Dick Lugar: “I think it is a reasonable interpretation, I respond to the Senator, but I would also say that in fact the President, at…”

“I think it is a reasonable interpretation, I respond to the Senator, but I would also say that in fact the President, at least through the Department of Defense, in the CDR report I have in front of me, is doing that each year. These are annual reports. Likewise the Secretary of Energy is making his own reports on the nuclear accountability issues. So it appears to me that generally the objective of the Senator is being fulfilled in current reports. What is not being fulfilled and what the Senator and I both wish was being fulfilled is more progress toward the destruction of the warheads themselves and more openness on the part of the Russians to what their problem clearly is and one in which we could help if we had more access. Before I got into this particular vault I am talking about, General Habiger, who has been mentioned in this debate, was the last American ever to get there. This is not openness or transparency. So even though property threat reduction brings a lot of Russians and Americans together, there are areas in which we have not come together, these bioweapons plants, the four of them, for example, and some of these vaults that we have not seen. Every year we are reporting, however, our deficiencies or our inability to reach agreement. It is a checkoff list with the Russians.…”