Clinton Rallies For Nuke Pact
Facing almost insurmountable odds, the Clinton administration is trying to round up Senate votes to ratify the global treaty signed three years ago to ban nuclear tests.
In the White House view, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, Republicans are trying to short-circuit Administration efforts to get the test ban treaty ratified by the Senate. Spokesman Joe Lockhart says Republicans scheduled a vote for next Tuesday - without allowing for adequate hearings on the treaty banning all underground or atmospheric nuclear explosions.
The White House concedes it lacks the two-thirds majority needed to ratify the pact, so the president is stepping up his efforts to win support. His spokesman said Mr. Clinton would reach out to past administrations for support, including Republican officials. The White House said it would also welcome the support of GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush.
"Given that there's only a week, we realize that we've got a lot of hard work to do," Lockhart said, adding that Mr. Clinton would make a series of public statements and telephone senators to lobby them over the next week.
"You won't find a substantive argument against the treaty, except in some dark places in the Senate," Lockhart said.
Sen. Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said the treaty would leave the United States dangerously exposed and has vowed to fight it. "The American people will be left with no defensive or offensive deterrent," Helms said last week. "It's not going to happen on my watch."
All 45 Democratic senators are expected to vote for the treaty, along with a handful of Republicans, leaving the White House about 15 votes short of the 67 it needs to prevail.
The U.S. is one of 153 nations to sign the treaty - and one of 44 in the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament that have nuclear reactors or research programs that must ratify it before it can take effect. So far, only 23 have done so.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban nuclear testing, provides for a seismic monitoring network and would give the international community a basis to act against countries which test.
Proponents say the treaty, which Mr. Clinton signed in 1996, would deter other nations from developing and refining nuclear weapons while opponents say compliance cannot be verified.
But there are key members of the Senate who disagree about the treaty who say it's going to be necessary to test again in the future to assure the reliability of the nation's nuclear stockpile, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Bill Plante.
"If there were some feeling of weakness about that stockpile, it could induce a leader of another nation or some rogue element or some terrorist to challenge the United States," said Chairman of the Armed Services Committee Sen. John Warner, R-Va.
Mr. Clinton and many in thmilitary argue that the U.S. spends billions already to keep its nukes reliable without testing. And they say that a treaty would prevent nations such as Russia, China, Iran and India from testing and deploying their own weapons. Mci and Mr. Clinton insists that the treaty will make it easier to catch cheating.
"If this treaty is ratified, there are new tools to monitor the testing levels. We'll have monitoring stations. We can do on-site visits. There's the deterrent impact of a country signing and then getting caught violating it," said Mr. Clinton.