""Less than a month after Obama got Osama, House Republicans still don't trust the president to safeguard U.S. national security. At least, that's only possibly explanation for this year's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed the House yesterday and is now headed to the Democrat-controlled Senate.
While the NDAA is intended to define the budget of the Department of Defense, this year's bill includes provisions that, if signed into law, would undermine a number of President Obama's signature national security initiatives, including his repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," efforts to reign in wasteful defense spending and, most significantly, the implementation of the New START nuclear agreement with Russia.
Approved by a bipartisan majority in late 2010, the New START nuclear arms control treaty requires the United States and Russia to reduce their arsenals to 1,550 deployed, strategic nuclear weapons. Considering that nearly all of these weapons are far more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such an arsenal would provide more than enough firepower for the United States to meet any conceivable national security threat. If you're not going to be deterred by 1,550 nuclear weapons, you're not going be deterred by anything. Perhaps most importantly, the treaty replaces the verification system that expired with the START I treaty, thereby providing an element of stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship.
The NDAA, however, attempts to hamper President Obama's nuclear policy in three ways. First, it bars funding for New START reductions until the Secretary of Defense and Energy Secretary certify to Congress that that the administration is on track to invest $180 billion in nuclear modernization over the next 10 years.""
What's $690 billion between friends.
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