GOP: Treaty might imperil missile defense

House Republicans plan to press military officials next week on the status of U.S. plans to base missile defenses in Europe and whether the latest nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia threatens the program from moving forward, according to a House Armed Services Republican aide.

The hearing before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, scheduled for Thursday, will come one week after President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a 10-year START agreement, which calls for a mutual 30 percent reduction in nuclear warheads.

While the arms pact, which requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate for ratification, does not propose any curbs on missile defense, Russia issued a "unilateral statement" at the treaty signing declaring it can pull out of the accord if it feels threatened by any buildup of U.S. missile defenses.

That could fuel Republican opposition to the treaty, as evidenced by a statement issued today by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who alluded to U.S. missile defenses as one of the issues to be explored as the Senate considers ratification of the arms pact.

"The Senate will now have an opportunity to review how this treaty and the president's budget affects the three main criteria necessary for favorable consideration: America's ability to verify compliance, its impact on our national defense against the threat of nuclear-armed missiles, and the modernization and continued strength of our nuclear arsenal," McConnell said.

In a joint statement Thursday, Senate Armed Services ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., expressed concerns that Russia's unilateral statement "has the potential to constrain improvements to U.S. missile defenses, if objected to by the Russians."

And Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, listed among his concerns: "We must make modernization our top priority and ensure there are no limitations on our missile defense capability."

But Rob Leonard, government affairs representative for the arms-control foundation Ploughshares Fund, said unilateral statements are not unusual, and he does not believe the statement, which is not legally binding, will hamstring U.S. missile defense efforts.

"Folks will potentially make a mountain out of a molehill," Leonard added.

Brian McKeon, who is leading the ratification effort, agreed in a posting on the White House blog Thursday that both countries have issued such statements at the end of treaty negotiations going back to the Nixon era. He characterized the Russian statement as "one party's view or interpretation of an issue" about which the United States "did not, and does not, agree."

"The Russian statement does no more than give the United States fair notice that it may decide to pull out of the new START Treaty if Russia believes our missile defense system affects strategic stability," said McKeon, a National Security Council adviser to Vice President Biden "We believe it doesn't, and the president has made clear that he is committed to continuing to develop and deploy that system."

Late last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that the U.S. ability to move ahead with the deployment had been an area "of concern" to many senators, but he emphasized that "missile defense is not constrained by this treaty."

For his part, Obama said at the treaty signing in Prague that he and Medvedev had "agreed to expand our discussions on missile defense," including regular exchanges on threat assessments.

Witnesses at Thursday's House hearing will include Bradley Roberts, deputy assistant Defense secretary for nuclear and missile defense policy; Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, director of the Missile Defense Agency; and Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation.

Perhaps the best barometer of Republican concerns about the threat's impact on missile defense and whether that will be an obstacle to Senate ratification will be at a similar hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee, now set for April 20.

In 2009, Obama overhauled plans to build missile defenses in Europe, focusing on near-term deployment of sea-based systems in the Mediterranean to protect against the threat of Iranian short- and mid-range missiles. He effectively scrapped the Bush administration's plans to erect long-range missile defenses and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic, close enough to Russia to trigger vigorous opposition there.