GOP Stops Cold Obama's START Concessions Treaty With Russia!

G.O.P. Opposition Dims Hope for Arms Treaty With Russia


President Obama’s hopes of ratifying a new arms control treaty with Russia by the end of the year appeared to come undone on Tuesday as the chief Senate Republican negotiator moved to block a vote on the pact, one of the White House’s top foreign policy goals, in the lame-duck session of Congress.

The announcement by the senator, Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican point man on the issue, blindsided and angered the White House, which vowed to keep pressing for approval of the so-called New Start treaty. But the White House strategy had hinged entirely on winning over Mr. Kyl, and Democrats, who began scrambling for a backup plan, said they considered the chances of success slim.

Winning approval of the treaty will only become harder for the White House next year, when Democrats will have six fewer seats in the Senate, forcing the administration to rely on additional Republican votes to reach the 67 needed for ratification.

The treaty, which would force both countries to pare back nuclear arsenals and resume mutual inspections that lapsed last year for the first time since the cold war, is the centerpiece of two of Mr. Obama’s signature goals: restoring friendly relations with Russia and putting the world on a path toward eventually eliminating nuclear arms. A failure to ratify the treaty could freeze both efforts and, some analysts said, undermine Mr. Obama’s credibility on the world stage.

“Failure to pass the New Start treaty this year would endanger our national security,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has led negotiations with Mr. Kyl, said in a statement. It would mean “no verification regime to track Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal,” Mr. Biden said, and would sour a relationship that has helped open a new supply route to troops in Afghanistan and increase pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear program.

“Given New Start’s Bi-partisan support and enormous importance to our national security, the time to act is now, and we will continue to seek its approval by the Senate before the end of the year,” Mr. Biden said.

Both parties had considered Mr. Kyl the make-or-break voice on the pact, with Senate Republicans essentially deputizing him to work out a deal that would secure tens of billions of dollars to modernize the nation’s nuclear weapons complex in exchange for approval of the treaty.

Over many months of negotiations, the administration committed to spending $80 billion to do that over the next 10 years, and on Friday offered to chip in $4.1 billion more over the next five years. As a gesture of commitment, the White House had made sure extra money for modernization was included in the stopgap spending resolution now keeping the government operating, even though almost no other program received an increase in money.

All told, White House officials counted 29 meetings, phone calls, briefings or letters involving Mr. Kyl or his staff. They said they thought they had given him everything he wanted, and were optimistic about completing a deal this week, only to learn about his decision on Tuesday from reporters.

Mr. Kyl said he informed the Senate Democratic leader that there was not enough time to resolve all the issues during the lame-duck session that opened this week. “When majority leader Harry Reid asked me if I thought the treaty could be considered in the lame-duck session, I replied I did not think so given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues related to Start and modernization,” Mr. Kyl said in a written statement.

Mr. Kyl declined a request to be interviewed. Asked if the senator’s statement was meant to close the door to a lame-duck vote, his spokesman, Ryan Patmintra said: “Correct. Given the pending legislative business and outstanding issues on the treaty and modernization, there doesn’t appear to be enough time.”

Some Democrats hoped there was still an opening. “I talked with Senator Kyl today, and I do not believe the door is closed to considering New Start during the lame-duck session,” said Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has presided over most of the 18 hearings on the treaty and secured endorsements from prominent Republican national security figures.

Mr. Kerry plans to hold a news conference on Wednesday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, a Republican treaty supporter. Mr. Biden said the administration would still support the additional $4.1 billion it offered Mr. Kyl on Friday.

Since a treaty requires a two-thirds vote, the White House needs at least eight Republicans in the departing Senate and thought it had a dozen ready to vote yes if Mr. Kyl assented. Without him, though, they began melting away. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who voted for the treaty in committee, said Tuesday he now questions whether it’s “even practical for the administration to rush passage of the Start treaty during this lame-duck session.”

A Democratic leadership aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be more candid said, “If the Republicans’ lead negotiator says we shouldn’t consider Start during a lame duck, I think we have to take him at face value. Having said that, we are going to try and get it ratified in the lame duck.”

The Kremlin did not respond to the development, but Russian officials have expressed fear that Republican victories in this month’s midterm elections would damage relations. “We don’t have confidence that the document will secure enough votes,” Konstantin I. Kosachev, chairman of a parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said earlier in the day, according to the Russian news media. “The problem is not that the document is bad. We are confronting the fact that Republicans refuse to ratify the treaty.”

Mr. Obama had assured President Dmitri A. Medvedev during a meeting just two days earlier that winning approval of the treaty was his “top priority” in foreign affairs for the lame-duck session. If he cannot, it may embolden hard-liners in Moscow who have been skeptical of the so-called effort to “reset” the relationship with Russia.

“Start was the linchpin on which a lot of the reset was built,” said Angela E. Stent, director of Russian studies at Georgetown University. “What impact, if any, will it have on Russia’s willingness to cooperate on Iran or on Afghanistan?”

Critics have said that such worries are overstated and that the Obama administration was too willing to curry favor with Moscow at the expense of American national security.

Baker Spring, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Mr. Kyl was simply acting to ensure that the nation’s nuclear program was adequately maintained. “I do not understand why the White House would label this obstructionism,” Mr. Spring said. “It appears to be stepping away from its previous acknowledgment regarding the need to improve the nuclear weapons complex.”

If the issue carries over to the new Senate, it could be months before it is taken up again, and its chances would be even more uncertain given the Republican gains in this month’s elections.

The treaty would restore mutual inspections and prohibit both countries from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers each. The administration hoped to follow up this treaty with another more ambitious one to reduce tactical nuclear weapons and stored strategic weapons. It also hoped to follow up by reviving the never-ratified Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. And it envisioned negotiating another new treaty that would cut off new production of fissile material.

Even as the Start treaty appeared imperiled, the administration announced on Tuesday that this weekend it expected NATO to approve, at least in concept, a European missile defense system, aimed largely at defending against an attack launched from Iran, though the alliance’s leaders will not identify by name any country they are trying to defend against.

When Mr. Obama goes to a NATO summit meeting in Lisbon this week, Ivo Daalder, the United States ambassador to NATO, told reporters, one of the major issues will be whether the alliance is prepared to defend “against armed ballistic missiles coming towards NATO territory,” and he said that “alliance leaders will answer that question positively, we expect.”

But Turkey has balked at aspects of the plan, for fear of angering Iran. The declaration this coming weekend will leave unclear what form the missile defense system will take, and will also remain silent on the future of tactical nuclear weapons still based in Europe.





Kyl: Don't Consider START Treaty In Lame-Duck Session


A key Republican senator cast doubt Tuesday on the Obama administration's chances of passing the nuclear treaty with Russia during the lame-duck session of Congress.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, who is taking the lead for Republicans on negotiating with the administration on ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), said in a statement he told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, that the accord should not be considered before January, when the newly elected Congress is seated.

"When Majority Leader Harry Reid asked me if I thought the treaty could be considered in the lame-duck session, I replied I did not think so given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues related to START and modernization," Kyl said.

"I appreciate the recent effort by the Administration to address some of the issues that we have raised and I look forward to continuing to work with Senator [John] Kerry, DOD, and DOE officials," he said, referring to the Massachusetts Democrat and the departments of defense and energy.

Alarmed Democrats were quick to respond, arguing that it would be dangerous to delay consideration of the treaty.

Vice President Joe Biden released a statement warning that "failure to pass the [new treaty] this year would endanger our national security. Without ratification of this treaty, we will have no Americans on the ground to inspect Russia's nuclear activities, no verification regime to track Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, less cooperation between the two nations that account for 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, and no verified nuclear reductions."

Biden called the treaty "a fundamental part of our relationship with Russia, which has been critical to our ability to supply our troops in Afghanistan and to impose and enforce strong sanctions on the Iranian government."

The vice president said the administration will continue to seek Senate approval of the treaty before the end of the year.

Kerry said he had talked with Kyl and does "not believe the door is closed to considering [the treaty] during the lame duck session."

"Ratifying New START is not a political choice, it's a national security imperative," he declared.

The White House said it has been working to allay Kyl's concern, even sending three administration officials to meet with him last week and offering an additional $4.1 billion for modernization of the weapons program. Still, despite the outreach, the White House only learned of Kyl's opposition to taking up the vote during the lame-duck session "via the press," a senior administration official said. Hours later the White House issued the strongly worded statement from the vice president.

"The key point is that Senator Kyl has always asked for more funding to modernize the nuclear stockpile. An offer to do exactly that was made to Kyl in a three-hour briefing on Friday, in person," the official said. "Additionally, there has been an extraordinary amount of consultation with the Senate."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley also weighed in, saying that "we believe that we've answered all of their questions. We've addressed ... concerns that Sen. Kyl and others have expressed about ensuring that there is an effective modernization program as a companion to the New START treaty."

Crowley promised that the administration will continue to engage Kyl and others "in good faith."

The White House is offering to spend $4 billion more over five years for nuclear weapons modernization, in an effort to win over Kyl and other holdout Republicans who have questioned whether the Obama administration will provide enough money for modernization of the nuclear force remaining after the proposed START cuts the number of deployed warheads to 1,550.


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U.S. Increases Drone Missile Air Strikes

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Pres. Obama's Historic Sunday Morning Media Blitz (5 Networks!)...Highlights

Obama Sunday Show Blitz



(Pres. Obama states his administration will continue focusing on creating more Jobs.)



(No deadline on Afghanistan)

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(On World Series: Who will win?)

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President Barack Obama today became the first president to appear on five Sunday network shows in the same morning, an extraordinary effort to build public support for health care reform, his top domestic priority.

Here are some notable highlights from the Sunday show blitz:

ON HEALTH CARE POLITICS: IT'S A HARD TOPIC TO TALK ABOUT

Despite so many weeks of speeches, town halls and interviews, Pres. Obama said he has found it difficult at times to make a complex topic clear and relevant.

"I've tried to keep it digestible," Pres. Obama said. "It's very hard for people to get their arms around it. And that's been a case where I have been humbled and I just keep on trying harder."

Pres. Obama told Univision's "Al Punto" ("To the Point") that the strong opposition to his plan is part of a political strategy.

"Well, part of it is ... that the opposition has made a decision," he said. "They are just not going to support anything, for political reasons."

ON TORTURE: JUSTICE DEPT. OK TO CONDUCT INTERROGATION REVIEW

President Obama says he has no plans to ask the Justice Department to end its criminal investigation into the harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists during the Bush administration.

Seven former CIA directors have asked the president to do just that. In a letter to Pres. Obama on Friday, they warned that the probe could discourage CIA officers from doing the kind of aggressive intelligence work needed to fight terrorism.

Pres. Obama tells CBS' "Face the Nation" that he appreciates that the former CIA chiefs are wanting "to look after an institution that they helped to build."

Pres. Obama says he wants to make sure that he's not somehow overruling the decisions of prosecutors such as Attorney General Eric Holder who are there to uphold the law.

ON ECONOMY: NOT READY TO DECLARE RECESSION OVER

President Obama isn't ready to close the book on the recession.

Only last week Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the worst recession since the 1930s was probably over.

But Pres. Obama tells CNN's "State of the Union" that he's going to leave it up to the Fed chairman to say whether it's officially over or not.

Pres. Obama says all the signs are that the economy is going to start growing again. But he says jobs are a challenge.

The president says job figures usually are the last to catch up in a recovery and he says that making up for all those jobs that have been lost will require really high growth rates.

He's warning that the jobs picture could get even a bit worse over the coming months and that there might not be enough job creation until next year to deal with the rising population.

ON AFGHANISTAN: NO "INDEFINITE OCCUPATION"

President Obama says he has no deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan and is pledging there will not be an indefinite American occupation. Sounding much like his predecessor, Pres. Obama said he won't base any war decision on "the politics of the moment."

The 8-year-old conflict in Afghanistan, overshadowed by the war in Iraq during much of George W. Bush's presidency, is a dominant challenge for Pres. Obama.
The American public and leaders of his own party have eroding faith in the face of a resurgent Taliban, doubts of Afghan leadership and rising U.S. engagement.

"I don't have a deadline for withdrawal," Pres. Obama said in one of a series of television interviews broadcast Sunday. "But I'm certainly not somebody who believes in indefinite occupations of other countries."

Pres. Obama has ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, increasing the number of U.S. forces there to 68,000, and is expecting to get a request for more from the U.S. and NATO commander. Pres. Obama said the decision is more than the inclination of "If I get more, then I can do more."

"Right now, the question is, the first question is, are we doing the right thing?" he said. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?

Pres. Obama has pledged no imminent decision on sending in more troops and says he wants to see updated reviews on all aspects of his war strategy. His road map to winning the war in Afghanistan relies heavily on clearing Al-Qaida terrorists from Pakistan, according to a list of benchmarks given to Congress last week.

Pres. Obama said once he hears from advisers and has a better idea on whether more troops or needed, then "what I will say to the American public is not going to be driven by the politics of the moment." Bush often used similar language when overseeing a war in Iraq that had lost support of much of the public.

ON ACORN: NOT SOMETHING I'M FOLLOWING CLOSELY

On ABC, George Stephanopoulos pressed President Obama on the recent controversy surrounding the community group ACORN. Here's the full exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?

PRES. OBAMA: You know, if -- frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely. I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

PRES. OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you're not committing to -- to cut off the federal funding?

PRES. OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to.

ON MISSILE DEFENSE: DECISION NOT ABOUT RUSSIA

President Obama sharply dismisses criticism that Russian opposition influenced his decision to scrap a European missile defense system, calling it merely a bonus if the leaders of Russia end up "a little less paranoid" about the U.S.

"My task here was not to negotiate with the Russians," Pres. Obama told CBS' "Face the Nation" in an interview for broadcast Sunday. "The Russians don't make determinations about what our defense posture is."

The president's comments were his first on the matter since he abruptly announced on Thursday that he was scuttling plans to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a related radar in the Czech Republic. That shield had been proposed under President George W. Bush.

Russia condemned it is a threat to its security despite years of U.S. assurances to the contrary.

In its place will be a different missile-defense plan relying on a network of sensors and interceptor missiles based at sea, on land and in the air. Obama says that adapts to the most pressing threat from Iran to U.S. troops and allies in Europe, potential attacks by short- and medium-range missiles.

Yet at home and abroad, Pres. Obama's decision immediately raised a political question of whether it was done in part to appease Russia and win its help in other areas, mainly in confronting the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran. That point was underscored when Russia lauded the change.

In an interview with CBS News that was taped Friday, Pres. Obama was pressed on why he did not seek anything in exchange from Russia.

"Russia had always been paranoid about this, but George Bush was right. This wasn't a threat to them," Pres. Obama said. "And this program will not be a threat to them."

He added: "If the byproduct of it is that the Russians feel a little less paranoid and are now willing to work more effectively with us to deal with threats like ballistic missiles from Iran or nuclear development in Iran, you know, then that's a bonus."

ON WORLD SERIES: WHO WILL WIN?

On NBC's Meet the Press, David Gregory asked President Obama who he thinks will win the World Series. The president's response: "The White Sox can still make the Play-Offs".


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Pres. Obama Abandons Bush's Cold War Missile Defense Program...Will Deploy More Advanced System

("Axis of evil" missile shield scrubbed. Republican critics called President Barack Obama's decision to scrap a Bush Administration plan to base a missile defense system in Eastern Europe "misguided," but the Pentagon and NATO supported his push for "a smaller, smarter, swifter" system. NBC White House Correspondent Savannah Guthrie reports.)

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(Defense Secretary Robert Gates discusses the rationale for a new shield system.)

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White House to Scrap Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield


President Obama announced on Thursday that he would scrap former President George W. Bush’s planned missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and instead deploy a reconfigured system aimed more at intercepting short- and medium-range Iranian missiles.

Pres. Obama decided not to deploy a sophisticated radar system in the Czech Republic or 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland, as Mr. Bush had planned. Instead, the new system his administration is developing would deploy smaller SM-3 missiles, at first aboard ships and later on land somewhere in Europe, possibly even in Poland or the Czech Republic.

“President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat,” Pres. Obama told reporters at the White House. But he said new assessments of the nature of the Iranian threat required a different system that would use existing technology and different locations. “This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program.”

The decision amounts to one of the biggest national security reversals by the new administration, one that has caused consternation in Poland and the Czech Republic and pleased at least some officials in Russia, which had adamantly objected to the Bush plan. But Obama administration officials stressed that they are not abandoning missile defense, only redesigning it to meet the more immediate Iranian threat.

Pres. Obama called the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic, both NATO member countries, before his announcement and said he “reaffirmed our deep and close ties.” He also reiterated America’s commitment under Article 5 of the NATO treaty that states that an attack on one member is an attack on the entire alliance. Aides later said that Pres. Obama would keep Mr. Bush’s commitment to provide Patriot anti-missile batteries to Poland.

The decision drew immediate Republican criticism. “Scrapping the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more then empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader. “It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world.”

Anticipating the criticism, Pres. Obama said the decision was based on the unanimous recommendation of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then sent Mr. Gates, a Republican first appointed by Mr. Bush, to discuss the decision with reporters. Mr. Gates said the new system would actually put defenses in place seven years earlier than the Bush plan. He noted that land-based SM-3 missiles would eventually be located in Europe and said “we would prefer to put the SM-3’s in Poland.”

“Those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting the reality of what we are doing,” Mr. Gates said. He added that the new configuration “provides a better missile defense capability” for Europe and American forces there “than the program I recommended almost three years ago.”

The Bush missile defense architecture was better designed to counter potential intercontinental ballistic missiles by Iran. But officials said American intelligence agencies have concluded that Tehran’s development of such long-range missiles has slowed, while its progress toward short- and medium-range missiles has accelerated. The new system, they said, is adapting to that change. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the administration would jettison the Bush architecture.

The administration officials also made clear that one reason for the shift would be to get better defenses in place sooner and closer to Israel to mitigate Israel’s desire to take military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities as it comes closer to building a nuclear warhead and mounting it on a missile. “We hope that it will reassure them that perhaps there’s a little more time here,” Mr. Gates said.

But the decision is sensitive in Europe and Russia. As details began to leak, the White House arranged for a post-midnight call from Pres. Obama to the Czech prime minister and a call in the morning to Poland’s prime minister. It also dispatched top officials to Prague and Warsaw to explain the decision and calm any anxieties.

But it made for unfortunate timing, as Thursday was the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, a date fraught with sensitivity for Poles who viewed the Bush missile defense system as a political security blanket against Russia. Poland and many other countries in the former Soviet sphere worry that Pres. Obama is less willing than Mr. Bush was to stand up to Russia.

While the Americans always described missile defense as a hedge against Iran, the Polish and Czech governments saw the presence of American military personnel based permanently in their countries as protection against Russia. Moscow strongly opposed the shield and claimed it was aimed against Russia and undermined its national security. The United States repeatedly denied such claims.

The announcement comes just days before Pres. Obama is scheduled to meet privately with Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, in New York on the sidelines of next week’s United Nations General Assembly session.

Mr. Medvedev, in an address on national television on Thursday, said that he looked forward to the meeting with President Obama. “We will have a good opportunity to exchange opinions on all issues of strategic stability, including missile defense,” he said. “I hope that we will be able to give assignments to different bodies — Russian, American bodies — to begin cooperation, including the involvement of interested European states.

“We will together work out efficient measures for dealing with the risks of missile proliferation -- measures that take into account the interests and concerns of all sides and guarantee equal security for all states in the European space. We appreciate the responsible approach of the U.S. President toward implementing our agreements. I am prepared to continue this dialogue.”

Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of Russia’s Parliament, said in an interview that the decision would give a major boost to relations between the two countries. “For Russia, it is a victory for common sense,” he said. “It another positive signal that we have received from Washington that makes the general climate very positive.”

The Obama administration’s four-phase plan would deploy existing SM-3 interceptors using the sea-based Aegis system in 2011, then after more testing deploy in 2015 an improved version of the interceptors both on ships and on land along with advanced sensors. A still more advanced version of the interceptors would be deployed in 2018 and yet another generation in 2020, the latter with more capacity to counter possible future intercontinental missiles.

By doing so, officials said, they would be getting the first defenses in place far earlier than the Bush plan, which envisioned deploying in 2018 the bigger ground-based interceptors that are still being developed. The SM-3 missiles have had eight successful tests so far. And with more short- and medium-range missiles to counter, the administration said it may deploy hundreds of the SM-3s, compared to just 10 of the ground-based interceptors Mr. Bush planned.

Officials said they no longer need the large advanced radar installation that Mr. Bush wanted to build in the Czech Republic and would instead install a more limited version probably in the Caucasus. The system will also rely more on satellites in space and will develop new airborne sensors.

The Obama review of missile defense was influenced in large part by evidence that Iran has made significant progress toward developing medium-range missiles that could threaten Europe, even as the prospects of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States remain distant.

In May, Iran launched the Sejil-2, the first successful test of a two-stage, solid-fuel missile. With an estimated range of around 1,200 miles, it could strike Israel or many parts of Europe. Unlike Iran’s liquid-fuel missiles, a solid-fuel missile can be stored, moved around and fired on shorter notice, and thus is considered by military experts to be a greater threat.

The Obama team relied heavily on the work of a Stanford University physicist, Dean Wilkening, who presented the government with research this year arguing that Poland and the Czech Republic were not the most effective places to station a missile defense system against the most likely Iranian threat. Instead, he said, more optimal places to station missiles and radar systems would be in Turkey or the Balkans.

“If you move the system down closer to the Middle East,” it would “make more sense for the defense of Europe, Mr. Wilkening said in an interview.



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