Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the Risch amendment states a concern which is a legitimate concern. I think probably everybody would agree to that. This concern was there in the START I treaty and it was there in the Moscow Treaty just a few years ago, that we need to address the imbalance or the--the imbalance, I guess, is a good word--between the number of strategic nuclear weapons that exist on both sides and the nonstrategic weapons. But that was true during START I in 1991 when President Bush negotiated it. There was no effort to, in effect, kill the treaty with an amendment stating that concern, although it was a concern then. During the Moscow Treaty debate here in 2002, I believe Senator Biden again raised the same concern about this imbalance. It is a legitimate concern. But you don't kill a treaty because there are some legitimate concerns about issues. The Russians have a concern about our large number of warehoused warheads. We have a big inventory of warheads compared to them. They have a concern. We could state that as a fact, that the Russians have a concern about the number of warheads we have. But putting that into the treaty kills the treaty. We could make any statement of legitimate concern. If it is in the treaty text, it will kill the treaty. Senator Biden, in 2002, I believe, or it may have even been in the first START treaty, raised this issue about the imbalance. It was a legitimate issue.…”