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#10 - RW 270
Knight Ridder Newspapers
August 17, 2003
Russia's refusal of U.S. weapons inspectors threatens
destruction program
By Mark McDonald
MOSCOW - Russia's refusal to allow U.S. inspectors into its biological
weapons sites is threatening the funding for the continued destruction of the
huge Russian arsenal of chemical weapons, said Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Moscow's evasiveness and denials about its biological programs have led some
members of Congress to question $1 billion in new funding for a decade-long
effort known as the Cooperative Threat Reduction program.
The program has spent $6.4 billion since 1992 to help Russia safeguard and
dismantle its weapons of mass destruction, from rusting nuclear submarines and
poorly guarded warheads to deadly vials of anthrax and smallpox. Lugar, R-Ind.,
said the elimination of Russia's remaining chemical stockpile was "a
monumental task … which Russia cannot afford."
"Russia's denials with regard to the biological situation offer an
avenue where opponents of spending (this) money can say, `See, we still really
don't know,' " Lugar said. "Some members of Congress say, `Is Russia
complying - literally, to the dotted line - with all the arms-control treaties?'
"But it's not useful to set up conditions in which there has to be 100
percent compliance before we do anything."
Lugar said he met recently with President Bush and Secretary of Defense
Donald H. Rumsfeld to seek a presidential waiver that would snip the strings
that some in Congress want to attach to the program's funds in the new U.S.
budget. He said Friday he was optimistic that Bush would grant the waiver.
The weapons-elimination program is informally known as Nunn-Lugar after its
original co-sponsors - former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia and Lugar.
Lugar has been in Russia in recent days to meet with senior military leaders.
He also was due to witness the destruction of several Soviet-era
intercontinental ballistic missiles at a military facility in the city of Perm.
Since 1992, the Nunn-Lugar program has overseen the destruction of 440 tons
of chemical weapons in Russia - about 1 percent of Russia's total. More than
43,000 tons of nerve gas and blister agent remain in seven arsenals across the
country. Amy Smithson, a biological and chemical weapons expert, has called
these sites "the toxic archipelago."
Most experts say the archipelago remains poorly guarded. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla.,
was alarmed at the lack of security when he visited a Russian site last year. In
one laboratory, he said, the door to a refrigerator containing various animal
poxes was secured only by a piece of string.
Lugar said some biological- and chemical-weapon facilities have been
converted to civilian uses since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He
visited one such factory where anthrax had once been produced. The very same
vats, he said, are now being used to make "Green Mama" shampoo.
The General Accounting Office reported to Congress in March, however, that 65
percent of Russia's nerve-agent stockpile is "unsecured" and that
"a large quantity of chemical weapons in Russia will remain vulnerable to
theft or diversion and pose a potential threat to U.S. national security
interests."
Lugar said a new chemical weapons destruction facility in Shchuchye, Russia,
is woefully behind schedule. He said making the deadline of 2012 for destroying
the remaining chemical stockpile is "not going to happen."
The GAO estimates "it could be another 40 years before Russia's
stockpile would be completely destroyed."
Smithson agreed that "significant tasks remain" for the Nunn-Lugar
effort, but in testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee in March she
urged that funding for the Shchuchye facility be continued.
"Once and for all," she said, "Congress and the executive
branch should throw their full fiscal and political support behind the Shchuchye
project so that the destruction of Russia's stocks of nerve agent can begin as
soon as possible."
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