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Sept. 11 — One Year Later: Securing WMD Materials Faces Bureaucratic Obstacles By Bryan Bender U.S. efforts have included expanding its nonproliferation efforts in Russia, snatching poorly secured fissile material in Yugoslavia, and passing new legislation to track radioactive sources and protect nuclear power plants and chemical factories. “Obviously, there is no wholly reliable or seamless protection against the use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists,” John Newhouse of the Center for Defense Information wrote in an August report. “Probably more important than ... active defenses, which are as varied as the weapons they are designed to neutralize, is the overarching need for prior restraint, which is also known as passive defense and is based on agreements between nations.” While there is more international agreement than ever on the need to secure WMD materials — including pledges of billions of dollars to continue securing former Soviet weapons and to expand related nonproliferation efforts around the globe — U.S. officials and private experts fear bureaucratic obstacles will continue to hamper nonproliferation efforts even as terrorists seek to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. G-8 Commits Billions to Secure Former Soviet Arsenal Perhaps the biggest victory in the race to staunch the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction came in June when the Group of Eight countries agreed to allocate $20 billion during the next decade to help secure WMD materials in the former Soviet Union, still considered one of the more likely sources of chemical, biological or nuclear materials sought by terrorist groups and others (see GSN, June 28). The United States pledged $10 billion, while remaining G-8 members agreed to provide $10 billion more to continue the kinds of programs sponsored by the Cooperative Threat Reduction program first initiated by the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. U.S. President George W. Bush “should be commended for his efforts to win allied and Russian support for the G-8’s WMD initiative,” said Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), ranking Republican member of the Foreign Relations Committee and an original author of the CTR legislation, along with former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.). “President Bush and the administration won an important victory at the G-8 summit. Our allies have committed to joining the U.S. in addressing critical proliferation threats emanating from the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.” Among countries that have pledged assistance are the United Kingdom, Norway, Canada and Germany. “For the first time this is no longer just us,” Lugar told reporters in July. Lugar recently outlined a “top 10 list” of how the additional billions should be spent in the former Soviet Union over the next decade. Lugar’s proposed future programs include destroying Russia’s estimated 2 million rounds of chemical weapons (see GSN, Aug. 27), securing Russia’s biological pathogens, eliminating and securely storing tactical nuclear weapons, engaging more former Soviet weapons scientists in peaceful pursuits, providing enhanced security systems and training to the remaining 60 percent of Russian nuclear facilities that have not received any to date, and securing Russia’s radioactive sources, such as radioactive generators that are spread throughout the former Soviet Union (see GSN, June 25). These nonproliferation efforts would build on more than a decade of U.S.-funded programs in the former Soviet Union aimed more at strategic weapons and their delivery systems. At the start of this year, the Pentagon’s CTR program and the Energy Department’s related nonproliferation programs had supported the dismantlement of 5,809 nuclear warheads, 1,212 ballistic and cruise missiles, 705 missile launchers, 92 long-range bombers and 21 ballistic missile submarines. In addition, thousands of former weapons scientists have been supported by U.S. funds in peaceful pursuits. Also over the past year, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna brought U.S. and Russian officials to agree to ways to improve the control of radioactive materials that are used in various industrial facilities and hospitals and could be combined with a conventional explosive to make a so-called “dirty bomb.” Meanwhile, steps have been taken to begin securing the most sensitive materials, such as the more than 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium that was removed from an academic institute in Belgrade, Yugoslavia last month and shipped to Russia to be properly disposed of (see GSN, Aug. 23). The Nuclear Threat Initiative foundation spent $5 million, the bulk of the price tag, to fund the operation. In Pakistan U.S. officials have also quietly given security assistance to government authorities to ensure the country’s small nuclear force is adequately protected, defense officials said. Homeland Activities Staunching the proliferation of WMD-related technologies overseas has been combined with heightened security inside the United States. Intelligence officials believe it is increasingly likely terrorists could gain WMD materials inside U.S. borders to launch an attack instead of smuggling the weapons into the United States. U.S. officials have taken steps to improve the security of nuclear plants, chemical factories, and radioactive materials in the United States. While several agreements have been reached in the past year, including new legislation approved by Congress, few practical steps have been taken, critics charge. Two new laws, the Nuclear Security Act and the Chemical Security Act, were approved by a Senate committee in July and aim to strengthen security at the 103 nuclear plants and 15,000 chemical plants nationwide (see GSN, July 30). Such sites, while already considered well-secured, could be attractive targets for terrorists seeking to cause mass casualties or panic by attacking a nuclear reactor, stealing nuclear materials, igniting chemicals or detonating a conventional explosive attached to radiological material, officials said. Attached to the nuclear security bill is the Dirty Bomb Prevention Act of 2002, which would require the tracking of radioactive materials used in industrial and medical activities (see GSN, June 27). The dirty bomb legislation calls for fines and other legal action to be levied against companies and academic institutions that do not properly handle radioactive materials. Nuclear power plants have been on the highest alert since Sept. 11 — facilities nationwide have added an estimated 1,000 private security personnel, bringing the total to 6,000 across 103 nuclear power plants — and National Guard troops played a supplementary security role in the weeks and months following the Sept. 11 attacks The Bush administration and Congress, however, have yet to agree on security standards for the most at-risk chemical plants, while chemical industry officials have been accused of dragging their feet on new and costly security enhancements (see GSN, July 26). “The industry is actually trying to kill some very modest steps proposed by Congress and the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency],” Jeremiah Baumann, environmental health advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, told the Washington Post this month. In addition, while the Dirty Bomb Prevention Act has been hailed as good government, even sponsors Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) acknowledge that the problem is vast and the legislation marks only a first step. There remain few good estimates of how much radiological material is not accounted for in the United States and officials are a long way from an accurate assessment. Bureaucratic Hurdles While the security of WMD materials has taken on added significance, however, officials and private experts complain that unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles are blocking critical but fleeting opportunities to erect the best defense against WMD attack — securing the raw materials at their source. Lugar, who returned last month from a trip to Russia to witness CTR programs first-hand, said “in both countries sometimes we have problems with bureaucracy.” For example, despite repeated requests, he was prohibited from visiting Kirov 200 near Moscow, a former Soviet military biological weapons laboratory where an unknown number of deadly pathogens are believed to have been designed, including a vaccine-resistant form of anthrax the U.S. has sought to test since 1997 (see GSN, Sept. 9). “That has been a bone of contention,” Lugar said. “The signs were ambiguous.” We’re not going to take no for an answer.” “Delays have resulted from a host of factors, ranging from bureaucratic red tape to local concerns about the environmental impact of some projects,” according a Nuclear Threat Initiative paper. From Washington’s perspective, the fundamental cause of delay has been the continuing reluctance of Russian officials at all levels to give U.S. experts access to key elements of the former Soviet weapons complex. “While understandable in some cases, Russian secrecy has made it difficult to for the United States to plan programs and account for the expenditure of American tax dollars. “From the perspective of Russia and other countries, Washington created its own hurdles by establishing a bewildering array of programs administered by various agencies, each with its own set of complex regulations and congressional mandates,” the paper said. Indeed, Lugar earlier this year proposed expanding the CTR program beyond the former Soviet Union — in the form of the so-called Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act (see GSN, March 20) — but the House of Representatives has specifically prohibited it. In fact, the Nuclear Threat Initiative was asked to help fund the Belgrade operation because only limited U.S. funds could be spent on it. Some CTR funding, meanwhile, was held up this year until a temporary waiver was approved to a required certification that Russia was meeting a set of conditions (see GSN, Aug. 9). The Senate is calling for a permanent waiver, while the House is only calling for a three-year waiver. All of these issues will have to be worked out this month by the two legislative bodies. As for the G-8 pledge over the next decade, Lugar said last week he plans to participate in hearings before the Foreign Relations Committee in coming weeks to begin laying out how the money will be raised and how it will be spent. “We have a “window of opportunity in history for remarkable cooperation” to prevent catastrophic terrorism, Nunn said in July. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Richard Lugar is a board member and Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.]
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