Political Quotes

“I will enjoy the colloquy we have when we do get around to it. Mr. President, we don't have time to get into a lot of detail, but there is the question of verification. This is one of the other major matters people have written about, including Senator Bond, who is the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee. It is going to be important for the Senate to have an executive session to go over intelligence, classified information that relates to the question of verification and past Russian compliance or noncompliance with agreements they have made with the United States. In this short period, I wish to rebut something that continues to be repeated and is simply not true or at least the implication is not true--that we have to do this treaty because we need the verification provisions. The implication is that they are good and strong and will be effective. They won't. The verification provisions are far less than we had in the START I treaty. In the view of many people, they are not going to be effective. Secretary of State James Baker, who testified early on this treaty, said: [The verification mechanism in the New START treaty] does not appear as rigorous or extensive as the one that verified the numerous and diverse treaty obligations and prohibitions under START I. This complex part of the treaty is even more crucial when fewer deployed nuclear warheads are allowed than were allowed in the past.…”