The Bush administration and Congress differ over how much to fund nonproliferation programs designed to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists, but both have proposed far less funding than previously recommended by a bipartisan commission, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported this week (see GSN, April 24).

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) has proposed spending $2.5 billion for nonproliferation programs in Russia.  The Bush administration’s fiscal 2003 budget proposal included $1.6 billion for such programs.  Both proposals, however, are less than the $30 billion over eight to 10 years proposed by the Baker-Cutler Commission before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to Aviation Week.

Although Biden’s $2.5 billion proposal is at least closer to the ideal level of funding, it would still be $5 billion less overall than the commission’s recommended $3 billion per year, according to one nonproliferation expert.

“That’s less than we spend on cotton subsides every year,” said Rose Gottemoeller, former head of the U.S. Energy Department’s nuclear nonproliferation office.

Even with increased concerns resulting from the Sept. 11 attacks, it is unlikely that Congress will increase the Bush administration’s counterproliferation proposal by more than a few hundred million dollars, Aviation Week reported, in part because of a debate over whether Russia’s nuclear complex is vulnerable to terrorist attack and theft, and whether the United States should be more concerned with potential threats in other parts of the world, according to Aviation Week.

“Today, the nuclear security challenge outside Russia is even more urgent than that within Russia itself,” Siegfried Hecker, senior fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said last week during a hearing chaired by Biden.

Israel, which is not a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, is believed to have enough nuclear material to make more than 170 nuclear weapons, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  Both Iraq and Iran have actively tried to obtain weapons of mass destruction, and Iran also has links to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, Aviation Week reported.

The situation in Colombia has also caused concern.  The country’s main rebel group — the Revolutionary Armed Force of Columbia (FARC) — has labeled U.S. aid to the Colombian government an act of war, said House International Relations Committee Chairman Representative Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) during a hearing on global terrorism last week.

“Some caution us against providing assistance to Colombia, invoking the specter of Vietnam,” Hyde said,  “But the true comparison is with Afghanistan under Taliban rule — only this time located in our own hemisphere.”

In order to address the worldwide threat posed by terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) has introduced legislation that would give the administration the ability to launch emergency operations to stop proliferation threats (see GSN, March 20).  Under this bill, the defense secretary could spend up to $50 million of unused funding from the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program for projects outside the former Soviet Union.

“It is time to think big, not small,” and it is no longer enough to destroy terrorist cells, Lugar said.  “We must also undertake the ambitious goal of comprehensively preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

There is probably enough support within Congress to expand the Nunn-Lugar program beyond the former Soviet Union, said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  Congress also probably will approve a plan by Biden and Lugar to allow “debt-for-nonproliferation” swaps with Russia, Aviation Week reported (see GSN, April 18).

The Bush administration has proposed $416.7 million for the Nunn-Lugar program, a 3.4 percent increase.  When added with related Energy Department nonproliferation programs, the total comes to $1.113 billion, an 8 percent increase, according to the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation.  This amount, however, is still only a third of the total recommended by the Baker-Cutler Commission.  Congress will probably increase the administration’s Nunn-Lugar program request by an additional $100 million to $200 million, Cirincione said.

The Nunn-Lugar program is “one of the few areas in which you get immediate, concrete results for your money,” he said.  “If you want to actually do something now about the risk of nuclear terrorism, this is it — before something else happens” (Paul Mann, Aviation Week & Space Technology, April 29).

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