Fact checking the debate fact checkers: the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

by Daryl Kimball, Arms Control Association

In the print edition of the Washington Post this morning, Jonathan Weisman's "fact checking" of the vice-presidential debate exchange on the nuclear test ban treaty can hardly be called fact checking. Weiseman says Biden was "wrong" when he said McCain opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) because "President Clinton never submitted the test ban for formal ratification because it faced overwhelming Republican opposition in a GOP-controlled Senate." Wrong.

President Clinton did transmit the CTBT to the Senate on Sept. 23, 1997 and there was a vote in the Senate on Oct. 13, 1999. McCain voted "no" but said afterwards that the Senate can and should reconsider the treaty. He repeated this in a May 27, 2008 speech. Obama and Biden have said they will pursue ratification as soon as practicable.

In 1999, most Republicans opposed the test ban treaty. Since then, there has been substantial progress on verification and maintaining the U.S. arsenal in the absence of testing, which address those earlier concerns. Consequently, former Secretaries of State Shultz and Kissinger, former Defense  Secretary Perry, and a bipartisan group of other former officials are calling for the initiation of a bipartisan process to reconsider and approve the treaty.

Daryl Kimball is executive director of the Ploughshares-funded Arms Control Association.