Madam Speaker, with today marking the 17th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island, this seems like an appropriate opportunity to discuss the dangers posed by nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

As I have said from this floor many, many times before, I believe there is no greater national imperative than to bring our troops home from Iraq. But the end of the war must also be the beginning of some fresh and creative thinking about national security.

We are in a desperate need, a need for new strategies for keeping America safe. Last summer, Madam Speaker, I introduced the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Commitments Act. The concept behind the bill is very simple, and it is a really good starting point. America must keep its word and live up to the agreements it has made to reduce our nuclear arsenal. But we need to go even further.

So along with the Physicians for Social Responsibility, Friends for Peace, and WAND, I have developed a plan called SMART Security. SMART stands for sensible, multilateral, American response to terrorism, which seeks peaceful and diplomatic solutions to international conflict. SMART addresses a range of issues including energy independence, democracy building, and global poverty. But at its core is a renewed commitment to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

SMART calls on the United States to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and to do it with strong diplomacy, with enhanced weapons regimes and regional security arrangements. Under SMART, we would set an example for the rest of the world by renouncing nuclear testing and development of new nuclear weapons. SMART would redouble our commitment to the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program which has been successful in reducing nuclear stockpiles and securing nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union.

SMART would stop the sale and transfer of weapons to regimes involved in human rights abuses, and it would ensure that highly enriched uranium is stored only in secure locations.

 

Mr. Speaker, at just the moment that we need to be vigilant about nuclear proliferation, the Bush administration is asking Congress to give its approval to his dangerous and misguided nuclear energy deal with India. Here he is agreeing to share sensitive nuclear technologies with a nation that was testing nuclear weapons as recently as 1998. He would essentially reward India for its refusal to sign the nonproliferation treaty, feeding the nuclear appetite of a nation that has failed to show the responsibility expected of a nuclear state.

What message does the India pact send to Iran and North Korea? What leverage do we have with these countries to give up their nuclear ambitions, especially since, despite the threats they represent, they have done actually nothing to violate their treaty obligations?

If this India agreement were ratified, how would we deal with India's neighbor and rival Pakistan, which is likely to demand the same nuclear concessions from the United States and which has a dishonorable history of sharing nuclear technology with rogue actors?

Mr. Speaker, there is a cruel irony to the U.S. nuclear policy. While we happily share nuclear technology with countries that have not always handled it responsibly, and while we continue to pursue a large and expensive nuclear arsenal of our own, we are fighting a bloody and expensive war over a nuclear weapon that never even existed. Remember, we are only in Iraq because our so-called leaders looked us in the eye and said there would be a mushroom cloud over American cities unless we sent our troops off to die.

It is time for a 180-day degree turn in our thinking about these issues. It is time we stopped equating security with aggression. It is time we rejected the doctrine of preemption, instead of reaffirming it as the Bush administration did recently. It is time we got SMART about national security.

It is time we protected America, not by invading other nations, but by relying on the very best of American values: our desire for peace, our capacity for global leadership, and our compassion for the people of the world.