Lois Barber
UPDATE: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to vote on the START Treaty September 15 or 16
A Senate vote on the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is now set for Sept. 15 or 16. Favorable hearings have been held in both the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees. Positive reports from the National Intelligence Council and State Department on verification under the treaty were delivered to the Senate the first week in July. Republican Senators have demanded and received major funding for nuclear processing and weapons facilities designed to maintain a "robust nuclear weapons deterrent" in return for their support of the treaty.
Yet, as with every initiative by the administration during the past year, opposition is developing among the President's political opponents. Quick work is essential to counter these assaults and assure passage of the treaty. For example, in spite of treaty support by the defense establishment and the majority of living former Secretaries of Defense and State, Mitt Romney attacked the treaty in a Washington Post editorial as Obama's "worst foreign policy mistake yet” and called on Senate Republicans to block ratification. Immediately Senator Lugar, ranking Republican Senator on the Foreign Relations Committee, and strong supporter of the treaty, charged that Romney "repeats discredited objections and appears unaware of arms control history and context."
In particular, the opposition is focusing on supposed restrictions put on U.S. missile defense. Yet as Lugar points out, the treaty's preamble is non-binding, and "nothing in the Treaty changes the bottom line that we control our own missile defense destiny." The treaty strengthens our security in every way, and, Lugar notes, "Rejecting the Treaty would guarantee that no agreement on tactical nukes would occur. It also would mean giving up our human verification presence in Russia that has contributed greatly to strategic stability...New START would strengthen our non-proliferation diplomacy worldwide." Click here for the full text of Lugar's statement.
Ask your Senators to support the New START and to press their colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to swiftly bring the Treaty to a positive vote. Also contact friends and relatives in key states such as Georgia and Tennessee, asking them to contact their own Senators. Click here for a full list of key Senators for this vote.
In addition, go see the movie "Countdown to Zero" opening in select cities July 30. This movie "makes a swift, soberingly urgent case for the comprehensive elimination of nuclear weapons," says Ann Hornaday in The Washington Post.
Contact Information:
Telephone: Call the Senate switchboard (202) 224-3121, ask for your Senator's office. Once there, ask for her/his legislative aide on defense issues and leave your message with that aide.
Online: Click here: www.senate.gov, search for your senator, and leave a message.
Write: Senator (first & last name), U.S. Senate, Washington D.C. 20510
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