Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise for a few moments to comment on the amendment our colleague from Florida spoke about a few moments ago. Tactical nuclear weapons and how that is addressed was the subject of a long debate yesterday. I wish to reiterate some of those arguments because we had this debate yesterday. It is an important debate. First of all, if we listen to a couple of folks who have not only experience but have a real interest in our urgent priority of addressing tactical nuclear weapons, it becomes clear that the best way to address that issue is, in fact, to ratify this treaty. By way of example, if you want to highlight a country that has much at stake when the question is raised about Russian tactical nuclear weapons, you can point to few if any countries that have more at stake than Poland. The Polish Foreign Minister, Mr. Sikorski, said: Without a [New START] treaty in place, holes will soon appear in the nuclear umbrella that the United States provides to Poland and other allies under article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the collective security guarantee for NATO members. Moreover, New START is a necessary stepping stone to future negotiations with Russia about reductions in tactical nuclear arsenals and a prerequisite for the successful revival of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. That is not a commentator in Washington; that is the Foreign Minister of Poland, whose country has a lot at stake in this debate.…”