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NUCLEAR TRAFFICKING

Thomas McNamara
Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
March 22, 1996

I am very pleased to address the subcommittee on an international security problem unique to the post-Cold War period. For nearly 50 years the danger of a nuclear conflagration centered primarily on the U.S.-Soviet confrontation. The main risk to humanity and to U.S. security was the possibility of a massive U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange generated either through fundamental conflict or accident. Historic shifts have dramatically reduced the risk of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers. Washington and Moscow have taken unprecedented arms control steps to reduce their nuclear stockpiles and to stabilize the nuclear balance between the U.S. and Russia. Today, neither side targets its weapons on the other; both the U.S. and Russia are dismantling nuclear weapons ahead of arms control schedules; we have ratified and hope Russia will soon ratify START II, the most ambitious nuclear arms control agreement in history, which will result in cuts in the nuclear stockpiles of the two countries by two-thirds.

However, nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons usable materials do not disappear when they have fulfilled their political purpose. They do not lose their destructive potential with the stroke of a pen at a diplomatic conference. Nor do the scientific knowledge and technical skill possessed by former nuclear weapons designers.

We have rendered excess thousands of nuclear weapons and hundreds of tons of weapons usable uranium and plutonium. A small quantity of plutonium -- roughly an amount the size of a softball -- is sufficient to destroy a city. And, the plutonium and uranium we have freed from nuclear weapons will last for thousands of years. It is thus imperative that we continue our efforts, in cooperation with Russia and other countries, to secure the nuclear materials, protect nuclear technology, and redirect weapons skills to peaceful pursuits.

The breakup of the Soviet empire radically changed the proliferation landscape. Three additional states emerged with nuclear weapons on their territories. The Soviet system for protecting and controlling nuclear materials, designed to work within a totalitarian police-state, went the way of the former Soviet Union. As the nations of the FSU face the transition to more democratic forms of government, they are confronted with the much more complex task of protecting nuclear materials within free societies. Finally, the combination of extreme economic dislocation and the emergence of organized crime that has afflicted the states of the former Soviet Union increased both the temptation and the potential means to divert nuclear material.

We recognized from the start that this problem cannot be attacked on only one front. We decided to attack this problem on several fronts, and to devise a layered defense against the threat. We have sought to control the sources of supply of nuclear materials as well as technology and items used in the production or use of special nuclear materials; to reduce demand; to ease the economic dislocations that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union; and to strengthen law enforcement and intelligence capabilities needed if the security of the materials is breached.

President Clinton and the secretary of state have made the question of nuclear materials and technology security one of our highest priorities. The president's first decision directive on nonproliferation focused on this critical subject. This high-profile concern was reflected again in the September 1995 presidential decision directive addressing nuclear materials security in the former Soviet Union. In his October, 1995 speech to the U.N. General Assembly the president reflected that a soda-can size lump of plutonium is enough to make a bomb and pledged that "building on efforts already underway with the states of the former Soviet Union and with our G-7 partners, we will seek to better account for, store, and safeguard materials with massive destructive power." The president's personal involvement will continue with his attendance in April at the Moscow nuclear summit hosted by President Yeltsin.

From the beginning, therefore, we have concentrated our efforts on securing nuclear weapons, nuclear materials, and requisite skills to design such weapons at their source. We have taken a number of concrete steps to reduce this uniquely post-cold war danger, including the following:

-- We succeeded in bringing Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan into the nonproliferation treaty as non-nuclear weapons states. Nuclear weapons have been removed from Kazakstan, and Ukraine and Belarus are on schedule to denuclearize by the end of 1996.

-- The U.S. is assisting these new nations in transporting their Soviet-era weapons to Russia, and is assisting Russia in their dismantlement and the secure storage of the resulting fissile material.

-- We continue our assistance to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan, other countries of the former Soviet Union, and countries of central Europe to improve their systems for the control, protection, and accounting of nuclear materials;

-- We are working with Russia, Ukraine, the European Community, Japan, and other nations to help prevent economic dislocation from causing the flight of Soviet nuclear weapon scientists to cash-rich rogue states by creating science and technology centers in Moscow and Kiev. These centers provide useful employment in peaceful scientific projects to weapons scientists from the former Soviet Union.

-- We have worked with other concerned governments to remove weapons grade material from possible diversion. In November, 1994, Project Sapphire transferred multiple bombs' worth of highly enriched uranium from Kazakstan.

-- In January of 1994, the U.S. and Russia concluded an agreement under which 500 tons of highly enriched uranium derived from dismantled nuclear weapons will be blended down into safer and more proliferation-resistant low enriched uranium and sold to the U.S. for use as fuel in civilian nuclear power reactors. This agreement is being implemented, shipments of uranium are arriving from Russia, and commercial payments for these deliveries are being made.

-- Through the Nunn-Lugar assistance program, we have helped Russia increase the security of nuclear weapons being returned from forward deployment for dismantlement and are cooperating to build a safe, secure storage facility for fissile material from dismantled weapons.

-- As part of our worldwide effort to reduce, and eventually to eliminate, the use of weapons usable highly-enriched uranium in civil nuclear programs, we have begun a bilateral program with Russia to develop low-enriched uranium fuels for use in Soviet-style research reactors.

-- We are reviewing with Russia ways in which we can bring to an end the production of weapons-grade plutonium in the three plutonium production reactors that still remain in operation;

-- We are actively working with Russia to identify options to convert excess plutonium into a form at least as proliferation-resistant as spent nuclear fuel;

-- We have assisted directly and through the International Atomic Energy Agency the efforts of successor states to the USSR in securing nuclear material and placing it under international inspection;

-- We have engaged in diplomacy at the highest levels to permit us to cooperate with Russia and other affected countries in combating smuggling;

-- And, to confirm these efforts, the president in September, 1995 issued a new presidential decision directive to organize even more comprehensive U.S. efforts to secure nuclear material.

We must face the fact, however, that these initiatives will take time to mature and be fully effective. As long as any nuclear material remains at risk, and the possible temptation to sell it remains, we must continue to refine our tools for fighting the threat of illicit trafficking.

The most visible symptom of this risk, of illicit transfers of nuclear material, are the reported cases of smuggling by individuals or small groups whose chief goal is monetary gain.

The administration and the congress recognized early on that nuclear smuggling constitutes a direct threat to our efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Trafficking in nuclear material bypasses key elements of the international regime to halt nuclear proliferation. The regime operates on the assumption that states can and will control sensitive materials. Nuclear trafficking on the other hand is largely the act of unauthorized individuals outside national control, who have found some gap in the nuclear material security systems of states.

National and international mechanisms to control proliferation assume that the single most important technical step in developing nuclear weapons is to acquire nuclear weapons usable material. Manufacture of this material requires the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars and years of sophisticated engineering. Smuggling of such material bypasses the time and the cost, and short circuits the principal technical barrier to nuclear proliferation.

We have no evidence that a transaction of this kind has yet occurred. Indeed, in the area of the security of nuclear weapons, we are confident that such a breakdown in security is less likely, but we are continuing our support for safe and secure transport and storage of nuclear weapons. However, we cannot afford to be complacent. We know nuclear weapons grade material is at risk. We know that there are covert networks to acquire sensitive technology for weapons of mass destruction. And we know that criminals have obtained at least small quantities of nuclear material in the past few years. The international community clearly sees this threat and is taking the steps necessary to forestall it.

Nuclear smuggling is not like other kinds of illegal trafficking. We cannot afford to have even a single case of successful smuggling of enough nuclear material for a weapon. We cannot realistically expect any strategy based only on law enforcement and interdiction to be 100 percent effective. Thus, anti-smuggling initiatives are necessarily only a...part of our response to the changing world situation.

Most of the early reported cases were transparent scams involving inert substances or radioactive materials without weapons applications. Nonetheless, despite the sensationalism surrounding these cases, we recognized the nature of the problem and the need to combat it on many fronts. Accordingly, we already have undertaken a number of steps to combat nuclear smuggling. These include:

-- organizing the executive branch so that the U.S. can respond quickly and in a coordinated fashion to any nuclear trafficking incident;

-- providing export control and customs enforcement assistance to affected states in Europe and Central Asia;

-- providing assistance to states and the International Atomic Energy Agency in analyzing seized material and in developing accurate sources of information on smuggling cases;

-- opening additional law enforcement cooperation with key states in Europe affected by smuggling spearheaded by FBI Director Freeh's efforts in Moscow,

-- supplying equipment, technology, and training to states in central Europe to permit them to detect nuclear trafficking on their territories, including a large scale training effort in Budapest in March 1995;

-- upgrading the ability of key countries to exchange law enforcement, intelligence and technical information;

-- hosting events such as the FBI-organized April 1999 meeting of international law enforcement officials from over 20 countries in Quantico, Virginia focusing on nuclear smuggling;

-- participating in a September, 1995 meeting in Germany of customs officials from some 30 countries who shared their experience and methods in the field of nuclear smuggling.

-- bringing together at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in November, 1995 international scientific and law enforcement experts to develop forensic methods for investigating incidents of diverted nuclear materials.

-- and, finally, reinforcing our export control assistance to countries of the Caucasus and central Asia at a November 1995 conference in Turkey.

We have not forgotten about the demand side of the equation. There will always be a risk of nuclear smuggling as long as proliferators are prepared to offer cash for illegal nuclear goods. We have energized our significant intelligence capabilities to track the covert procurement efforts of rogue states. We share information with the states affected by these procurement networks to frustrate them. We provide assistance to the U.N. Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency in their efforts to tear out Iraq's covert weapons of mass destruction programs at the root. And, we are assisting financially and technically the new IAEA effort to develop safeguards methods to detect clandestine nuclear activities. At the same time, we continue our diplomatic efforts to persuade countries of proliferation concern to halt their programs for WMD (weapons of mass destruction) development.

Export controls are the initial barrier between suppliers and unauthorized recipients, and thus effectively inhibit demand. The export control system inherited by Russia and the Newly Independent States (NIS) was not designed to cope with the current freedom of or volume of trade. Since sensitive materials were never allowed to be exported without the express consent of the centralized Soviet government, the problem of inspection and proper identification of products that bypassed the centralized system was not a problem which the Soviet export control system had to deal with. The development of an export control system which is capable of making informed decisions about license applications as well as identify commodities in transit for interdiction purposes has, therefore, been a focus for U.S.-Russian and U.S.-NIS cooperation. The export control system emerging from this cooperation will be much more adept at preventing proliferation of technology and commodities useful in nuclear weapons, the development of nuclear weapons, and unsafeguarded fuel cycle activities.

The security of nuclear materials and technology worldwide has been a primary foreign policy objective of the Congress and the president for two consecutive administrations. The wisdom and foresight of the Congress, led by Senators Nunn and Lugar, resulted in the establishment of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program for the former Soviet Union. The $1.5 billion dollars appropriated for this program have been essential to pursuing the goals of de-nuclearizing Ukraine, Kazakstan, and Belarus, and in working to augment nuclear security in Russia. Similarly, the decision of Congress to establish and fund the nonproliferation and disarmament fund has complemented our efforts to secure nuclear materials and prevent nuclear smuggling. The FY `96 appropriation to DOE (Department of Energy) for work to upgrade the security of nuclear materials reflects our joint recognition that the security of all weapons usable materials -- military or civilian in nature -- is an important policy concern. These programs represent money well spent, but continuing progress will be dependent on continuing congressional interest and continuing funding to address what is a long-term problem. The countries that harbor the remnants of the Soviet nuclear infrastructure have transitional economies and are hampered in their ability to devote resources, and in some cases expertise, to the protection of nuclear material. It is clearly in our national interest to expand the effort and the necessary funds to assure that this material is protected at its source. We have made a start, but much more needs to be done to keep nuclear weapons usable material out of the wrong hands. We need to energize other states and the international community to take a number of steps to reduce the danger of nuclear trafficking further.

We continue to work with our partners to foster international cooperation to ensure the security of nuclear materials and to combat nuclear smuggling. The G-7 plus Russia (P-8) agreed at the 1994 Naples summit to cooperate in preventing nuclear smuggling. Since that time, we have continued our diplomatic contacts. We will continue these diplomatic initiatives at the Moscow nuclear summit which the president will attend in four weeks time. There, we hope to adopt a P-8 program with specific, concerted initiatives to combat nuclear smuggling, as well as to reinforce cooperation with Russia and others to increase security of nuclear materials and address the problem of fissile material disposition.

At the same time, a number of countries are moving ahead with practical steps. For example, we have designated points of contact for nuclear smuggling incidents and other significant developments in the P-8, as well as points of contact for law enforcement. We have taken steps to further coordination, cooperation, and information sharing among our law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

At the summit we also will seek to broaden the scope of our activities to include non-P-8 countries that are potential source or transit points for nuclear material trafficking. The concrete results of the summit can serve as a model for collective and individual use in structuring relationships with those countries to assure the security of nuclear materials.

Although our focus today largely is on nuclear issues, I would like to underscore the threat posed by terrorist access to chemical or biological weapons. Many of the initiatives that I have discussed today are applicable to the CBW threat. I would like to take a moment, however, to mention one additional measure that will improve our ability to fight attempts by rogue states or terrorists to acquire, transfer, and use chemical weapons. That measure is the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Although the CWC was not designed to prevent chemical terrorism, certain aspects of the convention, including its nonproliferation provisions and law enforcement requirements, will strengthen existing efforts to deal with this threat. For example, the CWC's nonproliferation provisions will deny terrorist access to chemical weapons by requiring parties to eliminate their national stockpiles and by controlling transfers of certain chemicals that can be used to make chemical weapons. In addition, implementing legislation, required by the convention, will enhance our authority to investigate and prosecute CW-related activities, before chemical weapons are used. It will also make chemical suppliers and the public more aware of the CW threat and of the fact that even attempts to develop or possess such weapons are illegal. For these and other reasons, we seek prompt ratification and entry into force of the CWC as central to our efforts to deal with this threat.

I want to conclude by repeating that so far, we have no information that a nuclear black market has successfully developed. Every case involving trafficking of nuclear weapons usable material has -- to our knowledge -- resulted in the arrest of the traffickers. Indeed, most cases of nuclear smuggling involve unscrupulous flim-flam artists who are preying on international concerns and public fears to try to turn a quick profit by pedalling phony material.

However, the phenomenon we are dealing with is new and the danger from even one successful case of smuggling is so great, that we have acted quickly and -- I believe -- prudently to close off the risk of a nuclear black market. We will have to attack this problem for the remainder of this century, and beyond. This difficult challenge calls for sustained attention and diligent application of people and resources. Those resources must be applied not only to the high profile activities that dominate popular fiction on this topic, but also to the more mundane -- but critically important -- efforts to secure nuclear material at its source and to reduce the supply of weapons usable material. Without such steps, all the high tech wizardry and law enforcement cooperation we can muster will eventually fail.