By Emelie Rutherford

As Congress held the first hearing yesterday on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and Russia, supporters emphasized the pact would not limit U.S. missile-defense and prompt-global-strike efforts.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said some misconceptions about the treaty, which President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed April 8, need to be cleared up during the Senate ratification process.

The Obama administration has issued “a unilateral statement that said nothing in the treaty would limit U.S. efforts to develop current or future missile-defense systems,” Casey said yesterday morning at the Center for American Progress liberal think tank in Washington. “That’s one argument that we’ll have to deal with more than once.”

Former Defense Secretary William Perry also emphasized, during a hearing of Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday afternoon, that the Pentagon’s development of ballistic missile defense (BMD) would not be constrained by the treaty. The preamble cites the need for a balance between strategic offensive and defensive systems, he noted.

“Indeed, this treaty modestly enhances the ability to develop missile defenses, in that retired strategic missiles required for development of BMD are no longer constrained under the terms of New START,” Perry said in prepared testimony.

Perry and Casey noted that the treaty would ban the conversion of ICBM and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers for missile-defense purposes. Yet they said the Pentagon, regardless, does not want to convert any more ICBM silos for ground-based interceptors. And Missile Defense Agency head Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly recently told lawmakers converting SLBM launchers would be “very unattractive and extremely expensive,” Casey noted.

“So, this limitation will have no practical impact on our BMD systems,” Perry said.

Still, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said some senators want to know more about the limits in the treaty on the deployment of U.S. interceptor missiles in existing strategic-missile launchers.

“The administration must elaborate on how these provisions constitute no constraint on our missile defense plans, as it claims,” Lugar said in prepared remarks.

Casey maintained another misconception exists that the new START treaty would limit the Pentagon’s efforts to develop a conventional prompt-global-strike weapon.

“The treaty in no way prevents the United States from building and deploying conventionally-armed ballistic missiles,” Casey said.

Perry highlighted that the New START agreement directly addresses the United States’ need to modernize its nuclear deterrent and infrastructure. The fifth article of the treaty states “modernization and replacement of strategic offensive arms may be carried out.”

Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget proposal includes a “substantial” funding increase of $624 billion over FY ’10 levels for maintaining the stockpile and modernizing the infrastructure, Casey noted. The Obama administration killed the Reliable Replacement Warhead program the Bush White House tried to launch.

“I hope those who have expressed concern with the safety, security, and effectiveness of the arsenal will join us in an effort to ensure that the president’s budget for our arsenal is protected during the appropriations process,” Casey said. “We’ll see what happens there. Stay tuned.”

Lugar, meanwhile, cited additional matters he wanted the Obama administration to clarify. Those include when it sees conventional weapons replacing nuclear weapons and if experts truly will be able to keep the nuclear stockpile safe under new rules.

Lugar, still, joined Casey and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) in predicting the Senate will ratify the New START treaty, with the required 67 votes.

The Senate overwhelmingly approved the START I Treaty in 1992, the START II Treaty in 1996 and the Moscow Treaty in 2003.

The New START treaty would set aggregate limits of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads for the United States and Russia, down from 2,200 now. It also calls for lowering the number of allowed launchers to 800 and total nuclear missiles and heavy bombers to 700.