Exclusive: House Republicans ding Obama on nuke treaty in previously unreported letter
Yesterday, The Cable brought you news about the Obama administration’s new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Today, we share with you a previously unreported letter (pdf) from senior House GOP lawmakers telling the president that they don’t like where they see the negotiations headed. Signed by the House Armed Services Committee’s ranking Republican, Howard ...
Yesterday, The Cable brought you news about the Obama administration's new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Today, we share with you a previously unreported letter (pdf) from senior House GOP lawmakers telling the president that they don't like where they see the negotiations headed.
Yesterday, The Cable brought you news about the Obama administration’s new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Today, we share with you a previously unreported letter (pdf) from senior House GOP lawmakers telling the president that they don’t like where they see the negotiations headed.
Signed by the House Armed Services Committee’s ranking Republican, Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) and House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the letter’s basic point is their contention that administration officials are rushing to complete a follow on to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) before the Dec. 5 deadline, which will cause them to make too many concessions to the Russians and get ahead of their own Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).
The GOP leaders also refer to HASC testimony (pdf) by Philip Gordon, the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian affairs, to criticize the possibility that the Obama team might compromise too much and end up near the lower end of ranges agreed to between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in their July 8 Joint Understanding, namely 500 delivery vehicles and 1,500 deployed warheads.
"Congress has yet to learn what the administration’s deterrence objectives and policies are, much less the appropriate nuclear force structure requirements that would be derived from them," the letter states.
The letter also warns that Congress (read: Republicans) would not look favorably on any restrictions in the new treaty that would limit U.S. missile defenses or conventional strike systems.
Ultimately, it will be up to the Senate to ratify any treaty, and that debate is not expected until early next year. But the House leaders will have a role in implementation, so their views also must be dealt with by Obama’s staff.
A senior administration official, speaking to The Cable on background but not responding to the GOP letter, said that the administration made it an early task of the NPR to produce the analysis that would determine the requirements needed to negotiate with the Russians.
U.S. missile defenses will not be mentioned, but some U.S. conventional systems could be included in the final agreement.
"I can imagine that there may be some particular verification and transparency measures associated with non-nuclear systems," the official said.
Ellen O. Tauscher, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, told The Cable that Republicans have nothing to fear from reductions and that the goodwill of the agreement would produce positive effects worldwide.
"We still have by orders of magnitude more weapons than anybody on the planet," said Tauscher, "The United States of America has most eloquently led by example [rather] than by stamping our feet or by pressuring anybody. Leading by example is the best way of being persuasive."
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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