our allies.
These explanations are only now finally being made to our own
citizens. It is one thing to say we never should have gotten
into this position. It is another thing to make a worse hash of
it. The challenge to this committee and executive branch is to
find a way to get American nonproliferation strategy back on a
sound footing such that it earns bipartisan support and
provides the U.S. leadership necessary in the global arena.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lehman follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ronald F. Lehman
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Foreign Relations Committee:
On numerous occasions, I have appeared before this distinguished
panel to discuss the policy of the United States on arms control and
nonproliferation. From the perspective of various positions I then held
in government, I addressed the nuclear testing question. More recently,
you have asked me to testify as a private citizen. It is in that
personal capacity that I testify today, and only in that capacity.
Thus, you should not assume that these are necessarily the views of any
administration, organization, or institution with which I am now or
have been associated. Please take that admonition to heart. The ability
of individual citizens to keep their professional responsibilities and
their private views in their proper place is the key to harnessing the
diverse skills of this nation. I did not ask to testify, but I would
never turn down your request. Given the burdens you shoulder, I
recognize the importance of working together in a candid, nonpartisan
way on behalf of the nation's greater good.
The views I express today are entirely my own. At the same time,
this committee will recognize a consistency in my presentations over
the years, although some of the details have evolved with changes on
the international scene. There is one important difference, however.
The theme of my previous presentations has been to emphasize what we
are accomplishing. Sadly, my theme today emphasizes what we are failing
to do. And by ``we'' I mean the aggregate foreign policy community of
the United States including both executive and legislative branches of
governments as well as concerned individuals such as myself.
Despite the best of intentions of talented people in and out of
government, we as a nation have failed to articulate and implement a
strategy that sustains the momentum toward a better, safer world
achieved at the end of the Cold War. Indeed, many past accomplishments
in arms control and nonproliferation have begun to unravel. In part,
powerful trends such as globalization and technological advance have
created new difficulties even as they offer new opportunities. In part,
dealing with legacies of the past such as regional instabilities,
ethnic conflicts, economic resentments, geopolitical ambitions, and
domestic political divisions overseas and at home has been a larger
challenge than expected.
And in part, we have all forgotten some of the basic principles
that brought success in the arms control revolution at the end of the
'80s and into the early '90s. These basic principles placed an emphasis
on high standards of military merit, pressing the verification
envelope, and creating the geo-strategic conditions for progress. They
put a premium on solving problems, not on declaring them solved. These
sound negotiating principles led to the two START treaties, the INF
Treaty, the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC), the Joint Verification Experiment (JVE) at
nuclear test sites, the Verification Protocols to the Threshold Test
Ban Treaty (TTBT) and Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET), and
many other important agreements. These agreements were important and
valuable, not because of signing ceremonies, but because they were part
of a comprehensive national security strategy which very clearly served
the interest of the United States and its friends and allies. Because
these agreements were negotiated tenaciously, but directly and in
detail with the relevant parties, they also had the effect of reducing
tensions with potential adversaries. Because they were negotiated in
the closest of bipartisan consultations, they were all approved by the
Senate and supported by the Congress as appropriate.
The current debate over the ``zero-yield'' Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT) reflects all of these factors--new forces, painful
legacies, and neglect of the basics. To put the current discussion in
perspective, it might be useful to remember how we got to where we are.
The history of nuclear testing arms control is complex, sometimes
colorful, not always dignified, but always an important reflection of
broader forces in play. This history is too lengthy even to summarize
here. Yet, a clear American approach to the question of nuclear testing
had emerged over the years.
The primary contribution of nuclear testing limitations had been
achieved by the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty which banned tests
everywhere but underground and thus dealt with health and environmental
dangers associated with large nuclear tests in the atmosphere. These
dangers were reduced somewhat further by the 150 kiloton restraint on
underground testing of the 1974 TTBT, although dissatisfaction with its
verification provisions (and those of the PNET of 1976) delayed
ratification for sixteen years.
Concerns about compliance with the TTBT while the U.S. continued a
moratorium, however, ultimately led to the ``fly-before-buy'' Joint
Verification Experiment and subsequently the Verification Protocols to
the TTBT and PNET. These Protocols were negotiated with the very
closest consultation with this Committee and the rest of the Senate.
The resulting process and protocols radically transformed on-site
inspection, set a new standard of effective verification, and resulted
in the Senate giving consent to ratification unanimously by a vote of
98-0.
Although the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Carter Administrations had
explored more comprehensive negotiated and codified limitations on
nuclear testing, none was able to achieve them, even given the easier
standards of verification and military merit which had been developed
in those earlier periods. All ultimately were compelled to explore more
limited approaches to test bans in terms of less binding moratoria, or
reduced thresholds, or partial bans, or time limitations, or
combinations of these.
By the end of the Cold War, U.S. policy had evolved a step by step
approach to nuclear limitations that was cautious, and for good reason.
Nuclear testing limitations were of increasingly limited arms control
value in the superpower context. More useful approaches to arms control
than nuclear test limitations were now possible, and increasingly we
were exploring ever more cooperative and intrusive threat reduction.
And frankly, the nuclear testing issue also had a greater potential to
be divisive at home and abroad, thus diverting resources from more
valuable nonproliferation efforts such as regional peace processes,
``loose nukes,'' a timely cut-off of unsafeguarded fissile material
production, and the growing concern about biological weapons and
terrorism.
For a number of reasons, no next step after the TTBT was formalized
at the end of the Cold War because at the substantive level, the
nuclear testing issue had been overtaken by events. Implementation of
the TTBT was to have provided technical experience for the next step,
but this was overtaken by momentous events such as the breakup of the
Soviet Union (including achieving START II and the adherence of
Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty
(NPT) under the Lisbon Agreement), and by domestic legislation. The
TTBT itself, however, with its lower inspection thresholds suggested
that some ratcheting down of permitted yields might be explored
cooperatively. The end of the Cold War and improvements in testing
instrumentation and science offered the possibility also that the
number of tests could be reduced. Some thought was given to limiting
the number of tests above a verifiable threshold. The Executive Branch
found no new subtantive reasons then to pursue immediately a near zero-
yield CTB, much less a zero yield CTB, because the conditions under
which they would be in the interest of the U.S. and its allies were not
seen on any horizon.
Generally, arms control is best defined broadly to include
nonproliferation, confidence building, and the like. But one can define
arms control more narrowly, as is often done, as meaning the
negotiation of limits on weapons and forces and as something distinct
from nonproliferation. From the perspective of that more narrow
definition, the arms control merit of nuclear testing limitations was
seen as of decreasing utility and increasing danger to the U.S. the
lower the limit. It was not a straight line, but generally that was the
case. Why? Because the wrong nuclear testing limitations could put at
risk the nuclear deterrent of the United States and undermine security
guarantees and relationships under which other nations felt it possible
to forgo nuclear options of their own.
The impact of testing limitations on the U.S. nuclear deterrent is
a lengthy discussion on its own. I am prepared to address these issues,
but in the interest of brevity, let me simply highlight several points
related to arms control. The United States has never been fond of
qualitative arms control measures because so often they work against
advanced industrial democracies. The democracies look to technology to
compensate for manpower and to free resources for other public goods.
Limits on science and technology are difficult to define and frequently
harder to verify than quantitative limits, so qualitative constraints
here again tend to favor closed, authoritarian societies, all other
things being equal (which of course they never are). Often, an
undesirable tension is created between quantitative arms control goals
and qualitative measures. In the case of nuclear weapons reductions,
the inability to test makes it more dangerous to reduce the size of the
nuclear weapons stockpile. To hedge against uncertainty, larger
numbers, greater variety, and more spares are required to maintain the
same confidence.
But more importantly, democracy as we practice it demands
accountability. To maintain our nuclear deterrent we must be able to
demonstrate to the American people and their elected officials that the
weapons in the stockpile are safe, secure, reliable, and appropriate to
their missions. When two physicists differ dramatically in their
assessments, responsible officials want to know the truth. Nuclear
testing has often been the only way certain disputes could be resolved
with the necessary finality. Inherent in the debates over the ``spirit
of the CTB'' are pressures to codify ignorance and police thinking in
ways that create tensions with U.S. interests, democratic
responsibility, and the scientific method.
If, from a narrow arms control point of view, the CTBT has been so
unattractive to the United States, why did the United States continue
to refer to it as a long term goal to be pursued when necessary
conditions were achieved? The answer has two parts. First, not everyone
at home or abroad agreed with this assessment, and certainly the
industrial democracies did not always lead in all areas of advanced
weaponry. Second, some actually do put a premium on limiting the U.S.
American technological prowess was a target not only of the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, but also of some other states that feared or
resented the United States and/or the other nuclear weapons states. In
some other cases, states appeared to be exploiting American reluctance
to finalize a CTB as pretext to justify their own lack of restraint,
and one frequently hears the argument that a CTBT will call their
bluff. Unfortunately, I fear these states can create pretexts faster
than we can negotiate them away or buy them off. Still others do see
American technological advances as the source of most arms races. I
should note that all of the arguments against the American nuclear
deterrent that one has heard over the years are now being made about
American advanced conventional capability and even so-called non-lethal
weapons.
The more compelling reason that the United States never walked away
from the CTBT as a long term goal, however, was nonproliferation. Yet,
even here, there were serious concerns about the impact of the CTBT.
All but a handful of states (Cuba, India, Israel, Pakistan primarily)
are already parties to the Nonproliferation Treaty. Except for the five
nuclear weapons states these parties are obligated not to have nuclear
weapons programs and thus should not have nuclear weapons to test. The
main thrust of the CTBT actually involves very few states. Often, the
CTB was seen in the West as a half way house for those states into the
NPT. The problem is that some in those states saw the CTBT as an
alternative regime to the NPT, one based on a more egalitarian
principle under which all parties would be free to have nuclear
weapons. They just couldn't test them.
The danger is that the CTBT then becomes a halfway house out of the
NPT, or at least a less restrictive alternative approach to
nonproliferation. This need not happen, but it could if we are not
careful. Already it has become common in public discussion to speak of
proliferation as having occurred only after a state has tested its
nuclear weapons. This erosion of standards is very dangerous and again
reflects the mistaken belief that proliferators must always test their
weapons to have confidence in them. This involves more mirror imaging
than is warranted. Their needs are not the same as ours. Also, as
technology such as supercomputing advances and spreads, more and more
states will be able to have confidence in more and more nuclear weapons
capability without testing. To address these problems, the United
States and like-minded states must work to address fundamental regional
security concerns. Above all, it must avoid the neo-Kellogg-Briandism
that would have us substitute grandiose, global pledges for the hard
work of creating the conditions for a safer world by directly engaging
states and regions of concern. Already we have seen in the context of
the CTB, a worsening of the situation in South Asia.
Still, it would be wrong to say that the CTBT only relates to a
few. Many of the parties to the NPT have said that their commitment to
remain in the treaty is related to the implementation by the nuclear
weapons states of Article VI of the treaty. The NPT commits the nuclear
weapons states to a cessation of the nuclear arms race and commits all
parties to work toward general and complete disarmament. Most of these
states have taken the position that achievement of a CTBT is required
under Article VI, but most have said that Article VI also requires the
ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons themselves. And the
official policy of the United States remains that this too is an
ultimate goal.
How does the United States reconcile this view with its view that
the nuclear umbrella and security guarantee it provides to key allies
also is necessary for nonproliferation. The answer always has been that
the United States will not give up its nuclear weapons until the
conditions have actually been created in which they are no longer
necessary. To do otherwise, would result in powerful pressures for
nuclear proliferation. Half the world's population lives in countries
that have nuclear weapons, and if we do not deal the legitimate
security concerns of the others, more states will seek their own WMD
programs. If a CTBT were to shatter confidence in safety, security, or
reliability of the American nuclear umbrella, they may do the same. Yet
if we invoke Safeguard F, involving the supreme national interest
clause, we may provoke or legitimize similar acts. This safeguard
carries almost the entire weight of the argument for this CTBT, yet it
puts the United States in a ``Damned if you do; damned if you don't''
situation with respect to nonproliferation, especially if there are
states simply looking for a pretext.
Mr. Chairman, it is my personal view that the arms control
arguments for a zero-yield CTBT are not compelling, and that the
nonproliferation impact of any CTBT can be very uncertain and involve
foreseeable dangers as well as unintended consequences. A better way to
proceed is a step by step process in which constraints are related to
advances in verification, advances in a validated stockpile stewardship
program, development of an appropriate weapons stockpile for a post-
Cold War and testing limited environment, and advances in global and
regional security. All of this is about why we didn't want to be where
we are now.
But we are here now. What should be done now? With or without this
treaty, we should continue to work with other nations, but most
particularly with countries of concern to advance a more cooperative,
but realistic security relationship. With or without this treaty, we
should continue to address verification and compliance challenges,
including those associated with nuclear testing restraints. With or
without this treaty, we should exploit a vigorous stockpile stewardship
program so that we can have confidence in our deterrent while also
demonstrating the maximum restraint possible. With or without this
treaty, we must continue to develop and implement a more coherent,
bipartisan strategy for building a safer word.
If this treaty were time limited, were not zero yield, provided
restraints at more verifiable levels, provided more clearly for the
legitimacy of further testing (if and when it is needed), were not so
prone to ever more restrictive interpretation down the road, and if
conditions were such that the stated nonproliferation objectives will
actually be achieved, then the debate would not be so intense.
Unfortunately, this treaty, signed already by the United States is none
of these things, and there is no easy way to fix it.
To approve this treaty may undermine years of accomplishments in
arms control and nonproliferation. Yet, expectations about this very
treaty have been built up around the world and here at home. The case
for this treaty is weak, but, unfortunately, the explanations for why
the conditions for this treaty do not exist have also not been made
even to our allies. These explanations are only now finally being made
to our own citizens. It is one thing to say we never should have gotten
into this position. It is another thing to make a worse hash of it. The
challenge to this Committee, and to the Executive Branch, is to find a
way to get American nonproliferation strategy back on sound footing
such that it earns bipartisan support and provides the U.S. leadership
necessary in the global arena.
Senator Brownback. Thank you. I just came in. Mr. Wade, are
you up? Thank you very much, and thank you all for hanging in
here through a long hearing. It is a very important hearing,
and we want to hear your testimony. I would hope you would put
it forward actually in a summary fashion and really get to the
heart of what you are about on it. And we will have your full
statement in the record. I just think that might be better for
all of us. You have heard a lot of testimony here today. Just
get right at what you think the key points are. Mr. Wade.
STATEMENT OF TROY E. WADE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (RETIRED),
NEVADA ALLIANCE FOR DEFENSE, ENERGY AND BUSINESS, LAS VEGAS, NV
Mr. Wade. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be pleased to
summarize. By way of background, I have spent more than 30
years directly involved in the nuclear weapons programs of this
country, with most of my career associated with nuclear
testing. My last official assignment was as the Assistant
Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs at the end of the
Reagan administration. Since my retirement in 1989, I have
continued to support the defense interest of this country and
have worked to assure that the issues with which I am familiar
are properly considered.
I am part of a rapidly diminishing number of people who
have witnessed the awesome force of an atmospheric nuclear
test. And therefore I can comfortably categorize myself as one
who has spent his entire career working on a program that would
bring strength to the U.S. deterrent, but at the same time I am
a perfect example of the aging, not only of the nuclear weapons
themselves, but much more importantly, the people who have
designed and tested and manufactured them.
Given my background in testing, I am particularly concerned
about several things. For example, I know from firsthand
experience that nuclear weapons are not like artillery shells.
You can not store them in a Butler building and then get them
whenever the exigencies of the situation prompt you to do so.
Nuclear weapons are very complicated assemblies that require
continued vigilance to assure reliability and safety. It is,
therefore, a first order principle that nuclear weapons that
are now expected to be available in the enduring stockpile for
much longer than was contemplated by the designers will require
enhanced vigilance to continue to ensure safety and
reliability. I have been, and will continue to be, a supporter
of stockpile stewardship, but I am a supporter only because I
believe it is a way to develop the computational capability to
assure the annual certification process for warheads that have
not changed or for which there is no apparent change. For
nuclear weapons that do not fit that category, stockpile
stewardship is merely, as we say in Nevada, a crap shoot.
Nuclear testing has always been the tool necessary to
maintain with high confidence the reliability and safety of the
stockpile. I believe this treaty would remove the principal
tool from the toolchest of those responsible for assuring
safety and reliability. We have heard many analogies today
about the effects of this treaty on warhead safety and
reliability. I would like, Mr. Chairman, to use my own analogy.
Maintaining the nuclear deterrent of the United States without
permitting needed testing is like requiring the local ambulance
service to guarantee 99 percent reliability anytime the
ambulance is requested, but with a provision that the ambulance
is never to be started until the call comes. I believe this is
a patently absurd premise.
I believe there are at least three reasons that the U.S.
might need to conduct a nuclear test. First, a requirement to
do a test that would respond in a political sense to a test
conducted by another country, and I do not believe this to be a
high probability event at all. Second, a requirement to do a
test, or two, or three, that would need to be conducted to
respond to a new, clear, military requirement, such as deeply
buried hard targets. I believe this to be likely over the next
couple of decades. Third, a requirement to do a test, or two,
or three, that would be necessary to assure that a problem
discovered in the enduring stockpile had been successfully
resolved, and that the safety and reliability of the subject
warhead was again deemed satisfactory. I believe, based on my
personal experience, that this is a very high probability
event. Are we prepared to conduct a nuclear test should we
develop a problem in the enduring stockpile? Are we prepared to
comply with proposed safeguard F? I am distressed to have to
report to this committee that in my opinion, our capability to
conduct a test is eroding rapidly. Let me give you my views for
the reasons.
First, there is no agreement between Congress and the
administration about what constitutes the capability to resume
nuclear testing. Congress views the plans presented by the
administration as if they were plans developed by a fire
station waiting for a very low probability fire and, therefore,
prohibitively expensive. The administration exacerbates this
view by being unable to define the most basic requirements
needed to conduct a nuclear test.
The result is an impasse. Congress is seeking the cheapest
option, while the administration and the national laboratories
quibble over what must be done, and in what priority it must be
done. As a result, we are losing the people, both weapons
designers and field operations people, that are trained to
safely conduct a nuclear test, and we are also losing the
certification and maintenance of the instrumentation and
equipment that is necessary to conduct a nuclear test.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, my years of experience and
dedication to this progran tell me that this treaty, as it is
now presented to this committee, is dangerous. It is
unverifiable, it may or may not further the nonproliferation
goals of the U.S., and most important to me, it has an adverse
effect on assuring the continued safety and reliability of the
nuclear deterrent. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. My
full statement will be submitted for the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wade follows:]
Prepared Statement of Troy E. Wade
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee:
Thank you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of my
opposition to the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as
it is currently written. As submitted, it is my opinion that it
presents to this committee and to the full body of the Senate a flawed
set of logic.
By way of background, I have spent more than thirty years directly
involved in the nuclear weapons programs of this country, with most of
my career associated with nuclear testing. Since my retirement in 1989,
I have continued to support the defense interests of the country and
have worked to assure that the issues with which I am familiar are
properly considered.
I am part of a rapidly diminishing number of people who have
witnessed the awesome force of an atmospheric nuclear test and,
therefore, I can comfortably categorize myself as one who has spent his
entire career working on a program that would bring strength to the
U.S. defense but, at the same time, one who has also prayed that a
nuclear weapon would never need to be used again.
Treaties have always been a part of the nuclear weapons program,
and I have participated in all of them, noting that all have been
driven by international pressures. Among the most important to the
nation are the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, followed in 1974 by the
Threshold Test Ban Treaty.
Both of those treaties were ratified because there was reasonable
assurance that the treaties could be verified.
As the national commitment to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
moved forward during the Reagan years, this nation participated in a
joint program with the Soviet Union, called the Joint Verification
Experiment (JVE), to determine each nation's capability to monitor a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The JVE's were very successful in that
they demonstrated to both nuclear powers that one could successfully
instrument a test to assure that it did not exceed the nuclear yields
specified by the treaty requirements. Lost in the rhetoric is the fact
that the JVE's did nothing to assure anyone that low yield nuclear
tests could be routinely and accurately detected. Given the technical
facts known at the time, it is remarkable that the U.S. or any of its
close allies would agree to a zero-yield provision in the proposed
treaty. As the committee knows, recent reports from the CIA continue to
highlight our inability to verify whether or not low-yield nuclear
tests have been conducted by Russia.
Given my background in testing, I am particularly concerned about
several things. For example, I know from firsthand experience that
nuclear weapons are not like artillery shells. You cannot store them in
a Butler building on the back forty and go get them whenever the
exigencies of the situation prompt you to do so. Nuclear weapons are
very complicated assemblies that require continued vigilance to assure
reliability and safety. It is a first order principal that nuclear
weapons that are now expected to be available in the enduring stockpile
for much longer than was contemplated by the designers will require
enhanced vigilance to continue to assure safety and reliability. I have
been, and will continue to be, a supporter of stockpile stewardship,
but I am a supporter only because I believe it is a way to develop the
computational capability to assure the annual certification process for
warheads that have not changed, or for which there is no apparent
change. For nuclear weapons that do not fit that category, stockpile
stewardship is merely a crap shoot. Nuclear testing has always been the
tool necessary to maintain, with high confidence, the reliability and
safety of the stockpile. In fact, President George Bush must have
believed as I do when he said, and I quote, ``the requirement to
maintain and improve the safety of U.S. forces necessitates continued
nuclear testing for these purposes, albeit at a modest level, for the
foreseeable future.''
This treaty would remove the principal ``tool'' from the tool chest
of those responsible for assuring stockpile safety and reliability. To
use a simple analogy, if the chair permits, maintaining the nuclear
deterrent of the U.S. without permitting needed testing is like
requiring the local ambulance service to guarantee 99% reliability
anytime the ambulance is requested, but with a provision that the
ambulance is never to be started until the call comes. This is a
patently absurd premise.
Allow me to get very specific about nuclear testing. When President
Clinton forwarded the current CTBT to Congress, he assured the Congress
that he had mandated that the capability to resume nuclear testing
would be maintained. It is my opinion that is currently not the case.
I believe that there are at least three reasons that the U.S. might
need to conduct a nuclear test.
First, a requirement to do a test that would respond, in a
political sense, to a test conducted by another country. I do
not believe this is a high probability event at all.
Second, a requirement to do a test (or two or three) that
would need to be conducted to respond to a new, clear military
requirement, such as deeply-buried hard targets. I believe this
to be likely over the next couple of decades.
Third, a requirement to do a test (or two or three) that
would be necessary to assure that a problem discovered in the
enduring stockpile had been successfully resolved and that the
safety and reliability of the subject warhead was again deemed
satisfactory. I believe, based upon my personal experience,
that this is a very high probability event.
Are we prepared to conduct a nuclear test should we develop a
problem in the enduring stockpile, or for any other reason? I am
distressed to have to report to this committee that our capability to
conduct a test is eroding rapidly. Let me give you my view of the
reasons that this is the case.
First, there is no agreement between Congress and the
administration about what constitutes the ``capability to resume
nuclear testing.'' Congress views the plans presented by the
administration as if they were plans developed by a fire station
waiting for a very low probability fire and, therefore, are
prohibitively expensive. The administration exacerbates this view by
being unable to define the most basic requirements needed to conduct a
nuclear test.
The result is an impasse. Congress is seeking the cheapest option
while the administration and the national laboratories quibble over
what must be done and in what priority it must be done. As a result, we
are losing the people (both weapons designers and field operations
personnel) that are trained to safely conduct a nuclear test, and we
are also losing the certification and maintenance of the
instrumentation and equipment that is necessary to conduct a nuclear
test.
Until issues like these are resolved, ratification of a treaty that
prevents nuclear testing puts our system and our nation at unnecessary
risk.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, my 31 years of service and dedication to
this program tell me that this treaty, as it is now presented to this
committee and to the Senate of the United States, is dangerous. It is
unverifiable, it clearly does nothing concrete to further the non-
proliferation goals of the U.S., and most important to me, it has an
adverse effect on assuring the continued safety and reliability of the
nuclear deterrent.
I urge this committee and the full body of the Senate to reject
this treaty as it has been submitted and to require that the
administration move expeditiously to develop a new Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty that will lead to the desired goals of verification while
also protecting all of our options in the event of a national
emergency.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I appreciate the
opportunity to testify before this prestigious committee and stand
ready to respond to any questions you or the committee may deem
appropriate.
Thank you very much.
Senator Biden. Thank you very much.
Dr. Garwin, we will hear your statement now. And then we
will have questions for all of you.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD L. GARWIN, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW FOR
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, NEW YORK,
NY
Dr. Garwin. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity to
testify in support of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that
has been before the Senate for 2 years.
I will abbreviate and submit my full statement for the
record.
Since 1950, I have been involved in the Nation's nuclear
weapons establishment, contributing to the development and
testing of fission weapons and to the creation of the first
thermonuclear weapons. I speak for myself alone.
Last year I was a member of the Rumsfeld Commission to
assess the ballistic missile threat to the United States. In
1996, I received the Foreign Intelligence Community Award for
Scientific Intelligence. And that same year, from the President
and the Department of Energy, the Enrico Fermi Award for my
work with nuclear weapons.
Complex technical issues should not be allowed to obscure
the important conclusions that I state here up front and that I
believe follow from a balanced assessment. First, in assessing
the merits of the CTBT, it is essential to bear the difference
in mind between fission weapons of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki
variety and thermonuclear weapons which are used on all
deployed U.S., Russian and Chinese strategic nuclear weapons.
The CTBT can be verified with sufficient confidence to
prevent any proliferator from developing thermonuclear weapons,
whether he already possesses fission weapons or develops such
weapons clandestinely.
Third, while tests with yields vastly smaller than
Hiroshima may evade detection, such tests would be useless to
Russia and China, and very difficult to use for confirming the
validity of clandestinely developed fission weapons.
Fourth, if secret information regarding thermonuclear
weapons has been acquired by others or may be so acquired in
the future, as has been alleged in regard to China, this
information cannot be turned into a deployable weapon without
tests forbidden by the CTBT.
Fifth, the U.S. does not need tests banned by the CTBT to
maintain full confidence in its weapons stockpile. The vast
majority of components in a nuclear weapon can be examined and
tested and upgraded without nuclear explosions. The nuclear,
so-called, physics package itself can be remanufactured to
original specifications should surveillance reveal
deterioration. The stockpile stewardship program will further
enhance our high confidence in our stockpile, which is now
certified each year by the weapon builders, together with the
military who will have to use the weapons.
Sixth, given that nuclear proliferation is probably the
most serious threat to the national security, and given the
confidence that our own deterrent will be fully maintained
under the CTBT, it is totally clear that the United States will
run fewer dangers with the CTBT in force than without it.
The costs to the United States of a CTBT include
constraining the United States from testing nuclear weapons. We
must frankly face that as a cost. The benefits come from
constraining other countries from testing nuclear weapons. So
let us first look at the benefits.
The greatest benefit arises from the contribution to
preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons, both directly, by
preventing nuclear tests and indirectly, by keeping nations on
board the nonproliferation treaty. The United States does not
want additional states to have nuclear weapons, and the members
of the NPT do not either. We will not have these nations
enthusiastically supporting the NPT if we go on with testing.
It is possible to build simple nuclear weapons without
nuclear explosion tests. But there will always be a nagging
doubt whether or how well they perform. The Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombs each weighed about 9,000 pounds, with a yield of
15 to 20 kilotons. The Hiroshima bomb was not tested before its
use. It used a gun assembly of 60 kilograms of enriched
uranium. The Nagasaki bomb was tested 3 weeks beforehand in the
New Mexico desert. It contained 6 kilograms of plutonium.
But the point is that these must be compared with a two-
stage thermonuclear bomb, tested in 1957, 12 years later, that
weighed some 400 pounds, with a yield of 74 kilotons. Its
diameter was a mere 12 inches, with a length of some 42 inches.
That is what you can do by testing. That is what other people
cannot do without testing.
A CTBT that was respected would make a big difference in
the threat that could face the United States or our allies,
even if nations overtly or clandestinely pursue nuclear
weaponry without explosive tests. The two-stage 1957 weapons
would greatly increase the destructive power that can be
wielded by new nuclear states such as India and Pakistan. And I
take Ambassadors Oakley's and Wisner's comments about the
likelihood of testing and further expansion of the nuclear
arsenals in India and Pakistan if a CTBT is not ratified.
The CTBT bans a nuclear explosion of any size. It is a zero
threshold agreement. Can we be certain that a nation has not
tested in this vast range between zero and the magnitude of
tests that would be required to gain a significant confidence
in an approach to thermonuclear weaponry, say 10 kilotons? No,
we cannot be sure. But the utility of such tests, the minimal
tests, in a weapons program has been thoroughly explored and
found to be just that--minimal.
I recall the August 1995 report of the JASON group, chaired
by Dr. Sidney Drell, of which I was a coauthor. Conclusion 6 of
that study refers specifically to a nuclear weapon test that
would involve full yield of a fission primary and some ignition
of the thermonuclear secondary, and states that such tests, to
be useful, would generate nuclear yields in excess of
approximately 10 kilotons. That is clearly verifiable by the
CTBT's International Monitoring System, with its seismic,
hydroacoustic and infrasound sensors and its detectors of
radioactive gases and particles.
Those conclusions resulted from a detailed classified
analysis of the more than 1,000 U.S. nuclear tests. And the
conclusions were supported unanimously by the authors of the
study, which included four experienced nuclear weapon designers
from the nuclear weapon laboratories.
Now, a proliferant country might well want to acquire
fission weapons of 5 kiloton yields, a third the size of the
Hiroshima bomb. But the chance of detonating such a weapon
undetected is small. The IMS would have a good probability of
detecting a nuclear explosion anywhere in the world at a level
of 1 kiloton. And in many portions of the world, the
detectability is much better. For example, on September 23,
1999, the background noise in seismic arrays in the
Scandinavian region were such that a test on the order of 1
ton, not 1 kiloton, could have been detected at Novaya Zemlya.
Hydronuclear tests are banned under the CTBT. The U.S.
conducted dozens of them with an intended energy release less
than 4 pounds of high explosives, not 1 ton, or 1 kiloton, but
a thousandth of a ton--4 pounds. It is clearly impossible
seismically to distinguish a test that may have had 200 pounds
of high explosive from a test with 200 pounds of high explosive
and 1 pound of nuclear yield.
The 1995 JASON nuclear testing study judged that there was
little to be learned from such a test of a yield 10 million
times lower than that of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Such major changes would need to be made in a full-
scale nuclear explosive to produce such a small yield that
information available from a hydronuclear test would be of
minor value in the development of a substantial fission weapon.
And that laid the basis for a zero yield, zero threshold, CTBT.
We just found no utility for hydronuclear tests.
Russian nuclear weapon experts have expressed interest in
fission weapons with yields no bigger than a few tons, slightly
bigger than the 2-ton bombs that we routinely dropped from our
aircraft. These might be built without testing, or might be
tested unobserved by U.S. sensors with or without a CTBT. In no
case would the U.S. react by testing its own nuclear weapons.
And the inhibition posed by a CTBT on a Russia that wishes to
remain engaged with the rest of the world would be substantial.
The possibility of Russian programs of this type is not a valid
argument against the CTBT.
Not having a CTBT would give a green light to Russia to
develop those weapons and fully test them, and many others. In
other words, one can cheat on the CTBT without being discovered
by the International Monitoring System, but to what purpose?
Useful national security information would not be acquired, and
the bragging rights are not worth much if you cannot tell
anyone.
For instance, a clandestine test cannot be used to
intimidate other states. Beyond the International Monitoring
System, the United States maintains national means, ranging
from human agents to communications intelligence to sensors
other than those included in the IMS. I am confident that the
CTBT can be adequately verified. This means that experimental
validation by nuclear explosion testing cannot be accomplished
by a state that is party to the CTBT.
Now, can we maintain our nuclear weapons safe and reliable
under a CTBT? Yes. Our review of U.S. nuclear tests and of
defects developed in stockpiled weapons revealed many defects
detected in the routine surveillance process--not by nuclear
explosion tests. Defects observed by nuclear explosion tests
were associated with weapons that have been put into the
stockpile without the normal development testing and without a
production verification test. Today we have no such weapons,
and we will have none in the future.
Senator Biden. None in the stockpile today?
Dr. Garwin. None in the stockpile today have not been fully
tested. They have all been fully tested. All weapons in the
enduring stockpile have been fully tested.
Some deficiencies identified by surveillance were actually
eliminated by substituting a different warhead or design that
required nuclear testing. But that was an option, not a
necessity.
At present, and for the foreseeable future, a reliable and
safe U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is essential to the
security of the United States, its allies and to peaceful
nations of the world. We need to understand whether U.S.
nuclear weapons can be maintained reliable and safe for 10
years or 20 years or 50 years without nuclear testing. That is
the $45 billion 10-year program, to provide assessment and
understanding of the state of the stockpile and to remedy
deficiencies as they are detected.
The analogy with the automobile is that of the 4,000 or so
individual parts of a modern U.S. nuclear weapon. Most can be
thoroughly tested without nuclear explosions, and many are not
even involved in a test explosion. Thus, batteries, timing and
fusing systems and most of the weapon itself can be assessed
and improved to the state-of-the-art using modern technology
when warranted by the reduction in cost in the long run to
compensate the investment in the short run. That is no
different from any other modernization program.
But under a CTBT, the explosive-driven plutonium primary
cannot be tested to nuclear yield, and neither can the
secondary explosive that is ignited by the flood of x rays from
the primary explosion. Instead, the United States has an
assessment program in which each year 11 examples of each type
of warhead in the inventory are dismantled and exhaustively
monitored. Of the 11, one is totally disassembled, and the
interior of the primary and secondary inspected for aging,
corrosion and the like.
Signs of aging may eventually force the remanufacture of
these parts. If they are remanufactured to the same
specifications as they were initially produced, they will be as
good as the day they were first made. This can be done any
number of times, and is the basis for my confidence in the
future stockpile.
We now have a much better understanding of the aging of
plutonium than we did previously. It seems to be benign. And
this knowledge has led to a belief that the plutonium pit will
survive 50 years or more. But if it does not, remanufacture
will make it good as new.
We need not only reassessment, but the remanufacturing
facility. The need for the facility has nothing to do with the
CTBT. It is neither more nor less necessary under a CTBT than
in a regime in which the United States will still test
occasionally.
It is interesting that whether we test or we do not test,
no missile that will be fired in war, no nuclear weapon that
would be used in extremis would have been tested. Its brother
would have been tested. Its sister would have been tested. It
would not have been tested.
The U.S. laboratories, under the CTBT, will maintain
weapons safe and reliable by the stockpile stewardship program,
but they will also maintain and improve the capability to
design and build nuclear weapons. It is clear that this
capability could not be exercised in the form of newly produced
weapons under a CTBT, but should the test ban regime ever
collapse, it would avoid the delay of many years before new
designed nuclear weapons could be produced.
Now, let me give you what I believe is a balanced
assessment, a summary. The nonproliferation arms control
benefits to the U.S. of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty are
substantial. The adherence of other nations to the NPT and to
the CTBT is fundamentally influenced by U.S. ratification of
the CTBT.
A party could conduct tiny nuclear tests without being
detected by the treaty monitoring system. But tests in the
hydronuclear range, releasing a millionth of the energy of a
Hiroshima bomb will provide little useful knowledge. Tests
releasing 100 tons--that is, 1 percent of the Hiroshima yield--
might sometimes be missed by the monitoring system, but would
often be detected and located by other means. They, too, would
have little value in the development of nuclear weapons.
U.S. nuclear weapons will be maintained reliable and safe
under a CTBT thanks to the stockpile stewardship programs for
assessment and remanufacture.
Last but not least among the six safeguards the
administration has announced is the explicit readiness to
invoke the supreme national interest clause should the need
arise as a result of unanticipated technical problems in the
enduring stockpile of nuclear weapons that affect a key portion
of that stockpile.
On the basis of my experience in the nuclear weapons
program, I agree with those U.S. military leaders who have
reviewed the benefits and costs to U.S. security from a CTBT
and strongly support the treaty. Our national security will be
improved by ratification and impaired by further delay.
These military leaders had access to all the facts, took
the time, and used a formal process to ensure that all views
were considered. I feel it is thus greatly in our national
security interest to ratify the CTBT now. And I would be
pleased to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Garwin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Richard L. Garwin
introduction
Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support
of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
I am Richard L. Garwin, Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science
and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. I am also IBM
Fellow Emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center of the IBM
Corporation. I chair the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory
Board to the Secretary of State. In addition, I am a member of the
JASON group of consultants to the U.S. government, and have
participated in several of the JASON studies for the Department of
Energy on stockpile stewardship. Since 1950 I have been involved with
the nation's nuclear weapons establishment, having contributed to the
development and testing of fission weapons and to the creation of the
first thermonuclear weapons. Most of this involvement has been at the
Los Alamos National Laboratory. I am currently a consultant to Sandia
National Laboratories. Nevertheless, in my testimony I speak only for
myself. In 1998 I was a member of the Rumsfeld Commission to Assess the
Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. In 1996 I received from
the U.S. foreign intelligence community the R.V. Jones Award for
Scientific Intelligence; and also in 1996 I received from the President
and the Department of Energy the Enrico Fermi Award for my work with
nuclear weapons.
the bottom line.
Complex technical issues should not be allowed to obscure the
important conclusions that I state here, up front, and that I believe
follow from a balanced assessment:
1. In assessing the merits of the CTBT it is essential to bear the
difference in mind between fission weapons of the Hiroshima-
Nagasaki variety and thermonuclear weapons which are used on
all deployed U.S., Russian and Chinese strategic nuclear
weapons.
2. The CTBT can be verified with sufficient confidence to prevent any
proliferator from developing thermonuclear weapons whether he
already possesses fission weapons or develops such weapons
clandestinely.
3. While tests with yields vastly smaller than Hiroshima may evade
detection, such tests would be useless to Russia and China, and
very difficult to use for confirming the validity of a
clandestinely devloped fission weapon.
4. If secret information regarding thermonuclear weapons has been
acquired by others, or may be so acquired in the future, as has
been alleged in regard to China, this information cannot be
turned into a deployable weapon without tests forbidden by the
CTBT.
5. The U.S. does not need tests banned by the CTBT to maintain full
confidence in its weapons stockpile. The vast majority of
components in a nuclear weapon can be examined and tested and
upgraded without nuclear explosions. The nuclear (or physics)
package itself can be remanufactured to original specifications
should surveillance reveal deterioration. The stockpile
stewardship program will further enhance our high confidence in
our stockpile, which is now certified each year by the weapon
builders, together with the military who will have to use the
weapons.
6. Given that nuclear proliferation is probably the most serious threat
to the national security, and given the confidence that our own
deterrent will be fully maintained under the CTBT, it is
clear--totally clear--that the United States will run fewer
dangers with the CTBT in force than without it.
why a treaty?
We are better off with a test ban than without it. Of that there
can be no doubt.
Naturally, any treaty or contract will have both benefits and costs
to any of the parties. Here we are concerned with the benefits and
costs to the United States. If one looked only at the costs, and
imagined them as the total effect of the Treaty, one would never
consider such a deal.
The costs to the United States include constraining the United
States from testing nuclear weapons. The benefits come from
constraining other countries from testing nuclear weapons. So let's
look first at the benefits. The greatest benefit of the CTBT arises
from its contribution to preventing the proliferation of nuclear
weapons. It does this directly by preventing nuclear tests and
indirectly by keeping nations on board the Nonproliferation Treaty
(NPT). The United States does not want additional states to have
nuclear weapons, and the members of the NPT don't either.
It is possible to build simple nuclear weapons without nuclear
explosion tests, but there will always be a nagging doubt whether or
how well they will perform. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs each
weighed about 9000 pounds, with a yield of 15 to 20 kilotons. The
Hiroshima bomb used artillery-gun assembly of 60 kilograms of enriched
uranium, which was not tested before its use. The Nagasaki bomb, tested
three weeks beforehand in the New Mexico desert, contained some 6
kilograms of plutonium. Compare these weapons with a two-stage
thermonuclear bomb tested in 1957 that weighed some 400 lbs with a
yield of 74 kilotons; its diameter was a mere 12 inches, with a length
of some 42 inches.
Without nuclear tests of substantial yield, it is difficult to
build compact and light fission weapons and essentially impossible to
have any confidence in a large-yield two-stage thermonuclear weapon or
hydrogen bomb, which can readily be made in the megaton class.
Furthermore, even in the yield range accessible to fission weapons,
thermonuclear weapons are attractive because of their economy of
fissile material, their compact size, and their improved safety. Just
for example, a pure fission weapon, which is the best a sophisticated
proliferator could do without verifiable testing, of 200 kilotons yield
would require some 60 kg of plutonium or U-235. And the chemical
explosive might weigh 4000 to 8000 lbs. That amount of fissile material
would suffice for 10 thermonuclear weapons, each of which could be in
the megaton class and weigh less than 1000 lbs. However, such H-bomb
type weapons would require testing that would be readily detected and
would therefore be prevented by the CTBT. This limits greatly the
destructive power that can be wielded by newly nuclear states such as
India and Pakistan.
So a CTBT that was respected would make a big difference in the
threat that could face the United States or our allies, even if nations
overtly or clandestinely pursue nuclear weaponry without explosive
tests.
The CTBT bans any nuclear explosion of any size--it is a ``zero
threshold'' agreement. Can one be certain that a nation has not tested
in the vast range between zero and the magnitude of test that would be
required to gain significant confidence in an approach to thermonuclear
weaponry--say, 10 kilotons? No, but the utility of such tests to a
weapons program has been thoroughly explored and found to be minimal.
First, I recall the August 3, 1995 report of JASON chaired by Dr.
Sidney Drell, of which I was a co-author. Conclusion 6 of that study
refers to a nuclear weapon test that would involve full yield of the
fission primary and some ignition of the thermonuclear secondary, and
that such tests, to be useful, would ``generate nuclear yields in
excess of approximately 10 kilotons.'' That is clearly verifiable by
the CTBT's International Monitoring System (IMS), with its seismic,
hydroacoustic, and infrasound sensors, and its detectors of radioactive
gases and particles.
These Conclusions resulted from a detailed classified analysis of
the more than 1000 nuclear tests, and they were supported unanimously
by the authors of the study, including four experienced nuclear weapon
designers from U.S. nuclear weapon laboratories.
A proliferant country might well want to acquire fission weapons of
5 kiloton yield, but the chance of detonating such a weapon undetected
is small. The International Monitoring System (IMS) will have a good
probability of detecting a nuclear explosion anywhere in the world--
underground, underwater, or in the atmosphere at a level of 1 kiloton.
And in many portions of the world the detectability is much better. For
example, on September 23, 1999, the background noise in seismic arrays
in the Scandinavian region was such that a test on the order of 1 ton
(not 1 kiloton) could have been detected at Novaya Zemlya.
The CTBT bans explosive tests that release any amount of nuclear
energy. The United States conducted some scores of so-called
hydronuclear tests with an intended energy release less than 4 lbs. of
high explosive equivalent. These are banned under the CTBT; they would
very likely not be detected by the International Monitoring System. It
is clearly impossible seismically to distinguish a test that may have
had 200 lbs. of high explosive from a test with 200 lbs. of high
explosive and 1 lb. of nuclear yield. The 1995 JASON Nuclear Testing
study judged that there was little to be learned from such a test of
yield 10 million times lower than that of the bombs that destroyed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Such major changes would need to be made in a
full-scale nuclear explosive to produce such a small yield that
information available from the hydronuclear test would be of minor
value in the development of a substantial fission weapon.
Russian nuclear weapons experts have expressed interest in fission
weapons with yields no bigger than a few tons. These might be built
without testing, or might be tested unobserved by U.S. sensors, with or
without a CTBT. In no case would the U.S. react by testing its own
nuclear weapons, and the inhibition posed by a CTBT on a Russia that
wishes to remain engaged with the rest of the world would be
substantial. The possibility of Russian programs of this type is not a
valid argument against the CTBT.
In other words, one can cheat on the CTBT without being discovered
by the International Monitoring System, but to what end? Useful
national security information would not be acquired, and the bragging
rights are not worth much if one can't tell anyone. For instance, a
clandestine test cannot be used to intimidate other states.
additional means to detect violations
In addition to the International Monitoring System, the United
States will maintain national means ranging from human agents to
communications intelligence to sensors other than those included in the
IMS. Furthermore, there are completely open and unclassified sensors
such as research seismometers that can augment and in many cases
greatly improve the sensitivity of the IMS.
I am confident that the CTBT can be adequately verified; this means
that experimental validation by nuclear explosion testing cannot be
accomplished by a state that is party to the CTBT.
can the u.s. maintain its nuclear weapons safe and reliable under a
ctbt?
Our review of the U.S. nuclear tests and of defects discovered in
stockpile weapons revealed many defects that were detected in the
routine surveillance process--i.e., not by nuclear explosion tests.
Defects observed by nuclear explosion tests were associated with
weapons that had been put into the stockpile without the normal
development testing and a production verification test. Today we have
no such weapons; and we will have none in the future. All weapons in
the enduring stockpile have been fully tested.
Some deficiencies identified by surveillance were eliminated by
substituting a different warhead or design that required nuclear
testing, but that was an option--not a necessity.
This analysis of our own stockpile and test record underscores the
importance of explosive testing at an assuredly detectable level to a
proliferator.
At present and for the foreseeable future, a reliable and safe U.S.
nuclear weapons stockpile is essential to the security of the United
States, its allies, and to peaceful nations of the world. It is
important to understand whether U.S. nuclear weapons can be maintained
reliable and safe for 10 years or 20 years or 50 years, without nuclear
testing. To this end, the Department of Energy is spending $4.5 billion
annually on the Stockpile Stewardship Program, to provide assessment
and understanding of the state of the stockpile and to remedy
deficiencies as they are detected. Of the 4000 or so individual parts
of a modern U.S. nuclear weapon, most can be thoroughly tested without
nuclear explosions and many are not even involved in a test explosion.
Thus, batteries, timing and fuzing systems, and most of the weapon
itself can be assessed and improved to the state-of-the-art, using
modern technology when it is warranted by the reduction in cost in the
long run to compensate the investment in the short run. This is no
different from any other modernization program. But under a CTBT, the
explosive-driven plutonium primary cannot be tested to nuclear yield,
and neither can the secondary explosive that is ignited by the flood of
x rays from the primary explosion.
Instead, the United States has an assessment program, in which each
year 11 examples of each type of warhead in the inventory are
dismantled and exhaustively monitored. Of the 11, one is totally
disassembled and the interior of the primary and secondary inspected
for aging, corrosion, and the like.
Eventually, signs of aging may force the remanufacture of these
parts; if they are remanufactured to the same specifications as they
were initially produced, they will be as good as the day they were
first made. This can be done any number of times, and is the basis for
my confidence in the future stockpile. As a result of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program over the last four years or so, we have a much
better understanding of the aging of plutonium than we did previously.
It seems to be benign, and this knowledge has led to a belief that the
plutonium pit will survive for 50 years or more. But if it doesn't,
remanufacture will make it ``good as new.''
We need to have not only the assessment but the remanufacturing
facility; the need for that facility has nothing to do with the CTBT.
It is neither more nor less necessary under a CTBT than in a regime in
which the United States might still test occasionally.
The U.S. laboratories under the CTBT will maintain weapons safe and
reliable by the Stockpile Stewardship Program, but they will also
maintain and improve the capability to design and build nuclear
weapons. It is clear that this capability could not be exercised under
a CTBT in the form of newly produced weapons, but should the CTBT
regime ever collapse, it would avoid a delay of many years before new-
design nuclear weapons could be produced.
a balanced assessment
The nonproliferation and arms control benefits to the U.S. of a
CTBT are substantial; the adherence of other nations to the
Nonproliferation Treaty and to the CTBT is fundamentally influenced by
U.S. ratification of the CTBT. A Party could conduct tiny nuclear tests
without being detected by the Treaty's monitoring system, but tests in
the hydronuclear range releasing a millionth of the energy of a
Hiroshima bomb will provide little useful knowledge; tests releasing
100 tons--that is, 1% of the Hiroshima yield--might sometimes be missed
by the monitoring system, but would often be detected and located by
other means. They, too, would have little value in the development of
nuclear weapons. U.S. nuclear weapons will be maintained reliable and
safe under a CTBT, thanks to the Stockpile Stewardship programs for
assessment and remanufacture. Last but not least among the six
safeguards that the Administration has announced is the explicit
readiness to invoke the supreme national interest clause should the
need arise as a result of unanticipated technical problems in the
enduring stockpile of nuclear weapons, that affect a key portion of
that stockpile.
On the basis of my experience in the nuclear weapons program, I
agree with those U.S. military leaders who have reviewed the benefits
and costs to U.S. security from a CTBT and strongly support the Treaty.
Our national security will be improved by ratification and impaired by
further delay.
It is thus greatly in our interest to ratify the CTBT now.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Dr. Garwin, for your
testimony. I thank the entire panel for its testimony.
Due to the hour being late, I want to just ask really one
quick line of questioning, and then turn it over to Senator
Biden to ask a question or two. And then we will probably all
move on.
The key area that I have been concerned about has been this
issue of entering into a treaty, ratifying it on behalf of the
United States, and then something changes and we decide we want
to test, or some of the other parties do not get into the
treaty. And I look at this as being a big step if we enter into
this and we ratify this treaty, if the United States does that.
And I really question if other countries would follow.
Director Lehman, specifically, I would like to ask you
this. President Clinton has said, in his safeguard F, that he
would be prepared to withdraw from the CTBT to conduct
underground testing if a high level of confidence in a weapon
type critical to the U.S. nuclear deterrent could not otherwise
be maintained. He said, we will do it, pull out.
When was the last time the United States withdrew from an
arms control treaty using the supreme national interest clause?
Mr. Lehman. I am not sure that we ever had, but I would
check that for the record.
But I think there are several bigger issues here that I
think are very important, not just for the CTBT debate, but for
the whole future of arms control and international law, and the
question of the dynamics of how this plays out in years when
this Congress is going to have a lot of new Members and there
will definitely be new Presidents. And that is the following:
The supreme national interest clause is something that we
have never taken lightly. To invoke it is a major step. And to
invoke it sends a major signal to other nations around the
world. We have already had a country like Iran state that if
the United States or others were to invoke the supreme national
interest clause for the purpose of testing, that they would
then feel free to invoke it for their own purposes, as well.
We run into a danger here, because, first of all, Iran is
already a party to the NPT and should not have nuclear weapons
and should not be sitting around planning to test in case we
use the safeguard F. But in the history of arms control, we
really sought other measures. If you had a problem that you
thought you were going to face, you tried to negotiate a
provision.
This administration also sought that. They were not able to
get it, but they saw the wisdom of something other than using
the supreme national interest clause. When I was Director of
ACDA, there was a tremendous interest among neutral and
nonaligned diplomats for some movement on nuclear testing. And
I worked something called the VOTA mandate, to help move that
along.
But many of them would come to me and say, well, look, on
the CTBT, all right, we hear you have got a problem that you
might need to test for safety. Well, maybe we could negotiate
something where you could test for safety if you needed to. It
would be OK. We could understand that. Well, of course, the
climate changed, the negotiating positions changed.
Now, we did not like that either, because we are not
exactly anxious to signal we have got a problem in the
stockpile by having to invoke an extraordinary measure. But we
certainly would have preferred to have a measure that
legitimized doing that better than having to invoke this
supreme national interest clause.
Senator Brownback. Is not that the case, Secretary Wade,
that if you did withdraw from the CTBT, it advertises to the
world that there is a problem with the U.S. deterrence, really
thus undermining some of the real value of the U.S. nuclear
deterrence?
Mr. Wade. Yes, Senator Brownback, I think that is a very
serious consideration that the Senate must visit in the next
several days, and that is, assuming that there is a problem in
the enduring stockpile, and history will demonstrate that that
certainly is possible, one way to announce to your enemies that
you have developed a major problem is by invoking the national
interest clause. I think that requires very serious
consideration.
I would like to go one step further by saying that
safeguards such as safeguard F have also not ever proven to be
a satisfactory way to deal with the treaty. A perfect example
of that is safeguard C of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which
said that the United States would maintain the ability to
return to atmospheric testing should it be in the national
interest. Maintaining that capability is a very expensive
thing, and it does not take very many years for this body or
the administration to decide that that is no longer necessary
and the safeguard disappears.
Senator Brownback. I appreciate the comments each of you
made, and Mr. Lehman, I would say we have done the check on
this, and the United States has never withdrawn from an arms
control treaty using the supreme national interest, and some
would say, well, we are not quite at that point in entering
into this at this point.
My point with that is that when the United States takes
these sort of steps, we mean it. When the U.S. Senate ratifies
a treaty, it sets it in stone. This is what we mean, and with
the flux that is around the world today, and the back-and-forth
testimony we have had from key people at very high and senior
levels who have been in on these negotiations, I think that is
not something that one, we want to take and set in stone at
this point in time.
Dr. Garwin. Excuse me. You asked all three of us that
question.
Senator Brownback. Well, Mr. Secretary, you can answer. I
am going to pitch it to Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. I would ask the question you want to answer.
Dr. Garwin. Thank you. I think, Mr. Chairman, your question
had two parts, and one was, you are not sure that the other
states will ratify, and that we will be bound by our
ratification, and they will not. Well, we are no more bound.
The treaty will not have entered into force. We already have a
moratorium and a treaty we have already signed. We are not
about to test, except for good reason.
The second is the supreme national interest. Well, this is
not the only condition under which the United States supreme
national interest would be involved. We could give supreme
national interest for any good reason which involved our
supreme national interest.
Senator Brownback. We have just never used it before, Dr.
Garwin.
Dr. Garwin. The supreme national interest does not seem to
have been jeopardized thus far.
Senator Brownback. But I would also submit we just are not
going to do that.
Dr. Garwin. We would not be shy with regards to our supreme
national interest in this treaty, and I would suggest the
President would exercise that right.
Senator Biden. I am fascinated by this non sequitur we have
imposed the supreme national interest. Name me a time we should
have imposed our supreme national interest that we did not.
Have you got one for me? And you ought to be able to come up
with one, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Lehman. I think we are headed in that direction on the
ABM Treaty.
Senator Biden. Have we gotten there yet, and would you, if
you were the Secretary of State or Defense, would you say to
the President, a Republican President, invoke the supreme
national interest now to get out of the ABM Treaty?
Mr. Lehman. Do you know what the consequences are of
invoking the supreme national interest?
Senator Biden. I sure as hell do, better than you do. But
would you recommend it? Your job is not to make a policy
judgment about the consequences. Your job is to determine
whether our supreme national interest--this is crazy. Nobody
has suggested to me, ever, including any Senator, where we
should have invoked our supreme national interest in any
treaty.
Mr. Lehman. Then, Senator, I think you have gotten to the
heart of the matter, and if I could have just a second to raise
an issue that is related to this.
Senator Biden. The chairman is going to tell me my time is
up, but hold the thought, and I would like to hear, because I
think we should keep going on, because you guys are the most
important witnesses we have had here, because we have got you
all together.
Now, one of the things I have heard repeatedly, which I
find to be--and I will not say what I find it to be. Yesterday,
the former Secretary of everything, Mr. Schlesinger, indicated
that there is no way to take a physics package, Dr. Garwin, and
replace it. It was not possible to do that.
Do any of you take issue with what Dr. Garwin said, that
there is an ability to remanufacture the physics package and
replace an entire physics package without testing? Do any of
you doubt that?
Mr. Wade. I would like to comment, Senator Biden, if I may.
I think that first of all you have to remember that the weapons
to which Dr. Garwin referred were not designed to be
remanufactured. They were designed to be replaced at the end of
what was then predicted to be their useful life.
Senator Biden. That is not the question.
Mr. Wade. Manufacturing techniques and materials have
certainly changed in the last 20 or 25 years, and I submit it
would be very difficult to remanufacture something to 25 or 20-
year-old, or 15-year-old standards.
Senator Biden. Doctor, what is your response to that?
Dr. Garwin. Well, we have looked at that thoroughly, and
the laboratories are pretty confident that they can do it. I
would be happier had we already built a pit manufacturing
capability and were turning out 200 pits a year. I think we
have been too slow. That is true whether we have a CTBT or not.
But I have no doubt that we could make the plutonium. We
have the stock of high explosives. We test the high explosive,
there is no problem with that, until we get it right, and the
secondary is much more forgiving than is the primary, so it is
the primary.
We could test these things, incidentally, at half-scale,
where there is no nuclear yield at all, very little discussed,
but everything behaves the same, we have the flash radiography,
which we have used in the past. No, it is too soon to say that
our stockpile stewardship and remanufacturing effort is a
failure when those in charge of doing it and those depending on
its success, the military, say it can be done.
Senator Biden. We are going to learn more by you all
debating. Tell me why he is wrong.
Mr. Lehman. Let me make a couple of general comments.
Senator Biden. I do not want you to make general comments.
I really want this to be a little like a debate. Tell me if he
is wrong.
Mr. Lehman. The statement that it is too early to say that
it will not work is not the same thing as saying that it is
time to say it will work. That is the problem. But yes, I think
we ought to be very optimistic on what can be done in a number
of these areas.
The problem is that in the end, if we are faced with a
failure, with a debate, with a problem, when we have had this
before, the political system wants answers and it wants bold
action to be taken. Pit remanufacture requires infrastructure,
it requires funding over a period of time.
When the debate over this treaty is over, is that going to
be there?
Senator Biden. I think the question is this: Does anybody--
and you obviously are well-versed in the politics of this
place. Ask anyone. Does anyone believe that if we defeat this
treaty the U.S. Congress for the next 4 years is going to spend
$4.5 billion per year on a stockpile stewardship program that
relies upon computers to do the job which you say, Mr. Wade,
can be done by testing?
Do you honestly think you are going to convince any
Congress? Get a life, as my daughter would say. Not a
possibility. I will stake my career on that one, zero, and you
know it. Zero. We cannot even get the Republican House, as Pete
Domenici says, to fund it fully now, the Republican House. Ask
Pete Domenici, who has been begging for the dollars, and you
think we are going to get that, or we are going to get the
remanufacture--what is the term of art for the pits?
Dr. Garwin. Remanufacture.
Senator Biden. Come on, guys. There is no possibility, so
you will have your ability to test, and then answer the
question. Does anybody think there is a political will of the
next President of the United States to engage in the kind of
testing that I am told--unless you disagree, now. Dr. Garwin
says the only test that will have any real relevance for us are
tests that are in a megatonnage that will provide, that will be
detectable by the whole world. Now, do you think anybody is
going to go out there?
And the third question I would ask, and respond to all
three, if all three of you would do this, does anybody truly
believe that any nation in the world in the foreseeable future
with a total of nine separate systems we have, eight deployed,
is going to believe that with 6,000 of these armed and aimed,
that we are not capable of inflicting annihilation on anyone,
that the deterrent does not work?
Do you honestly--and I wish you all were under oath. Do you
honestly believe any nation in the world would doubt, not our
use of them, because they doubt that now, or not, but doubt
their reliability as a deterrent? And I would like you to
respond.
Mr. Wade. Well, let me try, Senator Biden. No, I do not
believe any nation, or any other nation would be concerned
about whether or not one of our--pick a number, 6,000 weapons
did not work.
Senator Biden. What if half of them did not work?
Mr. Wade. I submit you have to state the question the other
way. If you are the Commander in Chief of this country, are you
comfortable if some number, or any portion of some number may
not work? I submit the answer is probably you would not be very
comfortable.
Senator Biden. I submit to you, sir, that is not what
deterrence is. Deterrence is what he thinks I am capable of
doing, and if he thinks I am capable of blowing him into next
Wednesday, and he believes that, and I know he believes that,
then my deterrence is in place. That is what deterrence means.
Let us not redefine deterrence.
Now, you may talk about whether we believe there is a
sufficient capability to do everything we think we would like
to do in terms of first strike capability, in terms of hard
target kill, et cetera. That is a different deal. That is a
different deal.
But gentlemen, I have been hearing for the last 2 days from
people otherwise very, very, very well-informed, that they
believe that the stockpile stewardship program will throw into
question in the minds of the Japanese, specifically named, the
Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, our deterrent capability.
Now, do any of you want to go on the record and say you believe
that to be true?
Mr. Lehman. Senator, I do not think you have got the
question right.
Senator Biden. I am asking the question. You may not like
it.
Mr. Lehman. I understand. Let me try to address it. First
of all, the question of the deterrent depends upon the ability
to deploy the forces.
Senator Biden. No, the question of a deterrent depends upon
the ability of the other side to conclude whether or not you
can do them great harm.
Mr. Lehman. If nuclear forces that were committed to an
alliance or to an ally would have to be withdrawn because we
had an uncertainty, for example, about the safety, or they did
not need our----
Senator Biden. Do you think that is a realistic possibility
any time in your lifetime?
Mr. Lehman. I have already faced it. It is important that
when we plan with our allies and deploy forces on the high
seas, overseas, or even in our own country, that those
commitments can be maintained, and if problems emerge we have a
way to address them, and with confidence. The failure to do
that could have very adverse implications on the long-term
security relationship.
Let me give you an analogy that I can talk about. It is a
little different, but it was the question of what happened in
the INF negotiations when we were trying for the goal of zero,
and then because that seemed so hard to get, we floated the
idea of zero in Europe but some deployments east of the Urals.
Despite all of the assurances from our interactions with the
Japanese Government at an official level that that was good
because they supported getting a treaty, once it became public,
the backlash in Japan was severe.
Now, the antinuclear allergy in Japan is still very strong,
but it is a society that can get polarized over issues like
this. I mean, this was once and still is to some degree a
Samurai society. It was amazing to see the public articles
calling for increased Japanese military, the prospect of
nuclearization. It was important that we went back and got
global zero.
The ability for these things to become unraveled over
issues that seem small to us because we think we have got a lot
of nuclear weapons should not be underestimated.
Senator Brownback. Can we wrap this on up?
Senator Biden. I do not know why we should wrap it up.
Senator Brownback. Well then, let us run the time clock so
we can bounce back and forth. Why don't you let me get in a
couple of questions here if I could. We will let you rest for a
little bit.
Senator Biden. I have been waiting 2 years for this.
Senator Brownback. Let us put the clock on 5 minutes so we
can bounce back and forth. I mean, I appreciate, Joe, you
raising this, because I think you crystallized for me the
reason I have real problems with the treaty, is that you have
got a stockpile there that apparently, then, we are just going
to be willing to kind of go off into the future, never testing
and just presume it will always work.
Senator Biden. That is not true. We have tested
extensively.
Senator Brownback. But you are saying we are not going to
have the will to do it, and this treaty is going to enter us
into a position that we are going to further erode any sort of
will to do that.
Senator Biden. I am saying the exact opposite.
Senator Brownback. But the argument you make leads this
way, and that is why I look at it and say we probably are going
to further deteriorate our will to test something. We are going
to get down the road 5 years, 10 years--it will have been since
1992 that we will have tested, so we have got 7, now we are 12
years down the road, and my kids are getting a little bit older
now, and I have got more of them, at that point in time, and
now we are all of a sudden we are feeling like we need to have
this deterrent, and we need to have the rest of the world
believe it is going to work, and we are now 12 years on out.
I appreciate Dr. Garwin's statement about, we are pretty
confident they could do it after testing the different parts
but not the whole. I do not want it to be pretty confident. I
want it to be sure that we are going to be able to make it at
that point in time, when we are 12 years out, and having not
done the complete testing, but we are going to test each
individual part.
You are asking me to go on pretty confident, and you are
asking me to go against my own senses on this as well, which
say to me that any machine not tested for a long period of time
in total is going to work, and I have got to have the rest of
the world believing it is going to work as well for it to be an
effective deterrent at that point in time.
So we are 12 years out, we have tested the parts
individually, they all seem to work, and I have got to now be
sure that the Russians and the Chinese and the Iraqis and the
Iranians believe this is going to work for it to be an
effective deterrent. I think you are stretching us on that
point.
Now, correct me where I am wrong, Dr. Garwin.
Dr. Garwin. I think it would be useful for you to look at
some of the testimony of the Department of Energy over the
years on the joint test vehicles, the joint verification
vehicles. We have these precision devices where you test not
parts, you test the whole thing, but the ultimate nuclear
explosive you do not have. You have uranium instead of
plutonium. It goes through the flight, it fires, you have
telemetry, you see the whole thing works or it does not, and I
can assure you that we conduct these flights and we learn a lot
from them.
Senator Brownback. Not the whole thing. The end of the test
does not happen.
Dr. Garwin. When you do that you find problems, but the
problems are not going to be from the lighting of the high
explosive to the carrying out of the nuclear explosion; and if
you don't believe that, you need to get a whole new set of
people not only in the Department of Energy, but in the
Department of Defense and in the military services.
Senator Brownback. Dr. Garwin, how far down the road can we
run that type of operation and have our people who seek to do
us harm around the world believe our deterrent is still there,
and it works? How many years can we go?
Dr. Garwin. We can go 30, 50, 100 years, because every year
you have----
Senator Brownback. Being pretty confident?
Dr. Garwin. Every year you have these people in the
business put their reputations, their lives and our lives on
the line in their certification process.
Senator Brownback. Well then, here are some of the people,
the laboratory directors--these are former ones. Roger Batzel,
do you know him?
Dr. Garwin. I know him well, sure.
Senator Brownback. ``I urge you to oppose the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty. No previous administration, either Democrat or
Republican, ever supported the unverifiable zero yield,
indefinite duration CTBT now before the Senate. The reason for
this is simple. Under a long duration test ban, confidence in
the nuclear stockpile will erode for a variety of reasons.''
Now, I presume you think he is a pretty good guy, pretty
sharp.
Dr. Garwin. I have argued with Roger Batzel on exactly this
point long ago.
Senator Brownback. You can argue with him again.
Dr. Garwin. I do not know how current he is. I would like
to have him here where we could discuss it, but I do not
believe it, and the current people who have the responsibility
and who have the knowledge are not of that view.
Senator Brownback. What about John Nuckolls?
Dr. Garwin. I know him well, too.
Senator Brownback. Is he a good guy?
Dr. Garwin. He is OK. I could go into details, plus and
minus. On balance, like the CTBT, he is a good guy.
Senator Brownback. ``Without nuclear testing, confidence in
the stockpile will decline. The U.S. capability to develop
weapons will be degraded by the eventual loss of all nuclear
tests, experienced weapons experts who develop the stockpile.''
That is what he says about it. How about Edward Teller? Is he
OK?
Dr. Garwin. In my testimony, I address that. That is
looking at the bad side, the down side of the CTBT. If you look
at the upside, it much outweighs that.
Senator Brownback. Is there a downside, then, to this?
Dr. Garwin. Absolutely.
Senator Biden. Explain what you mean by the downside.
Senator Brownback. You get your questions quickly. I am
getting off here, Joe. We are going to have fun here. Let us
share.
Dr. Garwin. In my testimony I list it. It is our inability
to test. It is the inability to bring in people and have them
verify things by test. But we have work-arounds, and I am
confident these will be good, and we have the benefit.
You know there is nobody--Tom Watson, Sr., who founded the
IBM Company, for which I worked for 40 years, used to say that
there is nobody who is so good that if you have a piece of
paper with all of his advantages and all of his bad points, and
you just pick the bad points, that person ought to go straight
to hell, and there is nobody who is so bad that if you just put
the paper with his good points on the table that he ought to go
to Heaven, and any of these contracts or treaties is like that.
You have to look at the balanced assessment, and not just at
the downside.
Senator Brownback. I think Joe and I both think we all need
grace to get to Heaven, because we have all got problems here.
Joe.
Senator Biden. By the way, I am confident of that and if my
mother is listening, she would look at the three of you and say
no purgatory for you, straight to Heaven, for enduring this,
this long. But let me suggest that I would like to followup on
a few other points here.
I have heard, and this has been stated, that this notion
that, and maybe you can explain this to me, Dr. Garwin, in a
tri-lab study of stockpile surveillance done in 1996 by the
three laboratories, they said since 1958 through 1993, 830
recorded findings of defects in the stockpile. They said that
less than 1 percent were determined as a consequence of a
nuclear test. And they said all but one of these nuclear tests
involved items that were in the inventory before 1970. What
does that mean?
Dr. Garwin. Well several of those bombs had not been
thoroughly tested. They were put into the stockpile during the
moratorium from 1958 to 1961, whenever that was. And I have
always opposed doing that. I opposed modifying our nuclear
weapons under the moratorium or under the CTBT.
The one case which was discovered, as I recall, by testing,
was an end-of-life tritium condition. We tested something
beyond where it had previously been tested. And we propose in
our JASON study, which looked at all of these things, that the
margins of the existing nuclear weapons should be improved.
They are believed by the establishment to be adequate, but they
should be improved by putting in more tritium or changing the
tritium gas more frequently. That is a cheap thing to do and
something that can be readily done without any downside. So we
ought to do that. But perhaps my colleages know of some other
points.
Mr. Wade. Well, Senator Biden, thank goodness we have the
surveillance programs to which you referred. And, yes, you are
correct in that all of those defects were discovered as part of
the surveillance program and not by a test. But there certainly
are circumstances in which I have personally participated where
a defect that was discovered could only be resolved by a test.
Now we may get to a point through stockpile stewardship where
we will not have to do that, where we can assure that the
resolution of the problem is satisfactory by three-dimensional
computational codes. I hope we get there. But my point is I do
not think we are there yet and, therefore, I think we are at
risk.
Dr. Garwin. Let me be very specific in addressing that
point. You find something. A beam--in a building--that has a
crack in it. You do a lot of analysis because it might be
costly to replace that beam and you say it is OK. We can wait
until the crack goes a little bit further. But this is serious.
This is the national deterrent. I do not want to do that. I
want to replace it before I get to the point where there is any
uncertainty. I find a crack; it is beyond the level of cracks,
or crevices, or whatever, in the newly manufactured item; I
want to replace that piece. That is what I would do. That is
why I do not need to push this surveillance program and
analysis program as far as people hope it will go.
What will happen as the years go on, Mr. Chairman, is that
we will be able to tolerate bigger cracks and less frequent
manufacturing. We will not save any significant amount of money
beacuse we do not have all that many weapons in the inventory
anymore. In fact, it might be cheaper to go on with frequent
remanufacture, rather than push the surveillance program, the
stockpile stewardship program. But I am willing to go with what
the labs and the military think are the best.
Senator Biden. Now, Mr. Wade, you have indicated that we
may get to the point, and we have not yet, where through very
sophisticated stockpile testing techniques we might be able to
have confidence not to test, but we are not there yet.
Mr. Wade. I do not believe we are.
Senator Biden. I am not suggesting we are either. But, now
the chairman and many others say even if you get there, that
will not matter because unless you can actually test it and
watch it blow up, and see it work, it is not reliable. So we
are kind of in a little bit of a Catch-22 here. The people who
were arguing about the stockpile testing not being sufficient.
If you take off the second layer of the onion here, they say
even if--well, I should not say the chairman said, but the
chairman of the Armed Services Committee said, even if you can
get to that point, it is still not good enough because the only
way you can test is to watch it blow up. That is the only way
you have any certainty. Do you agree with that? Even
theoretically, if you get to the point----
Mr. Wade. Being an experimentalist I always like to watch
things blow up, because that is, in fact, the final proof that
it works. But I do believe that we will get to the kinds of
computational techniques where you will not have to do that? I
hope we do.
Senator Biden. If we were there now, and we are not, I
acknowledge. My time is up. I am sorry, go ahead.
Senator Brownback. I appreciate the honesty of all of you
and I do hope we get to that point in time, too. The point that
I would have here is that we are not there yet, according to
this list of witnesses. And according to Dr. Garwin, we are not
there yet either. You were on the JASON report group that
issued a report on nuclear testing, August 4, 1995?
Dr. Garwin. Right. That is what I was referring to. You can
find it. It's unclassified, summary and conclusions. I have
them with me.
Senator Brownback. You have a quote in there. Maybe you
disagree with it now. ``In order to contribute to long-term
confidence in the U.S. stockpile, testing of nuclear weapons
under a 500-ton yield limit would have to be done on a
continuing basis. Such ongoing testing can add to long-term
stockpile's confidence.''
Dr. Garwin. I think that is a misreading of the statement.
I have not changed my mind. It really means that if any testing
at 500-tons were to contribute to the confidence then it would
have to be continued. It is saying that testing at 500-tons for
a few years would not be of any help. And it does not contribue
much anyhow. But that statement does not mean that a CTBT would
lead to lack of confidence in the stockpile.
Senator Brownback. It seems to read pretty clear to me.
What you were saying, or what your report was in 1995----
Dr. Garwin. It was addressing the proposal. It says, for
the U.S. stockpile testing under a 500-ton yield limit would
allow studies of boost and ignition and initial burn and so on.
The primary argument that we heard was this and that and so on.
And it follows from this argument, so that is not saying we
believe it, that this utility depends on such tests being
performed on a continuing basis and yielding reproducible
results. If you will read the whole couple of paragraphs I
think it will say quite the opposite of what you imply.
Senator Brownback. Well, let us get that and we will have
that there as well.
[The correct quotation from the report follows:]
Conclusion 4:
In order to contribute to long term confidence in the U.S.
stockpile, testing of nuclear weapons under a 500 ton yield limit would
have to be done on a continuing basis, which is tantamount to remaking
a CTBT into a threshold test ban treaty. While such ongoing testing can
add to long term stockpile confidence, it does not have the same
priority as the essential stockpile stewardship program endorsed in
Conclusion 2, nor does it merit the same priority as the measures to
enhance performance margins in Conclusion 3. In the last analysis the
technical contribution of such a testing program must be weighed
against its costs and its political impact on the non-proliferation
goals of the United States.
Dr. Garwin. I would like to put into the record this
nuclear testing summary.
Senator Brownback. So ordered. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
Nuclear Testing--Summary and Conclusions--JASON--August 4, 1995 (JSR-
95-320)
(Sidney Drell, Chairman, John Cornwall, Freeman Dyson, Douglas Eardley,
Richard Garwin, David Hammer, John Kammerdiener, Robert LeLevier,
Robert Puerifoy, John Richter, Marshall Rosenbluth, Seymour Sack,
Jeremiah Sullivan, and Fredrik Zachariasen)
summary and conclusions
(U) We have examined the experimental and analytic bases for
understanding the performance of each of the weapon types that are
currently planned to remain in the U.S. enduring nuclear stockpile. We
have also examined whether continued underground tests at various
nuclear yield thresholds would add significantly to our confidence in
this stockpile in the years ahead.
(U) Our starting point for this examination was a detailed review
of past experience in developing and testing modern nuclear weapons,
their certification and recertification processes, their performance
margins,\1\ and evidence of aging or other trends overtime for each
weapon type in the enduring stockpile.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Defined as the difference between the minimum expected and the
minimum needed yields of the primary.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion 1:
(U) The United States can, today, have high confidence in the
safety, reliability, and performance margins of the nuclear
weapons that are designated to remain in the enduring
stockpile. This confidence is based on understanding gained
from 50 years experience and analysis of more than 1000 nuclear
tests, including the results of approximately 150 nuclear tests
of modern weapon types in the past 20 years.
(U) Looking to future prospects of achieving a Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty (CTBT), a stated goal of the United States Government, we
have studied a range of activities that could be of importance to
extending our present confidence in the stockpile into the future. We
include among these activities underground experiments producing sub-
kiloton levels of nuclear yield that might be permitted among the
treaty-consistent activities under a CTBT.
(U) Three key assumptions underlie our study:
1. (U) The U.S. intends to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent.
2. (U) The U.S. remains committed to the support of world-wide
nonproliferation efforts.
3. (U) The U.S. will not encounter new military or political
circumstances in the future that cause it to abandon the current
policy--first announced by President Bush in 1992--of not developing
any new nuclear weapon designs.
Conclusion 2:
(U) In order to maintain high confidence in the safety,
reliability, and performance of the individual types of weapons
in the enduring stockpile for several decades under a CTBT,
whether or not sub-kiloton tests are permitted, the United
States must provide continuing and steady support for a
focused, multifaceted program to increase understanding of the
enduring stockpile; to detect, anticipate and evaluate
potential aging problems; and to plan for refurbishment and
remanufacture, as required. In addition the U.S. must maintain
a significant industrial infrastructure in the nuclear program
to do the required replenishing, refurbishing, or
remanufacturing of age-affected components, and to evaluate the
resulting product; for example the high explosive, the boost
gas system, the tritium loading, etc. Important activities in a
stockpile stewardship program that will sustain a strong
scientific and technical base, including an experienced cadre
of capable scientists and engineers, are described in the body
of this study.
(U) The proposed program will generate a large body of technically
valuable new data and challenging opportunities capable of attracting
and retaining experienced nuclear weapons scientists and engineers in
the program. This is the intent of DOE's currently planned stockpile
stewardship program.\2\ For the success of this program, the management
of the three weapons laboratories (LANL, LLNL, SNL) must motivate,
support, and reward effort in an area that has lost some of its glamor
and excitement in the absence of new nuclear design and test
opportunities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ See the 1994 JASON Report JSR-94-345 on ``Science Based
Stockpile Stewardship.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
(U) Nevertheless, over the longer term, we may face concerns about
whether accumulated changes in age-affected weapons components, whose
replacements might have to be manufactured by changed processes, could
lead to inadequate performance margins and reduced confidence in the
stockpile.
(U) Enhancements of performance margins will add substantially to
long-term stockpile confidence with or without underground tests. To
cite one example, we can adjust the boost gas fill or shorten the time
interval between fills. (This is discussed more fully in the classified
text.)
Conclusion 3:
(U) The individual weapon types in the enduring stockpile
have a range of performance margins, all of which we judge to
be adequate at this time. In each case we have identified
opportunities for further enhancing their performance margins
by means that are straightforward and can be incorporated with
deliberate speed during scheduled maintenance or
remanufacturing activities. However greatest care in the form
of self-discipline will be required to avoid system
modifications, even if aimed at ``improvements,'' which may
compromise reliability.
(U) This brings us to the issue of the usefulness, importance, or
necessity of reduced yield (less than 1 kiloton) underground tests for
maintaining confidence in the weapon types in the U.S. stockpile over a
long period of time.
(U) For the U.S. stockpile, testing under a 500 ton yield limit
would allow studies of boost gas ignition and initial burn, which is a
critical step in achieving full primary design yield. The primary
argument that we heard in support of the importance of such testing by
the U.S. is the following: the evidence in several cases and
theoretical analyses indicate that results of a sub-kiloton
( 500 tons) test of a given primary that achieves boost gas
ignition and initial burn can be extrapolated to give some confidence
in the yield of an identical primary with full boosting. Therefore, if
a modified or remanufactured primary is introduced into the stockpile
in the future to correct some aging problem, such tests on the modified
system would add to confidence that the performance of the new primary
is still adequate.
(U) It follows from this argument that the utility to the U.S. of
testing at yields of up to approximately 500 tons depends on such tests
being performed on a continuing basis and yielding reproducible
results. If they are permitted only for a few years, such tests could
add to the theoretical understanding of the boosting process and the
reliability of the computer codes that attempt to describe it, but
would not contribute directly to the reliability of the weapon in the
enduring stockpile in view of the possible manufacturing changes made
at a later date. To gain evidence as to whether long-term changes in
age-affected weapons components have any impact on boost-performance
the tests would have to be made with the remanufactured weapons
themselves.
Conclusion 4:
(U) In order to contribute to long term confidence in the U.S.
stockpile, testing of nuclear weapons under a 500 ton yield limit would
have to be done on a continuing basis, which is tantamount to remaking
a CTBT into a threshold test ban treaty. While such ongoing testing can
add to long term stockpile confidence, it does not have the same
priority as the essential stockpile stewardship program endorsed in
Conclusion 2, nor does it merit the same priority as the measures to
enhance performance margins in Conclusion 3. In the last analysis the
technical contribution of such a testing program must be weighed
against its costs and its political impact on the non-proliferation
goals of the United States.
Conclusion 5:
(U) Underground testing of nuclear weapons at any yield level below
that required to initiate boosting is of limited value to the United
States. However experiments involving high explosives and fissionable
material that do not reach criticality are useful in improving our
understanding of the behavior of weapons materials under relevant
physical conditions. They should be included among treaty consistent
activities that are discussed more fully in the text.
(U) This conclusion is based on the following two observations.
(U) [a)] So-called hydronuclear tests, defined as limited to
a nuclear yield of less than 4 lbs TNT equivalent, can be
performed only after making changes that drastically alter the
primary implosion. A persuasive case has not been made for the
utility of hydronuclear tests for detecting small changes in
the performance margins for current U.S. weapons. At best, such
tests could confirm the safety of a device against producing
detectable nuclear yield if its high explosive is detonated
accidentally at one point. We find that the U.S. arsenal has
neither a present nor anticipated need for such re-
confirmation. The existing large nuclear test data base can
serve to validate two- and three-dimensional computational
techniques for evaluating any new one-point safety scenarios,
and it should be fully exploited for this purpose.
(U) [b)] Testing with nominal yields up to a 100-ton limit
permits examination of aspects of the pre-boost fission
process. However, this is at best a partial and possibly
misleading performance indicator.
(U) As agreement to limit testing to very low yields raises the
issue of monitoring compliance. We have not made a detailed study of
this issue, but note the following: Cooperative, on-site monitoring
would be necessary, and relevant measurements, including for example
neutron yields, could be made without compromising classified
information on bomb designs.
(U) We have reviewed the device problems which occurred in the past
and which either relied on, or required, nuclear yield tests to
resolve.
Conclusion 6:
(U) For the weapon types planned to remain in the enduring
stockpile we find that the device problems which occurred in
the past, and, which either relied on, or required, nuclear
yield tests to resolve, were primarily the result of incomplete
or inadequate design activities. In part, these were due to the
more limited knowledge and computational capabilities of a
decade, or more, ago. We are persuaded that those problems have
been corrected and that the weapon types in the enduring
stockpile are safe and reliable in the context of explicit
military requirements.
(U) Should the U.S., in the future, encounter problems in an
existing stockpile design (which we do not anticipate at present) that
are so serious as to lead to unacceptable of confidence in the safety,
effectiveness, or reliability of a weapon type, it is possible that
testing of the primary at full yield, and ignition of the secondary,
would be required to certify a specified fix. Useful tests to address
such problems generate nuclear yields in excess of approximately 10 kT.
DOE's currently planned enhanced surveillance and maintenance program
is intended to alert us to any such need that may arise. A ``supreme
national interest'' withdrawal clause that is standard in any treaty to
which this nation is a signatory would permit the U.S. to respond
appropriately should a need arise.
Conclusion 7:
(U) The above findings, as summarized in Conclusions 1
through 6, are consistent with U.S. agreement to enter into a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) of unending duration, that
includes a standard ``supreme national interest'' clause.
Recognizing that the challenge of maintaining an effective
nuclear stockpile for an indefinite period without benefit of
underground tests is an important and also a new one, the U.S.
should affirm its readiness to invoke the supreme national
interest clause should the need arise as a result of
unanticipated technical problems in the enduring stockpile.
Senator Brownback. But it adds to my question when I look
at this, when I think of the Secretary of Defense, Secretary
Cohen's statements earlier in his career, when he was a
Senator. Questions and shift now and maybe people just grow in
their difference of opinion, but I appreciate your candor. I
appreciate Dr. Wade's comments about ``he hopes we get there.''
But that we are not there yet. Do you have a parting comment,
Joe? Then let us shut it down.
Senator Biden. I think when you put the whole summary in,
you will see on page eight, it says, ``We have reviewed the
device problems which occurred in the past and which either
relied on, or required, nuclear yield tests to resolve.
Conclusion 6. For the weapon types planned to remain in the
enduring stockpile we find that the device problems which
occurred in the past and which either relied on, or required,
nuclear yield tests to resolve, were primarily the result of
incomplete or inadequate design activities. In part, these were
due to the more limited knowledge and computational
capabilities of a decade, or more, ago. We are persuaded that
these problems have been corrected and that the weapons types
in the enduring stockpile are safe and reliable in the context
of explicit military requirements.''
And, Secretary Cohen, I ask unanimous consent that his
response to that question in the Armed Services Committee
hearing be able to be entered into the record, if I may, Mr.
Chairman, so that nothing is left--well, I know his arguments.
I don't want to take the time now. But if we could have
Secretary Cohen's response because the same issue was raised in
the Armed Services Committee in my presence and he gave an
answer that explained why he said what he said then and why he
is where he is now, and it related to safety issues. But if we
could put that in the record.
Senator Brownback. His statement to the Armed Services
Committee on that section.
Senator Biden. Yes, not my characterization but his
statement.
Senator Brownback. Without objection. That will be put in
the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
Response of Secretary Cohen to Question Asked Before the Armed Services
Committee on October 6, 1999
Secretary Cohen. Mr. Chairman, I would like to conclude with just a
couple of comments. You pointed this fact out. And some of the members
who are sitting here today also were sitting here back in 1992. There
are some new members who were not here.
And you may recall, and I am sure that several on the committee
will recall, that as a Senator, I had considerable doubts about the
wisdom of prematurely halting nuclear testing, because many of the
weapons in the stockpile lacked modern safety features. But a lot has
changed in the last 7 years, much more so than my simply moving my desk
over to the Pentagon.
As we have reduced our arsenal, these older weapons in the
stockpile have been retired. And they have eased my concerns. The
threat of nuclear missile proliferation is more significant today than
it was in 1992. There was no CTBT in 1992. And today there is.
You have 154 nations who have signed the Treaty. You have 47 who
have ratified it, including a majority of the 44 required before it can
enter into force. And, finally, all five nuclear powers who were
testing in 1992 today, all five have declared testing moratoriums.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, you have been very gracious. I
will not take any more of your time beyond saying that,
gentlemen, I really do think you have been the best witnesses
in the last 4 days I have heard, even though you disagree.
Senator Brownback. Certainly the most fun.
Senator Biden. Well, because for the first time you have
been the ones given a chance to actually have an exchange here.
I love this new process. I wish this man were running all the
hearings I have been involved in. You know, it used to be when
we were trying to figure out what a Supreme Court Justice
thought and I was chairman of a committee, I gave every
Republican a half hour of questioning, because the best of all
things to do when you want to defeat something, if I do not
want the press to know what is on my mind, I invite 50 of them
to show up. All 50. Then I am guaranteed they all come with the
one question they want to know, and none of them will followup
on the other guy's question, out of ego, which means I never
have to give a complete answer. And that is exactly what
happens in these hearings when we limit things to 6 minutes.
How any intelligent person, let alone uninformed people
like us, relative to your collective, intellectual, and
professional capability can in 6 minutes question you in a way
that can elicit any intelligent response or enter into a debate
and dialog is nonexistent, in my humble opinion. And I do not
think I am particularly slow. I am at least no slower than the
average Senator, I do not think. I am pretty good at this stuff
and to get 6 minutes with you guys who have been doing this all
your life, that is why I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Gentlemen, thank you very much. You have
been good and patient with us and we deeply appreciate that and
we appreciate also your thoughtfulness because I know none of
you come at your opinions, however we may disagree, lightly.
Nor do any of you come at them with a malevolence toward this
country or a will for anything ill to come to the United
States. We have just got a serious issue and we need serious
thought, and you have provided that. With that the hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 7 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]