Byron Dorgan: “first, let me compliment the Senator from Massachusetts. I fully intend to support this amendment. I have spoken about…”

“first, let me compliment the Senator from Massachusetts. I fully intend to support this amendment. I have spoken about this issue on the Senate floor previously. It is in my judgment that job one for this country is to attempt to stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the rest of the world, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to make certain the nuclear weapons that do exist are protected and safeguarded, and then for this country to lead in this world to try to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons. But for this country to be talking about building new nuclear weapons, earth-penetrating, bunker-buster nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons, and have people in this administration talk about nuclear weapons as if they are just another weapon to be used in a war--drop a nuke on a cave someplace; just another weapon, that is what they are talking about--that this country should be wanting to build more, it is absurd. There are roughly 30,000 nuclear weapons on this Earth. The stealing of one of those weapons or the acquisition of one by terrorist groups would cause an apoplectic seizure for people who live in the major cities of this country that would be targeted by the detonation of a nuclear weapon. Our job is not to be talking about building new nuclear weapons. There are plenty of nuclear weapons on this Earth--far too many, in fact.…”