Testimony of Leonard S. Spector Center for Nonproliferation Studies Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee on improving the effectiveness of U.S. nonproliferation programs in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. I am currently Deputy Director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, based at the Center's Washington, D.C., office. The Center is the nation's largest organization for research and training on the subject of nonproliferation. Prior to joining the Center, I served during the second Clinton Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. It is a particular honor for me to appear here today because, earlier in my career, I served as Chief Counsel of this Subcommittee, and I am familiar with its many important contributions to curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). My remarks today are based on my own scholarship and experience, as well as upon those of a number of colleagues at the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies who have worked for many years on these questions, including the Center's director, Dr. William Potter. The Subcommittee has requested that I begin my remarks with a review of U.S. nonproliferation programs in the New Independent States (NIS) and that I highlight the challenges that they are currently encountering. To help the Subcommittee understand these issues I have prepared a table consolidating this information with respect to the major U.S. programs in this field. (Attachment 1.) In the interest of time, however, I will speak today only about the most significant issues that must be addressed to reduce the threats posed by the Soviet WMD legacy. I. Importance for U.S. Counter-Terrorism Policy The fundamental goal of the majority of these programs - in particular, those programs aimed at eliminating or securing fissile material and at employing Soviet WMD scientists - is to prevent terrorist organizations or states of proliferation concern from obtaining WMD materials or expertise. As such, these programs are an integral and highly important component of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. Osama bin Laden, is known to be seeking weapons of mass destruction, and, of course, recently claimed to possess chemical and nuclear weapons. (Most observers disbelieve the latter claim.) Bin Laden is also known to have extensive links, through the al Qaeda network, in the former Soviet Union. It is worth recalling the scale of the Soviet WMD legacy. The Department of Energy estimates that Russia possesses 603 tons of weapons-usable fissile materials (plutonium or highly enriched uranium) outside of nuclear weapons, enough for 41,000 new nuclear armaments. To provide a benchmark, North Korea's nuclear potential, considered a serious U.S. national security threat, is based on its apparent possession of enough plutonium for one or two nuclear devices – less than .005 percent of the Russian stockpile I described above. One shudders to imagine the mischief that Osama bin Laden might cause if he were he to obtain a comparable amount of nuclear weapons material. Russia also possesses a vast arsenal of chemical weapons, currently awaiting destruction, as well as the ability to manufacture the world's most potent biological weapons. The bulk of these various WMD materials are not subject to adequate security measures. Despite new evidence of terrorist interest in acquiring and using WMD, the Bush administration has not acted to accelerate efforts to improve security over WMD materials and expertise in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. Indeed, nearly ten months after taking office - and after a complete budget cycle - the administration is still "reviewing" U.S. nonproliferation programs in Russia, apparently unable to decide whether and/or how to pursue a number of these critically important initiatives. Inexplicably, the one point it apparently has decided is that the programs do not need additional funding and that, accordingly, no monies from the $40 billion anti-terrorism package will be used for this purpose. 2 II. Securing WMD Materials and Tactical Nuclear Weapons in the NIS3 Russia possesses the world's largest stocks of weapons of mass destruction and WMD materials. This inventory includes hundreds of tons of nuclear weapons-usable fissile material, thousands of tactical nuclear weapons, 32,000 tons of weaponized chemical weapon nerve agents, and unknown quantities of the world's most potent biological weapon (BW) agents. Nuclear weapon materials and BW agents are also located in other Soviet successor states. In addition, Russia and other NIS countries are home to WMD experts, numbering in the tens of thousands. This part of my testimony will concentrate on three areas: securing fissile material; addressing the dangers posed by tactical nuclear weapons; and reducing the threat posed by the Soviet BW legacy. Fissile Materials Tactical Nuclear Weapons. The U.S. Department of Energy has an active and highly successful cooperative program with Russia to improve the security at Russian nuclear sites, known as the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) Program. To date, however, facilities housing less than one third of Russian nuclear weapons material has received "rapid security upgrades," such as bricking up windows, installing security cameras and alarms, and hardening guard posts -- the first major step toward enhanced protection under the MPC&A program. Rapid security upgrades will not be completed on all 603 tons of fissile material until 2007, and 1 Department of Energy, Material Protection, Control, and Accounting Program Strategic Plan - 2001 (Washington, DC.: U.S. Department of Energy, July 2001). "Interview with Ambassador Robert Joseph," The Nonproliferation Review (Winter 2001), p. 3, http://www.cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol08/83/jos83.htm 3 U.S. programs to secure WMD expertise in the NIS appear to be working smoothly and will not be addressed in this portion of my remarks. However, these programs would benefit from improved strategic planning and coordination, as discussed below. "comprehensive upgrades" are not scheduled to be completed on all of this material until 2011. Surprisingly, the Bush administration's FY 2002 budget reduced funding for this program from FY 2001 levels. Although two weeks ago Congress increased support for this effort above the administration's request ($143 million to $173 million), the events of September 11 call for additional funding. Virtually every outside group that has reviewed the program has called for still higher funding levels,* and based on my knowledge of the needs of the program at the close of the Clinton administration, I believe it could be significantly accelerated if additional monies were made available. Because detailed information about the implementation of this program is difficult for outsiders to obtain, Congress should quickly review how to speed up the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting Program and should provide significant additional monies targeted at those activities that promise high impact in the near term. Given the increasing threat of WMD terrorism, waiting until 2007 for the first level of improved security at Russian nuclear sites is simply too long. One mechanism for rapidly improving security over tons of weapons material would be to open and begin loading the Mayak Fissile Material Storage Facility. The facility, built by the U.S. Department of Defense at a major Russian nuclear site in the Ural Mountains, is intended to store 25 tons of weapons plutonium. The facility is virtually complete, but a dispute continues between Moscow and Washington over the transparency measures that will be used to help provide assurance to the United States that the material housed in the facility is, indeed, weapons quality plutonium from the Russian stockpile. Russia has agreed that material stored at the site will be subject to U.S. and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring, but wants to avoid disclosing certain classified attributes of the material. Technical specialists in both countries have worked out a solution to this problem, but U.S. and Russian diplomats remain unable to finalize an agreement on this issue. Six tons of weapons material could be secured in this plutonium "Fort Knox" during 2002 if the transparency logjam could be broken. Congress should press the administration to take advantage of newly improved relations with Russia to move the Mayak Fissile Material Storage Program forward. The most effective way to improve security over nuclear materials is to eliminate them, altogether. The most successful U.S. program in this regard is the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Purchase Agreement, which each year physically transforms 30 tons of weapons-usable uranium into non-weapons usable nuclear power plant fuel, blending the highly enriched material with slightly enriched uranium. The effort is known 'See, for example, Kenneth N. Luongo, Options for Increased U.S.-Russian Nuclear Nonproliferation Cooperation and Projected Costs, (Washington, D.C.: Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, October 2001); Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler, A Report Card on the Department of Energy's Nonproliferation Programs with Russia (Washington, D.C.: Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, January 10, 2001); Matthew Bunn, The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Harvard University Managing the Atom Project, April 2000). informally as the "Megatons to Megawatts" program. To date, it has rendered harmless more than 110 tons of Russian HEU- enough, in principle, for 4,000 nuclear weapons. This is a number greater than the number of weapons usually estimated to be in the combined arsenals of all of today's nuclear powers, apart from the United States and Russia. The intellectual father of the HEU Purchase Agreement, Dr. Thomas Neff of MIT, believes that with a bit of ingenuity it would be possible at relatively modest cost to double the rate of down-blending, without flooding the market with excess uranium. He estimates that this might cost $150 million per year, but the bulk of this outlay would be recouped when the uranium was ultimately sold commercially." The Bush administration is reviewing whether to adopt this option, but it is likely to have been in office for a full year before it reaches a decision on this critical issue. This is far too long to delay moving ahead with this important initiative. Congress should require that the President to report - before Congress adjourns later this fall – on the status of this effort to accelerate the HEU Purchase Agreement and to provide clear recommendations as to how it can be expanded. The DOE Plutonium Disposition Program is a second program for eliminating fissile material, in this case plutonium. The program will render 34 metric tons of Russian weapons-grade plutonium effectively unusable for nuclear weapons. It will combine the plutonium with depleted uranium to make "mixed oxide" (MOX) fuel or use in eight Russian nuclear power plants. As a result, beginning in 2008, the plutonium will be transformed, at a rate of two metric tons per year, into highly radioactive spent fuel, many hazardous processing steps away from nuclear arms. As a show of U.S. commitment to the program, Congress has appropriated $200 million to be held available to support this effort. Unfortunately, this program is at risk of losing its way as the result of Bush administration indecisiveness. Because the elimination of plutonium is so complex and costly, this initiative requires the participation of other G-8 members, in particular France, Germany, and Japan. It had been hoped that at the Genoa Summit last July these states would announce a joint international financing plan for the program. But uncertainties regarding Bush administration support for the initiative, resulted in a collapse of U.S. diplomatic efforts to achieve this goal. Although the Bush administration ultimately supported continued funding for the program, at a reduced level, the loss of momentum with other states has set the program back at least a year. Moreover, it has been rumored that the administration may yet abandon the effort and rather than eliminate this material - enough in each country for more than 4,000 nuclear weapons - it will rely on secure long-term storage with the hope of eliminating the material in advanced nuclear reactors that may be decades away from actual operation. Congress should press the administration to move ahead aggressively with this important program. 5 I am not addressing the DOE Plutonium Disposition Program today because it will not begin to reduce the danger from Russian weapons material until late in this decade. |