White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has accused Republican senator Jim DeMint of attempting to delay ratification of a new strategic arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia.
DeMint suggested reading out the entire text of the treaty, which is 17 pages long, with 170 pages of accompanying legislation, as part of the U.S. Senate’s debate on the treaty’s ratification.
“While some express concern that the Senate doesn’t have time to debate the treaty, Senator DeMint wants to waste 12 hours to read the text of a treaty that has been available to every member of the Senate and the public for more than eight months,” Gibbs said.
“Every minute that the START treaty is being read on the Senate floor increases the time that we lack verification of Russia’s nuclear arsenal,” Gibbs said. “It is the height of hypocrisy to complain that there is not enough time to consider this treaty, while wasting so much time reading aloud a document that was submitted to the Senate months ago.”
He added that the treaty was the subject of nearly 20 Senate hearings and 1,000 questions, was supported by former U.S. president George W. Bush, Republican Secretaries of State, NATO, and the military leadership of the United States of America.
The U.S. Senate began debates on the ratification of a new strategic arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia on Wednesday.
Discussions of a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia were included into the agenda of the U.S. Senate's December 13 session. However, the higher chamber of the Congress debated tax documents instead.
U.S. President Barack Obama earlier promised that the Senators would ratify the strategic accord with Russia before Christmas.
Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the new arms reduction treaty on April 8 in Prague to replace the START 1 agreement that expired in December 2009.
The new Russian-U.S. pact obligates both nations to cap their fielded strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 warheads, while the number of deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles must not exceed 800 on either side.
The agreement will come into force after simultaneous ratification by both chambers of the Russian parliament and the U.S. Senate.
WASHINGTON, December 15 (RIA Novosti)
