-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- From http://www.security-policy.org/papers/2000/00-P19.html {{<Begin>}} Publications of the Center for Security Policy No. 00-P 19 PRESS RELEASE 29 February 2000 Roundtable Summary Shows C.T.B.T. is Defective and 'Unfixable' (Washington, D.C.): One of the 106th Congress' crowning achievements occurred last October when an actual majority of the U.S. Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (C.T.B.T.) on the grounds that it was unverifiable, inequitable and would do material harm to the Nation's nuclear deterrent. The Senate did so despite intense pressure from President Clinton, arms control advocates and pollsters claiming popular support for the C.T.B.T.'s permanent prohibition on all underground nuclear tests. In the hope of turning that defeat to advantage, the Clinton-Gore Administration and its allies are now launching a campaign aimed at euchring the majority of Senators into undoing their important accomplishment. Toward that end, television advertisements are being aired in some seven states in the hope of creating electoral pressure on legislators to reconsider the Treaty and change their votes. And Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently announced that she has asked a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, to spearhead "the Administration's effort to achieve bipartisan support for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty." The validity of the courageous fifty-one Senators' judgment in deeming the C.T.B.T. deficient has just been affirmed, however. A summary issued today (see the attached) of the proceedings of a High Level Roundtable Discussion convened by the Center for Security Policy on 2 February, offers compelling reasons for rejecting the Clinton ban of indefinite duration on all nuclear tests. Among the participants were more than seventy experienced national security practitioners including: three legislators who played leading roles in the C.T.B.T. debate, Senators John Warner, Thad Cochran and Jon Kyl (Republicans respectively from Virginia, Mississippi and Arizona); former Secretaries of Defense Caspar Weinberger and James Schlesinger; President Clinton's former CIA Director James Woolsey; and senior officials from the Nation's three nuclear laboratories, including Sandia's director, Dr. Paul Robinson. As Senator Warner, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, observed, the proceedings of this session entitled "Assuring Nuclear Deterrence after the Senate's Rejection of the C.T.B.T.," provide an indispensable record for any future effort to revisit the present Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the impossibility of "fixing" it. Particularly noteworthy was a statement prepared for the symposium by one of the most highly regarded living Joint Chiefs chairmen, General John Vessey. It said, in part: "It is unlikely that God will permit us to 'uninvent' nuclear weapons. Some nation, or power, will be the preeminent nuclear power in the world. I, for one, believe that at least under present and foreseeable conditions, the world will be safer if that power is the United States of America. We jeopardize maintaining that condition by eschewing the development of new nuclear weapons and by ruling out testing if and when it is needed. Consequently, I believe that ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- an accord that would have imposed a permanent, zero-yield ban on all underground nuclear tests -- is not in the security interests of the United States. Secretaries Weinberger and Schlesinger specifically addressed the question "Can the C.T.B.T. be Fixed?" Both of these distinguished civil servants -- who, together with former Secretaries of Defense Melvin Laird, Donald Rumsfeld, Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney, played a decisive role in the Senate's deliberations on the C.T.B.T. when they wrote an unprecedented joint letter urging its rejection -- agreed with Senator Warner's judgment that the present Treaty is unfixable. Like Gen. Vessey, they regard a zero-yield, permanent nuclear test ban as incompatible with the United States' national interest. The two former Pentagon chiefs also took note of an immutable fact of life concerning any effort to "fix" the treaty: Unless the idea is to make purely cosmetic adjustments -- calculated to provide political cover to Senators who wished to change their vote but doing nothing to address the C.T.B.T.'s underlying problems -- other nations who have signed this accord precisely because the treaty will undermine America's nuclear deterrent are exceedingly unlikely to accept adjustments that might help preserve it. The Center's symposium examined two other subjects with which Senators tempted to reconsider the C.T.B.T. must reckon: The Stockpile Stewardship Program: The so-called Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) -- a massive, technically challenging, time-consuming and hugely expensive effort to develop diagnostic tools that might someday mitigate the need for, if not supplant, underground nuclear testing -- will not realize its objective anytime soon. In fact, engineering and construction problems; difficulties associated with retaining and attracting professionals with the necessary skills; the Clinton-Gore Administration's failure to provide the necessary funding; and its unwillingness to plan nuclear tests to calibrate and validate the SSP's facilities and capabilities may preclude the program from ever coming to fruition. The Need for Modernization: It is predictable that U.S. national security requirements and the deteriorating condition of the Nation's aging stockpile will dictate modernization of the nuclear arsenal. For example, we will probably need an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon capable of credibly holding at risk rapidly proliferating -- and ever-more-threatening -- facilities being deeply buried by rogue states and other potential adversaries. And weapons reaching the end of their design lives should be replaced with up-to-date technology incorporating the most advanced safety and reliability features available, rather than attempting to rebuild them with components that will have to be manufactured according to obsolete designs and less exacting standards. There is no getting around the fact that, for new weapons designs to be introduced, they will have to be subjected at least to limited nuclear testing to ensure that they work. This prospect is completely anathema to C.T.B.T. proponents and, were the U.S. to seek the latitude to do so in a revised treaty, it would be summarily rejected by most of the other parties. In short, the C.T.B.T. is certain to remain unverifiable, unenforceable and incompatible with the U.S. requirement to maintain a safe and effective nuclear deterrent for the foreseeable future. The fifty-one Senators who comprised the majority should take pride in having acted precisely as the Framers of the Constitution had in mind when they gave the Senate shared responsibility with the executive branch over treaty-making. They owe no one any apologies -- and should reject efforts to try to blow through the Senate a "revised" C.T.B.T. that will surely remain unacceptable. Copies of the summary of the High-Level Roundtable on "Assuring Nuclear Deterrence after the Senate's Rejection of the C.T.B.T." may be obtained by contacting the Center for Security Policy via phone (202-835-9077), fax (202- 835-9066) or e-mail ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). - 30 - NOTE: The Center's publications are intended to invigorate and enrich the debate on foreign policy and defense issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of all members of the Center's Board of Advisors. 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