U.S. Official Says Russian Queries Stall Arms Pact

The Russian government has raised at least 22 substantive questions about a proposed treaty to destroy two-thirds of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, apparently frustrating President Bush’s hope of completing the pact before Election Day, a senior Administration official said Thursday.

Although the official said he is confident the treaty will be completed, the procedure he outlined could take weeks or months. He provided few details but said that Moscow wants to reduce the cost of restructuring its nuclear forces to comply with the agreement.

“It is not unreasonable for the Russians to seek ways to maintain or restore their strategic arsenal by the most cost-effective means possible,” the official, who declined to be named, told reporters. “I do not see that we have reached . . . any roadblocks with the Russians.”

Bush and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin agreed last June to reduce their nuclear warheads from the current level of about 10,000 each to between 3,000 and 3,500 during the next 10 years and to ban land-based multiple-warhead missiles. They immediately signed a brief “framework agreement” and instructed diplomats to work out detailed language.

At the time, then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III predicted that the treaty could be completed in just a few weeks, by Sept. 1 at the latest. Bush, who said that the agreement would end “the nuclear nightmare,” has made no secret of his hope that the pact could be signed in time to boost his beleaguered reelection campaign.

However, the Russian military appears to have had second thoughts about the agreement, which would require destruction of all of Moscow’s SS-18 missiles, the world’s most powerful nuclear weapon. It also would ban land-based multiple-warhead missiles, which for years constituted the heart of the Soviet strategic arsenal that Russia has inherited. Sea-based multiple-warhead missiles, Washington’s favorite strategic weapon, would be allowed.

At the time the Bush-Yeltsin agreement was announced, some Russian officials grumbled that it would give the United States a permanent advantage in strategic weapons. But Yeltsin said that such considerations are outmoded because the two nations no longer are enemies.

Yeltsin clearly wanted to solidify his relationship with Bush when they met last June. He may be less concerned about that now because Bush’s reelection appears doubtful. At the very least, by delaying the negotiations, the Russian president can learn the outcome of the U.S. election before signing the pact.