Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=3/4/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=U-S / RUSSIA / WEAPON REDUCTION (L-O)

NUMBER=2-300318

BYLINE=DAN ROBINSON

DATELINE=CAPITOL HILL

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: A congressional committee has criticized what it calls waste and mismanagement in a more than decade-long program under which the United States helps Russia and former Soviet republics reduce their nuclear and other weapons. This report on Tuesday's hearing from V-O-A's Dan Robinson on Capitol Hill:

TEXT: The Comprehensive Threat Reduction (C-T-R) program was designed to help Russia and former Soviet republics reduce or eliminate weapons of mass destruction. It grew out of the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act, legislation passed by Congress in 1991.

Over the past decade, the United States has provided about seven-billion dollars to Moscow, as well as to Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, to defray costs of destroying nuclear, chemical and other weapons.

The Defense Department says the program has resulted in the deactivation of more than six-thousand warheads, 856 ballistic missiles, 25 missile submarines, and 101 strategic bombers, along with missile launchers, while contributing to non-proliferation.

However, despite the progress achieved, two programs went seriously awry (wrong).

After providing 100-million dollars for construction of a facility in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk to neutralize rocket fuel from nuclear missiles, U-S officials were told later that the fuel had been diverted to the Russian space program.

In another example, the United States contributed about 95-million dollars for a plant (at Votkinsk) to "burn off" solid fuel rocket motors, only to learn later that construction was blocked because of local community opposition.

Congressman Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, calls the two cases "remarkable stories of massive waste":

/// HUNTER ACT ///

While we are going to continue to work aggressively with this administration to make sure that we dismantle weapons of the former Soviet Union, we are also going to work aggressively to see to it that there is an ongoing accounting so that blunders like this don't occur again.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Hunter says he is also concerned that Moscow could be using money it saves through the program to maintain its own biological and chemical weapons capabilities, which he says are contrary to U-S national security interests.

J.D. Crouch, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, told the congressional panel that the waste of taxpayer money was "inexcusable" and, in his words, "a wake up call" for the Defense Department;

/// CROUCH ACT ///

While we would like to trust our C-T-R partners, and we try to build trust with our C-T-R partners, we know that every assumption, expectation and schedule for a project needs to be verified and verified repeatedly.

/// END ACT ///

However, Mr. Crouch says these two failed projects should not be allowed to slow efforts to deal with Russian and other stocks of weapons, particularly given new threats of proliferation to so-called "rogue states" or terrorist groups.

The hearing on U-S-Russian nuclear threat reduction coincided with the release of a new report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the Congress.

The report faults the Russian government for inconsistently adhering to agreements to pay its share of costs, and for barring access to U-S defense and energy officials to certain nuclear and biological weapons sites. (signed)

NEB/DAR/RH