Byron Dorgan: “I have come to the floor to offer a couple of amendments. First I will say a few words about the amendment offered by…”

“I have come to the floor to offer a couple of amendments. First I will say a few words about the amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from California. Senator Feinstein was speaking on it when I came to the Chamber today. That is the question of money that is designated to begin research on the construction, hopefully, according to those who want it, of an earth penetrating bunker buster nuclear weapon. There is somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons on this Earth. Mr. President, 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons exist on this Earth. And now we have people talking about building new nuclear weapons in this country, building designer nuclear weapons, creating a new category of nuclear weapons, beginning to test nuclear weapons once again. That strikes me as pretty foolhardy because our responsibility as the world's superpower is to lead in a direction that tries to prevent nuclear weapons from ever entering into the hands of terrorists or rogue nations or adversaries. Our leadership responsibility is to try to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, to convince others not to build nuclear weapons. Let me read from Time magazine, March 11, 2002. For a few harrowing weeks last fall, a group of U.S. officials believed that the worst nightmare of their lives-- something even more horrific than 9/11--was about to come true.…”