CTR Restrictions Must Be Lifted, Lugar Says

U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) is pressing again this year for lifting restrictions on the Cooperative Threat Reduction program to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states (see GSN, Feb. 2, 2006).

This is Lugar’s third attempt to pass such legislation. 

The legislation that created the Nunn-Lugar program in 1991 required annual certifications that recipients of U.S. funds were meeting six conditions, including compliance with relevant arms control agreements, a prohibition against replacement of weapons of mass destruction, and facilitation of U.S. verification of weapons disposal.

“At the time, these conditions were important to defining the U.S. strategic relationship with each Nunn-Lugar recipient.  The question we must answer today is, what national security benefit do the certification requirements provide the American people?  Do the conditions make it easier or harder to eliminate weapons of mass destruction in Russia or elsewhere?  Do the conditions make it more likely or less likely that weapons are eliminated?” Lugar said Jan. 8 in introducing the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 2007.

The certification requirement can be waived each year.  However, it costs the State Department and other agencies “hundreds of man-hours” to conduct the certification and waiver process, Lugar said. 

“This time could be better spent tackling the proliferation threats facing our country,” Lugar said.  “Instead of interdicting WMD shipments, identifying the next A.Q. Khan, or locating hidden stocks of chemical and biological weapons, our nonproliferation experts spend their time compiling reports and assembling certification or waiver determinations.”

The process of waiving Russia’s certification in 2002 stalled work for months on several projects, including security upgrades at 10 nuclear weapons storage sites and dismantlement of ICBMs, Lugar said.

“The events of 2002 are not the exceptions, they are the rule,” he said.  “In some years, Nunn-Lugar funds are not available for expenditure until more than half of the fiscal year has passed, and weapons of mass destruction slated for dismantlement await the U.S. bureaucratic process (U.S. Senator Richard Lugar release, Jan. 9).

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