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Romney's Hit Piece on START: 'Thoroughly Ignorant'

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Obdicut (Now with 2% less brain)7/07/2010 12:01:14 pm PDT

Here’s an example of probably the most egregious mistakes in Romney’s critique:

Romney says:

The treaty also gives far more to the Russians than to the United States. As drafted, it lets Russia escape the limit on its number of strategic nuclear warheads.”


Reality:

Again, there might have been some static on the phone line. The treaty does let Russia get by without cutting any of its strategic “delivery vehicles” (missiles and bombers). Each side is limited to 700, but Russia right now has only 600; the United States has 850, so it will have to cut back a little. However, both sides will have to reduce their warheads—the actual nuclear weapons—to 1,550. And, for what it’s worth, Russia, which now has 2,787 warheads, will have to cut back more than the United States, which now has 2,252.