GOP pushes back against any further cuts in nukes

Con­gres­sional Repub­li­cans on Wednes­day vowed to block the Obama admin­is­tra­tion from sharply cut­ting the U.S. nuclear force, call­ing poten­tial reduc­tions of as much as 80 per­cent in the num­ber of deployed weapons “reck­less lunacy.” (Asso­ci­ated Press | J. Scott Applewhite)

DONNA CASSATA

ROBERT BURNS

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Con­gres­sional Repub­li­cans on Wednes­day vowed to block the Obama admin­is­tra­tion from sharply cut­ting the U.S. nuclear force, call­ing poten­tial reduc­tions of as much as 80 per­cent in the num­ber of deployed weapons “reck­less lunacy.”

Point­ing to the grow­ing num­ber of trou­ble spots, from Iran to Syria to Egypt, mem­bers of the House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee said any sig­nif­i­cant cuts would under­mine the U.S. abil­ity to deter aggres­sion. The Asso­ci­ated Press reported on Tues­day that the admin­is­tra­tion is weigh­ing sev­eral options for new reduc­tions from the cur­rent treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strate­gic warheads.

Defense Sec­re­tary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Mar­tin Dempsey, chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the com­mit­tee that no deci­sion has been made and main­tain­ing the cur­rent level is one of the options. But that did lit­tle to assuage GOP lawmakers.

“I just want to go on record as say­ing that there are many of us that are going to do every­thing we pos­si­bly can to make sure that this pre­pos­ter­ous notion does not gain any real trac­tion,” said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.

The most mod­est option under dis­cus­sion would return the United States to a level not seen in more than half a cen­tury, when the Soviet Union and the U.S. pushed ahead in a Cold War nuclear arms race. The admin­is­tra­tion is weigh­ing at least three options for lower total num­bers, cut­ting to around 1,000 to 1,100, 700 to 800, or 300 to 400.

Although Dempsey said main­tain­ing the sta­tus quo is one option, fur­ther cuts are con­sis­tent with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s 2009 promise to pur­sue the elim­i­na­tion of nuclear weapons and the 2010 Nuclear Pos­ture Review, which called for an “imple­men­ta­tion study” by the Defense Depart­ment to review the nation’s nuclear deter­rence require­ments with an eye toward fur­ther reduc­tions in the size of the arsenal.

Last March, National Secu­rity Adviser Tom Donilon said the admin­is­tra­tion was mak­ing prepa­ra­tions for the next round of nuclear reductions.

Rep. Mac Thorn­berry, R-Texas, com­plained that such a step would encour­age other nations to advance their nuclear pro­grams. Fear­ing Iran’s nuclear ambi­tions, the United States and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity have imposed tough sanc­tions on Tehran.

“If they see that we are going to come down from 1,500 to some num­ber in the low to mid­dle hun­dreds, it does noth­ing but encour­age our ene­mies and dis­cour­age our friends,” Thorn­berry said. “And the result of that is more nuclear weapons pro­grams all across the world, which would seem to me to be some­thing that we would not want to have happen.”

Panetta said a num­ber of options are being dis­cussed but pro­vided no specifics. He insisted any deci­sion would be part of a treaty that would have to be rat­i­fied by the Senate.

“As you know, reduc­tions that have been made, at least in this admin­is­tra­tion, have only been made as part of the START process and not out­side of that process. And I would expect that that would be the same in the future,” Panetta said.

Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, raised seri­ous con­cerns about cuts of 80 per­cent. Franks called that “reck­less lunacy.” In a state­ment, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., accused Obama of “cater­ing to his lib­eral base that believes that if we uni­lat­er­ally dis­arm, the rest of the world will fol­low suit and threats to our national secu­rity will just go away.”

Rose Got­te­moeller, the State Department’s top arms con­trol offi­cial, told reporters Wednes­day that although the admin­is­tra­tion is not yet ready to begin a new round of nuclear arms reduc­tion nego­ti­a­tions with Rus­sia, offi­cials on both sides already are hold­ing “seri­ous dis­cus­sions” on issues that should be set­tled before nego­ti­a­tions begin.

She said such dis­cus­sions have begun, for exam­ple, on reach­ing a com­mon under­stand­ing of which sets of U.S. and Russ­ian nuclear weapons should be included in the “strate­gic” cat­e­gory and which are “non-strategic.” The dif­fer­ence is impor­tant because until now, U.S.-Russian nuclear arms nego­ti­a­tions have dealt only with strate­gic weapons, which tra­di­tion­ally are defined as those capa­ble of reach­ing either the U.S. or Russ­ian home­land. The Rus­sians argue that U.S. nuclear weapons based in Europe should be included in the “strate­gic” cat­e­gory; the U.S. disagrees.

Panetta and Dempsey were pressed on the issue dur­ing their sec­ond day of con­gres­sional tes­ti­mony on Obama’s defense bud­get for 2013. Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans are resist­ing pro­posed cuts in the size of the Army and Marine Corps, cut­backs on ship­build­ing, delays in the pur­chase of some fighter jets and weapons sys­tems and another round of domes­tic base closings.

Over­all, the bud­get for the fis­cal year begin­ning Oct. 1 would pro­vide $525.4 bil­lion in base spend­ing and another $88.5 bil­lion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The total is nearly $32 bil­lion less than this year’s budget.

Panetta repeat­edly reminded law­mak­ers that the cuts were dic­tated by the bud­get agree­ment reached by Obama and Con­gress last sum­mer, a pact sup­ported by the panel’s chair­man, Rep. Howard “Buck” McK­eon, R-Calif., and many other mem­bers of the committee.

“The bot­tom line here is we were handed a num­ber for defense reduc­tions. We stepped up to the plate, we met our oblig­a­tions to try to do this in a way that would still pre­serve for us an effec­tive force to deal with the threats,” Panetta said.

Com­mit­tee Repub­li­cans argued that Obama had called for $400 bil­lion in reduc­tions over 10 years last April, months before the deficit-cutting plan.

Look­ing at future bud­gets, Rep. Adam Smith of Wash­ing­ton state, the panel’s top Demo­c­rat, said that in real­ity the cuts are a reduc­tion in pro­jected spending.

“It’s a decrease in the increase,” Smith said.

Posted by AP News on Feb 15 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.