WASHINGTON - Sen. David Vitter, R-La., says President Barack Obama did the right thing to cancel his scheduled summit next month with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Vitter said the president also should reconsider his plan to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal. "The President's decision to cancel his trip to Russia is the right one because they are clearly...
WASHINGTON - Sen. David Vitter, R-La., says President Barack Obama did the right thing to cancel his scheduled summit next month with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Vitter said the president also should reconsider his plan to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
"The President's decision to cancel his trip to Russia is the right one because they are clearly at odds with us on so many key issues," Vitter said Thursday in a statement. "For this same reason, the President must rethink his push to significantly reduce our nuclear arsenal, which would erode our deterrence with dangerous threats in the world only multiplying."
Aides to Obama, who is still attending a meeting of the Group of 20 nations in St. Petersburg, Russia, a few days after the now cancelled Moscow summit, have cited a number of reasons for not meeting one-on-one with Putin.
The most immediate is Putin's decision to grant temporary asylum to Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked information about a previously secret U.S. surveillance program. But they also cited Russia's continued support for Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad in his brutal suppression of an insurgent effort to topple him from power, and disagreements on human rights, arms control and trade issues.
Vitter and 18 U.S. senators recently sent Secretary of State John Kerry a letter requesting an outline of the Administration's plans to carry out their proposed nuclear deterrent capability cuts of up to one third of current capacity, and expressing the need to seek congressional approval. The senators cited a concern over what they said was apparent disregard of the U.S.'s existing agreements.
Additionally, last week Vitter and 13 other Senators urged the Department of Defense to stop doing business with a Russian arms firm that is helping Bashar al-Assad kill his own people. Vitter is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.