On the recordDecember 19, 2010
I thank him for this amendment on verification. It is an amendment that will help us to flesh out this question of verification, which is important to anybody in the Senate. I guess three words that have become famous beyond what people might have thought when they were first uttered is the pronouncement of President Reagan, "trust, but verify," which at the time was accompanied by his articulation of the Russian words for that. Obviously, any agreement we would enter into with the Russians, or with anybody, can never rely completely on somebody's word--either word--because neither side is going to be satisfied with somebody's word with whom they have the necessity of actually having to reach this kind of an agreement to reduce weapons that are pointed at each other for lots of different reasons over a long period of time. I assure the Senator from Oklahoma that every Senator on our side-- and most importantly the unbelievably experienced negotiators who put this treaty together, who made a lifetime of trying to understand these kinds of relationships and the ways in which to adequately verify--they would not be standing in front of the country and the world and the Congress saying to us this treaty provides better verification in many ways than we had previously.
