Latest Nunn-Lugar Scorecard Shows Continued Progress

Nearly 7,000 nuclear warheads and almost 600 ICBMs have been destroyed under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program since its inception in 1991, according to a release issued yesterday by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) (see GSN, July 22).

The project has supplied U.S. funding and expertise for disposal and security of WMD materials, primarily in former Soviet states. Destroyed or deactivated under the program are: 6,760 nuclear warheads, 587 ICBMs, 483 ICBM silos, 32 ICBM mobile launchers, 150 bombers, 789 surface-to-air missiles, 436 submarine missile launchers, 549 submarine-launched missiles, 28 nuclear submarines and 194 nuclear test tunnels.

The Nunn-Lugar program is also working to destroy chemical weapons. The International Science and Technology Centers, sponsored largely by the United States, has helped 58,000 former Soviet weapons scientists find work. The International Proliferation Prevention Program has provided funding for 750 projects that involve 14,000 former Soviet scientists and created 580 new jobs, according to the release.

The nonproliferation program has also helped Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to free themselves of nuclear weapons, the release said.

Lugar and Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are expected to travel to Russia Saturday to meet with Russian military officials and visit a nuclear warhead storage facility and a missile destruction plant. They will also tour the Central Epidemiological Station in Ukraine, a Nunn-Lugar site. Finally, they will observe a mock interception of a ship carrying a weapon of mass destruction, the release said (Senator Richard Lugar release, Aug. 23).

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Nunn is chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and Richard Lugar serves on the NTI board.  NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]

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