Upon its breakup in 1991, the Soviet Union bequeathed a vast array of weapons of mass destruction to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan. This legacy included about 30,000 nuclear weapons, 2,500 strategic nuclear delivery systems, and at least 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons. In 1991, Congress authorized DOD to establish a CTR program to help these states (1) destroy weapons of mass destruction, (2) store and transport the weapons in connection with their destruction, and (3) reduce the risk of proliferation. Congress has provided about $1.5 billion in fiscal years 1992-96 to address CTR objectives. As shown in figure 1, DOD has allocated nearly three-quarters of these funds to delivery vehicle and infrastructure dismantlement and destruction and to improving nuclear material controls. It has allocated the remainder to demilitarizing defense activities, destroying chemical weapons, and other efforts. CTR program officials have significantly increased obligations in recent years. As of August 5, 1996, the program had obligated over $1 billion and disbursed $571 million (see app. I for a breakdown of CTR funding notifications, obligations, and disbursements). The CTR program generally procures goods and services for CTR recipient countries instead of providing funds directly to them. In 1994 we reported that the program’s projects could have widely varying effects and that DOD had not estimated total requirements for achieving program objectives. We recommended that the Secretary of Defense institute a long-term planning process to help allocate CTR funds among competing demands. Congress subsequently required DOD to submit a multiyear CTR plan and cost estimate with its annual budget. DOD submitted the first version of this plan to Congress in 1995. The second plan, now in draft, is for 1996. The CTR program office used the results of a new and improved bottom-up planning process in drafting the 1996 multiyear plan. The new process requires CTR officials to develop a separate, detailed project plan for each CTR project. The individual project plans use a standardized format that depicts each project’s long-term funding profile, objectives, acquisition strategy, schedule, measures of effectiveness, and cost estimate basis. The CTR program office used the project plans, which are updated semi-annually, as the basis of its overall plan. In contrast to the previous CTR multiyear plan, the December 1995 draft contained more detailed data concerning several CTR projects and was sometimes more candid in its description of the challenges facing CTR projects than the preceding plan. The draft plan also detailed, for the first time, the program’s measures for assessing the effectiveness of CTR efforts. In its description of these measures, the plan noted that the program lacks the data and tools needed to independently assess the effectiveness of CTR chemical weapons and nuclear safety projects in achieving CTR objectives of reducing the threat from weapons of mass destruction. It indicated that such projects would instead be assessed in terms of their achievement of project milestones. The plan also indicated that the success of delivery vehicle destruction projects will be evaluated by determining the NIS countries’ progress in meeting Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) drawdown schedules. In doing so, the plan noted that the program will only be able to link such progress to specific CTR projects by using recipient-country statements—rather than on any available quantifiable data. Despite these improvements over the prior multiyear plan, the December 1995 draft plan had some deficiencies. We found that it did not always fully depict known project uncertainties nor did it reveal the wide variations in certainty of the project cost estimates embedded in its depictions of program cost. For example, the draft plan did not distinguish between cost estimates based on contracts that had already been awarded or completed and estimates based on little or no design data. The draft plan also did not (1) indicate whether officials had omitted risk and contingencies from cost estimates or (2) fully identify and explain significant changes in the depiction of projects included in the previous plan. Section 1205 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995 (P.L. 103-337, Oct. 5, 1994 ) directs the Secretary of Defense to submit an annual report on DOD’s plans and funding for the CTR program with the President’s budget submission. This requirement for a multiyear CTR plan was intended to provide Congress with greater visibility into DOD’s long-term CTR strategy and the resources needed to implement that strategy. DOD failed to comply with this requirement in 1996. Although the CTR program office completed its draft in December 1995, DOD did not complete action on the plan in time to submit it with the President budget’s submission in April 1996. According to DOD officials, DOD failed to issue the plan primarily because the CTR program office could not quickly revise the draft plan to make it fully consistent with the President’s budget submission for fiscal year 1997. Such revisions were called for because the plan’s 1996 spending assumptions had been rendered obsolete by the Fiscal Year 1996 National Defense Authorization Act—which was not enacted until February 1996. Officials in the DOD Comptroller’s office did not want to release the draft plan because it was not consistent with the President’s budget submission for 1997. After weeks of discussion, DOD officials agreed to add an explanatory addendum to the plan. However, as of September 4, 1996, neither the plan nor the addendum had been submitted to Congress. DOD officials told us in July 1996 that they hoped to submit the plan—without updating it—to Congress by the end of September 1996.Because DOD will not update the plan before releasing it, the plan will not reflect significant CTR-related developments that occurred during the first half of 1996, nor will it reflect current budgets. For example, the plan would not reflect the program’s reallocation of $60 million in fiscal year 1996 funds from Russian chemical weapons destruction to strategic delivery vehicle dismantlement work in Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan; progress made in early 1996 in defining CTR dismantlement projects in Russia; and the U.S. response to Russian requests in March and June 1996 for help in upgrading as many as 50 nuclear weapons storage sites. DOD officials informed us that the time-consuming process of updating the plan to reflect such changes would further delay the plan’s release to Congress. They said the changes would be reflected in next year’s multiyear plan. Since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the safety and security of FSU nuclear weapons and their fissile components have been sources of concern for the United States. The CTR program is seeking to address these concerns by helping Russia construct a fissile material storage facility and control its nuclear weapons. The CTR program is supporting Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (MINATOM) efforts to design and construct a facility at Mayak that will store 50,000 containers of fissionable material from dismantled nuclear weapons. While Russia has not sought U.S. help in dismantling its nuclear weapons, it has asserted that it lacks storage space for fissile materials from dismantled weapons and asked for U.S. help in designing and constructing such a facility. A key MINATOM official told us in March 1996 that MINATOM needs space for about 100,000 containers of fissile materials. The design of the Mayak facility is nearly 2 years behind schedule, due to a unilateral Russian design concept change in 1994 that eliminated the relevance of about a third of the CTR program’s initial $15-million design project. However, in July 1996, with CTR support, Russian designers provided a one-third design document to CTR officials. DOD officials anticipate certifying that the Mayak design is one-third complete in September 1996. Despite some stoppages, Russian construction activity has proceeded over the past year with CTR-supplied materials. The CTR program recently hired a U.S. design and construction contractor to help coordinate CTR aid at the Mayak facility. If construction continues as currently anticipated, the facility could begin storing its first 25,000 containers in 1999 and be entirely completed in 2001. While the design and construction of the Mayak facility have progressed over this year, the United States and Russia have yet to finalize transparency arrangements for the facility. This lack of progress in obtaining Mayak transparency arrangements is due largely to the failure to date of talks on a broader range of reciprocal U.S.-Russian transparency measures to complete an agreement that would have included Mayak and other facilities. According to DOD, Mayak transparency should provide the United States with reasonable assurance that Russia is storing only materials from dismantled nuclear weapons and that these materials are not being reused for weapons. Russian officials appear to have agreed to Mayak transparency in principle. They have indicated that the facility will be transparent to the United States and stated that it will provide for “joint accountability and transparency measures permitting confirmation by the U.S.” In October 1994 Russian officials stated that they were prepared to pledge that Mayak would contain only materials from dismantled nuclear weapons and that these materials would not be reused for weapons. However, the United States and Russia have yet to conclude an agreement specifying exactly how Russia’s transparency pledges will be implemented at Mayak. According to executive branch officials, U.S. efforts to pursue such an agreement went into a hiatus when the U.S. and Russian governments launched the broader Safeguards, Transparency, and Irreversibility (STI) negotiations. STI would have addressed Russian concerns regarding reciprocity by establishing (1) reciprocal inspections to confirm each nation’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons, (2) data exchanges on nuclear warhead and fissile material stocks, and (3) cooperative arrangements to monitor excess warheads awaiting dismantlement. However, the STI talks ceased in late 1995.