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State Department Cuts Arms Control Bureau By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department this month quietly began implementing a major reorganization plan to eliminate its arms control and nonproliferation bureaus, despite a U.S. Senate hold on the plan (see GSN, Aug. 3). The department has otherwise been tight-lipped about the move, but evidence also appeared in the form of a Federal Register notice this week signed by Stephen Rademaker, who was identified as acting assistant secretary of state in charge of the new bureau. Republican and Democratic congressional offices said the move should not have been formalized and that as far as they are concerned the reorganization has not yet gone through. “Our understanding is that it is not yet in place,” said Andy Fisher, spokesman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and its chairman Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who has endorsed the reorganization plan. “It hasn’t as far as we’re concerned up here,” said Norm Kurz, spokesman for Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.), the ranking Democrat on the committee. “There’s a hold on it, from what I understand, on the matter of how it’s going to get reorganized. There are people who want to look at what are the implications instead of just marching ahead with this and so they’re trying to slow things down,” he said. The hold is particularly motivated by a concern that nonproliferation activities would not receive sufficient priority under the plan, Kurz said. “There are people who say, ‘What’s going to happen to the nonproliferation part of this?’” Arms Control DismantlementThe reorganization would effectively complete an eight-year, Republican-driven process of dismantling the State Department’s once sizable infrastructure dedicated to advocating, negotiating, implementing and verifying major arms control and nonproliferation agreements. In 1999, the department disbanded its Arms Control and Disarmament Agency which had spearheaded U.S. policy on major Cold War arms control treaties, such as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and the now-defunct Antiballistic Missile Treaty, among others. In the 1990s, the agency had a $40 million budget and about 250 employees. “The agency’s unique focus on arms control and nonproliferation issues provides a singular and invaluable perspective to the president, different from purely diplomatic, defense or other concerns,” says an archived ACDA Web page published last decade at a time when the agency was fighting for its survival. In 1997, pressured by then-Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) but declaring the aim of “reinventing government,” the Clinton administration announced it would eliminate ACDA and fold it arms control and nonproliferation components, and other pieces, into other State Department bureaus. Now, under the Bush administration’s plan, elements of the department’s Arms Control and Nonproliferation bureaus, each run by an assistant secretary of state, would be merged into a new super-bureau for “International Security and Nonproliferation,” according to an outline provided this year to Congress and obtained by Global Security Newswire. The new bureau would incorporate elements of both bureaus, as well as other responsibilities, and be structured to reflect the administration’s priorities. The assistant secretary would oversee three deputy assistant secretaries, for: threat reduction, export controls and negotiations; counterproliferation; and nuclear nonproliferation policy and negotiations. Apparently, the only senior State Department official with “arms control” in his title would be the director for the Office of Conventional Arms Control. That official, and other elements of the cancelled arms control and nonproliferation bureaus, would be located in a separate “bureau for verification, compliance and implementation.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, announcing the plan on July 29, said the changes were needed to address the kinds of threats the United States is facing. “Today, protecting America from weapons of mass destruction requires more than deterrence and arms control treaties. We must also go on the offensive against outlaw scientists, black market arms dealers and rogue state proliferators.” “Today’s security threats still require a robust and competent arms control and nonproliferation and disarmament effort on the part of the U.S. State Department,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, citing for instance “a need to get a handle on” thousands Russian of tactical nuclear weapons and negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. “We believe the reorganization will not be helpful but in the end the proof will be in the administration’s record,” he said. Rice vowed to “continue to work with Congress,” on the plan. However, several days later, Global Security Newswire reported the department planned to begin after a mandatory 15-day congressional review period that happened to coincide with Congress’s August recess (see GSN, Aug. 3). Later that month, the Washington Post reported that House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) had ordered the department not to move forward until his committee could be briefed on the details (see GSN, Aug. 18). The chairman was soon after satisfied, said committee spokesman Sam Stratman. “The hold placed on that by Chairman Hyde was removed in August, following a detailed briefing,” he said. But some in the Senate still are not, Kurz said, and added, “There’s a larger question of accountability.”
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