Obama secures GOP votes for US-Russia nuclear pact

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama locked up enough Senate Republican votes Tuesday to ratify a new arms control treaty with Russia that would cap nuclear warheads for both former Cold War foes and restart on-site weapons inspections.

Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in a 67-28 proxy vote to wind up the debate and hold a final tally on Wednesday. They broke ranks with the Senate's top two Republicans and were poised to give Obama a bipartisan win on his top foreign policy priority.

"We know when we've been beaten," Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah told reporters hours before the vote.

Ratification requires two-thirds of those voting in the Senate and Democrats need at least nine Republicans to overcome the opposition of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Jon Kyl of Arizona, the party's point man on the pact.

The Obama administration has made arms control negotiations the centerpiece of resetting its relationship with Russia, and the treaty was critical to any rapprochement.

Momentum for the accord accelerated earlier in the day Tuesday - the seventh day of debate - when Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, announced his support.

The treaty will leave the United States "with enough nuclear warheads to blow any attacker to kingdom come," Alexander said on the Senate floor, adding, "I'm convinced that Americans are safer and more secure with the New START treaty than without it."

"START" stands for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Five other Republican senators - Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Robert Bennett of Utah and Thad Cochran of Mississippi - said they would back the pact.

"We are on the brink of writing the next chapter in the 40-year history of wrestling with the threat of nuclear weapons," Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., said after the vote.

Obama has insisted the treaty is a national security imperative that will improve cooperation with Russia, an argument loudly echoed by the nation's military and foreign policy leaders, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and six Republican secretaries of state.

In a fresh appeal for ratification, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the treaty would "strengthen our leadership role in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and provide the necessary flexibility to structure our strategic nuclear forces to best meet national security interests."

Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a rare visit to the Capitol Tuesday to lobby lawmakers.

Conservative foes of the accord - among them possible GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty - argue the treaty would restrict U.S. options on a missile defense system to protect America and its allies and lacks sufficient procedures to verify Russia's adherence.

"The administration did not negotiate a good treaty. They went into the negotiations it seems to me with the attitude with the Russians just like the guy who goes into the car dealership and says, 'I'm not leaving here until I buy a car,"' Kyl said.

That opposition withered in the face of forceful statements from the military establishment, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen who said Monday that the treaty "enhances our ability to do that which we in the military have been charged to do: protect and defend the citizens of the United States."

Obama, who postponed his holiday vacation, lobbied hard for the Senate to complete the treaty before January when Republicans increase their numbers by five and the accord's outlook would be bleak.

Weeks after Republicans routed Democrats at the polls - seizing control of the House and strengthening their numbers in the Senate - Obama has prevailed in securing overwhelming bipartisan approval of a tax deal with Republicans and getting repeal of the 17-year-old ban on openly gay military members, a crucial issue with the party's liberal base.

The White House had made steady progress in its efforts to persuade Republican lawmakers despite McConnell and Kyl's opposition.

Later in the day, Democrats turned back Republican efforts to change the treaty, rejecting an amendment to add mention of rail-based launchers on a 63-32 vote and another to delay the treaty until U.S. military equipment confiscated during Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia was returned. That measure failed, 61-32.

Any changes to the treaty would effectively kill the pact, sending it back to negotiators.

The treaty, signed by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April, specifically would limit each country's strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, down from the current ceiling of 2,200. It also would establish a system for monitoring and verification. U.S. weapons inspections ended a year ago with the expiration of a 1991 treaty.

In announcing his support, Alexander said he was reassured by a letter from Obama, in which the president reiterated his commitment to modernizing the remaining nuclear arsenal with projected spending of $85 billion over 10 years. A significant amount of that money would go to nuclear facilities at Los Alamos, N.M., and Oak Ridge, Tenn., a critical issue with Alexander and Corker.

"My administration will pursue these programs and capabilities for as long as I am president," Obama wrote in letters to Republican Sens. Alexander and Cochran and Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Daniel Inouye.

All 57 members of the Democratic caucus are expected to back the treaty; Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., underwent cancer surgery on Monday and is likely to miss the vote. Republicans who have previously announced they will vote for the treaty are Richard Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts and George Voinovich of Ohio.

"I think it's going to pass and more than just pass," Corker told reporters.

Announcing they would oppose the treaty were Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Utah's Orrin Hatch, a Republican facing re-election in 2012 and a possible primary challenge from tea party-backed candidates.