White House fights for New Start treaty

The New START treaty is under threat as Republicans in the Senate begin their campaign to make President Barack Obama a one-term president. The treaty would cut US and Russian strategic warheads by more than 30% and reintroduce verifiable inspections of the remaining strategic warheads after a one-year absence.

The administration had been negotiating with Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona who, in the Wall Street Journal last summer, demanded the modernization of such nuclear weapons complexes as Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as part of the price to pass New START. Along with sending members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to brief Kyl privately on why the military supported the treaty, the administration agreed to provide an additional $4.1 billion on top of the $80 billion modernization program. The program includes building at least two new nuclear weapons production facilities: the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility at LANL and the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 in Tennessee.

Last week, however, after consulting with the Republican leadership, Kyl announced that he thought the vote should not take place during the lame-duck session but should wait until the new term, when six new Republicans join the Senate. The move, which caught the administration by surprise, was widely seen as an attempt to kill the treaty. Currently at least nine Republicans are needed to ratify the treaty because New START requires 67 votes to pass the Senate. Kyl was the lynchpin to gain that support.

Push back

Instead of delaying the vote, as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) hoped, the administration decided to go on the offensive. Since last Wednesday, former and current senior officials—including Vice President Joe Biden , Secretary of Defense Robert Gates , Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger , and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), who is the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—have been speaking out strongly in support of the treaty.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee , reemphasized the point that no inspections have been made of Russian facilities since the START II treaty expired in December 2009 and that not passing the treaty “would leave America in danger.”

Kerry pointed out that the administration has answered more than 700 questions from senators about the treaty and that he has held 18 hearings on it. There is no reason not to vote in favor of this treaty, he said, and there is “no substantive disagreement” among senators over its validity. “Ratifying New START is not a political choice, it’s a national security imperative,” he added.

As part of its campaign for ratification, the administration has decided to approach Republican senators individually, instead of working with Kyl and the Republican leadership. The tactic may result in eight Republicans joining forces with Lugar to vote in favor, but it does have one high risk as the Republican leadership is keen to show a united front against any proposals from the Democrats: The administration might lose.

Paul Guinnessy