U.S. Senate Rejects Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

WASHINGTON, DC, October 14, 1999 (ENS) - The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday night to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, dealing a major blow to the international pact that has been the focus of efforts to control the global spread of nuclear weapons. The White House, environmental groups and the governments of other nations were quick to condemn the move, which may send a dangerous message to countries interested in developing nuclear weapons.

The Republican controlled Senate voted 51 to 48 against ratification of the treaty, with all 44 Democrats and only four Republicans supporting the treaty. Approval by two-thirds of the Senate is needed to ratify a treaty.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

Senator Lott said today that investigation of the substance of the treaty convinced him and his fellow Republicans that it is "unverifiable" and would damage the security of the United States. He denied that the vote along party lines was motivated by political rivalry with the Democratic Clinton administration.

President Bill Clinton expressed his keen disappointment over the vote, but said that even so, "the United States will stay true to our tradition of global leadership against the spread of weapons of mass destruction."

Speaking with reporters at the White House Wednesday night after the vote, Clinton said, "The United States will continue, under my presidency, the policy we have observed since 1992 of not conducting nuclear tests. Russia, China, Britain, and France have joined us in this moratorium. Britain and France have done the sensible thing and ratified this treaty. I hope not only they, but also Russia, China, will all, along with other countries, continue to refrain from nuclear testing."

President Bill Clinton (left) and French President Jacques Chirac outside the Elysee Palace in Paris, June 17, 1999 (Photo courtesy the White House)

"All these things, the Republican majority in the Senate would gladly give away," Clinton said, referring to the partisan vote that defeated the treaty ratification. Senate Republicans also refused a compromise that would have postponed the vote until 2001.

"Never before has a serious treaty involving nuclear weapons been handled in such a reckless and ultimately partisan way," the President said.

In a news conference today, Clinton pointed out that the leaders of U.S. allies Britain, France and Germany "took the extraordinary step of writing an op-ed piece asking us to ratify this treaty and not to defeat it." Defeating the treaty "was an amazing rebuke to our allies," said Clinton.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy expressed regret today at the Senate rejection, seeming to confirm Clinton’s fears regarding global perception of the vote.

"A world accustomed to U.S. leadership in the cause for nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament can only be deeply disturbed by this turn of events, which will be welcomed by those who remain uncommitted to that cause," said Axworthy.

Senator Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposes the treaty. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

"Simply put, the CTBT at this point and time jeopardizes our ability to maintain the safety and reliability of our nuclear arsenal - perhaps not right away, but almost certainly over the long run," said Warner.

But President Clinton said after the vote, "They turned aside the best advice of our top military leaders, including the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and four of his predecessors. They ignored the conclusion of 32 Nobel Prize winners in physics, and many other leading scientists, including the heads of our nuclear laboratories, that we can maintain a strong nuclear force without testing."

The environmental group Greenpeace condemned the Senate’s move to kill the treaty as a "gross dereliction of its duty to protect the public, the planet and future generations." Greenpeace accused the U.S. government of "acting like a rogue nation rather than a leader on nuclear nonproliferation."

"This is an utterly irresponsible act," said Damon Moglen, speaking from the Washington, DC office of Greenpeace. "It's shocking that U.S. political leaders have basically said that partisan politics are more important than leading the world away from the terrible threat of nuclear proliferation. This is a very sad moment in U.S. history and a very frightening one for the future of nuclear nonproliferation."

The vote came only a day after the democratically elected government of Pakistan was overthrown in a military coup. Supporters of the nculear test ban treaty say ratification could help curb weapons production in countries like Pakistan and neighboring India, both have whom have brandished the threat of their newly acquired nuclear abilities in recent conflicts and conducted underground nuclear tests in 1998.

Technicians check out the electron injector component of the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test facility under construction at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This facility provides flash radiographic capability for the evaluation of nuclear weapons, one of several techniques to monitor the U.S. stockpile without nuclear testing. (Photo courtesy Los Alamos National Laboratory)

"This treaty makes it more likely that we could catch such things," said Clinton, noting that the pact would require the installation of 300 sensors worldwide to detect small underground explosions. "I did not ask them to ratify the Treaty as written," he said. "I asked them to ratify the treaty with the six safeguards to address objections."

The U.S. currently uses small underground explosions at the Nevada Test Site 90 miles north of Las Vegas to test the nation’s nuclear stockpile. The tests are sub-critical, meaning they do not create a nuclear chain reaction. The Department of Energy (DOE) performs these experiments in which plutonium of various ages is shocked by high explosives, to help determine whether the nuclear material in U.S. weapons is stable and still effective.

"There’s not much point having a nuclear stock pile of weapons that wouldn’t work if, God forbid, you needed to use them," said Derek Scammell, a DOE spokesman. Since 1997, the DOE has conducted seven such tests, and plans to perform a dozen or more before the end of the year 2000.

Without the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and other nuclear nonproliferation pacts in place, many nations around the world would be forced to spend a larger percentage of their budgets on national defense, short changing health, welfare and environmental programs, Clinton said.

"Imagine a world without these agreements," he said. "I believe it would be a bleak, poor, less secure world."

Clinton vowed that at the end of the day the United States would ratify the test ban treaty. "This agreement is critical to protecting the American people from the dangers of nuclear war. It is, therefore, well worth fighting for. And I assure you, the fight is far from over."