Sen, Kerry and START --Boston GLobe

[MBS]

long, front-page article. Kerry working to get bipartisan support. Needless to say, the Republicans are opposed . . sigh. (By the way, why are Yoo and Bolton still around, trying to influence policy? :scared: Time to send them to an underground undisclosed location, where they can keep Cheney companay )

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/11/16/kerry_hopes_to_get_lame_duck_senate_to_ok_new_arms_treaty/

Senator John Kerry, the Obama administration’s point man in Congress on foreign policy, is racing to line up the votes for ratification of a key arms treaty with Russia before the newly elected Congress can try to block it next year.. . .
Ratification is one of President Obama’s top priorities for the lame-duck session of Congress that began this week. The effort picked up support yesterday from Roman Catholic bishops in Massachusetts, who announced they have written to Kerry and Senator Scott Brown, the Bay State Republican, to urge ratification of New START by the end of the year.

“You really hope people are going to see the benefit of moving forward,’’ Kerry said in an interview yesterday. He has been speaking frequently with Republican senators, particularly Jon Kyl of Arizona, who is leading the GOP’s response on nuclear arms issues in the Senate.

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“I think Senator Kerry is just sounding the trumpet in the hopes that nobody will pay attention to how many people he has behind him,’’ John Bolton, former adviser to President George W. Bush and the US ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-06, said in an interview yesterday. “I don’t know anyone on the Republican side who is anxious to vote on this in the lame-duck session.’’
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Inspection of Russian nuclear arms stopped last December when an earlier treaty expired. Proponents of New START say the renewal of inspections is one of the best arguments for ratification. . .
. . .
The late hour on the congressional schedule has left the treaty’s ratification in some doubt, agreed Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “It is unfortunate the votes are going to come in a lame-duck session, when some people don’t want to conduct the nation’s business,’’ he said.

Kerry, in response, said the ratification vote “couldn’t have happened months ago,’’ in part because the Senate was dealing with major legislation earlier this year, such as the health care overhaul and new Wall Street regulations. Also, he said, Republicans asked for more time to study the treaty.


Not everyone on the Russian side is keen on New START, either, according to Nikolai Sokov, a former Russian arms negotiator, now a senior research associate and a specialist in nuclear nonproliferation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
“If there is someone who would be privately happy about the US Senate rejecting New START, it’s the Russian military,’’ said Sokov, who participated in negotiations for two prior START treaties. The Russian military, he said, sees the verification regime in New START as disruptive and expensive.
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The treaty’s prospects this year will rest largely on Kerry’s ability to bring along his fellow senators, according to Bolton, now a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Success or failure,’’ he said, “depends on how persuasive Kerry is.’’