McConnell Will Oppose START Treaty; Reid Sets Vote to End Debate

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that he would not support the new START nuclear arms control treaty with Russia if it comes to a vote in the lame duck session, but the two top members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – Democrat John Kerry and Republican Richard Lugar – predicted its passage.

Kerry, chairman of the Senate panel, said on ABC's "This Week," "I believe it will pass, and I believe there will be a vote."

Lugar, the committee's ranking member and one of the GOP's elder statesmen on foreign policy issues, said on the same show: "Several Republicans will support it, and I join the chairman in believing that there are the votes there. The problem is really getting to that final vote."

On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set a vote on ending debate on the treaty for Tuesday.

"After months of consideration and five days of open and robust debate, it is time to move forward on a treaty that will help reverse nuclear proliferation and make it harder for terrorists to get their hands on a nuclear weapon," Reid said in a statement released Sunday. "Every day we delay is another day we do not have inspectors on the ground in Russia monitoring their nuclear arsenal.

"As we move ahead, I look forward to continuing to debate amendments. But soon this will come down to a simple choice: You either want to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, or you don't."

As for McConnell, he said on CNN's "State of the Union": "I've decided I cannot support the treaty. I think the verification provisions are inadequate. And I do worry about the missile defense implications of it."

But McConnell offered no prediction as to whether his position would prevail. "We're going to find out here in the next few days," he said.

Reid expressed disappointment about McConnell's decision but said, "I look forward to strong bipartisan support to pass this treaty before we end this session of Congress."

The Senate resumed debate on the treaty Sunday after rejecting an amendment on Saturday that was regarded as the most serious Republican challenge to its passage. During Sunday's session, Democrats rejected another Republican amendment that would have killed the treaty by forcing it back to negotiations.

The amendment voted down on Saturday would have stripped out language from the treaty's preamble that critics asserted would have inhibited plans of the United States and its NATO allies to establish a missile defense shield for all NATO states.

The language acknowledges a link between offensive and defensive weapons and, by doing so, is an acknowledgment of concerns voiced by Russia that the deterrent factor of its nuclear arsenal, if reduced too much, could be offset by an anti-missile defense system.

However, supporters of the treaty underline that the language is nonbinding and has no legal impact. In advance of Saturday's vote, President Barack Obama sent a letter to the Senate assuring lawmakers that the treaty "places no limitations on the development or deployment of our missile defense programs." Obama, in the letter, also brushed aside Russian warnings it would withdraw from the treaty if it ultimately did view the anti-missile system as a threat to its security.