Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you. Mr. SOKOLSKI. You are on the right track. Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you. Ms. NAPOLITANO. Well, I appreciate it. Mr. BEREUTER. The gentlelady's time has expired. Mr. BEREUTER. Sorry. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. McCotter is recognized. Mr. McCOTTER. Thank you. Just a quick question maybe you can help me with. It seems that there are two elements, there is nonproliferation, preventing it. You have the states that are bent on acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. We have heard a lot about how to deal with that. My question is, the imperative of states to facilitate the provision of mass destruction to these countries, and it seems that during the Cold War, one of the driving reasons for some of the potential proliferation, the provision of it, was ideological. In the United States, free market, there is communism and so forth. What I find fascinating, and please correct me if I am wrong, but nowadays it seems much more likely that the intent is motivation of providing the technology is greed, and that there is a whole lot of money and that a whole of states have engaged in this for precisely economic reasons. There was no rather survival of the state to help arm our allies against the potential enemy. There was no need strategically to foster alliances in the provision of this. So it just boils down to greed. My question would be, what are we doing to address that aspect of it; not just the acquisition, the desire for acquisition by some states, but the desire to provide this material for economic reasons? Mr. SOKOLSKI. Yes, my hunch is that the amount of money made from the sales of the kind of technology that Iran, North Korea and Pakistan sell to one another or receive from places like Russia or China is far less than the political capital that might be gained in tormenting the United States, its allies, and their interests. And so it is a good exchange ratio that bears less relation to profit than it does to power. I would submit that that is probably a better place to begin, and then to the extent that Russia simply wants to make a buck, yes, you have a different set of concerns, but that has to do with something else. Their infrastructure to make nuclear power and rocketry is way too large; worse than ours, if you will. They did not downsize properly. Mr. MCCOTTER. Just quick, and then I will stop, but I find it hard to believe that you are telling me that Russia will risk arming Iran with nuclear weapons when they are cash strapped and everything simply to irritate us when I think they have shown from the Putin government they are more than willing to have our cooperation and help with the economic rebuilding. But thank you. Mr. BEREUTER. The time of the gentleman expired. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Lee, is recognized. I, too, apologize for the delay in not being here and not able to hear your testimony, so forgive me if these two questions are redundant. I had intended to ask Secretary Bolton this question, but I believe I will ask Mr. Sokolski to answer, at least my first question with regard to nonproliferation in other countries. Of course, we are calling for nonproliferation efforts in other countries, yet we are continuing to develop new nuclear weapon technologies ourselves. So what effect with the United States research and design on low-yield nuclear weapon and nuclear earth penetrators have on our own nonproliferation efforts? And then secondly, for anyone on the panel I guess, I would like to ask you, given the Administration's view and policy with regard to the doctrine of preemption, the use of first strike, including the use of armed force to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, how will we deal with states that give us no pretext for arms and intervention as Iraq did with its invasion of Kuwait? Mr. SOKOLSKI. Let me see now, I have two defenders, earth penetrators, preemption, and what else? Ms. LEE. No, the first question, just in terms of the development. Mr. SOKOLSKI. All right. Ms. LEE. The development of new nuclear weapons technologies Mr. SOKOLSKI. Sure. Ms. LEE [continuing]. That we are engaged in. Mr. SOKOLSKI. Okay. Ms. LEE. What effect does this research have in our efforts with regard to our position with regard to nonproliferation in other countries? Mr. BEREUTER. We will have to consider that Mr. SOKOLSKI. Not much because it is still a study, and your point is well taken if we do much more than what it is that we are currently doing. Ms. LEE. So as long as it remains in the research phase and study phase Mr. SOKOLSKI. Well, we have Ms. LEE [continuing]. It should not have an impact? Mr. SOKOLSKI. Much more, much more, and I am going to be vague and we will take it up probably afterward. Mr. BEREUTER. I regret that with this valuable panel here we need to proceed. Chairman Hyde will be here shortly to introduce Secretary Bolton. It is has been a fascinating and very intriguing and informative session, and I hope we can provide additional time to these gentlemen the future. It would be appreciated if the witnesses can respond to any written questions from the remaining Members who wanted to testify, and recommend to Chairman Hyde that these Members be placed first on the list for the next panel in terms of questioning. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming and giving us some of your insight. It is very much appreciated. [Pause.] Chairman HYDE [presiding]. We will begin the second panel, and take great pleasure in welcoming John R. Bolton, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Prior to his appointment Mr. Bolton was Senior Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute, and has spent many years in public service. From 1989 to 1993, he was Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs at the Department of State; and from 1985 to 1989, he was Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice. Mr. Bolton has also served as general counsel and assistant administrator for program and policy coordination at US Agency for International Development. We certainly welcome you, Mr. Bolton, and I know of the deep complexity of the subject matter, so it is kind of difficult to confine your remarks to 5 minutes, so do the best you can, and with the understanding that your full statement will be made a part of the record, and please proceed. STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN R. BOLTON, UNDER SECRETARY FOR ARMS CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Mr. BOLTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here today, and I will try and summarize my remarks as you suggest. On May 31, in Krakow, Poland, President Bush announced a new effort to combat weapons of mass destruction called The Proliferation Security Initiative. Our goal is to work with other concerned states to develop new means to disrupt the proliferation trade at sea, in the air, and on land. The initiative reflects the need for a more dynamic, active approach to the global proliferation problem. It envisions partnerships of states working in concert employing their national capabilities to develop a broad range of legal, diplomatic, economic, military and other tools to interdict threatening shipments of WMD and missile-related equipment and technologies. To jump start this initiative, we have begun working with several close allies and friends to expand our ability to stop and seize suspected WMD transfers. Over time we will extend this partnership as broadly as possible to keep the world's most destructive weapons away from our shores and out of the hands of our enemies. The aim ultimately, not just to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, but also to eliminate or roll back such weapons from rogue states and terrorist groups that already possess them or are close to doing so. While we stress peaceful and diplomatic solutions to the proliferation threat, as President Bush has said repeatedly, we rule out no options. To do so would give the proliferators the safe haven they do not deserve and pose a risk to our innocent civilian population and those of our friends and allies. Mr. Chairman, in the statement I treat at some length the three axis of evil countries. First, in the case of Iraq, where we are actively following up the terms of Resolution 1441, and developing substantial resources toward ensuring Iraq's full disarmament. We have developed a comprehensive approach to identifying, assessing and eliminating Iraq's WMD program and delivery systems, and to ensuring productive peaceful employment for Iraq's scientists and technicians. This effort is based on three initial activities: First, interviewing and obtaining cooperation from key Iraqi personnel; second, accessing, assessing and exploiting a number of sensitive sites; and third, obtaining and exploiting documents, computer hard drives and so on. We have recently begun deploying the Iraq survey group, a significant expansion of our hunt for Iraqi WMD capabilities composed of some 1400 people from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, and we are anticipating that their activities will bear fruit, and I would be happy to talk about that more in the question and answer part. On Iran, we have seen for some time indications of the clandestine effort to develop nuclear weapons. The United States and its allies expressed concern this weekend at the Evian G-8 Summit about Iran's covert nuclear weapons program stating, and I quote, "We will not ignore the proliferation implications of Iran's advanced nuclear program, and that we offer our strongest support to comprehensive IAEA examination of the country's nuclear program." The world has put Iran on notice that it must stop pursuing nuclear weapons. One unmistakable indicator of military intent is the secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding Iran's nuclear activities. Iran did not disclose its uranium enrichment facility or its heavy water production facility to the IAEA until construction was so far along that an opposition group made them public. Iran has a long history of denying the IAEA full access to its nuclear program and continues to refuse to accept the IAEA's strength and safeguards additional protocol despite calls by IAEA Director General El Baradei and many others to do so. Another troublesome indicator of the true nature of the Irani nuclear program is that the cover stories put forward for the development of the nuclear fuel cycles and for individual facilities are simply not credible. For example, Iran is making an enormous investment in facilities to mine, process, and enrich uranium, and says it needs to make its own reactor fuel because it cannot count on foreign supplies. But for the next decade Iran will have at most a single power reactor, and Russia has committed itself to supply all the fuel for the lifetime of that reactor. In addition, Iran does not have enough indigenous uranium resources to fuel even one reactor over its lifetime. So we are being asked to believe that Iran is building uranium enrichment capacity to make fuel for reactors that do not exist from uranium Iran does not have. Iran would have us believe it is building a massive uranium enrichment facility without having tested centrifuge machines and building a heavy water production plant with no evident use for the product. The more credible explanation is that Iran is building the infrastructure to produce highly enriched uranium in centrifuges and plutonium in a heavy water moderated reactor. Finally, there is Iran's claim that it is building massive and expensive nuclear fuel cycle facilities to meet future electricity needs while preserving oil and gas for exports. Mr. Chairman, I have two charts I would just like to show you. I wish I had-I could put them up on your screen, but two charts that I will distribute copies to the Committee. Both these charts were prepared by our colleagues at the Department of Energy and it shows quadrillions of British thermal units of energy available to Iran from its indigenous energy supplies. When you see 520 quadrillion btu of oil, 829 quadrillion btu of gas, and 6 quadrillion of btu of uranium, in short, this is a country that floats on a sea of gas and oil with a minimum amount of uranium, completely belying the claims that Iran is developing a nuclear fuel cycle in order to allow it to preserve its oil and natural gas. The facts simply do not support that. The second, again this is a chart supplied by our colleagues at the Department of Energy, Iran, unlike the United States and most other sophisticated oil and gas developers, flares or vents natural gas that is produced in association with oil drilling, which is both wasteful economically and environmentally hazardous as well. This is the amount of billion cubic feet per year of natural gas that is vented or flared in Iran, and you can see it is roughly 4,000 billion cubic feet for the most current figures we have. The total production from the Bushehr nuclear power plant now under construction is only 1,000 megawatts of capacity per year. So that if you look at this comparison, Iran right now is wasting by venting or flaring four times the natural gas-natural gas equivalence of four times the capacity of the Bushehr fuel plant. So if they were so concerned about losing their oil and natural gas, there would be ample ways to collect that and use it for their own economic development; again a clear indication that their economic rationale for developing a nuclear fuel cycle is simply made up. The conclusion is inescapable that Iran is pursuing its civil nuclear energy program not for peaceful and economic purposes, but is a front for developing the capability to produce nuclear materials or nuclear weapons. I might say also that one of our approaches to dealing with the problem of Iran is through diplomatic consultations with special focus on Russia, the constructor and supplier of the fuel for the Bushehr reactor. We believe that following sustained high level exchanges Russia shares our concern about Iran's nuclear activities, joins us in supporting the IAEA's ongoing inspections, and want Director General El Baradei to make a full and unbiased report to the Board of Governors on what his inspectors in Iran have found. And I would just say this morning Prime Minister Blair briefing parliament about the Evian Summit of G-8 leaders noted what the leaders said about the Iranian nuclear program, and made public what we had already known when he said President Putin made clear that Russia would suspend its exports of nuclear fuel to Iran until Iran signs the IAEA additional protocol, which is something that we had been pressing for and which President Putin had committed to us, and indeed committed to the G-8 leaders at Evian. On North Korea, whose nuclear weapons ambitions also present a grave threat to regional and global security, and a major challenge to the international nonproliferation regime, the leaders addressed that at Evian over the weekend as well, and they said, and I will quote their conclusion on North Korea: |