HORATIUS WALLOP (II): SENATOR SEEKS DEBATE ON START, ESTABLISHES WHY LEADERSHIP WON’T ALLOW ONE

(Washington, D.C.): For the second
time in three months, Senator
Malcolm Wallop
(R-WY)
has brilliantly demonstrated two
important phenomena: (1) the fact that he
is a man of exemplary integrity and
commitment to principle — with a deep
concern over the security of the United
States and the role being played in it by
the U.S. Senate. And (2) the fact that
such qualities are otherwise largely
absent
in that institution.

On 7 July, Senator Wallop thwarted an
ill-considered and reckless initiative by
Sens. Dale Bumpers (D-AR) and Jim Sasser
(D-TN) aimed at destroying the Strategic
Defense Initiative. By
single-handedly forcing a postponement in
consideration of the FY1993
Defense authorization bill, Sen. Wallop
— like a legendary Horatio at the
bridge — gave his colleagues
time to reflect on the folly of the
Bumper-Sasser effort to
deny the United States near- to
medium-term defenses against ballistic
missile attack.
In
the end, cooler heads prevailed; the
nation still has the option to begin at
least contingency, limited anti-missile
deployments within this century.

What START Debate?

Yesterday, Malcolm Wallop
again sought to save his colleagues from
a no less foolish and
irresponsible course of action —
rubber-stamping the Strategic Arms
Reduction (START) Treaty.
For
nearly five hours, he subjected the
Treaty and its proponents to withering
questioning. In the process, he
established several deeply distressing
facts:

  • There are serious
    problems with the legal status of
    the START Treaty.
    For
    example, at different points in
    his testimony on behalf of START,
    former Secretary of State James
    Baker suggested that commitments
    by Ukraine, Byelarus and
    Kazakhstan concerning their
    adherence to the accord —
    commitments necessitated by the
    collapse of the Soviet Union — are
    both
    legally binding and
    not binding.
  • The START Treaty contains
    a number of provisions that
    greatly erode its nominal
    strategic benefits — and magnify
    its possible risks to U.S.
    national security.
    For
    example, Treaty limits are
    undermined by provisions that
    permit the former Soviet Union:
    to modernize further the force of
    heavy ICBMs to which it is
    exclusively entitled; to retain
    unlimited numbers of
    “non-deployed” missiles
    for nonmobile launchers; to field
    unverifiable mobile missiles
    (which are, as a practical
    matter, denied the United
    States); to circumscribe on-site
    inspections; and to refuse
    monitoring of missile production
    facilities.
  • The proponents of the
    START Treaty have not done their
    homework.
    The only
    three members
    available
    to respond to Sen. Wallop’s
    interrogatories — on a day when,
    as a result of the Jewish New
    Year, there were no votes
    scheduled and therefore,
    predictably, no Senators around
    — were Sens. Claiborne Pell
    (D-RI and the chairman of the
    Senate Foreign Relations
    Committee), Richard Lugar (R-IN
    and a senior minority member of
    that Committee) and Joseph Biden
    (D-DE and the Foreign Relations
    subcommittee chairman who
    purports to be the Senate’s
    leading expert on arms control
    matters).
  • In response to straight-forward
    question after question, these
    Senators sputtered, mumbled,
    confessed their uncertainty about
    the answers, promised to get a
    response or — when all else
    failed — prevaricated.
    Particularly
    telling were rambling statements
    by Sens. Lugar and Pell to the
    effect that the changes that have
    taken place in the former Soviet
    Union make questions about
    non-compliance, ineffective
    treaty provisions and
    impenetrable legal Catch-22s
    irrelevant; such unfounded
    “whistling past the
    graveyard” alternated with
    assurances that all these
    problems would be sorted out
    later, if only the Senate
    would sign the blank
    check and ratify without knowing
    just how.

  • One can only assume that this
    pathetic performance would have
    been replicated had the chairmen
    and ranking members of the other
    two Senate committees charged
    with examining this accord —
    Armed Services and Intelligence
    — deigned to participate.

  • The relevant Senate
    committees failed to take
    testimony from critics of the
    START Treaty.
    The
    proponents of the Treaty have no
    one but themselves to blame for
    their abysmal performance in
    defending the accord: They
    apparently purposefully denied
    expert witnesses who would have
    pointed out its flaws the
    opportunity to provide testimony
    in any of the twenty or
    so hearings held by the three
    committees on START.
  • There has been
    considerable wishful thinking —
    or perhaps cynical dissembling —
    about the prospects for a
    “follow-on” agreement
    that would correct some of
    START’s defects.
    At
    this point a so-called
    “START 11” agreement is
    still a gleam in the eye, yet the
    Senate Armed Services Committee
    devoted roughly 11 pages of its
    report on START to this
    “bird in the bush”
    compared to only two pages
    concerning the one “in the
    hand.” As they have done
    incessantly in the past,
    proponents of arms control would
    rather talk about the virtues of
    a yet-to-be-negotiated accord
    than the defects of a present
    one.
  • The Senate leadership’s
    determination to act on the START
    Treaty before the October
    recess has not only
    contributed to an inadequate
    review of the Treaty by Senate
    committees; this unseemly and
    unjustified haste has also
    precluded the Foreign Relations
    Committee from taking aboard the
    findings and recommendations of
    its sister committees.
    Sen.
    Lugar volunteered that his panel
    might have acted differently on
    expressed objections from the
    Armed Services Committee to a
    reservation it attached to the
    resolution of ratification if
    Foreign Relations had had time to
    review Armed Services’ report
    before putting its own
    recommendation’s to bed.
  • The Senate leadership —
    in obvious collusion with the
    Bush Administration — is equally
    determined to prevent
    serious debate on, or any
    opportunity for amendment of, the
    START Treaty by the full
    Senate.
    By dint of the
    cynical scheduling of the
    “debate” on START on
    Rosh Hashanah and the filing of a
    cloture petition designed to
    choke off debate before it
    even began,
    Sen. Wallop has
    effectively been precluded from:
    • demanding a closed
      session of the Senate to
      consider classified
      issues associated with
      the START Treaty;
    • otherwise eliciting
      answers from the leaders
      of Senate committees that
      have recommended the
      Treaty’s ratification: or
    • offering a number of
      amendments — the need
      for which has, if
      anything, been
      dramatically underscored
      by yesterday’s
      non-debate.

In other words, Senate
Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME) is
determined to railroad
the Senate into providing uninformed
“advice” and unwarranted
“consent” to the most
risky arms control agreement of all time.
This is a rank abuse of power
that seriously disserves the national
security and demeans the U.S. Senate. In
particular, it betrays the institution’s
constitutional prerogatives as a coequal
partner with the executive in the
treaty-making process.
In so doing,
Sen. Mitchell not only relegates the
Senate to a rubber-stamp on the present
agreement; he also invites the
Administration to expect no less
intrusive or rigorous a role to be played
in assuring the quality of future accords
— a sure-fire formula for getting still more
reckless
arms control treaties in
the future.

The Byrd Precedent

Ironically, in taking such
irresponsible steps, the Majority Leader
is explicitly repudiating the counsel and
practice of his predecessor, Sen. Robert
Byrd (D-WV). In 1988, in explaining why
he insisted upon a relatively thorough
and painstaking review of and Senate
debate on the INF Treaty, Sen. Byrd made
the following thoughtful and highly
relevant
points:

“This Senator is not going
to be guided in the Senate’s
deliberation of a treaty by
whether or not the Administration
has asked for a delay. That is
not the Senate’s role under the
Constitution. The Administration
has its work in making the
treaty. The President makes
treaties by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate…. [A
treaty] is not just a piece of
paper. Once we approve the
ratification of that treaty…
[it] constitute[s] the supreme
law of the land. If we make a
mistake in passing a bill, that
can be fairly easily rectified
simply by passing another bill
repealing the first law. But when
it comes to a treaty, if we make
a mistake we had better know it
before we enter into its
ratification….

“I do not intend to delay
for the sake of delay, but
neither do I intend for this
Senate to rush into something
here just because there has been
a calendar deadline set somewhere
by somebody.
There is
this danger. One may say ‘Well,
let’s go ahead and call it up and
let the thing be worked on in the
meantime while the Senate is
debating it.’ I am not oblivious
to the pressure that can be
brought on the Senate once we get
something up. The pressure will
be there and every day it will
intensify: ‘Oh, we have got to
hurry, we have got to get through
this … ; the Senate should act;
let all these things be worked
out by our experts down the road.
They can work out the
verification regime. They can
work out the details,’ and all
that.” (9 May 1988)

“If the Senate had rushed in
and approved the treaty, say a
month ago, and then discovered
these ambiguities and
contradictions, the level of
confidence of the country in our
ability to reach good, solid
agreements with the Soviets,
fully protective of United States
interests, would have plummeted. The
Senate would have been criticized
for rushing to approval before
thoroughly examining the terms of
the agreement. The cloud which
would have been
cast over our processes would
surely have a major, adverse
effect on the success of
future arms control agreements
being approved by this body ….
Arms control agreements,
including a START agreement,
should be concluded when, and
only
when,issues in
dispute have been satisfactorily
negotiated,
and should
not be negotiated under the
pressure of artificial deadlines.
Likewise, when and if a sound
agreement is in sight, there
should be no undue delay in
concluding it. But the
important thing is that it
be a good agreement —
not dictated by calendar
deadlines, not dictated by
election year politics.”
(12 May 1988) (Emphasis
added throughout.)

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy believes that Sen.
Mitchell’s contemptuous disregard for
the counsel of his distinguished
predecessor is a travesty.
It
makes a mockery of an institution that
was once deservedly known as the
“World’s Greatest Deliberative
Body” and invites future crises
affecting the United States’ security —
and perhaps even its constitutional
system of checks and balances.

The Senate must be given an
opportunity to have a full and free
debate
on START — and any other
agreement that would profoundly affect
the nation’s defense posture. At the very
least, Sen. Wallop is entitled to answers
to his questions about this Treaty and
the chance to offer amendments based upon
those answers in order to fix fatal
defects.

Center for Security Policy

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