Military

Statement of Charles B. Curtis

President of the Nuclear Threat Initiative

Before the

House International Relations Committee

July 25, 2002

            Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, it is a privilege to speak with you today about a matter of great importance to U.S. national security—the need for urgent measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. I appear before you as the president of a charitable foundation known as NTI—the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Former Senator Sam Nunn joined Ted Turner last year to create NTI for the purpose of reducing the global dangers arising from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. NTI’s board of directors consists of highly regarded security experts from around the globe under the co-chairmanship of Sam Nunn and Ted Turner.   I am proud to represent my fellow NTI board members at this important hearing.      

NTI is built upon the premise that there exists a gap between the threats posed by weapons of mass destruction and efforts aimed at reducing these threats.   The search for new and creative approaches aimed at closing this gap is what drives NTI’s work in this field. We have developed considerable programmatic activity in Russia and the former Soviet Union due to the recognition that this region is crucial in efforts to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction outright or the materials to make them.  

Mr. Chairman, in your letter inviting me to testify today, you asked me to address the utility of proposals to use Russia’s Soviet-era debt to fund strengthened nonproliferation programs in Russia. From the very outset of my testimony, I want to associate myself and NTI with the findings put forth in the Russian Federation Debt Reduction for Nonproliferation Act as part of S. 1803 and mirrored in H.R. 3836.   The findings and purposes state the case for this legislation in cogent and compelling terms. Following in the tradition of the Nunn-Lugar program, S. 1803 enjoys a broad base of bipartisan support beginning with the bill’s co-authors: Senators Biden and Lugar. It passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously with the strong endorsement of Senator Helms.   In a similar spirit of bipartisanship, Representatives McHugh and Schiff joined Representative Tauscher in introducing H.R. 3836 on March 4^th of this year.  

The disaster that our nation suffered on September 11 convincingly demonstrates that the capacity of terrorist groups to inflict death and destruction is limited only by the power of their weapons. The United States has a vital interest in working with other nations to secure and reduce weapons of mass destruction and their constituent materials around the globe. As the debt-swap legislation’s findings make clear, much of that work—which is urgent in nature—must be accomplished in Russia. Tasks include eliminating chemical weapons, destroying or converting bio-weapons facilities, creating peaceful employment opportunities for weapons scientists, securing nuclear weapons and materials, and rendering nuclear or radiological materials useless to terrorists who are seeking so desperately to acquire them.  

The burden presented by these tasks is too great for the United States to tackle alone; we need assistance from our Allies. Russia’s long road to economic recovery coupled with its heavy debt-repayment obligations suggest that we are several years away—at best—from Russia assuming full responsibility for securing its own weapons and materials, yet that must clearly be the end point of our efforts. Because our friends in Europe hold significant amounts of Russian debt, a debt-swap mechanism as envisioned by this legislation presents a promising and creative supplemental avenue to explore in generating additional funding streams to help reduce Russia’s proliferation vulnerabilities.   Converting Russian debt into increased funding for nonproliferation efforts inside Russia would make a vital contribution to global security. 

            You also asked me to assess the prospects for ensuring sufficient cooperation and participation by the Russian government in a debt-reduction-for-nonproliferation system.   Here I would point to the truly remarkable breakthrough achieved at the most recent G-8 summit in Canada. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the world’s leading economies and Russia went on record as recognizing the profound dangers we face around the world in the form of terrorists’ determination to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, the G-8 has now pledged considerable resources—$20 billion over the next ten years—to keep the world’s most dangerous groups from acquiring the world’s most devastating weapons. We should take note of the fact that Russia emerged from this summit as a full partner in the newly announced G-8 Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. In so doing, Russia has pledged to abide by a series of stringent guidelines that are designed to promote transparency and access to facilities involved in threat reduction projects. The guidelines crafted by the G-8, which are attached to my written statement, require that Russia take steps to ensure that assistance provided will be exempt from taxation and accept the need to have clearly defined milestones for each project with the option of terminating a project if the milestones are not met. Russia—along with the rest of the G-8—also agreed to assure appropriate privileges and immunities for donor government representatives and contractors working on cooperation projects.   Those of us with years of experience in overseeing cooperative threat reduction projects in Russia know how important it is to deal up front with these delicate, but essential issues in order to implement sustainable project activities in Russia.  

President Bush and his Administration could use the legislation before you as a lever—a perhaps vital tool—to ensure that the G-8 meets its recently announced commitment to spend $20 billion over the next decade to secure vulnerable weapons and weapon materials in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere around the world. G-8 leaders specifically mention bilateral debt-for-program exchanges as a possible mechanism to use in meeting this pledge. While some member states may wish to make direct appropriations to support the G-8’s Global Partnership, debt swap could play a key role in making sure that there is a sharing of the burden in meeting the global threats we face together in the form of catastrophic terrorism. 

There is another element to consider in addressing the prospects of sufficient cooperation and participation by Russia in the G-8 Partnership. Converting Russian debt into increased resources for eliminating proliferation vulnerabilities should lead to greater Russian involvement in securing its own weapons and materials.   This enhanced involvement is appropriate, necessary and essential to accelerate ongoing projects.       

            In 2001, NTI commissioned a study—conducted by specialists at Battelle—to address in detail the concept of a Russian debt-for-nonproliferation swap.   This study, which we are making available to your committee, concludes that debt reduction for nonproliferation is both useful from a burden-sharing perspective and practical from an implementation standpoint.   As the committee would expect, the development and implementation of a workable debt-swap mechanism will be complicated—but we think doable.   I understand the committee’s desire to know the details of how debt reduction would work in practice. However, I strongly urge the members to give the Administration—under your authority—the opportunity to develop the operational details of how debt reduction would be implemented. President Bush has a good team in place at the Treasury and State Departments—a team that can work in tandem to turn this concept into a successful policy initiative. To successfully engage Europe and others, however, the United States must lead in developing a working model. In this regard, the $300 million this legislation would authorize for debt reduction represents a suitable amount for use in demonstrating the basic elements of a debt-swap mechanism.     

After reading the G-8 announcement launching the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, I can see that the Administration is aware of the complications and is prepared to deal adequately with them.   In addition, the Battelle report, which I mentioned earlier, provides several useful precedents to guide this work.   We at NTI have given this matter a fair amount of thought and we and our consultants would be pleased to explore the underlying issues with the committee and its staff. We have already offered our services to the Administration and have met with financial experts in this country and abroad to explore the essential contours and conditions of a workable program.  

            Let me, in anticipation of your questions, outline briefly the scope of what may be an acceptable and workable mechanism in the form of a few basic operating principles. You might have your own list, but let me offer five at this time.   One, debt agreements and conversion framework agreements should clearly define fund governance and asset protection measures.   The agreements must also establish transparent systems of program and project management. And the fund must be fully auditable according to strict requirements that have been refined over ten years of experience in monitoring U.S.-Russian cooperative threat reduction activities. Two, there should be a mixed board of directors—with members from donor countries as well as Russia—to govern and oversee project selection and implementation criteria. Three, donors should be able to direct their contributions to specific classes of projects, for example: submarine elimination or weapons and materials security.   Four, there should be a debt-reinstatement provision that could be used for insurance in the event—for whatever reason—that Russia did not fulfill the terms spelled out in the implementing agreements.   And five, projects should be executed through contracts with qualified and experienced Western and Russian contractors.     This last principle is essential for fund administration in terms of having sufficient assurances that monies will only be expended for work performed and in accordance with suitable, mutually accepted milestones.   I would, of course, be pleased to entertain your questions on this framework in the course of this proceeding or at some later date.    

President Bush said it best last November when he declared that America’s number one national security priority was to prevent terrorists and those who support them from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.   It was not a coincidence that he made this statement with President Putin of Russia at his side. Russia is our natural partner in this struggle. But it will take a global coalition—with joint leadership from the United States and Russia—for us to prevail. Senator Richard Lugar—who is also a member of NTI’s board of directors—and former Senator Sam Nunn called for the creation of a Global Coalition Against Catastrophic Terrorism at a conference of Russian and American legislators, officials and experts on these matters held in Moscow this past May.   The goal of such a coalition would be to extend the global effort to combat terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks by preventing the quantum leap in destructive potential that would result if terrorists got access to weapons of mass destruction.     

In closing I would like to leave you with the following thoughts.   We know that terrorist groups have been actively seeking weapons of mass destruction. We also know that Russia is home to vast stores of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as people and materials that can produce them.   And we know that we are a long way from adequately securing, consolidating and reducing these weapons and materials.   What we do not know is how much time we have to work in cooperation with Russia before the next act of terrorism takes place—an act that might very well involve a nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological weapon. 

Today, we find ourselves in a new arms race—one that is unprecedented to our established way of thinking. We are racing to secure and reduce the weapons and materials that Russia inherited from the Soviet Union’s vast arsenal at the same time that well financed terrorists with a fanatical hatred of the United States are racing to obtain them. The hardest step for groups to take in committing acts of catastrophic terrorism is to acquire the weapon or material to construct a weapon. Fortunately, this step is the easiest for us to prevent, at least in the case of nuclear and chemical weapons. But once weapons or their means are acquired, each subsequent step in the path toward catastrophic terrorism becomes easier for them and more difficult for us to block.   U.S. homeland security, therefore, begins in the former Soviet Union and must extend throughout the globe wherever weapons and weapons materials reside.   We need to bring more resources to bear in meeting this security imperative. It is worth giving the Bush Administration a tool such as this legislation to help generate the resources necessary to address this critical task.    

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am prepared to answer your questions.