U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

94–204 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108–484

NON-PROLIFERATION AND ARMS CONTROL:

STRATEGIC CHOICES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 10, 2004

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

BARBARA BOXER, California

BILL NELSON, Florida

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia

JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Staff Director

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, Democratic Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, opening statement ... 1

Carter, Hon. Ashton B., Ford Foundation Professor, Co-Director, Preventive

Defense Project, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA ............................................................................................ 10

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16

‘‘Overhauling Counterproliferation,’’ article to appear in Technology in

Society, April/July 2004 ................................................................................ 21

Kanter, Hon. Arnold, Senior Fellow, Forum for International Policy and Principal, The Scowcroft Group, Washington, DC .................................................... 28

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33

Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening statement ........... 4

Perry, Hon. William J., Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor, Center

for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, Stanford,

CA .......................................................................................................................... 6

Prepared statement of William J. Perry and Brent Scowcroft ..................... 7

‘‘Good Nukes, Bad Nukes,’’ article from The New York Times, December

22, 2003 .......................................................................................................... 8

(III)

(1)

NON-PROLIFERATION AND ARMS CONTROL:

STRATEGIC CHOICES

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2004

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m. in room

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard G. Lugar

(chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Lugar, Alexander, Biden, and Bill Nelson.

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. This hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee is called to order.

Let me announce this good news for the committee. Last week

we had the mark-up of the United States-Japan Tax Treaty, as reported out by the committee. It was favorably received on the Senate floor last night.

We would like to thank our Majority Leader, Dr. Frist, for making time for the treaty. It was passed unanimously. This will be

good news to many people in the United States, as well as Japanese business and banking communities.

I want to recognize the distinguished Ranking Member, Senator

Biden, for his statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.,

RANKING MEMBER

Senator BIDEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the courtesy, and

as I said to our witnesses privately, I sincerely apologize for not

being able to stay this morning.

There is a totally parochial, but important, event: The president

of my alma mater, the University of Delaware, received a prestigious award and, at 9 minutes after 10 o’clock, I am supposed to

introduce him downtown. It’s an award for an initiative I had

begun relating to drugs and alcohol on campuses, and I am obliged

to be there.

But when these Three Musketeers, our witnesses, show up on

the Hill, it is always for the most important of issues. I truly regret

not being able to stay.

And I am going to ask you, Mr. Chairman, if my entire statement could be placed into the record.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be placed into the record in full.

Senator BIDEN. And Mr. Chairman, I think we have to come to

grips with the NPT. I think that we have to mend it and not throw

2

1The op-ed piece referred to can be found on page 8.

it out. But I think the op-ed piece 1 that these gentlemen wrote

back on December 22, 2003, is really, really worth the entire Congress and administration considering and looking at some of the alternatives they’ve suggested.

I look forward to them continuing to be available to the committee. I know that they have always been available to me and

you, individually. And I just wanted to generally thank the three

of you. You’ve made incredible contributions at a moment at which,

in my view, if we don’t begin to get some of this straight, it will

be very difficult to turn around.

It’s not like making a mistake, if we make a mistake, on tax policy or social policy. The next Congress will come in and change the

law, literally on a dime. This we can’t do on nuclear non-proliferation. And so I hope that everyone listens to what you have to say

today. I will read with interest your exchange with the chairman.

I will close by saying, at this moment in our history, we are indeed fortunate to have a guy leading the Foreign Relations Committee like Dick Lugar, who, as the old joke goes, forgot more about

many of these subjects than a lot of us will ever know.

I thank him for his persistence and his dedication and his knowledge. And again, we’re not going to let go of these issues. I appreciate the fact that you have not either.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and in a moment I am

going to have to leave, but I want to hear your opening statement.

And again, I apologize and look forward to reading what you have

to say, and seeing you all shortly.

[The opening statement of Senator Biden follows:]

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today’s hearing is especially timely, given the events

of the past year.

• We discovered a global black market, headquartered in Pakistan, which offered

countries all of the essential components for a nuclear weapons program.

• North Korea moved to possibly expand its nuclear arsenal.

• Iran has only partially cooperated with International Atomic Energy Agency efforts to document the full scope of its nuclear program, raising questions regarding its true intentions.

• On the other hand, Libya is voluntarily dismantling its WMD programs, with

the assistance of the United States and the United Kingdom.

• And, finally, the United States went to war against Iraq, ostensibly in part to

end its nuclear weapons program. But, as David Kay confirmed for all of us,

that program was more a mirage than reality.

I am pleased that the committee has before it today an esteemed group of ‘‘wise

men’’ to discuss the significance of these events for the future of nuclear arms control and non-proliferation. Bill Perry, Arnie Kanter, and Ash Carter need no introduction. Their December op-ed in the New York Times, co-written with Brent Scowcroft, helped clarify the growing discussion of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty—

the NPT. Gentlemen, I welcome you all.

One element of the NPT is a promise to non-nuclear weapons states that, in return for forswearing nuclear weapons, they will enjoy the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology. That bargain has become frayed. Iran, Iraq and North Korea have

all used their ostensibly civilian facilities to mask covert weapons programs.

In Iran and North Korea, we were at least able to sound the alarm. Both states

had secret efforts to produce weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium—and were caught. In Iraq, however, absent the gulf war of 1991, Saddam

Hussein might have obtained highly enriched uranium without anybody realizing it.

3

A smarter state, using a civilian program as the rationale, could build uranium

enrichment facilities, spent fuel reprocessing cells, and the like—and properly report

these efforts to the IAEA. It could acquire weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and place the material under IAEA safeguards. In other words, it

could become a potential nuclear weapons power without violating safeguards. Then

it could withdraw from the NPT, and develop and assemble nuclear weapons in a

short time.

That’s the challenge we need to address. How do we counter not just states that

do things in a hamhanded manner, but states that skillfully exploit the loopholes

of the NPT? The Additional Protocol that we approved in committee last week can

help make it much harder to hide a covert nuclear program—if we can persuade

the rest of the world to sign such protocols as well. But how can we combat the

‘‘breakout’’ scenario?

One idea gaining currency is to allow non-nuclear weapons states to continue to

possess civilian nuclear programs, but not a closed nuclear fuel cycle. A state could

have civilian nuclear reactors to produce electrical power, but must import the nuclear reactor fuel and return any spent fuel. This would ensure that a state did not

obtain fissile material needed for a nuclear weapon.

IAEA Director General Mohammed El-Baradei would allow only multinational facilities to produce and process nuclear fuels, and give legitimate end-users assured

access to these fuels at reasonable rates. Our witnesses have endorsed this proposal,

adding that states that refuse this bargain should be subject to sanctions. President

Bush has not endorsed multinational facilities, but called upon members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to refuse to export enrichment and reprocessing equipment

to any state that does not already possess full scale enrichment and reprocessing

plants.

I am glad this debate has begun. Any agreement will be difficult to achieve. Nonnuclear weapons states will ask what they will get for surrendering a well established right. States with nuclear fuel industries may worry that they will go out of

business if only a few multinational facilities are allowed to operate enrichment and

reprocessing activities.

I hope that the international community reaches a consensus in time for next

year’s NPT Review Conference. I do worry that any effort to formally amend the

NPT would open a Pandora’s Box. But perhaps we can add a protocol to the NPT,

or seek a less formal statement interpreting Article 4 of the NPT.

There is another bargain central to the NPT, one that this administration largely

prefers to ignore. In return for forswearing nuclear weapons, non-nuclear weapons

states received a commitment from the five permanent nuclear powers, reaffirmed

as recently as 2000, to seek eventual nuclear disarmament.

Nobody, including me, expects the United States to give up its nuclear deterrent

any time in the foreseeable future. But the administration’s drive to research and

possibly produce new nuclear weapons—including low-yield nukes—is a step in the

wrong direction.

It signals to the rest of the world that even the preeminent global power needs

new nuclear weapons to assure its own security.

The administration threatens to take another backward step on a Fissile Material

Cutoff Treaty. An FMCT has been a U.S. objective for eight years, and this administration castigated other countries for preventing negotiations from starting. Now

that there is a chance of success, however, the administration says that we may

refuse to negotiate. This only undermines solidarity with our allies, who worked for

years to help us convince other countries to negotiate.

I want to strongly second a key point made by our witnesses in their recent oped. For all the flaws of the NPT, it is an essential treaty. It has been vital to encouraging states like Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina

to end their nuclear weapons programs.

We should also acknowledge the important benefits provided by the IAEA. The

IAEA helped crack open many of Iran’s nuclear secrets. Just as the U.S. intelligence

community is doing incredible work in breaking apart the A.Q. Khan procurement

network, the IAEA is doing its part, utilizing information derived from its work on

Iran and other nations.

The IAEA needs and deserves our continuing support—both political support and

the money, equipment and training that have helped make the IAEA a vital institution in nonproliferation, nuclear safety, and peaceful applications of atomic energy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

4

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR, CHAIRMAN

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the Senator for his comments, and I appreciate his strong support on the issues that we’re going to discuss

this morning. It has been consistent and informed, and it has led

to a strong bi-partisan view, in our committee, on these critical

issues.

Let me begin by simply saying that in my judgment, the No. 1

security threat facing our country is the proliferation of weapons

of mass destruction, and their intersection with terrorists groups

and rogue states.

Today, our committee meets to consider the United States efforts

to respond to this threat through bilateral and multilateral nonproliferation and arms control. I believe that there is much to be

done to make existing institutions more effective.

Too often, opponents and proponents of arms control view bilateral and multilateral arms control agreements in absolute terms.

Some opponents unjustly dismiss treaties as unverifiable and a

threat to United States security, because they believe that parties

cannot be stopped from cheating.

Some proponents see arms control agreements almost as ends in

themselves, even in cases where poor enforcement mechanisms or

shifts in political or technological realities have diminished their

usefulness.

Absolutist arguments fail to describe the complexities of the current non-proliferation environment. Treaties and non-proliferation

programs can be effective, and can make significant contributions

to the United States national security when verified and enforced

aggressively. But the international community must commit itself

to such a course. Even the most carefully written and intrusive

arms control pact will fail if the political will to enforce it is lacking.

Our experiences with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT, are

illustrative of the centrality of effective enforcement. The NPT has

contributed greatly to the prevention of new nuclear weapons

states. But at the same time, the NPT has been ineffective in stopping determined cheaters, such as Iran, from pursuing a nuclear

capability.

Iran’s clandestine drive toward a nuclear weapons capability was

exposed by an Iranian resistance group and confirmed by the

IAEA. Far from the complete cooperation pledged by Iran, inspectors are involved in a complex chess match, where each request for

information or access is met with Iranian misdirection, contradiction and sometimes lies. Tehran has been caught red-handed with

a weapons program, but continues to obfuscate. In fact, Iran has

not even fully abided by the agreement it made in October with

Great Britain, France, and Germany. Iran’s Foreign Minister

hedged on his country’s commitment by suggesting that Tehran

had agreed ‘‘to the suspension, not stopping, of the uranium enrichment process.’’ The IAEA Board of Governors is locked in a debate as to what

to do about Iran. The United States, Canada and Australia continue to push the Board to take real steps to enforce the NPT. Despite the clear evidence that Iran is a determined cheater, concerns

5

have been raised about the implications of decisive action. Some

worry that a Board referral of non-compliance to the United Nations Security Council would push Iran’s leadership to abandon the

NPT. Even if this were true, keeping Iran in the NPT should not

be an end in itself.

Iran claims that it has the right to develop a nuclear fuel cycle

to support a domestic nuclear energy program. Many nations, including Iran, point to the NPT’s assurance of access to peaceful nuclear technology as one of the principle rationales for their accession. Unfortunately, in the case of Iran, this access to technology

has been exploited as a loop-hole that allows states to pursue

weapons under the guise of peaceful nuclear power.

Adding to the complexities faced by the international community,

the nuclear fuel-cycle itself produces dangerous fissile materials

and radiological waste that can be used to construct a dirty bomb.

More needs to be done to head off this type of threat.

Last month, in a speech at the National Defense University,

President Bush made a number of useful proposals in the area of

arms control. With regard to the NPT, the President proposed that

the forty members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group should refuse to

sell uranium enrichment reprocessing equipment to any state that

does already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment or reprocessing plants. Additionally, the President proposed that all states

seeking access to civilian nuclear power should sign an additional

protocol with the IAEA by next year as a condition of their access

to civilian nuclear technology.

With regard to the IAEA, the President proposed two important

changes. First, he called on the IAEA Board of Governors to create

a special committee on safeguards and verification, to improve the

organization’s ability to enforce compliance with nuclear non-proliferation obligations. And second, the President urged that no

state under investigation for proliferation violations should be allowed to serve on the IAEA Board of Governors or on the new special committee.

The Bush administration also has pursued the Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI. The sixteen nations that participate in the

PSI have had notable successes. The seizure last October of a ship

bound for Libya carrying Malaysian-manufactured centrifuge components helped initiate revelations about Pakistani scientists’ clandestine nuclear-weapons network and provided further motivation

for Libya to disarm.

The PSI provides a flexible, immediate and cooperative approach

to weapons proliferation. It can be described as an operational component of non-proliferation. The legal and organizational apparatus

associated with traditional arms control or non-proliferation agreements rarely allow for such speed.

Today we welcome truly good friends to the committee. William

Perry is a former Secretary of Defense and is currently a professor

at Stanford University. Ash Carter is a former Assistant Secretary

of Defense for National Security Policy and is currently a professor

at Harvard University. Arnold Kanter is a former Under Secretary

of State and is currently a principal of the Scowcroft Group.

Our witnesses were joined by former National Security Advisor,

Brent Scowcroft, in writing an op-ed in the New York Times last

6

December that paralleled some of the President’s proposals on

which Senator Biden has commented so favorably this morning. I

am eager to hear their view of President Bush’s non-proliferation

policy. Furthermore, we would appreciate their insights into what

additional steps the United States might take on a bilateral and

multilateral basis to reduce the threats posed by the proliferation

of weapons of mass destruction.

Gentlemen, it is an honor and a pleasure to have you with the

committee this morning.

I would add that Ash Carter, as I have often pointed out publicly,

wrote a paper at Harvard, which served as the basis for the bi-partisan breakfast of Senators that preceeded introduction of the

Nunn-Lugar legislation. We have always pointed to that paper as

a seminal factor in the process of getting our legislation going. We

have appreciated all of Ash’s additional support through out the

years.

Ash and Secretary Perry accompanied Sam Nunn and me on a

trip to Russia and the Ukraine in the spring of 1992. They tried

to put some flesh into the legislation, and to offer some help to the

administration at that time. It was a plane full of talent. These

two, who were later to play very important roles in the Department

of Defense, were very instrumental in the formation of the Cooperative Threat Reduction legislation. They were there from the beginning.

Arnold Kanter has been a mentor for all of us throughout the

years, as well as a spur. Sam Nunn and I went to South Korea

very early on in this process, having already visited with Mr.

Primakov in Russia, when he was in the intelligence business

there. Arnold Kanter’s sage advice was very, very important, as we

tried to think through where we were headed with this legislation,

and with non-proliferation, generally.

I have wonderful memories of all three of you, and I am so

pleased that you’re here today. I would ask that you proceed in

whatever order that you may wish.

But, I would suggest, perhaps, Secretary Perry and then Secretary Carter and then Secretary Kanter. All of your statements

will be made part of the record in full.

You may give your full statements or summarize them, but take

the time that you need. The purpose of this hearing is to hear you

and to have the full benefit of your views.

Secretary Perry.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM J. PERRY, MICHAEL

AND BARBARA BERBERIAN PROFESSOR, CENTER FOR

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND COOPERATION, STANFORD

UNIVERSITY, STANFORD, CA

Mr. PERRY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I will briefly summarize my written statement which is in the

record.

The statement is entitled, ‘‘A Policy Framework for Countering

Weapons of Mass Destruction.’’ In my summary I want to make

three points.

The first point is to stress the grave importance of this problem

and the utmost priority that should be given to it in United States

7

National Security policy. It is not alarmism, but called reality.

Without vigorous U.S. counter proliferation efforts, a nuclear weapon could explode on U.S. soil sometime in the coming years. That

is the event that we should be focused on.

The second point I want to make is that there is no silver bullet

or policy to stop proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It requires a comprehensive program and succeeding speakers will talk

in some detail of what the elements of that program is.

The third point I want to make is that like the war on terrorism,

the war on weapons of mass destruction requires strong U.S. leadership, but, and this is an important but, it cannot be accomplished

by U.S. action alone. It does require fundamentally an international effort.

Now beyond my statement, I want to close with a purely personal remark. And in this, I want to quote Andrei Sakharov, the

great Russian physicist, who during the height of the cold war

wrote, ‘‘reducing the risk of annihilating humanity with nuclear

weapons must be the overriding consideration over all other priorities.’’ And so it was during the cold war and so it should be today.

Today, we risk not annihilating civilization, what we risk is a nuclear bomb being detonated in an American city. And this could

transform civilization in ways that would be very terrible.

Today, we do have programs designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but my concern and my deep concern is

that these programs are not being treated as priority programs.

You will hear from Dr. Carter and Dr. Kanter, specific recommendations on actions we should be taking to protect our country by dramatically strengthening these programs. We should be

pursuing these recommended programs. As Andrei Sakharov has

said, with an overriding priority overall other considerations.

If we do not, if we allow a terrorist to detonate a nuclear bomb

in Washington, DC, New York, or San Francisco, we will forever

after be asking ourselves why we didn’t take the actions necessary

to prevent that catastrophe.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Perry and Brent Scowcroft

follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM J. PERRY AND BRENT SCOWCROFT

A POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR COUNTERING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me and my

good friend Brent Scowcroft to kick off this hearing on Nonproliferation and Arms

Control: Strategic Choices. Brent could not be here today, but he asked me to make

this brief opening statement on behalf of both of us.

First of all, Brent and I commend the Committee for addressing itself to this

topic, which is the most important security imperative of our era and which President Bush has succinctly posed as the need to ‘‘keep the worst weapons out of the

hands of the worst people.’’

Brent and I have long worked together on issues involving WMD. Initially our

concern was, of course, the nuclear arsenals of the cold war superpowers and their

potential to unleash destruction on a scale that would almost literally have wiped

out civilization. I was a member of the Scowcroft Commission during the Reagan

administration that assessed the options for maintaining a nuclear deterrent to Soviet attack that was strong and, at the same time, survivable and stabilizing.

For a time Brent and I co-chaired the bipartisan Aspen Strategy Group, which

has counted among its members over the years many important thinkers about U.S.

national security, including Vice Presidents Cheney and Gore, National Security AdVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jul 19, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 94204 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2
8

visor Condi Rice, and you yourself, Mr. Chairman, as well as Senators Hagel and

Brownback of this Committee, and Senators Reed and Hutchison. This past summer

the four of us making statements before you today—Brent and myself, Ash Carter,

and Arnie Kanter, all members of the Aspen Strategy Group—were reflecting on

how the WMD problem has changed from the cold war days. Out of that discussion

came our proposal, detailed in the New York Times op-ed attached to my statement,

to strengthen the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty regime to deal better with such

serious problems as the Iranian nuclear program. A national and indeed international debate on this proposal, and what we hope would be swift adoption of it

in some form, is an example of the kind of policy response to the WMD threat that

the series of hearings being launched today can catalyze. I was pleased that President Bush included this concept in his recent speech at National Defense University.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to make two principal points on our behalf in opening

this hearing.

The first is to stress the grave importance of this problem and the utmost priority

that should be given to it in U.S. national security policy. It is not alarmism but

cold reality that without vigorous U.S. counterproliferation efforts a nuclear weapon

might explode on U.S. soil sometime in coming years. Such an event—or even an ever-present knowledge that nuclear weapons were ‘‘loose’’ in the hands of terrorists—would transform the way we live. Who would wish to live or work within the

concentric rings of progressive destruction around this Capitol if we came to believe

that a nuclear detonation here was possible any minute? Yet we could face this

knowledge in the future if only a fraction of the fissile material already made, let

alone that which may be in the making in such places at North Korea, fell into the

hands of the many who would use it—without warning, without remorse, and without fear of retaliation. America’s national security leaders owe our people freedom

from this fear, above all else.

Second, there is no silver bullet of policy to stop proliferation of WMD—neither

preemption, nor arms control, nor export controls, nor diplomacy, nor missile defense, nor deterrence, nor any other single tool. The point so often missed in debate

over this central security problem is that we need, in one way or another, all of

these approaches. The problems of WMD spread to state and non-state actors are

different in different places, and the variety of the problems must be matched with

a variety of approaches. The magnitude of the problem requires that we leave no

option out of our consideration. We need to be strengthening each and every one of

our counterproliferation tools. Some of our approaches date back decades and, like

the NPT example I gave above, are in need of fundamental overhaul.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, we need a war on WMD as vigorous as the war on terrorism. Like the war on terrorism, the war on WMD requires

strong U.S. leadership but cannot be accomplished by U.S. action alone. The Committee’s effort to frame the agenda for a comprehensive, stronger, and global approach to protecting the U.S. from WMD is exactly what is needed at this time, and

Brent Scowcroft and I are pleased to share today in your effort.

[Attachment.]

[From The New York Times, Monday, December 22, 2003]

GOOD NUKES, BAD NUKES

(By Ashton B. Carter, Arnold Kanter, William J. Perry

and Brent Scowcroft)

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is arguably the most popular treaty in history: except for five states, every nation in the world is part of it. For more than

three decades, it has helped curb the spread of nuclear weapons.

Since 9/11, however, and especially in the last several months, the viability of the

treaty has been called into question. Some say it is obsolete. Others say it is merely

ineffective. In support of its argument each side cites the situation in Iran, which

has been able to advance a nuclear weapons program despite being a member of

the treaty.

The Iranian nuclear program—and, to a lesser extent, the activities of Libya,

which has also signed the treaty but announced last week it would give up all illegal

weapons programs—highlight both the utility and the limitations of the treaty. It

is not obsolete; if the treaty did not exist, we almost certainly would want to invent

it. At the same time, it would be a mistake to rely on it exclusively to address the

problem of nuclear proliferation.

9

Those who say the treaty is useless argue that the bad guys either don’t sign the

treaty, or they do and then cheat. The good guys sign and obey, but the treaty is

irrelevant for these countries because they have no intention of becoming nuclear

proliferators in the first place.

This all-or-nothing argument is wrong. First, it fails to acknowledge that there is

an important category in between good guys and bad guys. For these in-betweens—

countries like Ukraine, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Argentina or South Korea—the

weight of international opinion against proliferation expressed in the treaty has contributed to tipping the balance of decision-making against having nuclear weapons.

Second, the treaty does have an impact even on ‘‘bad guys’’ like Iraq, Iran and

North Korea. When the United States moves against such regimes, it does so with

the support of the global opprobrium for nuclear weapons that the treaty enshrines.

This consensus undergirds the multilateral approach that is under way to resolve

the North Korean nuclear issue, and was at the heart of the international pressure

that persuaded Tehran to increase the transparency of its nuclear program. Even

in the divisive case of Iraq, no one argued that Saddam Hussein should be left alone

with weapons of mass destruction.

Yet the treaty is not perfect. It allows, for example, nations that forswear nuclear

weapons to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Signatories may build and

operate nuclear power reactors, and they are permitted to produce enriched uranium that fuels the reactors, to store the radioactive spent fuel from those reactors,

and to reprocess that spent fuel. The only specific obligations are that signatories

declare these plants to the International Atomic Energy Agency and permit the

agency to inspect them.

The problem is that this ‘‘closed fuel cycle’’ gives these countries the inherent capacity to produce the fissile material required for a nuclear weapon. Facilities used

to produce enriched uranium for power reactors can also be used to produce enriched uranium for weapons. Reprocessing spent fuel yields plutonium that can be

fashioned into nuclear weapons.

As North Korea and Iran demonstrate, regimes that intend to violate the treaty’s

ban on nuclear weapons can exploit this right to operate a nuclear power plant.

While seeming to remain within the terms of the treaty, they can gather all the resources necessary to make nuclear weapons. Then they can abrogate the treaty and

proceed to build a nuclear arsenal.

The world should renew its determination to curb the spread of nuclear weapons

by supplementing the current treaty with additional inducements and penalties.

The key is to draw a distinction between the right to a peaceful civilian nuclear

power program and the right to operate a closed fuel cycle. The first should be preserved—and perhaps enhanced—but the second should be seriously discouraged, if

not prohibited.

How might such a system work? In addition to their treaty obligations, those

countries seeking to develop nuclear power to generate electricity would agree not

to manufacture, store or reprocess nuclear fuel. They also would agree to submit to

inspections (probably under the atomic energy agency) to verify their compliance.

Those countries that now sell peaceful nuclear technology in accordance with the

treaty, meanwhile, would agree not to provide technology, equipment or fuel for nuclear reactors and related facilities to any country that will not renounce its right

to enrich and reprocess nuclear fuel, and agree not to sell or transfer any equipment

or technology designed for the enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear fuel. At the

same time, these countries would agree to guarantee the reliable supply of nuclear

fuel, and retrieval of spent fuel at competitive prices, to those countries that do

agree to this new arrangement.

We might also consider sanctions on those countries that nevertheless choose to

pursue a closed fuel cycle. Whatever the precise content and form of these undertakings, it would probably be better to treat them as a companion to that treaty,

rather than embark on the complicated and controversial process of amending it.

Why would any countries that want to develop a peaceful nuclear power program

agree to such a bargain? One blunt answer is that if these restrictions were put in

place, these countries would have virtually no choice, because developing the necessary technology from scratch is a daunting task. Refusing the arrangement would

open them up to international scrutiny and pressure. On the other hand, any country that was truly interested in developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes

would undoubtedly welcome a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel.

And why would countries that now supply nuclear technology be interested? First,

no nation in this category has any interest in adding any country to the roster of

the world’s nuclear states. Second, over time, there probably is more money to be

made in nuclear fuel services than in nuclear reactors.

10

Iran provides an excellent opportunity to test this approach. Building on the

progress recently announced in Tehran, the United States should propose that Russian plans to help Iran build a network of civilian nuclear power reactors be permitted to proceed—provided that Iran enters into a verifiable ban on its enrichment

and reprocessing abilities, and into an agreement to depend instead on a Russianled suppliers’ consortium for nuclear fuel services.

The Russians would be likely to embrace such a proposal for commercial and political reasons, and the Iranians would be confronted with a clear test of whether

they harbor nuclear weapons ambitions. Britain, France and Germany, whose foreign ministers recently proposed a similar scheme to Iran, would need only to avoid

the temptation to undercut the Russians on behalf of their own nuclear industry.

And the United States could reap the benefits of offering a constructive initiative

to address the Iranian nuclear problem.

Of course, this new arrangement would hardly be a cure-all. And making it work

would be difficult. But at a time when its effectiveness and relevance are being

questioned, such an approach would strengthen the treaty by furthering its goals:

preventing the spread of nuclear weapons while promoting the development of

peaceful nuclear energy.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Secretary Perry.

Secretary Carter.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ASHTON B. CARTER, CO-DIRECTOR, PREVENTIVE DEFENSE PROJECT, JOHN F. KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY,

CAMBRIDGE, MA

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for inviting me to be here today. And thank you very

much for your kind remarks in the introduction.

The last time I testified before this committee, the topic was the

North Korean nuclear crisis.

In their joint statement, Secretary Perry and General Scowcroft

indicated that they had been working together with Arnie Kanter,

also at the table, and me recently, on ideas on how to stop Iran’s

nuclear program.

And of course, most of this last year all of us have had our attention riveted on the war to stop Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

But you, today, Mr. Chairman, ask us to step back a bit and to

look not at today’s hot spots, but beyond those hot spots to the underlying policies and programs of the United States for counter proliferation. And it is those that I would like to address.

And it’s a particular interest of mine because I was involved in

launching the Pentagon’s Counter Proliferation Initiative almost 10

years ago. There were very few hawks on this subject at that time.

The way you framed this hearing, Mr. Chairman, is a reminder

that although in dealing with the rogues is vitally important, it is

not the totality of the counter proliferation approach and policy we

need. A clear indication that our approach to countering proliferation should not begin and end with the rogues, is that most of the

nearly 200 nations on earth most have not, in fact, resorted to

weapons of mass destruction. There are few rogues fortunately.

In one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous novels, Sherlock Holmes

sees a vital clue to a murder in the fact that a dog at the scene

of the crime did not bark. In a similar way, we should see a clue

to one aspect of a successful counter proliferation policy in the fact

that such countries as Germany, Japan, Turkey, South Korea and

Taiwan have not resorted to weapons of mass destruction.

11

They have not because they were dissuaded from doing so by a

stable reliance relationship with the United States which offered

better security for them than weapons of mass destruction. This is

something the United States has been doing right and should keep

doing right.

Later I will return to this point because I have some concerns

about the health of our alliances and partnerships.

Other nations have foregone weapons of mass destruction as part

of a disarmament agreement like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Treaty that ensures them that if they forego weapons of mass destruction, their neighbors will forego weapons of mass destruction.

If disarmament regimes can be strengthened and updated so that

they offer credible protection, and Arnie Kanter will indicate later

how this might be done for the NPT, they too can play a vital role

in counter proliferation.

Now when dissuasion and disarmament fail and a nation heads

down the road to weapons of mass destruction acquisition nonetheless, focused diplomacy by the United States can sometime reverse

its course. Recent decades give many examples of successful U.S.

diplomacy: Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus after the collapse of

the Soviet Union; South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s; Argentina

and Brazil in the 1990s; perhaps Libya in recent years.

Some proliferators cannot be turned back by diplomacy. And at

that point our approach must be to deny them the means to make

weapons of mass destruction. Keeping the worst weapons out of the

hands of the worst people, to paraphrase President Bush. Export

controls, covert action, the new Proliferation Security Initiative,

and the highly successful Nunn-Lugar program all contribute to

the strategy of denial.

Finally, sometimes dissuasion, disarmament, diplomacy, and denial don’t work, and despite our best efforts proliferation occurs. It

was important to me during the time I served in the Defense Department that U.S. efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction

not end when non-proliferation had failed, and this is one reason

we coined the word counter proliferation. At the point when nonproliferation fails we need to offer protection to our forces, people,

and allies against weapons of mass destruction.

Elimination of hair-trigger alert postures, improved permissive

action link type technology, and other defusing measures can reduce the chances of accidental or unauthorized use of weapons of

mass destruction where they occur—from Russia for example, or

between India and Pakistan. With respect of deliberate use of

weapons of mass destruction after proliferation has occurred, the

United States should continue, in my judgment, its current policy

of threatening overwhelming and devastating retaliation against

anyone who uses nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against

us, since in at least some cases deterrence might be effective.

Where deterrence fails, defenses ranging from chemical suits, inhalation masks, and vaccines to ballistic missile defense are needed.

And finally, where all of that fails and the risk of weapons of

mass destruction use is imminent, preemptive destruction of hostile

weapons of mass destruction might be a necessary last resort.

12

So, Mr. Chairman, dissuasion, disarmament, diplomacy, denial,

defusing, deterrence, defenses, destruction, what the Department of

Defense calls the eight ‘‘Ds,’’ are the tools of a comprehensive

counter proliferation policy. And besides being an easy jog to the

memory, the eight Ds are a reminder that there is no silver bullet

for counter proliferation. Not preemption, not arms control, not any

other single tool.

From listening to the public debate one might come to believe

that one of these tools holds the key to protection against proliferation. But the dynamics driving proliferation in different countries

are different enough that no single label or doctrine can cover them

all. One might also infer from the public debate that the eight Ds

are competing, alternative doctrines. In fact, we need them all.

So today, a counter proliferation hawk should be trying to

strengthen all the eight Ds, all the tools in the toolbox. And many

of them are in need of fundamental overhaul. One reason for that

is that we have not yet heeded a lesson of the attacks of 9/11, the

counter proliferation and counter terrorism are inseparable in the

21st century.

As I indicated when I appeared before you to discuss the North

Korea nuclear crisis, we must be concerned not only about what

Kim Jong Il might do with the nuclear weapons he obtains from

the plutonium he is reprocessing, but also about the other hands

into which North Korea’s nukes might someday fall, either through

sale or in the chaos of a collapse of the North Korean regime.

The half life of plutonium 239 is 24,400 years. Surely the North

Korean regime will not last that long. Today’s proliferation threat

is therefore tomorrow’s catastrophic terrorism threat. Who among

us would not give a great deal now to return to the 1980s and stop

the Pakistani nuclear program, which might be Talibanized sometime in the future. A real nightmare scenario?

And 9/11 should have caused us to overhaul our approach to

counter proliferation as fundamentally as our approach to counter

terrorism. But so far the worst people have gotten more attention

than the worst weapons.

The counter proliferation hawk’s agenda would have six priorities which together cover all the eight Ds. And in the remainder

of my time I would like to sketch out what in each of those six categories should be done.

The first is to strengthen our alliances and partnerships. I indicated earlier that the prospect of being embedded in a stable security relationship has been critical in preventing many countries

from proliferating. This under appreciated benefit of our security

partnerships is yet another reason to avoid the temptation to make

a virtue of an Iraq war necessity, the so-called coalition of the willing.

For this and for several other reasons I won’t take the time to

describe, but are in my statement, we should reject the notion that

the United States can operate effectively through coalitions of the

willing. And use the concept only as the last resort when we have

had no success in leading our allies in our direction.

Second, expand the scope of Nunn-Lugar. Nunn-Lugar is recognized to be not only a Department of Defense program focusing on

the Soviet Union, Mr. Chairman, the way it began a dozen years

13

ago, but an entirely new and novel and broad-ranging approach to

eliminating weapons of mass destruction. An approach of wide applicability.

At the time the United States formed a coalition against alQaeda after 9/11, it should have formed a parallel coalition against

weapons of mass destruction based on the Nunn-Lugar approach.

In fact, such a coalition against weapons of mass destruction terrorism was proposed at the time by none other than Senators

Nunn and Lugar. The United States missed a major opportunity to

transform counter proliferation while it had the attention and sympathies of the world.

Still it is not too late to expand the scale and scope of NunnLugar. The expansion would plan for and fund: First, the final and

complete safeguarding of all Soviet Union fissile materials in weapons and non-weapon form.

Second, bolder inroads into former Soviet biological and chemical

stockpiles and facilities.

Third, collection of all significant caches of highly enriched uranium worldwide, eliminating these sleeper cells of nuclear terrorism.

Fourth, complete and verifiable elimination of weapons of mass

destruction programs in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korean when

and as circumstances permit.

Promulgation and adoption of world-class standards for inventory

control, safety and security for all weapons and weapons usable

materials.

Strengthening border and export controls and devising cooperative international responses in the event of an incident of nuclear

terrorism.

As you have noted yourself, Mr. Chairman, Nunn-Lugar is much

praised but little funded in Washington, DC and other capitals.

Here in Washington, there are tenacious opponents in Congress

and even in the administration, despite the fact that President

Bush has voiced his support for the program.

Third, update and upgrade the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The NPT is sometimes disparaged because it said the bad guys can

ignore it with impunity since it has inadequate verification and enforcement provisions. And the good guys would be good with or

without an agreement.

This contention is wrong for two reasons. First, the world does

not divide neatly into good guys and bad guys in regard to proliferation behavior. There’s an important in between category. This

group has been represented over time by the ones I named before:

Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan, South

Korea and South Africa. And in all of these cases, the allure of

greater international acceptance, if they abandoned their nuclear

ambitions and signed the NPT, was one of the factors in their decision.

Second reason it is wrong, is that it is important to note that

agreements like the NPT are in fact useful even in dealing with the

bad guys, in an indirect way. When it becomes necessary for the

United States to lead action against the rogues, we do so with the

support of the general opprobrium for nuclear weapons that the

NPT enshrines.

14

While the NPT has great value in its current form, therefore its

provisions can and should be strengthened. Bill Perry has mentioned this problem in his joint statement with Brent Scowcroft,

and Arnie Kanter will cover it in more detail.

A fourth, we should make it a part of the Pentagon’s transformation. In the 1990s, the term ‘‘counter proliferation’’ was

coined as I mentioned earlier, to signify that contending with weapons of mass destruction was an important Department of Defense

mission in the post cold war world.

And a number of counter proliferation programs were created

within the Department of Defense at that time to try to focus research, development and acquisition on non-nuclear counters to

weapons of mass destruction on the battlefield because the President deserves better options than firing U.S. nuclear weapons if

someone uses weapons of mass destruction against us.

Over time, that kind of proliferation programs were expanded to

protect rear areas and ports and airfields in the theater of war, and

subsequently technologies for protecting allied rear areas were recognized to be applicable to the protection of the U.S. homeland as

well.

So by 9/11, the Department of Defense was recognized as the

lead agency in the Federal Government for developing and fielding

technology for countering weapons of mass destruction. Chemical

and biological warning sensors, improved vaccines against biological-attack, individual and collective protective coverings, special

munitions for attacking and neutralizing enemy weapons of mass

destruction, radio chemical forensics, and active defenses such as

ballistic missile defenses. All of those things.

Today, the Pentagon is quite rightly devoting a portion of its

growing budget to transforming the military. But the core of that

effort remains conventional warfare: Long range precision strike,

close integration of intelligence information with operations, Closer

working of Army, Navy and Air Force units in joint operations.

These are all worthy transformation goals for conventional warfare, but they need to be matched, and they are not matched at

this time, by any comparable counter-weapons of mass destruction

emphasis. Counter proliferation needs more resources and a clearer

management structure within the Department of Defense.

Fifth, the same observation that I just made about defense transformation could be made about the priority given to weapons of

mass destruction in the new Homeland Security agencies and

budget.

If the worst kind of terrorism imaginable is weapons of mass destruction terrorism, why is so small a fraction of the new Homeland Security program devoted to innovative efforts to prevent and

respond to weapons of mass destruction terrorism?

Last and sixth, overhaul weapons of mass destruction intelligence and avoid the specter of policymaking in the dark. No policy

tool, preemption, disarmament, missile defense, denial can be effective if the existence and nature of weapons of mass destruction efforts is unknown or imprecise.

And Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld became convinced in the

course of his work on ballistic missile proliferation before he took

office, that adequate intelligence on weapons of mass destruction

15

programs or at least ballistic missile programs, was unlikely to be

present. Given the stakes, he concluded, the United States must

assume the worst in formulating its policy response. This logic, encapsulated in the maxim ‘‘absence of evidence of weapons of mass

destruction is not evidence of absence,’’ was the main intellectual

argument in the Rumsfeld report leading to the deployment of a

National Missile Defense.

The argument was that we would not know the exact timetable

for the deployment of an Iranian or North Korean ballistic missile

threat, and therefore it was imprudent merely to prepare to deploy

in anticipation of the emergence of that threat. Instead it was necessary to deploy immediately.

I myself applied that same logic to the need for a preemptive war

in Iraq. I along with many others believed it was safer to assume

Saddam Hussein was trying to fulfill his long-demonstrated quest

for weapons of mass destruction than to interpret the scanty intelligence available as evidence of a scanty program. I still believe

that my judgment to support the invasion of Iraq was sound on the

basis of the information available at the time. But we now know

that the overall picture of that information painted was incorrect.

The matter of pre-war intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction is a subject of several ongoing inquiries, and my purpose

in raising it is not to anticipate their results but to point to the

larger issue of how to improve weapons of mass destruction intelligence in general and get out of the worst case mode where we

can.

Weapons of mass destruction activities are inherently difficult to

monitor, and therefore a profound question bearing upon all of the

eight Ds, is whether adequate intelligence is likely to be available

to make any of them effective. If not the world is doomed to a perpetual situation reminiscent of the ‘‘missile gap’’ of the 1950s,

where policymaking was forced into worst case scenario mode.

The uncertainties of the 1950s missile gap were substantially

dispelled by the invention of satellite reconnaissance. And in this

field of counter proliferation also technology can make a substantial difference. I won’t take the time to detail that, but it is detailed

in an article which I have attached to my written statement that

will be published shortly in Technology in Society.

Technology is important, but no technology in the offing holds

the promise of lifting the veil of weapons of mass destruction activities completely the way satellite photography lifted the veil of the

Soviet Union’s nuclear missile and bomber programs. So accurate

intelligence on weapons of mass destruction needs to be enhanced

by some additional ingredients. There are matters of policy and

management.

One ingredient is active transparency by the parties under surveillance. Governments around the world will have to allow greater

access to their territory, facilities, and scientists if there is to be

any kind of accurate underpinning of counter proliferation.

The second ingredient must be the shifting of the burden of proof

from the international community to the party under suspicion.

Third, since proliferation is essentially a scientific activity, we

also need to increase the number and level of technical training of

the scientists and engineers in the intelligence community, as well

16

as the linkages between the intelligence community and the broader scientific community.

And fourth, very importantly, a great spur of quality and motivation of an intelligence effort is a clear link to action. Since 9/11, as

you know, the counter terrorism intelligence effort has become

more actionable. To simplify somewhat, the counter terrorism effort

has moved from producing papers characterizing terrorists groups

to supporting operations to interdict terrorists.

As the counter proliferation efforts gets more operational, as I

hope it does, through covert action, the PSI, expanded Nunn-Lugar,

and verifying weapons of mass destruction elimination in Iraq,

Libya, and hopefully elsewhere, the demand for actionable intelligence will increase. And if history is any guide, the intensity and

quality of collection and analysis by the intelligence community

will increase in response.

Taken together and with urgency, these five steps I have named

leave me, if we take them, optimistic that such an overhaul of our

weapons of mass destruction related intelligence effort can provide

accurate intelligence to undergird all of the eight Ds.

Well, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, let me close

by repeating something Dr. Perry said, which is, ‘‘the war on terrorism and the war on proliferation are strongly linked in the 21st

century.’’ But they are not identical. So far we’re waging the war

on terrorism much more vigorously than we’re waging the war on

weapons of mass destruction, attacking the worst people much

more than the worst weapons.

I hope this series of hearings results in an overhaul of counter

proliferation that is as far reaching as the overhaul of counter terrorism that began on 9/11. And that the measures I have recommended provide an agenda for action.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Carter follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ASHTON B. CARTER

OVERHAULING COUNTERPROLIFERATION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee on Foreign Relations, thank you

for inviting me to appear before you today. Last time I testified before you, the topic

was the North Korean nuclear crisis. Bill Perry and Brent Scowcroft indicated that

we had been working together with Arnie Kanter recently on how to stop Iran’s nu- clear program. And, of course, much of the attention of all of us over the past year

has been on the war to stop Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.

Today you have asked me to step back a bit and look beyond today’s proliferation

hotspots to the underlying policies and programs of the United States for

counterproliferation (CP). I was deeply involved in launching the Pentagon’s CP Initiative almost ten years ago, when there were few of us hawks on this subject. The

way you have framed this hearing is a reminder that dealing with the so-called

‘‘rogues,’’ though vitally important, is not the totality of the CP policy we need.

No Silver Bullets: A Comprehensive Approach to Counterproliferation

A clear indication that our approach to countering proliferation should not begin

and end with the rogues is that most of the nearly 200 nations on earth have not,

in fact, resorted to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). There are but a few rogues,

fortunately. In one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous novels, Sherlock Holmes sees

a vital clue in the fact that a dog at the scene of the crime did not bark. In a similar

way, we should see a clue to one aspect of a successful CP policy in the fact that

such countries as Germany, Japan, Turkey, South Korea, and Taiwan have not resorted to WMD. They have not because they were dissuaded from doing so by a stable alliance relationship with the United States that offered better security for them

than WMD. This is something the United States has been doing right and should

17

keep doing right; later I will return to this point, because I have some concerns

about the health of our alliances and partnerships.

Other nations have foregone WMD as part of a disarmament agreement like the

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that ensures them that if they forego WMD, their

neighbors will also. If disarmament regimes can be strengthened and updated so

they offer credible protection—Arnie Kanter will indicate later how this might be

done for the NPT—they too can play a vital role in CP.

When dissuasion and disarmament fail and a nation heads down the road to

WMD acquisition, focused diplomacy by the United States can sometime reverse its

course. Recent decades give many examples: Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus

after the collapse of the Soviet Union; South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s; Argentina and Brazil in the 1990s; perhaps Libya in recent years.

Some proliferators cannot be turned back. At that point our approach must be to

deny them the means to make WMD: keeping the worst weapons out of the hands

of the worst people, to paraphrase President Bush. Export controls, covert action,

the new Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and the highly successful NunnLugar program all contribute to the strategy of denial.

Sometimes dissuasion, disarmament, diplomacy, and denial don’t work, and despite our best efforts proliferation occurs. It was important to me during the time

I served in the Defense Department that U.S. efforts to counter WMD not end when

nonproliferation had failed, and that is one reason we coined the word

‘‘counterproliferation’’. At that point we need to offer protection to our forces, people,

and allies against use of WMD. Elimination of hair-trigger alert postures, improved

permissive action link (PAL) type technology, and other defusing measures can reduce the chances of accidental or unauthorized use of WMD—from Russia, for example, or between India and Pakistan. With respect to deliberate use, the United

States should continue its current policy of threatening ‘‘overwhelming and devastating’’ retaliation against anyone who uses nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us, since in at least some cases deterrence might be effective. Where deterrence fails, defenses—ranging from chemical suits, inhalation masks, and vaccines to ballistic missile defense (BMD)—are needed. Finally, where the risk of use

of WMD is imminent, preemptive destruction of hostile WMD might be a necessary

last resort.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: dissuasion, disarmament, diplomacy, denial, defusing, deterrence, defenses, destruction—what the Department of

Defense calls the ‘‘8 D’s,’’ are the tools of a comprehensive counterproliferation policy. Besides being an easy jog to the memory, the 8 D’s are a reminder that there

is no silver bullet for counterproliferation—not preemption (destruction), not arms

control (disarmament), nor any other single tool. From listening to the public debate

one might come to believe that one of these tools holds the key to protection against

proliferation. But the dynamics driving proliferation in different countries are different enough that no single label or doctrine can cover them all. One might also

infer from the public debate that the 8 D’s are competing, alternative ‘‘doctrines.’’

In fact we need them all.

Ingredients of a Needed Overhaul of Counterproliferation

Today a CP ‘‘hawk’’ should be trying to strengthen all tools in the toolbox. Many

of them are in need of fundamental overhaul. One problem is that some date to the

Cold War, when counterproliferation was a ‘‘B list’’ problem compared to the ‘‘A list’’

confrontation with the Soviet Union. Another problem is that we have not heeded

a lesson of the attacks of 9/11: counterproliferation and counterterrorism are inseparable in the 21st century. As I indicated when I appeared before you to discuss the

North Korean nuclear crisis, we must be concerned not only about what Kim Jong

Il might do with nuclear weapons he obtains from the plutonium he is reprocessing,

but also about the other hands into which North Korea’s nukes might some day

fall—either through sale or in the chaos of a collapse of the North Korean regime.

The half-life of plutonium 239 is 24,400 years; surely the North Korean regime will

not last that long. Today’s proliferation threat is tomorrow’s catastrophic terrorism

threat. Who among us would not give a great deal now to return to the 1980s and

stop the Pakistani nuclear program, which might be ‘‘talibanized’’ sometime in the

future, in a nightmare scenario? 9/11 should have caused us to overhaul our approach to counterproliferation as fundamentally as our approach to

counterterrorism. But so far the ‘‘worst people’’ have gotten more attention than the

‘‘worst weapons.’’

The counterproliferation hawk’s agenda would have six priorities, which together

cover all of the ‘‘8 D’s.’’

1. Strengthen alliances and partnerships. I indicated earlier that the prospect of

being embedded in a stable security relationship with the United States has been

18

critical to preventing proliferation in such countries as South Korea, Turkey, Taiwan, and Ukraine. This underappreciated benefit of America’s security partnerships

is another reason to avoid the temptation to make a virtue of an Iraq war necessity,

the so-called ‘‘coalition of the willing.’’ Compared to standing partnerships and alliances, such coalitions do not serve U.S. interests well. Alliance partners train together to interoperate, so when they go to war they are not only willing but able

to make a contribution to combined operations. Alliance partners routinely exchange

threat assessments, making them more likely—not certain, to be sure, but more

likely—to share our view when we believe use of force is necessary. And finally, alliance partners stably tied to the U.S. for their defense are unlikely to adopt a drastic, purely national approach to their defense like acquisition of WMD. For all these

reasons, we should reject the notion that the United States can operate effectively

through ‘‘coalitions of the willing’’ and use that concept only as a last resort when

we have no success in leading our allies in our direction.

2. Expand the scale and scope of Nunn-Lugar. Nunn-Lugar is now recognized to

be not just a DOD program focused on the former Soviet Union, the way it began

a dozen years ago, but a novel approach to eliminating WMD of wide applicability.

At the time the United States formed a coalition against al Qaeda after 9/11, it

should have formed a parallel coalition against WMD based on the Nunn-Lugar approach. In fact, such a Coalition Against WMD Terrorism was proposed at the time

by none other than Senators Lugar and Nunn. The United States missed a major

opportunity to transform counterproliferation while it had the attention and sympathies of the world.

It is not too late to expand the scale and scope of Nunn-Lugar. The expansion

would plan for and fund: the final and complete safeguarding of all former Soviet

fissile materials, in weapons and non-weapons forms; bolder inroads into former Soviet biological and chemical stockpiles and facilities; collection of all significant

caches of highly enriched uranium worldwide, eliminating these ‘‘sleeper cells’’ of

nuclear terrorism; complete and verifiable elimination of WMD programs in Iraq,

Libya, Iran, and North Korea as and when circumstances permit; promulgation and

adoption of world-class standards for inventory control, safety, and security for all

weapons and weapons-usable materials; strengthening border and export controls;

and devising cooperative international responses (NEST teams, radiological public

health measures, forensics, and so on) in the event of an incident of nuclear terrorism.

As you have noted, Mr. Chairman, Nunn-Lugar is much praised but little funded

in Washington and other capitals. Here in Washington there are tenacious opponents in Congress and even in the administration, despite the fact that President

Bush has voiced his support for the program.

3. Update and upgrade the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The NPT is sometimes disparaged because, it is said, the ‘‘bad guys’’ can ignore it with impunity

(since it has inadequate verification and enforcement provisions) and the ‘‘good

guys’’ would be good with or without an agreement. This contention is wrong for

two reasons.

First, the world does not divide neatly into ‘‘good guys’’ and ‘‘bad guys’’ in regard

to proliferation behavior: there is a substantial ‘‘in-between’’ category. This group

has been represented over time by Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus (which chose

to forsake the nuclear weapons they inherited from the Soviet Union); Argentina

and Brazil (which mutually agreed to give up their nuclear programs); Taiwan and

South Korea (which chose U.S. protection over nuclear weapons); and South Africa

(which changed regimes and thus its sense of external threat). In all these cases,

the allure of greater international acceptance if they abandoned their nuclear ambitions and signed the NPT was one of the deciding factors.

Secondly, it is important to note that agreements like the NPT are, in fact, useful

even in dealing with the ‘‘bad guys’’ in an indirect way. When it becomes necessary

for the United States to lead action against the rogues, the international consensus

against WMD embodied in arms control agreements provides a framework for the

United States to marshal the support of other nations.

While the NPT has great value in its current form, its provisions can and should

be strengthened. One problem is that the concept of a so-called ‘‘peaceful atom,’’ dating to the 1960s when the NPT was negotiated, constitutes a huge loophole in the

regime that must be closed. Bill Perry has mentioned this problem, and Arnie

Kanter will cover it in more detail. A second problem with the NPT is the weaknesses of its verification and enforcement provisions, which need to be addressed.

Arms control plays a limited role in the counterproliferation toolbox. But in this

it is not different from all the other tools. Each tool has its limitations, but also its

place. The United States should be taking the lead in fixing the NPT, not in disparaging it.

19

4. Make counterproliferation an integral part of Pentagon Transformation. In the

1990s the term ‘‘counterproliferation’’ was coined in the Pentagon to signify that

contending with WMD was an important DOD mission in the post-Cold War world.

A number of counterproliferation programs were created within DOD to try to focus

research, development, and acquisition on producing non-nuclear counters to WMD

on the battlefield. Nuclear retaliation for use of WMD against U.S. troops was always an option, but not all opponents will necessarily be deterred in this way, and

in the event of WMD use against us the President deserves better options than firing U.S. nuclear weapons.

Over time, the counterproliferation programs were expanded to protecting rear areas—ports and airfields in the theater of war—against chemical and biological

weapons attack. Subsequently, the technologies for protecting allied rear areas were

recognized to be applicable to protection of the U.S. homeland from WMD attack.

Thus, by 9/11, DOD was recognized as the lead agency in the federal government

for developing and fielding technology for countering WMD wielded by both state

and non-state actors, both on foreign battlefields and on U.S. territory. Examples

of counterproliferation programs, both research and acquisition, were chemical and

biological warning sensors, improved vaccines against bioattack, individual and collective protective coverings, special munitions for attacking and neutralizing enemy

WMD, radiochemical forensics, and active defenses such as ballistic missile defense.

Today the Pentagon is quite rightly devoting a portion of its growing budget to ‘‘transforming’’ the military to anticipate future threats and field dramatically new

technologies. But the core of the effort remains long-range precision strike, close integration of intelligence information with operations, and closer working of Army,

Navy, and Air Force units together in ‘‘joint’’ operations. These worthy transformation goals for conventional warfare have not been matched by any comparable

counter-WMD emphasis. DOD’s counterproliferation programs remain small and

scattered among the Services, OSD, ‘‘joint’’ program offices, and the Defense Threat

Reduction Agency. Excluding missile defense, these programs amount to only a few

billion out of the $400 billion defense budget, far too small a fraction given the importance of the mission. Counterproliferation needs more resources and a clearer

management structure in DOD.

5. Increase focus on WMD terrorism within the Homeland Security program. A

similar observation can be made about the priority given to WMD in the new homeland security agencies and budget. If the worst kind of terrorism imaginable is

WMD terrorism, why is so small a fraction of the new homeland security program

devoted to innovative efforts to prevent and respond to WMD terrorism?

6. Overhaul WMD Intelligence: The Specter of Policymaking in the Dark. No policy

tool—neither preemptive destruction, nor disarmament arms control, nor missile defense, nor denial—can be effective if the existence and nature of WMD efforts is unknown or imprecise.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld became convinced in the course of his work

on ballistic missile proliferation before he took office that adequate intelligence on

WMD programs is unlikely to be present in most cases. Given the stakes, he concluded, the U.S. must assume the worst in formulating its policy responses. This

logic, encapsulated in the maxim ‘‘absence of evidence [of WMD] is not evidence of

absence,’’ was the main intellectual argument in the Rumsfeld Commission report

leading to the deployment of a National Missile Defense. According to this maxim,

intelligence regarding the timetable for the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile threat originating in Iran or North Korea was uncertain enough that

it was deemed imprudent for the United States merely to be prepared to deploy a

missile defense within a few years (the Clinton administration policy), but instead

necessary to undertake deployment immediately.

I myself applied the same logic to the need for a preemptive war in Iraq. I believed it was safer to assume Saddam Hussein was trying to fulfill his long-demonstrated quest for WMD than to interpret the scanty intelligence available as evidence of a scanty WMD program. I still believe my judgment to support the invasion

of Iraq was sound on the basis of the information available at the time. But we now

know that the overall picture that information painted was incorrect.

The matter of pre-war intelligence on Iraq’s WMD is the subject of several ongoing inquiries, and my purpose in raising it is not to anticipate their results but to

point to the larger issue of how to improve WMD intelligence in general.

WMD activities are inherently difficult to monitor. It is comparatively easy to

monitor the size and disposition of armies, the numbers and types of conventional

weaponry like tanks and aircraft, and even the operational doctrines and plans of

military establishments (since these generally need to be rehearsed to be effective,

and exercises and training can be monitored). By their nature, WMD concentrate

destructive power in small packages and tight groups. Both the manufacturing of

20

chemical and above all biological weapons can take place in small-scale facilities.

The plutonium route to nuclear weapons requires reactors and reprocessing facilities

that are large and relatively conspicuous, but the uranium route can be pursued in

facilities that are modest in size and lack distinctive tell-tale external features.

A profound question bearing upon all of the 8 D’s is therefore whether adequate

intelligence is likely to be available to make any of them effective; or, alternatively,

whether WMD spread is by its nature too difficult to monitor. If the latter is true,

the world is doomed to a perpetual situation reminiscent of the ‘‘missile gap’’ of the

1950s, where uncertainties outweigh certainties and policymaking is forced into

worst-case scenario mode.

The uncertainties of the 1950s missile gap were substantially dispelled by the invention of satellite reconnaissance. The Soviet Union’s missile silo construction and

flight tests were visible from space. Today, there are some emerging intelligence

technologies that will potentially make a substantial contribution to the collection

of quality intelligence on WMD. They are ‘‘close-in’’ technologies as opposed to

‘‘from-the-outside-looking-in’’ like satellite photography. They are described in rough

outline in an article I wrote for Technology in Society, which will be published soon

and which I have appended to this statement.

But no technology in the offing holds the promise of lifting the veil of WMD activities completely the way satellite photography lifted the veil from the Soviet Union’s

nuclear missile and bomber programs. Accurate intelligence on WMD would therefore be enhanced by two additional ingredients that are matters of policy, not technology.

One ingredient is active cooperation by the parties under surveillance. Just as the

Soviet Union allowed overflight of its territory by satellites, governments around the

world will have to allow greater access to their territory, facilities, and scientists

if there is to be any kind of accurate underpinning of counterproliferation. At a minimum, governments that wish to avoid suspicion (and thus coercion and even preemptive attack) will need to allow the kind of access promised to U.N. inspectors

in Iraq before the 2003 war. Access involves the ability to inspect facilities by surprise, take material samples for forensic analysis, install monitoring equipment, and

other physical means. It must be complemented by required data declarations, document searches, and interviews of scientists. These are tall orders, since they involve

compromises with sovereignty and legitimate military secrecy for the nations inspected, but they are the only way North Korea’s WMD ambitions will be verifiably

eliminated, or Iran’s nuclear power activities fully safeguarded.

The second ingredient must be the shifting of the burden of proof from the international community to the party under suspicion. To make an inspection system of

carefully managed, if not totally unfettered, access based on active cooperation succeed, it must be the responsibility of the inspected party to dispel concerns, and not

the responsibility of the United States or the international community to ‘‘prove’’

that dangerous WMD activities are underway.

Since proliferation is essentially a scientific activity, we also need to increase the

number and level of technical training of the scientists and engineers in the intelligence community, as well as the linkages between the intelligence community and

the broader scientific community.

Finally, a great spur to quality and motivation of an intelligence effort is a clear

link to action. Since 9/11, as you know, the counterterrorism intelligence effort has

become more ‘‘actionable.’’ To simplify somewhat, the counterterrorism effort has

moved from producing papers characterizing terrorist groups to supporting operations to interdict terrorists. As the counterproliferation efforts gets more operational through covert action, the PSI, expanded Nunn-Lugar, and verifying WMD

elimination in Iraq, Libya, and hopefully elsewhere, the demand for ‘‘actionable’’ intelligence will increase. If history is any guide, the intensity and quality of collection

and analysis by the intelligence community will increase in response.

Taken together and with urgency, I am optimistic that such steps to overhaul our

WMD-related intelligence effort can provide accurate intelligence to undergird all of

the 8 D’s.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, the war on terrorism and the war

on proliferation are strongly linked in the 21st century. But they are not identical.

So far we are waging the war on terrorism much more vigorously than the war on

WMD, attacking the ‘‘worst people’’ much more than the ‘‘worst weapons.’’ I hope

this series of hearings results in an overhaul of counterproliferation that is as farreaching as the overhaul of counterterrorism that began on 9/11, and that the measures I have recommended provide an agenda for action.

[Attachment.]

21

OVERHAULING COUNTERPROLIFERATION

(By Ashton B. Carter)

THE NEED FOR AN OVERHAUL OF COUNTERPROLIFERATION

President Bush has rightly proclaimed that keeping the worst weapons—weapons

of mass destruction—out of the worst hands—state or non-state actors inclined to

use them—is the highest security priority of the era. The policy response to this imperative, however, has been feeble in both the United States and around the world.

One would have thought that the sequel of 9/11 would have been a comprehensive

overhaul of the world’s toolbox of counters to proliferation of WMD to state and nonstate parties. But no such overhaul was undertaken.

To be sure, there have been overhauls of parts of the U.S. government in response

to 9/11, some of them—though not all—constructive. A truly global coalition took the

offensive against al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist terrorists, with great effect.

An overhaul of the FBI, intended to redirect it from ‘‘cracking the case’’ of terrorist

crimes already committed to preventing future terrorist attacks, is at least apparently underway. The redirected FBI domestic counterterrorism effort is, in turn,

supposed to be coupled to the CIA’s foreign intelligence in new ways through the

‘‘Terrorism Threat Integration Center’’ announced in President Bush’s State of the

Union Address in January, 2003, at last bridging the false divide between ‘‘domestic’’ and ‘‘foreign’’ intelligence in a globalized world. A new cabinet Department of

Homeland Security has been created, the first mission-oriented restructuring of the

federal bureaucracy since the founding of the Department of Energy, and the most

wide-ranging since the reorganization of the national security establishment following World War II. There has been a total overhaul of U.S. policy towards the

Middle East; the results here are not yet in. There has been a reevaluation by the

United States and its allies of their alliance relationships, mostly to the detriment

of all. And most of all, there has been an acrimonious global debate over the application of one proliferation tool, preemption, to one WMD concern, Iraq’s suspected

chemical and biological programs and nuclear ambitions.

What is remarkable about the post-9/11 response is how little of the overhaul has

focused on WMD. There has been no international coalition to corral all the wherewithal of WMD terrorism—most importantly, nuclear weapons and fissile material—akin to the coalition against al Qaeda. There has yet been no reckoning with

the evident fact that intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s WMD arsenal differed markedly from what was found immediately after the war. The Department of Homeland

Security, despite its new title, remains the amalgam of its diverse constituent bureaucracies rather than an engine of innovative policy. Its focus has been airline security and border control, not WMD. The preoccupation with preemption in Iraq has

left the agenda of international cooperation against WMD—export controls and

arms control—in the imperfect state in which it was found before 9/11.

As if to highlight the feebleness of this response, North Korea and Iran are boldly

moving forward with large-scale nuclear weapons programs, next to which Iraq’s

chemical and biological weapons ambitions pale in significance. The plutonium and

highly enriched uranium made by these governments in coming years will be a

threat to humanity not only in their hands, but for generations to come (the halflife of plutonium 239 is 24,000 years; that of uranium 235, 317 million years). It

is impossible to know whose hands these materials will fall into in future turns of

the wheel of history. Proliferation to states and non-states are linked in the post9/11 world. A proliferation and counterterrorism disaster of enormous proportions,

and a massive failure of U.S. security policy, is in the making.

Had the world taken the direct path from 9/11 to President Bush’s imperative,

what would the overhaul of counter-WMD policies have been? What should we do

now to get back on the direct path?

NO SINGLE TOOL WILL SUFFICE

The most conspicuous step the U.S. government took after 9/11 to fulfill President

Bush’s commitment to keeping the worst weapons out of the hands of the worst people was to conduct a preemptive war on Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons programs. This was necessary to prevent a reversion over time to their previous level

of malignant activity, since fatigue would inevitably have set in to the international

community’s efforts at inspections and sanctions, even assuming these could have

been effective at containing Iraq’s programs. But however justified, the war in Iraq

involved the application of one tool—the last resort of preemptive military force—

in one place, Iraq. This tool, while a necessary option of last resort, is hardly a general solution or ‘‘doctrine’’ since it fits so few of the relevant cases.

22

Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to states and sub-state terrorists is

a complex and varied phenomenon. It therefore calls for a policy approach that is

multi-faceted. The stakes are great enough that no tool can be ignored.

For one thing, the ‘‘worst weapons’’ come in degrees. Chemical weapons are not

much worse, pound-for-pound or gallon-for-gallon, than ordinary explosives and deserve only the adjective ‘‘bad,’’ not ‘‘worst.’’ Biological weapons are fearsome and becoming more so: advances in technology make the ‘‘old’’ types of bioweapons like anthrax prone to small-scale cottage industry fabrication that small groups of deviants—even individuals—can muster, while advanced bioscience will create new

germs resistant to vaccines and antibiotics. The key to security against this type of

‘‘worst’’ weapon is public health detection and quick response, since bioagents take

time to spread and kill.

Time and medicine won’t work, however, against a nuclear detonation. It has a

deadly finality that puts a premium on prevention before the fact, not response after

the fact. But here nature has been kind: nuclear weapons are made from two metals, plutonium and enriched uranium, that do not occur in nature. These materials

must be man-made, and it turns out that in both cases the process of making them

is comparatively expensive and difficult to conceal. So far, accomplishing it has only

been within the reach of governments, not terrorist groups. The key to nuclear security is therefore to ensure that more governments don’t make fissile materials, and

that all governments that do make fissile materials keep them out of the hands of

terrorists.

If you dissect the notion of ‘‘worst weapons,’’ therefore, you find a somewhat more

complex picture. Likewise if you unpack the idea of ‘‘worst people.’’

Terrorists are easy to include. In this category will figure not only organized and

well-funded groups like al Qaeda, but small splinter groups of super-extremists,

cults, and ultimately individuals as the destructive power of technology formerly reserved to nations becomes available to smaller and smaller groups. (The perpetrator

of the anthrax mailings of October 2001 might have been a lone individual. The

Aum Shinnkyo cult in Japan used sarin in the Tokyo subway and attempted release

of anthrax spores.)

But when it comes to governments, complexity enters. The most obvious category

are the so-called rogue states that seem determined to get nuclear weapons to pose

a direct threat to the United States and its interests—surely North Korea and Iran

fill this bill today. They must be the object of intense U.S.-led international pressure

to prevent them from making enriched uranium or plutonium and, failing that, military force that preempts their ambitions.

But what about Ukraine, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan,

South Korea, and a host of other nations that might today be nuclear powers—and

thus potential sources of ‘‘loose nukes’’ for terrorists as well as a danger in themselves—but were turned back through U.S.-led efforts in the 1980s and 1990s?

These efforts included addressing their legitimate security concerns through alliances and security agreements, denying them technology to make nuclear weapons,

and applying the weight of international opprobrium for further spread of nuclear

weapons embodied in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Without this effort these

borderline cases might have ended up in the ‘‘worst’’ category.

A third category is represented by all of the other countries on the globe—nearly

two hundred of them—that have not made and are not seeking to make nuclear

weapons. Powerful leading nations like Germany, Turkey, and Japan—far from

rogues—have not gone nuclear despite their clear technical ability to do so. This fact

should not be taken for granted. Our policy against WMD must include continuing

to dissuade the great bulk of nations from resorting to this extreme. Doing so means

maintaining stable and reliable alliances that these nations can depend upon (not

just ‘‘coalitions of the willing’’), and using U.S. power to create an international climate of security and justice.

These examples illustrate the complexity of the problem of WMD, but also the

richness of the toolbox for combating them. This toolbox spans dissuasion, prevention, diplomacy, arms control, denial of access to critical technology and materials,

defenses, deterrence, and, yes, preemption. All of these tools need to be buttressed

with solid intelligence.

What the U.S. should have done after the wake-up call of 9/11 is undertake a

comprehensive overhaul of the entire toolbox for combating WMD. We would be

much safer today if we had moved outside the one-tool, one-place tunnel-vision approach that characterized preemption in Iraq, however necessary that instance

might have been.

23

1The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, Chairman, Barry M. Blechman, Lee Butler, Richard L.

Garwin, William R. Graham, William Schneider, Jr., Larry Welch, Paul D. Wolfowitz, R. James

Woolsey Report of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States

(Washington, D.C., July 15, 1998), 104th Congress.

OVERHAULING WMD INTELLIGENCE: THE SPECTER OF POLICYMAKING IN THE DARK

No policy instruments—neither preemption, nor arms control, nor missile defense,

nor interdiction—can be effective if the existence and nature of WMD efforts is unknown or imprecise.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld became convinced in the course of his work

on ballistic missile proliferation before he took office that adequate intelligence on

WMD programs is unlikely to be present in most cases. Given the stakes, he concluded, the U.S. must assume the worst in formulating, its policy responses. This

logic, encapsulated in the maxim ‘‘absence of evidence [of WMD] is not evidence of

absence,’’ was the main intellectual argument in the influential Rumsfeld Commission report leading to the deployment of a National Missile Defense.1 According to

this maxim, intelligence regarding the timetable for the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile threat originating in Iran or North Korea was uncertain

enough that it was deemed insufficient for the United States to be prepared to deploy a missile defense within a few years (the Clinton administration policy), but

instead necessary to undertake deployment immediately. Later, when Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense, this same logic led the United States to preemptive war

in Iraq: Better to assume Saddam Hussein was fulfilling his long-demonstrated

quest for WMD than to interpret the scanty evidence available as evidence of a

scanty WMD program (especially in view of Iraq’s persistent and obvious concealment and deception efforts). At the time of this writing, evidence has not been found

of the scale and scope of WMD activities that were widely suspected to be taking

place in Iraq before the war. This disturbing circumstance underscores the difficulty

of obtaining good intelligence on WMD.

WMD activities are inherently difficult to monitor. It is comparatively easy to

monitor the size and disposition of armies, the numbers and types of conventional

weaponry like tanks and aircraft, and even the operational doctrines and plans of

military establishments (since these generally need to be rehearsed to be effective,

and exercises and training can be monitored). But by their nature WMD concentrate

destructive power in small packages, and tight groups. The manufacturing of chemical and above all biological weapons can take place in small-scale facilities. The

plutonium route to nuclear weapons requires reactors and reprocessing facilities

that are inherently large and relatively conspicuous. But the uranium route can be

pursued in facilities that are modest in size and lack distinctive tell-tale external

features.

A profound question affecting all of the tools in the counter-WMD toolbox is therefore whether adequate intelligence is likely to be available to make them effective;

or, alternatively, whether WMD spread is inherently too difficult to monitor. If the

latter is true, the world is doomed to a perpetual situation reminiscent of the ‘‘missile gap’’ of the 1950s, where uncertainties outweigh certainties and policymaking

is forced into worst-case mode.

The uncertainties of the 1950s missile gap were substantially dispelled by the invention of satellite reconnaissance. The Soviet Union’s missile silo construction and

flight tests were visible from space. Less often appreciated is that the Soviet Union

also conducted these activities, in the main, openly and in strictly regimented patterns. Where the Soviet Union wished to practice deception, as in their biological

weapons programs, they were largely successful. Satellite reconnaissance also depended on the Soviet Union’s cooperation in an essential respect: maintaining the

openness of space and the right of uncontested U.S. overflight of its territory.

There are some intelligence technologies emerging that are going to make a substantial contribution to the collection of quality intelligence on WMD. They are

‘‘close-in’’ in nature, rather than ‘‘from-the-outside-looking-in’’ like satellite photography. Many are forensic in nature. They involve, for example, taking material samples and analyzing them for traces of suspicious chemicals, biological material, or

radionuclides. The samples can be taken from the air by aircraft (as with krypton

80 air sampling for evidence of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing) or from the ground

(plucking a leaf from a bush, wiping a handkerchief across a countertop) overtly or

covertly. From a distance, the spectrum of light transmitted through an effluent

plume downwind of a smokestack or backscattered from a laser might reveal something about the composition of the plume and thus the activities underway within

the building.

24

Unattended ground sensor (UGS) with a variety of transducers (chemical, acoustic, seismic, radio-frequency, imaging, etc.) can be emplaced by hand or dropped covertly from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The UGS can have enough on-board

data processing capability to require only low-bandwidth exfiltration of their data

back to intelligence agencies. This low-bandwidth communication can, in turn, be

made very difficult for the nation being spied upon to detect. Cellular telephone

technology permits clusters of UGS to be networked. By combining the data from

several networked UGS, it might be possible to reduce the rate of false alarms dramatically. UGS can even be made mobile by attaching them to robots, animals, or

birds.

Another lucrative technique is ‘‘tagging,’’ involving the covert placement of identifying features, transmitters, or chemical markers on objects destined for WMD laboratories or other facilities, and then monitoring the tag remotely or by close-in

sample collection.

Finally, there is a revolution underway in close-in signals intelligence, in which

cell phones, laptop computers, local area networks, and other information infrastructure of a WMD program are penetrated and exploited.

Miniaturization, as with micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) devices, is making

such close-in techniques easier. Because their use involves a covert dimension, these

techniques are more highly classified than the techniques used for verifying superpower arms control agreements. Information from these specialized WMD-specific

techniques can be combined with the usual types of intelligence from intercepted

communications, defectors, and the occasional spy.

Unfortunately, no technology in the offing appears to have the promise of lifting

the veil of WMD activities the way satellite photography lifted the veil from the Soviet Union’s nuclear missile and bomber programs. Accurate intelligence on WMD

would therefore be enhanced by two additional ingredients that are matters of policy, not technology.

One ingredient is active cooperation by the parties under surveillance. Just as the

Soviet Union allowed overflight of its territory by satellites, governments around the

world will have to allow greater access to their territory, facilities, and scientists

if there is to be any kind of accurate underpinning of counterproliferation. At a minimum, governments that wish to avoid suspicion (and thus coercion and even preemptive attack) will need to allow the kind of access promised to U.N. inspectors

in Iraq before the 2003 war. Access involves the ability to inspect facilities by surprise, take material samples for forensic analysis, install monitoring equipment, and

other physical means. It must be complemented by required data declarations, document searches, and interviews of scientists. These are tall orders, since they involve

compromises with sovereignty and legitimate military secrecy for the nations inspected. But they are the only way North Korea’s WMD ambitions will be verifiably

eliminated, or Iran’s nuclear power activities fully safeguarded.

Accompanying the first ingredient must be a second: the shifting of the burden

of proof from the international community to the party under suspicion. To make

an inspection system of carefully managed, if not totally unfettered, access based

on active cooperation succeed, it must be the responsibility of the inspected party

to dispel concerns, and not the responsibility of the United States or the international community to ‘‘prove’’ that dangerous WMD activities are underway.

A COALITION AGAINST WMD TERRORISM: SPREADING NUNN-LUGAR WORLDWIDE

The U.S.-led coalition against terrorism formed after 9/11 has been directed almost single-mindedly against al Qaeda and other Islamist fundamentalist terrorists.

A parallel coalition aimed at WMD terrorism should have been spearheaded by the

United States after 9/11, capitalizing on the widespread sympathy around the world

for the victims of the attacks on the United States. The United States missed a

major opportunity to transform counterproliferation.

Such a global coalition against WMD terrorism was in fact proposed by Senator

Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn as the logical extension of the NunnLugar program, which has successfully eliminated or safeguarded much of the

former Soviet Union’s WMD. Rather than seeking out and neutralizing cells of al

Qaeda terrorists, the coalition against WMD terrorism would aim to eliminate all

unsafeguarded ‘‘cells’’ of the wherewithal of WMD terrorism, especially fissile materials. It would also aspire to global membership, since all governments should share

a deep common interest in preventing WMD from falling into non governmental

hands.

25

2 Ashton B. Carter, Trip Report: Nunn-Lugar Sites in Russia, a memo to colleagues of the Preventive Defense Project (3 June 2002); and Ashton B. Carter, ‘‘Throw the Net Worldwide.’’ The

Washington Post (12 June 2002), A-31.

The report of a conference sponsored by the Nuclear Threat Initiative described

the activities of such a coalition.2 For nuclear terrorism, the cooperative activities

of the global coalition would include:

• Establishing common, ‘‘world-class’’ standards for inventory control, safety, and

security for weapons and weapons-usable materials—standards of the kind

worked out between Russia and the United States in the Nunn-Lugar program.

• Establishing progressively stronger standards of transparency, to demonstrate

to others that standards are being met.

• Providing assistance to those who need help meeting the Coalition’s standards.

• Cooperating to provide effective border and export controls regarding nuclear

materials.

• Devising cooperative procedures to find and regain control of bombs or fissile

materials if they are lost or seized by terrorists. One possibility is a Coalition

version of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team

(NEST)—a ‘‘global NEST.’’ Another possibility is to agree to facilitate deployment of national NEST teams, in the way that many nations deploy canine

search teams to earthquake sites to search for survivors.

• Planning and researching cooperative responses to a nuclear or radiological explosion, such as mapping the contaminated area, addressing mass casualties,

administering public health measures like iodine pills and cleaning up contaminated soil.

• Cooperating on forensic radiochemical techniques to find the source of a nuclear

incident from its residue.

For bioterrorism, Nunn and Lugar envisioned the following Coalition activities:

• Establishing common, ‘‘world-class’’ techniques for safeguarding biological materials in preparation, handling, and scientific use.

• Developing public health surveillance methods on a global scale to detect an incident of bioterrorism in its early stages. Such methods would also provide important benefits in combating infectious disease and improving global public

health.

• Shaping normative standards for the conduct of scientific practice in the area

of biotechnology and microbiology, including the possibility of making it a universal crime, punishable under national laws, to make or assist the making of

bioweapons.

• Cooperating in research on diagnosis, prophylaxis (e.g., vaccines against bioagents), and treatment (e.g., antibiotics and antivirals).

• Cooperating in developing protective techniques like inhalation masks and filtered ventilation systems.

• Cooperating in developing techniques for decontaminating buildings that have

been attacked (as was needed in the Hart Senate Office Building after anthraxcontaminated mail was sent there).

• Cooperating in forensic techniques for identifying the perpetrators of a bioattack (as was needed in the analysis of the anthrax mailings in the United

States).

While much of the momentum behind U.S. diplomacy in the wake of 9/11 has dissipated through the passage of time and the war in Iraq, it is not too late for the

United States to attempt to create a new framework for international cooperative

action against WMD—a global coalition against WMD terrorism.

WMD AND HOMELAND SECURITY

Besides striking at Islamist terrorists worldwide, the other main U.S, response to

9/11 has been the creation of a White House Office of Homeland Security (OHS) and

a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In 1958, the shock of the Soviet

launch of Sputnik led to the creation of the President’s Science Advisory Committee,

the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These institutions in

turn spurred new technologies, techniques, and policies to counter the Soviet strategic threat. A comparable spurt of innovative energy does not seem likely from the

OHS and DHS, especially with respect to the worst type of terrorism—WMD terrorism.

26

3 Ashton B. Carter, ‘‘Roles for the White House and the New Department.’’ Testimony on the

Relationship between a Department of Homeland Security and the Intelligence Community before the Governmental Affairs Committee, U.S. Senate, 26 June 2002. Footnote to ABC Senate

Gov Affairs Testimony. 4Footnote to Aspin, Remarks by the Honorable Les Aspin, Secretary of Defense, National

Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control, December 7, 1993,

speech.

Little focus on WMD is apparent in the fledgling DHS. Its organization chart contains no overall office devoted to WMD terrorism, even though this is the most important kind of terrorism. Most of its energy to date has seemingly been devoted

to merging the different traditions and bureaucracies of its constituent parts. In the

main, these constituents are concerned with airline security, border control, and

emergency response, not WMD. Some small offices concerned with WMD have been

transferred to the new Department from other agencies, where they reside in a tiny

‘‘Science and Technology’’ Undersecretariat that disposes of only 2% of the DHS

budget. But there is no evidence that this new bureaucracy, heralded as the most

revolutionary governmental reconfiguration since the late 1940s, will revolutionize

counterproliferation..

Meanwhile, the bureaucratic exertions associated with the new Department have

entirely eclipsed the White House OHS. OHS is supposed to orchestrate the investments of the major departments that already have responsibility and technical capability in WMD—DHS, DOD, the Department of Energy, the Department of Health

and Human Services, the Intelligence Community, and others—to create new capabilities, new strategies, and new technologies for counterproliferation.3 But in the

absence of a strong White House hand as a consequence of the withering of OHS,

these departments will revert to fitting countering WMD in at the margins of their

traditional activities.

COUNTERPROLIFERATION IN THE PENTAGON

One department besides DHS that has important capabilities and responsibilities

for countering WMD, and especially for the development of new technology, is the

Department of Defense. The term ‘‘counterproliferation’’ was coined by former Secretary of Defense Les Aspin to signify that contending with WMD was an important

DOD mission in the post-Cold War world.4 In the 1990s, a number of

counterproliferation programs were created within DOD to try to focus research, development, and acquisition on producing non-nuclear counters to WMD on the battlefield. Over time the programs expanded to protecting rear areas—ports and airfields in the theater of war—against chemical and biological weapons attack. Next,

the technologies for protecting allied rear areas were recognized to be applicable to

protection of the U.S. homeland from WMD attack. Thus, by 9/11 DOD was recognized as a lead agency in the U.S. for developing and fielding technology for countering WMD wielded by both state and non-state actors, both on foreign battlefields

and on U.S. territory. Yet DOD’s counterproliferation programs remained small and

fragmented. The great bulk of DOD’s post-Cold War investments in new technology

ignored WMD. Under the 1990s slogan ‘‘revolution in military affairs,’’ most of the

innovative thinking and spending in DOD was directed at perfecting conventional

joint military operations.

Surprisingly little changed in DOD after 9/11. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has proclaimed ‘‘transformation’’ to be the successor to ‘‘revolution in military

affairs.’’ But the core of the effort is long-range precision attack, close integration

of intelligence information with operations, and closer working of Army, Navy, and

Air Force together in ‘‘joint’’ operations. These worthy transformation goals have not

been matched by any comparable counter-WMD emphasis. DOD’s

counterproliferation programs remain small and scattered. Excluding missile defense, these programs amount to only a few billion out of the $400 billion defense

budget, far too small a fraction given the importance of the mission.

U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS

An important question for counterproliferation is whether U.S. deployments and

doctrine for its own nuclear arsenal influence the spread of WMD elsewhere in the

world. In the main, the influence is marginal.

It is unlikely that Pyongyang’s or Teheran’s calculations, let alone al Qaeda’s, are

significantly dependent on whether the United States has 6000, 3500, or 2200 deployed strategic weapons (these are the numbers permitted under the last three

rounds of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control), retains tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe, researches or develops earth-penetrating or other new types of nuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jul 19, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 94204 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2
27

clear weapons, or has a doctrine that either threatens or foreswears nuclear retaliation if chemical or biological weapons are used against the U.S. or its allies. The

fear that the United States would or could use nuclear weapons against them if they

used WMD is a useful component of deterrence against proliferating governments.

But the United States has another tool of deterrence besides nuclear weapons—its

unmatched conventional military power. Terrorists, for their part, are likely not deterred by threats of punishment at all.

On the other hand, countering North Korean and Iranian WMD ambitions can be

assisted with the support of the international community. Defeating al Qaeda positively depends upon cooperation by foreign governments in intelligence and law enforcement; in this area a unilateral option is not available. International support for

these U.S.-led efforts against WMD is influenced, again perhaps only at the margin,

by U.S. nuclear policy. To the extent that the United States suggests a growing reliance of its own on nuclear weapons for security, it makes the job of marshaling

international cooperation in a coalition against WMD terrorism or an overhaul of

WMD arms control more difficult.

These marginal costs of emphasizing the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in its own

security should therefore be weighed against the marginal benefits of changes in the

U.S. nuclear posture. Recently the United States has embarked on three changes

that do not meet this test.

One change is to combine nuclear weapons, missile defenses, and long-range conventional weapons into a ‘‘new Triad,’’ replacing the traditional nuclear ‘‘Triad’’ of

land-based missiles, submarine-based missiles, and strategic bombers. This construct accomplishes little, but it has the detrimental and misleading effect of suggesting to the world that U.S. presidents will regard use of nuclear weapons and

use of conventional weapons as differing in degree rather than in kind.

Another change with little benefit is to accelerate the schedule for the resumption

of underground nuclear testing. The new schedule allows weapons scientists to test

at the earliest time they can be ready to take useful data from the detonation. But

given the stakes involved, the schedule for resuming underground testing should instead be driven by considerations of military necessity, and here the case for the

change has not been made.

The third change is to embark on research and development of a new type of

earth-penetrating nuclear warhead, ostensibly to destroy deeply buried WMD facilities. Once again, the military rationale for this move is not strong, since the United

States already has earth-penetrating nuclear weapons and the focus on munitions

begs the larger question problem of finding such targets in the first place. The political enormity (and much of the fallout contamination) of a decision to cross the nuclear divide would not be much reduced by changing the design of the nuclear weapon. Once again, the benefit of the proposed innovation in U.S. nuclear programs is

marginal.

The better U.S. military strategy would be to seek to widen and prolong the huge

gap between U.S. conventional military capabilities and those of any other nation,

and to use transformational technology to narrow, not widen, the range of circumstances in which this nation would resort to use of nuclear weapons.

STRENGTHENING THE ROLE OF ARMS CONTROL

Another tool is arms control regimes like the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

(NPT), the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). These are sometime disparaged as useless tools, since, the argument

goes, the ‘‘rogues’’ ignore them with impunity (since they have inadequate

verification and enforcement provisions) and the rest of the ‘‘good’’ countries are unaffected by them. But this argument is wrong for two reasons.

First, the world does not consist of ‘‘rogue’’ and ‘‘good’’ states as regards proliferation behavior: there is an important ‘‘in-between’’ category. This category has been

represented over time by Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus (which chose to forsake

the nuclear weapons they inherited from the Soviet Union); Argentina and Brazil

(which mutually agreed to give up their nuclear programs); Taiwan and South

Korea (which chose U.S. protection over nuclear weapons); and South Africa (which

changed regimes and thus sense of external threat). In all these cases, the allure

of greater international acceptance if they abandoned their nuclear ambitions was

one important factor in their decision.

The second reason those who disparage counterproliferation arms control are

wrong is that the agreements are, in fact, useful even in dealing with the ‘‘rogues’’:

When it comes time for the United States to lead action against the rogues, the

international consensus against WMD embodied in the NPT, CWC, and BWC helps

the United States to marshal the support of other nations in confronting the rogue.

28

Therefore the arms control regimes have some value even if their provisions are

far from perfect. But these provisions can be strengthened, and the U.S. should be

leading the way to strengthen them rather than disparaging them. One problem affecting the NPT is dual use of nuclear technology. The ‘‘peaceful atom,’’ dating to

the 1960s when the NPT was negotiated, constitutes a huge loophole in the regime

that must be closed. Non-nuclear states are today permitted by the NPT to have

closed nuclear fuel cycles. They may enrich uranium to make reactor fuel, and they

may reprocess spent reactor fuel to extract plutonium—provided they declare their

activities to the IAEA and allow the IAEA to confirm the declaration. But possession

of enrichment and reprocessing facilities positions a country dangerously close to

achieving nuclear weapons capability. Iran is an important case in point. In the future, nonnuclear weapons states should be obliged to import enriched fuel from supplier states and ship spent fuel back to the suppliers, foregoing both enrichment and

reprocessing. In return, the supplying nations would be obliged to provide fuel services on an economically fair basis, which will invariably be cheaper for the importer

than building their own facilities.

Verification and enforcement provisions of the arms control agreements should

also be strengthened. This, like improving intelligence, will not be an easy task

given the inherent ease of concealment of WMD programs. But inspections called

for by arms control agreements, and the international pressure shifting the burden

of proof to potential proliferators, can strengthen intelligence, as noted above. And

accurate intelligence is as necessary to all the other tools of counterproliferation as

it is to arms control. Arms control plays a limited role in the toolbox. But in this

it is not different from all the other tools, each of which has its limitations, but each

its place.

CONCLUSION: OVERHAUL COUNTERPROLIFERATION BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

In stating that keeping the worst weapons out of the hands of the worst people

is the highest security imperative for the world in this era, President Bush has

made the appropriate call to action. But to date the action itself has been lacking

when it comes to policies specifically designed to keep WMD out of hostile hands,

either nation-states or terrorists. After 9/11 the United States regretted that it had

not taken steps to overhaul its counterterrorism capabilities years earlier, steps that

seemed tragically obvious after the World Trade Center towers were gone. An overhaul of counterproliferation is needed now. It will be unfortunate if the overhaul is

undertaken only after the need for it is made tragically obvious by an incident of

mass destruction.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Secretary Carter, for the

very comprehensive statement.

Mr. Arnie Kanter.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ARNOLD KANTER, SENIOR

FELLOW, FORUM FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY AND PRINCIPAL, THE SCOWCROFT GROUP, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. KANTER. Mr. Chairman, Senator Nelson, I appreciate this

opportunity to join Secretary Perry and Secretary Carter in appearing before you this morning. And Mr. Chairman I want to thank

you very much for your generous comments. I appreciate them.

I also want to take this opportunity on behalf of Brent Scowcroft,

to express his regrets that he couldn’t be here today as he is unavoidably out of town. And he asked me to pass along his appreciation to the chairman of the committee for these hearings and his

conviction that they could not be more important or more timely.

I have submitted a statement for the record and I would like to

take this opportunity to summarize some of the main points.

My main purpose today is to present a way of thinking about the

problem of nuclear proliferation, and to suggest some elements of

a comprehensive strategy for combating that nuclear threat.

29

I am sure that you are under no such illusions, it will quickly

become apparent that I don’t have all the answers, in fact, I don’t

even have very many of them.

But I do hope that I will be able to contribute to efforts to move

the debate beyond familiar recitations about how serious this problem is, to an examination of strategic approaches and concrete

measures to deal with the problem.

Let me begin by repeating what Bill Perry and Ash Carter have

already said, but which I believe cannot be said often enough.

There is no one single approach. There is no one policy instrument that can solve the nuclear proliferation problem by itself.

Moreover, the search for such a silver bullet will prove futile or

perhaps worse.

But having said that, let me add two other points. First, any set

of measures is likely to be more effective if the constituent elements are fitted together and synchronized with one another to

form a coherent multifaceted strategy.

Second, because the nuclear proliferation threat itself is diverse

rather than homogeneous, the strategies to combat nuclear proliferation likewise should be differentiated.

Simply stated, I believe we need a strategy that is not only comprehensive, but one whose respective elements are focused on particular parts of the overall threat.

Let me try to explain what I mean by delineating some categories of policy responses. In doing so, it is convenient, although

I readily admit hardly original, to think about the nuclear proliferation problem as a matter of supply and demand.

On the demand side, I think it is useful to distinguish among

three different kinds. One kind is the demand for a nuclear weapons capability per se. The source of this demand is what I call the

‘‘nuclear weapon wanna-bes,’’ the bad guys who usually are foremost in our minds when we talk about the problem of nuclear proliferation.

A second source of demand is for Nuclear power generation to

meet energy needs. These are the ‘‘nuclear power wanna-bes’’ who

do not harbor any secret ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons.

Finally, there is an imprecise middle category composed of those

who are explicitly pursuing nuclear power capabilities, but are

doing so not only to meet energy requirements, but also to create

the option of nuclear weapons sometime in the future.

On the supply side, I also think it is useful to distinguish among

three categories for policy proposes. One kind of supply is the supply of nuclear weapons technology, equipment, material and knowhow.

Simply put, this is about the intentional provision of a nuclear

weapons capability, and until recently, A.Q. Khan was its poster

child. It is also the kind of supply problem that has been the major,

if not predominant, focus of our non-proliferation efforts.

A second kind of supply is represented by the stores of dispersed

nuclear warheads, and the stockpiles of inadequately secured nuclear weapons material. Much, but I want to emphasize, not all of

which is concentrated in Russia. This is a point to which I will return.

30

This is the ‘‘loose nukes’’ problem, one that the rise of global terrorism has turned into an all-too-plausible nightmare. The NunnLugar and related programs are designed to address this part of

the supply problem.

A third kind of supply is the inadvertent but inescapable byproduct of civilian nuclear power programs, notably those activities related to enrichment technology, and to the production, storage and

reprocessing of nuclear fuel.

Because the fact is that attributes that are intrinsic to the closed

nuclear fuel cycle constitute an ongoing potential to produce material for nuclear weapons.

Now this is an aspect of nuclear proliferation that we have recognized and worried about for some time, but I believe we’re just beginning to address in ways that hold some promise of being effective. Now I will offer some specific suggestions about how to address this part of the problem in a moment.

The range of complementary, but distinct, tasks that a comprehensive nuclear non-proliferation policy must accomplish correspond to these multiple sources of demand and supply. But reduced to their essence, I see three major tasks.

One, to actively frustrate the ambitions of ‘‘nuclear weapon

wanna-bes’’ by denying them access to critical technology, equipment, and materials.

Two, to construct an effective network of effective sanctions and

powerful positive incentives that combine to present ‘‘nuclear power

wanna-bes’’ with an all but irresistible choice to abandon their nuclear ambitions.

Three, to put in place both incentives and barriers that effectively discourage not only ‘‘nuclear power wanna-bes,’’ but also

countries in that undecided middle category from seriously considering, much less pursuing, a nuclear weapons option.

I do not pretend to have a complete blueprint or a detailed road

map for how the accomplish these three tasks. What follows are

some illustrations and observations.

In the interest of time, I will not detail the reasons why, but on

the whole, I believe that the challenge of denying determined ‘‘nuclear weapon wanna-bes’’ access to the things they need has received the most policy attention in our non-proliferation policy.

And recognizing that there is a great deal more to be done, this

part of our non-proliferation policy also probably is the furthest advanced of any of the elements of a comprehensive strategy.

On the subject of loose nukes, a great deal has already been written and spoken, and so I am going to confine myself to making

three points.

First, all roads lead back to Russia when we talk about combating the spread of nuclear weapons in the sense that no policy

can hope to be successful if it does not succeed in Russia and it

does not succeed with Russia. As a corollary, no policy can succeed

if we do not have a relationship with Russia that encourages real

cooperation and real accountability on this issue.

Second, adequate resources may not make all of the difference,

but inadequate resources are a virtual guarantee of failure. Money

is central, but this is not just a matter of money. The Nunn-Lugar

program needs to be treated consistently as a high priority both by

31

the administration and the Congress rather than just another laudable program that receives intermittent attention and some share

of discretionary resources.

Third, this is not just a problem with Russia and it is not just

a problem in Russia. While it is true that in quantitative terms,

most of the loose nuke problem is located in Russia, not all of it

is. From research reactors in Belgrade, to Urenco [Uranium Enrichment Services Worldwide] designs for an A.Q. Khan to steal,

the loose nukes threat is surprisingly dispersed. I think two implications follow.

One is that the Nunn-Lugar and related programs need to be

truly international rather than FSU-centric, both in concept and

execution.

The other implication, underscoring a point that Secretary Perry

has already made, is that efforts to deal with loose nukes problem

benefits immensely from being a multilateral rather than a predominantly or exclusively U.S. responsibility.

And obviously the benefits of international cooperation extend

way beyond the loose nukes problem. As the success of the Proliferation Security Initiative and I think especially the break

through on Libya made clear, it is hard to imagine virtually any

aspect of a nuclear non-proliferation policy that would not be more

effective if it has the active cooperation of other governments. Indeed, it is easy to imagine many initiatives that could only be successful with such cooperation.

The final problem that I want to address is the one posed by the ‘‘nuclear power wanna-bes.’’ Specifically, I want to focus on the

challenge of encouraging safe civilian nuclear power to meet global

energy needs and at the same time discouraging any temptation,

now or in the future, to use such programs to create a nuclear

weapons capability.

As I noted earlier, developing civilian nuclear power to meet energy requirements can pose intrinsic and serious nuclear proliferation risks. This is neither a new problem nor one that has been

only recently identified.

But in my opinion, it has not received the attention it warrants,

particularly in the context of fashioning a comprehensive and coherent policy.

Recall that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty explicitly allows

nations that foreswear nuclear weapons to develop nuclear power

for peaceful purposes.

Specifically, under the terms of the NPT, non-nuclear weapon

signatories may build and operate what are called closed fuel cycles. The problem is that closed fuel cycles give these countries an

inherent and virtually inescapable capacity to produce fissile material required for a nuclear weapon. This is because facilities and

technology used to enriched uranium for power reactors can also be

used to produce HEU for weapons, and because reprocessing spent

fuel yields plutonium that can be fashioned into nuclear weapons.

And as with the cases of North Korea and presumptively Iran

demonstrate, regimes that intend to violate the treaty’s ban on nuclear weapons can gather the resources necessary to make nuclear

weapons, and can even start to build nuclear weapons clandestinely, all the while seeming to remain within the terms of the

32

treaty. They can then abrogate the treaty and proceed to build a

nuclear arsenal in the open.

Now as serious as this potentially may be, I think the problem

is broader than the ‘‘nuclear weapons wanna-bes’’ using the NPT

as cover as they pursue their ambitions. The right to have a closed

fuel cycle also provides an attractive vehicle for countries that, for

whatever reason, want to create and maintain an option to acquire

nuclear weapons at some time in the future. Indeed, even ‘‘nuclear

power wanna-bes’’ who may not have any present intention or desire to create such an option, nevertheless will have done so if they

construct a closed fuel cycle.

Now, I want to be clear that I am not here to attack the Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Treaty. As we said in our op-ed, if we didn’t have

an NPT we surely would want to invent it. But at the same time,

I also want to emphasize that it would be a serious mistake to regard the NPT as perfect and complete, or as some sort of sacrosanct last word on international regimes and arrangements to

address the non-proliferation threat.

There is a loophole. But in addressing this loophole, one pitfall

that I think we need to be very careful to avoid is to let nuclear

non-proliferation become the enemy of civilian nuclear power. Nuclear power generation has a potentially important role to play in

meeting global energy needs and addressing global warming concerns. We should try to develop and exploit that potential and not

cripple it.

Perhaps more to the point, posing the issue as nuclear non-proliferation versus nuclear power presents a false choice and invites

a battle that need not be fought.

Instead, the United States should take the lead in building an

international regime alongside the NPT that promotes civilian nuclear power but discourages or prohibits closed nuclear fuel cycles.

Such a regime would consist of obligations both on the part of

countries that want to develop a civilian nuclear power industry,

and those countries that provide the required capabilities.

The additional obligations of the customers are simply stated. In

addition to their NPT obligations, the customers would agree not

to manufacture, store, or reprocess nuclear fuel. And they would

also agree to inspections to confirm that they were living up to

these undertakings.

Those countries that now sell peaceful nuclear technology in accordance with the NPT would take on both positive and negative

obligations.

First, the suppliers would agree to forego the sale or transfer of

any equipment or technology designed for the enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear fuel to any country that does not already

have a fully operational nuclear fuel cycle. These suppliers would

also agree to provide technology, equipment, or fuel for nuclear

power reactors only to those countries that have renounced their

right to enrich and reprocess nuclear fuel themselves.

Second, the suppliers would guarantee the reliable supply of nuclear fuel and the retrieval of spent fuel at competitive prices to

those customer countries that agree to this new arrangement. And

to enhance the attractiveness of such a bargain, and to try to make

it all but economically irresistible. I believe the consideration

33

should also be given to providing these services not merely at competitive, but deeply subsidized prices. In this connection, John

Deutch has calculated that such subsidies would be quite affordable, even if the deployment of civilian nuclear reactors expanded

dramatically.

Moreover, there is every reason to believe that the United States

would not have to foot the whole bill itself, not least because other

countries that would be providing nuclear fuel services under this

arrangement would face powerful domestic political incentives to

subsidize the costs of those services in order to remain competitive

in the global nuclear fuel industry.

Now, obviously, what I have presented are no more than the

broadest outlines of such a regime, one that parallels in some respects some of the ideas that President Bush presented in his February 11 speech at the National Defense University. A large number of details would have to be filled in, such as what exactly would

be the arrangements for international consortium that provided

guaranteed fuel services at competitive or subsidized prices.

And there is a long, long list of hard questions to be addressed,

ranging from how formal or informal such an international regime

should be, to whether and what kind of sanctions should be applied

to countries on either the supply side or the customer side who do

not join the new arrangements. To questions about how to treat

countries like Brazil that have nuclear supplier ambitions, to how

to deal with countries like India and Pakistan, that have demonstrated nuclear weapon capabilities but are outside the NPT.

And I think we need to be honest with ourselves that even more

so than the case of the NPT itself, there are those who will

charge—with some justification—that any such international arrangement would be highly discriminatory. It would be.

And even if all of these objections could be answered and the various problems and objections can be overcome, the new regime

would not be a cure-all because there is no one right approach,

there is no silver bullet.

But I do believe that it could provide a key building block in a

comprehensive strategy to combat nuclear proliferation while at

the same time promoting the development of a civilian nuclear energy industry. And that potential convinces me that an approach

along these lines warrants serious consideration.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Kanter follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ARNOLD KANTER

COUNTERING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I appreciate this opportunity to

join Bill Perry and Ash Carter this morning to discuss ‘‘Nonproliferation and Arms

Control: Strategic Choices.’’ I also want to take this opportunity on behalf of Brent

Scowcroft to express his regret that he is unavoidably out of town this week and

therefore could not appear. Brent did ask me to convey his appreciation to the

Chairman and the Committee for holding the hearings that are being launched

today, and his conviction that they could not be more important or timely.

Ash Carter has provided a framework and approach for addressing the broad

WMD problem. Building on some of the ideas that were sketched out in the New

York Times op-ed that I co-authored with Ash, Bill, and Brent, I want to concentrate on one particular WMD problem: the proliferation of nuclear weapons and

material that is among the most serious—and proximate—security risks we face,

34

and that is surely the most serious proliferation risk that we confront. My main purpose today is to present a way of thinking about the problem of nuclear proliferation

and to suggest some elements of a comprehensive strategy for addressing that nuclear threat.

As will quickly become apparent, I surely do not have all of the answers. Indeed,

any such strategy would have to tackle a series of questions that do not have any

easy—or, in some cases, even any good—answers. But in what I understand to be

the spirit of these hearings, I hope I will be able to contribute to efforts to move

the debate beyond familiar reiterations of how serious the nuclear proliferation

threat is to an examination of strategic approaches and concrete measures to deal

with it.

Let me begin by repeating what has already been said, but probably cannot be

said often enough: there is no one right approach or single policy instrument that

can solve the nuclear proliferation problem by itself, and the search for such a silver

bullet will prove futile or worse. I believe that this is the overarching theme of

President Bush’s February 11 speech at NDU, which presented a series of seven

measures that, taken together, constitute a good agenda for action. But let me

quickly add two points. First, any set of measures is likely to be more effective if

the constituent elements are fitted together to form a coherent, multi-faceted strategy. Second, because the nuclear proliferation threat is diverse rather than homogenous, the strategy to counter nuclear proliferation should likewise be differentiated.

Simply stated, we need a strategy that not only is multi-faceted, but also one whose

respective elements are focused on particular parts of the overall threat.

A ‘‘Supply and Demand’’ Perspective on Nuclear Proliferation

Let me try to explain what I mean by delineating some categories of problems and

policy responses. It is convenient—although hardly original—to think of the nuclear

proliferation problem as a matter of ‘‘supply’’ and ‘‘demand.’’

On the ‘‘demand’’ side, I think it is useful to distinguish among three kinds of demand for policy purposes. One kind is the demand for a nuclear weapons capability

per se. The source of this demand are the nuclear weapon wanna-bes, the bad guys

whom we usually have foremost in our minds when we talk about the problem of

nuclear proliferation. North Korea and, until recently, Libya would be good illustrations of this category. You would not have to be excessively suspicious about Iranian

motives to put Tehran in this category as well.

It also is important to distinguish between two kinds of nuclear weapons wannabes i.e., states and non-state terrorists, because some policy instruments that are

likely to be effective for one kind of nuclear weapon wanna-be are unlikely to be

effective with respect to another. In particular, I believe that incentives can play

a role in persuading nuclear weapon wanna-be states to abandon their nuclear ambitions, but I am deeply skeptical that they have much if any relevance to terrorists.

A second source of demand is for nuclear power generation to meet energy needs.

These are the nuclear power wanna-bes who do not harbor any secret plans or ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons. Brazil might be a country you would put into this

category.

Finally, there is an admittedly imprecise middle category of demand composed of

those who are pursuing nuclear power capabilities not only to meet energy requirements, but also to create an option for nuclear weapons sometime in the future. If

Iran is not a nuclear weapon wanna-be, then at a minimum, it surely falls into this

category.

On the supply side, it also is useful to distinguish among three categories for policy purposes. One kind is the supply of nuclear weapons technology, equipment, and

know-how. Put simply, this is about the intentional provision of a nuclear weapons

capability, and—until recently—A.Q. Khan was its poster child. It also is the kind

of ‘‘supply’’ problem that has been the major, if not predominant, focus of our nuclear nonproliferation efforts. The Proliferation Security Initiative is a recent and

promising example of a policy instrument designed to address this particular supply

problem.

A second kind of ‘‘supply’’ is represented by the stores of dispersed nuclear warheads, and the stockpiles of inadequately secured nuclear weapons material, much—

but, it must be emphasized, not all—of which is concentrated in Russia. This is the

‘‘loose nukes’’ problem, one that the rise of global terrorism has turned into an all

too plausible nightmare. For nuclear weapon wanna-bes, access to the weapons

themselves is a dream come true. But access to nuclear weapon material would be

the next best thing. After all, the principal obstacle that nuclear weapon wanna-bes

face—and toward which most of their efforts are directed—is acquiring or making

the enriched uranium and plutonium needed for a weapon. Nunn-Lugar and related

programs are designed to address this part of the supply problem.

35

A third kind of ‘‘supply’’ is the inadvertent but inescapable byproduct of civilian

nuclear power programs, notably those activities related to the production, storage,

and reprocessing of nuclear fuel. That is, those attributes that are intrinsic to a

closed nuclear fuel cycle constitute an ongoing potential to produce material for nuclear weapons. (This is one reason why the recent North Korean proposal to preserve a civilian nuclear program—if it is serious rather than a negotiating ploy— is an utter non-starter.) This is an aspect of nuclear proliferation that we have recognized worried about for some time, but are just beginning to address in ways that

I think hold some promise of being effective. I will offer some specific suggestions in

a moment.

The range of complementary, yet distinct, tasks that a comprehensive and coherent nuclear nonproliferation policy must accomplish correspond to these multiple

sources of supply and demand. But reduced to their essence, these tasks are (1) to

actively frustrate the ambitions of the nuclear weapon wanna-bes by denying them

access to critical technology, equipment, and materials, (2) to construct a network

of effective sanctions and powerful positive incentives that present nuclear weapon

wanna-bes with an all but irresistible choice to abandon their nuclear ambitions,

and (3) to put in place both incentives and barriers that effectively discourage not

only nuclear power wanna-bes but also countries in the undecided middle category

from seriously considering, much less pursuing, a nuclear weapons option.

Many of the elements of such a multi-faceted policy already are in place. Much

of what remains to be done is to fill in some hard-to-fill-in blanks, ensure that both

the right kind and enough resources are being devoted to the respective tasks and— very important—make sure that there is close coordination among the parts so that

the result is a coherent whole. I do not pretend to have a complete blueprint or a

detailed road map for reaching this goal. What follows are some illustrations and

observations that I hope will contribute to the process.

Frustrating Nuclear Weapon Wanna-bes

Let me begin with the challenge of denying determined nuclear weapon wannabes access to the technology, equipment, material, and know-how they need to

achieve their goal. Here—and being careful not to claim victory prematurely—I

think we can point to some recent success stories such as A.Q. Khan, and Libya and,

in a way, even Iran. Behind these well-publicized success stories are many more less

visible and less grand, but still important, victories. There also are new tough-minded measures such as the Proliferation Security Initiative. We of course can and

should always hope to do better, beginning with steadily improving intelligence and

intelligence operations, and making as determined an effort as possible to broaden

and strengthen international cooperation. But on the whole, I believe that this part

of strategy to counter nuclear proliferation not only has received the most attention,

but also probably is the furthest advanced of any of the elements.

Looking ahead, I think that the Libyan case is particularly instructive in at least

three respects:

• First, Libya is the most recent of several countries to provide grounds for optimism that even nuclear weapon wanna-bes can be persuaded to reverse course

and abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions.

• Second, our apparent success in Libya seems to have based on a strategy that

(a) made Libyan efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability so difficult and

frustrating that it helped persuade Qadhafi that the attempt would ultimately

prove futile, (b) imposed real and increasingly painful costs on Libya so long as

it pursued its nuclear weapons ambitions, and (c) held out the credible prospect

of tangible and meaningful benefits if Qadhafi turned away from the nuclear

weapons path.

• Third, I would not be surprised if we learn that the supply side consists not

only of shadowy figures and underground nuclear supermarkets, but also active

roles by companies and individuals—if not governments—in Europe and other

places that we count among our friends and allies.

For all these reasons, it strikes me that it would be worthwhile to study the Libyan

case closely—in both its classified and unclassified aspects—to see the extent to

which its lessons can be applied to other hard nuclear nonproliferation cases, perhaps starting with Iran.

Containing ‘‘Loose Nukes’’

A great deal already has been spoken and written about the problem of ‘‘loose

nukes,’’ so I will confine myself to underscoring three points. First, all roads lead

back to Russia when we are talking about combating the spread of nuclear weapons—not only, but especially, when talking about loose nukes—in the sense that no

36

policy can hope to be successful if it does not succeed in Russia. As a corollary, no

policy can succeed in Russia if we do not have a relationship with the Russians that

encourages real cooperation on this issue, something that the Nunn-Lugar track

record clearly indicates neither can be taken for granted nor achieved with money

alone.

Second, adequate resources may not make all the difference, but inadequate resources are a virtual guarantee of failure. Money is central, but this is not just a

matter of money. Nunn-Lugar needs to be treated consistently as a high priority by

the Administration and the Congress, rather than as just another laudable program

that receives intermittent attention and some share of discretionary resources.

Third, this is not just a problem with or in Russia. While it is true that in quantitative terms, most of the loose nuke problem is located in Russia, not all of it is.

Furthermore, quantity is not an adequate yardstick because nuclear weapons have

a quality all their own. Put differently, a little nuclear material can go a long way

because even just one nuclear detonation or dirty bomb can ruin your whole day.

Two implications follow. One is that Nunn-Lugar and related programs need to

be truly international in scope rather than FSU-centric both in concept and execution. In this regard, the successful effort to remove nuclear fuel from the research

reactor in Belgrade was important both in its own right and as a model for similar

actions in the future. It also could serve as a model for practical cooperation between the United States and Russia that could pay both nonproliferation and broader political benefits. The other implication is that efforts to deal with the loose

nukes problem benefit immensely from being multilateral rather than unilateral.

The G-8 Global Partnership, or ‘‘10 + 10 over 10,’’ initiative is a good beginning at

sharing responsibility for the loose nukes problem (but, as President Bush has proposed, the time has also come to broaden its scope beyond the countries of the

former Soviet Union).

Moreover, the benefits of international cooperation obviously extend beyond the

loose nukes problem. As the successes of the Proliferation Security Initiative and

especially the breakthrough on Libya make clear, it is hard to imagine virtually any

aspect of a nuclear nonproliferation policy that would not be more effective if it had

the active cooperation of other governments. Indeed, it is easy to imagine many initiatives that could only be successful with such cooperation.

Building Walls Between Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons

The final broad proliferation problem that I want to address is the one posed by

nuclear power wanna-bes, and the challenge of encouraging safe civilian nuclear

power to meet global energy needs while at the same time discouraging any temptation—now or in the future—to use such programs to create a nuclear weapons capability. As I noted above, the supply-demand nexus for civilian nuclear power to meet

energy requirements poses intrinsic and serious nuclear proliferation risks. This is

neither a new problem nor one that has been only recently identified. But in my

opinion, it has not received the attention it warrants, particularly in the context of

fashioning a comprehensive and coherent nuclear non-proliferation policy.

Let me be clear, this observation is not intended to be a criticism of, much less

an attack on, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There is no silver bullet solution

to the nuclear proliferation problem, and the NPT isn’t one either. But it also is true

that the Treaty is neither ineffective nor obsolete. As my colleagues and I argued

in our New York Times December Op-Ed, if we did not have an NPT, we would almost surely want to invent it. At the same time, the Treaty is not sacrosanct. It

certainly can be modernized and strengthened. In this respect, I believe that the Additional Protocol can make an important contribution, and I hope that the Senate

acts favorably on it.

It likewise would be a mistake to regard the NPT as the last word on international regimes governing civilian nuclear power. Recall that the NPT explicitly allows nations that foreswear nuclear weapons to develop nuclear power for peaceful

purposes. Specifically, under the terms of the NPT, non-nuclear weapon state signatories may build and operate nuclear reactors, and they are permitted to produce

enriched uranium that fuels the reactors, to store the radioactive spent fuel from

those reactors, and to reprocess that spent fuel. The only specific obligations are

that the signatories declare these facilities to the International Atomic Energy

Agency and allow the Agency to inspect them. (The Additional Protocol should help

strengthen the IAEA’s ability to exercise this authority.)

As we know, the problem is that this ‘‘closed fuel cycle’’ gives these countries an

inherent and virtually inescapable capacity to produce the fissile material required

for a nuclear weapon. Facilities used to produce enriched uranium for power reactors also can be used to produce highly enriched uranium—HEU—for weapons. Reprocessing spent fuel yields plutonium that can fashioned into nuclear weapons. As

37

the cases of North Korea and—presumptively—Iran demonstrate, regimes that intend to violate the Treaty’s ban on nuclear weapons can exploit this right to operate

a nuclear power plant. While seeming to remain within the terms of the treaty, they

can gather all the resources necessary to make nuclear weapons, and can even start

to build weapons clandestinely. Then they can abrogate the Treaty and proceed to

build a nuclear arsenal in the open.

Serious as this potential may be, the problem is broader than nuclear weapon

wanna-bes using the NPT as cover and concealment as they pursue their ambitions.

The right to have a closed fuel cycle also provides an attractive vehicle for countries

that, for whatever reason, want to create and maintain the option to acquire nuclear

weapons at some time in the future. Indeed, even the nuclear power wanna-bes who

may not have any present intention or desire to create the option to become a nuclear weapons state nevertheless will have done so if they construct a closed fuel

cycle.

In addressing this issue, one pitfall to be avoided is to let nuclear nonproliferation

become the enemy of civilian nuclear power. That would be serious mistake on three

counts. First, it is a fight that advocates of nuclear nonproliferation could easily

lose. Second, nuclear power generation has a potentially important role to play in

meeting global energy needs and addressing global warming concerns. We should

be trying to develop and exploit that potential rather than cripple it. Third, posing

the issue as nuclear nonproliferation versus nuclear power presents a false choice

and poses a battle that need not be fought.

Instead, the United States should take the lead in building an international regime alongside the NPT that promotes civilian nuclear power but discourages or

prohibits closed nuclear fuel cycles. Such a regime would consist of obligations both

on the part of customers for civilian nuclear power and the suppliers of the required

capabilities.

The additional obligations of the ‘‘customers’’ are simply stated: in addition to

their NPT obligations, the customers would agree not to manufacture, store, or reprocess nuclear fuel. They also would agree to inspections to confirm that they were

living up to their undertakings.

Those countries that now sell peaceful nuclear technology in accordance with the

NPT would take on both additional positive and negative obligations. First, they

would agree to forego the sale or transfer of any equipment or technology designed

for the enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear fuel to any country that did not already have a fully operational nuclear fuel cycle. They also would agree to provide

technology, equipment, or fuel for nuclear reactors only to those countries that had

renounced their right to enrich and reprocess nuclear fuel. Second, these suppliers

would guarantee the reliable supply of nuclear fuel and the retrieval of spent fuel

at competitive prices to those ‘‘customer countries’’ that agree to this new arrangement.

To enhance the attractiveness of such a bargain and make it all but economically

irresistible (as well as help to distinguish between true nuclear power wanna-bes

and those who harbor nuclear weapon ambitions), consideration should be given to

providing these services not merely at competitive, but at deeply subsidized, prices.

In this connection, John Deutch has calculated that such subsidies would be affordable, perhaps on order of 1-2 percent of the annual DOD budget. Moreover, there

is every reason to believe that the United States would not have to foot the full bill,

not least because those other countries that would be providing nuclear fuel services

would have domestic political incentives to subsidize the cost of those services in

order remain competitive in the global nuclear fuel industry.

Obviously, these are no more than the broadest outlines of such a regime, one

that parallels some of the ideas President Bush presented in his February 11 speech

at NDU. A large number of details would have to be filled in, such as the arrangements for an international consortium that would provide guaranteed fuel services

at competitive or even subsidized prices (and, if subsidized, how the subsidies would

be calculated and who would pay them). There also are a long list of hard questions

to be addressed, ranging from how formal or informal such a regime should be, to

whether sanctions should be applied to suppliers or customers who do not join in

the new arrangements, to how to treat countries like Brazil that have nuclear supplier ambitions, to how to deal with countries like India and Pakistan that have

demonstrated nuclear weapons capabilities but are outside the NPT. And even more

than in the case of NPT itself, there will be those who will charge—with some justification—that any such international arrangement would be highly ‘‘discriminatory.’’

Even if all of the questions can be answered and the various problems and objections can be overcome, this new international regime would not be a cure-all. But

I do believe that it could provide a key building block in a comprehensive nuclear

38

nonproliferation strategy, while at the same time promoting the development of

peaceful nuclear energy. That potential convinces me that an approach along these

lines warrants serious consideration. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Secretary Kanter.

Let me begin the questioning by suggesting that each member

might take 10 minutes in the first round.

I want to mention in advance that Secretary Perry wanted to

leave our hearing about 11 o’clock. This will give us the opportunity for questioning before he departs. Perhaps we may continue

if others might be prepared to stay a bit longer.

In your testimony, very collectively, you have all mentioned the

importance not only of international cooperation, but also of something beyond that, perhaps an almost universal sign-up of countries, a truly comprehensive full-court press in this area. I think

that is a tremendously important point which I would want to affirm.

I would also mention that we have had success, at least in the

Congress, with the non-proliferation legislation being expanded beyond Russia and the New Independent States, far be it that $50

million of the funds could be expended somewhere else. The funds

were not increased, but the $50 million is flexible.

It has been suggested in previous hearings that these funds, for

example, might be used in Libya. Once again, however, we have

run up against problems that are always inherent in the situation.

Namely the United States has a number of political and economic

sanctions still being enforced against Libya. The funds cannot be

used in a country in which we are imposing sanctions.

This gets back to a fundamental problem of the legislation with

regard to Russia, for example, because Secretary Kanter has made

the point that all of the issues get back to Russia in one form or

another. It’s cooperation.

Some have found this to be almost counter-intuitive, after the

fall of the Soviet Union. It is not counter-intuitive to many Russians who came to visit with the three of you, with Sam Nunn and

myself, and with others. This suggests that we had a mutual problem.

This has not ever been completely understood, but hopefully, in

the course of our hearings and future legislation, we will understand that we are not dealing here with foreign aid to Russia, or

a gift, or some grant. We’re involved in a question of mutual security.

From the very beginning, the Nunn-Lugar program was plagued

with other stipulations added by well-meaning Members who suggested that money ought not to be available to the Russians if they

were not clearly forthcoming with regard to all the information

that we required about their weapons of mass destruction, or their

facilities, or so forth, or even their reports were incomplete or inaccurate.

Leaving aside why they lied or cheated, there were lots of questions that could not be evaluated, or various other stipulations.

If the Russian responses at any point in history were

unsatisfying, the Cooperative Threat Reduction moneys ended, as

did services by the technicians and so forth. This is not an acaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jul 19, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 94204 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2
39

demic issue. In the year just past, we had a period of 6 months in

which the whole thing literally stopped.

It may have been an imperative program for national security,

but nevertheless the Secretary of State felt that he could not stipulate that each of the conditions that were required had been met.

Therefore, there would be no funding, and no extension of the program until that occurred.

That has been redressed eventually by waivers. That is, the

President of the United States, and, through him, his Secretaries,

have been allowed to proceed, notwithstanding the fact that not all

of these stipulations were met.

I would also like to cite a non-nuclear site, namely the chemical

program at Schyuchye where there have been hundreds of millions

of dollars of United States funds. Funds from other nations have

been expended on elimination facilities.

It will be critical, as the program is expanded, to discern whether

all of the weapons, 1.9 million different shells of various sizes, all

the way up to Scud missiles, and all the way down to 85 millimeter

shells, be destroyed. Likewise, we must examine the chemical arms

for two others among the seven sites that Russia and the United

States are guarding.

There were additional stipulations there. It takes time and effort

to get waivers and legislation for waivers, so that the President can

proceed there. I would just say, frankly, that we have not succeeded in getting, not even to the President of the United States,

a permanent waiver authority. After another year or so, things will

run out again at Schyuchye, and we will be back once again examining this project.

We’re really talking here about the most fundamental problem of

security that our Nation faces. Yet even at this point, 13 years

down the trail from the initial legislation, we’re still involved with

thoughts that somehow the Russians may not always do the right

thing. Therefore, we sanction them by cutting off the Cooperative

Threat Reduction Program.

I am hopeful that we will all get a better understanding, through

these discussions, of how important it is to proceed. Because the

Russian relationship has gone up and down a good bit during the

13 years. Mercifully, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program

has survived all of the ups and downs, in large part because Russians, as well as Americans, saw it was imperative to their national

security.

The third point that I wanted to make is that we are now in a

situation, with the A.Q. Khan revelation that has been mentioned,

of an extraordinary breakthrough, in two ways, one of which is that

President Qadhafi in Libya has come to a pragmatic decision.

Senator Biden had a visit with Qadhafi just a week ago. He has

told some of us about his conversations, in which the Libyan leader

had simply come to the conclusion that this was a bad mistake, in

terms of foreign policy. And if you made a bad mistake, it’s best

to get rid of it thoroughly. We’re literally carting it out, root and

branch, and in a very summary fashion.

We’re now allowing Americans to go to Libya, and we are encouraging trade to proceed. Not all of the sanctions have been lifted,

40

although five by the President in assembly last week. This is a remarkable turnaround.

There is sort of a road map of cooperation of this information. On

occasion even materials, including trades for missiles with North

Korea, for example, all of these things have come into public view

in a way that is startling. All of this proceeded for two decades.

Some of the arsenal was suspected, but not in that amount or degree. Specific countries weren’t necessarily named. It is a therefore

remarkable opportunity at this stage to followup on each of these

reports of actual trades, on reports of human beings selling stuff

for money, perhaps with the patriotic motive, perhaps with a profit

motive, and perhaps with a combination of this.

All of this leads to some debate in Congress about whether the

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, for example, ought to expand beyond Russia. We decided that in a way, but only barely.

There is still genuine ongoing debate.

Some of our colleagues in the Armed Services Committee say

that, after all, this is money that is subtracted from the Defense

Department for other objectives. The Department might want to

undertake weapons systems, for example, or increase pay to the

troops.

Some would argue that it should not be the Department of Defense bearing this, but rather that the State Department ought to

do it. They say that this is a matter of diplomacy. Already the Department of Energy is heavily invested. Their investment is at

least the equivalent of that of the Department of Defense, and

maybe in some cases more. Furthermore, we have now added all

of this together, and, although the Department of Defense’s part may be $450 million more or less each year, over a billion dollars

in these programs collectively is the figure that we state to the

other members of the G-8, in the so-called 10 + 10 over 10 program.

We are encouraging them to match at least a billion dollars that

we’re putting in for 10 years, but this goes very slowly.

The urgency there has not quite been felt. If you were to draw

up a chart of 10 years and ask how much anybody would deposit

in this period of time, the fill-ins just don’t occur. Less than half

of the $10 billion can be seen, I think.

What should the priorities be? What amount of money should be

spent in each of these 10 years? It is very, very difficult to get answers to this. Clearly, heavy diplomacy on our part and that of others will be required. There are frameworks out there to achieve

some of the objectives that we are talking about today. At the same

time, one purpose of this hearing is to bring a much greater sense

of urgency to our administration, to the G-8 members, to the Russians and to the Duma in particular. Right now we’re holding up

the liability treaties that are required by European friends who

want to become involved. We are pleased that they can become involved.

This is going to require insistent drum-beating all of the time, I

suspect. This is why I go through the tedium of it presently. You

have all been involved in it, too. You were on the battle lines in

the administration, in academia, and both, coming and going.

I am enthusiastic about the program that you have illustrated.

This has enhanced the practical political measures that have to acVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jul 19, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 94204 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2
41

company that. Public opinion might be seized with this, perhaps in

a different way, perhaps in a way in which the urgency is felt by

people in this country who truly are worried about the war against

terrorism.

I am deeply worried when you express the thought that a 9/11

highjackers, instead of having a guided missile, going into the

World Trade Center, might have had a 12 kiloton nuclear weapon.

In that case, the circles of devastation and death, along with the

end of New York City, come into view. That is a different problem.

That is what Secretary Perry commenced with.

Let me cease-fire for a moment and recognize my colleague, Senator Nelson.

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In the President’s budget, there is a $41 million cut in the Department of Defense account Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Why shouldn’t we be raising Cain with the cut?

Mr. PERRY. I have a simple answer to that question, Senator Nelson.

I believe I stated in my testimony that I believe we have an overriding priority to stop nuclear proliferation, an overriding priority.

And that is not consistent with cutting the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, and I am in favor of increasing and not cutting.

Senator NELSON. Well, I’m going to raise some Cain. And I am

going to do it this afternoon on the budget that’s on the floor. I

don’t expect to win it because they have got this thing in a financial straightjacket where you have to take if from someplace else.

But I am sure going to do it.

Mr. PERRY. Let me say one other thing.

Senator NELSON. Just to keep the issue visible.

Mr. PERRY. When I was the Secretary of Defense, I was continually frustrated by attempts to treat the Nunn-Lugar program as

foreign aid. And one of the ways that I used in dealing with that

frustration is I referred to it continually as defense by other means.

It is a defense program. It is for the national security of the country. It is not to help other countries. And I think put in that context, it gets you a better basis for dealing with the issue.

I can not think of any other program that has a higher priority

in terms of really protecting the security of Americans than these

programs.

Mr. KANTER. Senator Nelson, if you think that your exercise this

afternoon is going to be an exercise of tilting at windmills, let me

suggest another windmill at which to tilt.

It is the way in which the Congress deals with the overall budget

problem, and in particular, distinguishing between the 050 account

and the 150 account, as though somehow real national security

gets budgeted as 050 and that other stuff is budgeted as 150. And,

fights about whether the State Department ought to be paying, or

whether this is taking money away from Defense programs, and so

forth.

In some respects, these fights have their root in the way in which

the problem is defined. And I think removing a line which certainly

in the post-cold war world and absolutely in post-9/11 world, makes

no sense whatsoever would be one way to help properly frame the

debate in terms of the tradeoffs that inevitably have to be made.

42

Senator NELSON. Interestingly, when the budget act was enacted

back in the 1970s, it had as it purpose to try to bring some financial discipline to stop the hemorrhage of deficit financing. The

whole budget act is being used for other proposes, and the one of

which you have just indicated is a good example. That is in my

judgment, and obviously yours and it’s not in the best interest of

the country.

Let me ask you, why shouldn’t it be the policy of the U.S. Government to be leaning on Pakistan right now, President Musharraf,

to get Dr. Khan to come clean with who all he has proliferated.

Mr. KANTER. My impression, which may well be mistaken, is that

is the policy of the U.S. Government. I would distinguish between

the question of whether A.Q. Khan should be thrown into jail and

throw away the key, that he should be punished, and the question

of can we find out as much as possible about what he and his associates have been doing for the last 20 years? And, can we be as confident as possible that we have not just disrupted, but destroyed,

the network?

I think that putting Mr. Khan in jail or whatever might be therapeutic, but it doesn’t go to the issue. Where we ought to be concentrating is on the latter problem, and frankly my impression is that

is the U.S. priority.

Senator NELSON. Well we know, for example, about North Korea

and Libya. But we don’t know if he sent some material and information to al-Qaeda, and that takes it to another whole level. What

do you think, Dr. Carter?

Mr. CARTER. Well, I can only hope that part of the deal that

Musharraf made with A.Q. Khan, that keeps A.Q. Khan out of jail

is that he has to come completely clean with all of his transactions

to include especially and I think you asked a very good question,

did he confine his activities to foreign states or were there nonstate partners to this trade. And we know that in his entourage

there were those who sympathized with the Taliban, and with alQaeda. And therefore there is every reason to believe that people

who are willing to trade with North Korea might well have been

even more willing to trade with al-Qaeda.

I don’t know the details of the arrangement that Musharraf

made with A.Q. Khan, nor the details of any arrangement if we

have one with Musharraf about the treatment of A.Q. Khan. But

it seems to me that we need to get to the bottom of particularly

the question you just raised.

May I add one more thing to your query about the funding as

well, and this gets back to Senator Lugar’s point about the NunnLugar program.

This diminution in the funding is, to me, just one more symptom

of the problem that both of you were pointing out, which is that

Nunn-Lugar is spoken fondly of, but not really pro-actively managed. I should say, parenthetically that this has been true for some

time, and it is a statement in my judgment not purely about the

current administration. I had the same beef, actually going back in

time.

And it has a couple of results. One is the pernicious results. One

is the one that Senator Lugar pointed to earlier that we’re constantly reacting to these problems. We find ourselves unable to cerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jul 19, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 94204 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2
43

tify. The legislation has been on the books for a decade. How can

you discover that you can’t certify all of a sudden, and then spend

6 months trying to dig yourself out of a hole? How can that happen

10 years into a program?

And to me that signifies the fact the there is not that top level

managerial attention that’s looking for opportunities. What could

we do with a Nunn-Lugar, this novel approach, for disarmament in

Libya? In North Korea? Where are the program designs? Why isn’t

this budgeted? Why do we let ourselves be blind-sided by what the

Russians are doing? And yes, there’s fault on their side, but it’s our

security. We need to anticipate that, and work against it.

So I was really pleased to see what the President had to say in

his National Defense University speech, which is Nunn-Lugar is

great. But, to me there has to be not just more money, but there

has to be managerial attention. I was lucky enough to work for Bill

Perry, and I never had to worry that there was support at the top

for Nunn-Lugar in Defense.

But I think that without that support at the top, we’re playing

a nibbling game on a problem that’s huge and while we’re nibbling,

it’s going to bite us, and you know where, one of these days. So I

would like to see speeches followed through on with money and

management attention. Otherwise, there is just talk.

Senator NELSON. Well, I’m going to give the Senate a chance to

go on the record today on that subject.

Final question, Mr. Chairman.

What would be your instructions to us regarding what we could

learn about what changed Qadhafi’s mind, so that we could go and

encourage the leadership in Iran and North Korea?

Mr. KANTER. It strikes me that Libya is a potentially fruitful

case study, because, one, there apparently has been an important

breakthrough, so it is a kind of model success.

Two, it seems to have some distinct elements that worked in

combination, or appeared to have worked in combination, that look

as though they are generalizable.

One is that there appears to have been a serious and ultimately

successful effort to frustrate Qadhafi’s weapons of mass destruction

ambitions. We just made it really hard for him to succeed.

Now, there are some folks out there who were taking his money

and not delivering the goods, who also frustrating him. But I think

there was a very active program to make clear to him that he was

never going to get there. That was one element.

The second element was that we really showed him that as long

as he stuck at it he was going to pay a terrible price. But, if he

turned around, not only would there be an absence of bads, but

there would be a presence of goods. Good things would begin to

happen, and he could really achieve his broader agenda. And we

would actively help him do that. So this combination of positive

and negative incentives, sanctions and incentives.

Third, I think it is a real model of international cooperation. This

was by no stretch of the imagination a U.S. only operation, and as

far as I can understand it could have never have succeeded if we

had tried to do it on our own.

44

There were lots of countries that participated, each in ways that

were distinctive if not unique. And it was the coming together of

all of those efforts that made this possible.

So, it strikes me that there is a model here that ought to be validated, and if it is validated, can be applied to other countries. And

my first candidate out of the box is Iran.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Nelson.

Senator Alexander.

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your testimony. Picking up on your comment on

Iran and Senator Lugar’s comment about stipulations, the three of

you in your article suggested that we work with a country that we

had reason not to trust to permit them to move ahead with nuclear

powerplants in exchange for certain inspections.

To avoid the problem we have with Nunn-Lugar, in terms of the

wrong kinds of stipulations and controls over a person who we formerly had reason not to trust, what kind of stipulations and controls should we have under your plan to satisfy our need for inspection?

Mr. CARTER. I’ll take that. I think the case in which you’re referring to is Iran.

Senator ALEXANDER. Did I not say Iran?

Mr. CARTER. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But—— Senator ALEXANDER. That’s your New York Times article on

Iran—— Mr. CARTER [continuing]. Yes, and I understand.

Senator ALEXANDER [continuing]. Where the nuclear powerplants

and the idea of reprocessed fuel. What should we require?

Mr. CARTER. Our op-ed argued that Iran should not have reprocessing and enrichment facilities, inspected or non-inspected. That

constituted essentially a bomb program.

Senator ALEXANDER. Right.

Mr. CARTER. And that wasn’t OK.

Senator ALEXANDER. But you’ve given them the fuel? In exchange

for what?

Mr. CARTER. If they build a reactor.

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes.

Mr. CARTER. Then you give them fuel, one batch at a time.

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes.

Mr. CARTER. They irradiate the fuel and you expatriate the fuel.

Senator ALEXANDER. OK.

Mr. CARTER. They’re dependent upon outside suppliers for enrichment, so they are not doing enrichment themselves, and thereby bringing themselves closer to a uranium bomb. Nor are they reprocessing spent fuel, obtaining plutonium and bringing themselves

close to a plutonium bomb.

I suppose that if we trusted the Iranians more, we would accept

an inspected enrichment and reprocessing program. We do that

with Japan, happily. We do that with the United Kingdom, happily.

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes.

Mr. CARTER. We even do that with Russia, happily. But we’re not

prepared to do that with Iran, and that’s why our proposal called

for Iran to not have any of those things.

45

Likewise, in North Korea, by the way, Yong Byon is on the surface of it, a perfectly OK facility under the NPT. All they’re doing

is running reactors and reprocessing plutonium, and nothing is

wrong. The North Koreans used to say this. I remember very distinctly them saying how come the Japanese can do it, and we can’t?

And the answer is, you’re the North Koreans, and they’re the Japanese. That’s the only answer. So we don’t trust those parties to do

reprocessing or enrichment at all.

Senator ALEXANDER. So under your plan the only scheme we

would need really is we give you the fuel and we retrieve the spent

fuel, and no other requirement is needed?

Mr. CARTER. If we are able, batch by batch to remove irradiated

fuel, then the worst that can happen is that they can break their

agreement.

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes.

Mr. CARTER. And hold on to one batch of one fuel, which would

contain reactor grade plutonium, and not weapons grade plutonium, which is some comfort. And, which would give them, if they

kept it, a capacity for a small number of nuclear weapons, but we

would immediately know what they were up to, and they would be

immediately in breach of their international obligations.

And that’s a far preferable circumstance to one in which they

build their own enrichment and reprocessing facilities, operate

them at any scale all by themselves. Accumulate uranium, accumulate plutonium, then you’re in a position where any day they can

kick the inspectors out and they have a whole lot. This is a far better situation.

Mr. PERRY. Senator Alexander, I would add one other point to

that. I agree completely with what Dr. Carter has said, but we also

have to have some provisions to accommodate the possibility that

they might have a covert program, somewhere, and that calls for

unannounced inspections. So we need an inspection protocol as well

as the agreement that Dr. Carter was describing.

Senator ALEXANDER. So those two things together?

Mr. PERRY. If I can, I want to emphasize the fact that it is very

difficult to get agreements for that.

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes.

Mr. PERRY. And the negotiations with Iran to date are not close

to having reached those agreements.

Mr. KANTER. May I add one more statement?

Senator ALEXANDER. Sure.

Mr. PERRY. I’m sorry, but there is one further stipulation that is

very important, and Senator Lugar raised this as well, which is

whether participation in the NPT, in this expanded way, should be

mandatory or not. Or whether because right now we regard the

NPT as something that sovereign nations accede to if they wish to.

And can withdraw from when they wish to.

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes.

Mr. PERRY. And I think that Senator Lugar was pointing to a

world in which membership in the NPT was required or strongly

expected, and brought you under deep suspicion if you were not a

member, and in which withdrawal was not an option. Do you remember the roach motels, ‘‘you can check in but you can’t check

46

out.’’ I’m talking about the kind of NPT, where you can join but you

can’t withdraw or leave. I think that ought to be part of our future.

Mr. KANTER. Senator.

Two points. One is that the scheme we have in mind is twosided. That is, it not only would ask in the case of Iran, that Iran

forego enrichment and reprocessing, but it would also try to construct an international suppliers’ agreement so that Iran could not

get the technology and equipment that it needs to enrich or reprocess fuel, even if it tried.

So that it is a combination of getting the would be customer to

say, ‘‘I’m out of that business,’’ or that ‘‘I am not going to get into

that business,’’ and suppliers to say, ‘‘We’re not going to sell you

that stuff.’’ So it really does try to close it down.

The other point that I would make is that what we’re suggesting

doesn’t try to go case by case and say that’s a trustworthy country,

that’s an untrustworthy country, and so forth. It just tries to delegitimize any and all new countries getting into the closed fuel

cycle business.

And it does that for two reasons. One, is it helps to avoid the

need to decide who you can trust and what it takes to trust them.

And the other reason is that any country with a closed nuclear

fuel cycle can decide tomorrow that it is no longer going to be a

part of the NPT and can start using all of that stuff to build nuclear weapons. It has a breakout capacity.

So we want to minimize the risks of breakout as well as minimize the risks of cheating.

Senator ALEXANDER. So there are three things from our point of

view. You’ve said that one would be the alliance of supplier countries?

Mr. PERRY. Yes.

Mr. KANTER. Yes.

Mr. CARTER. Yes.

Senator ALEXANDER. Two would be, we give you the fuel and you

give us back the spent fuel.

Mr. PERRY. Yes.

Senator ALEXANDER. And three would be some inspection?

Mr. KANTER. Yes.

Senator ALEXANDER. So those would be the three.

You mentioned North Korea. Are we making progress, Dr.

Carter, in North Korea, or are they just busy making, processing

nuclear fuel while we’re talking?

Mr. CARTER. I’m concerned that they’re making progress, and

compared to where we were 2 years ago, where 8,000 fuel rods

were at Yong Byon, where they could be inspected or bombed, we

now don’t know where they are. And we don’t know in what condition. That’s a deterioration of our position while we have considered our own strategy. So I think our options have narrowed and

our situation has deteriorated.

I wouldn’t be candid if I didn’t say that I have a concern that

we have a divided government on this matter. From the outside

looking in. So, it seems to me.

And, we don’t have a clear strategy to approach the North Koreans, and it would be bad enough if only we saw that, but I think

47

the North Koreans see that also. And to approach them with mixed

signals is dangerous business in the case of the North Koreans.

And if I can add one other thing to what Senator Nelson raised

about models, and Libya being a model and so forth. My own take

on that is what we see in these are not models. What we see is the

tremendous variety.

Let’s take Saddam Hussein. We need a new word for Saddam

Hussein. He is not a rogue, because a rogue is somebody who is up

to more than what he lets on. I don’t know what you would call

somebody who is up to less than what he lets on. But that was

Saddam Hussein.

Muammar Qadhafi has zigged and zagged so many times that I

would be reluctant to generalize from his mentality.

Kim Jong Il’s mentality I don’t profess to understand, though I

have studied it quite a bit.

And we have other cases like the Ukraine in which the NunnLugar program was central in that case in convincing that government that it was safe for them to take the path we wanted. It involved security assurances, it involved visits by our then Secretary

of Defense to them to create the vision for their people that it was

safe to be without nuclear weapons. It required concrete assistance

under the Nunn-Lugar program to help them get the job done.

So all of these cases are different. And therefore I loathe to generalize.

And in Iran, yet different also. What it seems to me it teaches

you is that you have got to get in there and see what they’re up

to, and work the problem.

And we’re not working the problem with the North Koreans. We

don’t have to reach agreement with the North Koreans, but I would

like to have a faster pace of exploring the proposition that they can

be talked out of nuclear weapons. I’m not sure they can be.

But as the years drag on, I still don’t know the answer to that

question. But meanwhile they’re taking steps toward reprocessing

plutonium. That’s not progress, in my judgment, and that’s how I

would answer your question.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Secretary Perry, I know

that you may need to depart, and we thank you very much. I wanted to take advantage of the other two witnesses, and to raise another question or two. You’re excused whenever you need to leave.

We appreciate that.

Mr. PERRY. I’ll let you ask your question and I’ll answer that and

then I will be on my way.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

I want to think aloud with you about this proposition that collectively the world knows which countries, which nation-states currently have nuclear weapons. I believe that we probably know

which nations have some fissile material, which may not be fully

weaponized. Some elements and programs may be in various

stages.

I’m not certain that is the case, but I think that might be the

case. I just wanted to test out for size with you experts whether

the parameters of the problem could be known. The Nuclear Threat

Initiative group has laboratories in diverse states, which are sometimes numbered at 23 or 24. They had programs in which Russia

48

and United States at various times sent some elements of nuclear

fuel for humanitarian proposes.

Some of this has been retrieved, in a couple of cases, maybe

three. Most of it has not been. Frequently that therefore increases

the number of places, in terms of the proliferation issue, in which

someone might secure something, such as spent fuel, or whatever

may be there.

The reason that I ask this is that it seems to me that as opposed

to our waving our hands over the whole horizon, one way of approaching the subject is with some very specific lists of cases and

countries, and then some program ready for narrowing the field.

In other words, if we’re serious about the 23 or so, maybe not all

will be instantly cooperative in giving up their material, whatever

it is, even if its programs are dormant. We need to know that there

is a supposition that there is something out there. Some countries

are cooperative and some countries are not.

It is going to cost something to do that, and we need to think

internationally with other countries, in this comprehensive way

that we are discussing the issue today, as to what kind of fund we

should create to do this.

We must also get into the tougher cases that we have been talking about, namely situations that clearly have programs that are,

if not entirely active, as in the case of North Korea, are verging on

active, as in the case of Iran. Some nations are sort of sitting in

a group by themselves, requiring very heavy lifting diplomatically,

in a multilateral way, for whatever we want to do.

Secretary Carter has mentioned the material in Great Britain,

and France and what have you. That may be benign in a sense.

These are responsible parties, and hopefully, already a part of our

group. It is essential that Russia be a part of the group. We are

approaching this together, but exclusive of the U.S. and Russia, we

must welcome a broader group of countries.

The world understands the narrowing-down process. The real

focus therefore should be on determining where the dilemmas are,

and what the procedures are going to be, if we’re serious about

safety. The British are very serious about safety, as are the French.

The Russians who have demonstrated that. This doesn’t rely upon

foreign aid or a gift or what have you.

As a matter of fact, the urgency, the focus of we’re talking about

comes from the thought that we’re all in a war against terrorism.

The worst aspects of this may very well be that non-nation states,

due to dereliction of duty by any of the aforementioned, get the material. It is in our best interest, we believe, to do this.

Some states may want to exempt themselves from this. The

North Koreans may say that they are not prepared to sign up yet,

but by doing so they would become the exceptions. It is very clear.

I have a feeling that this problem is so diffuse, now, that a lot

of the signals can be ignored. Somebody mentioned that from time

to time there might be some fissile material, perhaps at the

Devenko Laboratory in Belgrade a short time ago. Someone said,

who cares. That’s a long time ago. And they have got a problem,

and they want some money to clean it up, and so forth. We may

have dismissed this situation because some professed that it may

or may not have been a big deal. We need to define this dilemma.

49

I am just thinking aloud with the three of you as to whether programmatically, leaving aside whether we have legislation or whether this is an amendment of Nunn-Lugar or whatever else you want

to call it, we should advise our own government to begin doing this

and to try to exercise some leadership in all of the fora that we

have at our disposal, whether it be this committee, or op-ed articles, or the institutions that you serve—to begin to bring this to a

head in this way.

Do any of you have any comments?

Yes, Secretary Perry.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I’m going to defer to my colleagues to

give a detailed answer to that question. But before I do, I want to

associate myself with the importance of the question you raised.

And with the belief that we do need substantial expansion.

And I would think the first step in this would be an expansion

of the Nunn-Lugar program, as the most obvious and most effective

vehicle for dealing with the issue.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Secretary Carter.

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I also very much resonate with what you just said. And let me

just restate it, and draw the same conclusion you did.

We don’t know who has fissile material, but we do know who has

made fissile material. And it’s almost surely true, and I don’t know

anybody who believes the contrary, but at this point in history,

only governments have made the wherewithal of nuclear weapons.

Now one can’t say that about biological weapons. But nuclear

weapons which is the thing we have most to fear, can only be made

out of plutonium or enriched uranium, and only governments have

made that. And that means that, in principal, we can, by getting

those governments to act properly and to treat every bit of fissile

material as though it was an assembled bomb, we can contain the

problem of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

And, in principal one can write down the location of every gram

of highly enriched uranium and plutonium as you indicated. And

make a list of places where they are. And make a plan to make

sure that all of that material is treated as though it were a bomb

that could fall into the hands of al-Qaeda.

That is entirely within the ken of man to do, and a program

manager who had the mandate to do so. And you’re absolutely

right, not everybody would be willing to enter that program now.

North Korea wouldn’t now, but I hope that sometime in the future

they will.

A year ago, we wouldn’t believe that Libya would have been willing to enter that program. Thirteen years ago, or 12 years ago

when you began the Nunn-Lugar program, we wouldn’t believe

that Ukraine and Belarus would have been prepared to do that.

So, the bad news about nuclear weapons is once they go off you

can’t take Cipro. It is too late. The good news about nuclear weapons is that they can only be made out of high-enriched uranium or

plutonium and that is locatable, definable material. And what we

should be going about is systematically identifying the location of

every gram of this stuff and making sure that each and every gram

50

is treated as though it was a bomb in al-Qaeda, potentially in the

hands of al-Qaeda.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe that’s a very important statement.

Every gram was produced by some known government which may

or may not be cooperative.

Nevertheless, what I wanted to do is take this out of the era of

hopelessness, the feeling that somehow you just have to hope historically that nothing will happen because we really have no way

of knowing. In fact we do have ways of knowing.

By narrowing the focus of who we raise the questions with, it becomes a management problem, a very severe one. Having names

like North Korea on the roster doesn’t mean that you have solved

the management problem. It is not 27 different places. You have

finally narrowed the focus. Probably you have also changed the dynamics of the debate that we have on Nunn-Lugar or other programs. For example, the Nunn-Lugar program is, say, $400 or $450 million—whatever it is. This is like a long-range program for building

college dormitories at an expanding university. There is no particular urgency, the place is growing, so you build on about every

year. It goes on and on, and there is a feeling that you may not

solve the problem completely that year, but you’re still making

headway. It is not a life and death matter, ultimately, anyway. So you do some good, $450 million worth, wherever it may lie at

that particular time, without the thought that you got your arms

around the whole problem. It seems to me that once our country

and the world has some idea of what specifically the problem is,

and the degree of difficulty, then we will deal differently in terms

of budget.

For example, let’s take the debate that we have had on the $87

billion of supplemental funds for Iraq and Afghanistan. The country made a decision, first of all, that we wanted to pay our Armed

Forces. We acknowledged that that would be expensive, and that

we would need to do that. But beyond that, about $18 billion are

for reconstruction of the country. This exceeds, by a multiple, any

foreign assistance that we have ever done for any country, collectively, and in some cases for the whole lot in any one year.

Now we are seized with the problem of managing this. As you

follow the play by play of who is handling a state’s defense, and

in what sequence, and so forth, it is a lot of money. And yet, the

thought was that this is a definable problem. Iraq must be successful as an economy, as a democracy, as a model.

Seized with the problem, we have tried to allocate the resources.

This is why I have tried to become more particular. I share the

thoughts of all three of you. We may have not been seized with the

priority.

On the other hand, while the situation may remain hopelessly

vague, you can always make a case that we’re doing some good. As

a matter of fact, the Russians are sometimes not very cooperative.

I didn’t want to get into discussion with Senator Nelson on that

specific point, but that is one reason why it is $405 million this

year as opposed to $450 million. In some cases, the Russians have

said that is about as far as they want to go in this particular business.

51

Maybe we might have pushed harder. Clearly, there are always

more warheads to be taken off missiles, and more missiles to be destroyed. We’re sort of at our own pace right now. There is a comfort

level about this. Nonetheless, it becomes so regularized. Maybe

there needs to be some urgency in the process.

Secretary Kanter, listening to all of this, what do you have to

say?

Mr. KANTER. Amen.

I would just add the following points.

First, I would certainly associate myself with the idea that we

need to have a much clearer sense of urgency and priority. That,

in turn, I would hope would help deal with the various obstacles

that are constantly encountered on an annual basis that get in the

way. And it would provide a political basis for essentially, say in

the case of Libya, providing the President with blanket authority

to waive all sanctions as required to implement Nunn-Lugar for

Libya.

And there might even be some kind of symbiotic relationship in

that kind of proposal, because if such a proposal could be adopted,

that would help focus a sense of urgency and sense of priority on

the problem both in Libya and overall.

I would add a couple of other points. One is that there is a lot

more to do than we can do, and so not knowing what we don’t

know is not a big problem right now.

But, sooner or later we’re going to discover in the case of North

Korea, we don’t know. Our ability to find HEU production is far

different and far more limited than it is the case of plutonium. And

so, that is a real problem trying to understand the scope of the

problem.

That second point I would make is that we want to make clear

the problem is bounded and therefore manageable, if difficult. But

we also want to keep the problem bounded by adopting some prophylactic measures, perhaps along the lines we proposed in our oped, to significantly reduce the risk that the list of countries or actors that we’re worried about grows.

And so we really do want to do both. Have a prophylactic component as well as this kind of remedial component. And I understand

the trick is to avoid letting one become the enemy of the other, or

competing with the other. I understand that is tough, politically, as

well as analytically.

But I do think that we need to do both.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank both of you very much for your statements, and the research that has accompanied them as well as the

articles that you have cited. We appreciate your coming this morning and making these contributions.

We will all proceed together in whatever capacities we have, because the work is extremely important.

If either of you have further comments, we will hear that. Otherwise, we will bring the hearing to a close.

Mr. CARTER. Only to thank you for having me here. I appreciate

it for setting this agenda for all of us. Thank you for this opportunity, and thank you for what you’re doing.

Mr. KANTER. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

52

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon at 11:25 a.m. the committee adjourned, to reconvene

subject to the call of the Chair.]

Æ