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53–055 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–2] 

PREVENTING WEAPONS OF MASS 

DESTRUCTION PROLIFERATION 

AND TERRORISM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

FULL COMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JANUARY 22, 2009 
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

FRANK M. KRATOVIL, Jr., Maryland 

ERIC J.J. MASSA, New York 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

ERIN C. CONATON, Staff Director 

JULIE UNMACHT, Professional Staff Member 

AILEEN ALEXANDER, Professional Staff Member 

CATERINA DUTTO, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, January 22, 2009, Preventing Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism ...................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, January 22, 2009 ................................................................................... 51 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2009 

PREVENTING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION PROLIFERATION 

AND TERRORISM 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McHugh, Hon. John M., a Representative from New York, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2 

Ortiz, Hon. Solomon P., a Representative from Texas, Committee on Armed 

Services ................................................................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Allison, Dr. Graham, Commissioner, Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism ....................................... 8 

Graham, Hon. Bob, Chairman, Commission on the Prevention of Weapons 

of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism ............................................. 4 

Talent, Hon. James, Vice Chairman, Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism ....................................... 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Graham, Hon. Bob, joint with Hon. James Talent and Dr. Graham Allison .................................................................................................................. 57 

Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman, Committee 

on Armed Services ........................................................................................ 55 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Forbes ......................................................................................................... 73 

Ms. Shea-Porter ................................................................................................ 75 

Mr. Wilson ......................................................................................................... 74 

(1) 

PREVENTING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION 

PROLIFERATION AND TERRORISM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Thursday, January 22, 2009. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Solomon Ortiz presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

Mr. ORTIZ. Good morning. Welcome to this hearing this morning. 

And the statement that I am about to read will be entered for 

the record. Chairman Skelton is a little under the weather, and he 

couldn’t be here. But I want to welcome our witnesses and all our 

old committee members and new committee members to this great 

committee. 

‘‘Good morning. I would like to start by welcoming my colleague, 

Representative John McHugh from New York, to his first hearing 

as ranking member of this committee.’’ 

Congratulations, sir. 

‘‘I would also like to extend a warm welcome to Senators Bob 

Graham and Jim Talent,’’ a former member of this committee— 

James, so good to see you, and welcome to this committee—‘‘and 

to Dr. Graham Allison.’’ 

Thank you, sir. 

‘‘Thank you all for being here today and for your hard work on 

the Commission dealing with the prevention of weapons of mass 

destruction (WMD) proliferation and terrorism. 

‘‘This committee was instrumental in the creation of the Commission in the 9/11 bill, and the Commission’s recent report could not 

be more timely. This committee authorizes the bulk of key U.S. 

nonproliferation programs, and our Subcommittee on Terrorism 

and Unconventional Threats, chaired by Adam Smith, also looks 

broadly at issues of terrorism and counter-proliferation. We will 

begin the annual process of reviewing these programs when the 

budget is released this spring. 

‘‘The risks associated with the proliferation of WMD, particularly 

the risk that such weapons could fall into terrorist hands, are some 

of the gravest threats facing our country. Since the end of the Cold 

War, the world has experienced a new era of proliferation. 

‘‘In the last eight years alone, North Korea has tested a nuclear 

weapon and expanded its nuclear arsenal; Iran has rapidly developed capabilities that may enable it to build nuclear weapons; au-
2 

thorities uncovered a far-reaching nuclear nonproliferation network 

run by Dr. A.Q. Khan of Pakistan; nuclear arms rivalries have intensified in Asia and the Middle East; changes in civil nuclear 

power programs have challenged the nonproliferation regime; the 

spread of biotechnology has increased the availability of pathogens 

and technologies for sinister purposes; and dangerous chemical, nuclear, radiological, and biological materials have remained poorly 

secured throughout the world. 

‘‘At the same time, terrorism has spread around the globe, and 

Pakistan has experienced rapid political change and internal economic and security challenges while terrorist safe havens have 

grown in its border areas. 

‘‘Yet, United States policy and strategy have not kept pace with 

the growing risks associated with WMD proliferation and terrorism 

and have failed to fully address the serious WMD concerns raised 

by the 9/11 Commission. Nonproliferation and threat reduction programs and activities have been under-resourced and remain too 

narrow in scope; engagement with other countries and international regimes on WMD threats has been insufficient; and the 

interagency process has lacked the leadership, coordination, flexibility, and innovation necessary to effectively address these 

threats. This must change. 

‘‘This committee has already taken a number of important steps 

on United States nonproliferation and threat reduction programs 

that have moved these programs in the right direction. However, 

there are additional opportunities to address WMD threats. 

‘‘The United States must do what we can to secure and reduce 

WMD and vulnerable WMD-usable material around the world, and 

to reduce the risk that such dangerous weapons and material could 

ever fall into terrorist hands. However, while we must do more, the 

fact remains that we inevitably will be required to make difficult 

assessments of risk in order to prioritize our efforts. I look forward 

to the Commission’s recommendations in this regard.’’ 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be found in the Appendix on page 55.] 

Mr. ORTIZ. And now let me yield to my good friend, the ranking 

member of this committee, Mr. John McHugh. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN M. MCHUGH, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM NEW YORK, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON 

ARMED SERVICES 

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you very much, my good friend Solomon 

Ortiz. 

And although the words he read were from the chairman of the 

full committee, I know he wishes me his personal best as well. 

Do you not? 

The record will show he does. I will need that later in the year. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I have a very extensive statement. And simply because this is a very, very important issue, I would ask unanimous consent that that formal written statement be entered in its 

entirety in the record. And let me just try to summarize a bit. 

First of all, in spite of his absence here today, obviously we wish 

Chairman Skelton a quick and speedy recovery from what I understand is hopefully a relatively minor but very bothersome affliction. 
3 

But nevertheless, we all owe him a great deal of gratitude for calling this hearing and providing what I think is an important forum 

for an incredibly important issue. 

And, in that regard, I want to join with my good friend, Mr. 

Ortiz, in wishing our words of thanks and welcome to our panelists 

here today, two of whom are what we still fondly look at as congressional colleagues, Senator Graham and, of course, my good 

friend and former House member, Jim Talent. 

And, Dr. Allison, thank you, as well, for being here and for placing your considerable talents and your intellect against what is one 

of the most pressing issues this Nation faces. 

As my good friend from Texas, Mr. Ortiz, noted, this is a timely 

hearing. Recent U.S. sanctions placed on individuals and private 

companies from Europe and Asia who were involved in the A.Q. 

Khan nuclear proliferation network should remind us all of the 

willful intent of actors around the world to proliferate WMD capability. 

We learned on September 11th there is a clear and dangerous, 

frightening nexus between WMD proliferation and terrorism. As I 

said, this is not new. For the last seven to eight years, we have 

known the harsh reality that Al Qaeda seeks weapons of mass destruction to inflict the maximum amount of human suffering, geopolitical disorder, and economic damage. 

We have remained unyielding in our efforts to prevent Al Qaeda 

from planning and executing a successful attack in the United 

States. However, this statement is not made without caution. Despite our best efforts, I concur with the Commission that, as they 

put it, our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing. 

This week, we mark a new Administration. As such, we all have 

a new opportunity to work in a bipartisan fashion to develop a 

comprehensive and, I hope, concrete strategy to ensure we have a 

diverse set of tools to counter WMD threats. This strategy must include nonproliferation efforts but also look more broadly at all 

other efforts—technology investments, missile defenses, emergency 

response capabilities, and interagency and international coordination efforts—that could prevent and limit the damage caused by 

WMD proliferation and terrorism. 

This Commission’s reports serve as a foundation for this approach. There are many issues that lie before us—Russia’s recent 

actions; the miscalculations that could trigger a nuclear confrontation between Pakistan and India; Iran; North Korea—the kinds of 

things that face us each and every day and must be confronted in 

new and material ways. 

Before concluding, I want to mention another congressional commission, the United States Strategic Commission established by 

this committee. They are examining our strategic posture. Their recent interim report was issued in December and highlighted the 

need to maintain a secure, reliable deterrence force for the foreseeable future, but also design a nuclear program that contributes to 

decreasing the global dangers of proliferation. 

I see a natural complement to these two bodies, our distinguished panel here today and that of the U.S. Strategic Commission. Work could be instrumental in bringing together a bifurcated 

approach, as it has been in the past, for a better path to the future. 
4 

And, gentlemen, Dr. Allison, I would be interested in your thoughts 

on this possible eventuality. 

Again, I commend you and your fellow commissioners and staff 

on your work to address these complex issues. 

And, Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, sir. 

We are very honored to have three distinguished witnesses before this committee today, and they have done a great job. And I 

hope we can learn a lot from you today. 

And I guess this morning we will start with you, Senator Graham. Thank you so much, sir, for the work that you have done, you 

and your members of your committee and members of your staff. 

So we will begin with your statement whenever you are ready, sir. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BOB GRAHAM, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION 

ON THE PREVENTION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION 

PROLIFERATION AND TERRORISM 

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Congressman McHugh, and the other outstanding, distinguished members 

of this committee. 

I would like to introduce one other person, who is the executive 

director of our Commission and led us with great intelligence and 

occasionally discipline when required, Ms. Evelyn Farkas. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Welcome. 

Mr. GRAHAM. I am accompanied today, as you have said, by my 

good friend and a person who, frankly, I did not know well during 

our period of service in the Senate but have now come to appreciate 

his intelligence and dedication to the security of this Nation. And 

I know that much of his wisdom came from his service on this committee. 

And then Graham Allison, who is a true national treasure. I 

doubt that there are more people than the fingers on one hand who 

know as much about this subject as does Graham Allison. And he 

was a tremendous contributor to our Commission. 

Mr. Chairman and members, you created this Commission, and 

we appreciate the opportunity that you have given us to serve. Our 

charge was to assess our current policies as they relate to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism and then 

to make recommendations as to how we thought we could further 

secure our Nation. You gave us six months to accomplish this significant task. 

I am pleased to report that our bipartisan Commission, appointed by the leadership of the Congress, was unanimous in the 

recommendations that we will be submitting to you today. Our full 

report is available in book form, and I notice you have those at 

your desk. And I hope that you will have an opportunity to read 

further of our analysis and our recommendations. 

Our report was conducted through a staff of more than two dozen 

professionals from the intelligence, military, scientific communities, 

all of whom gave us great insight and a depth of experience on 

these issues. We conducted more than 250 interviews with other officials and nongovernmental (NGO) experts. We held eight major 

Commission hearings and one public hearing. 
5 

We visited the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and 

also met with officials in the United Kingdom, Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and in Russia. 

We had planned to visit Pakistan, a country to which we give 

considerable emphasis in this report. We were at the airport in Kuwait awaiting a flight to Islamabad when we were informed that 

the hotel in which we were going to spend the night, the Marriott, 

had just been destroyed by a suicide bomber. That brought the significance of what we were doing into sharp, very personal focus. 

Unlike some of the reports that we have heard in the recent past, 

such as the 9/11 Commission, the Iraq Study Commission, there 

has been, thanks to God, no weapon of mass destruction used 

against U.S. interests or in the world by terrorists to date. Therefore, there is no trail of evidence of how that particular event 

evolved, no tangible ability to then analyze and assess causation. 

We are talking about an event that has not yet occurred and which 

it is, we think, within our capability, within your responsibility to 

take steps to mitigate the prospects that will occur. 

Our report attempted to be as direct and as honest as possible. 

And, as I said, these were the unanimous conclusions of our Commission. Let me state three of our most significant conclusions. 

One, our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing. Although 

the United States has done many things to try to increase our security, we are not operating alone. We are operating on a field 

against adversaries who, in our judgment, in conjunction with 

changes in technology, have been moving at a pace faster than our 

efforts to control them. 

Second, the Commission believes that, on the current trajectory, 

it is more likely than not—more likely than not—that a weapon of 

mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in 

the world by the end of the year 2013. That is not only our assessment, but the assessment of the United States Intelligence Community. 

And third, as we have concluded, it is more likely that that attack will be with a biological weapon than with a nuclear weapon, 

given the wider availability of biological materials and know-how. 

As we learned, the world is at risk. It is at risk because of a new 

era of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The fast pace 

of development in the biological field, nuclear proliferation, a coming nuclear energy renaissance, and a nascent arms race, nuclear 

arms race in Asia, all conspire to increase the risk to the United 

States and the world. 

While the mandate of the Commission was to examine the full 

sweep of the challenges by the nexus of terrorist activity and proliferation to all forms of weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear—we opted to center the Commission’s finding on those two that we felt had the greatest likelihood 

of mass deaths: biological and nuclear. 

Our report does not sugarcoat this threat, but we are not helpless. We believe that our recommendations, if promptly adopted, 

will increase the margin of safety for America and the world. 

It is my pleasure to introduce my colleague, Senator and Congressman Jim Talent, who will discuss those recommendations 

which will increase our margin of safety. 
6 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Graham, Mr. Talent, and 

Dr. Allison can be found in the Appendix on page 57.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES TALENT, VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON THE PREVENTION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION PROLIFERATION AND TERRORISM 

Mr. TALENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank Mr. 

McHugh for your kind words, and our chairman here on the Commission, Senator Graham, who just did an excellent job of pulling 

us all together behind this report. 

I thought when I agreed to serve on this Commission as the vice 

chairman that it certainly could be no more difficult than getting 

the kind of consensus you often get here on the committee and we 

often got when I served on it. And then I found out we have nine 

very strong-minded people who are experts in this field, and trying 

to get them all to agree to one thing is difficult. And Senator Graham did a great job of getting us there. 

I know when I was in your position I wanted to get to the question time as quickly as possible. I am going to be brief for that reason and also because Dr. Allison is going to talk about much of the 

part of our report that is in your jurisdiction. I have a couple of 

comments about the threat and then about the biological recommendations and about Pakistan, and then I will yield to Dr. Allison. 

First of all, we have had a lot of questions about why 2013. Well, 

it is our best belief, based on the interviews, the review of the material, the travel around the world, that this is a near-term threat, 

not an intermediate-term or long-term threat. And that is one of 

the things we wanted to emphasize. 

We all know that this town tends to constantly defer the important in the name of doing the urgent. And the point of our report 

is this is both important and urgent. This is not something that 

may happen 10, 15, 20, 25 years from now. This is a near-term 

threat. And with everything else that you have to do—and we 

know what you have to do—we strongly recommend that you keep 

this as a first-year priority, as you have done, by the way, in your 

oversight and refining and expansion of your Cooperative Threat 

Reduction (CTR) efforts. 

We know that the terrorists want to get these weapons. We know 

that they have tried to get these weapons. And we know that they 

are sophisticated enough, organizationally, to develop the capabilities. They don’t have to become some new order of organization in 

order to get weapons of mass destruction, particularly biological, 

which is one of the reasons we are so concerned about that. 

And we also know that their view of the world—and, strategically, they view the world, in many respects, better than we do— 

is driving them in this direction. They understand that, for their 

purposes, the world is really a nexus or a matrix of systems—you 

know, financial, communications, transportation—on which we depend more than they do, and the links of which are very vulnerable 

to attack. And they also know that, having no national base, the 

traditional kinds of deterrents don’t work against them. 

They are also very sophisticated in the concept of asymmetric 

weapons, which you all deal with all the time. And it is very logical 
7 

for them to want to step up the asymmetric weaponry at their disposal and their capabilities in that regard. And the next logical 

step for them is to get weapons of mass destruction. 

Now, the report’s recommendations are organized in four areas: 

biological, nuclear, changing government culture in certain respects, and then citizen participation. I am just going to talk briefly 

about biological and Pakistan. We had some single-country recommendations, and Pakistan was the most significant of those. 

In the biological area, a big concern we have about biological is 

that it is going to be easier for them to develop the capability not 

only to attack with biological but then to repeat the attack. They 

can get the nuclear capability, but, as you know, because of the 

bottleneck of nuclear materials, it is hard for them to get enough 

to put together more than one bomb. But once you isolate a pathogen and you are able to develop it and weaponize it, it is relatively 

easy to develop more than one weapon. And that gives them the 

capability to potentially hit the same city two or three times in a 

row. My concern is that they might be able to kill an American city 

doing that because they just terrify people so they won’t live there 

anymore. That is another reason we think they may be going in the 

direction of biological. 

Now, there is a number of things we need to do with biological. 

Our government regulates the high-containment laboratories 

through three different agencies and a number of different regulatory schemes. And we recommend unifying it with one agency 

and having one single set of regulations that everybody can understand; and working with the life science community to create a 

greater culture of accountability and security within that community, as already exists in the nuclear science community. 

We note in our report that the nuclear age began with a nuclear 

explosion. So everybody in nuclear science got it. You know, this is 

a technology that, if it is abused, can be very destructive. Everybody in life science, on the other hand, is in it for the right purposes. They are all working very hard to develop new cures, to 

make life better, and they are just not as conscious of the danger 

that that technology will be abused. 

We believe that the very act of this Congress passing a kind of 

regulatory reform that you did in the intelligence area, for example, although it would be much smaller, is going to raise awareness 

within that community, and that is going to be very helpful. 

Internationally—and this is the piece that you all have direct jurisdiction over—we need to expand CTR and apply it more to biological. You have taken some good steps in that direction. We have 

to secure these materials and these scientists around the world better than we are doing. Again, the government has been making 

progress, you all have been making progress, the Department of 

State has been making progress, but more needs to be done. 

Pakistan, as we know, it is an epicenter of everything that concerns us. It is a nuclear power. It is expanding its nuclear weaponry. It is a center for terrorism activity. It is a government that 

has definite characteristics of instability that may be penetrated by 

the terrorists. And it is also involved in a tremendous competition 

with India, which raises the prospect of a nation-state perhaps 
8 

using nuclear weapons. So that has to be a priority of American 

foreign policy and defense policy. 

In terms of your jurisdiction, the military is doing a tremendous 

job of working on eliminating safe havens and going after the terrorists in various areas in Pakistan. That needs to continue. And 

also we know that the Department of Defense (DOD) is appropriately talking in terms of using smart power or soft power to 

complement the hard power already at its disposal. And that is a 

very good thing. 

We talk a lot about it in the report, about the need for the civilian agencies of national power, the State Department and the other 

agencies that possess various capabilities, to go through the kind 

of examination and culture change that you all helped shepherd 

the military through beginning in the late 1940s and then through 

Goldwater-Nichols. 

And one of the things we wanted to say to you all is you need 

to look and work with your counterparts in the Committee on Foreign Affairs about whether DOD ought to develop this capability or 

whether DOD ought to help the Department of State and the civilian agencies develop this capability. The danger is that, because 

they need the capability to complement the traditional military 

power that they exercise, and if the civilian agencies are slow in 

developing it, that the Department may just develop it because 

they need it. So, by default, it will be resident in the Department. 

And maybe that is the right policy, but maybe it isn’t, and the policy ought not to be made by default. 

But we think it would be great if the rest of the government 

looked at what has happened with the military, look at what is 

happening with intelligence, and pursued the same kind of culture 

change. And we think Pakistan is a great test case, a great place 

to begin that. Because, without the tools of smart or soft power, we 

are not going to succeed in Pakistan. We believe that very strongly. 

Mr. Chairman, I think I am going to end my comments now and 

yield to Graham Allison, whose work and expertise in this area is 

known and is going to discuss CTR and the whole nuclear side. 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Talent, Mr. Graham, and 

Dr. Allison can be found in the Appendix on page 57.] 

Mr. ORTIZ. Dr. Allison. 

STATEMENT OF DR. GRAHAM ALLISON, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON THE PREVENTION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION PROLIFERATION AND TERRORISM 

Dr. ALLISON. Thank you very much. And it is a great honor to 

have an opportunity to appear before the committee again. And it 

was a great honor to be chosen to serve on this Commission with 

the great chairman and vice chairman. 

I submitted some brief comments for the record, but let me try 

to summarize my points very briefly under three headings: first, 

some good news; secondly, some bad news; and then thirdly, an inconvenient question. 

So, the good news. January 1st—to put this in perspective, January 1st was the 17th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet 

Union. January 1st, 17 years ago, the Soviet Union disappeared. 

Emerged Russia and 14 newly independent states, with about 
9 

15,000 nuclear weapons left outside of Russia and about 15,000 

weapons inside Russia, under conditions of chaos, corruption, confusion. So the question, how many of those 30,000 nuclear weapons 

have been found loose somewhere in international markets in the 

17 years since then? And the unbelievable answer is zero—zero. 

If you want to see how unbelievable it is, go back and read the 

transcript of ‘‘Meet the Press’’ in December 1991 when the question 

was asked of the then-Secretary of Defense, whose name was Dick 

Cheney, what is going to happen to the nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union if the Soviet Union unravels. And he said, quote, ‘‘If 

they have about 30,000 nuclear weapons and they are 99 percent 

effective in controlling them, which is more than you could expect, 

that would leave 300 weapons loose.’’ And he said, with the confusion and chaos of the time, it is hard to imagine FedEx would do 

better than them. 

So how has that happened? I would say a whole lot of factors, 

but, among those factors, a crucial element has been the strong 

support of this committee and the Congress for what became NunnLugar and the Cooperative Threat Reduction programs. Success always has a thousand fathers and mothers. And if tomorrow we 

found a dozen weapons somewhere in the world that were loose, 

nobody who has worked on the program would be shocked. But I 

think, remarkably, as a combination of great work by the Russians, 

lots of imaginative actions by Americans authorized and funded by 

this committee, and a big chunk of grace and good fortune, in any 

case, something that was almost unbelievable that would have 

changed our world if it had happened didn’t happen. 

So I would say the good news is this is not something about 

which we should be fatalistic. This is something about which we 

have actually focused on it before, we have done some things, those 

things have had effect. That is point one. 

The bad news: As Senator Graham has already said, a major 

finding, bottom line, of this report is that the likelihood of a successful WMD terrorist attack over the period ahead is growing, not 

shrinking. Now, that seems unfair, and, as Senator Talent has explained, we have certainly been doing more things. You have funded more programs. More people have been more active. So how can 

it be that the problem is getting worse? And we say there are two 

factors that I mention in my testimony. 

First, an adverse trend line in which science and technology is 

relentlessly advancing and enabling more and more people with the 

capacity to kill massively in a form that only states could have 

done previously. So that is the trend line that is just there externally. 

And secondly, ineffective policies, ineffective policies that leave 

North Korea with ten bombs’ worth of plutonium, rather than two 

at the beginning of the century; Iran with 5,000 centrifuges, rather 

than zero at the beginning of the century; Pakistan having tripled 

its arsenal as the state became more at risk. 

So the bad news is the likelihood, we believe—and this was nine 

quite diverse Republicans and Democrats on the Commission— 

unanimously agree that the likelihood of an attack has been growing, not shrinking. 
10 

So the inconvenient question, finally, that I have been troubled 

about lately—so this is not the Commission report but my own reflection as I have been thinking about this after—as all of us have 

watched the collapse of the financial system, which this time last 

year people were assuring us was stable and successful, I think 

most of us have taken a pause from time to time to say, ‘‘Do we 

really understand the systemic risk in global systems on which we 

are dependent?’’ I certainly have been thinking about that. 

And if I ask myself, is the global nuclear order more stable or 

less stable than the global financial order was this time a year ago 

or two years ago, it looks to me like in the same zone and, therefore, to be extremely troublesome. 

So I will stop with that. 

[The joint prepared statement of Dr. Allison, Mr. Graham, and 

Mr. Talent can be found in the Appendix on page 57.] 

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much. 

This is scary, to put it one way. 

And I know that the Commission’s report highlighted the need 

for increased attention on regional WMDs’ proliferation and terrorism in nations in Asia and the Middle East and a comprehensive strategy for such issues, particularly in Pakistan, Iran, and 

North Korea. 

Now, if you could elaborate a little bit on what type of strategy 

does the Commission recommend, for instance, for Pakistan, for 

Iran, for Korea, would these be new strategies that maybe have not 

been tried before? Maybe you could elaborate a little bit on that, 

if you will. 

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

One of the things that the Commission attempted to do was to 

not micromanage how these policies should be carried out. There 

are going to be very able people now in positions of responsibility 

in the Congress and in the executive branch, and it is your challenge to view the facts as they are in time and make tactical judgments. So our recommendations are what we hope are at the strategic level, primarily focusing on what goals we wish to accomplish. 

In the case of North Korea and Iran, our statement is that the 

goal of the United States policy should be the elimination of their 

nuclear program and its ability to become weaponized. And then 

we made a series of general suggestions of how to get to that objective: that we should be prepared to engage directly with North 

Korea and Iran; that, in that engagement, we should have both incentives and disincentives to offer; we should not take off the table, 

at any point, the use of force in the event that diplomacy failed. 

We think it is very important that neither of those states, in the 

case of North Korea, are able to continue to expand their weapons 

program, which, as Dr. Allison said, eight years ago had two bombs 

and today has the capability of ten; and, in the case of Iran, had 

zero nuclear capability eight years ago and today is on the verge 

of enough material to make its first bomb. 

If either of those two countries were to go nuclear, one, they 

would in and of themselves be threatening. North Korea is seen as 

a significant threat to our allies, South Korea and Japan. It also 

would likely trigger a regional escalation of nuclear capability. In 

the Middle East, if Iran goes nuclear, it is almost inevitable that 
11 

Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia will seriously consider and likely attempt to acquire nuclear capability. So the world will become a 

much more destabilized and dangerous place if that occurred. 

In the case of Pakistan—and let me say the obvious: None of 

these recommendations are easy. If they were easy, they would 

have already been accomplished. But, in the case of Pakistan, it is 

the intersection of every bad thing you would want in terms of the 

likelihood of a weapon of mass destruction falling into the hands 

of a terrorist. 

We think that we have to fundamentally change our approach to 

Pakistan to one of beginning to focus on building the institutions 

that will stabilize the country and begin to drain off some of the 

enmity that is currently being evinced towards the United States 

and Western culture generally. 

We don’t think you can solve Pakistan within the boundaries of 

Pakistan. Again, as Dr. Allison said and as Vice Chairman Talent 

underscored, a big part of Pakistan’s danger is its 60-year, 4-war 

relationship with India. India and Pakistan, as well as China, are 

all rapidly increasing their nuclear arsenals. Soon they could well 

be the third, fourth, and fifth largest nuclear states in the world. 

So, to solve Pakistan, you have to look regionally. 

I personally think that the pending appointment, if it has not already occurred, of Richard Holbrooke to be the envoy to that region 

of the world is a very positive development and that he will take 

that broad perspective of what we need to do to begin to stabilize 

Pakistan and initiate policies that will reduce its current center 

role as a site for weapons of mass destruction and proliferation. 

I will just conclude with the unhappy statement that virtually 

every person—intelligence, military, political—who has studied this 

issue has come to the conclusion that the most likely place that the 

next terrorist attack will be launched will be from the Federally 

Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), those uncontrolled territories 

between Pakistan and Afghanistan, again underscoring the centrality of Pakistan in terms our efforts to avoid this global catastrophe. 

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Chairman, as Senator Graham said, we don’t 

want to get really into the tactics on the ground in foreign policy 

because Presidents have to have discretion to respond to events, 

and also there were some areas where, frankly, we just really 

couldn’t get a consensus in terms of tactics. And Iran and North 

Korea were that. 

But we anticipate direct engagement by the new Administration 

and said, look, if you do that, your goal should be elimination of 

their nuclear weapon program in their entirety; you should negotiate from a position of strength and be prepared to use direct action. 

And I am a believer—and Dr. Allison may want to talk about 

this. He talks a lot about the importance of having credible, significant carrots and credible, significant sticks. Because, to me, it is 

just common sense that if you want somebody to do something, you 

would be prepared to give them good things if they do it and make 

them understand bad things will happen if they don’t. And that is 

probably the best chance we have to consistently follow that policy 

over time. 
12 

With regard to Pakistan, we recommend continuing to eliminate 

the safe havens, which we are doing; expanding what are basically 

CTR efforts to secure the nuclear and biological materials, which 

we have done some of but need to do a lot more; and that we engage actively tools to defeat the extremist ideology. And here again, 

we are referring to the tools of soft power. 

And I think of it in these terms. I want Presidents to have options. So when the new President is considering what to do about 

Pakistan, it would be great if he had the option of saying, ‘‘Well, 

let’s use our resident capability of effectively communicating messages about our intentions to the people of Pakistan so as to cut 

off terrorist recruiting there.’’ And I am really glad we have that 

capability resident in the ex agency. And I think that the Department of Defense can either develop that capability or be a huge 

help, as it can this committee, in assisting the Department of State 

in developing that capability; also building, you know, local economic and grassroots institutions, which requires the same kind of 

capabilities. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Would you like to add something, Dr. Allison? 

Dr. ALLISON. Just briefly, one of the strong lines in the report, 

I think probably written by Chairman Graham, is that if you map 

weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, all roads intersect in 

Pakistan. So I would say that is a big takeaway. 

Secondly, to agree with Senator Talent, we, in part because we 

couldn’t agree among ourselves and in part because we didn’t want 

to be micromanaging, retreated to what is the normal commission 

style and sometimes even Congressional style, which is stating ambitious objectives and then turning it over to somebody else to figure out how to do it. 

And I think the hard and unpleasant fact is that the hand that 

the new Administration will inherit with respect to North Korea is 

a country that has ten bombs’ worth of plutonium and has conducted a test. So it is perfectly appropriate to say North Korea 

should eliminate these, and that should be our objective, but it is 

where it is. So facts on the ground have advanced. 

In the case of Iran, our objective should be that Iran would eliminate all of its enrichment activity. But, unfortunately, Iran has 

crossed already ten red lines that we said they couldn’t cross before. It manufactures centrifuges. It operates centrifuges. It operates them in a cascade. It enriches uranium. So those are facts that 

will be extremely difficult to erase. 

And in the case of Pakistan, I would say the most troubling thing 

for me is that it has essentially tripled its arsenal of nuclear weapons over this period, as the state has become increasingly fragile 

and shaky. And, yes, of course, they should have fewer nuclear 

weapons, and they should be stable. Over to Holbrooke, I would 

say, you know, good luck. 

We should notice that the history moves on. And once it has 

moved on, our opportunity to intervene often is among shrunken 

options that are less attractive than what we would have wished 

or hoped or maybe even would have been available if we had acted 

earlier. 

Mr. ORTIZ. And I just have one more short question for you. I 

think, in my personal opinion, we are focused in two wars that we 
13 

are fighting now, and there was a tendency by some not to engage 

those countries who were identified as being terrorists or groups 

that were terrorists. 

Do you think that we have done enough diplomatically? Should 

we do more? Should we engage those countries to see if we can win 

them over? What is your idea? 

And then I will yield to my good friend from New York. 

Mr. GRAHAM. I think one of our most fundamental recommendations—and it certainly falls into the category Dr. Allison just described of where we identified a big problem and a goal, recognizing the enormous difficulty of achieving it. In my assessment, 

we have been fighting the war on terror by fighting the symptoms 

of terror: the suicide bomber, the people who blew up the buildings 

on 9/11. 

What we have to start doing is dealing with the root causes of 

terror. Why are so many tens of millions of people prepared, apparently, to send their sons and daughters to commit suicide on behalf 

of an extremist cause? What is within our capability of trying to 

reduce that enmity so that our children and grandchildren don’t 

live in a world of this enormous hatred? I think that is an issue 

that is worthy of the best minds in the United States Congress to 

work with the Administration to try to determine what is a strategy. 

Now, I personally think that, while it is extremely difficult, it is 

not an impossible dream. On a smaller scale, it is something that, 

Mr. Chairman, I imagine you have experienced, as have I, given 

where we come from. Sixty years ago, our relations in Latin America were truly awful. The Vice President of the United States tried 

to make a 12-stop visit to Latin America in the 1950s and was so 

abused in the first 2 stops that he turned the plane around and 

came back to Washington. 

Now, while our relationships in the hemisphere are not perfect, 

they are dramatically better than they were. And that didn’t just 

happen by accident. We and our neighbors did some things that improved the relations. One of the things, for instance, was thousands 

of young people from Latin America decided, rather than staying 

home or going to Europe, they would come to the United States to 

get their education. And so now the President of Colombia happens 

to be a graduate of the Kennedy School. So he knows America not 

by a two-dimensional cardboard cutout image, but by the flesh and 

blood of the people he has actually dealt with. 

I cite that as an example of a major challenge that we, I think, 

can take pride at the progress that we have made. And I hope that 

the people who are sitting in your chairs two generations from now 

will be able to say that we have made some significant progress in 

improving our relations in the part of the world from which many 

of our most significant threats are now emanating. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Mr. McHugh. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And again, gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. Such 

an extraordinarily important topic. 

Dr. Allison, I heard your comments about the nuclear arsenal in 

Pakistan. I am curious, what is your assessment of the command 

and control of the security of that arsenal right now? 
14 

Dr. ALLISON. I would suggest that the committee would appropriately look at the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), and you 

might want to ask that in a closed setting to folks from the Intelligence Community. 

But I think, from the public record, what has been said and what 

I believe and what we say in the report, is that U.S. assistance, as 

well as Pakistan’s own efforts, leave the nuclear arsenal itself in 

better shape than it was, say, some number of years ago, especially 

before the A.Q. Khan episodes, with more question marks about 

the nuclear weapons-usable material in the laboratories at some facilities like the facility that A.Q. Khan was the director of. 

That is for the technical systems and for the personal systems in 

which the Army plays the crucial role. But the counterpart to that, 

which I think you can get to by logic, is if the state itself becomes 

shaky or even unstable or perhaps even comes apart, those systems 

don’t magically control stuff. The systems mostly are incorporated 

in people. And I have told several times at the Commission, I have 

been extremely interested in this question for a long time and have 

talked to Musharraf about it three or four times on separate occasions. And the agency had him as a visitor at Harvard for a couple 

of days. And he said, ‘‘Don’t worry, everything is under 100 percent 

control, it is not conceivable that something could be lost.’’ 

And on one of these occasions, he had, just two weeks before, 

come within a second and a half of being assassinated. And the 

prevention of the assassination was only possible by some technical 

assistance from the U.S. Government. So I said to him, how likely 

is it that your nuclear weapons are more secure than the president 

of the country? 

Mr. MCHUGH. Let’s take that a step further because I agree with 

you. While you can asses the command and control of those weapons stockpiled now and assess them to be relatively secure, they 

really are dependent upon the security and stability of the government. 

What we hear from Pakistan is their actions in the FATA have 

the potential of undermining the stability of the central government. And as we have seen this aggressive and then less aggressive posture, in part that has been driven by domestic politics, as 

policies are here. 

To what extent can we count on the Pakistani Government to rid 

the FATA of those threats that cause this Commission to say all 

roads of terror lead to Pakistan, or all roads of potential WMD, 

without disrupting that balance that would cause the fall of that 

government and then, down the chain, call into question the security of the stockpile? 

Dr. ALLISON. I would say, for my nickel, you are absolutely on 

the bull’s-eye. And when one looks at the complexity of Pakistan 

and the fragility of the political system—as one of my friends who 

knows Pakistan very well says, there is only one load-bearing institution in Pakistan, and that is the army. 

So the political system is extremely fragile. The differences 

among people are quite large. The population’s views about the 

War on Terror and even the activities in the FATA is that this is 

doing Americans a favor. That is not the universal view, but that 

is the majority view. 
15 

So trying to balance, on the one hand, the motivation and cooperation required to prevent Al Qaeda from reconstituting its operations in ungoverned Pakistan, which is totally unacceptable 

from an American point of view I believe, and without, on the other 

hand, contributing to the instability in Pakistan has been the dilemma in the policy for some period of time. 

Now, as Chairman Graham said—and the Commission debated 

this at some considerable length—for quite a long time—again, 

now, this is just from what the newspapers report—for quite a long 

time, the U.S. did not attack Al Qaeda in ungoverned Pakistan. 

And only last summer did the Predator program become active 

again, if we read the newspapers. And since then, there have been 

quite a lot of attacks, including a number of Al Qaeda operatives 

killed, including one of my favorites, a fellow named Hatab, who 

was the head of their nuclear and biological program. 

So, is this stressful for Pakistani politics and the society in which 

one country is operating militarily inside another country without 

its approval? Indeed, it is. It is extremely. On the other hand, if 

the alternative is to allow the reconstitution of headquarters and 

training camps for Al Qaeda, excuse me, that is what happened in 

Afghanistan before 9/11 and for which we say shame on us. So I 

think that balance is extremely difficult. 

And I think the new President of Pakistan, you know, sort of is 

struggling with that every day, as is the American Ambassador, as 

is whoever is going to try to formulate American policy in the next 

phase. 

Mr. MCHUGH. If those attacks, if those attacks are happening by 

U.S. policy, you would agree you have to be extraordinarily careful 

not to cause the downfall of this relatively stable government, at 

least for the moment? 

Dr. ALLISON. Absolutely. And, again, the fact is that one can read 

about things going on in the newspapers. One would wish that 

there were things that went on about which you wouldn’t read in 

the newspapers. But I would say that is maybe history. I would 

prefer such a situation, but I think that if and when an attack occurs in a village in Pakistan, killing some foreigners who were 

there, the Pakistani press reports it and the American press reports it, and it has the reverberations in Pakistani politics that you 

suggest. 

Mr. MCHUGH. One last question for any of the panelists. I remember Henry Kissinger, who was somewhat excoriated during his 

career, said that the potential of the force of the United States 

military has to be kept on the table in defending the oil fields, 

which were critical to our economy and our way of life. And without getting back into that debate, as I read the Commission’s report, the ultimate potential of military force must be reserved 

against Iran and North Korea. Unfortunately, I couldn’t agree 

more. And I say ‘‘unfortunately’’ because that is obviously a place 

we would prefer not to go. 

However, I would be interested in you gentlemen’s assessment of 

how other important nations in that equation, particularly Russia 

et al., might view that kind of recommendation. 

Mr. GRAHAM. If I could use your question to talk about that and 

the issue of Russia generally, between Russia and the United 
16 

States, we control over 95 percent of the nuclear material on earth. 

So a positive relationship on this issue of security of nuclear material and hopefully a strengthened relationship on security of biological material is critical. 

We visited Russia in September of last year. I was concerned 

that our visit would be terminated because we couldn’t get visas to 

go into Russia. This was shortly after the invasion of Georgia; tensions were high between our two countries. We did get visas. 

Then I was concerned that we would meet a very hostile group 

of Russians. Quite to the contrary. The recurring theme was, yes, 

we have some serious issues between us—Georgia, North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion, missile defense—but that 

is going to be the pattern when two large countries are living in 

the same global space. But we understand that there is one thing 

that we have in common, and that is a responsibility to our people 

and to the world to protect all this nuclear material that comes 

under our control. And they reiterated, we are as committed to this 

as we were prior to this current set of disagreements. And that 

statement was confirmed by our embassy and by our United States 

Department of Energy scientific personnel who are in Russia, 

whose purpose it is to oversee what the Russians are doing relative 

to nuclear security. 

In our report, we made a recommendation that we needed to 

communicate to the rest of the world that this relationship on nuclear security had not been breached. And we made several suggestions of how we might do that. 

One of the suggestions came from a personal experience that I 

had had in Pakistan as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee when we met with representatives of the Pakistani Joint 

Command and I asked the question, what controls do you and the 

Indians have in place to avoid an accidental nuclear launch? The 

answer was, virtually none. There was no and is no equivalent of 

the red phone that was symbolic of our efforts during the Cold War 

with the Soviet Union. 

So one of our recommendations is that Russia and the United 

States together could serve a very valuable function for the world 

to work with Pakistan and India and try to encourage them to 

adopt those kinds of fail-safe and mistake-containment policies that 

worked so well for us for the better part of 40 years. 

So I think Russia is a very critical part of this equation. And we 

need to continue to work to see that, whatever disputes we may 

have, that they don’t leak out and infect our common responsibility 

of nuclear security. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Either of the two gentleman, Dr. Allison, Senator Talent? 

Dr. ALLISON. Just a quick footnote on Bob Graham’s point. As a 

result of the Bratislava agreement, which was between President 

Bush and President Putin in February of 2005, so just the beginning of President Bush’s second term, they developed a recipe in 

which the two Presidents took personal responsibility for the nuclear terrorism threat at the top of the agenda. 

They agreed on a work plan for securing to a defined level called 

comprehensive upgrades 75 percent of Russian nuclear weapons 

and material, which were all the ones they would let us work on, 
17 

everything except for the jewel boxes that they work on mostly 

themselves. 

People were identified as the lead responsibility for this issue, including Sam Bodman for the U.S. and his Russian counterpart. 

And they had to report to the two Presidents every six months on 

how they were doing. 

So, with all of the back and forth in Russia, what then happened? And I would say it is a great good-news story. In December, 

Secretary Bodman reported, and President Bush then announced, 

that all the weapons and materials, which are about 75 percent of 

Russian weapons and materials, in the work plan had been completed over that period of time. 

So that is part of the National Nuclear Security Administration 

(NNSA) activity in particular that this committee has supported 

and examined and overseen and funded, or authorized. And I 

would say, again, it is another part of a good-news story as an example. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you. 

Mr. TALENT. I think you have to distinguish between when we 

are dealing with countries whose objectives at least basically are 

similar to ours and those who at least we suspect have objectives 

that are not similar to ours. 

And the traditional tools we have—diplomacy, public assistance, 

military power, the international regime as it is now constituted— 

I think if we use those tools effectively and consistently, they are 

probably good enough in dealing with the first class of countries 

that basically want what we want at the end of the day, but we 

may just have difficulty dealing with them. And that is most of the 

countries, including Russia in the context of this kind of a problem, 

because they really don’t want proliferation of these materials, we 

think. 

But you are going to have some regimes which may have more 

aggressive objectives or just may be very, very difficult to predict, 

like the North Koreans or the Iranians. And the burden of our report is that it is clear, in dealing with those governments, we have 

to expand the options and the capabilities that any President has 

at his or her disposal to be able to deal with those countries. I 

mean, diplomacy as traditionally constituted, foreign assistance—I 

mean, it is fine; it just doesn’t do the trick. 

And so, for example, we suggest strengthening the International 

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), better funding, better technology 

because it is being overwhelmed, a range of penalties that effectively shift the burden of proof for a Non-Proliferation Treaty 

(NPT) violation, so that countries like this have to show the international community that they are complying instead of playing 

some kind of Perry Mason game over years where, you know, they 

have a pretense of complying and we accept the pretense because 

it is hard not to. 

And then what we talked about before, developing these capabilities so that a President has the option of saying, in a place like 

Pakistan, well, look, let’s do something about how we are viewed 

in Pakistan by helping build local institutions of democracy and economics and good public relations campaigns like you all have to 

conduct every two years if you want to be here, right? I mean, de-
18 

velop those capabilities so that the Pakistani Government can be 

seen as helping us without becoming less stable. 

A theme through the report is that this game is about, in part, 

increasing resident capabilities so that Presidents have a wider 

range of options in dealing with the hard cases. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you. 

Thank you gentlemen. 

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

Mr. TAYLOR. [Presiding.] Thank you. 

We would like to remind the newer members that, by tradition, 

the chairman and the ranking member are not limited by time; everyone else is. 

We will now recognize people in the order that they were here 

at the gavel, and we will strictly enforce the five-minute rule. 

Dr. Snyder from Arkansas for five minutes. 

Dr. SNYDER. And of course those of us who are not the chairman 

or ranking member sometimes wish that that tradition changed, 

but, you know, we are all supportive of tradition. 

I appreciate you all being here. It is great to see you all. 

Senator Graham, you look great. You and I had some doctors cut 

into our chests about the same time some years ago, and I haven’t 

seen you since then. And you look like you have been spending 

some time in Florida, and that is great. 

Dr. Allison, I wanted to ask you, I don’t know who Douglas Dillon was. Who is Douglas Dillon? 

Dr. ALLISON. Douglas Dillon was the Secretary of the Treasury 

in John F. Kennedy’s administration. And a famous New York investment banker, Dillon Reed, was part of that same family. And 

they gave a professorship at Harvard, to which I have the great 

honor to be the Chair, that I have the honor to sit in. 

Dr. SNYDER. I think I had to memorize that name in my civics 

class. 

Mr. TALENT. Congressman, if I could say, this is an example of 

the role Dr. Allison played on the Commission. He was to our commission what the professor was to the other people on Gilligan’s Island. You could ask him anything, and he had the authoritative answer. 

Dr. SNYDER. Senator Talent, you are taking part of my five minutes now. 

Mr. TALENT. That rule, by the way, in the Senate is honored in 

the breach. Maybe the chairman will give you another 15 seconds. 

Dr. SNYDER. I also appreciate all the efforts that Evelyn put into 

this. 

I wanted to ask—and I did read the report. You did not dwell 

very much on why you did not discuss chemical weapons. You talk 

about the availability—I think you did probably most detail here 

today—the availability of nuclear weapons, even the smaller nuclear weapons. Obviously, there are millions of chemical weapons 

that are out there. I don’t think some people would be—I don’t 

want to say dismissive, but I think some people would have included that in the topic. 

If you all would respond to that, anyone. 

Mr. GRAHAM. First, you gave us six months to do this report. So 

we had to make some decisions in order to be able to focus our time 
19 

and staff resources in sufficient depth to make quality recommendations where we thought necessary. 

Second, we felt that the likelihood of a chemical weapon achieving the levels of lethality which a biological or a nuclear could was 

limited. 

Third, we have had a lot of experience with chemical responses. 

An anhydrous ammonia tank truck falls off the railroad track, 

punctures, and creates a serious situation in the neighborhood. We 

know how to respond to that because we have done it over and over 

and have minimized the consequences. We have never dealt with 

a nuclear or biological attack and the consequences that that may 

cause. 

So we did not mean to denigrate the importance of chemical or 

radiological or other possible weapons of mass destruction. We felt 

we could be of the greatest service by focusing on these two areas 

that we thought were the most likely to be able to result in massive deaths. 

Dr. SNYDER. Another question I wanted to ask, with regard specifically to your comments in the report about Iran, I think you 

choose your words very carefully and are very clear in the report 

that you do not want Iran to have any nuclear weapons program. 

I take it from the language that you used that you do not have 

a problem with Iran having a nuclear power program if it has the 

kind of controls that you envision. Is that an accurate statement? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Yes. Although I will say that on the Commission 

there were people who were concerned about almost any expansion 

of civilian nuclear because of the potential for perversion. 

Dr. SNYDER. But your report specifically only says nuclear weapons. 

You mentioned—my time is winding down. 

Mr. GRAHAM. And let me say, Dr. Allison uses the term ‘‘lease.’’ 

The arrangement that the Iranians have with the Russians—and 

we discussed this at some length when we were in Moscow—is that 

Russia will provide the uranium necessary to operate its civilian 

reactors. And that is the beginning of an international bank of nuclear material. And then, when the rods are used, Russia will take 

them back. So, essentially, Russia is leasing the nuclear material 

to Iran, which we think goes a long way to pacifying the concerns 

about proliferation into inappropriate areas. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman from Arkansas. 

We now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 

Thank you gentlemen for your service and for your testimony 

today. 

Dr. Allison, you gave a good discussion of the dissolution of the 

Soviet Union and the potential availability of nuclear weapons. 

General Lebed, before this committee several years ago, told us 

that there were about 80 of the suitcase bombs developed by the 

Soviet Union that were loose somewhere. That is also your general 

understanding? 

Dr. ALLISON. This is—it is hard to give a short answer, but this 

is a topic I have been extremely interested in. I served as Assistant 

Secretary of Defense in the first term of the Clinton Administration 
20 

when, with thanks to Nunn-Lugar and the Cooperative Threat Reduction program that you all authorized, we were dealing with this. 

I remember when Lebed made this comment. I have tried to 

trace this story down. I actually, in the book that I wrote in 2004 

called Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, 

advanced the story somewhat. 

My current best belief is as follows: There were such weapons. 

They were not uniquely identified with a code number, so that 

they—particularly the ones produced for the KGB. Most of the 

weapons were collected and destroyed. There may be some of those 

weapons continued to be missing, but the unbelievable good news 

is we have been looking for them pretty hard and we haven’t found 

them in 17 years. 

So, each year, as it goes by, it seems to me more and more likely 

that we may have succeeded in doing something that I think we 

couldn’t conceivably succeed in doing. So I am schizophrenic. 

Mr. BARTLETT. So that is one potential source of a nuclear weapon for a non-state actor. 

Dr. ALLISON. And just one more thing. Excuse me. There was an 

occasion that, again, I think we report in the Commission, in 

2004—it is either in our report or in the 9/11 Commission Report— 

in 2003 or 2004 in which there were serious discussions occurring 

among Al Qaeda types about buying four of these weapons, which 

weapons were never found. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Do we know the origin, the destination, and the 

cargo of all the ships in the North Atlantic shipping lanes? 

Dr. ALLISON. No, sir. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Okay. I understand that you can buy a Scud 

launcher on the world’s open market. A Scud launcher? I think 

that is true, that they are available on the world open market. 

So now a terrorist can potentially buy a weapon, a nuclear weapon. He can get himself a tramp steamer, and he can have a Scud 

launcher on deck, and if he throws a tarp over it, you don’t know 

whether it is baled hay or a Scud launcher underneath because you 

can’t see through the thinnest thing like that from space. 

So now you are a terrorist and you have this nuclear weapon off 

our shore. Could we, of a certainty, take out that missile if he fired 

it at us today? 

Dr. ALLISON. I think that none of the missile defense systems 

discussed do very well against cruise missiles, so—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. I think the average citizen doesn’t understand 

that. They think we are protected. Thank you for your answer. We 

certainly are not protected. I think the probability of taking one out 

is very, very small. 

So now you are a terrorist out there with this weapon. What are 

you going do with it? You can do two things with it: one, try to 

drop it on New York City, but, gee, you don’t have a very good 

launcher there, and you don’t have much precision; you might miss. 

The other thing you could do with it is launch it extra-atmospherically and produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) laydown. 

Which of those, even if you could hit New York City, which of 

those would provide the most harm to our country? I think, of a 

certainty, the EMP laydown, because it could take out the whole 
21 

Northeast, which would be Katrina in at least an order of magnitude larger. 

I am very much concerned, members of the Commission, that we 

have essentially no ability to protect ourselves against such an attack or to recover in any seemly way from such an attack. Am I 

wrong? 

Dr. ALLISON. No, you are not wrong, but if I could put it in perspective just for a second. 

If I imagine a terrorist with a nuclear bomb, let’s say he gets one 

of Lebed’s suitcase bombs, and he asked himself, how can I do the 

most damage to the U.S.? So this is Mr. Osama bin Laden. So he 

has to think about, how do I get this weapon to the target and how 

do I explode it. 

The number of ways in which illegal things come to New York 

City or Washington or Los Angeles every day—I have a chapter, 

actually, in my book, which I will send you, about this where it 

says, let me count the ways. Okay? Every way that illegal drugs 

come to your city, that is precisely the same way a bomb could 

come. As one of my colleagues says, who has been chancellor at the 

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), if you have any 

doubt about terrorists’ ability to bring a bomb to an American city, 

remember, they could always hide it in a bale of marijuana, which 

we know comes through American cities. So the most likely track 

is the same way that illegal people and illegal drugs and other illegal items come to American cities. 

The likelihood that the terrorist not only gets this bomb but also 

a missile, which is now another hurdle—it is not impossible, but— 

and especially a missile that is an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile 

(ICBM), so he has to get to the atmosphere—that is another hurdle, not impossible—I say you get further down the chain. 

And the last thing to say about missiles is that they have one 

fatal flaw: They leave an unambiguous return address. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman from Maryland. 

Now recognizes the gentleman from Washington State, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you gentlemen for your work and for this presentation. 

We have a lot of programs in this area and a lot of money being 

spent. And you make a number of recommendations in a bunch of 

different areas, but I am going to try to narrow that down a little 

bit. 

Two questions. One, where are we spending money on counterproliferation or nonproliferation or any of these things that you 

took a look and said, you know, that is not really working, that is 

not helping, that is an area that we can shut down and put the resources in a different direction? 

And second, what are the one or two areas—and you mentioned 

about a dozen different ideas in a number of different departments, 

from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to 

Homeland Security, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a 

lot of places—but what are the one or two where you are saying, 

that is where we are getting the most bang for our buck? 

Sorry, I am a little back from the microphone. Let me try that 

again. 
22 

So the two questions are: one, what are the areas where we are 

spending money that we shouldn’t be, it isn’t really working? And, 

two, what are the one or two areas where you go, this is really 

working? 

Because the bottom line here is there is no magic solution to this 

problem. I mean, when you think about the number of biological 

weapons that are out there, the number of people who are working 

on them, we cannot wrap our arms completely around this problem, either on the biological or the nuclear side. 

But there are some things that are working better than others, 

I am sure. And it would be helpful for us on the committee to 

know, you know, if you only have one place to put it, here is the 

place to put it because it is really making a difference. 

Mr. GRAHAM. One of the things that this committee recognized 

when it passed the same bill that contained our commission was 

that there isn’t anybody who has the responsibility of answering 

the two questions that you have just asked. 

Your directive was that there be a person in the White House 

whose sole responsibility was the issue of weapons of mass destruction and proliferation. That is a position which has gone unfilled, 

in large part over a debate as to whether that position should be 

Senate-confirmed or traditional White House staff directly responsible solely to the President. 

We think, and one of our recommendations is, that position 

needs to be created and it needs to be filled. I am pleased to say 

that candidate Barack Obama indicated his support for that proposition. When that is in place, when that person is in place, we 

should have someone who can look specifically at the question. 

Now, in answer to your question, I would say that one area that 

cries out for greater attention is the biological area. We have been 

focused largely on nuclear. And I have looked at the authorization 

list from this committee, and it is a big list, almost two billion dollars, heavily oriented towards the nuclear side of the equation. Our 

conclusion was the greater threat is biological. 

Mr. SMITH. And is there a particular place right now that is 

doing biological work, an agency or entity where we should be focusing those resources? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, there are lots of places which are currently 

doing it, and that may be both part of the solution and part of the 

problem, is the lack of clarity of accountability for this effort. 

I don’t think it is appropriate for us to be telling the next President or telling the Congress which agency is most competent to do 

it. But we would say you ought to decide on somebody. 

Mr. SMITH. Senator, I think it is appropriate for you. I mean, you 

spent six months studying this, and you are very, very smart people. I think it is perfectly appropriate for you to say, this agency 

works better. If it is not in the report and it is a conclusion you 

couldn’t get to, that is fine. But is seems to me like, right now, you 

are the guys who would know best. 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, you know, I think that this is essentially a 

science issue, and, therefore, I would personally be inclined to try 

to put it into the agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control 

(CDC) with mandates to come up with better procedures to quickly 
23 

identify the nature of the attack, to establish systems to report that 

an attack is under way. 

Here in the Washington, D.C., area, for instance, there probably 

are, what, 25 or more hospitals. If each one of those hospitals had 

5 or 6 people come in over a 24-hour period with a particular, rather exotic symptom, they might think, well, 6 people happened to 

get sick. But if they knew that the same number had come up at 

24 other places, they might say, this is more than just a series of 

coincidences; something systemic is happening. 

We don’t think we have the capability, and I believe that an 

agency like the CDC would have the potential to assign the responsibility to figure out the science and the means of applying the 

science at an operational level. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman from Washington 

State. Would now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. 

Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you gentlemen for being here. And as has been mentioned, we appreciate your expertise and knowledge. This is an incredibly complex area. 

Senator Talent, in your opening remarks, you addressed the date 

issue, the 2013, and indicated to us that people had asked you why 

you picked that particular date. Was there some calculus that went 

into 2013? Or was 2013 simply, as you kind of indicated, to show 

that it was quicker rather than later? Or did 2013 have a significance? 

Mr. TALENT. It was not like we had a piece of intelligence, classified or unclassified, saying, oh, they are planning something now 

that is going to happen in 2013. 

But it was our evaluation, if you look at the acceleration of the 

availability of this material, if you look at what we do know about 

their intentions and the increasing priority that they are giving to 

this, that the probability rises above 50–50, we think, within the 

next 5 years. 

And, obviously, it is an estimate based on, you know, the experience we each had and the material we reviewed. But it is an estimate and a belief that is reflected pretty comprehensively within 

the Intelligence Community, as the Director of National 

Intelligence’s (DNI’s) comments a couple of weeks after we issued 

the report indicate. 

Mr. FORBES. And I don’t want to press you on this. I am just trying for my own understanding. But there was basically some calculus that you used, whatever that calculus might have been, to 

get 2013 as opposed to 2011 or 2015, I would take it? Is that a fair 

statement? 

Mr. TALENT. Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t so precise. Could we have 

said four years or six years? Yeah, I mean, it is just a gut. You 

have to pick a point. And we knew it was near-term, and we picked 

2013. 

Mr. FORBES. In that calculus, however vague it might have been 

or specific, does the probability of such attack increase as you go 

further out in terms of the date? So, in other words, is it more likely in 2015 than in 2013? Was that a part of this? 
24 

Mr. TALENT. Yeah, because the trends are not going in the right 

direction. So, unless they are reversed, which we think it is very 

possible to do, or unless there are changes, either because of some 

conscious policy or something happens that is a break for us, then 

we are not going in the right direction. So, yeah, I do think it increases. 

Now, I think what is hard to say about that at any given time— 

and, to me, the wild card in this—people say, why haven’t you been 

attacked? And I think we have made a lot of progress in the Intelligence Community, because—I have been talking about resident 

capabilities—I think those capabilities are growing in that community. And my hope is that that this trend, this growing capability 

will increase. In other words, the rate of growth will get faster and 

faster. 

So, to answer Mr. Bartlett’s question, what is our defense against 

the terrorists doing this? It is true we don’t have the passive defense, but we are getting better and better at finding out that that 

is the plan and getting them before they can do it. And I don’t 

know how fast that capability will grow. 

Mr. FORBES. Nor their capability or our capability, either one. 

But I think whatever it is, this complex mixture of good and effective carrots and sticks that you were talking about, at some point 

in time, if you guys come back on January 22, 2017, and we 

haven’t had an attack, we will say we had a good mix, as opposed 

to not having a good mix. 

Take that same calculus back to January 22, 2001, if you would. 

If you use that same calculus, what would you have picked as a 

date when you might have had an assumptions that we might have 

had a weapons of mass destruction attack? Did you ever look at 

that particular calculus? If you did, what would that date have 

been? 

Mr. TALENT. We certainly didn’t formally. I think we might each 

have a gut. I don’t know that I would even want to hazard a guess 

because we didn’t look at that systematically. And we have tried 

to be—you know, you walk a line with this sort of thing between 

you want to be very direct, never say anything that you don’t believe, but at the same time not speculate too much because, in a 

subject like this, that will cause a bunch of the speculation and 

comments and consequences that may be negative. 

So I don’t know that I would want to hazard a guess, but Dr. Allison might. I mean, he has been studying this for a long time. 

In other words, you know, what would you have said as of 2001, 

I guess he is asking. 

Dr. ALLISON. I think the question—our answer is there is not a 

well-established scientific methodology for picking more likely than 

not or 51 percent as opposed to 42 percent; similarly for the time 

frame. 

So I think, in January of 2001, people who had been studying 

terrorism—the center that I run at Harvard, we had published four 

books on this subject—were predicting that there would be a major 

terrorist attack on the American homeland. That was not an uncommon view in some parts of the U.S. Intelligence Community but 

was certainly not the broad consensus view. 
25 

And, actually, when I had been assistant secretary of defense, I 

had written a memo on ‘‘A Hundred Horribles’’ in which a 9/11-like 

attack with airplanes was just above the halfway mark. So there 

are a lot of things worse than that. 

In the period since then, we also know that at least one biological 

terrorist attack on the New York subway was in train and was interrupted. 

Mr. FORBES. Doctor, I am sorry, my time has expired. If you 

could just give me that in writing. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from California. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank my colleagues, Senator Graham, certainly Senator Talent, and my old friend Graham Allison, for your very diligent work. 

As the chairman of Strategic Forces over the last couple of years, 

I have led many congressional delegations, working on our area of 

jurisdiction. We have the National Nuclear Security Administration, the NNSA; we have missile defense. And, certainly, the last 

couple of trips we have taken, I think, have been very informative, 

certainly going to Pakistan in September, where we met with General Kiyani and General Kidwai, who are nominally and specifically in charge of the army and the nuclear weapons complex in 

Pakistan. 

And to direct my comments to my great colleague, the ranking 

member, we have a lot of work to do. We have done a lot. Certainly, in early 2000 when India and Pakistan came to blows over 

Kashmir, the United States directly intervened, with our friends at 

the NNSA, to make sure that they had the kind of nonproliferation 

and other things that we have in the United States to assure that 

their stockpile would be safe. 

But there is nothing we can do about the political instability in 

Pakistan. And, ultimately, that is the way we safeguard these 

weapons, is to make sure that that country has political stability. 

And no one can assure us, certainly in the short term, that it will. 

In December, I led another congressional delegation to Russia, 

where we have an enormously complicated relationship. As I said 

at the time, especially in the intervening time since Georgia, you 

can’t go back to business as usual, but we have business to do. 

And this is a very illuminating hearing. We have a lot of different critical issues to work on. But what I want to specifically ask 

the members of the Commission is that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which, as you know, expires at the end of 

2009, has been enormously valuable in the verification process. 

And with the kind of relationship we have with Russia right now, 

which is not the best, but with the new Administration that promises more engagement, what you recommend is something that I 

have recommended, which is that we extend START for the short 

term. 

What I am really interested in understanding is, would you say 

that we just push START forward as START is? Should we work 

to do what we call sometimes a better START or a START Plus? 

And where are those areas that you think we should concentrate 

on? 
26 

And secondly, if you can briefly touch on the question of the 

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which I have advocated 

for a long time that we ratify. And can you please just describe 

what you think the benefits of ratifying the CTBT would be? 

Thank you. 

Dr. ALLISON. Just briefly, I think Ronald Reagan’s mantra was 

‘‘trust but verify.’’ And there was a bit of peculiarity in which we 

have been interested in less verification than the Russians. I regard that as odd, from my history as an old Cold Warrior. 

So I would say, even though there is a lot of—or some of the elements of the verification system may have been outmoded and we 

may be able to move on, I would say keeping it more or less is better, and especially if one worries about scenarios in which our relationship with the Russians may be worse rather than better. 

With respect to going beyond START and Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), I would think moving another significant 

step to some number like 1,500 or even 1,000 would make good 

sense in the next round of START Plus. 

And with respect to CTBT, I think the debate that got aired over 

that in the Senate needs to be re-examined because the mechanisms for verifying that people are complying with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty have improved significantly. 

And I think when people look at them, they would judge, as I believe that there is a strong view of—this is not a Commission view, 

but a broad view—that CTBT would actually constrain other people a whole lot more than it does us and, therefore, would be to 

our advantage. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. On the way back from Pakistan, we stopped in 

Vienna to see Secretary General ElBaradei. And I think the issue 

of nuclear fuel banking, something that I have advocated for a long 

time, is now coming to fore, certainly between Russia and Iran. But 

clearly the IAEA is underfunded, has been chronically underfunded 

for a very, very long time. 

Chairman, can you talk briefly about what you think we can do 

to gain international consensus to increase their funding, give them 

a bigger mission and more teeth? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, first, the United States needs to be certain 

that it is meeting its obligations. I, at one time, was Chair of the 

Nuclear Subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public 

Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over things like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). And we hadn’t paid our dues 

to the IAEA for several years. That has now been overcome. 

But one of the tendencies that the international community has 

gotten into is that, rather than deal with the base budget of the 

IAEA, we do all these special assessments whenever there is a new 

problem. That is a very unstable financing for an organization that 

has to make long-term commitments. You have to be able to—— 

Mr. TAYLOR. Senator, I am sorry, but we are trying to adhere to 

the five-minute rule. Could you supply the rest for the record? 

Mr. GRAHAM. I would say that this committee would be wellserved to take a serious look at not only the amount of funding for 

the IAEA, but the way in which we have gone about funding and 

how the United States can lead the international community in 

strengthening both of those components. 
27 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks Mrs. Tauscher. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Commission members, for being here today. 

Senator Graham, I particularly appreciate all of you trying to 

alert us to an event that has not occurred. It is so frustrating, but 

it is so important that we celebrate hopefully a non-event. 

And, additionally, I want to thank Senator Talent for his explaining the urgency of what we are facing. 

And then, Dr. Allison, as a fellow Cold Warrior, I appreciate your 

referencing the 17 years of success in nonproliferation with Russia 

and the 14 now-independent states. And so there can be success. 

And we should be ever vigilant, as Congressman Bartlett pointed 

out, but, to me, that is a real extraordinary success. 

But my concern, and you all referenced it, is biological terrorism. 

Given the information in the report, should pharmaceutical companies sharing toxins such as botulinum with Iranian scientists and 

Iranian universities reconsider their relationships? And further, 

should the United States do more to discourage a relationship between pharmaceutical companies and Iranian researchers? 

Mr. GRAHAM. I guess the answer is yes. We think that one of the 

most significant components of this escalating biological threat is 

when the capability to produce pathogens falls into the hands of 

rogue states and terrorist organizations. 

And the United States has some controls in terms of the transmission of materials and scientific knowledge, but given the reality 

of what is happening, they are not sufficient to the challenge. 

Mr. TALENT. If I could add to this, and this would be responsive 

to a question Mr. Smith had that I was going to answer but the 

time ran out. 

The biological area here in this report, I think, is the lowesthanging fruit in the report for the Congress. And we need better, 

more consistent, more unified regulations. And this area ought to 

be within a single agency. I think the Commission would say the 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); you guys decide. I probably 

would prefer DHS, except I don’t have confidence in DHS’s ability 

to do anything. But, I mean, if they could do something, this is 

probably something they ought to do. 

And we need changes within that research community and their 

approaches, certainly, which is the thing that you are mentioning 

as well. 

Mr. Smith also mentioned, what don’t we need? We recommend 

collapsing the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) and the 

HSC, among other things, because we think that all they are generating now is meetings with these dual staffs. 

Mr. WILSON. And when you mentioned regulations, would these 

regulations include barring pharmaceutical companies from doing 

business in the United States so long as they have a relationship 

as currently exists in Iran? 
28 

Mr. TALENT. We don’t have that specific recommendation. But 

one of the reasons why I pointed out before, I think, legislation as 

opposed to executive action—and this is so important—is because 

I think this will be a big piece of legislation. It will be a vehicle 

for a lot of considerations, you know, what might we do in a lot of 

areas to make different agencies sensitive to these concerns. 

And the very fact that Congress takes this in hand and legislates 

on it is going to make all the different agencies, foreign and domestic, aware that this needs to be a priority. 

But, no, we don’t specifically recommend that. 

Mr. WILSON. And the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 

1972, does it have sufficient safeguards against providing toxins to 

hostile nations? 

Mr. GRAHAM. The answer to that question is no. We describe that 

treaty as being anemic. It is now almost 40 years old. It is badly 

in need of major revision and strengthening. We make some recommendations as to the direction that we think that strengthening 

should take. But it is not serving our interests in a world in which 

biological advancement is moving at flank speed with a 40-year-old 

instrument to try to control it. 

Mr. TALENT. It is too weak, and countries don’t pay attention to 

it anyway. We endorsed the decision to withdraw from the protocol 

because of the verification issues. But we encourage voluntary and 

strong compliance with the convention and new agreements, as 

well. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you gentlemen for your service to our country, both in this 

endeavor and prior to it. We very grateful to you. 

I would like to focus on the area of fissile material in secured or 

unsecured storage areas and also the issue of blending down and 

converting highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low-enriched uranium (LEU), which is discussed, I think, on page 58 of the report. 

And on page 58 of the supporting appendix, you make reference 

to the Baker-Cutler review process in 2001. And there is a discussion of a need to upgrade that review now, given the new dynamics 

that we face. 

Of this committee were to lay out a set of criteria or benchmarks 

for a new Baker-Cutler review, what questions should we ask? 

What should the criteria be that we measure our progress against 

in that area? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, I am going to defer to Dr. Allison for most 

of the answer because of his extensive expertise. 

But I would say that, in my opinion, number one is to dramatically increase the focus on biological. I said yesterday that, on a 

scale of zero to ten, I think we are doing about an 8.5 job in terms 

of securing nuclear material inside Russia. We are doing a dramatically poorer job, maybe in the nature of a one, as it relates to 

biological. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Senator, how might we compel that increase and 

focus on biological? What would we do to make that happen? 
29 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, I think, first, maybe, as the Baker-Cutler 

Commission did, it brought focus to the issue of nuclear security; 

something analogous to that that would give specific focus to the 

issue of biological security. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. 

Dr. ALLISON. I had the great honor to serve on the Baker-Cutler 

Commission, and I think it did, with Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler, a terrific job. 

One of the things that it emphasized is that if highly enriched 

uranium is blended down to low-enriched uranium, it can be made 

into a fuel rod, used in a civilian nuclear reactor, and then effectively burned up. 

And most people don’t realize, but if we take the lights here, of 

the electricity that is powering our lights today here in the U.S., 

nuclear produces about 20 percent of the electricity. Half of all that 

electricity is low-enriched uranium rods from Russia that used to 

be high-enriched uranium, some of which were part of bombs or 

others of which could be made into bombs. So there has been this 

deal for 500 tons of HEU to get blended down. 

We say in the report that you reference that we should 

incentivize another—there is another 300 tons of excess HEU sitting there. Getting it blended down in Russia or blended down and 

back into the markets seems to me to be a very good place to go, 

with respect to the nuclear piece. 

And I think wherever there is highly enriched uranium or plutonium, that is stuff from which people can make a bomb. Wherever 

that highly enriched uranium becomes low-enriched uranium, it 

can’t be made into a bomb. So I would say the logic of the case we 

have both seen working in the HEU deal that currently operates. 

It concludes in 2013, as the report says, and could be extended and 

should be. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. And we would be very interested in 

your suggestions for the biological Baker-Cutler review the Senator 

mentioned, as to what questions we might ask and what criteria 

we might put into the statute to require that review to be properly 

focused. 

Senator Talent. 

Mr. TALENT. I think we recommend, probably in this order, the 

kind of domestic regulatory reform we are talking about, so we establish a model internationally and show we are taking the lead. 

And then we recommend calling an international conference of the 

major bioscience powers to begin putting in place the kind of comprehensive regime that we already have in the nuclear area. 

The big strategic change we want with Baker-Cutler is moving 

Russia, our relationship, from a donor-recipient relationship to a 

partnership relationship. That strategically is what we think needs 

to happen so we can extend—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. How probable do you think that change will be 

five years from today? Will it happen or not? 

Mr. TALENT. Well, Senator Graham really is one of our Russia 

experts. It was our opinion, in talking with them, that whatever 

the issues we have in other areas—and we have other issues—that 

they do want to cooperate with us in this, that they see this as consistent with their national interest. 
30 

Mr. ANDREWS. That is welcome news, indeed. 

Mr. GRAHAM. And I believe that, as Russia has become economically stronger, they are unsettled by this donor-recipient relationship. And for their own national pride and now with the capability 

to match that pride, they are ready to be approached about a partnership rather than a philanthropy. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you very much 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Lamborn. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a very short and then a longer question. 

The short question is, on page 63 of your report, you say that 

Iran could acquire sufficient HEU to build a nuclear bomb within 

6 months to 2 years, or 24 months. This report is dated December 

2nd, which is a month and a half ago. Can I conclude from that 

that your range now would be 41⁄2 months to 221⁄2 months? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Yes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. Thank you. 

My longer question is, you also state on the next page, under recommendation number five, that such engagement with both Iran 

and North Korea—but I want to concentrate on Iran because they 

are in a different posture than North Korea, obviously, not having 

already gone nuclear, where direct intervention becomes much 

more problematic. But, in the case of Iran and North Korea, you 

say, ‘‘Such engagement must be backed by the credible threat of direct action in the event that diplomacy fails.’’ 

Can you elaborate on what you mean by ‘‘credible threat of direct 

action’’? And how important is this to happen before Iran goes nuclear? 

Mr. GRAHAM. As I commented on earlier, the consequences of 

Iran going nuclear and of North Korea continuing to add to its 

warehouse of nuclear materials is unacceptable—unacceptable in 

the risk that they singularly would each represent and unacceptable in the consequences within the regions in which they live, the 

rapid escalation of the number of weaponized nuclear states. 

And so we suggest a strategy which is a layered strategy, starting with engagement incentives and disincentives, but always reserving that, if those all fail, that direct action is a very difficult 

but necessary step to avoid the other alternative, which is a nuclear Iran and a North Korea with enough material to not only 

launch an attack but survive an attack and start another attack, 

which is potentially its capability in the foreseeable future if they 

continue along their current course. 

Mr. TALENT. Direct action is a threat of force of some kind, as 

Senator Graham said. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Does the gentleman yield back? 

Mr. LAMBORN. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much, sir. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. 

Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would like to thank the members for their testimony and 

the hard work that you have put in in putting this report together. 
31 

This is an issue that I have devoted a great deal of time and attention to, and I share many of the concerns that you raised in the 

report. I also, in particular, reached the same conclusion that you 

do, that a biological attack is probably the most likely event that 

we need to worry about in the near term. 

Let me put it in these terms. I look at these issues in terms of 

prevention, detection, and response as the best way to deal with 

them. And as much as I would like to get into all of them, let me 

look at the prevention, the detection issue first. 

And I know we have touched on some of these already, but, in 

terms of a biological attack, can you identify perhaps the single 

greatest thing that we could do in preventing a biological attack, 

outside of interagency cooperation, which is something I am going 

to ask about as well? 

There is a glaring vulnerability on the biological front that we 

are not doing that we need to do. In particular, now, on the interagency issue, in your report you rightly conclude that interagency 

coordination is a necessary step in combating terrorism, both at 

home and abroad. Could you elaborate on the ways interagency coordination can be improved upon? 

And you recommend that President Obama should designate a 

White House principal adviser for WMD proliferation and terrorism 

and restructuring the National Security Council (NSC) and Homeland Security Council, which I agree with. But what do you believe 

should be the qualifications of this adviser, and how will this adviser work to actively improve interagency coordination? 

My next area in terms of response, in terms of detection, obviously we want to try to push those rings out as far as possible. The 

first would be the deployment of biological sensors. I think most 

people would be surprised and disappointed to learn that we only 

have sensors deployed right now in about 30 major U.S. cities, and 

they are very human-dependent, and that it would take days to collect the samples and then analyze those samples to know even if 

a biological event had occurred. And we need to put more resources 

into deploying the next generation of sensors that would be realtime and require little to no human interaction. 

So can you comment on the state of our ability to detect and then 

also the current state of, say, our public health system and our 

ability to monitor, for example, pharmacies and emergency rooms 

to know that an event is actually occurring? And at what level are 

we, in terms of the resources we are putting into that type of thing 

of a system, and how much more do we need to put into developing 

such a detection system? 

Mr. TALENT. Okay. We have just been talking, Congressman. I 

will do the biological piece first and then defer to the chairman and 

Dr. Allison. 

The most important thing on the biological side of it, we believe, 

is to get a handle and create incentives within the life science community to keep a handle on the potential misuse of dual-use technology. 

Now, you have studied this. You know that the high-contaminant 

laboratories, some of them are not regulated at all. If they don’t receive federal funds and they don’t deal with agents on the select 

agent list, they are not regulated at all. Those that are are regu-
32 

lated by three different agencies, HHS, DHS, and Agriculture, if it 

is an animal-science-type lab. A lot of those animal pathogens can 

be turned into pathogens that can be used against people. 

So they are regulated by three different agencies, different kinds 

of regulatory requirements. We say get them under one agency, 

probably DHS or HHS. The labs have safety protocols and security 

protocols. Let’s combine those so we have one laboratory security 

protocol which is uniformly followed. 

Let’s get into the curriculum, when scientists are going through 

school, that, look, security is important. And do some commonsense things. Get a Nobel Prize laureate to chair a commission and 

speak out about the importance of being security-conscious in the 

life science community. And then organize international bioscience 

powers and try to get them to do the same thing. I mean, we really 

just have not done what we needed to do in this area. 

You mentioned sensors. We made an executive decision, the 

chairman did and I agreed with him, that we would not go heavily 

into consequence management. Because the problem in this kind of 

report is saying something without trying to say everything, right? 

So we didn’t get—we had testimony in New York about the sensors, and I agree, personally, that we need more of that. Because 

the quicker we can establish there is an attack, the better we can 

manage the consequence of it and maybe get attribution. So I completely agree. We didn’t get heavily into that. 

The one area we did say was that we have to get on the ball in 

dealing with anthrax. We don’t have an adequate procedure for getting the Cipro out to people, and you can imagine the panic that 

is going to happen if people realize they are living in a city where 

there was an anthrax dispersal and they have 48 hours to get the 

Cipro, and right now we are mailing it to them. 

I mean, so we have issues. But we did not get comprehensively 

into consequence management. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me ask a question on the nuclear side, then on the biological 

side. 

What role, do you think, on the nuclear side, does having an effective missile defense system aid us? 

And then, on the biological side, it seems so difficult to contain 

a biological agent. I mean, and it would seem that it would be more 

likely used by a non-state actor. 

Where is it in terms of the science marrying up with those 

groups, number one? And number two, I mean, how likely a scenario is that, to be used as a weapon for a terrorist group or nonstate actors? 

Mr. TALENT. Yeah, we agree with your evaluation, that the use 

of a biological weapon is more likely than the use of a nuclear 

weapon. Although, I am always careful, because the nuclear weapon they are trying to get too. And either are very feasible for them. 

We didn’t get into missile defense because, really, it wasn’t at the 

center of what our mandate was. I always was a supporter of missile defense. I always thought it was a more useful tool in dealing 

with rogue nation-states, though, than dealing with terrorists. Not 
33 

that it wouldn’t have some use for that, but simply because they 

are more likely to use the existence of a nuclear missile and a missile delivery system, either actually use it or use it as leverage in 

some kind of international confrontation, and that the missile defense would defuse it. 

But I think for the reasons that Dr. Allison indicated earlier, the 

terrorists have a wider range of options that they can use, some of 

which will not cause them to have a signature in using the weapon. 

Mr. GRAHAM. I am now going to express a personal view that is 

not the Commission’s view. It seems to me that we are in the area 

of missile defense approaching the world as it was during the Cold 

War. The Soviet Union had no compunction of having its name and 

signature on a missile that it might launch against the United 

States. A terrorist who is other than so lunatic that they would be 

institutionalized, would like to be somewhat clandestine in their 

form of attack. And therefore I think it is much more likely that 

they attack in subtle ways that do not immediately identify who is 

responsible. And thus as we look at the likelihood of a range of occurrences and begin to allocate our resources, I personally would 

like to see us put more resources on those things that would hopefully detect the non-missile delivery system because that is the one 

that we are most likely to in reality have to confront. 

That is my position, not the Commission’s position. 

Dr. ALLISON. I agree with Senator Graham’s personal position. 

Again, the Commission didn’t take a view on it because since—as 

we were discussing earlier—there is one big hurdle for terrorists to 

get or make a nuclear bomb. Then secondly, to get a missile is a 

whole nother exercise. Third, to get a bomb that can be weaponized 

so that it fits as the warhead of a missile, that is rocket science. 

There is a third hurdle. And then fourth, if the terrorists—I am attacking you with a missile, the crosshairs of a launch site appear 

in an American target within a minute after the launch of a missile. So if I had the choice between something that has an unambiguous return address and a surreptitious or covert delivery system, I think the latter is a lot more attractive. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Does the gentleman yield back his time? 

Mr. TALENT. If you are Iran and you are considering aggression 

in the Mideast and you have the missile and a missile delivery system, that is a hedge against defeat in whatever conventional action 

you may be occurring. An effective missile defense then can diffuse 

that hedge, if you will. But we are discussing the nation state in 

the terrorist context. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thanks to the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes 

the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Admiral Sestak. 

Mr. SESTAK. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. This was a great report on 

what needs to be done. And I am sure the door to the new Administration is already open for it. It won’t take much pushing since 

some of the recommendations are similar. But the conundrum, as 

you kind of put out, is how to make it happen. So I only had two 

questions, one international. One is on the domestic aspects of your 

report. 

And, Senator, the reason for that is for you, please, I was struck 

by what you said during the testimony today that you cannot solve 

the problems of Pakistan within Pakistan’s borders. You must look 
34 

regionally to solve Pakistan’s problems in this proliferation issue. 

How then do you sit back—and I know you only had six months, 

but we have some very good functional recommendations here. 

However, even when we dealt with, let us say, Pakistan in the report, it was still a functional counter-proliferation regime approach 

when you looked at anything within the region or even worldwide. 

Could you comment about how well can you really address counterproliferation absent taking in regional goals of the other players 

and of ourselves? And is that a piece that probably by itself makes 

this maybe less than what you would have desired? 

Mr. GRAHAM. My answer is I don’t think you can do it effectively 

just focusing on a single nation state. As an example, the issue of 

Kashmir, that has been a thorn in the Indian-Pakistani relationship since those two nations were created out of the old EnglishIndian empire. It is one of the classic cases of kicking the can down 

the road with the expectation that somehow the problem is going 

to become less severe. The reality is that in almost all instances 

it becomes more severe, more ominous, and more universal. So if 

I were going to advise the new envoy, Mr. Holbrooke, one of the 

first places I would focus my attention would be on how then to 

begin to mitigate that controversy because as long as it is in its 

current state, it going to be a bleeding scab between those two 

countries. I would also put focus on what I suggest that the U.S. 

and Russia ought to do together to try to encourage those two countries to develop some protocols that will take them a little bit on 

less of a hair-trigger use of nuclear in the event of a conflict. 

Mr. SESTAK. My second question has to do with domestically and 

it touches upon your answer. And, Senator, keep in mind that 

throughout today we heard the words ‘‘safeguards,’’ ‘‘verification,’’ 

‘‘accounting,’’ ‘‘counting,’’ ‘‘missing labs, lab personnel,’’ et cetera. 

And to some degree, you can only do so much if you don’t have the 

right information. And yet the study—step back—and although my 

first question had to do with how can you really look at proliferation in the absence of regional goals—is your recommendation by 

and large to the Intelligence Community—and I know I am doing 

it short shrift here—is you know what, we have uprooted—you 

even quote General Hayden in it—every 18 months to look and see 

how they are doing and sticking them back in. Let us kind of leave 

them alone for a while. My question really comes if that is the 

right issue. You talk about Pakistan, if I could go back. There is 

70,000 people involved in the nuclear industry in Pakistan; 8,000 

of them are scientists, 2,000 of them are core, but that talent is 

coming from the universities which is the most radical time they 

have ever had in their universities. How do we know who is in 

those labs and what they are doing? Even though we have safeguards over what they have already produced. And my question 

comes really to you because you were all denied, from my understanding, access to the Intelligence Community in some regards. 

For example, according to Mr. Henry Sokolski, a member of your 

commission, you were not permitted to have access—well, actually 

you got a single classified briefing on North Korea and the same 

on Iran and you were denied the access of how Russia is assisting 

Iran. How can you be certain that your recommendation to leave 

the Intelligence Community by and large alone, when information 
35 

and knowledge is what it is all about in the future, is the right one 

when you yourself didn’t quite gain potentially the access to the intelligence to make that recommendation to us? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, as someone who has spent a lot of my 18 

years in the U.S. Senate in the area of intelligence, I recognize that 

the President of the United States is the principal customer and 

consumer of U.S. intelligence information and that he or she is 

going to be the recipient of the largest volume and the most subtle 

qualitative intelligence. But I felt that we had adequate access for 

our purposes. I did not feel that our ability to make the recommendations that we did was constrained by an absence of access 

to intelligence. 

Second, there are a variety of ways in which the Intelligence 

Community can reform, one of which is what happened in 2004, 

which was a massive congressional restructuring of the basic architecture of the Intelligence Community. I think now we have got 

some very good people who have been in place, like Admiral 

McConnell and General Hayden, and we have another group soon 

to arrive, Admiral Blair and former Congressman Leon Panetta. I 

would entrust to them to carry these reforms to the next level. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. The Chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank all the 

members of the panel here. I think that the subject that you speak 

about today is something that perhaps the country underestimates 

and that your involvement is critically important. I was struck by, 

Dr. Allison, your comment related to certain timelines passing and 

reducing our ability to respond and our options. I think that is an 

extremely important point. Senator Talent, I consider your voice 

one of the great voices on missile defense in the country. And I actually believe that it is a pertinent issue here today because I believe missile defense has the ability to devalue nuclear programs 

to the extent that maybe they don’t occur, which is how a lot of 

these other potential nuclear proliferation items—how—the genesis 

of where they would come from. And I think that we are making 

some pretty serious mistakes related to Iran in not making sure 

our missile defense capability in Eastern—in Europe and other 

places is not there at least as part of the dissuasion to prevent 

them from having that capability. 

Mr. TALENT. It is the calculus that you are trying to affect. I 

agree. 

Mr. FRANKS. And, of course, missile defense is also a good idea 

if one really is coming. It can be a real encouragement. But with 

that said, I am struck by Mr. Bartlett’s scenario where someone off 

of our shore would watch either a Scud missile or something like 

that, whether it was an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack or directly on our country. And, Dr. Allison, I am not convinced that terrorists would be that concerned about their identity being known 

at that point because they can think—there is just a lot of things. 

And most of the terrorists on the airplane weren’t too concerned 

that we might know their name after the deed was done. 

So my question really is this: I understand that the biological 

threat was emphasized, and I completely agree with that. But I am 

focusing for a moment on the nuclear issue because I somehow 
36 

have this crazy notion in my mind that terrorists would like to see 

one of our cities in nuclear flames or some type of EMP attack just 

for the spectacular nature of it. And with that said, I am not sure 

that I will focus on Iran. Your own report says just how much time 

does the world have to seek this full clarity about Iran’s past and 

present nuclear program and decide what to do. Experts such as 

David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) have underscored that the timeline for Iran’s acquisition 

of sufficient highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb is 

ominously short. It ranges from only six months to two years. 

I guess the bottom line is this: How much time do we have related to Iran gaining a nuclear capability which they could give to 

terrorists? How much time do we have to ascertain their capability? And will anything short of either a direct military intervention or the conviction in their minds that that will occur be enough 

to dissuade them? 

And I will start with you, Senator Talent. And if there is time, 

I hope you all take a shot at it. 

Mr. TALENT. We don’t have a lot of time. I think the report reflects that the threat of direct action has to be on the table and the 

inference from that is that without the belief that the—the credible 

belief that will be the use, the various diplomatic issues won’t work 

and I think that is based on inference, Iranian intentions. I said 

at the beginning of the hearing, these groups are trying to acquire 

these weapons for a reason because in the context of their goals 

and the globalized world, this is an asymmetric weapon of enormous power for them and to the extent that you can diffuse the effectiveness of a weapon, however you do it—and I would agree with 

you that missile defense is a key thing. We don’t address that in 

the report. To the extent you diffuse the effectiveness of the weapon, you undermine their reasons for trying to get the weapon and 

make it less likely that they will do it. So I certainly agree with 

your analysis in that regard. And this is our feeling regarding Iran, 

without going into the tactics of how it could be done or the likelihood of being able to accomplish it. 

Mr. FRANKS. Anyone else? How much time do we have and what 

short of direct military intervention will dissuade Iran or at least 

the conviction in their minds that that will occur? 

Dr. ALLISON. Iran today probably has enough low-end enriched 

uranium (LEU)—if not today, in a month or two months— which, 

if it were run back through the Natanz centrifuges, could produce 

enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for its first bomb. So they 

have already got into that zone. What we should rightly worry 

about is a covert Natanz that we don’t know about and can’t identify, which is doing the same thing. Because how likely if you were 

the manager of the Iranian nuclear program is it that you would 

put all your eggs in one basket under the lights of international inspection. I think not very good. 

Mr. FRANKS. So what is your recommendation that we do about 

it? What is your recommendation that we do? 

Dr. ALLISON. So if you try to work through the military options, 

one of the things for sure, you can’t destroy targets that you can’t 

identify. So trying to get to Iran in a negotiation in which you have 

got lots of carrots and lots of sticks making as credible as possible 
37 

that those include a military option, even though it is not a very 

good option, is where I would go. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Nye. 

Mr. NYE. First of all, Senator Graham, I just want to thank you 

and your fellow panelists for the work and the judgement that you 

have obviously applied to this report. Senator Talent, I particularly 

appreciate your comments today on the use of soft power and the 

need for a greater focus on that in our time going forward, not least 

because I spent a considerable amount of time working with the 

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in both Iraq 

and Afghanistan on democratic and economic development. And I 

agree with the findings in the report that Pakistan is indeed a 

nexus of threat and that to a large degree that threat will be centered in these Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. 

What I would like to ask you, Senator, and the other panelists 

if you wish to comment, can you please give us your assessment 

after going through this process of both the capability and the inclination of the new government in Pakistan to work with us and be 

helpful in perhaps taking a more proactive look at those FATA 

areas in terms of applying soft power, trying to neutralize these 

threats? 

Mr. TALENT. Officially, of course, they have the—in terms of 

using soft power in place of threats, that is a different issue. I 

think one of the things we have got to do with soft power and the 

tools of smart power or soft power is to create a greater sense within the Pakistani government first and other governments in similar 

circumstances that these kinds of tools are very helpful, and one 

of the goals of the use of soft power would be to communicate the 

intention that this is a good thing that is going to help reinforce 

them and their government and lead to better relationships. So 

that is one of the mindsets we have to create. I don’t think it is 

there yet. I don’t think—because I just don’t think we have been 

effective in doing this. And you have had personal experience with 

this. We have had to use these tools or tried to use them in Bosnia. 

We have had to use them in Afghanistan. Now we need them in 

Pakistan. At what point are we going to decide this is a capability 

we have to have organically someplace that Presidents can deploy 

effectively and quickly like they deploy the capabilities that this 

committee oversees routinely through all three of the services. 

Mr. GRAHAM. My sense is that the new government in Pakistan 

very much wants to create a new beginning for the country with 

one of its goals is to keep the country unified. I think one of the 

real, at least a possibility, is a splintering apart of Pakistan and 

with those northwest territories being likely the first to secede 

from the nation. A part of the reason is the fact that they feel in 

that area that they have not received the kind of attention and 

schools and hospitals, economic development that other parts of the 

country have. So I believe that the new government is going to 

make a special effort to demonstrate that it has value to those 

parts of the country in order to tamp down any secessionist aspirations. 
38 

Now, what is going to be the capability of the government to do 

that? That is yet to be tested. 

Dr. ALLISON. Let me just say I am pessimistic. 

Mr. NYE. Thank you for your candor. I will yield back the remainder of my time. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Graham, Senator Talent, Dr. Allison, thank you so much for all of your effort 

that went into this report. I think it is very, very telling. I did want 

to focus again on Pakistan. You do speak about some positive 

things going on there. You speak to President Zardari’s remarks 

after the Marriott bombing in Islamabad, that the war on terrorism 

is their war. You also speak to the tribal leaders uniting, organizing against Al Qaeda both in the FATA and the North-West 

Frontier Province (NWFP). One thing that you have left out that 

I am curious about, and that is the feelings of the Pakistani Army, 

General Kiyani, and what General Kiyani’s feelings are about this 

effort, about our efforts there to counter terrorism in the area to 

try to secure those tribal regions. I see that as a critical link with 

this. Obviously there is always this dynamic there between the government and the army. I want to know where do you believe General Kiyani is with this and, as you know, General Hamad there 

too sometimes has a little bit different feelings than General 

Kiyani. 

Can you give us some of your overview about how you see that 

dynamic coming along and where that leads Pakistan in this effort? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Again, I think that is a relationship that is yet to 

be fully tested. The general has made the right statements as to 

his desire to be subservient to the civilian government and function 

within the democratic framework. But we have had one small test 

when the civilian government said they would send the head of the 

intelligence agency to India to help with the Mumbai investigation 

and then the military rescinded the right of the head of the InterServices Intelligence (ISI) to go. That was not an encouraging sign. 

As Dr. Allison said, the military has in Pakistan been the only load 

bearing part of the society and whether they are going to be willing 

to see themselves as a load bearing unit carrying affirmatively the 

weight of democracy and protecting it is going to be one of the several key questions as to the future of Pakistan. 

Dr. ALLISON. I agree with him entirely, the two comments made. 

I think that Kiyani in terms of his history has had a reasonable 

relationship with the U.S. And I think what is hard to appreciate 

is the turbulence from the cross currents of the environment in 

which they are operating. If you were to wake up some general in 

Pakistan in the middle of the night and say what is going on in 

Afghanistan, they would think what is going on in Afghanistan is 

negative for Pakistan and that it has something to do with Americans and Indians being in cahoots surrounding them. So if you listened to the noises after the Mumbai bombing for two weeks of 

universally denying Pakistani engagement of even LTs when there 

was one of the terrorists whom they had captured. So I would say 

that the—I feel very uncomfortable about the extent of which they 
39 

and we inherit the same—have the same picture of what is going 

on. 

Mr. TALENT. And I would just add—and these two gentlemen are 

more expert on the Pakistanis than I am. But that situation is extremely fluid. Dr. Allison referred to cross currents. You get a leadership that is in an unstable situation like that, where they are 

worried about staying in power personally or their personal fortunes, they are not spending a lot of time on the long-term efforts 

to secure nuclear material. They are just thinking about surviving 

day to day. And I think that is a huge part of the problem. 

Mr. WITTMAN. One quick follow-up question. Are there things 

that the U.S. can do to try to encourage general Kiyani in a productive way to sort of mirror the efforts there? At least President 

Zardari has indicated the direction he would like to see things go. 

Mr. GRAHAM. I think a part of that is for the United States not 

to be as fixated on relations with the military as it has been in the 

past. And that is not just a comment for the last eight years. It 

goes back much further than that. We have got to give more recognition to the civilian government in order to domestically enhance its credibility as the responsible party. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Kissell. 

Mr. KISSELL. As everyone has said, thank you for your time and 

efforts. And I have got—we have covered some pretty broad 

ranges—a couple of just specific questions. And in anticipating a biological attack, what agent or range of agents would you think 

might be used and what would be the degree of danger amongst 

those particular choices? 

Mr. GRAHAM. I think most of the experts would say that today 

the answer would be anthrax. It is the most available. It is the one 

that has been weaponized to the greatest degree. Now anthrax has 

a number of problems, one of which is effective dissemination. It 

has been tried in two or three instances, particularly in Japan. And 

the technical problems of getting it out there in a way that it can 

kill a lot of people were not resolved, thankfully. 

The second problem is that anthrax is not communicable person 

to person. So its ability to multiply is much less. Our concern, as 

we talk about in the report, is that there are a lot of in some cases 

new and some others old pathogens that are being regenerated. For 

instance, in 1918 there was an influenza attack that killed up to 

40 million people worldwide. That influenza has been extinct for 

most of the last 70 years. It has just been recreated in a laboratory. 

If that were to get out with the reality that we have almost no 

anecdotes today to that strain of influenza, it could kill a lot more 

than 40 million people. 

So today it is anthrax. Tomorrow it is likely to be one of these 

more communicable and more newer or recently resuscitated pathogens. 

Mr. KISSELL. We talked about Russia and hopefully since the cooperation, does Russia feel threatened that it might be attacked in 

this way? 

Mr. GRAHAM. The answer is it is very concerned about being attacked nuclear and that is part of the reason we have had such 

good cooperation. It is not just all a matter of their good feeling to-
40 

wards us. They recognize their self-interest, particularly some of 

the incidents that have occurred in Chechnya and the fact that 

they have a massive non-ethnic Russian population immediately to 

their south that is concerning them. But given the way they have 

dealt with biological, very weak security and a much less willingness to involve not just the United States, but the international 

community in efforts to enhance that security, we tend to—would 

tend to lead me to believe that they don’t put as high a priority 

on the possibility of a biological attack as our report does. 

Mr. KISSELL. And my last question. I grew up in the 1950s and 

the 1960s in the Cold War and the concept of mutually assured destruction, MAD. Dr. Allison, you kind of alluded to this a couple 

of times, that trail back to where the missile came from. The states 

that we are most concerned about, does the concept of mutually assured destruction affect them whatsoever and especially in terms 

of how they might actually be trying to control these weapons? 

Dr. ALLISON. A very good question and if we take North Korea, 

which I would say is the most troublesome for me because Kim 

Jong-il has demonstrated he would sell and build a nuclear reactor 

in Syria when we told him he can’t do that, every red line that 

President Bush laid down for him he stepped over. So what is deterring him from selling a nuclear bomb to Osama bin Laden? The 

answer is I worry about that every day. So if we had developed an 

adequate nuclear forensics capability so that we could credibly 

identify his fingerprints on that bomb and if we were prepared 

then to explain to him that a bomb that was made in North Korea, 

even if it was delivered in a boat by Osama bin Laden, would be 

treated by us precisely as if it had been put on a missile and shot 

against Los Angeles. I think he has got the idea in his head that 

if he were to launch a missile with a nuclear weapon against Los 

Angeles, North Korea would be erased from the map. 

So that is MAD with respect to identifiable sources. The question 

is could we extend that idea in the nuclear terror space. I have 

been a strong advocate of trying to do so. One of the areas in which 

our investment pattern has been woefully inadequate is in developing that nuclear forensics capability. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. And I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Rooney. 

Mr. ROONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you 

for your testimony. And, Senator Graham, I think it is a great 

honor for me that the first question I ever ask as a Congressman 

on a committee is to you, having worked in Senator Connie Mack’s 

mailroom in the early 1990s and getting to ride the elevator with 

you and you knowing the mascot of my high school, Benjamin Buccaneer. I have always been a big fan of yours. So my question is 

basically just a follow-up with some of the things that have been 

touched on early with regard to an issue unfortunately that wasn’t 

discussed directly in your report, and that is with missile defense. 

You testified earlier that Pakistan and India didn’t per se have 

safeguards in place, no red phone-type system. Does a missile defense system with either the United States spearheading it or another country or a series of alliances, does that have any role in 

that India-Pakistan—I guess it would be your opinion because it is 

not in the report. Do you think that a missile defense system has 
41 

any role in that area of the world, and if we have any obligations 

there with regard to keeping, you know, the global community 

safe? 

Mr. GRAHAM. First, Mr. Congressman, I want to congratulate you 

for your election and you are going to be representing a wonderful 

part of our State in America and I know that your constituents are 

in good hands. Congratulations. And it is an honor to try to respond to your first very good question. 

I would personally doubt that an investment in missile defense 

in the India-Pakistan region would be very productive. The reality 

is that the imbalance of population, with India having over a billion people and Pakistan about 150 million, plus or minus, has created on the Pakistani side the military doctrine that they have to 

go nuclear quickly because they cannot defend themselves against 

a land attack. 

So I don’t think that the existence of missile defense as we know 

today would be much of a restraint. I think what we have got to 

do is to work on the relationships between those two countries and 

try to get them to back down on the hair-trigger nature of their 

current military posture because Pakistan will have some justifiable basis for greater conflicts if they are not going to be overwhelmed by an Indian infantry assault. 

Mr. TALENT. For follow up, Congressman. I don’t want to interfere with your agenda. To me this points to a larger strategic reality that implicates the overall work of this committee. The stabilizing nature of American power and influence, to the extent that 

the world believes with some confidence that the United States is 

capable of taking the lead with other nations, of dealing swiftly and 

effectively with major threats to the international order, it stabilizes—whether that is through missile defense or some other tool. 

And to the extent that they begin to lose that confidence, we have 

destabilization, which is part of the danger, reason why we are 

afraid of a nuclear cascade. 

Now let us switch to a different venue. With North Korea in possession of nuclear weapons, what do the Japanese do? If you are 

the leader of Japan—and of course they have a history of non-nuclear tradition—you have to consider whether you need to develop 

a nuclear deterrent on your own. Well, what is the reason they 

have it? And part of it is their tradition and part of it is their confidence that the United States—the umbrella of American power, 

if you will, is capable of dealing with that in some productive fashion. 

So one good way to look at this and maybe try and achieve a constructive kind of agreement is to say on the question of missile defense I am a strong supporter. As an operational question, what capability do we need? But to help achieve something that strategically we all believe we have to sustain, which is the confidence in 

American leadership and power around the world, I agree with 

you, I think missile defense is a useful and flexible tool, particularly when dealing with nation states. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. 

Heinrich. 
42 

Mr. HEINRICH. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to kind 

of return for just a moment to something that Mr. Nye brought up 

earlier and that is the role of soft power or smart power, particularly in Pakistan and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. 

And I didn’t see—I read your recommendations regarding additional support for education and commerce efforts and particularly 

in that portion of the country, but I didn’t see a lot of confidence 

or faith in the current government in Pakistan to be able to impact 

that on the ground. I wondered if you—where do we get the ball 

rolling there? How do you start that process of—you know, we are 

at three percent literacy for women in that region of the country. 

You would think there is no place to go but up from here, but how 

do you get that process going? 

Mr. GRAHAM. I think first in terms of the U.S. role is for the 

United States to decide that is important to do, which is not a posture that I believe we have been in historically in our relations 

with Pakistan. We have with the host nation and with other members of the international community attacked these kinds of problems elsewhere in the world with some considerable success. It is 

not going to be easy to do it in that area of Pakistan in large part 

because the security is so fractious. But the fact that it is hard 

doesn’t mean that it is not important and in this instance we think 

urgent to make the very best effort that we can. In the ideal world 

it would be with the leadership of the Pakistani government and 

our support. In a less than perfect world, it may be more direct action by the United States. 

Mr. TALENT. I look at smart power as maybe a very significant 

refinement, if not an entirely new platform, a very significant upgrade to the traditional tools of diplomacy and foreign assistance, 

which are effective in some context, but frankly just not in others 

and I also see it as a more targeted tool. So I think I would maybe 

restate your question, if I could, to say, okay, let us say we have 

determined that improving literacy in Pakistan is an important 

way of messaging America’s benign intentions. Okay? What we 

need is a capability for a President to be able to say right now here 

is the poll numbers in the area of FATA about American intentions, which is, like, way down. Now, six months from now, I want 

it to be three times what it is now, just as we might say this to 

one of our political consultants. Right? Now, I want the capability 

for the President to be able to say that and do that and maybe that 

includes improving literacy or maybe it is health care. So maybe 

what we do is figure out what the people in that area want the 

most and try and be helpful in delivering that to them. But you see 

how this is more targeted and in the context of a more—of a direct 

American goal and integrated in the rest of foreign policy. The 

problem is whereas if you need littoral combat capability in DOD, 

you target—tell the Navy that, they figure what they need, they 

get the capability. We don’t have that mechanism in civilian agencies to do this. So Presidents are left with we can recommend these 

things broadly. You can’t. President Obama has got to figure out 

how to try and do it. And right now I just don’t think we have the 

capability to implement his directive in that regard. So he holds 

the bag for something he really doesn’t have any authority to do. 
43 

Mr. HEINRICH. I have a second question that is on a markedly 

different subject and I will direct this to Dr. Allison. And I was 

very intrigued by the discussion regarding the lack of protocols between India and Pakistan should those countries find themselves 

at odds. And it occurred to me our Nation has gone to great lengths 

over time to make sure that our nuclear assets are secure from the 

sense that—just basically from very basic things, like an accidental 

or an unplanned ignition, and we do that through our technology 

and to great success. And obviously the Russians have done the 

same thing, judging from at least the lack of an unplanned ignition. I am curious, do India and Pakistan have the same—do they 

have the technical capabilities in place today to make sure that 

there is not something as basic as an unplanned ignition? 

Mr. TAYLOR. Dr. Allison, if I may. We have two additional—— 

Dr. ALLISON. I will answer no. 

Mr. TAYLOR. That is a great one. Okay. And if it requires further, 

if you could do it for the record, please, sir. The chair thanks the 

gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. 

Kratovil. 

Mr. KRATOVIL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 

go back to the first question that was asked by the chairman. I understand the Commission didn’t want to bind the incoming, now 

the new President with particular recommendations as it related to 

Iran and North Korea. The counter to that obviously is we are in 

a sense looking to you for guidance on how best to deal with that 

issue. So without binding anyone, my question is—and perhaps, 

Dr. Allison, this is best towards you—what are the carrots—we 

know what the sticks are essentially—but what are the carrots 

that you think we should be using in dealing with North Korea and 

Iran, and I gather from all of your recommendations that we 

should be using various carrots and sticks seems to imply that you 

do believe in direct dealings with Iran. So the question is, what 

specific carrots do you suggest and do you—did the Commission 

unanimously agree that direct talks with Iran based on success 

with—some success with North Korea is appropriate? 

Dr. ALLISON. The Commission did not have a consensus on this. 

Actually we had some quite strongly different views. There were 

some people who strongly supported the view of the Bush Administration in the first term or I would say John Bolton’s views, which 

are the solution to the problem in North Korea and Iran is regime 

change and the only problem is we don’t know how to do that. But 

in any case, that is our objective and that is the problem we should 

work on. We should isolate them, we should not negotiate with 

them. And if they do things in the meantime that we don’t like, 

like, for example, go from having two bombs worth of plutonium to 

ten bombs, we should blame them for that. 

So I am not giving, I think, the most charitable interpretation of 

that view, but you might gather I disagree with it. There is an alternative which says this is a lousy regime, it is a horrible group 

of people. They do starve their own people, the North Korean regime. But in any case, a North Korean regime that has two bombs 

worth of plutonium and no tests is hugely better than one that has 

ten bombs and has conducted a test. As one of my colleagues likes 
44 

to say, challenge them to conduct their first tests with two bombs 

and then tell them that you can’t do that again. So two bombs and 

ten bombs in a test are two totally different worlds. 

What Bush inherited is a totally different threat than what he 

is leaving to his successor. So in the North Korean case, if one were 

prepared to live with a miserable regime, but nonetheless not to 

threaten regime change to the regime and one were able to persuade the Chinese to exercise leverage, because the only people 

that have really powerful leverage with the North Koreans are the 

Chinese, I would say that is our best hope for trying to get that 

rolled back. And at this stage, I would say it is not a very great 

hope. 

In the Iranian case, again what is it that the Supreme Ayatollah 

is most concerned about in Iran? It is the preservation of the regime. That is his responsibility. What is it that we say we want 

to do? Change the regime. Now, actually in the second term, as the 

negotiations developed a bit, we backed off of that somewhat. But 

I would say the combination of carrots and sticks for Iran would 

stop Iran short of a nuclear bomb, stop Iran short of highly enriched uranium. How much further can I get them back? Well, 

again it depends on how much I can give and how much I can 

threaten. But I think that hand is going to be extremely difficult. 

When they had zero centrifuges, it was plausible that you might 

stop them with zero centrifuges. When they had one cascade or 

two, it is possible that you might stop them with that. At this 

stage, I worry that even if they were to erase Natanz they already 

have the know-how. And what I worry about is the covert Natanz, 

not the one that exists. So I would say the Iranian case is quite 

difficult, but it would include, I believe if we are going to be successful, acknowledging that a regime that we don’t like, we are 

going to live with because a lousy Iranian regime with no bombs 

is terrible, but it is a lot better than that same regime with nuclear 

bombs. 

Mr. KRATOVIL. Mr. Chair, do I have any time remaining? 

Mr. TAYLOR. Forty seconds, sir. 

Mr. KRATOVIL. What country should we be most concerned about 

in terms of the bioterrorism threat? In other words, where are the 

safeguards that you suggest we need most lacking? What countries? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Pakistan would again be at the top of the list. But 

with the biological, it is becoming a very rapidly expanding set of 

countries. For instance, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil are all— 

Cuba—developing substantial biological capabilities. That is why 

our recommendation is that one of the immediate steps that the 

new Administration should take would be to convene a conference 

of exactly those countries as well as the more traditional first world 

countries with biological capability to start from the premise that 

we all are at risk. The world is at risk by this and that we share 

a common responsibility to try to take those steps that will begin 

to turn that line that Dr. Allison talks about on another trajectory. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Captain Massa. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Graham, it is a 

pleasure to be with you again after years of being apart. And I am 
45 

too honored that my first question in the hearing would be directed 

to yourself. These are relatively straightforward. So if you will bear 

with me. I understand from your testimony and is it in fact the position of the Commission that the threat of biological and chemical 

warfare attacks against the United States from rogue nations or individual terrorist is a higher threat than those of concentrated nuclear attack, am I understanding that correct? 

Mr. GRAHAM. A threat to the world, it is more likely that somewhere in the world a biological device will be used than it is—that 

it will be a nuclear device. 

Mr. MASSA. And both you and Senator Talent with literally decades of combined Senate experience have witnessed the expenditure of tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of dollars on an 

anti-ballistic missile nuclear defense shield that has come under 

several names from Star Wars to its current environs, both in fixed 

missile defense as we have in the Aleutian Islands, and as the 

Navy and Air Force’s versions for mobile. Would you agree that we 

have expended if not hundreds, at least tens of billions of dollars 

in that effort? 

Mr. GRAHAM. That is a statement of fact, yes. 

Mr. MASSA. So is there any situation that your Commission is 

aware of by which the current emphasis on strategic ballistic missile defense as it occurs today and we are spending money on today 

can address the potential imminent threat of chemical or biological 

terrorist attack as you have seen and studied in your six months 

of this Commission? Are the two matched up in any way at all that 

one could defend against the other? Specifically, for instance, anthrax. 

Mr. GRAHAM. The answer is I guess it is technically feasible that 

a missile could have on its nose a biological weapon. 

Mr. MASSA. Is it probable in your opinion? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Is it—I would think that it would be unlikely that 

the biological weapon, which we think is the more likely to be delivered, would be delivered on a missile, beginning from the fact 

that the group that we are most concerned about are the terrorists 

and I think for them access to a reliable delivery system through 

a missile is highly unlikely. 

Mr. MASSA. In that the power of this body is publicly seen as 

being a largely controlled national treasury, the power of the purse, 

we are in command of nothing except a small portion of the authority of the budget, do you believe it is appropriate that as a body 

we examine or reexamine the national allocation of funds to the 

strategic missile defensive initiatives to more accurately match the 

threats that you have described here today? 

Mr. GRAHAM. As I said to an earlier question, I think that we 

need to have at some point in the Federal Government, Congress 

or the executive branch, a capability of looking at our threats, assessing what it is going to take to mitigate or eliminate those 

threats, and then allocating resources against some sense of 

prioritization, putting the most effort on those that are the most 

likely. 

Mr. MASSA. Dr. Allison, you embody quite literally decades of experience on this subject. We are going to be spending tens of billions of dollars during my two-year term here on strategic missile 
46 

defense. Do you believe that money could be better spent in protecting us from the biological threats that you have discussed here 

today? 

Dr. ALLISON. I believe that both nuclear terrorist threats and biological terrorist threats are greater threats to America than is the 

delivery of a warhead by a missile against Americans. So in the hierarchy of threats I have no question in my mind that terrorist attacks not using missiles are a greater threat than missile attacks. 

There is a second question, which is how much money should we 

spend on defense altogether, and I tend to be mostly conservative. 

So I pretty much want to cover all the bets. But in terms of priorities I would focus on the greater threats to us, and I think under 

the current situation in which we spend, I think the current missile defense budget is nine or ten billion dollars on missile defense 

annually and we spend a small percentage of that on higher ranking threats doesn’t make sense. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance 

of my time. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman. The Chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt. And 

again I want to thank you, gentlemen. We are going to wrap it up 

after Mr. Spratt’s questions. 

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much for your excellent testimony. 

I got here late, but I heard the gist of it all, and I have been doing 

my homework sitting here as you testify. And I think you have 

made an enormous contribution. You are asking for your charter to 

be renewed and extended. If you did that, would you use it to focus 

on biological threats or to more fully focus on the traditional concerns we have had over nuclear weapons and radiological dirty 

bombs and things of that nature? Is there any particular purpose 

you have in mind for the extended term, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. GRAHAM. I appreciate your asking that question, Congressman Spratt. We would—our goal, if we are asked to extend beyond 

submitting the report, is going to be educational. We believe the 

American public needs to understand the implications of what we 

think the risk assessments are and the need to urgently move to 

the steps that we have outlined to reduce that risk. So our principal activities would be things like we are doing today, responding 

to requests by individuals and committees of the Congress on this 

issue. We also have and will do briefings of the appropriate new 

executive officials who will have responsibility on this matter, and 

we will respond to requests from universities and other groups who 

would like to learn more. We think that last point is particularly 

important in light of what Senator Talent has emphasized, and 

that is the importance of developing within the scientific and academic community this culture of security for biological materials 

that is inadequate today. 

Mr. TALENT. Could I add one word, Congressman, to that? I 

agree with everything that Senator Graham said. And we would do 

all of this with respect to the broad range of recommendations in 

the report. We tend to emphasize biological because one of our 

goals is to raise the visibility in that area because we think it 

hasn’t been visible enough. 
47 

Mr. SPRATT. When you say to raise it, the level of education, are 

we talking about awareness, too, on the part of those who are able 

to synthesize DNA and constitute a real threat of unknown 

genomics? Is that part of your purpose, too, to go to try to begin 

some process for self-restraint on their part? 

Mr. GRAHAM. The answer is yes. And we wouldn’t be doing this 

alone. As an example there are now some 20 research universities 

which have come together to encourage this greater sense of common purpose in the use of particularly biological materials. It is 

being chaired by the President of Pennsylvania State University, 

Graham Spangler. And we would work with groups like that in 

supporting their efforts, as well as groups similarly who are involved in other aspects of our effort. 

The book that we have published that I believe you have, whatever royalties come from that book are going to go to an American 

foundation which is working with the education and health care 

systems in Pakistan. We think that is the kind of thing that we 

would like to be able to continue to support. 

Mr. SPRATT. We have had a program in the past that has had 

different names and different shorter names as well as acronyms. 

But it is a city-to-city—nuclear cities program, IPP, International 

Police. And I have forgotten what that even stands for. But it is 

all about engaging scientists from the nuclear, as well as the biological realm, keeping them constructively engaged instead of allowing them to take their talents elsewhere and pedaling them to 

the highest bidder, including some people who are up to no good. 

Is this programs still working? It has been criticized in the past 

because the labs were taking a substantial share off the top in 

order to administer the program. A lot of people question whether 

or not it was achieving its intended purpose. Do you think it still 

has a role to play? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Let me just answer that in one context and that 

is Russia, where there was great concern when the Soviet Union 

collapsed that there would be thousands of scientists from its large 

nuclear industry that would drift off into the hands of bad people. 

When we were in Russia in September, we asked about that question and they—and our effort, which was to provide alternative employment for those scientists. They said in the nuclear area they 

thought it had been highly successful. And frankly now that Russia 

was recovering and has more economic capability of its own, our 

program is beginning to retreat with victory. There has not been 

a similar effort on the biological side, and that would be an area 

that we would hope to encourage. Because we think that the way 

that terrorists are likely to become biologically capable is not when 

the terrorists becomes a biologist, but when the biologist becomes 

a terrorist and brings their expertise to the table of destruction. 

Mr. SPRATT. We went to Vektar together some years ago. You 

have probably been so many times you have forgotten that particular trip. I remember looking over the shoulder of one of the biologists there in the lab and he was working on a project and he 

was connected by the Internet with Chapel Hill doing the same 

sort of work in sponsoring that particular program. 

Time is just about up. Let me ask you two last questions. In raising the level of awareness to the—— 
48 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Spratt, if I may. We have three votes on the 

House floor. I am going to yield the chair to you and you can stay 

here as long as you want. But I am going to go try to make those 

votes. Okay? 

Mr. SPRATT. Hit the road. 

Mr. TAYLOR. I want to thank you, gentlemen, for a very, very 

strong and sobering report. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Mr. Chairman, before you yield, would you yield 

to me? And we are going to see what devastation Mr. Spratt can 

create by himself. But I want to add my words and I am sure there 

will be none. Great appreciation to you and your fellow commissioners, particularly to our two former congressional colleagues. I 

hope we can have the opportunity, particularly in the classified setting, to submit some questions that in my mind arose during the 

discussion. 

And in an editorial comment in closing, I would say when we are 

talking about ballistic missile defense (BMD) or the likelihood of 

chemical versus biological, I will agree with Dr. Allison—he didn’t 

put it in these words—but we better learn very quickly how to 

walk and chew gum because we have got to be prepared to meet 

all those level of threats. And your report has helped us to focus 

on that and I commend and thank you for it. With that, I would 

yield to the acting chairman, the acting gentleman from South 

Carolina, Mr. Spratt. 

Mr. SPRATT. [Presiding.] Two quick questions. In raising the level 

of attention to the biological threat which has tended to be backburnered in the past, I don’t think you mean to leave the interpretation that we can let up our efforts in the nuclear area in particular. 

Dr. ALLISON. Agreed. 

Mr. SPRATT. That is an affirmative nod on the part of the two 

of you, I take it. 

Mr. TALENT. We agree, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SPRATT. And secondly, we have spent about the same 

amount of money on all of these programs, even though the content 

of what we have been spending it for has changed from year to 

year. About $400 million for Nunn-Lugar, altogether the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) is about two billion dollars. Do you 

think this is adequate particularly in light of your new found concern for biological weapons? Are we spending enough here to—— 

Mr. GRAHAM. In my assessment, the answer is no. And two 

areas—I will not repeat the biological, but I will return to an earlier question. We have been underfunding our key international 

agency on the nuclear side, and that is the International Atomic 

Energy Agency, and have been providing much of the funding in 

a very unstable set of small project funding. We need to reevaluate 

what we are—what we want the IAEA to be able to do for our benefit and what the resources are going to be required to do that. And 

then we need to lead the international community to provide those 

resources. 

Dr. ALLISON. If I could briefly. I agree that the answer is no. I 

think—if I could recommend, I would say President Obama in the 

campaign said that he was going to develop a plan over the first 

four years of his Administration to assure that on the nuclear front 
49 

all weapons and all material everywhere in the world was locked 

down to a satisfactory standard. I would suggest you might challenge the Administration to come forth with that plan and a strategy for accomplishing it and saying money is not the constraint, 

tell us what money you need for those purposes. I don’t think it is 

a lot more money, but I think it is somewhat more money. And I 

think, secondly, the flexibility to use the money in particular ways 

they should be challenged to say if there is some constraint that 

Congress is now putting on the spending of the money that is preventing you from accomplishing that objective, come back and tell 

us about that. 

Mr. SPRATT. We will be in further touch with you. Thank you 

very much for your good work and for your excellent testimony 

today. We greatly appreciate it. 

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Congressman. And on 

behalf of the three of us and the other members of the Commission, 

we express our deep gratitude for the opportunity to present this 

report to such an important committee of the Congress. 

[Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

JANUARY 22, 2009 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JANUARY 22, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

JANUARY 22, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FORBES 

Mr. FORBES. Clearly, obtaining a nuclear weapon is very difficult but biological 

weapons are more readily available and require a different and lesser technological 

skill set and more readily available materials. Based on your studies, what is a possible scenario and how can we undertake a proactive stance today that would prevent this event? 

Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. TALENT, and Dr. ALLISON. Our commissioners unanimously concluded that unless we act urgently and decisively, it was more likely than not that 

terrorists would use a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world by the 

end 2013. We also concluded that terrorists are more likely to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon. On December 2, 2008, the Director of National Intelligence publicly agreed with this assessment. 

Possible bioterrorism scenarios range from a domestic lone-wolf contaminating a 

salad bar in a fast-food restaurant, to small- and large-scale bioattacks by non-state 

actors, and bioattacks on a catastrophic scale by a nation-state. 

Preventing nuclear terrorism is simple in concept: keep terrorists from obtaining 

highly enriched uranium or plutonium. If they don’t have these materials, they will 

not be able to build a nuclear weapon. 

The classic nuclear nonproliferation model—locating, locking down and eliminating loose nuclear materials—is not applicable to the bio threat. This is true for 

several reasons. First, highly enriched uranium and plutonium do not exist in nature, while virtually all of the potential bioterrorism pathogens are found across the 

globe. Second, the engineering skills necessary to build a nuclear weapon are highly 

specialized. The skills needed to produce a bioweapon, on the other hand, are today 

possessed by graduate students. Lab technicians isolate anthrax, plague, tularemia 

and other deadly pathogens every day as they treat patients or conduct research in 

human and veterinary medicine. And every crop-dusting farmer knows the process 

to spray live biological materials. Third, the equipment needed to produce large 

quantities of weapons-grade pathogens can be purchased on the Internet for little 

more than what you would pay for a used minivan. Thus, the pathogens in question 

cannot be contained, the equipment needed to produce them is readily available, 

and their application is common knowledge. The false notion that bioweapons can 

be contained through the same policies as nuclear weapons must be discarded. 

Unfortunately, the only thing that nuclear weapons and bioweapons do have in 

common is that the potential lethality from a properly executed biological attack 

could rival or exceed that of a nuclear weapon. 

Fortunately, there are proactive steps that the nation can take against a biological 

attack. These actions include continued support and investment in international 

treaties such as the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), support for U.N. Resolution 1540, and common-sense security measures for U.S. labs. 

U.S. leadership at the upcoming 2011 Review Conference of the BWC is essential. 

The 1972 BWC outlaws biological weapons, bars parties from providing assistance 

to anyone seeking them, and obligates governments to take any necessary measures 

to prevent anyone on their territory from obtaining biological weapons. To be clear, 

the Commission believes that the U.S. decision to withdraw from the 2001 BWC 

Protocol negotiations was sound. However, opposition to the Protocol is not a firm 

basis for U.S. policy. We must lead by promoting a new approach for strengthening 

national implementation of the BWC. One clear way to convey the importance that 

the U.S. places on halting proliferation would be for the Obama Administration to 

send a high-level official to address the Conference. 

Between now and 2011, the United States should work with its allies to promote 

measures that would ensure more effective national implementation of the BWC. 

The ability of the U.S. to exercise maximum influence to enhance the global effort 

to avoid the proliferation of biological weapons would be significantly advanced if 

Congress were to adopt the recommendations of the Commission. This action would 

position the U.S. as having the gold standard for national security of biological 

weapons or materials. 

These steps are essential, but their adoption and adherence will not stop a determined adversary. 
74 

Given the accessibility of the pathogens in question, and the skills and equipment 

needed to produce them, everyone must understand that there are clear limits to 

what can be done to prevent an attack. In order to deter such an attack, or severely 

limit its lethality, the United States must develop the capabilities to (1) rapidly recognize a pathogen or biological weapon, (2) treat the population before illness sets 

in, and (3) be able to vaccinate those who could be exposed in the future. In short, 

we must develop the capability to prevent a highly lethal pandemic, or a bio attack 

from becoming a bio-Katrina and causing mass casualties. Our ability to develop 

these capabilities is not a matter of speculation, it is a question of our nation’s budgetary priorities. 

As stated in our attached article, ‘‘Bioterrorism: Redefining Prevention,’’ we expanded the use of the word prevention when referring to the bio threat. We must 

pursue all traditional forms of prevention, but America must also he prepared to 

prevent a bioattack from becoming a biocatastrophe. This is why we strongly support investments in programs that will improve capabilities for rapid recognition, 

rapid response and rapid recovery. There is no higher priority than properly funding 

the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) at the Department of Health and Human Services. America must have the capability to 

produce vaccines and therapeutics rapidly and inexpensively. 

Developing these capabilities will require significant logistical and technological 

advancements. However, within these enormous challenges lies an opportunity for 

no-regret investments in our national security, economic growth, and technological 

dominance. The United States has an opportunity to lead the world by innovating 

how vaccines and medicines are made, so that they can be made more rapidly and 

less expensively. Improving the infrastructure to respond to a public health crisis 

(whether an attack or a natural event) is an opportunity to improve U.S. national 

security and for global American leadership, technical innovation, and economic 

stimulus. 

Mr. FORBES. The Commission did a good job with regards to Iran, Russia and 

North Korea in terms of state-sponsored WMD. What are your perceptions regarding China and its role in the proliferation of nuclear weapon technology and capability, particularly with respect to non-state entities and countries that we would 

not consider allies? 

Dr. ALLISON. As the emerging superpower and, potentially, a future target, China 

has an opportunity and vital interest to lead in preventing nuclear terrorism and 

proliferation. As has been repeatedly demonstrated over the last several years, 

China is the only party that could plausibly orchestrate the complete, verifiable 

elimination of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Further, due to its long history of relations with Islamabad, China has an important role to play in the Pakistani case as 

well. 

Rather than seeing China as a competitor or spoiler, in an effort to bolster the 

nonproliferation regime and enhance nuclear security globally, we should enlist it 

as a leading partner in President Obama’s ambitious nuclear security agenda. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON 

Mr. WILSON. Given the information presented in the report, should entities sharing select agents and toxins such as botulinum toxin with Iran and Iranian universities, and collaborating with scientists in Iran on the handling and manipulation 

of toxin[sl, reconsider those relationships? Furthermore, should the U.S. be doing 

more to ensure that entities that have these relationships are not incentivized to 

continue and/or expand these relationships? 

Mr. TALENT. The current regulatory scheme in the U.S. regarding Iran is extensive, and precludes legally sharing select agents and toxins such as botulinum toxin 

to Iranian universities without extensive oversight and licensing from the U.S. government. 

Domestically, aliens from Iran are prohibited from possessing select agents, of 

which botulinum is one. Within the U.S., select agents are regulated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Agriculture 

(USDA). The possession and transfer of the toxin is restricted to those people who 

have (1) received a Security Risk Assessment (SRA), which entails a background 

check performed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), and (2) are working in a facility that is cleared for select agents and has been inspected by either HHS or USDA. 

According to the USA PATRIOT Act (2001), aliens from Iran, and other countries 

determined by the Department of State to have provided support for international 

terrorism, are considered to be restricted persons and are prohibited from possession 
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of select agents. For export of select agents such as botulinum toxin, the regulatory 

regime is likewise extensive: 

• According to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), U.S. persons generally may not enter into any transactions, including exports of goods 

or services, to Cuba, Iran, and Sudan or to foreign nationals from those countries. 

• Articles of military significance, of which botulinum toxin would be considered, 

are subject to export controls that are part of the State Department’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). ITAR-controlled items and services 

may not be exported from the U.S. without a license from the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. 

• U.S. companies may not engage in export transactions involving persons whose 

export privileges have been revoked or suspended, or with entities known to 

have ties to embargoed countries, terrorist organizations, or international narcotics traffickers. There are lists maintained by Treasury and State for this determination. 

• Export control regulations prohibit exports of any items when the exporter 

knows that the items will be used in connection with the proliferation of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. 

Again, the current export regulatory scheme in the U.S. precludes the legal transfer to Iranian universities without extensive oversight. The process does not appear 

to be currently incentivized in the slightest. 

Mr. WILSON. The [Commission] report states that ‘‘to counter the threat of Biological Weapons proliferation and terrorism will require concerted action across a continuum that extends from prevention to consequence management.’’ Does prevention 

include limiting companies which may be involved in the proliferation of Weapons 

of Mass Destruction from having full access to United States markets? 

Mr. TALENT. Detecting companies transferring WMD technology is usually a function of good intelligence and law enforcement work. There are a host of U.S. statutes governing the export of U.S. technology, especially pertaining to weapons of 

mass destruction, and it has long been the policy of the United States to encourage 

other states to enact and enforce strong export control laws. 

In April 2004, the U.N. Security Council adopted United Nations Security Council 

Resolution 1540, establishing for the first time binding obligations on all U.N. member states under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter to take and enforce effective measures against the proliferation of WMD, their means of delivery, and related materials. UNSCR 1540, if fully implemented, can help ensure that no State or non-State 

actor is a source or beneficiary of WMD proliferation. All states have three primary 

obligations under UNSCR 1540 relating to such items: to prohibit support to nonState actors seeking such items; to adopt and enforce effective laws prohibiting the 

proliferation of such items to non-State actors, and prohibiting assisting or financing 

such proliferation; and to take and enforce effective measures to control these items, 

in order to prevent their proliferation, as well as to control the provision of funds 

and services that contribute to proliferation. 

If implemented successfully, each state’s actions will significantly strengthen the 

international standards relating to the export of sensitive items and support for 

proliferators (including financing) and ensure that non-state actors, including terrorist and black-market networks, do not gain access to chemical, nuclear or biological weapons, their means of delivery or related materials. The Commission discussed Resolution 1540 and endorsed adherence via international initiatives like the 

Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. SHEA-PORTER 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. In 2005, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a report called ‘‘Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public 

Report.’’ This report concluded, ‘‘Spent nuclear fuel stored in pools at some of the 

nation’s 103 operating commercial nuclear reactors may be at risk from terrorist attacks.’’ Among the NAS findings (Finding 2A), 

‘‘Terrorists view nuclear power plant facilities as desirable targets because 

of the large inventories of radionuclides they contain. The committee believes that knowledgeable terrorists might choose to attack spent fuel pools 

because (1) at U.S. commercial power plants, these pools are less well protected structurally than reactor cores; and (2) they typically contain inventories of medium- and long-lived radionuclides that are several times greater than those contained in individual reactor cores.’’ 
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They noted the 9/11 Commission’s finding (in Staff Statement No. 16, Outline of 

the 9/11 Plot, pages 12–13) that Al Qaeda had originally targeted nuclear plants, 

an indication that ‘commercial nuclear plants are of interest to terrorist groups.’ 

The NAS committee considered many terrorist scenarios and found that spent fuel 

containment pools were vulnerable to attack. It found that government had not considered the risk presented by a plane flown at high speed and deliberately crashed 

into a commercial nuclear plant’s spent fuel containment pool, which could set off 

fires and release large amounts of radiation. 

According to CRS, spent nuclear fuel is moved from pool storage to dry storage 

as needed to make room for newly discharged spent fuel from reactors. So there isn’t 

much net reduction in pool storage (except in the case of decommissioned reactors, 

where all the spent fuel is put into dry storage so the pools can be closed). In the 

four years since the NAS report, the U.S. has not made progress in converting to 

a safer method of storage. 

My corner of New England has one of these vulnerable nuclear plants. About 1.35 

million people in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts live within 30 miles 

of Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant (located in the Seacoast region of New 

Hampshire), and 3.8 million live within 40 miles in the Greater Boston area. An 

attack could be catastrophic, as a fire in the containment pool would lead to an explosion that could take out most of New England and the Canadian Maritimes, depending on the winds, for centuries. 

Have you considered this particular type of nuclear threat? Please elaborate. 

What recommendations do you have to deal with this kind of terrorist threat? 

Dr. ALLISON. I share your concern and I address that very threat in my book, Nuclear Terrorism (pg. 53–56). To address this vulnerability in a sustainable way, Congress must work to separate politics from science in our deliberations about Yucca 

Mountain as a permanent disposal site of nuclear waste. 

Æ