tion and the Chemical Weapons Convention are intended to compel governments to abandon their weapons programs.

Moreover, full and effective implementation of these treaties applies to the subnational actor security threat in three important ways. First, the fewer governments that maintain chemical or biological weapons programs, the fewer places terrorists can turn to for help with weapons materials and expertise.

Second, the CWC, but not at present the BWC, requires states to outlaw offensive weapons activities domestically. The CWC approaches its fifth anniversary with 145 members, all now obligated to have enacted penal laws that hold individuals accountable.

Third, treaties can block weapons proliferation via the incorporation of export controls. Three years after the CWC was activated, treaty members were barred from trading so-called Schedule II chemicals with countries that had not joined. Should the CWC's members decide this fall to apply export controls to the more widely traded Schedule III chemicals, states that remain outside of this treaty would incur tremendous economic hardship. Moreover, the CWC would have significantly amplified the practice of multilateral export controls by having almost five times the number of countries in the Australia Group enforce export controls on hundreds of chemicals.

As you know, midway through 2001 the Bush Administration rejected the draft BWC monitoring protocol, a decision with which I agree. My agreement is based on the advice of 35 technical experts, top-notch experts from the U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, research institutes, universities, defense contractors, and veterans of the two U.S. trial inspections to see how the BWC could be monitored. There are a number of reasons why this protocol should have been rejected, which I will be delighted to elaborate on in Q and A.

In November of this past year the Bush Administration proposed several alternatives to monitor the BWC, some of which are downright puzzling. For example, putting investigations of suspicious disease outbreaks and alleged biowarfare incidents in the hands of the U.N. Secretary General suffers the same handicap as the current structure; namely, the possible politicization and delay of challenge inspections.

Another baffling proposal involves voluntary nonchallenge visits. Not to mince words, but why would a BWC violator invite inspectors into its midst unless it had taken extreme care to clean up all evidence of cheating prior to issuing the invitation?

The Bush Administration also advanced proposals with significant merit, as Mrs. Harris has described, to strengthen the security of access to pathogenic microorganisms, to have governments oversee high-risk experiments with pathogens, to establish professional scientific codes of conduct, to improve disease surveillance, and to require BWC members to pass legislation criminalizing offensive bioweapons activities. The common downfall of these proposals is that the Bush Administration would leave it to each of the BWC's 141 members to set their own domestic standard; to wit, country A could enact a criminalization law with slap-on-the-wrist penalties

As for the CWC, which has enjoyed a relatively strong launch in its first 5 years, this treaty clearly could be working better. One need only ask a U.S. official or discretely circulate among the treaty's cognoscenti to hear whispers of compliance problems, yet no challenge inspections have been requested to address these concerns. The reasons for these circumstances lie largely in how the United States has implemented this treaty.

When the Senate gave its advice and consent to the CWC's ratification and Congress passed the treaty's implementing legislation, the bills were spiked with exemptions that deprived the inspectors of their two strongest tools; namely, challenge inspections and laboratory analysis of samples. Officials from other nations, including Russia and China, have privately told me that their countries would not hesitate to cite the U.S. exemptions to hold inspectors at bay.

In this day and age it would be foolhardy to neglect any viable mechanism that can reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction. I will conclude with a few recommendations to improve the performance of these treaties.

I would ask that Congress and the Bush Administration waste no time in taking the appropriate steps to see that the CWC is fully implemented and that all reasonable efforts are made to strengthen the BWC with a panoply of monitoring tools. U.S. policymakers must push this year to add Schedule III chemicals to the export control list and also overturn the aforementioned exemptions, restoring full power to the CWC's inspectors. Please give these inspectors a fighting chance to catch treaty violators. Otherwise the United States will have no one to blame but itself for this treaty's weakened condition.

Second, Congress should insist that the Bush Administration fulfil Public Law 106-113 and conduct BWC monitoring trials at various sites. Should such trials show that meaningful monitoring results can be achieved at a tolerable cost, then regular or random nonchallenge inspections would be far preferable to the proposed voluntary visits. Moreover, to have a chance of being effective, challenge inspections must be as automatic and as distanced as possible from politics.

Finally, to make the other BWC monitoring proposals more effective, the United States should add tough standards that make the desired changes reasonably uniform, not hit or miss. Thank you. Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Dr. Smithson. Dr. Walsh, your statement, please.

TESTIMONY OF JIM WALSH, Ph.D.,1 RESEARCH FELLOW, BELFER CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, JOHN F. KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Dr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today about an issue that I think is of singular importance to U.S. national security, and that is nuclear terrorism. What I would like to do in my brief remarks is focus on three of the questions that

I raise in my written testimony. Those questions are: First, are multilateral nuclear treaties effective? Second, where do multilateral treaties fit in a broader strategy against nuclear terrorism? And finally third, what is the role for Congress?

Let us begin with the first question: Are multilateral nuclear regimes effective? Of course, multilateral nuclear institutions come in a variety of forms. Some are treaties, like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, and the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials. Others are informal multilateral groups like the Nuclear Suppliers Group, while still others, like UNSCOM and KEDO, are at hoc agencies that were developed in response to a particular crisis.

Now, of course, creating a multilateral institution is one thing but having an effective multilateral institution is quite something else. Some multilateral institutions have been tremendous successes while others have been abject failures. How are we to judge the regime, the nuclear regime and the way it has performed? I would like to take just a minute and look in particular at the role of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and related regime components and their effect on the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.

After 50 years the most striking feature of the nuclear age is that there are so few nuclear weapon states, far fewer than predicted by virtually every expert and every policy-maker. As one observer noted, "Almost all published predictions of the spread of nuclear weapons have turned out to be too pessimistic." Perhaps the most famous or infamous prediction of nuclear proliferation was offered by President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy warned that in 10 years-this was back in the early 1960's-that in 10 years an additional 21 countries might develop nuclear weapons. And published work at the time from universities, from think-tanks and defense intelligence estimates endorsed that prediction. As one commentator put it, "The belief was common that the nuclear spread has proceeded and would continue to proceed as fast as the technology would take it." The French military theorist Pierre Gallois observed that proliferation was as irreversible as the generalization of fire arms.

Yet the results have been far different than those predictions. An overwhelming majority of nuclear-capable countries have opted to forego nuclear weapons and, over time, the rate of proliferation has actually declined. Let me repeat that, that the rate of proliferation has actually declined. After peaking in the 1960's the number of new nations joining the nuclear club each decade has gone steadily downhill and several nations that built or inherited nuclear weapons South Africa, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan-chose to renounce their nuclear weapons.

When in history, asked one scholar, have so many nations had the capability to produce a powerful weapon and chosen not to exercise it? Indeed, I would argue that the absence of widespread proliferation may be the greatest unheralded public policy success of the 20th Century.

A key factor in the success was the establishment of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Archival documents, interviews with

gests that the NPT had a decisive impact on the spread of nuclear weapons.

Now it should be emphasized that the nuclear non-proliferation regime is not a magic bullet. Several factors in addition to the NPT have contributed to nuclear restraint and, like any policy instrument, the non-proliferation regime suffers from imperfections and trade-offs. The record suggests, however, that many of those earlier predictions of widespread proliferation would have come true in the absence of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Let me turn to the second question. How can these multilateral instruments fit into a broader strategy to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism? It seems to me that any strategy to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism should recognize at least two principles. The first principle is that the United States is only as secure as the weakest link in international security. Applied to the issue of nuclear terrorism, what that means is that the security of nuclear materials and nuclear technology is determined not by the level of security at the most protected facilities but rather, by the level of security at the least protected facilities.

The second principle, and I think it is self-evident, is that it is better to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction than trying to stop them after they have already gotten them.

Together these principles suggest that in the field of WMD terrorism, homeland security begins abroad. The United States has to improve its level of domestic security-I think that is obvious-particularly in the areas of aviation and infectious disease, but that will not be enough. We cannot wait for terrorists to acquire nuclear materials and then try to stop them once they are bound for America on their deadly mission.

Instead, homeland defense abroad suggests five policy objectives. One, prevent and otherwise reduce the number of nuclear weapon states. Two, reduce the number of states with stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Three, secure all remaining nuclear weapons materials and facilities. Four, increase the number of area and interstate nuclear checkpoints. And five, develop the capacity to quickly identify and trace nuclear materials.

All of these objectives lend themselves to multilateral regimes. These regimes provide a way to build the first line of defense against nuclear terrorism. Moreover, they do so in a way that is financially and politically prudent. The United States cannot singlehandedly improve the security of all the world's nuclear installations. Such a task is neither financially nor politically feasible. Working with other nations through multilateral nuclear regimes provides a practical alternative for reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Finally, let me turn to the third question: What is the role of Congress? And here I am going to talk about nuclear terrorism in particular and I can talk more generally about non-proliferation in the Q and A if there is interest there.

There are a number of actions that Congress might take to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism. These legislative responses fall generally into one of three categories: Oversight, appropriations,

First, oversight. Congressional oversight can be a powerful tool for change. Hearings, annual reporting requirements and appropriations tied to certification can focus the attention of the executive, the bureaucracy and the public. Given the events of the last several months, there are a number of things Congress might do in this area and I will just name one here.

Congress should insist on all available information about nuclear terrorism. Congress cannot fulfill its legislative responsibilities without such information and yet much of it is scattered or being withheld from the public domain. A variety of news organizations, including the Times of London and CNN, have their own cache of documents collected from al Qaeda safehouses and training facilities. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense and various executive agencies have their own set, a separate set of documents, as well as the results of prisoner interviews and the results of forensics tests. Most of this information can be made available without endangering sources and methods.

This is a small but critical step in the fight against nuclear terrorism. The history of WMD terrorism suggests that it is self-defeating for the executive to maintain a monopoly over information. Most of the important nuclear initiatives of recent years have had their origins outside the executive-in Congress, for example, with cooperative threat reduction, in university research centers, and with nongovernmental organizations.

If Congress is going to pursue new approaches to WMD terrorism and if scholars are going to provide independent assessments of the dangers and opportunities, then Congress has to take the lead in seeing that the relevant information is available.

Second, appropriations. Progress against nuclear terrorism will not be possible without financial resources. Unfortunately, efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism have not been a funding priority. This year billions of dollars will be devoted to new weapon systems and other activities whose purpose is to respond to a terrorist attack and yet only a tiny fraction of this amount will be expended on efforts that would prevent WMD terrorism from taking place in the first place.

In the past, Congress has used its power over the purse to ensure that funds were devoted to the problem of nuclear terrorism even in the face of executive and bureaucratic indifference. Today the need for Congressional leadership is stronger than ever before. With rising deficits and a long list of interests lining up for their share of the anti-terrorism funds, this will not be easy. But success in the fight against nuclear terrorism depends on continued leadership from Congress. Congress must find a way not only to fund efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism but fund them at a scale commensurate with the size of the problem—at a scale commensurate with the size of the problem.

Finally and quickly, third, policy innovation. One of the most exciting areas where Congress can contribute to nuclear security is in the field of policy innovation. For reasons of time let me simply list some of these areas.

One, internationalizing the concept of cooperative threat reduction beyond the Soviet Union. Cooperative threat reduction started