Political Quotes

“The Senator is asking us to have the intelligence community monitor something that there is no capacity to monitor because there is no provision in the treaty requiring the monitoring. It is a little bit like saying we would like the President to report to us, on a yearly basis, the cost of the destruction or dismantling or taking off of alert or removing from a silo every missile that is removed by the Russians. That would be great, but it is not in the treaty. There is no provision. Regarding the ultimate criticism, the primary criticism the Senator from Massachusetts makes of the treaty is accurate. There is not much to this treaty. There is not much to it. As I said in my very long opening statement, the administration, when they testified before the committee, said: Look, we were going to do this anyway. We were going to do this anyway. So we told the Russians, in effect paraphrasing the Secretary of State, we told the Russians if you want to come along, come along; if you don't, you don't. The whole rationale of this administration is the bet that the cold war is over, it is truly and forever behind us. I hope they are right. This treaty affords few protections in the event of a heightened mistrust that develops, or a crisis. It doesn't have any protections.”