October 3, 1999
Web posted at: 8:53 p.m. EDT (0053 GMT)

In this story: CIA report causes stir White House faces uphill battle RELATED STORIES, SITES

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- The Clinton administration launched an offensive Sunday to gain support for U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

"We're about to start a great debate on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to end nuclear testing, something (Presidents) Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy wanted," President Bill Clinton said during a fund-raising event in Los Angeles.

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CNN's Chris Black reports suddenly after a surprise offer to bring the treaty up for a vote last week the treaty is now topic A on Capitol Hill. Windows Media 28K 80K

The White House was surprised last week when Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., unexpectedly scheduled an October 12 vote on the treaty, which had languished in committee for two years.

The treaty -- signed by 154 nations -- calls for an outright ban on nuclear testing. But only 23 of the 44 "nuclear capable" nations that signed the agreement have since ratified it.

Republican anxieties over the treaty stem from the CIA's inability to monitor low-level nuclear tests accurately enough to ensure compliance.

The Washington Post, quoting senior U.S. officials, reported Sunday that Russia had carried out two tests last month in the Arctic, but intelligence data from seismic sensors and other monitoring equipment could not determine the exact nature of those trials.

The Clinton administration contends that those shortcomings provide reasons to ratify the treaty.

"We don't know that there was any testing going on," White House Chief of Staff John Podesta told CNN on Sunday. "This is really an argument for the treaty."

Podesta said that the treaty provides for 300 "new seismic monitoring sites" and would give the international community a strong basis for action against any country found to have conducted tests.

Lott's spokesman, John Czwartacki, said Sunday that Lott opposes the treaty for several reasons. The "verifiability issue" is one, he said, "but that's not the primary one."

He said testing is a vital part of maintaining U.S, nuclear stockpiles at a time when "North Korea is making strides in its nuclear program, and China, through ill-gotten means, also is making progress in its program."

CIA Director George Tenet is scheduled to give secret briefings in Congress and testify in private hearings this week. He is likely to be questioned about low-level testing.

Struggling for the 67 votes needed for ratification, the White House has lined up dozens of retired generals, Nobel laureates and former lawmakers to lobby the Republican-controlled Senate.

Defense Secretary William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine, is cutting short his trip to Asia and will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. The administration hopes to convince Republicans that treaty ratification is a bipartisan issue.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, President George Bush signed a limited testing moratorium to take effect October 1, 1992, for nine months. President Clinton continued the moratorium and signed the comprehensive global treaty in 1996.

The United States conducted its last nuclear test in September 1992 and now relies on computer simulations to test its arsenal.

Correspondent Chris Black and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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