James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction with training & analysis

Outside Publications by CNS Staff

November 14, 2001

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.[1] 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 NIS[3]

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. 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 have 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 "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,[4] 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 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.[5] 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 for 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.

Two programs to end the production of additional fissile material in Russia are also losing momentum. The Plutonium Production Reactor Shut-Down Agreement (PPRA) would halt the production of 1.2 tons of new weapons plutonium annually – material for which Russia has no anticipated use. This number sounds small, but it represents annual production that is roughly 100 times North Korea's current plutonium stocks. Moreover, at a time when we are working so hard to secure fissile material in Russia, it hardly makes sense to add to the problem, especially when Russia has no need for the material and, under the PPRA, is placing it under U.S. monitoring to ensure it is not used for nuclear weapons.

Late in the Clinton administration, a solid plan was developed with Russia to shut down the three reactors involved and to provide an alternative mechanism for generating the heat and electricity they produce by refurbishing existing fossil-fuel-burning plants at one reactor site and building a new fossil-fuel-burning plant at the other. New political appointees at the Department of Defense, however, are apparently questioning the utility of this program, and Congress has balked at spending Department of Defense funds for an energy program, notwithstanding its national security objective. Thus the program's future is uncertain. Meanwhile, Russia's stocks of unwanted weapons plutonium are increasing – adding to the security threat they pose. Congress needs to press the administration to move forward aggressively with the Plutonium Production Reactor Shut-Down Agreement, which is already several years behind schedule.

A second program to halt new production of fissile material, the Civil Plutonium Initiative, sought to halt the separation of 1.5 tons of plutonium annually from spent fuel originating in Russian civilian nuclear power plants. The initiative proposed assisting Russia to build a storage facility for the spent fuel, as an alternative to processing it to separate its plutonium. Russia will have no use for separated plutonium for the foreseeable future, since all Russian reactors that can burn plutonium in the form of mixed oxide fuel will be used to burn weapons plutonium, under the Plutonium Disposition program. The Civil Plutonium Initiative became stalled when negotiations on a larger set of U.S. initiatives of which it was part foundered over the issue of sensitive Russian nuclear exports to Iran. Initial studies regarding the option of civilian nuclear power plant spent fuel storage were launched, however.

The Bush administration apparently did not seek funding in its FY 2002 budget to continue this effort, which it is currently reviewing as part of its overall appraisal of U.S. nonproliferation programs in the NIS. Carry-over funds from FY 2001 would permit key studies to be continued that are essential for the program to proceed, however. Meanwhile, Russia's stocks of this dangerous material, now amounting to more than 30 tons, continue to grow. Congress needs to press the administration to aggressively pursue this important effort to halt the production of civil plutonium in Russia.

Congress should also monitor an important new initiative closely related to these fissile material initiatives, the DOE Research Reactor Fuel Return Program. This program seeks to return to Russia small, but proliferation-relevant stocks of fresh, weapons-usable, highly enriched uranium research reactor fuel scattered at roughly a dozen sites in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In some cases, the quantities present would be sufficient for the fabrication of a nuclear device. The most disturbing cases involve the presence of significant quantities of fresh HEU fuel at the Vinca reactor, in Serbia; the Sosny reactor, in Belarus; and the Kharkiv reactor, in Ukraine.

These facilities are sometimes "orphans" within their respective countries, receiving little or no financial support and, in many cases, no longer operating their reactors. Few have any use for the fresh HEU fuel they hold or for the spent fuel from past operations. Some of this spent fuel is so old that it is no longer "self-protecting" (highly radioactive) and thus poses a potential security risk. Although the MPC&A program has completed physical security upgrades at the facilities in question within the Soviet successor states and although most of the facilities in Eastern Europe are also well protected, security at a number of sites is still wanting. In these circumstances, the wisest course would be to bring this material back to Russia promptly, where it could be processed and its HEU blended down to innocuous levels. The Research Reactor Fuel Return Program is moving forward, but Congress needs to encourage and sustain this effort.

Tactical nuclear weapons. I also want to call the Subcommittee's attention to the threat posed by the thousands of tactical nuclear weapons held by Russia. By definition, these weapons are portable, be they artillery shells, short-range missile warheads, bombs for short-range fighter-bombers, nuclear landmines, nuclear torpedoes, or similar systems. Many older models of these weapons, moreover, are said not to have permissive action links (PALs) to prevent their unauthorized use.[6] This would make them particularly attractive targets for terrorists. Indeed, we have all heard rumors – which to my knowledge are unfounded – about so-called "suitcase" bombs falling into the hands of terrorists.

The United States is apparently assisting Russia to secure many of its tactical nuclear weapons. The MPC&A program, mentioned earlier, is helping the Russian Navy to secure its non-deployed nuclear weapons, and undoubtedly, these include tactical units. Similarly, Department of Defense assistance to Russia to strengthen security for nuclear warhead transportation and storage has enhanced security for some tactical nuclear weapons held by other military services, in addition to the Navy. Nonetheless, the most effective means for securing tactical nuclear weapons is to eliminate them.

Today, the United States and Russia have no formal agreements limiting deployments of tactical nuclear weapons or providing for their elimination. Rather, the two sides are implementing the 1991-1992 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives, declarations in which the United States and Russia agreed to significantly reduce deployments of tactical nuclear systems. Unfortunately, the declarations were completely voluntary and contained no transparency or verification mechanisms through which each country could provide reassurance that it was implementing its declaration as announced.

Although like the United States, Russia is thought to be dismantling large numbers of nuclear warheads, many of which would come from tactical systems, Russia is nonetheless thought to possess many more tactical nuclear weapons than the United States.[7] Moreover, in the past decade, Russia has renounced the Soviet policy against the first use of nuclear weapons and has declared that it will rely more heavily on nuclear weapons for its defense than in the past.

In these circumstances, an agreement with Russia limiting deployments of tactical nuclear weapons and providing for the dismantling of stored weapons is urgently needed. At a minimum Moscow and Washington should agree on mutual transparency measures and data exchanges to confirm each side's compliance with the 1991-1992 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives, to provide guidance on the number of tactical nuclear weapons each side currently possesses, and to offer reassurance on the number of tactical weapons that each side has dismantled to date. Congress should forcefully press the administration to seek negotiations with Russia on an agreement to address tactical nuclear weapon elimination and transparency.

Biological weapons. Let me now turn briefly to the terrorist threat posed by biological weapons in the former Soviet Union. In addressing this subject, Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation to my colleague, Dr. Sonia Benouagrham, who recently joined our Washington, D.C., staff after serving in our office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, for two years.

As you know, between 1972 and 1992, the Soviet Union engaged in the world's most advanced and most extensive biological weapons program. This program represented a gross violation of the Soviet Union's obligations under the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared in 1992 that he had terminated the program, but many questions remain.

Through a well-coordinated interagency program to create non-defense employment opportunities for former Soviet BW scientists, the Clinton administration successfully engaged a number of former Soviet BW sites in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. These were facilities that were outside of the Soviet Ministry of Defense but which, despite their civilian trappings, engaged in the development and production of offensive biological weapons or in defensive research closely linked with the Soviet BW program. Through the U.S. programs, several of these institutes have been converted to non-weapons work, including the State Research Center for Applied Microbiology, in Obolensk, Russia, and Biomedpreparat, in Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan.

The United States remains concerned, however, that former BW facilities in Russia that were under the Soviet Ministry of Defense "may support a future mobilization capability for the production of biological agents and delivery systems;" that, "work outside the scope of legitimate biological defense activity may be occurring now" at such facilities; and that, according to unconfirmed reports, Russia may be engaged in "some ongoing offensive biological warfare activities."[8]

At the very least, we must be concerned that stocks of some the world's most advanced and deadly BW agents, custom-designed by Soviet scientists before 1992, remain in storage at some of these sites. Unfortunately, as was the case with former Soviet nuclear sites, security practices and technology at former Soviet BW sites urgently need modernization.

There is reason for particular concern about security at facilities possessing such agents in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Although these institutes are now considered to be engaged exclusively in legitimate research and vaccine production, they are believed to retain stocks of bio-warfare agents that were deliberately chosen for their virulence (either to serve as biological weapons or as the basis for vaccine development). These Central Asian states, which have been crossroads of illicit trafficking for centuries, possess only rudimentary export control systems and share virtually open borders with states that neighbor Iran and Afghanistan. They also confront active terrorists groups on their territory, some associated with the Taliban. Given the extremely meager – and often long delayed – salaries of scientists at the bio-medical research institutes, the danger of bio-warfare agents being stolen and smuggled out a Kazakh or Uzbek biological research is very real.

The Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has launched an effort to upgrade security at these sites, but much work remains to be done. Given the new urgency of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, Congress should press the Bush administration to greatly accelerate work on security upgrades at these biological research institutes.

In Russia, because of the lack of a Cooperative Threat Reduction implementing agreement covering BW security, the United States cannot work directly with Russian institutes and governmental organizations to improve security and bio-safety at former BW sites. Rather, funding must go through the multinational International Science and Technology Center (ISTC), a cumbersome process that is delaying progress. The failure to conclude a bilateral Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement, in turn, is due largely to the fact that the facilities in question fall under several Russian organizations (including the Ministries of Agriculture, Defense, Health, and Science, and the Biopreparat agency) and none has offered to serve as executive agent under the agreement.[9] Access issues are also reportedly a problem, since bilateral agreements for security upgrades usually require U.S. access to the site where upgrades are being installed, but the Ministries of Defense and Science are said to be reluctant to allow U.S. personnel at the former BW sites under their respective jurisdiction.

As I noted earlier in discussing the Mayak Fissile Material Storage Facility transparency agreement, it is possible that improving ties with Russia will permit progress on this pending CTR agreement. Congress should press the administration to take advantage of this new opportunity to move this agreement forward.

***

In sum, urgent steps are needed to advance crucial programs for securing and eliminating WMD materials and tactical nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union. Because of the Bush administration's lukewarm support for many of these efforts, Congress must continue to take the lead, as it has in the appropriations process, and prod the administration to move these programs forward.

III. Strategic Planning and Coordination

As illustrated in the table provided as Attachment 1, there are roughly a dozen major U.S. nonproliferation programs in Russia covering very diverse areas, with a total annual budget of close to $2 billion. The programs are implemented by three separate departments of the U.S. government, two multinational science centers, and the private United States Enrichment Corporation. Unfortunately, strategic planning and coordination among the programs is woefully lacking, making it difficult to exploit synergies among the programs, to harmonize potential conflicts, and make thoughtful investment trade-offs. I know this from experience – and I also know how difficult it is for line managers to take time from their daily responsibilities to engage in effective planning and coordination with their equally busy counterparts. Moreover, no individual agency can hope to convene all the players that are needed to make planning and coordination effective. That is why a planning process needs to be mandated from outside the individual agencies involved.

Earlier this year, I wrote at some length about this gap. I have attached a copy of that article, which appeared in Arms Control Today and which I have appended to my testimony.

In the piece, I noted that better planning and coordination were particularly needed to harmonize U.S. programs to secure and eliminate fissile material; to integrate U.S. job creation programs; and to avoid conflicts between these two clusters of activities. By way of example, I pointed out that the DOE MPC&A program treats Russia's inventory of fissile material as essentially unchanging, at 603 tons, when in reality, the inventory is highly dynamic. It will grow because of new Russian plutonium production and nuclear weapon dismantlement, but it will ultimately shrink by a greater amount because of such programs as the HEU Purchase Agreement. This shrinkage (below the current estimate of 603 tons) could advance the date by which the MPC&A Program might complete its work. Similarly, job creation in the municipalities where the Nuclear Cities Initiative is working will be affected not only by that program, but also by the impact of many other U.S. activities at these sites, including the shut-down of a plutonium production reactor at one of the relevant nuclear cities (which will increase the demand for new jobs) and the planned construction of a major plant at the same location, as part of the DOE Plutonium Disposition Program (which will provide new jobs).

At present, however, there is no government-wide assessment of fissile material inventory trends in Russia or of the employment impacts, positive and negative, of all U.S. programs at specific locations.

In my article, I made a series of recommendations to remedy this deficit in planning and coordination. Interestingly, I proposed the very approach contained in the Nonproliferation Assistance Coordination Act – the formation of an NSC-led interagency committee to implement strategic planning and coordination functions. In his recent interview with the Nonproliferation Review, the scholarly journal of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Ambassador Robert Joseph, NSC Senior Director for Proliferation Strategies, Counterproliferation, and Homeland Defense, announced that the Bush administration had also decided upon this strategy for better integrating U.S. nonproliferation programs in the NIS.[10]

If the administration implements this initiative, this would appear to render the Nonproliferation Assistance Coordination Act moot. However, to ensure that the planning process actually improves coordination among the agencies and programs involved, I would propose that the Subcommittee use its oversight authority to request that the Bush administration prepare a small number of baseline studies that will be critically important to any improved planning and coordination process.

First, the Subcommittee should request that the Bush administration develop an inventory of the most obvious cross-program relationships among U.S. nonproliferation programs in the NIS and of proposed actions for exploiting synergies and harmonizing potential conflicts in these cases.

Second, the Subcommittee should request a year-by-year projection of the inventory of Russian fissile material not in weapons and an analysis that plots against this inventory the predicted accomplishments of the MPC&A and Mayak Fissile Material Storage Facility programs in enhancing the security of the material remaining in that inventory. In essence, this will permit U.S. decision makers to predict when all material at risk will be either secured or eliminated.

Third, the Subcommittee should request a year-by-year projection of the employment impact of all U.S. nonproliferation programs at key Russian nuclear sites, including the locations that are the subject of the Nuclear Cities Initiative.

IV. Harmonizing Public and Private Activities

From the beginning of U.S. nonproliferation activities in Russia, private organizations have played a highly important role is framing, evaluating, and supporting these programs. Indeed, the very concept of Cooperative Threat Reduction was developed by a group of scholars at Harvard. Similarly, the participation of private industry has been an integral part of the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention and Nuclear Cities Initiative programs since their inception, and today, the monetary value of private sector contributions to individual projects in these programs surpasses that of the U.S. government.

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies has played a multifaceted role with respect to these programs. The Center has undertaken several widely recognized evaluations of these activities and has published extensive data on U.S. nonproliferation programs in the NIS and their accomplishments.[11] It has also identified numerous specific areas requiring greater U.S. government attention and has worked to shift existing programmatic priorities to address these needs. In addition, the Center has facilitated U.S. nonproliferation activities in the NIS through extensive training and community building in those countries in order to develop a cadre of knowledgeable and committed partners for U.S. nonproliferation initiatives.

We believe the public-private partnership in this sphere is robust and mutually beneficial, and we have every hope that this relationship will continue.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for permitting me to present these thoughts on the important subject before the Subcommittee.