The Senate's second-ranking Democratic leader thinks there are enough votes to ratify a nuclear arms treaty with Russia before year's end. But the Senate's top Republican says he will vote against ratification, according to AP. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said «we need to bring this to a vote» during the waning days of the postelection session of Congress. The Senate's point-man on the treaty, Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, said he believes there will be a vote on the treaty and it will pass. But the No. 2 Senate Republican leader, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, said «this treaty needs to be fixed» and there's not enough time to do it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he wouldn't support ratification. He made no prediction about the treaty's success or failure if it comes to a vote, and said many Republicans are just now getting deeply involved in the issue. «Members are uneasy about it, don't feel thoroughly familiar with it, and I think we would have been a lot better off to take our time,» McConnell said. «Rushing it right before Christmas strikes me as trying to jam us. ... I think that was not the best way to get the support of people like me.» The accord _ known as New START _ would limit each country's strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, down from the current ceiling of 2,200, and establish a system for monitoring and verification. U.S. weapons inspections ended a year ago with the expiration of a 1991 arms control treaty. Senate debate is expected to resume later Sunday. On Saturday, Senate Democrats deflected an initiative by Republicans that would have forced U.S. and Russian negotiators to reopen negotiations on the arms treaty. But Saturday's 59-37 vote against an amendment by Republican Sen. John McCain indicated the difficulty President Barack Obama is having in trying to win Senate ratification of the treaty before a new, more Republican Congress assumes power in January. Treaties require a two-thirds majority of those voting in the Senate, or 67 votes if all 100 senators vote. Led by McCain, Obama's Republican opponent in the 2008 presidential election, Republicans tried to strike words from the treaty's preamble that they say would allow Russia to withdraw from the pact if the U.S. develops a missile defense system in Europe. The treaty is a foreign policy priority for Obama, who signed it in April with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to call for ratification. He also tried to allay Republican doubts with a letter to McConnell, pledging to carry through with planned U.S. missile defense facilities in Romania and Poland that would be capable of intercepting a missile from Iran aimed at the U.S. As long as he is president, Obama said, the U.S., «will continue to develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect the United States, our deployed forces, and our allies and partners.» The treaty has received the backing of current and former military and national security officials, as well as former Republican President George H.W. Bush. «Ratifying a treaty like START isn't about winning a victory for an administration or a political party,» the president said. «It's about the safety and security of the United States of America.» Democrats said a reference in the treaty's preamble on missile defense systems is nonbinding and has no legal authority. In his letter, Obama said the U.S. disagrees with Russian statements about the threat that a missile defense poses to the strategic balance between the two countries. «If you change it, it requires this treaty to go back to the Russian government, and then we don't have any treaty,» Kerry said Saturday. Republican critics said Russia is using the treaty to continue its opposition to the deployment of a U.S. missile defense shield. «Russia is trying to force the United States to choose between missile defense and the treaty,» said Republican Sen. John Barrasso, who co-sponsored McCain's amendment. «In that case I choose missile defense.» Durbin and Kyl spoke on «Fox News Sunday» while Kerry appeared on ABC's «This Week.» McConnell spoke on CNN's «State of the Union.»
