Bill Clinton: “Oh, I have said every time that there were some Republicans who believed that in good conscience. The reason I can't…”

“Oh, I have said every time that there were some Republicans who believed that in good conscience. The reason I can't accept it as only a matter of conviction are the following reasons. Number one, they had a lot of people committed who didn't know very much about the treaty, who were asked to commit before there was ever an argument made. Number two, the objections about the treaty essentially fall into two categories. One is that, notwithstanding the heads of the weapons labs, the entire military establishment and General Shelton's last few predecessors as Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and these 32 Nobel laureates, there are people who say, ``I don't care what they all say; I just don't believe it. I just don't think that they can preserve the security of the nuclear arsenal without testing. Even though we're spending $4.5 billion a year, and we're going to spend more, and we're far more likely to be able to do that than any other country in the world, I just don't believe it.'' Now, my answer to them was, so we put an explicit safeguard in the treaty which says, when we have evidence, which we don't have now, that we cannot maintain the reliability of the nuclear deterrent, if at that time it is still necessary for us to do so, then we will have to give notice and withdraw. That's what you have these safeguards for. That's in our supreme national interest. The other major argument against the treaty was that there can be some cheating because you can't always be sure, for underground tests under 5 kilotons and particularly under 1 kiloton. The answer to that is, that's true now. And this treaty makes it more likely that we will catch such things. That wasn't a good argument, because this treaty would give us over 300 sensors around the world. And those sensors are far more likely to pick it up. This treaty would give us the possibility of onsite inspections, something we don't have now. And this treaty would give us the possibility of marshaling a much sterner rebuke to any country that violated it than we do now. There were other objections that were more minor, compared to these two big ones. That's why we offered these six safeguards, and invited the Senate to offer more. There were objections like this to the Chemical Weapons Convention. There are always going to be objections from the point of view of the country that feels it's in the strongest position. And that's why we have a process, an orderly process in the Senate, to allow the Senate to put these safeguards on. I think that's what Senator Byrd was saying yesterday when he voted ``present'' and condemned the process. You know, keep in mind, I didn't ask them to ratify the treaty as it was written. I asked them to ratify the treaty with the six safeguards that would address those two major objections and some of the others. Sarah, and then--[inaudible]. Deployment of U.S. Troops Abroad”