The danger of somebody getting hold of that raw material is large, especially since so many nations know, in theory, how to make a bomb, but only a few have the raw ingredients. The public policy reason for all this has remarkable support, especially from military types. The list of those who seek continuation is not one of Greenpeace lefties. It's too early to know whether there will be Defense Department cuts. Proposed slicing comes as the National Security Council oversees a reassessment of all Defense, Energy and State Department programs that flow from the initial Nunn-Lugar legislation of 1992.
Nobody doubts that there's been some poor management and waste.
But one of the concerns of key legislators is that the Bush administration, unhappy with Russia for political and diplomatic reasons, would use the reassessments to justify budget cuts when, in fact, sharp increases are warranted. It's why, Domenici revealed to me, he beckoned National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to his office last week to discuss all this. Rice, a Russia specialist and former provost at Stanford University, may prove to be the underestimated star of the Bush White House. Conventional wisdom was that the first African-American woman in the position would get rolled by heavyweights Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Don't bet on it, given the huge trust held in her by Bush.