Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 64, May - June 2002

News Review

Lugar Urges Global CTR Effort

On March 18, Republican Senator Richard Lugar introduced the 'Nunn-Lugar/CTR Expansion Act', boldly designed to globalise the scope of US non-proliferation assistance programmes currently directed at Russia and other former Soviet republics. The legislation would "authorise the Secretary of Defense to use up to $50 million of unobligated Nunn-Lugar/Cooperative Threat Reduction funds for non-proliferation projects and emergencies outside the states of the former Soviet Union". The Senator presented his basic case as follows:

"In 1991, I introduced the Nunn-Lugar/Cooperative Threat Reduction legislation with former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia. ... For more than ten years, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has been our country's principal response to the proliferation threat that resulted from the disintegration of the custodial system guarding the Soviet nuclear, chemical, and biological legacy. ... The bill I am introducing today would permit the use of Nunn-Lugar expertise and resources when non-proliferation threats around the world are identified. The Nunn-Lugar/CTR Expansion Act would be a vital component of our national security strategy in the wake of the September 11 attacks. ... Beyond Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union, Nunn-Lugar style cooperative threat reduction programs aimed at weapons dismantlement and counter-proliferation do not exist. The ability to apply the Nunn-Lugar model to states outside the former Soviet Union would provide the United States with another tool to confront the threats associated with weapons of mass destruction. The precise replication of the Nunn-Lugar program will not be possible everywhere. Clearly, many states will continue to avoid accountability for programs related to weapons of mass destruction. When nations resist such accountability, other options must be explored. ... Yet we should not assume that we cannot forge cooperative non-proliferation programs with some critical nations."

On April 2, John Gordon, Director of the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, told a Defense Writers Group meeting in Washington that non-proliferation efforts needed to expand qualitatively as well as geographically: "The next frontier...is to get into the non-weapon-grade fissile materials as well, and that's an area we're just starting to engage in". The danger posed by such material - much discussed since September 11 - is that it could be used to make a radiological, or 'dirty', bomb, causing a widespread dispersal of radioactivity. Gordon elaborated: "It's not stored as weapons grade material, it's not shipped as weapons grade material, so it may or may not be inventoried... I think we are asking people to start opening their eyes a little bit more and say, do we have adequate physical control on this? Do we have adequate inventory? It undoubtedly varies by country. France and Britain are very, very good... There's Russian assurances [about weapons-grade materials], and no other data to suggest that's wrong. I think [their] weapons grade material is under pretty good control. But what I wonder about...is the controls and security of fissile material that is not weapons grade - generally it comes from either reactor fuel, spent reactor fuel, or reprocessed fuel. I think that's an area for non-proliferation that we need to really start getting our hands around a little bit more..."

On March 26, Gregory H. Friedman, the Energy Department's Inspector General, released a report conceding US inability to fully account for small amounts of plutonium exported to over thirty countries - including India, Iran and Pakistan - under an 'Atoms for Peace' assistance programme dating back to the 1950s. Despite the small quantities involved, the report warned: "Recent world events have underscored the need to strengthen the control over all nuclear materials... In the wrong hands, these sources could be misused."

On March 27, the Washington Post quoted an 'official familiar with the report' as stating that some of the material might potentially be used "to create a dispersal device...our concern being the dirty bomb". The Post cited the report itself as referring to "inconsistent historical data regarding the ownership of the material" sent abroad. In 1996, the Clinton administration determined that 1-2 kilograms of plutonium had probably been distributed in all. In the damning verdict of Robert S. Norris of the independent Natural Resources Defense Council (April 2): "The Atoms for Peace program was designed to put a good spin on the atom, and instead it has helped Iran and others to start their bomb programs."

On March 6, researchers at Stanford University's Institute for International Studies (ISS) unveiled a new 'Database on Nuclear Smuggling, Theft and Orphan Radiation Sources' (DTSO) suggesting that vast amounts of weapons- and non-weapons grade material exist without inventory and in potentially dangerous locations. The database specifically identifies around 40 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium it says has been stolen from former Soviet territory in the last ten years. According to Lyudmila Zaitseva, one of the project's main researchers (March 6): "I think this [40 kilograms] is the tip of the iceberg... We don't know what's missing. That's the most frightening thing." George Bunn, IIS Consulting Professor and former senior US arms control negotiator, commented (March 6): "It blows the mind, the lack of information. What we're trying to do is say, 'what are the facts'?" Another lead researcher, Freidrich Steinhausler, told reporters (March 7): "Many countries don't even have a central register of radioactive materials. If they don't know what they have, they don't know what they've lost".

The database, which is naturally not being made publicly available but will be accessible upon request by approved researchers, contains 830 entities, including 643 reported cases of smuggling, 107 reported cases of 'orphaned' radiation sources (material originally used for scientific and medical sources and subsequently misplaced or discarded), and over 80 reported cases of "fraud", in the words of an IIS press release, "or malevolent acts using radioactive material to commit murder, deliberate exposure and blackmail, and to poison food and water supplies."

Note: in Washington on March 12, US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov signed an Implementing Agreement designed to enhance non-proliferation cooperation between the two states. Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov and US Secretary of State Powell attended the signing ceremony. According to Abraham: "This project is an excellent opportunity for the United States and Uzbekistan to work together to reduce the threat of terrorism and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It reinforces President Bush's commitment to work with our partners in the region and take practical steps to improve the physical protection and accounting of nuclear materials and prevent illicit nuclear trafficking. This, in combination with our other non-proliferation initiatives, will improve the security environment in a way that has both regional and international benefits." A DOE statement elaborated: "The Implementing Agreement provides the groundwork for execution of a June 2001 agreement to perform joint work on nuclear non-proliferation. As a result of the agreements, the United States will begin work to repatriate to Russia highly enriched uranium fuel from a research reactor in Uzbekistan. The Uzbekistan government in turn has pledged to convert the reactor to use low-enriched uranium, the more proliferation-resistant form of reactor fuel. The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration will assist this conversion and aid Uzbekistan in the safe and secure storage of its nuclear materials." See last issue for details of similar cooperative projects between the US and Kazakhstan.

Related material on Acronym website:

• Speech by Senator Richard Lugar, March 4,

Reports: NATO After 9/11 - Crisis or Opportunity?, speech by Senator Richard Lugar to the Council on Foreign Relations, March 4; Data show world awash in stolen nuclear material, Reuters, March 6; Database exposes threat from 'lost' nuclear material, Stanford Report, March 6; Fears over missing nuclear material, BBC News Online, March 7; US and Uzbekistan cooperate on non-proliferation, US Department of Energy Press Release PR-02-040, March 12; Fact Sheet - United States-Uzbekistan signing ceremony, US Department of State, March 12; Fact Sheet - United States-Uzbekistan declaration on the strategic partnership and cooperation framework, US Department of State, March 12; Statement by Richard Lugar, United States Senate, March 18, Nuclear Threat Initiative transcript (http://www.nti.org); Lugar introduces bill to expand CTR to other countries, Global Security Newswire, March 19; Report cites unaccounted plutonium, Washington Post, March 27; US seeks tighter security to prevent dirty bombs, Reuters, April 2.

Back to the Top of the Page

© 2002 The Acronym Institute.