Dick Lugar: “In response to the Senator, of course, I see it in that light. My only argument with the Senator today is that I do not…”

“In response to the Senator, of course, I see it in that light. My only argument with the Senator today is that I do not believe it ought to be part of the treaty. I believe clearly the fulfillment is already occurring in terms of the reporting, with considerable vigor, but at the same time, as I have admitted to the Senator, the objectives we both seek by getting the President to indicate energy and so forth also requires the Russians to reciprocate. This particular treaty still has to be ratified by the Duma. We have our own debate here, but they will have theirs, too. Senator Biden and I in our opening comments indicated we would resist amendments simply because we believe we have at least in a very general way covered territory of what we ought to be doing in terms of oversight but in ways that would not in any way be objectionable to the Russians who have to ratify the treaty and thus at least preserve the spirit in which Presidents Putin and Bush negotiated, admittedly, a limited treaty. I would ask the Senator at least for his thoughts as to whether he would be sufficiently assured by the vigor of my response to withdraw the amendment, understanding that we will continue to pursue these reports. I will try to make available to Senators the CDR message if they do not have it which really reviews in detail the gist of what the Senator is requesting.”