Obama govt poised to slash nuclear arsenal

The Obama administration, reversing the Bush government’s limited interest in nuclear disarmament, is gearing up for early negotiations with Russia on a new treaty that would slash stockpiles of nuclear warheads.

Secretary of state Hillary Clinton has notified Congress and her staff that she intends to get started quickly on talks with the Russians, who have voiced interest in recent weeks in settling on a new treaty that would provide cutbacks in arsenals on both sides.

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expires at the end of the year. It limited the US and Russia to 6,000 nuclear warheads each. The American stockpile is believed to be about 2,300 warheads, and the Russians’ even lower.

Mrs Clinton’s spokesman, Robert Wood, said the new administration was serious about negotiating reductions in nuclear weapons. A replacement treaty for Start “will be put on a fast track”, Mr Wood said.

President Barack Obama said during the campaign that he would seek verifiable reductions in all US and Russian nuclear weapons. Mrs Clinton told Congress last month that deep reductions were the goal.

She has told her staff she intends to get started quickly on talks with the Russians, said an administration official who spoke anonymously .

Some crucial arms control posts in the new administration have not been filled, however, and that might slow preparations for talks.

“I can’t give you a time frame when we will be able to complete a review,” Mr Wood said yesterday. In that vein, he said, the administration was “clearly committed to reducing the numbers” but had not decided how deeply to slash.

Internal talks on what position the US should take in overall disarmament have begun within the State Department and with the White House, said officials aware of the discussions.

Those discussions were expected to speed up when the key posts were filled, said the officials.

While the officials said they hoped the nomination process and Senate confirmation would not take long, they did not know when the administration would be ready for talks with the Russians.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the private Arms Control Association, said “it appears that reductions down to 1,000 warheads are possible”. That would be a cut of more than 50% on the US side.

In 2002, President George Bush and Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed on a treaty that set as a target 1,700 to 2,000 deployed strategic warheads by 2012.