11/17/2010Failure to approve START would endanger US nat'l security - Biden
WASHINGTON, Failure to pass the new START treaty this year would endanger US national security, Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.
"Without ratification of this treaty, we will have no Americans on the ground to inspect Russia's nuclear activities, no verification regime to track Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, less cooperation between the two nations that account for 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, and no verified nuclear reductions," Biden said in a statement released by his office.
The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is a fundamental part of the US relationship with Russia, which has been critical to the ability of the United States to supply US troops in Afghanistan and to impose and enforce strong sanctions on the Iranian government, Biden said.
President Barack Obama has made "an extraordinary commitment to ensure the modernization of our nuclear infrastructure, which had been neglected for several years before he took office. We have made clear our plans to invest 80 billion dollars on modernization over the next decade, and ... we plan to request an additional 4.1 billion dollars for modernization over the next five years, Biden said.
The treaty "enjoys broad, bipartisan support," Biden noted, and is consistent with previous Strategic Nuclear Arms Treaties, each of which passed with more than 85 votes in the US Senate.
"Given new START's bipartisan support and enormous importance to our national security, the time to act is now, and we will continue to seek its approval by the Senate before the end of the year," he said.
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